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It’s not easy trying to save the world. But Mrs. Penfire is persistent, if not entirely successful (as least, not yet). “They’re called trees!” On Earth Day, April 22, the LA Times ran contradictory stories that set her jumping up and down on her keyboard. She was pleasantly surprised when that letter was published three…
It has been a month since the death of George Floyd. Nearly two weeks since the death of Rayshard Brooks. Several months since the deaths of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. And the massive, widespread, worldwide demonstrations that were sparked immediately after Floyd’s death have continued unabated. Mobs of angry demonstrators are pulling down monuments,…
Even those of us who think we harbor no prejudices and claim to be color blind…are not. We note what people look like. We notice what the people we encounter…the people we meet…the people we know, whether slightly or very well…look like. Faces, first of all. Of course. But also height. weight, hair color, eye…
From all-white schools in an all-white suburb to the all-white Katharine Gibbs School to a job in an all-white law office on Boston’s State Street. It wasn’t until I changed jobs in my early twenties that I actually had daily interactions with black co-workers, some of whom came to be my friends. I was hired…
Each of us has come by our awareness of black history differently. And thus there are those who see this history as an obvious cause of the current crisis in America. Or “a poor excuse.” My own awareness of black history was a long time coming. I grew up in an all-white suburb of Boston….
Yesterday we watched, mouths agape, as the police apprehended a car thief in our neighbor’s front yard. It was quickly done. No shots were fired. The perpetrator was not roughed up or unnecessarily manhandled in any way. And when it was all over, the only thing I felt was sad. This is how the scene…