Dear Mrs. Rice: I thought I would write to tell you how sorry I am for your troubles. I am not even sure if “troubles” really sums up where you are right now in your life’s journey. Compounding the horror of being knocked out and dragged about like a piece of trash by a man who says he loves you is the fact that the act is forever documented by the wonders of technology for your children, friends, family, and... Read more
When I first saw her on television I knew that we had nothing in common. As I watched the tattooed woman with the bright colored shell top mourning her son, her peroxide dyed hair: two toned, parted down the middle reminded me of the sisters I would see rolling into Sally’s to get the color their girl was going to use in their “kitchen shop” later that night. She was a teenage mother, who raised her child in her mama’s... Read more
I’ve written this blog about 4 times. Yet each time at its end, I hit the delete button. It was too honest. It was too raw. Most of all, for a piece on race and the church, it was waaaay to militant. And if I learned anything in my entire integrated life, nothing makes white folks more nervous than a militant black person, especially when its one of those potentially angry black women. I can’t lie. My emotions got the... Read more
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. Martin Luther King, Jr. . My good friend, colleague, and fellow Patheos blogger, Alyce McKenzie asked me earlier this week, “why is there so much time between your blog posts?” I explained that I don’t like to blog just to blog. I have to feel passionate or pissed off... Read more
One of the best things about being in Europe the last month and a half is that I have been shut off from the 24-hour news cycle that has become American journalism. Consequently, other than my daily check-in of NBC.com, NYTimes.com, and ESPN, most of the last 80 days of my life have been filled with the BBC, RTE (Irish television), and SkyTV. For a news junkie like me the first few weeks were painful, but after awhile I realized... Read more
I am sure that it had to be hard for them. After all, it was clear that they were going to have to explain to their African American professor why going to Brixton was so uncomfortable. I had seen that look many times before. The search for the right words; the really right words that would convince both the teacher and their peers that their reactions were normal. I felt for them in that moment–knowing that they were facing a... Read more
One of the cool things about taking students to another country is that they are willing to try things they wouldn’t normally try. They will eat new things, talk to new people, and yes, even try on new ideas. Our London program is one of the toughest to get into but I truly believe it is one of the most rewarding. Although this is my first year, I have long admired it for its rigor and ability to use not... Read more
Anyone watching MSNBC’s Morning Joe, this morning could sense something just wasn’t right. To the casual observer, all might have appeared well, but to those of us Morning Joe fanatics, we knew that the overt politeness, the lack of teasing, and the somber tone were indicative of something else: the uncomfortable aftermath of a family fight that still isn’t completely healed. Thursday morning’s blow up between Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski sent shockwaves throughout the blogosphere yesterday. Like kids in... Read more
I am a daughter of the American South. My family story is like many African American families who chose to stay in the South rather than head to the North or the West in the Great Migration. Settling near the very plantations where they were slaves, we were a family of preachers, teachers, pullman porters, factory workers, caddies, domestics, and farmers. The goal for my great grandparents was an American goal: for their children to get an education; to own... Read more
For four years, I have been in a silent war. While not fought with ‘horses and bayonets” or aircraft carriers filled with drones, the battle has been fierce and unrelenting. Though occasionally the evidence of its existence would emerge from time to time on a Facebook rant or in an office conversation with a colleague; the true weight of its import was only known to me, God, and my 8 year old Pit Bull, Ms. Eddy (who was forced to... Read more
The View from Dixon Hall
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