by Toni McNaron | Sep 29, 2016 | Uncategorized
What is it about difference that can turn otherwise sane, even kindly, individuals into mean-spirited, foul-mouthed hysterics? As a white person growing up in the South of the 1940s and 50s, I certainly had many occasions to ponder this question. Neighbor ladies who...
by Toni McNaron | Sep 20, 2016 | Toni's Blog
In her writings about Adolph Eichmann, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt spoke about the “banality of evil.” This was a new concept to me when first I read her work; I thought of people like Eichmann as the most extreme examples of white...
by Toni McNaron | Aug 22, 2016 | Toni's Blog
In 1984, Audre Lorde, black lesbian feminist writer, published an essay entitled “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Though was speaking about ways feminist women might find to begin to “dismantle” the...
by Toni McNaron | Jun 2, 2016 | Toni's Blog
He died, between breakfast and dinner on New Year’s Day, 1954. I was almost 17, a senior in high school, so we never had a conversation as two adults. In the 1980’s a favorite form of therapy for working with dead people was called Gestalt. In it, the...
by Toni McNaron | May 12, 2016 | Toni's Blog
In 1770 Oliver Goldsmith published “The Deserted Village,” a lamentation over the loss of an agrarian ethos in England. In April, 2016, I found myself back in Birmingham, AL, my birthplace. I’d made the trip to help my college roommate mark...
