A POSTCARD from a box of bookstore cards I bought. This first one is BOA BOOKSTORE, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

THIS IS A LINK to a NYT piece from November 2018: 

‘BLACK MALE WRITERS FOR OUR TIME’

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/30/t-magazine/black-authors.html

Last night I had a strong urge to take my sign downtown again on the subway and hold it where and when I used to. Even if the Board of Ed would not be in the building and there would be almost no one on the sidewalk. I didn’t go this morning. But I think I will soon. I hope. 

HERE’S A NUMBER which I only learned within the last 10 years: When we revolted against England in the 1770s, for our FREEDOM, there were 2.5 million people living in the colonies. 500,000 were slaves. If you’re rereading that, I had to too.

THAT MOSTLY-NOT-TAUGHT-TO-US NUMBER of 500,000 enslaved people in the colonies in 1776 (out of 2.5 million inhabitants) grew in the next 70 years to 4,000,000.

OF COURSE MOST OF ME AND MY PHONE CAMERA wanted to go over to Union Square 10 minutes away last night. I’m not too old. I just didn’t want to get in a crush of people with my still-sometimes-delicate shoulder. I used to get the train at Union Square on weekdays to go downtown with my sign. The mix of people on the train and the combinations of them I’d see everyday made me take pictures.