Raised by white Americans, poet Sun Yung Shin meditates on child abandonment, secrets, and fate through the famed Oedipus myth — “A creature that hides and ‘withdraws into its shell,’ is preparing a ‘way out.’ This is true of the entire scale of metaphors, from the resurrection of a man in his grave, to the sudden outburst of one who has long been silent. If we remain at the heart of…

“The Great Seal of the State of Minnesota became official in 1861, with the present design legislated in 1983. It depicts a barefoot farmer plowing his field near St. Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River. His axe is driven into a tree trunk, with his rifle and powderhorn nearby. An…

신 선 영 辛善英 Sun Yung Shin is a poet, freelance writer, speaker, educator, consultant, and bodyworker in Minneapolis.

“The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.” — James Baldwin Because I currently make my living as a freelancer in the arts and education realms, I suppose I end up giving white women a lot of…

Synonyms for flammable: combustible, incendiary, unstable, ignitable — On the morning of November 15, 2015, white Minneapolis police officers Mark Ringgenberg and Jason Schwartze shot to death Jamar Clark, an unarmed Black man they had on the ground. On March 30, 2016, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, a white man, announced he would not bring charges against the…

“Whiteness is a metaphor for power.” — James Baldwin I’m tired of hearing about “well-intentioned white people.” I’ve started to ask myself what that really means when white people say that, often with a chagrinned look on their face, as if to say, Yeah, white people are dumb about race…