Tag: Racism in America

It’s Happening Again

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on September 11, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments on It’s Happening Again

History happens in slow motion. We look back in time, and see events compressed into clearly demarcated eras. But in real time, history unfolds like the proverbial (and false) frog boiling in the pot: so slow you almost don’t notice. I’m not talking about frogs. I’m talking racism (again–why can’t I confine...

Get Ready: It’s WTF Time, Y’all

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 22, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 10 Comments on Get Ready: It’s WTF Time, Y’all

I want to tell you a story. The characters in this story came from many lands, but eventually their view of themselves sorted around one fact: they did not come from Africa. Or China…or anywhere “that just doesn’t look white.” I’m a character in this story, the starring role, in fact. Fair warning: I’m not the hero. The...

Do You Know Your Patterns of Racism?

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 7, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 18 Comments on Do You Know Your Patterns of Racism?

All the news about attacks on Asian Americans, I wanted to speak out. So I began writing a blog post, and soon enough, I took a hard turn and found myself re-hashing our national history of white racism toward Black folks, with some scant references to indentured Chinese. I wrote, and I revised, and somehow I couldn’t get it right. Then I...

If We Don’t Know about Racism, Maybe it’s Our Own Fault

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on January 24, 2021. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 4 Comments on If We Don’t Know about Racism, Maybe it’s Our Own Fault

The Public Defender broke the news: the DA was dismissing the charges against my friend. We were seated in his office, a small, square space with a desk and chair and not much else. I was there in my year-long wade through racism and incompetence in support of my friend. A white woman had claimed—three months after the fact—he had stolen her...

Malcolm X has died, and I am Full of Sorrow

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on December 16, 2020. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments on Malcolm X has died, and I am Full of Sorrow

Malcolm has died three times in my last four months. First, he died in Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Then he went silent at the end of The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told To Alex Haley. But his death in Les Payne’s The Dead are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X was the most difficult. In Les Payne’s...

When a White Woman Accuses a Black Man

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 5, 2020. Posted in General, GOD, HOMELESSNESS, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments on When a White Woman Accuses a Black Man

He was a writer, a man I’ll call Jonathan. Jonathan was in writing group with me one hour before he was accused of having snatched a purse from a woman on the street, a felony even though the purse had less than $10 in it. I told the investigators that Jonathan had just left writing group when this crime supposedly occurred; there was no...

#MLK50: The Beloved Community

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 4, 2018. Posted in LOVE, Racism to Reconciliation. 4 Comments on #MLK50: The Beloved Community

“It is impossible for white Americans to grasp the depths and dimensions of the Negro’s dilemma without understanding what it means to be a Negro in America. Of course it is not easy to perform this act of empathy. Putting oneself in another person’s place is always fraught with difficulties. Over and over again it is said...

#MLK50: A Hostile Land

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 3, 2018. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 5 Comments on #MLK50: A Hostile Land

In reading Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community, I was struck by Dr. King’s repeated point that, following the Civil War, the country released the formerly enslaved into the land of their oppressors. These men and women found themselves in the “territory of their enemies.” In their new life, they were financially...