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  • Aching on the Periphery of Pain

    You and I are alive and thus we have not died. But have you ever been in pain? ♦ I was chatting with a friend by the bleachers when the shooting began at the high school athletic field where I recently found myself during a dream. The concrete area was spacious, but it was fenced…

  • Desensitized: Violence in the Media

    I was three years old on the morning of September 11, 2001. I have no memory of that day, a day the nation remembers as the most violent attack on the United States in its modern history. My parents told me of their experiences on that day and the weeks of shock and depression they…

  • A New Solution to a New Kind of Gang Violence

    On January 24, 2017, just four days after taking office, President Donald Trump tweeted, “if Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!” His rash instinct to resolve violence in Chicago with federal troops represents a dangerous misunderstanding…

  • Remember Flight 93

    On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda hijackers took control of four passenger planes to destroy buildings central to the United States, to harm its citizens, and to spread violence. The first two planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, flew into the twin towers in New York City. The third plane, American Airlines…

  • Translating Violence

    It was 7 p.m. I had just gotten off the phone with family. “Are you doing okay?” “Yeah. I’m fine.” “Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Sheng lu yi si zheng zai naoshi. 圣路易斯正在闹事” My mother was referencing the recent protests that had erupted in response to the St. Louis verdict, where the court…

  • The Rhetoric of Dehumanization

    On the evening of April 19, 2013, crowds in Boston cheered, waved American flags, and shouted, “USA! USA! We got him!” as Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taken into custody. Mayor Thomas M. Menino was recorded saying that he hoped the court system “throws the book at [Tsarnaev]” by giving him the harshest sentence…

  • Did the Confederacy Ever End?

    On July 30, 2017, April Reign posted a message onto Twitter that would reverberate throughout the night. She created a hashtag called #NoConfederate in response to HBO’s Game of Thrones creators plans to create a show called Confederate where the Confederacy triumphed in the American Civil War. Overnight, the hashtag became the second most popular…