During an average week, more than 1,000 people come to The Progressive’s website to look at a single story: James Baldwin’s 1962 masterpiece, “A Letter to My Nephew.” This happens week after week, year after year. It is the most popular piece of writing we have ever published.
If you’ve ever read it, you know exactly why. If you haven’t, that’s an easy fix. “A Letter to My Nephew” is just a Google search away. Baldwin looks racism straight in the eye, without flinching, telling his namesake nephew, “You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason.” But what makes his essay great isn’t its analysis but its humanity. Baldwin’s goal is to advise his nephew on how to overcome.
“I am writing this letter to you to try to tell you something about how to handle them, for most of them do not yet really know that you exist,” Baldwin wrote.
A few months ago, unbidden, The Progressive received a manuscript from Ariel Felton, a writer and editor in Savannah, Georgia. It was titled “A Letter to My Niece” and loosely modeled on Baldwin’s essay. The most significant common thread is that both essays are infused with decency and compassion, inspired by a desire to help a loved one withstand the oppression of racism. Felton writes: “The goals I chase now are for me, not for someone else’s approval. I’m not asking who I should be to make others happy or at least comfortable in my skin; I just am.”
Both essays are infused with decency and compassion, inspired by a desire to help a loved one withstand the oppression of racism.
The Progressive is proud to present Felton’s “A Letter to My Niece” in this issue, among several pieces that likewise address what it means to be “The Other” in the modern-day USA.
Imani Perry ponders how her late grandmother might have reacted to the presidency of Donald Trump, and concludes, surprisingly, that she might not have been all that surprised: “We are in a time warp, where past and present structures of racism collide. New good things happen, old tragedies return. It is dizzying, beating back the past, deconstructing the present, finding hopes dashed, and battles won . . . .”
Wajahat Ali reflects on being a Muslim of Pakistani descent, and all that has come to mean in the wake of 9/11: “Our value as citizens and community members remains defined within a national security framework. We are good if we’re helping fight terrorism and bad if we’re not.”
Laurie Zimmerman, a rabbi in Wisconsin, explores the resurgence of anti-Semitism as well as the misuse of this label to attack those who dare to criticize Israel. Chase Strangio, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, mulls the experience of being trans, while also white and masculine. And longtime contributor Mark Anthony Rolo ponders what it means to be an American Indian. Hint: It’s not just DNA.
Also on this theme, we have some musings of other activists; an interview with historian Ibram X. Kendi, the author of Stamped from the Beginning, a great book on racism in America; an “On the Line” photo essay by Jake Naughton on his queer relationship; and an excerpt from an upcoming book by Irshad Manji, fittingly titled Don’t Label Me.
Other stories in this issue—the first since The Progressive reached the ripe old age of 110, which we are also celebrating with some changes in the magazine’s design—include an in-depth report by Brendan Oswald and Sergiy Rachinsky on what former Trump campaign manager Paul “The Colluder” Manafort was actually doing in Ukraine in exchange for all of those millions. It wasn’t just helping a despot seize power.
Sarah Lahm shows how the proliferation of charter schools upends neighborhood dynamics in St. Paul, Minnesota, the birthplace of charters. And Steven Potter reports on how communities across the nation are under growing pressure to privatize the essential service of providing emergency medical transportation.
We hope you will find value in these offerings and share your copy of The Progressive with those you think may want to start getting their own. (That’s what those insert cards are for.) Please help us spread the word about the good work The Progressive is doing, in print and online.
Most of all, we hope you are inspired, as we are, by the commitment of the wonderful writers in this issue to James Baldwin’s goal, to “make America what America must become.”