The Coast Guard recently attempted to soften rules against swastikas and nooses before retreating. These lynching poems remind us what is at stake.
Tag Archives: racism
Normalizing Nooses and Swastikas
Military Service and the American Dream
Veterans of color, as Silko reveals in her novel “Ceremony,” often experience a disconnect between the military’s ideals and the country’s.
Morrison’s Healthy Response to Trauma
Stephen King (IT) and Toni Morrison (Beloved) show how we can live in thrall to our fears but also how we can move past them.
MAGA Seeks to Erase Scourged Backs
Trump and MAGA want to erase America’s slave past, including the image “Scourged Back.” Morrison’s “Beloved,” another art work featuring a scourged back, is also under attack.
My Life in Lit – Segregation
In which I recount growing up in segregated Tennessee and recount the books that helped me cope.
Shaw’s Don Juan in MAGA America
Shaw’s play “Don Juan in Hell” came to mind when I visited the du Pont museum, featuring their gunpowder business.
Emerson: Let Freedom Be Your King
Emerson’s “Boston Hymn,” written during the Civil War, imagines God telling America to make freedom its king and to free the slaves.
Flannery O’Connor’s DEI Revelation
In Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation,” we see the status anxiety that is driving many Americans towards reactionary politics.

