Don Pogreba is a current writer and retired teacher of English, Social Studies and Debate, and a loyal, if often sad, fan of the San Diego Padres and Portland Timbers. When he is not traveling, he is working on his classroom web site or dreaming about another adventure.
By failing to recognize that we now live with the severe, enduring effects of de jure segregation, we avoid confronting our constitutional obligation to reverse it. If I am right that we continue to have de jure segregation, then desegregation is not just a desirable policy; it is a constitutional as well as a moral obligation that we...
Since then, the idea that there had ever been a post-racial moment has come to seem naive, even desperately so. Once the embodiment of hope, Obama leaves office publicly regretting his inability to reconcile the country’s polarization. At the same time, Donald Trump focuses the anxieties loosed by white vulnerability—an inchoate...
Four years ago, on a tour to see the interior of a dormant volcano in Iceland, I met a couple from Poland. After they expressed their admiration for Montana (I believe Legends of the Fall was their film touchstone), I mentioned that I wanted to visit Poland someday. The two men from Krakow told me that I absolutely should, but that there...
The trigger for white rage, inevitably, is black advancement. It is not the mere presence of black people that is the problem; rather, it is blackness with ambition, with drive, with purpose, with aspirations, and with demands for full and equal citizenship. It is blackness that refuses to accept subjugation, to give up. A formidable...
A few weeks off for European travel that has basically kept me from much Internet reading, but I hope you enjoy these interesting links.
With extra days planned in Vilnius for no other reason than that Captain Ramius had spoken so highly of the city and a cheaper plane ticket to Poland if I waited, I had originally planned to spend five nights in the Lithuanian capital. While I absolutely enjoyed the city, a fellow traveler spoke highly of coastal Klaipeda and a tour...
My entire knowledge of the Baltic states before I arrived in Tallinn could be summed up as follows: I knew the captain of the Soviet submarine in The Hunt for Red October had fished in the rivers near Vilnius when he was a boy, I knew that one of the cities would be having a medieval festival when I arrived, and I had some knowledge from...
Typically, I offer just a short review at the end of my Seven Essential Quotes reviews of books, but this book was so infuriating and so interesting that I thought I’d offer some context for the quotes I’ve selected. Hillbilly Elegy has become one of those books that’s used to explain poverty in America because it fits...
I’m fundamentally a coward when it comes to the threat of physical violence. With my last fight occurring at the age of fourteen, I shy away from any situation that seems potentially hazardous. When I travel, I’m especially cautious, always mentally preparing for the need to escape a dangerous situation should one arise. Today, on a...