Open Letter to White Women

White women, let's have a chat. Earlier this week, I wrote Dear White Women out of frustration with the many white women whose ignorance of the Black American experience gave them permission to cast a vote to re-elect a racist like Donald Trump. Since writing that piece, the country has been hanging on tenterhooks waiting for election results. What's become clear in that time is that Black Americans got out the vote to defeat Donald Trump. Full stop. And the Twitter commentary of bri...
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Dear White Women

Those of you who have clicked my “About” button above can see that I’m a white woman. There are about 120 million of us in the U.S. We’re a pretty heterogeneous group, race and gender aside. When it comes to our identities, our opinions, our faiths, our families, and our lifestyles, we are anything but a monolithic group. White women’s experiences in life are just as varied. Many of us have experienced the joys of partnership and motherhood. Many of us have felt the searing rage boiling...
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Wind of Change

It's Election Day. I'm a big classic rock fan, so this morning as I observed the wind continuing to blow on this beautiful, cold morning, I thought of the Scorpions song Wind of Change and its origins as a symbol of progress. America stands at the precipice of change. We have endured four years of a president who has brought incompetence, nepotism, cruelty, racism, misogyny, bigotry, and failure to the White House, alienating both the American people and our foreign allies. 2020 became ...
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Dancing for Democracy

With nearly a week of early voting behind us in Howard County, the photos and social media posts from local candidates and their supporters are showing us how to inspire others when things feel bleak. There is plenty to fill the doldrums of 2020, between the COVID-19 pandemic and our abuser-in-chief doing everything he can to destroy democracy and escalate his depraved cruelty. But there is a discernible energy taking shape, one of hope, optimism, and progress. The American people are turn...
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Is Division a Bad Thing?

I was baptized in the Moravian Church when I was an infant. For those who are unfamiliar, the Moravian Church is one of the world's oldest Protestant denominations, pre-dating the Reformation by at least a century. The church's motto is "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love." It is a good code by which to live, emphasizing the importance of joining hands when the stakes are high, agreeing to live and let live when the stakes are low, and treating everyone kindl...
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