3 Reads For Our Time By 3 Writers For Our Time
If you can’t get out and pound the streets for change, you can still sit home and do some serious thinking about the state of the world.
I’ve had a half dozen conversations with like-minded friends in the past ten days or more who’ve called to whine about their continued confinement because of the virus. Once we get that out of the way, we bemoan the current state of the world.
Particularly, our frustration at having to sit out the demonstrations and displays of support for the protestors.
We’re old school marchers from the civil rights and Vietnam days. We dusted off our signs and walking shoes for the Women’s March in 2017 and sundry others since. But each of us realized that now that we’re in the high-risk group for the virus, breaking our quarantine to join a march and risk putting ourselves in the hospital with an incurable pneumonia isn’t going to save anybody else’s life.
So we’ve been sidelined or sidelined ourselves from active participation these days. We’ve had to take solace in upping our donations for organizations that support social justice, realizing we can buy our books and stationery supplies online from stores operated by people of color as easily as from Amazon, and help the cause by sending an extra dollar or twenty to candidates opposing racist legislators. All good. As far as it goes.
But no matter how woke we think we are, or whatever tag we use from our aging generation, there are so many aspects of racism, racial disparity, and racial naivete, that we could spend our lives examining our society and our role in it and not cover it all.
Which is why we depend on our insightful, gifted writers to help us with the task.
Whether you’ve come in exhausted from a day of pounding the pavement hoisting a BLM sign proudly over your head or you’ve been wearing out your eyeballs watching––or more likely, cringing at––the news, sit back with your feet up and treat yourself to these three important voices.
Naz Ahsun reminds us that not all people affected by the current racial crisis are African Americans. Racial cruelty is like the virus; it seeps into every corner of our world. But the cure is the same no matter where we are. White people, are you listening?
Andrew Hill’s work reminds us why a subscription to Medium is worth twice the price. Whether he pokes us in the ribs with his humor or opens our eyes, minds, and hearts with his social commentary wrapped in gorgeous prose, he remains one of our most important writers on race in America.
Because we can’t live without hope, I’m ending with a beautiful piece by a writer whose work is new to me, but whose message lifts us up in a dark time. I urge you to read all of Sandiego’s work, a poet, storyteller, and visionary.
All of these writers are published in ILLUMINATION, a publication supporting the many voices of Medium.
What Would Gandhi Do?
Are the protests over yet and other important questions of the day?
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I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. Thank you for reading.
