Nicholas Powers

I did not want to see this film. An obese black girl raped by her parents, cursed at, infected with H.I.V. who struggles to read. I see Precious everywhere. In “Do or Die” Bed Stuy mothers yell at children as if stabbing them with words or yank them around like dolls for not hurrying. At…

September 2005, people cradled bags as they waited outside the New Orleans Superdome. Some pointed nervously at the dark sky. Thunder cracked and storm-waves lashed the levees until they broke and a flood poured in the streets. Wading through wind and waves, thousands more fled to the Superdome. Four years later, August 2009 thousands of…

On Father’s Day, two black men passed each other. One stepped into glory, the other emerged from his grief. The former was Sen. Barack Obama, who took the pulpit at Chicago’s Apostolic Church of God to castigate absent black fathers. The other was William Bell a black father who organized a rally for his son…

Lost in Translation I learned about Darfur in 2006. On TV, sorrow-creased faces begged for help. It reminded me of flooded New Orleans, families on roofs reaching up for rescue. It took a day to buy a ticket to New Orleans to be there, giving out food and picking up stories. It took almost two…