By Dennis Ford

An orange ember of hate
sits upon the hearthstone
of mankind’s fireplace 

stoked by evil winds
manifesting his wicked 
jingo menace 

steeped in the true American traditions of
encroachment, thievery, enslavement, and genocide

pathologically programmed 
to lie, con, & cheat
a seething pompous opera of self-worst  

By Melinda d’Ouville

Like many others, on May 25, 2020, I had my eyes opened to the horror suffered by people who for centuries have been saying “I can’t breath”. The tragic murder of George Floyd was, for me an insulated, aging, white female, a child of the 60’s - a violent collision of my beliefs, observations, opinions, and delusions. I thought we, humans, were doing better. I was wrong.

To understand the nature, significance and circumstances surrounding Mr. Floyd’s murder has been a struggle. Books have been read, videos have been watched, conversations have been held, groups have met, still the vacant expression I saw in the murderer's eyes remains puzzeling as well as excruciating for me. How did we get here; why aren’t more people angry; what keeps us from seeing how we enable or contribute to the oppression of people of color? Questions that continually scratch across the blackboard of my daily life since Mr. Floyd died.

By Paul Abramson

(This article is reprinted here by permission of the magazine Reason where it originally appeared. Here is the link to the original article)

In 1991 I was in Geneva serving as a technical advisor to the World Health Organization's Global Programme on AIDS. We were chipping away at a task that seemed insurmountable: the exponential growth of the AIDS epidemic. But we knew our strategy—which relied on affordable condoms and clever advertising—could, at least theoretically, work. All we needed was user compliance.

The United States, however, wasn't pulling its weight, despite having plenty of money and technical expertise. Yes, the Centers for Disease Control was moving forward, publishing an article in 1981 about an opportunistic infection affecting immunosuppressed gay men. Four years later, an HIV antibody test was developed. By 1987, even Surgeon General C. Everett Koop had stepped up to the plate, urging that the nation's physicians recommend condom use for sexually active patients. 

By Steve Slavin

I was born in 1939 in what was then known as Madison Park Hospital, across the street from where Bernie Sanders grew up. Bernie lived just down the block from James Madison High School, where we both were distance runners on the track team.

Madison, which was one of the best high schools in the city, drew kids almost entirely from the surrounding neighborhoods. Of the more than 4,500 students at Madison in the mid-1950s, less than a dozen were Black. And one of them, Jimmy Dyer, was elected student government president.

Were we racists? Well, the guy who lost to Jimmy did say – very likely in jest – that maybe he would have won if he had been Chinese. Racism was something that might be present in other neighborhoods, but not in ours.

By Gary Greene

Who was the villain in the saga

When he sailed the ocean blue

Was he the instrument or blunt tool

He sailed for king, queen and cross

Chartered by imperial forces to expand

What type of conquest was he after

And how would that change for those that followed

With writ of Bull, unholy commission

Make manifest the evil of superiority

Make chattel of the Saracens

By Russell Willis 

His pen, the sword penetrating deep prejudice

even as his words drowned in his own blood

Blood drawn by a knife, a weapon of hate

wielded by a man one-third his age filled

with lifetimes of hate, generations of hate

stabbing deep with prejudice

reminding us that freedom of words

IMAGINE THAT

By Leopoldo Seguel

we are circling round

our own demise, hold

me back, I’m not sure

of myself, where 

are my people, we 

swallowed the earth

whole, remember when we were

By Truth Thomas

Somewhere, always, the light switch of the moon is on

as babies feast from mothers’ milky pillows.

Somewhere, always, in cradles of the wee hours, swaddling

clothes are lullabies for newborn souls,

cocooning. Once, in a South Side manger, a mother

gave birth to a king. Hail Mamie full of Grace

By Yash Seyedbagheri

they once said every poem needed a volta

a shift

a transition

a turn

but what about this poem

replete with shattered glass, shrieks, screams of 

socialism, books spirited away

distortions, banned abortions

tears mocked on TikTok

taking things from others for mythical greatness

Anglo-Saxon nomenclature above all else

another round fired while authorities slink away

By Narayan Rajan

We have another massacre this week

In an elementary school in Texas.

Seventeen children and two teachers

Sacrificed to appease the gun Gods.

 “Guns, guns, more guns”, still the drums roll

“People kill people, not guns”, despite the toll 

Exacted. Lives, loves, dreams, hopes all

Lead maelstrom engulfed. Yet another charnel.

By Joseph Musso

if an afterlife exists and
saint and sinner alike 

are forgiven 

and end up in ‘heaven’ in the same brass and
wood room 

is it awkward… 

when murderer meets the murdered
when Derek Chauvin meets George Floyd
when Daniel Pantaleo meets Eric Garner
when Myles Cosgrove meets Breonna Taylor
when every slave-owner meets his slaves
when every black man lynched meets his lyncher
do they talk?