The Wild Reed: 2025

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Remembering D’Angelo (1974-2025)

I was saddened to hear earlier this week of the passing of soul music legend D’Angelo. The musician died Tuesday, October 14 from pancreatic cancer. He was 51. (For my previous Wild Reed post about D’Angelo, click here.)

Following is how ABC News reported D’Angelo’s passing.

In remembering and celebrating this evening the life and music of D’Angelo, I share (with added images and links) a number of excerpts from various online tributes.

This week, the R&B singer D’Angelo died at age 51, of cancer. He was best known for deftly combining the heft and tenderness of soul music with the ingenuity and nerve of hip-hop, and while he was acclaimed in all the usual ways – four Grammy Awards, two platinum-selling albums, a music video so sexually charged that it still feels dangerous to watch in mixed company – he was also reclusive, enigmatic, unknowable.

“D’Angelo was a generational talent – an unusually artful singer, and an experimental and idiosyncratic songwriter,” Amanda Petrusich writes. But he largely eschewed the accoutrements of stardom, releasing just three albums in 19 years.

D’Angelo signed a songwriting deal when he was 17; a record contract followed, two years later. He released his first album, Brown Sugar, in 1995, when he was only 21. “Brown Sugar is an excellent R&B record – moody, luxurious, softly lit – but it wasn’t until the release of Voodoo, five years later, that the depth and richness of D’Angelo’s vision became fully evident,” Petrusich writes. “Voodoo is, by nearly all accounts, a masterpiece. By three minutes into “Playa Playa,” the album’s opening track, the air has changed in the room. Or maybe the air has changed in the whole neighborhood. The music’s gravitational pull is that potent and that steady.”

Then, in 2014, after 14 years of relative dormancy, and without much warning, D’Angelo released Black Messiah – probably his most divisive album, crackling with the frantic, sprawling energy of political upheaval. The message of the album felt like a suggestion of kinship: racism was everyone’s problem.

“These days, a lot of D’Angelo’s defining qualities as a musician – humility, subtlety, imperfection, prescience, sensuality, inventiveness – feel as though they’re in alarmingly short supply,” Petrusich notes. “D’Angelo understood his role as an artist as significant, and the responsibility as grave.”

– The New Yorker
Describing Amanda Petrusich’s article,
“D’Angelo’s Genius Was Pure, and Rare”
October 15, 2025

D’Angelo was one of the most widely revered artists of the past 30 years. A childhood musical prodigy, he quickly asserted himself as a star with his 1995 debut, Brown Sugar, released when he was 21. A key part of the Soulquarians, a loose collective of musicians, singers, and producers that included Questlove, Erykah Badu, J Dilla, Q-Tip, among others – he was at the forefront of a movement that charted new paths in soul, R&B, and hip-hop while maintaining a deep admiration for the past.

D’Angelo, and this movement, were often pegged as “neo-soul,” but in a 2014 Red Bull Academy lecture, the singer-songwriter chafed at the description: “I think the main thing about the whole neo-soul thing, not to put it down or it was a bad thing or anything, but . . . you want to be in a position where you can grow as an artist.” He added: “I never claimed that. I never claimed I do neo-soul, you know. I used to say, when I first came out, I used to always say, ‘I do black music. I make black music.'”

D’Angelo’s three solo albums – Brown Sugar, 2000’s Voodoo, and 2014’s Black Messiah – all earned critical acclaim and cracked the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 albums chart, with Voodoo reaching Number One. His biggest Hot 100 charter was “Lady,” but it was “Untitled (How Does it Feel),” with its memorable one-shot video of a naked D’Angelo belting the track, that arguably became his signature song.

Nominated for 14 Grammys over the course of his career, D’Angelo won four awards, including Best R&B Album twice for Voodoo and Black Messiah. He also won Best R&B Vocal Performance for “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” [below] and Best R&B Song for Black Messiah’s “Really Love.”

