The euphoria was contagious. Car horns clamored through Brooklyn. Under the arch in Grand Army Plaza, brass bands spontaneously serenaded dancing crowds. My neighbors shrieked, and from building to building, the city echoed with cheers: Joe Biden had been elected President. I was happy — most of all, to see others’ joy. But I was also…
Category: Politics
Why This Election is Not “Just” Politics
As votes are cast and tallied in all fifty states, the air itself feels thick with tension. With so much at stake — a pandemic revealing our society’s deepest disparities, ongoing racial justice protests, an eviction crisis looming — it’s apparent to most of us that politics isn’t something we can ignore or tune out….
How to Spot — And Heal From — Political Burnout
There’s a reason they call it “hitting the wall.” Burnout really does feel like a whole-body experience, like physically running into an impassable barrier. You may be chugging along, telling yourself that you can push through whatever it is that’s plaguing you: the isolation of quarantine, the exhaustion of racial justice organizing, the difficulty concentrating on work…
How to Survive a Political Breakup
Every four years around election season — and particularly this year — the media fills with appeals: Why can’t we just get along? Sure, we may have strong opinions about politics, but that shouldn’t get in the way of our unity as family members, neighbors, or friends. In an ideal world, that’s true. Yet in…
These Powerful Pins Honored Suffragists Who Were ‘Jailed for Freedom’
THE FIRST-EVER WHITE HOUSE PICKET was led by women, lasted for more than a year, and was met with violence from both counter-protesters and law enforcement. In November 1917, after 10 months of picketing, the government’s crackdown on protestors reached a new intensity. Dozens of protesters were arrested and incarcerated at the infamous Occoquan Workhouse, where…
The COVID-19 Eviction Wave Is a Mental Health Crisis
When Chelsea Swift showed up to the crisis call, the man was sobbing. Swift is a counselor and emergency medical technician with Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS), a health and homelessness response service based out of White Bird Clinic in Eugene, Oregon. When the county’s residents make a 911 or a non-emergency call…
How to Stay Resilient in The Long-Term Fight For Racial Justice
“I am my politics,” says Barbara Herring. A Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the proprietor of Los Angeles’s JustBTherapy clinic, Herring specializes in working with people of color, LBGTQ+ people, and white allies as they grow. As part of the minority of therapists who are people of color — as of 2015, 66% of psychology…
Black Lives Matter: How White People Can Get Educated and Stay Grounded
As Black Americans’ righteous resistance to racism and police brutality fills social media and the streets, many white Americans are in a period of reevaluation. We may find ourselves wondering what our role is in perpetuating systemic, anti-Black racism, and how we can take action that is actively anti-racist. This self-introspection is a fundamental starting…
The State of Our Society
Obari Cartman’s work begins with stories. “I start with an individual and I say, ‘Tell me how you got here,’” said Dr. Cartman, a trauma-focused clinician and restorative justice coach who primarily works with young Black men in Chicago. “A lot of my work straddles that fence between individual therapy, and community advocacy and organizing.” When…
The Tuscan Town Famous for Anarchists, Marble, and Lard
AT FIRST GLANCE, THE APUAN Alps of northwest Tuscany’s Carrara region are pure white. Alison Leitch first saw them from a train window when traveling through Italy in the early 1980s. From a distance, she writes, their dazzling tops looked like snow. Her seatmate told her otherwise: The blinding whiteness was actually marble dust, a powdery byproduct…
