Spoken Word

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“A key aspect of the American dream was the belief that each succeeding generation would be better off than the last. But the American dream is on life support. Without that dream there is nothing much that is truly special about America.”
Bob Herbert, New York Times columnist⁵

“Minstrelsy is a racist tradition, utterly so. but if we are honest, we have to admit that some of our highest cultural moments as americans were born of this strange and racist construction and identification with blacks: gershwin’s porgy and bess, elvis’ sun sessions, jolson’s 20-year reign over broadway, and maybe eminem.”
Michael Alexander, author of Jazz Age Jews⁶

“Virginia Woolf’s relationship with her cook, Nellie, was one of the most enduring and painful of her life. Woolf was a feminist who wrote powerfully about the working woman, but she could, in her private writing, express the most visceral feelings of loathing and disgust for the woman working in her house.”
Alison Light, author of Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury⁷