– Jon Blistein
Excerpted from “D’Angelo, Soul’s
Modern Visionary, Dead at 51”
Rolling Stone
October 14, 2023

The world lost a giant.

D’Angelo was more than a musician, he was a vessel of soul, a conjurer of feeling, a truth-teller in melody and rhythm. He bared his soul with every note and we felt it.

And though he may be gone, his spirit remains in every harmony, in every bassline, in every heart he touched. Artists like D’Angelo don’t just make music; they make memories.

We will miss him.

– Nina Turner
via social media
October 14, 2023

D’Angelo, who was born Michael Eugene Archer, in Richmond, Virginia, is often compared to Prince, and rightly so, I think – each wielded a carnal, otherworldly falsetto. But, perhaps more crucially, they shared an exquisite sense of pacing, as if they were attuned to some elegant internal rhythm. Neither could be hurried. That feeling – stately, easy, deliberate – is inherently sensual. You’ll register it, sometimes, in the slowest but most provocative gestures – a curl of smoke, a brush of hands, the right sort of glance from across a room. D’Angelo understood the ways in which restraint can be infinitely more haunting – and more alluring – than aggression.

– Amanda Petrusich
Excerpted from “D’Angelo’s Genius Was Pure, and Rare”
The New Yorker
October 15, 2023

D’Angelo grew up playing in a pentecostalist church in Virginia and went to New York City in search of a record deal as a teenager as part of a trio. The label said, we only want him. His debut album, Brown Sugar, put everyone on notice: there was a new soul giant in town. His single of the same name, a cheeky back-and-forth about his love of marijuana, was among the top songs of that summer in 1995. But some felt it was a project left unfinished, as if the songs were more like sketches. Five years later, D erased all of that with his second album, Voodoo. It was a towering achievement that made it clear that he was not only a disciple of soul legends, he was their peer as well.

But Voodoo led to a problem.

The song “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” was D’Angelo’s masterwork: a swirling groove of erotic funk so hot you could get pregnant just by hearing it. His manager, Dominick Trenier, envisioned a video where D was alone on a stage with the camera giving us closeups of his incredible body — from his cornrows to just below his belly button. It would be simple, and sexual, and powerful. This would be the culmination of years of work on his body. When D dropped Brown Sugar he was overweight. In the five years after, as he worked on Voodoo, he changed his diet and trained obsessively. When it was time to shoot the “Untitled” video, D looked as fit as a human could possibly be. But he didn’t want to do the video. His limo pulled up outside the shoot, and he refused to get out. He was nervous. Trenier came out and sat with him until finally he felt ready.

They went in and created one of the most iconic videos of all time. The video hit the culture like a neutron bomb and titillated everyone. Was this the best-looking man alive? Maybe. The visual alone gave D’Angelo an even bigger profile. But here comes the rub: after “Untitled,” people began to see the singer differently. At his shows, fans screamed for him to take his shirt off. That was acceptable, but he wanted to be seen as a musician.

D had studied music like a graduate student and then spent five years working on Voodoo. He wanted it all to be about songs — to convey that he was a great musician — but they were screaming so loud for his abs that you couldn’t hear the music. He felt like he’d been demoted from genius to sex symbol. He rebelled by disappearing. We spent years missing him. His third and final album, Black Messiah, came out in 2014, more than a decade later.

– Touré
Excerpted from “The Rise, Retreat, and Resurrection of D’Angelo”
Rolling Stone
October 15, 2025

In the long gap between his second and third albums, 2000’s Voodoo, and 2014’s Black Messiah, D'Angelo nearly came undone, with concerning aughts news reports of narcotics arrests and a car accident. But the 2006 loss of legendary beat-maker J Dilla set D’Angelo on a path to recovery.

His return to the stage in the early 2010s was every bit as remarkable as his early classics because it saw him contending openly with a place in a pantheon of all-timers while renegotiating a relationship with his audience. D’Angelo was always grappling with the past. But in his miraculous late-career resurgence, he was not just synthesizing soul history but almost confrontationally using it to speak for him.

