My feelings about Harvard are complicated. But when I think about how I want my alma mater to conduct itself right now, that’s simple. I hope Harvard will spend down every damn penny of its endowed billions rather than let the Trump administration break them, if that’s what it takes. There is no rainier day […]
“To be alive right now is to have a moral injury.” That phrase keeps coming up for me on coffeewalks lately. Looping in my brain. Or maybe it’s my heart… or my soul, if such a thing exists? I think the phrase is mine, but the concept isn’t. Moral injury is the idea that we […]
SCENE: A few days ago. Low on sleep, feeling raw because I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t stop fretting about the safety of my loved ones, the future of our nation, Trump and Musk’s cruelty and casual incompetence and swaggering pleasure in power. Now I’m having lunch with a wise […]
“Can I ask you… if they come for me… where do you think they’ll take me?” This f*cking heartbreaking question. Today, from my wonderful beloved young trans friend, whose eyes are suddenly about to spill tears in the middle of a discussion that was about politics. But the political is very very personal these days, […]
This is not the post I was going to write today. It’s been a rough week, hasn’t it? Waking up every day to a renewed deluge of cruelties. Knowing this is only the beginning. This morning, it all hit me hard. Suddenly I was nearly crying on my coffeewalk. My brain started writing, like it […]
MEMORANDUM TO: White people and everyone with relatively greater privilegeFROM: Your fellow privileged white personRE: Efforts to outlaw DEIDATE: Today and every day——————————————Just a reminder: We look at the world around us to assess *how* to continue advancing justice. We do not assess *whether* to continue advancing justice. Yes, we change our methods when that’s […]
Today. MLK Day. Inauguration day, which I won’t capitalize. Sometimes, as I coffeewalk through the cemetery part of my loop, I think about the aphorism “The days are long, but the years are short.” People say it about parenting, but I think it’s true in a broader sense too. I’m holding onto that now. Look […]
I saw Elvis a couple of weeks ago. It did not go well. Everything started off fine. M and I had gotten tickets to take my mom and stepdad to a tribute band at a winery in nearby New Hampshire. Just a fun little holiday outing, especially for my mother who can still recite Elvis’s […]
Right after the election, I got to speak on The Redress Movement‘s panel about Building Racial Redress Into Housing Justice. They invited me on behalf of my client organization’s homeownership initiative that provides down-payment assistance specifically for first-time buyers who identify as Black and/or Latino… which begs the question, why bother listening to me if […]
“We’re spending so much energy talking about how bad things are, it can start to feel like THAT’s our activism. Instead of just talking with our friends and family about what’s bad, let’s talk about what we can DO about this election.” That’s what the awesome friend-of-a-friend seasoned organizer said on this morning’s powerful small-group […]