It’s time to talk about the “woke ladder.” The term “woke” goes way back, originally coined in the black community and now used widely to describe an awakened state of being, an awareness of systems at work behind closed doors that the less “enlightened” may not notice or acknowledge. In today’s call-out culture, verbal sparring between political and ideological opposites is …
I find it interesting that for eight years the anti-Obama legions kept their eyes open at all times for signs that Barack Obama was “an angry black man.” If at any time, he showed the slightest impatience or raised his voice above a certain level, or spoke in something that could be thought to resemble black street English, the conservative …
I knew he would win. I’ve known it since last fall when I heard two stories on NPR in the same week. One was on the use of language in the power of persuasion — a rhetorical feat Trump has mastered. The other story focused on how people turn to authoritative power when they are uncertain or scared. After hearing those …
“I’m not ready, yet, Orv,” groans Stanley. Orville sighs. “Everybody dies, Stan. We’ve been over this. Get over it.” “No, it’s not that. I’m ready to bite the dust at the drop of hat. Wear shirts, wash shirts. It’s getting a bit monotonous. Who drops their hat, anyway? And what type of a hat does it have to be? I …
There’s a lot of extreme emotion in the air this week. It’s tangible. I see it across my social media feeds and dripping between words spoken and unspoken at home, work and play. Most people I know, myself included, are in a constant state of vacillation between disappointment, rage, despair, determination and just plain old fatigue. Other people are rejoicing, …
It’s been some time since my last post on Unheralded. There are a few reasons for this: The start of the fall semester is always a busy time, especially since it follows a summer PhD residency for me, the second — of three — of which I completed just this past July. But ultimately, the heaviest hitting contributing to my …
In February 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice published a report that I have never before seen. Among its revelations: American Indians experience per capita rates of violence that are more than twice those of the U.S. resident population as a whole. In the category of murder, blacks lead the way by a vast number, followed by Native Americans and …
Hate devours everything around it and, eventually, the haters, too. Twelve white officers down in Dallas. Five dead. Two more black men dead at the hands of the police. Are we talking, yet? Sure, we are. Past each other, seeing everything in black and white, when it’s much more complicated than that. For a start, let’s stop patting ourselves on …
I woke up today feeling sad and depressed. An aging, white guy nearing retirement, I probably don’t deserve to feel this way. After all, I’ve had the tremendous fortune of living in a free and powerful country. We weren’t rich, but our family had enough money to live in a relatively safe neighborhood, I attended a good school and eventually …
Memories after what I hope will be a turning point week for our country. The first from 1996, when I moved into a Fort Worth, Texas, nursing home to write about the lives of the people there. As part of my daily ritual, I went from room to room, saying good morning to my new neighbors. With two exceptions. It …
I’m not proud to say that before I began to research my book on the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, I knew woefully little about true black history. My 2001 book was called “The Burning,” and that’s what it was in Tulsa, mobs of whites burning down a prosperous black community, killing 300 in an act of genocide. But Tulsa …
I got out of bed Sunday morning and absolutely knew what I was going to write this week. Then I picked up The Forum (that’s Fargo’s paper, in case you didn’t know) and saw an article by Robin Huebner that sent me off focus. The article was on Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota and refugee settlement. It also focused …
I have been quiet for quite a while. Online at least. Every once in a while, I like to pull back from posting or commenting on hot-button issues on the Internet just to watch people’s behavior. By doing this, I get a sense of what the most common arguments are, which of them seems to have the most staying power …
Watching the images from Baltimore and remembering, and certainly not for the first time in these troubled last few years, a spring night in Tulsa, Okla., more than a decade ago, when Oklahoma State Rep. Don Ross and I shared dinner at a quiet Chinese restaurant. I was in Tulsa to research a newspaper story about the Tulsa Race Riot …
Growing up in the small northwestern Minnesota town of Crookston, I didn’t have very much interaction with minorities. In sixth grade, the only year I attended public school, Angela Mendez was in my class. I knew her older brother, Ruben, and a younger brother, Vincent. When I was in high school, one of my friends was Andy Villegas. Both the …