– Craig Jenkins
Excerpted from “D’Angelo Saw His Future in the Past”
Vulture
October 15, 2025

I always felt like D’Angelo wasn’t a mere mortal, he didn’t walk the same Earth as you or me. He was touched, he had magic – you could call it soul, you could call it grit, but whatever it was, it was otherworldly. To me he was the only singer of his/our generation who could go toe-to-toe with '60s-'70s legends like Marvin, Al Green, Sly, Sam Cooke. I say “our” generation . . . I clearly remember when the Brown Sugar single came out. I’d only started buying vinyl 12”s a year or so before. When D landed in the record bins, everyone took notice. He completely reinvented R&B. He made it gritty, he brought a hip-hop attitude . . . he was working with Bob Power and Ali Shaheed, so if you were a Tribe fan you were immediately mystified. He made his Rhodes sound like nothing on this planet. And that voice, those harmonies. . . . When that first album dropped, nothing was the same.

Of course then Voodoo came and changed all music – everything. The tour that followed was the stuff of legends. Every player in his band was a deity in their own right.

Over a decade passed without an album. How do you top those two? And then when no one expected it, Black Messiah dropped and was another 10/10. Not only that but D was playing guitar now. With so much gumbo, so much funk. And he had Jesse Johnson on tour with him.

None of this is normal. We’re lucky to have been alive to have witnessed ANY of this. To have heard just ONE stack of harmonies from this man. Thank you D’Angelo. You were my favorite. Your music will stay with me, with us, forever. Send it on.

– A-Trak
via social media
October 14, 2025

Thank you. Thank you a million times over. To create, to shift, to shape and reshape, to push, to inspire, to fuel, to illuminate. An artist can only dream to achieve one or a few of these things. How amazing to witness him who did all of it and so masterfully.

I rediscovered Voodoo in my college days. It opened up the world for me. it became a defining element of art that’s very responsible for where I started. I stack my backgrounds the way I do because of him. I feel unafraid to experiment and evolve because of him.

I think we were all hoping to hear much more from him, but he has given us more than a lifetime of sound. Nothing but gratitude to be around in the same space and time as that sound. God Bless his family. Superbly done. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

– Alex Isley
via social media
October 14, 2025

When Terrorism Charges “Reek of Political Theater”

Memphis-based Rachel Hurley has worked in the music industry for 30 years, most notably as a music publicist for folk, Americana, and country independent musicians. She’s also worked extensively in film and television, and is the creator of the Make Memphis! website, which invites community and city leaders to “share ideas for making the city a better place to live for everyone.”

On her website, Rachel and the City, Rachel notes that “this is not my first rodeo when it comes to fighting the power. I’ve built a lot of social capital, and I’ve chosen to spend it on speaking out about the fall of our government. And I’m about to go even harder.”

Case in point: the following piece by Rachel which she posted earlier today on social media.

____________________

Welp. They did it.

Trump’s Justice Department just filed its first terrorism charges against alleged “Antifa” members after a July 4th attack on an ICE detention center in Texas. Attorney General Pam Bondi is already tweeting about prosecuting the “left-wing terrorist organization” known as Antifa. Which is a problem, because as you know, Antifa isn’t an organization.

The attack itself happened and it was violent. A group in black tactical gear hit the Prairieland Detention Center near Alvarado late that night - graffiti, fireworks, a setup that lured guards outside. When police arrived, someone opened fire from the woods, hitting an officer in the neck. Another sprayed 20 or 30 rounds before their rifle jammed. The cop lived. Ten people were arrested. Two - Cameron Arnold and Zachary Evetts - are now charged with terrorism.

