By Z A few years ago my son who is non-white was sitting in his car on a side street not far from our home making a phone call on his cell phone. This was in the early days of cell phones and coverage was sketchy so finding the perfect …
by Judy Helfand My friend offered to do some genealogy research for me. I already had a fairly extensive genealogy and history of my father’s side, the Jewish side. My paternal grandmother and grandfather emigrated to Canada and the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I suspected some …
Review by Judy Helfand The Earth, the City and the Hidden Narrative of Race, by Carl Anthony, is a mix of personal, historical, and political. Anthony shares stories of his family and growing up, his youth at universities and in the civil rights movement, and his developing career as he found …
An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, Benjamin Madley Review by Judy Helfand I recently joined a group inspired by a Ceremony of Apology and Forgiveness convened by Basil Brave Heart, a Lakota elder, which provided, among other things, an opportunity for settlers in the United …
A Deeper Multiculturalism: A Review of the Children’s Book Jack & Agyu, written by Justine Villanueva and Illustrated by Lynnor Bontigao. Winner of the Gold Medal for the Benjamin Franklin Award for Children’s Picture Book from the Independent Book Publishers Association By Christopher Bowers Jack & Agyu is a children’s …
A Review of Leny Strobel Mendoza’s Poetry of Decolonization By Christopher Bowers In Glimpses: A Poetic Memoir (Through the MDR Generator) Filipino-American author, academic and local community leader Leny Mendoza Strobel takes an arguably more personal approach to this work than in her previous writing. However, as the reader soon …
by Judy Helfand I’m sitting in the audience for a post-production discussion of Kill Move Paradise, a play in which four black men try to make sense of their recent killing. A white woman in the first row is speaking and I’m thinking Stop! Don’t you, a white woman, tell …
by Judy Helfand In the months after the wildfires that burned through our little farm, taking the house and all the outbuildings, I observed the changing state of my brain as illustrated through my choice of readings. At first I wasn’t reading at all and then gradually I started drifting …
Dear Arno Michaelis, I had the privilege of hearing you speak in Santa Rosa on May 4th, after the film, White Right: Meeting the Enemy. I didn’t get a chance to speak with you but you did answer a great many of my questions. I was deeply moved by your …
The Case for Humility by Wendy Millstine I had the privilege of hearing activist and author DeRay McKesson speak on his new book, On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope. He spoke from a place of personal life stories, on-the-ground activist experience, and strategies for keeping up …