Status Updates From Coming Up Short: A Memoir o...

The Long Game: “Being an activist for social justice means working hard, but not expecting the goals to be achieved anytime soon. It requires accepting that they may not be achieved in our lifetime, but that seeking them is essential for our lives to matter.”

“The stark reality… is that the richest and most powerful nation in modern history, the America that emerged victorious for World War II and whose democracy was a beacon for much of the rest of the world, is now coming up short. Trump and Trumpism are consequences, not causes. The causes have been growing for more than 40 years. We could have addressed them. We did not.”

“[Young people] help me play the long game. They’re going to inherit the mess my generation has bequeathed them. Instead of being bitter or angry, they have all sorts of ideas for how to clean it up, fix it, make the world better. They have the energy and determination to succeed. They keep me optimistic and sane. They make me hopeful that the common good can be resurrected.”

“I began to see bullying on a larger scale, all around me: Black people bullied by whites; workers bullied by employers; girls and women bullied by men; the disabled or gay or poor or sick or immigrant bullied by politicians, insurance companies, landlords, and bigots. … It seemed as if the world had changed, when in fact it was me who had changed. I had a different understanding of the meaning of injustice.”

Happened

Dangers

My expulsion