Just knowing that Tim McGraw, with his Louisiana roots and country music stardom, is reading about Ida Mae, Robert and George….. This brings joy to my soul. Thank you for holding my firstborn book in your arms and in your heart. Repost from @thetimmcgraw: Finally reading @isabelwilkerson’s first book, The Warmth of Other Suns. Such a rich historical piece and inspiring message!! What’s on your summer reading list…. #thewarmthofothersuns #timmcgraw #history
246 years. Nearly two and a half centuries. That is how long slavery lasted in what is now the United States of America. Today, we commemorate Juneteenth, the day in June 1865 — two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and two months after the Civil War ended — that the last enslaved African-Americans were finally free. This is a day of celebration, of memory and of sober reflection. A time to remember that slavery was not merely a sad, dark chapter in our country’s history, but the foundation of the country’s social, political and economic order, and that it lasted for nearly a quarter of a millennium. Here, survivors of slavery steadfastly observe Juneteenth in their hats, canes and bonnets in Austin, TX, 1900. In the early years, the newly freed people and their descendants took pains to dress up for Juneteenth, as laws had forbidden slaves from dressing “above their station,” above their caste. In honor of the last of African-Americans to finally be set free from chattel slavery…. #juneteenth #freedomday
Stunned, floored and honored beyond belief that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chose to cite The Warmth of Other Suns in her brilliant and seminal dissent to the earth-shattering decision to end affirmative action. In building her case for how African-Americans were legally excluded from every sphere of American life during the quarter-millennium of slavery and the near-century of Jim Crow, Justice Jackson turned to the work of scholars W.E.B. Dubois, Eric Foner, Richard Rothstein, Ira Katznelson, Mehrsa Baradaran and yours truly to document the continuing harm to a people who were enslaved for far longer than they have been free and were only legally permitted into the mainstream a few generations ago, within the lifetime of millions of people alive today. Humbling and awe-inspiring to see this work entered for all time into the history of the Supreme Court and into the record of American jurisprudence. Eternally grateful. #supremecourt #thewarmthofothersuns #affirmativeaction
Stunned, floored and honored beyond belief that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chose to cite The Warmth of Other Suns in her brilliant and seminal dissent to the earth-shattering decision to end affirmative action. In building her case for how African-Americans were legally excluded from every sphere of American life during the quarter-millennium of slavery and the near-century of Jim Crow, Justice Jackson turned to the work of scholars W.E.B. Dubois, Eric Foner, Richard Rothstein, Ira Katznelson, Mehrsa Baradaran and yours truly to document the continuing harm to a people who were enslaved for far longer than they have been free and were only legally permitted into the mainstream a few generations ago, within the lifetime of millions of people alive today. Humbling and awe-inspiring to see this work entered for all time into the history of the Supreme Court and into the record of American jurisprudence. Eternally grateful. #supremecourt #thewarmthofothersuns #affirmativeaction
Stunned, floored and honored beyond belief that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chose to cite The Warmth of Other Suns in her brilliant and seminal dissent to the earth-shattering decision to end affirmative action. In building her case for how African-Americans were legally excluded from every sphere of American life during the quarter-millennium of slavery and the near-century of Jim Crow, Justice Jackson turned to the work of scholars W.E.B. Dubois, Eric Foner, Richard Rothstein, Ira Katznelson, Mehrsa Baradaran and yours truly to document the continuing harm to a people who were enslaved for far longer than they have been free and were only legally permitted into the mainstream a few generations ago, within the lifetime of millions of people alive today. Humbling and awe-inspiring to see this work entered for all time into the history of the Supreme Court and into the record of American jurisprudence. Eternally grateful. #supremecourt #thewarmthofothersuns #affirmativeaction
Stunned, floored and honored beyond belief that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chose to cite The Warmth of Other Suns in her brilliant and seminal dissent to the earth-shattering decision to end affirmative action. In building her case for how African-Americans were legally excluded from every sphere of American life during the quarter-millennium of slavery and the near-century of Jim Crow, Justice Jackson turned to the work of scholars W.E.B. Dubois, Eric Foner, Richard Rothstein, Ira Katznelson, Mehrsa Baradaran and yours truly to document the continuing harm to a people who were enslaved for far longer than they have been free and were only legally permitted into the mainstream a few generations ago, within the lifetime of millions of people alive today. Humbling and awe-inspiring to see this work entered for all time into the history of the Supreme Court and into the record of American jurisprudence. Eternally grateful. #supremecourt #thewarmthofothersuns #affirmativeaction
