Terry Blackhawk: My Father Goes to Sunday School
What are you doing here?
an elder asked, a deacon perhaps, or prayer leader.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: A Dirge for Our Murdered Sons
Oh, America, how many tears do you want
before you stop killing our sons?
Terry Blackhawk: Cambridge, Massachusetts — 1951
the boy with curlier hair and light brown skin
over by the windows and Roland, who was darker,
with short cut hair, whose name I’ve carried all these years
Abby Zimet: On Moms For Liberty and Other Racist Fascist Vigilantes
Earlier this month, the United States was for the first time demoted to the status of a “backsliding” democracy by global think tank International IDEA, which cited a “visible deterioration” of our civil liberties and checks on government indicating “serious problems with the fundamentals of democracy.”
Video: My Story of Love and Loss as a Transracial Adoptee
A mysterious tattoo on her forearm was all that linked Sara Jones, adopted as a child by white parents, to her South Korean origins.
Daniel Burston: Remembering the Tree of Life Massacre
Robert Bowers was convinced that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which met regularly at the Tree of Life that day, was taking money from Jewish liberals to bring refugees in the United States to destroy America.
Sonali Kolhatkar: Beyond Cancel Culture | How to Hold Each Other Accountable—With Love
‘We can’t go around punishing people in the present for the trauma that was inflicted on us in the past.’
Abby Zimet: Slipping Free of the Shame To Say His Name, Now More Than Ever
If he’d been allowed to live his “one wild and precious life,” Sunday July 25 would have been the 80th birthday of Emmett Till, who at 14 was kidnapped, whipped, … Continue reading
Chris Winters: Does Every Vote Still Count?
As far as crises of democracy go, this should be a hair-on-fire moment.
Mel Packer: Angie’s Place
Where back in the corner, there’s always some guy in a Pirates ballcap with skin like an old leather shoe who’s nursing the cheapest beer on tap….
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: When I Shut the Door
The news arrived by e-mail — a scribble of a long, single sentence, broken up, like little chunks of wood, the way a year is broken up into months and weeks, days, hours.
Video: The Rifleman | Sierra Pettengill
Through meticulously assembled archival imagery, “The Rifleman” reveals the roots of the modern National Rifle Association, U.S. Border Patrol, and the gun lobby’s unyielding influence on national politics. (running time: 18 minutes)
Derrick Z. Jackson: Systemic Racism Continues to Plague Pandemic Response
The chaotic roll-out of the vaccines has meant that people with access to the internet, reliable transportation and flexible hours have a much easier time getting vaccinated.
Vox Populi 