PinnedWhat My Life in a Cult Says About AmericaI emerged from a cult and into the real world at the age of 23, a destitute mother of three children. I was 14 years old when I went into the cult, but my childhood years before that had been anything but normal. My mother’s mission to ensure my salvation…Systemic Racism15 min readSystemic Racism15 min read
Jan 6The People Who Found Pope Benedict Too LiberalWhen I heard that Cardinal Ratzinger had died, I thought, “Wow. First, the former Pope falls gravely ill, and now Cardinal Ratzinger dies? Are they all trying to get out before 2023?” I’d heard the name “Ratzinger” frequently growing up in an extremist conservative Catholic family, and it was never…Pope2 min readPope2 min read
Jan 1Member-onlyRugged Handsome in a Cult: a New Year’s Heartbreak“Are you going to watch the ball drop?” Steve called out to me jovially from the other end of the long basement hallway between the boys’ and girls’ cafeterias. This story takes place mid-way through my cult years in Saint Marys, Kansas, a day or two before the New Year’s…This Happened To Me6 min readThis Happened To Me6 min read
Jan 1A Shooting Star and a Wish Against Hate for 2023On the cold Thursday morning of December 29th at 6:34 AM, I stood on a hill over the Gunpowder River valley. I looked up at the Western sky over this Susquehannock land, this historic land where enslaved Africans labored, died, and broke free. …Racism2 min readRacism2 min read
Nov 14, 2022Member-onlyMy White Grandfather and the Black Dissent of Kyrie IrvingMy grandfather was a Holocaust denier. From my childhood years to my early teens, my mother would leave my Protestant father to watch TV in his armchair and take my siblings and me for a day trip to her parents’ severely Catholic home. It was a central meeting place where…Racism6 min readRacism6 min read
Aug 14, 2022Pope Francis’ White Non-Apology TourAs a survivor of a fundamentalist Catholic cult, I’d like to put the core issues with Pope Francis’ Canadian “apology tour” into plain terms. I was 14 when my mother took my sisters and me to the rural town of Saint Marys, Kansas, to sequester us in a space safe…Racism14 min readRacism14 min read
May 23, 2022A River Named by Violent White SupremacistsYou may have known me as Rose Anderson. I am now River Irons. My house in White Marsh, just outside Baltimore City, looks down over a valley that the Big Gunpowder Falls created. …Racism4 min readRacism4 min read
Nov 9, 2021My Husband’s Cruelty Was On PurposeMy man was mean to me out of necessity. If he wasn’t consistently cruel, constantly battering me mentally and physically, it would mean that he wasn’t man enough. He might risk losing his superiority over me. Frying an egg his morning, two decades after I’d last seen this man, I…Short Story2 min readShort Story2 min read
Published in Momentum·Oct 19, 2021Member-onlyBefore You Cancel Dave Chappelle, Here’s What You Need to KnowI wonder what it’s like to be Dave Chappelle right now. You’ve spent years honing your craft, and you roar out onto the Detroit stage to deliver a pièce de résistance. Two white women in the second row express their solidarity as loudly as they can. They’re here to buck…Race10 min readRace10 min read
Sep 26, 2021I’m Glad No One Tried to Rescue Me From the CultBefore we could be married in the cult, Man and I would have to have a counseling session with one of the Fathers. The counseling was not to make sure that I loved this man and was not being somehow coerced into what — in our world — was a…Critical Race Theory11 min readCritical Race Theory11 min read