Stunned, floored and honored beyond belief that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chose to cite The Warmth of Other Suns in her brilliant and seminal dissent to the earth-shattering decision to end affirmative action. In building her case for how African-Americans were legally excluded from every sphere of American life during the quarter-millennium of slavery and the near-century of Jim Crow, Justice Jackson turned to the work of scholars W.E.B. Dubois, Eric Foner, Richard Rothstein, Ira Katznelson, Mehrsa Baradaran and yours truly to document the continuing harm to a people who were enslaved for far longer than they have been free and were only legally permitted into the mainstream a few generations ago, within the lifetime of millions of people alive today. Humbling and awe-inspiring to see this work entered for all time into the history of the Supreme Court and into the record of American jurisprudence. Eternally grateful. #supremecourt #thewarmthofothersuns #affirmativeaction
Stunned, floored and honored beyond belief that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chose to cite The Warmth of Other Suns in her brilliant and seminal dissent to the earth-shattering decision to end affirmative action. In building her case for how African-Americans were legally excluded from every sphere of American life during the quarter-millennium of slavery and the near-century of Jim Crow, Justice Jackson turned to the work of scholars W.E.B. Dubois, Eric Foner, Richard Rothstein, Ira Katznelson, Mehrsa Baradaran and yours truly to document the continuing harm to a people who were enslaved for far longer than they have been free and were only legally permitted into the mainstream a few generations ago, within the lifetime of millions of people alive today. Humbling and awe-inspiring to see this work entered for all time into the history of the Supreme Court and into the record of American jurisprudence. Eternally grateful. #supremecourt #thewarmthofothersuns #affirmativeaction
Stunned, floored and honored beyond belief that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chose to cite The Warmth of Other Suns in her brilliant and seminal dissent to the earth-shattering decision to end affirmative action. In building her case for how African-Americans were legally excluded from every sphere of American life during the quarter-millennium of slavery and the near-century of Jim Crow, Justice Jackson turned to the work of scholars W.E.B. Dubois, Eric Foner, Richard Rothstein, Ira Katznelson, Mehrsa Baradaran and yours truly to document the continuing harm to a people who were enslaved for far longer than they have been free and were only legally permitted into the mainstream a few generations ago, within the lifetime of millions of people alive today. Humbling and awe-inspiring to see this work entered for all time into the history of the Supreme Court and into the record of American jurisprudence. Eternally grateful. #supremecourt #thewarmthofothersuns #affirmativeaction
The time that the legend-goddess-queen Tina Turner took “60 Minutes” on a tour of her villa in France, and correspondent Mike Wallace actually asked her, “You feel like you deserve all of this?” Even at the height of her fame, caste tried to put her in her place. She did not skip a beat. Her response is everything….. She was everything. It is so hard to imagine her not being in this world. Thank you, Tina Turner, for showing humanity how to survive anything and to come out on the other side more powerful and more glorious than ever. 🕊️ #tinaturner #youresimplythebest
No sooner had we begun to reconcile the one-year anniversary of the end of Roe v. Wade than the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action — a major route to education for the only people in this country legally prohibited from learning to read and write during the quarter millennium of enslavement, followed by nearly a century of intentionally inferior schools during Jim Crow. Both rulings uphold the centuries-old caste system by (1) all but ensuring a higher birth rate at a time of a decreasing population among White Americans and (2) making it harder for marginalized Black and Latino Americans to improve their lot through a college education. This decision on affirmative action reinforces a major pillar of caste — the presumed roles and occupations considered preordained by the original racial hierarchy: It specifically prohibits affirmative action in college admissions, except at institutions that prepare citizens for the military, reinforcing the long history of Black people seen as fit to be soldiers rather scholars and surgeons. As Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent, “The Court has come to rest on the bottom-line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom (a particularly awkward place to land, in light of the history the majority opts to ignore).” The ruling further magnifies racial caste divisions by distinctly targeting race rather than gender or other attributes, while remaining silent on, and thus preserving, affirmative action for white women, whom multiple studies have shown have been the prime beneficiaries, in part due to their numbers and their proximity to those in power. This decision tragically feeds into the destructive perception of manufactured scarcity that pits groups against one another and which a caste system depends upon to survive, hurting all of us in society as a whole. #caste #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #affirmativeaction #supremecourt
