Letters & Opinions

At birth, we boarded the train and met our parents, and we believe they will always travel by our side. As time goes by, other people will board the train; and they will be significant i.e., our siblings, friends, children, strangers and even the love of your life. However, at some station, our parents will step down from the train, leaving us on this journey alone. Others will step down over time and leave a permanent vacuum.

I’m only now coming to grips with what it has meant to my soul – and my body – to have been born Black in the Deep South in the shadow of Jim Crow and raise my kids during the era of Donald Trump. I’m one of the fortunate ones because I’ve survived to tell my own story and lived long enough to see science begin to answer questions that have long lingered in my brain. In this excerpt from “Why We Didn’t Riot: A Black Man in Trumpland,” I try to capture that truth.

“Too little, too late.” The Free Dictionary says this idiom means “Inadequate as a remedy and not in time to be effective.” This term originated in the military, where it was applied to reinforcements that were insufficient and arrive too late to be of help. The opposite of this would be “too much too soon” meaning some action or item is provided before it is needed or before it is ready to be helpful and is disproportionately large for the intended purpose.

According to Wikipedia, "Fire and Ice" is one of Robert Frost's most popular poems. It was published in December 1920 in Harper's Magazine and in 1923 in his Pulitzer Prize−winning book New Hampshire. It discusses the end of the world, likening the elemental force of fire with the emotion of desire, and ice with hate.

The negative effects of social media have been much discussed as of late, thanks to the recently released documentary on Netflix, “The Social Dilemma.”