Issue 520 | The Sun Magazine

April 2019

Readers Write

Equality

Bowing to men, kissing in public, crossing the border

By Our Readers
One Nation, Indivisible

April 2019

Featuring John Taylor Gatto, Olga García Echeverría, Katy Butler, and more.

The Dog-Eared Page

Poverty And Precarity

We need always to be thinking and writing about poverty, for if we are not among its victims its reality fades from us. We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.

By Dorothy Day
Quotations

Sunbeams

When I was poor and complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want to talk about inequality.

Russell Brand

The Sun Interview

Not So Black And White

Dorothy Roberts On The Myth Of Race

I’m not saying that race is a natural division of human beings that can lead to unjust hierarchies. I’m saying that the very concept of race was invented to create and enforce such hierarchies.

By Mark Leviton
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Small Protest

The word fascist has lost all meaning. We need a new term to describe people who build detention camps for infants at the Texas border.

By Sparrow
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

The Routine

I take the test, grade myself strictly, and add up the points. The result is that I’m likely an alcoholic and should seek treatment as soon as possible. I take the test again and grade myself more forgivingly, because forgiveness is a virtue.

By Jacob Aiello
Fiction

You Are Our Witness

Everyone believes the world’s governments worked together to release the sterilization virus called only Z. Isn’t it likely the government sterilized the seeds as well? Who wants this disaster to drag out for decades?

By Debbie Urbanski
Photography

Guests

For the past two years Doug Winter has been photographing and interviewing people at Loaves & Fishes in Sacramento, California. The charity’s mission is to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless, but it also tries to meet less tangible needs for “love, acceptance, respect, and friendship.”

By Doug Winter
Poetry

Accent

Fifty years ago my older brother brought home / the first tape recorder I’d ever seen, a little box / that pulled my voice out of the air and spun it back / transformed, whiny, stuffed-nose, singsong.

By Mark Smith-Soto