racism

In some ways it’s really simple. If we had genuinely multi-racial classrooms in the U.S. the challenge of race in those same rooms would be much less of one. We so quickly find ourselves embroiled in an oh-so-familiar conversation when the pedagogical question becomes how to best teach ...

The most uncomfortable thing I ever say among professional colleagues is that when I was a child I was taught that we are all racist. In 1970s Western Canada, where I grew up, racism was real but often obscured by polite indifference and feigned ignorance. Yet our public school system ...

Ferguson is revelatory.  “I wanted to comment on the tragic rift that we’re witnessing,” Bob Staake says about his cover for the December 8th issue of The New Yorker, arriving next week. “I lived in St. Louis for seventeen years before moving to Massachusetts, so watching the news right ...

Now I get it.  For the past three months, I couldn’t figure out why a jury would believe that an 18-year old unarmed man would charge – head first – toward a police officer who is shooting at him.  Soon after Michael Brown was killed on August 9, several local officials intimated ...

Three stories capture my take on how race matters. Story #1 opens in a grocery parking lot. I park my car and open the door. Trying to remember what I need to buy, I do not notice the pick-up truck beside me as I step out. Then, I hear a male ...