Tag / empathy
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#DefendDiversity
Michael Wang was the perfect applicant. After conquering thirteen AP classes, he had a stellar 4.67 GPA and graduated second in his class of 1,002 students. His ACT score was a flawless 36. He attended and placed in various national competitions in math, debate, and music. He even sang at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Michael was…
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The Case For Talking To Your Racist Grandpa
I spent my childhood angry and arguing. Growing up gay and Jewish in Alabama, I was always arguing that lighting candles on Hanukkah didn’t mean I’d burn in hell, or explaining to male friends that homosexuality didn’t mean I was attracted to them. It left me constantly on guard, waiting for the next person to…
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The Borders Around Our Own Empathy
When a suicide bomber detonated at an arena concert in Manchester in May 2017, it shook America to its bones. A little more than a week later, when a car bomb exploded at a busy market in Kabul, Afghanistan, America merely shivered. Terrorist attacks are ubiquitous and hard to keep up with, and an individual’s…
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A Year of Cicadas
I was born in the late springtime 19 years ago, along with the cicadas. As my eyes were opened and I cried and was washed and wrapped in new linens, insects were crushing through their thin encasings and clawing through roots and rocks to see light for the first time, refracted in the zillion tiny…