Here’s where things start to reek of political theater. In September, Trump signed an executive order labeling Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. Except that doesn’t exist under U.S. law. “Domestic terrorist organization” is not a legal category. You can only designate foreign groups – think ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Even Trump’s own FBI director once said Antifa is “a movement or an ideology.” Which means there’s no Antifa HQ, no bank accounts, no membership list, no CEO of anti-fascism.

So when the Department of Justice charges people with terrorism for being “Antifa,” what they’re really doing is stretching that label to criminalize ideology. You can’t provide “material support” to an idea, no matter how extreme.

And the timing isn’t random. Trump signed that executive order days after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated – despite no evidence connecting his shooter to Antifa. But the narrative stuck, and here we are, with the DOJ turning that fiction into precedent.

The irony? Far-right extremists remain the country’s biggest domestic terrorism threat. Every federal report for the last decade has said the same thing. The Center for Strategic and International Studies found that 57% of domestic terror attacks since 1994 came from the right - mostly white supremacists and anti-government extremists. Left-wing extremists (ideologically “left”) account for about 25% of attacks and plots, while religious / jihadist (international Islamist) motives make up roughly 15%, and ethnonationalist motives (separatist, race/ethnic ideologies) is about 3%.

Yet Bondi and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are talking about “infiltrating leftist terror cells.”

No one’s defending what happened in Alvarado. Shooting at cops is not protest – it’s attempted murder. Charge them for that. But terrorism? That’s a label reserved for coordinated acts meant to intimidate a population or coerce government policy – and you can’t pin that on an ideology with no structure.

This is less about safety and more about setting precedent. Once you normalize treating ideas as terrorism, it’s open season on dissent. Today it’s “Antifa.” Tomorrow it’s environmentalists. Or labor organizers. Or journalists.

The attack in Texas was real. The terrorism charges are performative. The administration isn’t fighting extremism – it’s just padding its authoritarian playbook.

– Rachel Hurley
via social media
October 16, 2025

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Why Omar Fateh Is the Right Choice for Mayor of Minneapolis

Omar Fateh has worked with determination and strategy on policies that serve working people. . . . He is the type of leader we need at City Hall. He doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t fold and he doesn’t forget who he’s working for: you.

– Patricia Torres Ray

Patricia Torres Ray (pictured with me at right at the 2013 DignityUSA National Convention) is a former member of the Minnesota Senate whose district included parts of Minneapolis. Yesterday she had an op-ed published in the Star Tribune in which she makes the case for Minnesota State Senator Omar Fateh to be the next mayor of Minneapolis.

As a supporter of Omar and his mayoral campaign, I was happy to see Torres Ray’s endorsement, one that I share below in its entirety.

_______________

Minneapolis, let me tell you what I know about Omar Fateh.

I served alongside Fateh in the Minnesota Senate. From the very first conversation we had, I saw in him a determination and tenacious leader who refused to give up in the face of hardship or setbacks. He frequently reminded us of our duty to our constituents and the obligation to work harder to fulfill our campaign promises: to work harder for all of you.

Fateh came to the Senate determined to represent the voice of working people. He proposed to guarantee minimum wages for Uber and Lyft drivers who were getting poverty wages, to provide University of Minnesota graduate students with stronger union protections, and to make college in Minnesota not just affordable but free.

I supported these ideas, but I didn’t believe we could convince the majority of our peers to vote for all of these proposals. Fateh worked with determination and strategy on every one of these policies, and today they are the law for all Minnesotans.

He took on billion-dollar Silicon Valley corporations like Uber and Lyft, who were threatening to hold our state hostage, and won. Today, every driver in the state earns a living wage and has better protections.

He secured bipartisan support to offer free college tuition for students from working-class families. That is something few leaders anywhere in the country have managed to do.

Fateh wants to bring his political insight and tenacity to Minneapolis, and I believe our city needs his strength and political intuition to move us forward. He wants to build a safe Minneapolis where people can afford to live, raise their families, and start businesses. A place where seniors can keep their homes and age in place, and where all of us, despite ability, can access every corner of our city.

