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Category: American Society

  • How to Avoid the “Besieged Teacher” Trap

    By Robert L. Fried: To a new teacher, or a teacher with years of experience, the twenty-first-century classroom can seem overwhelming.  Along with the traditional challenges that teachers face—disobedient kids, unfriendly administrators, demanding parents, shortages of supplies, or feeling isolated in the classroom—there are so many new aspects to consider, so many new issues to…

  • Forty-Six Words That Changed Disability History

    By Lennard J. Davis | Trying to find a moment when the ADA began is like trying to find the source of the Nile or the Amazon. So many tributaries flow into the making of the ADA that you cannot say if any single stream is the true source. But you can say that at some point, like…

  • Only Black Deaths Matter: Our Nation’s Need for Pastoral Counseling

    By Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II This piece was originally delivered as a sermon and appeared previously in Sojourners. During my meditation on the messages being sent out from South Carolina this week, three scriptures came to me:  Jeremiah 31:15: This is what the LORD says: "A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great…

  • Atticus Is Always With Us: Reflection on Go Set a Watchman

    By Kay Whitlock This is the second part of the two-part discussion of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman begun on July 17 with Michael Bronski's blog piece. *** What is always at stake in a contest of imaginations is the question of whose lives matter. —Considering Hate: Violence, Goodness, and Justice in American Culture and Politics …

  • When the Young Don’t Always Speak the Truth

    By Michael Bronski This blog post is one of two about the publication of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman. To read part two, Kay Whitlock's follow-up on the conversation, click here. *** American readers love stories of political uplift and inspiration rather than forthright, bluntly honest accounts of unpalatable truths and realities. They especially love them when…

  • Socially Responsible Small Businesses Often Grow Very Large

    By Fran Hawthorne Image credit: Steve Rhodes | Flickr Organic ingredients can cost nearly twice as much as processed ones. The price of solar and wind energy has dropped but still remains far above coal, oil, and natural gas in most of the U.S. Small business owners are among the most vocal opponents of raising…

  • Two Disability Stories

    Today Beacon Press takes part in the international conversation highlighting stories of people with disabilities. In honor of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ADA, we present two disability stories: one from Terry Galloway, the other from Suzanne Kamata. *** Hearing's a Hoot by Terry Galloway   Image by Andreas Matern When I was deaf as…

  • The Biblical Roots of Racism

    By Karl Giberson Photo credit: Dave Bullock This blog appeared originally on Huffington Post Religion. The tragic shooting in South Carolina offers another painful reminder of American Christianity's troubled relationship with race and segregation. While it is true that most of the great abolitionists were inspired by their Christian faith, it is also true that…

  • Sick and Tired

    By Sharon Leslie Morgan In 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer “testified” before the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The highlight of her remarks was when she exclaimed “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!” In so doing, the impoverished Mississippi Delta sharecropper secured her place as a leading light in…

  • Did Burt’s Bees Become Clorox’s Bees?

    By Fran Hawthorne Image from Flickr user Mr. TinDC Ben. Jerry. Tom. Burt. They are icons of the ethical-shopping world, the patriarchs (there are no famous matriarchs) of the small crop of natural products that made the leap from the health food niche to supermarkets and chain drugstores in the last couple of decades: Ben…