A familyRuns from danger and, Finding no door open, Climbs in through the window.Once inside, they behave as all The other families do:Looking for food, A place to lay their heads, Jobs to afford those necessitiesAnd maybe set a little aside for the children. They simply want a place for themselves, But always it hangs…
Our family tells a story that, in 1848, my great great grandfather Patrick stowed away on a boat from Ireland to the USA at the age of 14. This was during what we call the Irish Potato Famine but which the Irish called the Great Hunger. During this time, more than 10% of Irish people…
Everyone knows that our political system is broken. Scratch that – almost everyone knows that our political system is broken. Mmmm, I’ll try again. What looks broken to most of us is actually working very well for a select few. That about does it. Our government is set up to protect the interests of wealthy…
I feel our humanity leaching away with each passing day. I feel it seeping from our collective body with each preschool teacher detained in front of their students. With each person dragged from their car and hauled off to a detention center. With each door ICE agents knock down without a warrant. With each person…
When we walked out into the field at Grant Park, Chicagoans and their neighbors of all kinds surrounded us – young and old; Black, Latine, white, Asian, Native, and Middle Eastern; straight, gay, lesbian, bi; cis and trans; and on and on. They carried signs, dressed in costumes, held their children’s hands. We listened to…
Those who hold power create labels and boxes for others to advance their own interests. During slavery, white slaveowners grouped those they enslaved into categories of "field slaves", "overseers", and "house slaves". They deemed "house slaves" most docile, fit to be around women and children. They were given certain privileges that those who worked in…
They say he stowed away on a boat,Alone at fourteenRunning from the famine or toward an opportunity,We can't be sure.What we do know is thatHe didn't have to get in line, or wait ten years, or prove his worth.He just showed up and,Though despised by his new countrymen,They took him in,And eventually he became one…
Charlie Kirk’s memorial service was this past weekend, and it is estimated that about 100,000 people attended. Clearly many people believed in the power of his words. Some have called him a martyr – likely many of the people in that crowd believed that. But that evaluation depends entirely on how you judge those words.…
Brutally gunned down in broad daylight as he fled for his life from government officials tasked with ripping him from his family. Killed in a justifiable act of self defense as he tried to murder law officers in the enactment of their authorized duties. How can we look at the same event and see it…
Oak Park, Illinois, the community where I live, recently initiated a campaign called “Make REAL Change, Not Spare Change”. The “spare change” they refer to here is giving donations directly to people who are panhandling or soliciting on the street, whereas the “REAL change” is giving money indirectly to local nonprofit organizations to then support…
Entwining 