The Sale Is Not Over When You Leave the Sales Floor I have learned that buying a car is not finished just because I have agreed on the price with the salesperson. In many dealerships, the finance office is where another round of selling begins. By that point, I may already be tired from test-driving
The Most Expensive Room in the Dealership May Be the Finance Office Read More »
When Reading Was Considered Dangerous There is something powerful about remembering that there was a time in America when teaching an enslaved Black person to read could bring punishment. South Carolina’s 1740 Negro Act placed severe restrictions on enslaved people after the Stono Rebellion, and literacy became part of the larger struggle over control. Other
They Once Made It Illegal for Us to Read Read More »
What the Citigroup Study Was Really Saying A 2020 Citigroup study estimated that racial inequality affecting Black Americans had cost the United States economy about $16 trillion over the previous twenty years. That number has been circulating again, but people sometimes describe it in a way that changes what the study actually argued. Citigroup was
Diversifying More Than Our Investments Read More »
The Idea That Stopped Me Every now and then I hear an idea that makes me stop and think about something I thought I already understood. One of those ideas is the claim that time does not move in a straight line at the quantum level. The popular version says the past, present, and future
Are We Moving Toward the Future, or Creating It? Read More »
A Question Humanity Has Always Asked I have often wondered what happens in those first few moments after we die. I am not talking about what might happen fifty years later or where some final spiritual destination may be. I mean that immediate moment when the heart stops, the body becomes still, and whatever comes
What Happens in the First Moments After Death? Read More »
What Bostrom Actually Argued I have noticed that people often talk about the simulation argument as though somebody proved that we are living inside a computer. That is not what philosopher Nick Bostrom argued. In 2003, Bostrom published a paper in The Philosophical Quarterly that presented a much narrower and more unsettling idea. Bostrom did
The Simulation Argument Is Stranger Than People Think Read More »
When Belief Became Physical I came across a remarkable medical story about a man who believed he had taken enough antidepressant medication to seriously harm himself. Not long afterward, his blood pressure dropped dangerously low, his heart began racing, and his body showed signs of severe distress. He was sweating, trembling, breathing rapidly, and frightening
The Stories We Tell Ourselves Can Reach the Body Read More »
When the Research Became Personal I came across the story of neuroscientist James Fallon, and what caught my attention was how quickly a scientific investigation became a personal one. Fallon was a professor at the University of California, Irvine, who studied brain imaging and became interested in patterns associated with serious antisocial and violent behavior.
The Brain Scan That Made a Scientist Look at Himself Read More »
The Man Who Heard Africa in the Language I recently found myself thinking about Lorenzo Dow Turner, a scholar whose work helped change the way people understood the Gullah language. Turner was not Gullah Geechee himself, but he listened closely enough to hear what other scholars had overlooked. While teaching at what is now South
Hold On to the Words That Carried Us Read More »
Some Conversations Do Not Belong at Work I have heard the old saying, “Loose lips sink ships,” more times than I can remember, and the older I get, the more wisdom I hear in it. The workplace is one place where that saying can save somebody a whole lot of unnecessary trouble. We spend so
Loose Lips Sink Careers Too Read More »