This essay also appeared in the local Oak Park newspaper Wednesday Journal. American schools have been struggling for decades -- and should have been struggling since their inception -- to properly educate Black and Latinx students. Oak Park and River Forest High School, like many suburban high schools with sizable Black and Latinx populations, has…
Variations on the theme of white supremacy
Theme (01/31/2020) This nation was founded as a multi-level apartheid state, with democratic traditions for wealthy white men, a semi-benevolent oligarchy for other white men and white women, and a fascist police state for people of African descent. Over time, agitation -- largely led by Black women and men -- has pushed the boundaries of…
System Warning
Listen to "System Warning" here. Refrain: Breakdown, Planetary system warning. Breakdown, Our society's in mourning. x2 Verse 1: Burning up the buried energy created over eons, Just to have the sparkly stuff that capitalism feeds on. Dumping all these gases in our atmospheric system, We've desensitized ourselves so we don't feel the fear of this…
Our nation is sick. Is impeachment the remedy?
The wealthy white men who originated the institutions that make up this country -- from those who stepped off the boat at Jamestown to those who led the American Revolution and wrote the Constitution -- created the system of white supremacy. This white supremacy gave them free labor (free to them, although at great cost…
Will we join the long march toward justice?
Three years ago, our daughter was a toddler, my wife and I had been married for 13 years, and I had lived in the Chicago area for the past 22 years. I had been in my current job as a Leadership Coach for just over a year, trying to impact the lived experiences and outcomes…
When something that means nothing means something
The Arsenal Stadium in London, England. Last week, as I watched a professional English soccer game on television, I felt a tightness in my throat that came from holding back tears. I felt an intense sense of pride. A man I have never met, who doesn't know I exist, had signed on to coach a…
From New Year’s resolutions to talk of revolution
It is the New Year, when we celebrate the passage of time, acknowledging what was in the past year and what will be in the coming one. We often consider it a time for resolutions, for "turning over a new leaf". We commit to exercising more, eating less, reading more, spending more time with family.…
Gloria in excelsis
I speak, but I don't know who is listening. I am here, but I don't know who is watching. I look, but I don't know what I'm seeing. I listen, but I don't know who I'm hearing. I act because I believe in humanity. I act because I believe in human beings. I act because human beings are…
Words as the building blocks of empathy
Words have the power to hurt. Words have the power to heal. We imbue them with the power to communicate our thoughts and feelings, the ability to influence and inspire, the elasticity to impact both in the here and now as well as across space and time. Because we are each individual beings, there is…
Property taxes and equity in Oak Park
This post also appears -- in much the same form -- as a column in the local Oak Park newspaper Wednesday Journal. It is that time of year again, the time when the cold winds of winter start to blow, the time when some of us celebrate the holidays, and the time when our local…
