I took an extra year to finish college for health reasons. That year taught me a lot about myself, and it also gave me front-line exposure to the uncertainty and ambiguity that’s a normal part of conventional medicine. Take the adjective idiopathic. It’s used to describe conditions or symptoms that seem to arise in individuals from nowhere […]
Truth-telling through a comic frame
I somehow skipped the comic book/graphic novel stage during childhood, but encountered this mode of storytelling one summer afternoon in the stacks of a London university library. Since then, the comic book industry has enjoyed a popular renaissance, and both the theaters and the web streaming services are full of comic adaptations. Luke Cage is […]
The strategy of visibility
About two years ago I wrote about how the “monsters” of Halloween give people a way to explore their own shadows. I’ve also written several times about various forms of demonization and dehumanization: how some people with power chip away at other people’s humanity by rendering them malevolent and monstrous. But there are other ways […]
Proximity does not make a community
I’m not going to watch the breaking of the second seal in Washington, D.C., tomorrow. Instead, I’m preparing to host two training sessions this weekend, and I’m thinking about what constitutes sound community. Among people who consider themselves progressive, those committed to the deep social transformation that actively creates space for typically marginalized people to […]
Who tells your story?
Early on in high school, my English teacher introduced our class to U.A. Fanthorpe’s poem, “Not My Best Side.” It’s a snarky modern piece inspired by Paolo Uccello’s painting of St. George and the Dragon, and it features the perspectives of St. George, the damsel he aims to rescue, and the dragon who brings them together. Why, I […]
Truth through those who’ve lived it
No one understands history like those who have lived it. Oral histories are recorded or transcribed memories—often of everyday people—that capture unique personal perspectives available nowhere else. These valuable records reveal facets of history that are not recorded elsewhere, like the daily lives and struggles of formerly enslaved men and women who were rarely allowed […]