No sooner had we begun to reconcile the one-year anniversary of the end of Roe v. Wade than the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action — a major route to education for the only people in this country legally prohibited from learning to read and write during the quarter millennium of enslavement, followed by nearly a century of intentionally inferior schools during Jim Crow. Both rulings uphold the centuries-old caste system by (1) all but ensuring a higher birth rate at a time of a decreasing population among White Americans and (2) making it harder for marginalized Black and Latino Americans to improve their lot through a college education. This decision on affirmative action reinforces a major pillar of caste — the presumed roles and occupations considered preordained by the original racial hierarchy: It specifically prohibits affirmative action in college admissions, except at institutions that prepare citizens for the military, reinforcing the long history of Black people seen as fit to be soldiers rather scholars and surgeons. As Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent, “The Court has come to rest on the bottom-line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom (a particularly awkward place to land, in light of the history the majority opts to ignore).” The ruling further magnifies racial caste divisions by distinctly targeting race rather than gender or other attributes, while remaining silent on, and thus preserving, affirmative action for white women, whom multiple studies have shown have been the prime beneficiaries, in part due to their numbers and their proximity to those in power. This decision tragically feeds into the destructive perception of manufactured scarcity that pits groups against one another and which a caste system depends upon to survive, hurting all of us in society as a whole. #caste #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #affirmativeaction #supremecourt
No sooner had we begun to reconcile the one-year anniversary of the end of Roe v. Wade than the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action — a major route to education for the only people in this country legally prohibited from learning to read and write during the quarter millennium of enslavement, followed by nearly a century of intentionally inferior schools during Jim Crow. Both rulings uphold the centuries-old caste system by (1) all but ensuring a higher birth rate at a time of a decreasing population among White Americans and (2) making it harder for marginalized Black and Latino Americans to improve their lot through a college education. This decision on affirmative action reinforces a major pillar of caste — the presumed roles and occupations considered preordained by the original racial hierarchy: It specifically prohibits affirmative action in college admissions, except at institutions that prepare citizens for the military, reinforcing the long history of Black people seen as fit to be soldiers rather scholars and surgeons. As Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent, “The Court has come to rest on the bottom-line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom (a particularly awkward place to land, in light of the history the majority opts to ignore).” The ruling further magnifies racial caste divisions by distinctly targeting race rather than gender or other attributes, while remaining silent on, and thus preserving, affirmative action for white women, whom multiple studies have shown have been the prime beneficiaries, in part due to their numbers and their proximity to those in power. This decision tragically feeds into the destructive perception of manufactured scarcity that pits groups against one another and which a caste system depends upon to survive, hurting all of us in society as a whole. #caste #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #affirmativeaction #supremecourt
No sooner had we begun to reconcile the one-year anniversary of the end of Roe v. Wade than the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action — a major route to education for the only people in this country legally prohibited from learning to read and write during the quarter millennium of enslavement, followed by nearly a century of intentionally inferior schools during Jim Crow. Both rulings uphold the centuries-old caste system by (1) all but ensuring a higher birth rate at a time of a decreasing population among White Americans and (2) making it harder for marginalized Black and Latino Americans to improve their lot through a college education. This decision on affirmative action reinforces a major pillar of caste — the presumed roles and occupations considered preordained by the original racial hierarchy: It specifically