Looking for Words that Help
Here’s what I’ve been musing about all week, as events of all kinds have folded and unfolded: How do we describe forces that are indifferent to human life and suffering, and does our description make a...
View ArticleHeroes
Perhaps you have heard about Antoinette Tuff, who this week single-handedly prevented a massacre at an elementary school outside of Atlanta. When a man bearing an AK-47 and a variety of other weapons...
View ArticleNone of the Above
As I write, the President and Congress are discussing how to respond to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Not surprisingly, the blogosphere is full of strong opinions: that we must respond to the...
View ArticleWho’s In and Who’s Out of Institutions (and the immigrants between)
The British social anthropologist Mary Douglas had this to say about institutions: Inside a religious body you get sects and hierarchies, inside an information network you get bazaars and cathedrals,...
View ArticleWTF?
Really, WTF? Has people shooting at strangers become a sort of national pastime? Are we supposed to get used to this? Worse yet, have we gotten used to it? Really, what am I supposed to say? Once again...
View ArticleThe Endless Seconds of Good
I was feeling a little shaky earlier this week, and it took me a few days to sort it out. I could point to this or that as the reason, but really I know a big part of it is that on Monday morning,...
View ArticleAmerica…Where Do We Begin?
I can’t sleep. Again. Tonight I’m thinking about how, in the city where I live, the police shot and killed a 34-year-old unarmed woman today, with her 1-year-old in the back seat of her 2-door sedan....
View ArticleOops, Oh Well
Turns out there was another school shooting. Yeah, the one in Oregon, not the people who shot the cops in Las Vegas because they didn’t like the government – that was the day before, I think. No, in...
View ArticleCrying Together
Maybe we could just sit down and cry together first. In the presence of Black rage. In the presence of white shame. In the presence of grief and despair and the overwhelming knowledge that white men...
View ArticlePunishment
Sandra Bland died in police custody, and now there is video available for all to see of her encounter with the trooper who, after pulling her over, asks her to put out her cigarette. She declines, and...
View ArticleProfile of a Murderer
Don’t get me wrong. I am not generally a fan of profiling. I find it appalling that people of color are so much more likely than white people to be stopped while driving or followed in stores. I am...
View ArticleLaw and Order: Donald Trump’s Fantasy
Donald Trump has promised us that he will be the candidate standing on the side of law and order in the face of all of the scary things going on in the world. And goodness knows, the world is a scary...
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