America and Its Reckoning with Itself

From time to time when I was growing up, my grandmother would tell me to go in my room, or go out on the screened porch or out in the backyard and sit with myself. And I couldn't come into her company again until I was ready to be civilized. This would happen in response not to a wrong thing I'd done, we were passed that point by then, but in response to my efforts to make amends, to fix things, to make things better.

It's not enough to be sorry, even sincerely. It's not enough to pay for or in someway replace what was broken. It is not enough to start practicing playing the piano an hour…