He wants to raise the minimum wage to $20 by 2028, listen to the voters and pass rent stabilization while still exempting new construction, and protect renters from eviction. These are real, tangible changes that can ensure families are not forced to choose between paying rent and putting food on the table.

Fateh believes public safety comes from care, not crackdowns. He secured $19 million for Minneapolis for public safety, which has remained untouched by the current administration. He will put those resources to work to implement consent decrees, diversify 911 responses and clear case backlogs.

I served with Fateh, have seen how relentless he is, and know he is the type of leader we need at City Hall. He doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t fold and he doesn’t forget who he’s working for: you.

– Patricia Torres Ray
“Why Omar Fateh Is the Right Choice”
Minnesota Star Tribune
October 14, 2025

When MAGA extremists attack us, and also, at times, the establishment Democrats, it’s because they’re scared. They’re scared of the multiracial, working class coalition that has been rising up in Minneapolis and in Minnesota. And they’re scared of having a city where ordinary people have real power.

– Omar Fateh

Also yesterday, Omar was interviewed by journalist Mehdi Hasan on his podcast, Mehdi Unfiltered. It’s a very informative 24-minute interview, though I wish people would stop reffering to Omar as "the Mamdani of Minneapolis." Yes, while it's true that he and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have similar progressive platforms, Omar Fateh is very much his own man. He deserves to be recognized and respected as such.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
01:21 Switching roles from senator to running for mayor
03:53 George Floyd
05:42 Palestine and antisemitism
08:46 Campaign policies
10:09 Charlie Kirk, facing racism and Islamophobia
16:06 What makes you qualified for mayor?
18:07 Revoked endorsement
21:28 Standing up to Trump

Related Off-site Links:
Minnesota Sen. Omar Fateh Says He Won’t Back Down Despite Islamophobic Threats – Brianna Kelly (Bring Me the News, September 25, 2025).
Four Candidates for Minneapolis Mayor Weigh In on Major Issues Facing the City – Jon Collins (MPR News, September 19, 2025).
People “Are Tired of Backroom Decisions”: A Conversation with Minneapolis’s Omar Fateh – Peter Lucas (The Nation, September 5, 2025).
Omar Fateh Has All the Right Enemies – Alex Skopic (Current Affairs, September 5, 2025).
State DFL tries to disenfranchise the City DFL – David Tilsen (Southside Pride, September 3, 2025).
Minnesota Democrats Stab Omar Fateh in the Back – Concernicus (August 27, 2025).
DFL Reverses Omar Fateh Endorsement – Left Reckoning (August 26, 2025).
Democrats in Minnesota Revoke the Mayoral Endorsement of Omar Fateh – I Am Blakeley (August 23, 2025).
The State DFL Spits on the Minneapolis DFL – Steve Timmer (LeftMN, August 23, 2025).
Minnesota DFL Revokes Endorsement for Omar Fateh in Minneapolis Mayoral Race – Naasir Akailvi (KARE 11 News, August 21, 2025).
Rep. Ilhan Omar Condemns Party’s Decision to Throw Out Fateh Endorsement – Torey Van Oot (Axios, August 21, 2025).
How Did This Happen? – Ed Felien (Southside Pride, August 5, 2025).
Minnesota Democrats Endorse Socialist Omar Fateh for Mayor Over Incumbent Democrat Jacob Frey – AllSides (July 21, 2025).
Who Is Omar Fateh? Mamdani of Minneapolis Faces MAGA Abuse – Kate Plummer (Newsweek, July 15, 2025).
CAIR-Minnesota Condemns Anti-Muslim, Racist Hate Targeting Sen. Omar Fateh Amid Rising Political Violence – CAIR-Minnesota (July 15, 2025).
Minneapolis Gets Its Own Mamdani – Kayla Bartsch (National Review, July 15, 2025).
Minneapolis Mayoral Candidate Omar Fateh Faces Racist Trolling: “Go to Mogadishu” – Times of India (July 14, 2025).
Omar Fateh Will Work Across the Aisle If Elected Mayor – Melody Hoffmann (Southwest Voices, April 2, 2025).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

