Oh, Say Can You See… Somebody Done Somebody Wrong…
This recent spate of patriotic holidays has got me thinking about country music. It’s not that I’m an aficionado of that genre by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just that the songs brilliantly capture the anguish of “somebody done somebody wrong”. For me, the anguish is that spiritual-emotional space where the personal meets the […]
Whose Story Is It?
All this talk about history and statues reminded me of my third-grade lessons in Mrs. Bennett’s class. It was there that I learned to recite this little ditty: In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue… October 12 their dream came true You never saw a happier crew! At seven […]
“Sir, Can We Talk About Your Knee on My Neck?”
Try to imagine this scenario. You walk into your home and see that it has been plundered by burglars. You even know who the burglars are; after all, they have ransacked your home and stolen your property many times before. Since you know who the burglars are and how they operate, you decide that it’s […]
When Getting Along is Not Enough
Sometimes when bad things happen, the need to do the right thing becomes all the more urgent. The election of the 45th president (which I unequivocally experienced as a bad thing) shattered any illusion that just “getting along” as racialized beings is enough. “Just getting along” does not and cannot foster an expansive imagination of […]
Speaking of Monuments . . .
All the ruckus about monuments this past year got me thinking. Having spent my formative years in the American South, I remembered that these massive concrete structures, icons of the Confederacy, were simply part of the landscape. No one paid too much attention to them. It was only as an adult that I decided […]