prohibits affirmative action in college admissions, except at institutions that prepare citizens for the military, reinforcing the long history of Black people seen as fit to be soldiers rather scholars and surgeons. As Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent, “The Court has come to rest on the bottom-line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom (a particularly awkward place to land, in light of the history the majority opts to ignore).” The ruling further magnifies racial caste divisions by distinctly targeting race rather than gender or other attributes, while remaining silent on, and thus preserving, affirmative action for white women, whom multiple studies have shown have been the prime beneficiaries, in part due to their numbers and their proximity to those in power. This decision tragically feeds into the destructive perception of manufactured scarcity that pits groups against one another and which a caste system depends upon to survive, hurting all of us in society as a whole. #caste #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #affirmativeaction #supremecourt
No sooner had we begun to reconcile the one-year anniversary of the end of Roe v. Wade than the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action — a major route to education for the only people in this country legally prohibited from learning to read and write during the quarter millennium of enslavement, followed by nearly a century of intentionally inferior schools during Jim Crow. Both rulings uphold the centuries-old caste system by (1) all but ensuring a higher birth rate at a time of a decreasing population among White Americans and (2) making it harder for marginalized Black and Latino Americans to improve their lot through a college education. This decision on affirmative action reinforces a major pillar of caste — the presumed roles and occupations considered preordained by the original racial hierarchy: It specifically prohibits affirmative action in college admissions, except at institutions that prepare citizens for the military, reinforcing the long history of Black people seen as fit to be soldiers rather scholars and surgeons. As Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent, “The Court has come to rest on the bottom-line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom (a particularly awkward place to land, in light of the history the majority opts to ignore).” The ruling further magnifies racial caste divisions by distinctly targeting race rather than gender or other attributes, while remaining silent on, and thus preserving, affirmative action for white women, whom multiple studies have shown have been the prime beneficiaries, in part due to their numbers and their proximity to those in power. This decision tragically feeds into the destructive perception of manufactured scarcity that pits groups against one another and which a caste system depends upon to survive, hurting all of us in society as a whole. #caste #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #affirmativeaction #supremecourt
A thrill to deliver the commencement address on the idyllic campus of Occidental College (where a young undergraduate named Barack Obama once studied), and then to make The Guardian’s list of the best graduation speeches of the year, along with Oprah (Tennessee State), Tom Hanks (Harvard) and other luminaries. That joyous day, I was stunned when graduates broke into spontaneous applause at the very mention of “The Warmth of Other Suns” during Professor Erica Ball’s formal introduction of me, as shown in photo 3. She teaches a course about the Great Migration, and told me that students so love Warmth that it brings them to tears of human connection. To beloved fans of the book who say over and over again that it needs to be taught in the schools…. it thankfully is, and this is the heartwarming result. The Class of 2023 was still recovering from the unimaginable disruption of their college lives. They were suddenly scattered and isolated their freshman year in the early days of the pandemic and didn’t return to campus for another year and a half. For all that they had been through, I told them, as I began my address, “You deserve this day to celebrate all that you have sacrificed, and all that you have accomplished.” I asked them to give themselves a hand, and, giddily, they did. I urged everyone to connect to our country’s true history, and so, at one point, as shown in photo 1, I asked people to raise their hand if they knew anyone born before 1965. Nearly every hand went up, with laughter and nods of recognition, at which point I said, “Then you know someone born before our country became a true democracy.” That was the year of the Voting Rights Act. This is not ancient history. It’s living history. And it is time we learn from it. Deepest gratitude to President Harry Elam and to Occidental College for the honorary degree, for the standing ovations, and for the love. And grateful to The Guardian for the honor of their recognition. #commencement #occidentalcollege #isabelwilkerson #thewarmthofothersuns
