Dear President Biden, Please, sir, please read today's WP editorial by Jonathan Capehart entitled Being Black in America is Exhausting. It should be required reading for all White people. That’s all I have to say today except to reiterate, please read it. May we all be safe to be.May we all be willing to radically …
We are a despicable lot
Dear President Biden, Last night my brother texted and then called to tell me that Wednesday night when he was walking his roommate’s dog a police car rolled up alongside him. He said the officer was friendly but that he conveyed the message that someone had called the police reporting that a Black man was …
Braids and hearts
Dear President Biden, The center panel of the above-the-fold section of the online WP this morning holds three stories about Black men who were killed or brutalized by police. From top to bottom they include: 1) the story of Anton Wright, a 19-year old mentally ill young man who died under the weight of three …
Tons of opportunities for harm reduction
Dear President Biden, A fairly quick perusal of various articles in the WP this morning doesn’t just suggest, it definitively demonstrates that there are vast urgent opportunities to apply the harm reduction lens to our collective and individual choices. These opportunities run the gamut from police outside of Minneapolis having shot and killed 20 year-old …
White George, Black George, and the vast bucket of worry that differentiates them
Dear President Biden, I haven’t had occasion to tell you this before, but my dad is a big White man and before I conjured a big White George the other day it had absolutely never occurred to me that my dad could be the victim of police brutality, let alone be killed by police. And …
Continue reading "White George, Black George, and the vast bucket of worry that differentiates them"
What if George had been a big White man?
Dear President Biden, For days now I’ve been thinking about the eggshell skull rule (or the brittle bone rule) and how one of Nelson’s many lame-ass defense arguments on behalf of his client, Derek Chauvin, is that it wasn’t Chauvin’s knee grinding down on George’s neck (spine, windpipe, carotid artery) for 9 minutes and 29 …
No justice, no peace
Dear President Biden, Yesterday I told you that I hope that Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, is forced to take down his shingle and use it for kindling for suggesting that his client couldn’t possibly have tracked that he was crushing George’s neck (spine, windpipe, carotid artery) because the concerned citizens who were imploring him …
George was only 46
Dear President Biden, I know you’re busy, but I hope you’re following Derek Chauvin’s trial, including either listening to the eye witnesses’ testimony or reading thorough accounts of it. You need to see and feel what these people went through and how not being able to help George Floyd has left them shattered. You also …
What if we didn’t harm each other?
Dear President Biden, Yesterday I shared my pastor’s statement “safety is a myth” along with her strong urging that those of us who have gotten to walk through life believing this myth or the myth that safety is somehow attainable need to let it go and get on with the work of justice. Today as …
The weight of history
Dear President Biden, Do you know what “the weight of history” means? I thought it was a super common idiom that must have a fleshy backstory, but Googling it didn’t yield much of anything. Maybe it’s too basic for anyone to bother unpacking, but it’s been bugging me. I can only speak from my position …
The Biden Letters 