March 18, 2016
Speaking of “Thuggery”
“In the years after World War I, Florida was still a loosely policed frontier state. White Protestant mobs staged regular lynchings and beatings to intimidate black voters, drinkers and anyone […]
March 8, 2016
Why the Klan Branded a White Pastor
In July 1924, Oren Van Loon, a white minister in Michigan, posed for a news photographer, who focused his lens on the letters “KKK” branded into Van Loon’s back. Intrarracial […]
December 30, 2015
Bullets for You
“The Cleveland police officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice last month resigned from a previous small-town police job when he was deemed emotionally unstable and unfit for duty, […]
December 1, 2015
Notes on Love and Violence, Part 2
“Well, he acts like he has genuine emotions… But as to whether he has real feelings is something I don’t think anyone can truthfully answer.” — Dave Bowman on […]
November 19, 2015
Notes on Love and Violence
‘Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.’ — Max Frisch (1) My mother did not like me hanging around outside: to stand on a street corner any day, […]
January 8, 2015
Who Has the Loudest Voice?
All literature offends someone. To offend our fixed ideas, even our most sacred truths, is one of the ways in which writers compel us to think, to question, and to […]