OMAR FATEH
• A “Racist and Factless Meltdown” Over Omar Fateh
• Omar | Jazz | DeWayne
• In His Efforts to “Build a City That Works for All,” Omar Fateh Secures a Key Endorsement
• Something to Think About – July 25, 2025
• The Longstanding Fault Lines Within the Democratic Party Have Surfaced Again in Minnesota
• Omar Fateh: “We Need to Meet the Needs of Working People”
• “Hopeful and Grounded”: Omar Fateh’s Vision of Democratic Socialism

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and Democratic Socialism
• Bernie Sanders: Quote of the Day – June 12, 2019
• Heather Cox Richardson on the Origin of the American Obsession with “Socialism”
• The Biblical Roots of “From Each According to Ability; To Each According to Need”
• Something to Think About – December 14, 2011
• Jonty Langley: Quote of the Day – August 17, 2011
• A Socialist Perspective on the “Democratic Debacle” in Massachusetts
• Obama a Socialist? Hardly
• Obama, Ayers, the “S” Word, and the “Most Politically Backward Layers in America”
• A Socialist Response to the 2008 Financial Crisis
• Capitalism on Trial
• What It Means to Be a Leftist in 2025
• Ted Rall: “Democrats Are Not the Left”

Photo of the Day

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Urbanscapes – 10/9/24
• Urbanscapes – 7/11/24
• Urbanscapes – 4/21/24
• Urbanscapes – 6/28/23
• Urbanscapes – 11/20/22
• “Smoke Plume” in Minneapolis
• Storm Clouds Over Minneapolis
• Ride to Sundown
• Moon Over Minneapolis
• High-Rise in Afternoon Light
• Photo of the Day – June 28, 2022
• Photo of the Day – May 20, 2022
• Photo of the Day – September 1, 2012
• Photo of the Day – May 8, 2010

Image: Michael J. Bayly (Minneapolis, 10/15/25).

Bruce Fanger on Jesus’s Theology of No Kings

Michigan-based digital creator Bruce Fanger has written an insightful and inspiring commentary on “the rebel Christ” and the “theology of No Kings” that he espoused.

I consider Bruce’s commentary to be a timely reality-check for all who claim to be followers of Jesus, myself included. Thank you, Bruce!

_____________

I do not believe Jesus was killed for being kind. Rome did not crucify gentle teachers or pious mystics. Crucifixion was reserved for one crime alone: insurrection. The sign nailed above his head didn’t say Blasphemer – it said, THIS IS JESUS, KING OF THE JEWS. That was not theology. That was treason.

We’ve been told to picture a meek lamb, but no empire executes lambs. During Passover, Rome staged its dominance – Pilate entering Jerusalem from the west on a war horse, iron and banners clattering through the gates like thunder. Jesus answered from the east, not on a stallion, but swaying atop a borrowed donkey, dust rising behind him like laughter at Caesar’s parade. It wasn’t humility. It was mockery. A counter-procession. A rival king with no army – but a crowd.

He wasn’t followed by philosophers or polite fishermen. One of his own was Simon the Zealot – Rome’s word for terrorist. Jesus didn’t gather a book club. He gathered men ready to die for liberation. And when he entered the Temple, he did not tidy altars – he flipped the tables. Silver exploded across stone like shrapnel. That was the financial heart of the priestly elite and Rome’s tax machine. It wasn’t a sermon. It was an act of economic sabotage.

They tested him next with taxes: “Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar?” He held the coin up – Tiberius’ face glinting like a false god. “Whose image is this?” Caesar stamped himself divine on the money. Jesus stamped God divine on humanity. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s – and unto God what is God’s.” The coin goes back to the emperor. But you – made in God’s image – belong to no throne.

