Yearly Archives: 2009

“How quiet can 1,000 people be?  When Valarie Kaur spoke at a noontime gathering November 10, the Minneapolis Convention Center was so silent that the only sound was that of the muted traffic from nearby 12th Street.  Kaur, the keynote speaker at It’s Time To Talk: Forums on Race, held the audience spellbound as she asked us to remember and experience again the feeling of being an outsider.  The seventh annual gathering was invigorating… Continue Reading

It is the morning of September 15th, eight years since the hate murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi. I sit with a candle in memory of Uncle Ji — and in honor of untold numbers of people whose names will never be read at Ground Zero, but whose lives were lost or damaged in the ongoing aftermath of terrorist attacks, whether in the name of hate or vengeance or security.

Please join me in… Continue Reading

Today, I stood at the front of a classroom and watched fifty squirming fourth and fifth graders enter single-file for their special presentation in North Kenwood/Oakwood Elementary School. As the teacher managed to seat them in perfect rows on the floor, my co-producer Sharat Raju leaned over and whispered, “These kids are young!”

He was right. They could not have been more than nine or ten years old. My mouth opened to give my usual… Continue Reading

Sharat and I stood in the bitter cold in a sea of people last week to witness our 44th President sworn into office. I could barely see the Capitol, but closing my eyes, I heard people around me whisper under their breaths “Thank you, Lord,” “Yes, Lord” and “Yes we did” through the prayers and the inaugural address, and I knew I was standing in the

… Continue Reading