J. Kates

Poet, literary translator

...nowadays, it's as though the Civil War has once again become too hot even to touch.

It is only by accepting our own history critically that we can make it serve us.

Fondly Do We Hope: Reflections On The Civil War, A Century And A Half Later

On the 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox, it's painfully clear that the issues that underlay and fueled the Civil War survived it. Pictured: This April 1865 image shows Federal troops standing in front of the Appomattox Court House near the time of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, in Appomattox, Va. (Library of Congress/AP)

KATES-J.-Civil-War-Banner

Life

Opinion

race

Perhaps I should not mourn the loss of ethnic humor. It has a cutting edge that can draw a lot of blood.

Cohen On The Telephone

At its best, ethnic humor celebrates the diversity of our country, a diversity we take all too seriously these days.

Wistful For A Time When We Could Laugh At Ourselves

J. Kates: "It is genial, cultural comedy that seems to have disappeared, the kind of laughter that softens your attitudes toward your neighbor." Pictured, Allan Sherman, who made millions peddling genial, cultural comedy, at the Hollywood Bowl on July 16, 1963. His "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh, (A Letter from Camp)" won a Grammy in 1964.  (Don Brinn/AP)

KATES-J.-Humor-Banner-1

But not all lives are weighed down by that gravitational pressure of historical interpretation and generalization. Black lives are.

This photo, provided by Mississippi Department of Corrections, shows Otis Byrd. (AP)

Otis Byrd's life must matter in a way particular to him, and not melted into a generality of deaths.

Otis Byrd: No Man Is An Island — Or Merely A Symbol

A Port Gibson, Miss., resident walks past a mural depicting a successful economic boycott protest in the 1960's, Monday, March 23, 2015. A small group of residents and friends gathered nearby to show support for the Otis Byrd's family and to call on federal and state authorities to do a thorough investigation into his death. Byrd's body was found last Thursday, hanging from a sheet from a tree in a rural area outside of Port Gibson. The FBI is consulting with its behavioral analysis unit as it continues investigating the hanging death of Byrd. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP)

0324_otis-byrd_cog

Media

Anyone who takes travel for granted as comfortable and convenient is either naïve or spoiled, or both.

let's lean on our shovels for a minute, take a couple of deep breaths, and acknowledge that these plows are laboring to serve us, not to plague us.

Our Modern Cannibalism: Why Winter Brings Out The Worst In Some Of Us

J. Kates: When public transportation grinds to a halt, we throw our iciest snowballs at the people working to get and keep the trains and buses moving. In this photo, Alma Az, 43, waits for a bus on Concord Ave. Cambridge, as she makes her way to work in Copley Square, Mon., Feb. 9, 2015. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)

0215_snow_Cog

Transportation

We wear the protective bubble of our privilege like a second skin...

What We Talk About When We Talk About Race In America

And it does not require breast-beating or guilt, simply a nod of recognition. And perhaps an admission how artificial a construct it is.

The Difference Between Being White And Non-White In The United States

J. Kates: People of color almost always begin with an acknowledgment of their 'race,' not because they want to, but because they have to. (Ruben Goldberg/AP)

0119_race_cog

policy

These are New England woods, after all... Once they were open pasture; and even now fragmented stone walls, like disconnected strands of DNA, memorialize old genealogies, old ownerships.

As I grow older, the property reasserts its rights in the Court of Nature more and more strongly every year, and I riposte with my own chainsaw writs and clipper affidavits more and more weakly.

Some Thoughts On The Nature Of Property

J. Kates: On paper, the woods near my home have belonged to me for nearly 30 years. But what does that really mean? (anitacola/flickr)

0113_COG-trees

If [Andrew] Goodman's murder made him a martyr, it was to a yet unfulfilled cause we can still call voting rights, justice, freedom.

Why was it Andy Goodman in the blue station wagon with Schwerner and Chaney in Philadelphia, Miss., that day? I don’t know. It could have been any one of us.

In The Shadow Of A Good Man: Mississippi Burning, 50 Years Later

J. Kates: "Fifty years later, the significance of 'Freedom Summer,' the Mississippi Voting Project of 1964, gets measured not by our accomplishments, but by our losses." Pictured: The author, fifth from left, and fellow volunteers sing beside their bus in Oxford, Ohio, in June 1964 before leaving for Mississippi to help blacks register to vote. (Ted Polumbaum/Newseum collection. Used by permission)

J. Kates

Recently published

Fondly Do We Hope: Reflections On The Civil War, A Century And A Half Later

Cognoscenti

Wistful For A Time When We Could Laugh At Ourselves

Cognoscenti

Otis Byrd: No Man Is An Island — Or Merely A Symbol

Cognoscenti

Our Modern Cannibalism: Why Winter Brings Out The Worst In Some Of Us

Cognoscenti

The Difference Between Being White And Non-White In The United States

Cognoscenti

Some Thoughts On The Nature Of Property

Cognoscenti

In The Shadow Of A Good Man: Mississippi Burning, 50 Years Later

Cognoscenti