“We have been the thing against which normality, whiteness, and functionality have been defined.” Robin D. G. Kelley 1. In 1993, Rudolph Giuliani ran for mayor of New York City on the campaign slogan: “One Standard, One City.” As Kevin Baker later wrote in a scathing profile of Giuliani’s 2008 bid for the presidency, this motto “implied that somehow black New Yorkers were getting away with something under a black mayor,” Giuliani’s foe, David Dinkins. In other words, Giuliani’s call for universal standards was shot through with racial assumptions. Read more