There it is: the theology of No Kings.

Let’s be honest. Jesus was not killed for preaching love. He was killed because his kingdom threatened theirs. Because his movement cornered both Pilate and Herod – empire and corrupt religion. Pilate feared uprising. Herod feared truth. One washed his hands. The other washed his conscience. Both chose order over justice.

“He took water and washed his hands . . .” Pilate wasn’t innocent. He was convenient. He condemned a man he knew was innocent because neutrality was safer. I see Pilate everywhere today – in judges, in pastors, in neighbors who whisper, “I don’t agree, but it’s not my fight.” Neutrality is empire’s favorite disguise.

What passes today as Christianity is not faith – it is endorsement. A golden calf draped in a flag. An idol with a Bible pressed in its grip. They bless border cages and call it law. They quote Christ and serve Caesar. They would crucify him again and hashtag it patriotism.

I refuse. I do not serve kings. I don’t care if they wear crowns or flags or corporate logos. “You cannot serve God and Mammon.” That is the line. If Jesus returned today, he would not be seated at their prayer breakfasts. He’d be outside the gates – with the migrant, the prisoner, the one empire has declared disposable.

That is why I stand with No Kings. Because faith without resistance is decoration. And silence in the face of empire is betrayal.

Which brings me to October 18.

They will call it chaos. Extremism. Disorder. Let them. October 18 is not about flames – it is about witness. We come not to burn, but to remember the truth Pilate could not wash away: you cannot kill a kingdom of conscience. I will not wash my hands. I will not call injustice “complicated.” I will not stand aside while kings devour the people.

Pilate took the towel.

I take the cross.

No Kings. No Idols. No Silence.

– Bruce Fanger
“The Rebel Christ: Toppling Thrones Then and Now”
October 11, 2025

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

An Autumn Walk Through the Neighborhood

Monday, October 13, 2025

Mark Sandlin: “Of Course Trump Wants Columbus Day Back”

The Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (right) is Minister of Word and Sacrament at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Greensboro NC. He also serves as co-host of The Moonshine Jesus Show and is the founder of The Christian Left, “a ministry for Christian progressives and their allies.”

Earlier today on social media, Rev. Sandlin shared the following to both mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day and comment on President Trump’s preference for celebrating Columbus Day instead.

__________________

Of Course Trump Wants
Columbus Day Back

By Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin

October 13, 2025

It’s not surprising that Donald Trump wants to turn Indigenous Peoples’ Day back into Columbus Day. That’s not irony. It’s the most predictable thing in the world.

Christopher Columbus wasn’t the hero we were taught about in school. He didn’t “discover” anything. He stumbled onto lands already full of life, story, and wisdom . . . and decided they were his. What followed was violence, enslavement, and genocide, all wrapped up in a shiny story about destiny.

And now, five hundred years later, another man obsessed with his own greatness wants to restore the holiday of the man who started it all.

Trump isn’t just defending a date on the calendar. He’s defending a way of seeing the world: where conquest gets called courage, and cruelty gets dressed up as greatness.

Columbus built his legend out of lies. When his voyages fell apart, he blamed others. When he was arrested for brutality, he called himself a victim. Trump does the same. Every failure becomes someone else’s fault. Every truth he doesn’t like becomes “fake news.” Both men have built their power by controlling the story and rewriting it when the truth gets in the way.

Columbus claimed divine purpose while enslaving people in the name of faith. He said he was spreading Christianity, but what he really spread was fear. Trump has learned the same trick. He waves a Bible like a prop, shouts about “Christian values,” and somehow convinces people that following Jesus means putting others beneath you. Both men use religion as a mirror that only reflects themselves.

Columbus ruled through violence. He treated human beings as obstacles. He punished resistance with brutality. Trump rules through division and resentment. He treats compassion like weakness and cruelty like strength. Both see domination as proof they’re right.

