Someday, Donald Trump will be a mere memory. Just last week we were reminded, during the 9/11 memorials, that one-third of the nation’s population was not yet born when the planes hit the twin towers. That’s how soon firsthand memory…
Small talk
I often reminded my students that there’s no such thing as small talk. All talk is big talk! Why? Because with our daily outpouring of talk, we create the social worlds we then inhabit. It’s sometime referred to as “the…
America’s Pyrenees
On February 3, 2025, I sent Sen. Roger Wicker, my senator, the senior senator from Mississippi, an urgent email. It read in part: “Sen. Wicker, PLEASE stand up to the President! Shutting down USAID invites China to move into the…
Small things
I recently discovered the work of the Polish poet Anna Kamienska. Her work titled “Small Things” runs 30 lines, but here is enough to suggest what she is up to. It usually starts taking shape From one word Reveals itself…
What patriotism is not
The president has spread abroad a kind of patriotism that is foreign to this great nation. His actions have mimicked King George III of England, for whom patriotism was obedience. In the Declaration of Independence, we (mainly white males) claimed…
The roots of Christian nationalism
Christian nationalism did not spring up fully formed during President Donald Trump’s first term. Its roots run deep in American soil. Unfortunately. In the Post-Reconstruction South, the United Daughters of the Confederacy planted a Confederate memorial on many a small-town…
Voting my Jesus values
My religious values guide my voting decisions. More specifically, my Christian values guide my voting decisions. That is likely true of you too. Why do I say that? Because Gallup polling shows that, in the Southeast, 74% of those polled…
Confederate Memorial Day, 2026
Monday, April 27, was Confederate Memorial Day in Mississippi. Mississippi is not alone in observing this state holiday. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and (Texas, kind of) also honor the Confederacy with a state holiday. Mississippi’s Ordinance of Secession…
Backfilling history
Look around. What do you see? Often, it’s what you expect to see, not what’s really there. All of us share this tendency. Language, too, affects what I see. If I don’t have a word for it, I probably won’t…
Let’s move beyond Pee-wee Herman politics
James Talarico has figured prominently in the news and on social media lately, especially so after he defeated Democratic U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Texas Democratic primary. In the November general election, he will face either incumbent Republican U.S….
No kindness, no democracy
Seventy-four years ago, on April 8, 1952, President Harry Truman went on national radio and television to announce he had issued Executive Order 10340, authorizing the United States government to seize the nation’s steel mills. Eighteen months earlier, China had…
No justice, no peace
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund was founded in 1940 by Thurgood Marshall. It was America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. “Justice” is a legal term as well as a moral term — legal as seen in the statues…