Lisa Arrastia: Letter to My Student Teachers on a Day of Yet Another School Mass Shooting in America
While some will call for greater discipline, more resource officers, and paying for “threat assessments,” I will call for love and uplift you, the teachers in public pre-k-12 schools.
Michael Simms: Trigger Warning | Old White Guy Talks About Racism
White people don’t spend a lot of time talking about racism. Right-wingers dismiss racism as a talking point that black people use to get special treatment while left-leaning white people simply state that racism is an evil tendency among other white people, but not themselves.
Erica Etelson: In order to transcend Trumpism, we must tend to suffering — not celebrate it
Our survival as a species depends on our ability to turn away from the delusion of sweet revenge, and show compassion for those we may dislike or detest.
Jon Queally: Buffalo Gunman’s Racism Directly Tied to Mainstreaming of White Nationalism
White nationalism is the greatest threat to our nation’s security and we must hold everyone who spreads this hate accountable before anyone else is harmed.
Melanie M. Kirby: Nectar Nomad in the Land of Enchantment
What bees taught me about building community.
Anita Gonzalez: A white librettist wrote an opera about Emmett Till – and some critics are calling for its cancellation
To me, the backlash against the white librettist is ultimately a waste of time. Not only is there room for works done in collaboration with Black artists, but cross-cultural, interethnic collaborations also add to the richness and versatility of performed storytelling.
Video: The Breathtaking Courage of Harriet Tubman
Escaping slavery; risking everything to save her family; leading a military raid; championing the cause of women’s suffrage; these are just a handful of the accomplishments of one of America’s most courageous heroes.
Andrew Bacevich: What Would Martin Say?
The attention given to racism of late has had exactly that unintended effect — relieving Americans of any obligation even to acknowledge the insidious implications of materialism and militarism. In that sense, even now, two of King’s giant triplets barely qualify for lip-service. In the political sphere, they are either ignored or, at best, treated as afterthoughts.
George Yancy: If the State of the World Makes You Want to Scream, You’re Not Alone
We must face the weight of such social evils and be prepared to also face the ways in which we are complicit with them, especially when we are often indifferent.
Patricia Spears Jones: The Devil’s Wife Explains Broken “45s”
The devil hates Black genius. Made him work harder than hard to render
it witless and dope stung.
Fred Everett Maus: Yellow
In the days after, we did not weep in each other’s
presence, nor hold each other, nor say much
about our feelings. It was how we had always been.
Rev. John Dear: The clash between history and today’s movements — a conversation with Rev. James Lawson
Nonviolence is that quality that comes out of all the great world religions, the notion that the creative force of the universe is love.
Thomas W. Fraser: Overcoming Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘three evils of society’
We can still bend the arc of history through a ceaseless pursuit of beloved community.
Vox Populi 