A thrill to deliver the commencement address on the idyllic campus of Occidental College (where a young undergraduate named Barack Obama once studied), and then to make The Guardian’s list of the best graduation speeches of the year, along with Oprah (Tennessee State), Tom Hanks (Harvard) and other luminaries. That joyous day, I was stunned when graduates broke into spontaneous applause at the very mention of “The Warmth of Other Suns” during Professor Erica Ball’s formal introduction of me, as shown in photo 3. She teaches a course about the Great Migration, and told me that students so love Warmth that it brings them to tears of human connection. To beloved fans of the book who say over and over again that it needs to be taught in the schools…. it thankfully is, and this is the heartwarming result. The Class of 2023 was still recovering from the unimaginable disruption of their college lives. They were suddenly scattered and isolated their freshman year in the early days of the pandemic and didn’t return to campus for another year and a half. For all that they had been through, I told them, as I began my address, “You deserve this day to celebrate all that you have sacrificed, and all that you have accomplished.” I asked them to give themselves a hand, and, giddily, they did. I urged everyone to connect to our country’s true history, and so, at one point, as shown in photo 1, I asked people to raise their hand if they knew anyone born before 1965. Nearly every hand went up, with laughter and nods of recognition, at which point I said, “Then you know someone born before our country became a true democracy.” That was the year of the Voting Rights Act. This is not ancient history. It’s living history. And it is time we learn from it. Deepest gratitude to President Harry Elam and to Occidental College for the honorary degree, for the standing ovations, and for the love. And grateful to The Guardian for the honor of their recognition. #commencement #occidentalcollege #isabelwilkerson #thewarmthofothersuns
A thrill to deliver the commencement address on the idyllic campus of Occidental College (where a young undergraduate named Barack Obama once studied), and then to make The Guardian’s list of the best graduation speeches of the year, along with Oprah (Tennessee State), Tom Hanks (Harvard) and other luminaries. That joyous day, I was stunned when graduates broke into spontaneous applause at the very mention of “The Warmth of Other Suns” during Professor Erica Ball’s formal introduction of me, as shown in photo 3. She teaches a course about the Great Migration, and told me that students so love Warmth that it brings them to tears of human connection. To beloved fans of the book who say over and over again that it needs to be taught in the schools…. it thankfully is, and this is the heartwarming result. The Class of 2023 was still recovering from the unimaginable disruption of their college lives. They were suddenly scattered and isolated their freshman year in the early days of the pandemic and didn’t return to campus for another year and a half. For all that they had been through, I told them, as I began my address, “You deserve this day to celebrate all that you have sacrificed, and all that you have accomplished.” I asked them to give themselves a hand, and, giddily, they did. I urged everyone to connect to our country’s true history, and so, at one point, as shown in photo 1, I asked people to raise their hand if they knew anyone born before 1965. Nearly every hand went up, with laughter and nods of recognition, at which point I said, “Then you know someone born before our country became a true democracy.” That was the year of the Voting Rights Act. This is not ancient history. It’s living history. And it is time we learn from it. Deepest gratitude to President Harry Elam and to Occidental College for the honorary degree, for the standing ovations, and for the love. And grateful to The Guardian for the honor of their recognition. #commencement #occidentalcollege #isabelwilkerson #thewarmthofothersuns
A thrill to deliver the commencement address on the idyllic campus of Occidental College (where a young undergraduate named Barack Obama once studied), and then to make The Guardian’s list of the best graduation speeches of the year, along with Oprah (Tennessee State), Tom Hanks (Harvard) and other luminaries. That joyous day, I was stunned when graduates broke into spontaneous applause at the very mention of “The Warmth of Other Suns” during Professor Erica Ball’s formal introduction of me, as shown in photo 3. She teaches a course about the Great Migration, and told me that students so love Warmth that it brings them to tears of human connection. To beloved fans of the book who say over and over again that it needs to be taught in the schools…. it thankfully is, and this is the heartwarming result. The Class of 2023 was still recovering from the unimaginable disruption of their college lives. They were suddenly scattered and isolated their freshman year in the early days of the pandemic and didn’t return to campus for another year and a half. For all that they had been through, I told them, as I began my address, “You deserve this day to celebrate all that you have sacrificed, and all that you have accomplished.” I asked them to give themselves a hand, and, giddily, they did. I urged everyone to connect to our country’s true history, and so, at one point, as shown in photo 1, I asked people to raise their hand if they knew anyone born before 1965. Nearly every hand went up, with laughter and nods of recognition, at which point I said, “Then you know someone born before our country became a true democracy.” That was the year of the Voting Rights Act. This is not ancient history. It’s living history. And it is time we learn from it. Deepest gratitude to President Harry Elam and to Occidental College for the honorary degree, for the standing ovations, and for the love. And grateful to The Guardian for the honor of their recognition. #commencement #occidentalcollege #isabelwilkerson #thewarmthofothersuns
