Dear President Trump, This morning on the way to church I was thinking about the HP article by Felicia Harris where she describes how Michelle Obama “crashed” her book club meeting. Really, the book club members won tickets to Obama’s book tour and it happened that Obama had read the love letter they sent her … Continue reading Sick of sticking to the script
equality
H.R. 1 ~ “Power grab for the people!”
Dear President Trump, I’m home sick today (on official sick leave) so I can write to you whenever I want and don’t have to be careful about avoiding my tour of duty hours. In a way it’s nice, but I have to be careful that I don’t squander my naptime in favor of fine-tuning this … Continue reading H.R. 1 ~ “Power grab for the people!”
Unpacking radical empathy (Part 4)
Dear President Trump, For some reason I didn’t include the phrase “radical empathy” in my letter to you the other day when I told you about Susan Lanzoni’s WP piece about how white people’s failure of empathy significantly contributes to racial bias and racism. I did use it to title several of the letters in … Continue reading Unpacking radical empathy (Part 4)
Radical empathy and more lack thereofs (Part 3)
Dear President Trump, Even though I’d rather fuss at you about any number of things, it feels important to instead tell you about a couple of concrete examples where I’ve caught myself behaving in ways that lacked empathy for black people since there’s little point in just focusing on these issues in the abstract. The … Continue reading Radical empathy and more lack thereofs (Part 3)
Radical empathy (Part 1)
Dear President Trump, I suppose it doesn’t matter too, too much where I start, no matter what angle one approaches it from, it’s sad, infuriating, and overwhelming. But it does feel important to get the story straight and to tell it reasonably well since it’s one that so many of us white people have a … Continue reading Radical empathy (Part 1)
Super unfair stuff
Dear President Trump, I’m not finished with the Quadlin study yet so you aren’t either. Yesterday’s letter was already on the long side so I didn’t get into the finding that among men there wasn’t a significant effect of grade point average on likelihood of being called in for an interview. Well, it’s still bugging … Continue reading Super unfair stuff
Surprise! Women are penalized for being smart
Dear President Trump, Laura came across an interesting sociology study out of Ohio State University yesterday. The author is Natasha Quadlin, an Assistant Professor who studies social inequality, gender, family, and education. The study has two parts, the first of which involved sending out over 2,100 pretend resumes for over 1,000 entry-level positions (so 2-ish … Continue reading Surprise! Women are penalized for being smart
May we dispense with masks and lines
Dear President Trump, I feel the need to point out that Presidents’ Day uses a plural possessive, which means this day is actually only 1/45th, or .022, about you and over time this fraction will decrease even more – hallejulah! Ok, moving on, I want to circle back to yesterday’s church service, which was framed … Continue reading May we dispense with masks and lines
Space to thrive should be a given
Dear President Trump, Who do you think it was that leaked your schedule? And did s/he really need to leak it? There’s a handy website (Factbase) with your daily schedule and you’ve got lots of “Executive Time” blocked out (in addition to golf time). So, I don’t see why someone would bother with this particular … Continue reading Space to thrive should be a given
Growing pains
Dear President Trump, It’s something we teach our patients all the time and it’s been useful to me countless times before, but last night it felt like something of a revelation once I put words to exactly what was bothering me. I told you yesterday that I was feeling sour and frustrated despite the lovely … Continue reading Growing pains
Daily Trump Letters 