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Poetic Justice

Camille T. Dungy On Racism, Writing, And Radical Empathy

If you say to me, “I don’t see race when I see you,” that means you’ve just erased a large piece of my experience and identity. That’s a type of violence.

The End Of Insurance?

Andrew Coates On Fixing Our Broken Healthcare System

It’s appalling that one person’s illness would be an opportunity for another to make money. The care of human beings should not be a commodity.

Sunbeams

We live in a system that espouses merit, equality, and a level playing field but exalts those with wealth, power, and celebrity, however gained.

Derrick Bell

Sunbeams

As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air — however slight — lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

William O. Douglas

What We Lost

We were losing parts of ourselves. A reporter discovered a trove of ears in a burlap sack. The leader said the papers were lying, and we weren’t sure what was rumor and what was fact. What happened to me, what happened to my neighbors — that wasn’t enough proof of all we had lost.

The Best Lack All Conviction

In The Paper’s Midtown Manhattan office, the long fluorescent light fixtures contained the silhouetted carcasses of cockroaches that had died making the journey from one end to the other. The carpet was a Rorschach test of spilled cola, coffee, and cigarette ashes. This was where I worked for the better part of a year.