Greetings from midair. Today I’m flying to visit my mom in Florida. She’s a snowbird these days, living not far from where we would visit my grandparents and various other aged relatives every winter, not to mention a certain Mouse. So I used to think I knew something about the state. “Florida is IN the […]
I have so much to learn. I’ve spent decades reading voraciously, even compulsively… sneaking out of bed to huddle by the nightlight devouring the Chronicles of Narnia (sorry, Mom), getting my B.A. in Russian history and literature, becoming mildly obsessed with the personal narratives of South Pole explorers, reading Harry Potter side-by-side in English and […]
My aunt still teases me about the first time she met me, before she got engaged to my uncle. Apparently, three-year-old me arrived at a family party in Boston, in the depths of winter, in a full-on hissy fit because my mother forgot my patent leather party shoes so I was doomed to wear ugly […]
I’m treating myself like a kindergartener, and IT’S WORKING. Thought I’d share my system of rewarding myself with sparkly heart stickers for daily, weekly, and monthly goals when I do things that make me happier and healthier. Hope this is as helpful for you as it is for me!
To the memory of my father, who didn’t believe in God but applauded for sunsets anyway: This morning I took the box of memories out of my heart, unpacked it and held the moments and years in my hands. They hurt a bit, but it would hurt more not to have them. Gradually I will […]
Black History Month? Turns out it’s My History Month too. Today I learned that my family and I owe a debt of gratitude to Jan Ernst Matzeliger, the African-American inventor of the Automatic Shoe Lasting Machine. Quoting from an old publication by Compton College that I happened to see today: “His machine created new jobs, […]
Sharing my learning from a recent training with Dr. Heather Hackman about how white privilege and white supremacy interrelate: White privilege is when people like me look at our lives and think, “I earned all of that because I was just better/smarter/harder working than other people,” without seeing how the wind that was at our backs […]
Twenty well-meaning, diverse nonprofit folks sitting in a classroom. “What words does our society use to describe young black males?” Dr. Bryant T. Marks, Sr. asks us. We pull out our phones and text a word to him. He clicks a key on his laptop, and a slide appears on the big screen at the […]
In case you’re wondering why I keep talking about racial justice here? 1. Because it’s helping me to articulate what I’m learning. 2. Because I hope it may help others too. 3. Because the first change I can make is to help make visible what was hidden from me.
60-second video review: Spike Lee’s movie BlackkKlansman brilliantly calls white women and Jewish people (hey, those are me!) into the struggle against white supremacy. P.S. apologies for the background noise, but it does sometimes rain in L.A.!