There is work to do

Abdominal sonographers Able seamen Absorption and adsorption engineers Academic deans Academic librarians Accompanists Accountants Account auditors Account clerks Account executives, securities and investments Account executives Accounting clerks Accounting professors Accounts collectors Accounts payable clerks Accounts receivable assistants Accounts receivable clerks Acoustical carpenters Acquisitions librarians Activities aides Activities assistants Activities coordinators Activities leaders Activity specialists Actors…

The ambivalence of liberalism

So you get this sort of ambivalent response – we’ll embrace the idea, but we will not embrace the reality. – john a. powell, A Civil Conversation with Krista Tippet, On Being, March 10, 2015 This statement by john a. powell has been haunting me since I read it a week or so ago. My…

It’s all personal

There’s also the language of personal responsibility, which suggests really that there’s no institutional and structural responsibility. There’s no collective responsibility. If you’re not doing well, it’s not because of anything that we in society have done. It’s not because of our history, our legacy of Jim Crow, segregation, exploitation and subordination; it’s all personal.…

What. Planet.

I can’t decide today not to be black, because the world will insist that I am black, and there are institutions and arrangements that define me that way. I can’t decide not to be black and go in New York and hail a cab. The first cab drivers driving by are not inside my own…

Island Community

This weekend I have had the great fortune to enjoy community on an island off the coast of Washington, directly across from Port Townsend. While much of my time was spent gazing across the sound, listening for the nesting eagles just off the balcony, I still had the chance to see first hand community in…

I am my hair

I just want you to love me for who I am; I am my hair. – Lady Gaga This week I have been thinking about the formation of my self-concept in community. The decision to know myself, to have a rich internal life, is part of that equation. Another part of the math is knowing…

Not now, not ever

May god bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away. After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly…

I do not sleep

Do not stand at my grave and weep;  I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning’s hush I am the swift uplifting…

He covered his heart

He felt as if all of this had happened before. He covered his heart with both hands to keep anyone from hearing the noise it made. But nobody heard it.     – Eudora Welty, Death of a Travelling Salesman, 1941 Lately I have been thanking people for their vulnerability. It has occurred to me…