Birthdays present the chance to reflect on the passage of time, on how one’s life has intersected with the broader narrative of humanity. I was born on November 14, 1984
After another week of mass shootings and police murder of unarmed Black men and boys; of despicable voter suppression laws; of political cowardice; and of corporate doublespeak, I’ve had it. For how much longer are we going to pretend that […]
Nowadays, especially in the wake of last summer’s police murder of George Floyd and the subsequent global protests, you can hardly take a (virtual) step without running into some mention of DEI, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
As part of America’s culture wars, the Right loves to go bananas over banalities, like the fact that, last week, Hasbro made Mr. Potato Head gender-neutral by dropping the “Mr.”
On the third Monday in January you’ll find me
writing an ode I can’t quite finish, like a New Year’s
resolution I’ll stick to next time, I promise.
“Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.” – John Lewis
If politics is war, Republicans have historically waged it more ruthlessly, and more successfully, than Democrats and Independents
When statues topple, they do little heaving.
You will not see them celebrate long their fall
or mount the wreckage on a wall.
(Who are you to ask that they applaud
your moment of awakening?
To be trapped in an era, this era,
is the poet’s nightmare and delight. O future
readers—if there will be readers—what will you make
of this? What shall I—what shall we—bequeath you?
The true traitor lacks not morals but moral imagination. I shall
no longer grant the premise that we must debate amidst the
rubble of a world the unimaginative have plundered—