The Faith and Character Program

8-19-04 After nearly a month in hopeful anticipation, “The Faith and Character Program/Dorm” adventure has officially begun!  The first meeting with Phase I, Group A with Counselor M. was for… More

Shame

Mama always took me with her to pick up her paycheck at the café on Wednesday afternoons. Sitting on a stool at the counter, sipping a chocolate shake, I… More

Arrests in America (Fuzzy Math)

Arrest by race, 2000 in AmericaTotal Arrests: 9,068,977Total Violent Crime Arrests: 414,420In the all arrest category:Whites were arrested in 6,324,006 cases, at 69.7%Blacks were arrested in 2,528,368 cases, at… More

Keep Out

There is an American tradition of responding to threats by confusing thoughts with acts and temporarily forgetting what Jefferson set down, in 1779, as one of the country’s founding… More

National Press Club Remarks

Listen to this event (1:18:16)PEN American Center is delighted to be sponsoring this event with the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, and the Association of American Publishers.… More

Burning From the Inside Out

Irish IndependentThere is a moment from the day after the World Trade Centre bombings that I still recall, though I have never written it down, nor told it to… More

Does It Work?

MIAMI—A few years ago, as I worked on a documentary film about torture survivors in exile from my native Haiti, I met a young woman who under questioning by… More

Are We Really So Fearful?

DURHAM, N.C.—It still haunts me, the first time—it was in Chile, in October of 1973—that I met someone who had been tortured. To save my life, I had sought… More

Places of the Heart

New York TimesIt took two years for me to be able walk to the end of my block and not feel a visceral shock each time I looked down… More