Confronting Our Civic Stains
Imagine this: Three 12 year-old black kids walk into an ice cream store in an all-white section of town, only to turn to their mentor and ask: “You sure it’s cool that we’re around all these white people?” These kids had never been to this part of town, and as the mentor explained to us in a recent interview, “They were so nervous when they got there.”
An Open Letter to Governor Northam
Dear Governor: Having to cancel the first stop of your “racial reconciliation tour” at Virginia Union University is a sign of just how difficult your road ahead is. What will you do from here? You face a fundamental choice. Is your reconciliation tour about your own political survival, or can you become an instrument of society?
Post-Pittsburgh: “We Will Rebuild”
On Saturday, I didn’t move an inch from my couch from the morning until midnight as I watched in horror the unfolding scenes from Pittsburgh. As a practicing Jew, I feel a bottomless sorrow; as a devoted American, I feel emboldened. As a person who cares deeply about the health of our nation, I feel we must act.
Post 9/11: How to start rebuilding the nation
Many people responded to the 9/11 attacks by putting flag decals on their cars, singing God Bless America and other patriotic songs, donating to various charities, and wearing flag lapel pins. At the time, I warned against such gestures, as I feared they amounted to a kind of empty or false unity. But today is different: we desperately need people to take such action.