Inside from the Inside

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust Frenchy was on to something there.  As is the way this blog is shaping up.  Readers are certainly being exposed to new landscapes, via headlines and videos and images that they may have missed; however, I [...]

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When I told Chidrup, who is from India, that I am working on a project about the problems of racism in the US, he was puzzled. He sees the US as a place of education and boundless opportunity for everyone.

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When my friend Chidrup and I talked about racism in the US, there was a big chunk of information missing from his understanding: He didn’t know about the history of white domination and the enslavement of African people in the United States for nearly four-hundred years. It was hard to tell Chidrup the truth. I’m [...]

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Andrew Sullivan points to Time’s new photo essay on high schoolers.  Listen to Kevin…. When I was about six or seven my father died. This was either the worst or best thing that ever happened to me. In fact, now that I think about it, it was both. That experience was both my blessing and [...]

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…now I understood something about my own country I didn’t understand before. I know why so many white people here don’t realize how serious the problem of racism is in the USA. I finally get it.

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I  live downtown in a mid-size East coast city. Within a radius of two blocks of my house are five museums, six churches, a library, a soup kitchen, and three homeless shelters. Demographically speaking, we inner-city dwellers are the “risk-oblivious”…artists and homosexuals mostly, who gentrify a difficult area. Mixed in, of course, with the homeless [...]

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Planning on attending the U.N. conference on racism in Switzerland next month?  Not anymore, at least not if you’re a member of the Italian, Canadian, Israeli, or possibly even American delegations.  Why not?  Is it because these countries are, in fact, racist nations and don’t want to participate?  No.  It’s because religion has worked it’s [...]

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Exline Park by R. C. Hickman (1955) From the R. C. Hickman Photographic Archive at the Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin I’m giving you really short notice, as this show will only be up until Sunday, March 8. But if you’re anywhere near the Irving Arts Center (3333 N. MacArthur [...]

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Here I was skating with black people mostly, but everyone really, a rainbow of people, and we were all flying together. We were a graceful flock of swallows, all soaring one way, then the other — swaying in unison — lifted together by the music and singing our hearts out. Flying was our form of prayer and our hope for the future and this was our anthem:

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