Collecting bottles, tossing leftovers, taking out the garbage
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A mother’s memories, a child’s fears, a dead man’s secrets
Featuring Tim Wise, Odetta, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and more.
A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration
Everybody remembers the first time they were taught that part of the human race was Other. . . . It’s as though I told you that your left hand is not part of your body. Toni Morrison
Everybody remembers the first time they were taught that part of the human race was Other. . . . It’s as though I told you that your left hand is not part of your body.
Toni Morrison
White supremacy is not just Nazis marching in the street. In the U.S. it’s always been a part of the economic and social system.
Over and over I have discovered that my children feel alienated in environments where, at their age, I felt an automatic sense of belonging.
You can belong to yourself, but it’s lonely, and you can belong to others, but there’s loss built into that, in uncountable forms.
Please understand: the external metamorphosis comes only at the very end, after a long, sustained effort. There is a lot of inner work you have to do before then. Also there is luck involved.
For many years — the majority of my life, in fact — acknowledging death’s inevitability exerted little psychological pressure on me. I had no fear of passing, as they say, from this world into the next, or, assuming no next world exists, simply entering oblivion.
Hearing that old phrase “a good death,” / which I still don’t exactly understand, / I’ve decided I’ve already / had so many, I don’t need another.
They gather in lodges, these unflinching, / gray-haired men in caps with unit insignias.