On Wednesday evening a vote took place at my old high school. The same vote had been held two years ago and the issue was soundly defeated. Not this time. My high school has voted to get rid of its team name of over 55 years. Students at my alma mater will no longer be […]
Category Archives: Race
Twelve Adventures: #10 – A Day at the Races
Boy, we crammed so much adventure into this weekend that I can hardly believe it all happened in the span of four days. It seems like forever ago that my wife and I drove out to embarrass ourselves in front of “Weird Al” Yankovic! (Editor’s note: wife did nothing embarrassing) We’ve been in hot tubs and saunas, […]
Why I Got Stopped For Driving While Black
I have had run-ins with the police before. Generally I am driving too fast, or have a headlight out, or am destroying the DC metro system (not that it needs any help), but almost all of these interactions have been, in a way, pleasant. I am polite to the officers, apologizing for my heinous crimes, […]
If You Are Afraid, I Will Pokemon Go With You
I am trying to lose weight and get in shape, but with my wife’s new job starting today some things are changing around here. One of those things is that I no longer have my free gym membership. That’s okay, I can walk and bike and jog and all other sorts of super boring things […]
Dear White People
Dear White People, What the hell is going on with you? What have you done to this world? I am asking this as a fellow white person, so it is okay for you to listen to me. But seriously, this is not okay. Why do you continue to allow institutional and individual racism to corrode […]
It’s Hard To Work Against Your Own Self Interests – The Confusion of the White Male in 2015
I am white. I am male. I am heterosexual. I did not choose any of these things; they were decided for me before I had time to even think about it. But even when we do not choose things, we cannot deny the implications. You can walk into a car dealership and see the perfect […]
A Little Good-Old-Fashioned Racism
The only thing that should surprise me, really, was how surprised I was at the displays of racism I encountered yesterday in small-town Vermont. But I was surprised. It shook me out of my little progressive bubble that is my accidental hiding place from the rest of the world. I don’t mean to hide, and believe […]
“Indian Style” and Other Things I Can Never Say to My Kids
I don’t think of myself as particularly racist. Sure, I’m a little bit racist, just like everybody else, but I roll up my windows and lock my doors when I drive through poor black neighborhoods, poor white neighborhoods, and poor Hispanic neighborhoods. There is no one race that I feel scared of, or badly about. […]
Santa Stampede or Why I Was Late to Church
Yesterday, as the family was driving off to church in the morning, my wife was telling me a story of how several people in a row cut her off in traffic the other day and how it made her really angry. I can relate, because I still have a list of people in my head […]