Even before the global COVID-19 pandemic, scholars, healthcare experts and everyday citizens were already turning their attention to some of the deep flaws in the American healthcare system. It is well-known, and well-documented, that healthcare in America is expensive, broken and riddled with inequality. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, authors of the recent book, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism , summarize the state of our for-profit, employer-based system: “We believe that the...

I became a professional reader long before I was a writer when I was living in homeless shelters, subsidized housing, and welfare hotels with my mother in New York City. Most of the middle class and affluent black folks I would come to know in the future would wince and give me a look I couldn’t read when I would tell the story that I outline in my new memoir, The Beautiful Darkness: A Handbook for Orphans . All some intolerant, ignorant bigots need is to continue to hear about the...