Protests, Riots, and the Problem of Attention

If you didn’t know by now, you should: last Monday, George Floyd died when a white police officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes. The fact that he is black, in a country where black people are unfairly scrutinized and made to endure higher rates of police brutality, has turned a single miscarriage of justice into an indictment of an unjust society; to comment on Floyd’s death is to also invoke the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Travyon Martin, and Michael Brown. read more

During My Walk

The trees stand
at attention to receive a
procession of
telephone poles,

Which are themselves
strung along like
a chain gang, or
siblings holding hands.

The trees maintain a
respectful distance,
not daring to cross
the grassy median
that comes between.

The poles walk on
a little longer, waiting
for a glimpse of
the sun.

Funky Gospel

This week’s playlist is perfect for when you feel like clapping your hands or nodding your head to something but you also want to Praise The Lord™. Gospel music goes hard in general but these songs are pretty much guaranteed to make you move.

On Curiosity

Little kids are the greatest disciples of Socrates and they don’t even try.

I mean that they are perhaps the perfect embodiment of one of the more famous statements attributed to him: “I know that I know nothing.” Of course we all know that kids know nothing. But kids also understand this to be true; that’s why they ask so many questions. These questions might seem trivial to our ears but they’re much more significant to children, for the simple reason that they are one of the only means by which kids can attempt to understand the world we take for granted. read more

Sentimental Rock

I had a classic rock kick back when I was an underclassman and while I love the harder stuff when I’m in a certain mood (Led Zep, Deep Purple, and so on), I’ve got a special weakness for the sappy and the softhearted. Here is a playlist of some songs I’ve collected that scratch that particular itch.

For the music theorists out there: for some reason whenever a song has a I chord followed by a ii it just hits different. Wonder why it happens.

Korean Jesus

For the Spring 2020 issue of the Columbia Witness, a semesterly Christian journal for which I was the editor-in-chief, I was tasked with writing a piece on the theme of diversity.

Having grown up in the Korean-American church, I thought it would be fitting to write something about the version of Christianity I knew best. In the article I discuss the reasons why, for the most part, younger Korean-American congregations tend to shy away from overt expressions of Korean culture when compared to their older counterparts. I won’t post the piece here (yet) but you can read it along with the rest of the issue when it comes out on the Witness website. read more

Nostalgia

If the pandemic is making you feel some type of way and you wish you could go back to an easier time, indulge this feeling by checking out the following playlist.

I noticed while making the playlist that a lot of the songs on it have to do with going back home in some way. Though many of you may physically be home right now, home also very much exists in the mind; hopefully these songs can bring you a little bit closer to it.

Why The Mainstream Media Should Interview Tara Reade

Although former Biden staffer Tara Reade’s allegations of sexual assault were first detailed in a podcast way back in late March, it was not until April 12 that they received mainstream coverage in the form of accounts written in the New York Timesand the Washington Post. Since then, many of the other major players in news media have followed suit in covering the issue, including the Associated Press, Politico, and the Atlantic.

From the amount of press they have received in the past few weeks, you would think that the allegations would be considered by most of the media to be a newsworthy event. Yet there are some glaring anomalies: with the exception of Fox News, none of the major news networks have picked up on the story to nearly the same extent. This is especially concerning given that the person being accused is the presumptive Democratic nominee; in addition, the recent #MeToo movement has arguably encouraged the mainstream media to be more thorough in its coverage of allegations against public figures, Brett Kavanaugh being a recent example. read more

Mulberry

your arms were
too short
to reach, so I
lifted you up

and you pinched
those blue-black orbs,
juice smearing
your fingers and
your striped shirt,

the stains of which
would fade
to gray
after a few washes
but not leave
completely