And both needed someone to blame. Columbus called Indigenous people “natural slaves.” Trump blames immigrants, Muslims, Black activists, and anyone who won’t kneel to his vision of America. Different century. Same sickness. Both build their power on white fear.

Columbus demanded titles and honors. Trump collects headlines and loyalty pledges. Both are fragile men pretending to be strong, desperate for devotion that feels like love but isn’t. When they talk about “greatness,” what they really mean is control.

They’re separated by centuries, but not by spirit. Both are ruled by a lust for empire. Columbus opened the door for European domination and called it discovery. Trump wraps the same logic in a red hat and calls it patriotism. The stories they tell are nearly identical: that the world belongs to the bold, that power makes you righteous, that violence can be redeemed by a good flag and a better slogan.

So, of course, Trump wants to “restore” Columbus Day. He sees himself in that mirror. He’s not protecting tradition.

He’s protecting the myth that built him.

The myth that some lives matter more than others.

The myth that might makes right.

The myth that history belongs to those who shout loudest and conquer fastest.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day tells a different kind of truth.

It refuses to keep worshiping empire.

It remembers the people who survived “discovery.”

It lifts up the voices America tried to silence.

It invites us to tell better stories, stories that make room for everyone.

That’s what really terrifies Trump. Not the loss of a holiday, but the loss of a lie.

The loss of a world where the powerful get to define what’s good, what’s true, and who counts.

So yes, of course he wants Columbus back on the calendar.

It’s not just about history.

It’s about holding onto a myth that keeps men like him in charge.

But the truth has a way of surviving, no matter how hard empire fights to silence it. That’s why Indigenous Peoples’ Day matters. It’s not just a different name. It’s a different way of seeing, one that says greatness isn’t about conquest. It’s about courage, honesty, and love that refuses to dehumanize anyone.

And that’s the kind of story worth celebrating.

– Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin
“Of Course Trump Wants Columbus Day Back”
October 13, 2025

Related Off-site Links:
Stories of Resistance: Indigenous Peoples’ Day – Michael Fox (The Real News Network, October 13, 2025).
Trump Declares Columbus Day, Omits Indigenous Peoples’ Day Recognition – Native News Online (October 9, 2025).
This Indigenous Peoples’ Day, We Don’t Need Celebration. We Need Our Land Back – Krystal Two Bulls and Nick Tilsen (In These Times, October 12, 2020).
Noam Chomsky: World Indigenous People Only Hope for Human Survival – teleSUR (July 26, 2016).
The Real Christopher Columbus – Howard Zinn (Jacobin, October 12, 2015).
Five Young Native Americans on What Indigenous Peoples’ Day Means to Them – Sarah Ruiz-Grossman (The Huffington Post, October 9, 2017).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Kanipawit Maskwa: “The Land Still Remembers”
• Words of Wisdom on Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• Something to Think About – October 9, 2017
• Something to Think About – February 23, 2017
• Something to Think About – October 13, 2015
• Quote of the Day – September 27, 2015
• Something Special for Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• “It Is All Connected”
• Forever Oneness
• Standing Together
• Standing in Prayer and Solidarity with the Water Protectors of Standing Rock
• At Standing Rock and Beyond, Celebrating and Giving Thanks for a “Historic Decision”
• Come, Spirit . . .
• Exploring the Meaning and History of “Two-Spirit”
• Tony Enos on Understanding the Two-Spirit Community
• North America: Perhaps Once the “Queerest Continent on the Planet”
• The Landscape Is a Mirror
• “Something Sacred Dwells There”

The Wild Reed

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Remembering D’Angelo (1974-2025)

When Terrorism Charges “Reek of Political Theater”

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Why Omar Fateh Is the Right Choice for Mayor of Minneapolis

Photo of the Day

Bruce Fanger on Jesus’s Theology of No Kings

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

An Autumn Walk Through the Neighborhood

Monday, October 13, 2025

Mark Sandlin: “Of Course Trump Wants Columbus Day Back”

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