Tag Archives: George Floyd

Faulkner on Racism’s Deep Roots

Faulkner’s “Intruder in the Dust” shows how deep into the American psyche racism reaches, helping explain the spate of police killings or unarmed Blacks.

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From God’s Breath to “I Can’t Breathe”

Wednesday This past Juneteenth I was flipping through channels and caught MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell quoting James Weldon Johnson’s “Creation.” It was a moving application of poetry to this important moment in time. Mitchell was referring to George Floyd’s plaintive cry “I can’t breathe” before he was suffocated by Minneapolis police. Johnson’s poem, she said, reminds […]

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Cops’ Invisible Disciplinary Records

There’s a thrill in acting with impunity. Bad cops know this and so does H.G. Wells’s invisible man.

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What Would Lucille Clifton Say?

How would Lucille Clifton have responded to the death of George Floyd and the subsequent turmoil? I comb through her collected poems to find out.

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Achebe vs. Trump’s Heart of Darkness

50 years ago, black protesters would have been seen as Conrad sees Africans in “Heart of Darkness,” an undifferentiated mass. Achebe helped change that.

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When Grief Turns Violent

In protesting police violence against communities of color, protesters must avoid grief-fueled violence, the archetype of which is Grendel’s Mother.

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In Aeneid, It’s the Wives Who Riot

The riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death recall for me the wives rioting in the Aeneid–another neglected and long-suffering group who are fed up.

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