A thrill to deliver the commencement address on the idyllic campus of Occidental College (where a young undergraduate named Barack Obama once studied), and then to make The Guardian’s list of the best graduation speeches of the year, along with Oprah (Tennessee State), Tom Hanks (Harvard) and other luminaries. That joyous day, I was stunned when graduates broke into spontaneous applause at the very mention of “The Warmth of Other Suns” during Professor Erica Ball’s formal introduction of me, as shown in photo 3. She teaches a course about the Great Migration, and told me that students so love Warmth that it brings them to tears of human connection. To beloved fans of the book who say over and over again that it needs to be taught in the schools…. it thankfully is, and this is the heartwarming result. The Class of 2023 was still recovering from the unimaginable disruption of their college lives. They were suddenly scattered and isolated their freshman year in the early days of the pandemic and didn’t return to campus for another year and a half. For all that they had been through, I told them, as I began my address, “You deserve this day to celebrate all that you have sacrificed, and all that you have accomplished.” I asked them to give themselves a hand, and, giddily, they did. I urged everyone to connect to our country’s true history, and so, at one point, as shown in photo 1, I asked people to raise their hand if they knew anyone born before 1965. Nearly every hand went up, with laughter and nods of recognition, at which point I said, “Then you know someone born before our country became a true democracy.” That was the year of the Voting Rights Act. This is not ancient history. It’s living history. And it is time we learn from it. Deepest gratitude to President Harry Elam and to Occidental College for the honorary degree, for the standing ovations, and for the love. And grateful to The Guardian for the honor of their recognition. #commencement #occidentalcollege #isabelwilkerson #thewarmthofothersuns
A thrill to deliver the commencement address on the idyllic campus of Occidental College (where a young undergraduate named Barack Obama once studied), and then to make The Guardian’s list of the best graduation speeches of the year, along with Oprah (Tennessee State), Tom Hanks (Harvard) and other luminaries. That joyous day, I was stunned when graduates broke into spontaneous applause at the very mention of “The Warmth of Other Suns” during Professor Erica Ball’s formal introduction of me, as shown in photo 3. She teaches a course about the Great Migration, and told me that students so love Warmth that it brings them to tears of human connection. To beloved fans of the book who say over and over again that it needs to be taught in the schools…. it thankfully is, and this is the heartwarming result. The Class of 2023 was still recovering from the unimaginable disruption of their college lives. They were suddenly scattered and isolated their freshman year in the early days of the pandemic and didn’t return to campus for another year and a half. For all that they had been through, I told them, as I began my address, “You deserve this day to celebrate all that you have sacrificed, and all that you have accomplished.” I asked them to give themselves a hand, and, giddily, they did. I urged everyone to connect to our country’s true history, and so, at one point, as shown in photo 1, I asked people to raise their hand if they knew anyone born before 1965. Nearly every hand went up, with laughter and nods of recognition, at which point I said, “Then you know someone born before our country became a true democracy.” That was the year of the Voting Rights Act. This is not ancient history. It’s living history. And it is time we learn from it. Deepest gratitude to President Harry Elam and to Occidental College for the honorary degree, for the standing ovations, and for the love. And grateful to The Guardian for the honor of their recognition. #commencement #occidentalcollege #isabelwilkerson #thewarmthofothersuns
