NYPD Black and Blue

How do we move forward when we’re stuck in reverse? We are now living in the future we looked forward to in 1968, a time when racial tensions blew up into riots expressing long simmering injustices,  a time of deep

Tortured Truth

Torture is not part of our American mythology of goodness and justice for all. “It’s not who we are,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in response to the CIA Torture Report. “…It’s contrary to our values,” asserted our first

A Primer on Police and White Privilege

White children learn early on the policeman is your friend. He keeps us safe. It is their truth. But the truth is often skewed, as simplistic  as these vintage school book illustrations. The truth is as simple as black and

Civil Rights No Laughing Matter

The battle for civil rights went to the heart of what the American Dream was about and who could share in it. By the late 1960s, race relations crept front and center into the news and public discourse, a fact