• How hard it is to tell between incremental actions that work toward a radical vision (e.g. police use-of-force amendments) and incremental actions that distract us from our vision. It seems like, sometimes, proposals that seem too small or too weak are genuinely the best first rung on a ladder toward our goal. (And that it’s smart to build ladders.) But I think people are right to be wary of false first rungs.
  • The community garden overseer beckoning Sammy and me toward him on our way to a protest, asking us if we knew what’s “really going on” in our country (“cops killing white people”); explaining that he works with, and so he knows, “them” (Black people); pointing to the Pride flag in the garden as evidence that he is not and could not be a bigot.
  • “Hi Jack (I’m Just Dying)” by Sadistic Mika Band.