Dear President Trump, At work we’ve been pushing harder and more persistently on social injustice lately through a handful of initiatives including the gender equity committee I told you about several months ago and a recurring Diversity Café, which happened yesterday. The topic was allyship and in preparation we were to listen to a 2017 … Continue reading Allies and/or The Golden Rule
Equity
May we vote as if our lives depend on it
Dear President Trump, Last night at about 8 Laura went to the grocery. There weren’t all that many items on the shopping list, but chief among them was Kozy Shack Tapioca or some other Kozy Shack pudding product – it had been a long, fairly rough day and some caloric comfort was a priority. Well, … Continue reading May we vote as if our lives depend on it
Revolt until we get it right
Dear President Trump, Remember how the other day I offered a modest re-write of the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence, swapping in ‘people’ for ‘men’ and ‘we are endowed by Creation’ for ‘ they are endowed by their Creator’? Well, I’d like to move us on to the next major sentence fragment. It … Continue reading Revolt until we get it right
Early voting rights and lack thereof
Dear President Trump, Yesterday I told you that I want to refocus my attention on the work we’ll need to do after you’ve finally high-tailed it out of office. We have such a tremendous amount of very, very hard work to do together to close all the loopholes you’ve managed to exploit and to do … Continue reading Early voting rights and lack thereof
Fresh eyes and fresh beliefs
Dear President Trump, Sometimes the Twitter-verse does weird stuff with time like it did yesterday when Laura excitedly read me a Tweet about 19 African American women having been elected into judgeships in Harris County, Texas (Houston area) and how this means that now 25 of the 75 judges in that county are African American … Continue reading Fresh eyes and fresh beliefs
“It’s Good To Be A Guy”
Dear President Trump, I knew as I typed it that “Dorsal” was a weird name for a ginormous country club, but it didn’t stick out enough then, or any of the five or so times I re-read yesterday’s letter before posting it, for me to catch the mistake. Sorry about that. I do try to … Continue reading “It’s Good To Be A Guy”
Safety and equality, equality and safety
Dear President Trump, There’s a line in Melinda Gates’ new book, The Moment of Lift, which I keep coming back to (pg. 163): “There is no equality without safety.” There are hundreds of insightful, gasp-in-recognition lines in the book, lines that evoke reverential nods and copious underlining for their elegant statement of fact, but this … Continue reading Safety and equality, equality and safety
Class analysis (2)
Dear President Trump, You know the next part of the class analysis we did in the People’s Institute Undoing Racism workshop, don’t you? You know it by heart, your shriveled, calcified little heart, don’t you? You didn’t have to attend a workshop, take a class, or read anything at all (heaven forbid), did you? Nope, … Continue reading Class analysis (2)
Class analysis (1)
Dear President Trump, I’m 100% sure that if you actually read these letters you wouldn’t be thrilled to know that this is the first of what I think will be several, if not many, letters about class, power, and race coming out of last week’s Undoing Racism workshop by the People’s Institute. On the first … Continue reading Class analysis (1)
Strong women are being targeted even more blatantly than usual
Dear President Trump, Judging from the headlines, it’s a tough time to be an outspoken woman, isn’t it? In the WP alone there’s coverage of three disturbing stories that look to me like bald warnings to women to shut the f*ck up. The most chilling and sad is the murder of 75-year-old Sadie Roberts-Joseph, a … Continue reading Strong women are being targeted even more blatantly than usual