Category: news
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The View From Here
After the release of the video documenting Laquan McDonald’s murder by a Chicago police officer, some clergy friends and I worked to pull together a prayer vigil at police headquarters. It was amazing to see hundreds of faith leaders and community members come out on a rainy night to pray for justice. The top photo…
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Paris. Again.
I remember the days following September 11, 2001 more vividly than I do the infamous day itself. Or that’s how it seems to me now, a couple of days after the terrorist attacks in Paris. I read the columns and the memories and emotions of that other fall day come rushing back. I hear President François call…
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How Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal Make My White Life Easier
There is a connection between two people who have recently dominated headlines and news feeds: Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal. It’s not the false equivalency between a transgender person and Ms Dolezal’s wrong-headed idea that she, a white woman, can identify as African American. Rather, the similarity that interests me is how these two individuals and their decisions…
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Fear and Defiance in McKinney, TX
And then there is the young woman, pinned to the ground, the officer’s knee grinding into her back as his hand repeatedly forces her face into the grass. Surely she too feels fear; how could she not? But there is something else that comes through more clearly. There is defiance in her voice, courage in…
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“Why do we applaud rebellion in film, but not in Baltimore’s streets?”
I posit that the reason audiences fail to see the similarities in fictional uprising (which we love) and what occurs in real life, is the absence of that second element. Excluding the most ignorant and racist in our country, Americans generally get a sense that there is a problem with the unjustified killing of innocent…
David W. Swanson 