Imagine a society where we had empathy for those with opposing views. Imagine a society where we read more and fought less.

For Piper, race was always a conscious affiliation, not an essentialist identity. […] Throughout all of this, Piper seems to have organically arrived at an understanding of race that aligns with its actual definition—a social construct rather than a biological fact.

My own mother died years ago, and, similar to Honor Moore’s experience, she left me her journals, letters, essays, and notebooks filled with quotations and existential pondering. Like Moore, it took me years to fully unpack the boxes, a decade slipping away before I gathered the courage to read it all front to back and try to make sense of my mother’s life.

The End of Policing took an old debate of the left—that the current policing system is systemically prejudiced and that it is up to communities, not police, to reconsider a more just system of public safety—and organized it into a comprehensive argument for mainstream America.

Despite some dapper pretension, there is a basic ridiculousness in "the person of letters" making the rounds on a game show, which, in theory, ought to be a real dignity-leech. Most of these authors seem amused to be on television, as if they can't believe that a network executive signed off on such a thing.

What helps us to endure amidst the pain and suffering and panic? I’m not sure. I’m sure it’s different for everyone. But maybe writing, for me, is a kind of prayer. Maybe art is a kind of prayer. Maybe walking. Maybe breathing. Maybe caring about something sacred to you, no matter how silly it seems to other people, is a kind of prayer. Or maybe I’m elevating something I love to give me an excuse to keep doing it.