“What we find in this story is a Jesus who doesn’t say what we expect him to say, doesn’t act the way we expect him to act. At first glance, this seems to be…

“Black as I had tried to be (foolish or not), the riots ‘reformed’ me—not toward goodness but toward deeper self-awareness and an impatient need to express and act upon my anger. Consciously or…

“The danger of mythology—not just Classical myth, but all myth, from Norse to Japanese to African to Native American—is that it is so deep-rooted in the contemporary cultures to which it is ancestral…

“It’s a warm December in Washington,/a few days before Christmas, the slaughterhouse/of men quiet, those around the lieutenant general/eager to repeat news of victory they know comes/at a price, even if the war…

“At the level of society, there is very little any of us can do. However, I can think of one job that is worth our collective attention. There may be others. Working to…

“Now, there’s like a starting strip (see how I don’t know the terminology?), where you get your speed up to enter the race track. So, we’re watching all the guys at this take-off…

“Maya Lin, we need you once again, it seems. But, this time, you will not be memorializing some 58,000 lost souls, but, rather, in America alone, by the time of Biden’s inauguration, over…

“I’ve known the harsh reality of Black people in America for my entire life, and I’ve learned more about how medicine has played a part in our oppression over the past few years.…

“As a kid, studying Haitian history made me proud to be born in a country that was such an example of our greatness as Black people. Haiti managed to defeat the French army,…

“Everywhere I go and every day of my life, I am reminded that I am Black—the you-don’t-belong stares; the being stalked while shopping; the getting pulled over, for no apparent reason; the expectation…