All in To The Editor
NO MORE we say, NO MORE, speaking as Planetarians not just Americans, thrusting feet from our necks with a roar of NO MORE in a bloody rebirth of a possibility for America to at last become the dream awakened, to finally remove the foot from its collective, administrative, racist neck.
I am writing this in response to the letter in the July 10 Swarthmorean entitled “Happy birthday, America.” It could be useful to parse the entire letter, but in the interest of brevity I skip to the last two paragraphs in which Thomas Jefferson is quoted: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” Mr. Smith holds these words up with the hope that we will determine if they mean what “we hope Jefferson meant them to mean.” The problem is that we know perfectly well what Jefferson meant by those words. He meant whites, specifically white males.
In all honesty, I haven’t always been a consistent Co-op shopper. I used to go from one store for bulk items, to another for meat and produce, and yet another for specialty. Recently, that has changed. I have come to truly appreciate what it means to have the Co-op in our community.
Many of us have participated recently in vigils or marches to protest police brutality and larger structures of systemic racism designed to oppress and exploit Black citizens of our country. Many of us are also wondering what to do in practical terms to begin dismantling these structures of injustice. I think we also need a public, communal response in order to begin trying to redress a very public and communal wrong.
As a lifelong Christian, I read the letter from the Interfaith Council of Southern Delaware County (ICSDC) in the June 5 edition with hope and fear. I hoped that the strong letter would be followed by strong, public actions confronting the vile doctrine of white supremacy. I feared that the actions would be pusillanimous.
I’m grateful that I live in a community in which the overwhelming majority recognizes the value of education for our children and society. As an educator, I am desperately hopeful that I will be able to teach classes face to face this coming fall, for as many of my students as are able to be there.
I struggle to understand the spectacle of maskless, non-social-distancing hordes on beaches, and at gatherings in bars and other public spaces. The sight fills me with dread. I don’t expect the courtesy of a thanks, or an acknowledgment of my existence; but feeling invisible in this age of COVID-19 is disconcerting.
Swarthmore’s Favorite Tree candidates failed to include the weeping fernleaf beech on Harvard Avenue at the entrance to Morgan Circle. This is one of two remaining such specimens from the four once locally extant. (The other is on Columbia Avenue near Cresson.)
“Happy birthday, America.” Those words are fresh in my mouth and my mind. This is my 77th Independence Day, and it is definitely the strangest.
From early March until late June, we did not step foot into a grocery store. Due to the selfless volunteers and hard-working staff at the Swarthmore Co-op, our family took advantage of the curbside pick-up option on a weekly basis.
Delaware County has become the first (and so far the only) county in the Philadelphia region to disburse their small business funding to nonprofits as well as for-profits. The council last week created the Delco Strong 2 Non-Profit Fund with an initial $4 million, recognizing that nonprofits don’t just provide valuable services, but are also employers, with many small businesses depending on them for their livelihoods. We need them to survive the pandemic and economic downturn if we are to fully recover.
I was a little bit surprised, but charmed, to read that Ben Yagoda’s house was still called the “Anderson House” for at least 15 years after they moved in. I am a member of that Anderson family.
On Juneteenth at 7 a.m., the Wallingford-Swarthmore Sunrise hub executed a banner drop over the bridge on Chester Road over I-476. June 19, also known as Juneteenth, is the day on which enslaved people in Texas were finally granted freedom — two and a half years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The banner read “Say Their Names” and listed the names of recent Black victims of racially motivated police brutality and violence.
Friends, I just came into the house after an unexpected adventure in front of our favorite hardware store. After I finished my business and got back into the car, I removed my mask, moved to close the door, and out fell my hearing aid! Anxious to retrieve that expensive piece, I crawled around looking under my seat and under the car and the neighboring car in case it had bounced. What has moved me is the gracious, generous intervention of four or five of our community members, also down on their knees and/or bellies, hunting for the device, completely sympathetic and intent.
Andrea, we thank you for your steady hand during uncertain times. For your leadership, for your example, and for instilling confidence in us as professionals at a time when all of our jobs, roles, and expectations were upended without warning. We thank you for working without stopping, with no desire to be in the spotlight. As we move into new uncertainties of next year, we thank you for keeping us afloat and together, feeling supported and heard.
Donald Trump’s character failings will likely extinguish his chance to be re-elected. But those failings have extinguished the lives of thousands of Americans.
In a recent survey of more than 900 young adults, conducted by some of my colleagues at the University of Missouri’s Center for Body Image Research and Policy, 40% said they would rather contract COVID-19 than gain 25 pounds while social distancing. This finding saddens me for many reasons, most of all because of the light it sheds on how deeply entrenched many people’s concerns about eating are. But it’s also possible to use the opportunity of being stuck at home — many of us with our families — to develop a more positive relationship with food.
Steve Ushioda recently unearthed this letter he wrote to the Swarthmorean in 2011 that was, for some reason, never published. It seems sufficiently relevant that we decided to publish it now, nine years later.
This is the right time for Congress to rename the military installations that are now named for Confederate generals. It was never the right time to have named them after these men in the first place.
I was interested in the Crum Woods ruin memories recently in the Swarthmorean. I thought I’d add my own.
