This morning, I couldn’t wait to open the New York Times to find out how the Republican debate went with Donald Trump out of the picture. Who would shine in his absence? What was the general tenor? Cordial or bombastic? Dignified or scrappy? I don’t watch the debates on television. I don’t have cable and I doubt I have the stomach to watch for that long, but I love reading the recaps.
“Do we lean in, or blame society?” We don’t need a solution that addresses either/or. With many structural inequities, injustices, and cruelty, the answer is both/and. Do we feed the homeless, or advocate for a society that no longer produces so many homeless people? Do we protest the death of one young black man, or do we work to change the brutal policing system? Do we send the people in Flint bottled water, or do we fix the pipes? The answer to all of these is yes and yes.
I used to get a phone call every Monday morning. “I just wanted to let you know what’s being said,” the caller would begin, and my body would tense as if preparing to be punched. Then, I would get the rundown of every complaint that people had about me.
Here are Carol Howard Merritt's most-read posts of the year.