Arlene Goldbard

What is the extent of our capacity for imaginative empathy? When is it easy to put oneself in the place of other, and when is the stretch too far to manage?
I don’t have much trouble imagining how Henry Louis Gates felt earlier this week when he was arrested at the door of his own home.
I [...]

My media cravings lately have been the audiovisual equivalent of Elvis’s peanut butter and banana sandwiches, stupefying comfort food. A kind friend actually sat next to me for the entire length of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants—Part 2!—on TV. So I gulped hard when my forgetfulness in updating my Netflix queue brought me Terror’s [...]

I’m house-sitting for some people who have a very old cat. Although there is no physical resemblance, her presence reminds me of my beloved Kitsa Levine, who tiptoed off to kitty heaven at the end of 2004. When I hear a familiar cry, or feel a furry chin brush against my leg on the way [...]

New circumstances make it easier to see ourselves clearly. I often think of a tale told by an acquaintance of Afro-Caribbean heritage, living in the West Midlands of Britain. In the British Isles, she’d become accustomed to being regarded as other, as category “West Indian,” in it but not of it. Visiting family in Jamaica, [...]