White Lies

Ijeoma Oluo On Privilege, Power, And Race

White supremacy is not just Nazis marching in the street. In the U.S. it’s always been a part of the economic and social system.

Notes On Surrender

Over and over I have discovered that my children feel alienated in environments where, at their age, I felt an automatic sense of belonging.

The Ghost Of A Boy

You can belong to yourself, but it’s lonely, and you can belong to others, but there’s loss built into that, in uncountable forms.

The Other, Invented Man

For many years — the majority of my life, in fact — acknowledging death’s inevitability exerted little psychological pressure on me. I had no fear of passing, as they say, from this world into the next, or, assuming no next world exists, simply entering oblivion.

On Becoming A Cat

Please understand: the external metamorphosis comes only at the very end, after a long, sustained effort. There is a lot of inner work you have to do before then. Also there is luck involved.

Stories We Keep To Ourselves

They gather in lodges, these unflinching, / gray-haired men in caps with unit insignias. / The meat loaf and gravy on styrofoam goes / mostly untouched.

Selected Poems

— from “In The Beautiful Rain” | Hearing that old phrase “a good death,” / which I still don’t exactly understand, / I’ve decided I’ve already / had so many, I don’t need another.