Racialicious also wants to know who The Vampire Diaries thinks it's fooling.

Wait, yeah - it's a real post! Or at least a link.

A colleague sent me an email - a friend of hers is writing her dissertation on "interracial relationships in African American vampire literature" and we should connect. Wait, what?! Why did no one tell me that there's an entire genre of African American vampire literature? I mean, I probably wouldn't be reading it, because there are entire genres of African American lots of types of literature, and I'm usually not reading those either, BUT I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE NEGRO VAMPIRE LEAGUE!

Ahem.

So that email happened, and then Racialicious obliged me with this - White Vamps, Black Witches: Race Politics and Vampire Pop Culture. Which I promptly sent to said colleague's friend. And now I send to you. And say YES! Inquiring minds want to know! Why are all the vampires white? Why are all the witches black? And why the hell doesn't anyone ever say slavery on The Vampire Diaries?! It's not like we're not all thinking it! Geez. Or, as the article put it:

In the end, if vampirism is becoming a way for pop culture to interrogate race, let's get to it already. Television shows, even ones like Vampire Diaries, wield a sort of cultural magic -- and that magic can be used for good or evil. By creating tensions around race and then refusing to deal with them, by bringing up Southern history and then refusing to name slavery, the show is only making more bad cultural ju-ju. Not talking about race, or wimping out after bringing up race, doesn't make the world 'post racial.' In fact, it's kind of racist.

I think it's time TV vampires sunk their fangs into their own racial politics.

OK. Now I have to go reconstruct my room/life after Gradeapalooza.