A thrill to deliver the commencement address on the idyllic campus of Occidental College (where a young undergraduate named Barack Obama once studied), and then to make The Guardian’s list of the best graduation speeches of the year, along with Oprah (Tennessee State), Tom Hanks (Harvard) and other luminaries. That joyous day, I was stunned when graduates broke into spontaneous applause at the very mention of “The Warmth of Other Suns” during Professor Erica Ball’s formal introduction of me, as shown in photo 3. She teaches a course about the Great Migration, and told me that students so love Warmth that it brings them to tears of human connection. To beloved fans of the book who say over and over again that it needs to be taught in the schools…. it thankfully is, and this is the heartwarming result. The Class of 2023 was still recovering from the unimaginable disruption of their college lives. They were suddenly scattered and isolated their freshman year in the early days of the pandemic and didn’t return to campus for another year and a half. For all that they had been through, I told them, as I began my address, “You deserve this day to celebrate all that you have sacrificed, and all that you have accomplished.” I asked them to give themselves a hand, and, giddily, they did. I urged everyone to connect to our country’s true history, and so, at one point, as shown in photo 1, I asked people to raise their hand if they knew anyone born before 1965. Nearly every hand went up, with laughter and nods of recognition, at which point I said, “Then you know someone born before our country became a true democracy.” That was the year of the Voting Rights Act. This is not ancient history. It’s living history. And it is time we learn from it. Deepest gratitude to President Harry Elam and to Occidental College for the honorary degree, for the standing ovations, and for the love. And grateful to The Guardian for the honor of their recognition. #commencement #occidentalcollege #isabelwilkerson #thewarmthofothersuns
The hatreds wrought by our false divisions are endangering our planet and the species, and that is why I wrote Caste. The passage above (slides 3 & 4), about anthrax resurfacing in the Siberian tundra in the heatwave of 2016, presages our current crisis and is a section that readers most often highlight, according to Goodreads. Before I had written a single word, I knew that the story of the melting of the Russian permafrost would be the opening. I heard a news brief that summer, just a line or two, that a record heatwave had exposed anthrax that had lain dormant since World War II and was sickening people in Siberia. It sounded otherworldly to me. I instantly saw it as an allegory for the resurgence of hatreds and hostilities in the US election that year and the dangers facing humanity and the planet. I had to research the geology of a part of Russia I hadn’t known existed, the mechanisms of anthrax, the symptoms of exposure, the effects on the local people, had to track down accounts of relocating the villagers and disposal of the pathogen. All of this just for a few paragraphs in a single chapter. The anthrax story was central to the mission of the book, of awakening us to what we otherwise might not see. And here we are, years later, seemingly having learned nothing. ——— Repost from @guardian “The air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable. Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy, no more excuses, no more waiting for others to move first. There is simply no more time for that.” These are the words of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, after scientists confirmed July was on track to be the world’s hottest month on record. “Humanity is in the hot seat,” Guterres told a press conference on Thursday. “For the entire planet, it is a disaster….The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.” #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #climatechange
The hatreds wrought by our false divisions are endangering our planet and the species, and that is why I wrote Caste. The passage above (slides 3 & 4), about anthrax resurfacing in the Siberian tundra in the heatwave of 2016, presages our current crisis and is a section that readers most often highlight, according to Goodreads. Before I had written a single word, I knew that the story of the melting of the Russian permafrost would be the opening. I heard a news brief that summer, just a line or two, that a record heatwave had exposed anthrax that had lain dormant since World War II and was sickening people in Siberia. It sounded otherworldly to me. I instantly saw it as an allegory for the resurgence of hatreds and hostilities in the US election that year and the dangers facing humanity and the planet. I had to research the geology of a part of Russia I hadn’t known existed, the mechanisms of anthrax, the symptoms of exposure, the effects on the local people, had to track down accounts of relocating the villagers and disposal of the pathogen. All of this just for a few paragraphs in a single chapter. The anthrax story was central to the mission of the book, of awakening us to what we otherwise might not see. And here we are, years later, seemingly having learned nothing. ——— Repost from @guardian “The air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable. Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy, no more excuses, no more waiting for others to move first. There is simply no more time for that.” These are the words of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, after scientists confirmed July was on track to be the world’s hottest month on record. “Humanity is in the hot seat,” Guterres told a press conference on Thursday. “For the entire planet, it is a disaster….The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.” #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #climatechange