Tag: Chris Stewart

White Silence = Violence

White Progressives Have a Lot of Work to Do, and I’m Not Here to Help

When I ran for school board it was Betsy Hodges, the former Minneapolis mayor, who was the first elected official to endorse me. She asked me a lot of questions, offered some straight talk about the political system and spoke very clearly about what it takes to win in a Whiter than White town like Minneapolis. Later, after winning a…

Dr. King Would Have Shined a Light on the Shame of ‘Progressive’ Cities. So Should We.

On the day that the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was taken in 1968 he had become increasingly focused on the least of these, the poor, people suffering in the margins, families left behind as the country’s economic prosperity boomed and the U.S. found it easy to fund its war machine. Today we will once again honor Dr.…

Here’s Why You Want to Mentor a Young Person in Chicago

Mentoring is a rare point of connection between people who rarely share space together. When Americans show up for mentoring youth, they usually do so across lines of class and race in a way that few other activities can offer. It’s possibly one of the last remaining areas of nearly universal agreement in our left-right-black-white world. We all do better when our kids do better, right?

Will You Still Care About Our Kids When the Teachers’ Strike Ends?

My friend and esteemed colleague, Chris Stewart, often asks, “How are the children?” Well, according to Jasmine Lane’s tweet thread asking rhetorical questions like, “How many futures have been derailed because instead of standing up for and protecting the education of our most vulnerable, we were busy coddling a grown-up’s feelings?” we can assume that they are not ok. In…