Nearly five years after reading an essay by then 31-year old Brian Crooks, I still think about it frequently. Brian grew up in a suburb very similar to and not far from the town where we raised our three sons. Brian is smart. He plays a musical instrument. He likes …
A dozen towns are strung like worry beads along the Lake Michigan shoreline from Milwaukee to Chicago. Worry has been particularly palpable in three of those towns—Kenosha, Waukegan, and Evanston—this year. Violence erupted in Kenosha in August after police shot Jacob Blake during an arrest. Peaceful marchers in Waukegan have …
Freddie Gray, a 25-year old black man, died in April of 2015. His spine was severed while in police custody in Baltimore. Not long after, I read a column written by Chicago Tribune columnist, Clarence Page, in which he used the words Systemic Discrimination. I believe it was my first …
