Like business operators throughout the Las Vegas Valley, Jason Mohney is trying to figure out how to support his employees amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

When Governor Steve Sisolak ordered all nonessential businesses to close in order to slow down the COVID-19 outbreak last month, he specifically mentioned Nevada’s brothels and strip clubs.

In this episode of The Jack Dappa Blues Radio Podcast, I speak to co-authors Dr. Tyler D. Parry and Dr. Chaz Yingling about their book in the works Slave Hounds, Abolition and The Americas.

Today, instead of discussing a new book, I am convening a “New Books in African American Studies Roundtable” to talk with two historians early in their careers about their recent transitions from graduate school into the professorate, and some of the scholarly and public projects they are developing at their respective institutions.

D.C. is growing wealthier and whiter every year. Is a conspiracy theory to blame?

When it comes to the 2020 U.S. census, Nevadans are hard to count. One surprising reason for this is the housing status of college students in Nevada.

The Democratic base has been crying wolf in matters of racism and sexism.

As the Democratic nomination race shifts to the South and into states with more African American voters, the party’s white front-runners must directly confront the question of race and explain how their policies uplift black America. Each of them has been criticized for harboring a superficial understanding of American anti-blackness, if not manifesting outright racism.

An academic journal has released a special issue dedicated to pornography. The editors of AG About Gender, a peer-reviewed international journal based in Genoa, say the decision points to growing academic interest in the adult industry.

Growing up in the early aughts, my hometown’s sex shop had a reputation as a seedy establishment from which customers emerged, purchases in an opaque black plastic bag, casting furtive glances. Now, a new generation of these stores has emerged, and they’ve evolved into more than nondescript buildings where you can buy toys in secret.

Las Vegas is already known as Sin City, in part for the gambling and sex work that takes place there (though it turns out that, while legal in Nevada, prostitution is actually illegal in Vegas), and for its history of ties to the mafia. But it was only in 2020 that sex toys were allowed at CES, the largest consumer electronics show in the world.

When Mark Padoongpatt was first asked to write a book about Thai food in America, he wasn’t interested. But then he began to examine the immigration history between Thailand and Los Angeles, and found a rich story about immigration and cooking. Padoongpatt ultimately wrote “Flavors of Empire: Food and the Making of Thai America,” which examines how cooking was at the heart of the assimilation of Thai Americans.