Not all Floridians have reacted passively to Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ racially divisive and politically motivated attacks on intellectual freedom and the teaching of history in the public schools. The author of this letter, Dick Batchelor, a former state legislator and Chair of the Central Florida Urban League, has a long history as a civic […]

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Perhaps the frog wasn’t boiled after all. Maybe it was just exhausted. How else to explain the flaccid reaction this week to American conservativism’s casual normalization of anti-Semitism? It’s been two weeks since the former president blasted out his complaint about ungrateful Jews. The implicit threat got no points for subtlety. Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO […]

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“I got that ni–er c–nt suspended.” That’s just one example of what being Black at the Dalton School was like for me—and I had a generally positive experience there—amazing, in fact.   No one went through Dalton at the time without knowing of the Washington clan. I had deep ties in the arts, especially in the […]

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  what if i What does it mean to want an age-old call for change not to change and yet, also, to feel bullied by the call to change? How is a call to change named shame, named penance, named chastisement? How does one say what if without reproach? The root of chastise is to […]

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  The Reverend William Barber II, the civil rights leader who is considered the heir to Martin Luther King Jr., was asked by President Biden and Vice President Harris to deliver the homily at the Inaugural prayer breakfast, held at the National Cathedral on January 21. The following is the text of his sermon. Lord, […]

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