Could there be a better escape vehicle than a nostalgia-infused augmented reality app populated with cuddly cute fantasy deedle-doos and whippy-wongs? Instead of going outside and actively confronting racial and economic disparities, let’s go outside and confront this Snorlax! Instead of meeting strangers and friends to reflect and discuss our experiences of race, let’s discuss these Pikachus! We are like the scared children on the airplane who refuse to focus on the harsh and seemingly terrifying realities of our situation and instead have been given an iPad by our parents. But as adults, we alone are to blame for this shameful compromise, an indulgence of distraction that immobilizes the raw introspection and societal movement that is our responsibility. All of us Pokémon Go users aren’t looking to catch them all; we are desperate looking to forget them all.
Read MoreJamar Nicholas wears a number of hats, as do many artists. He’s a teacher — he teaches narrative storywriting at Drexel and has taught at Moore College of Art and Design and Arcadia University; he is Fine Arts Curatorial and Administrative Assistant at Arcadia University Art Gallery, and he makes his art — drawings of narratives that become comic books about superheroes, like the Hip Hop Cop Detective Boogaloo, which ran — daily — in the Philadelphia Metro in 2015.
Read MoreThis week’s Reader Advisor reflects on the state of law enforcement in our country. As I write this on Friday afternoon I am having a hard time finding any value, context, or urgency in my perspective as a white American. Instead I am going to step aside and let the links speak for themselves. To start, a poem by June Jordan via The Poetry Foundation.
Read MoreThe “way markers” come, as one would expect, from Tobias’s visceral responses to his walk along the path and are designed to tickle your ears, nose, and skin, as well as your brain. You experience more than you see, depending on the weather and how open you are that day.
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