The Op-Eds of the summer.
This was a summer of stasis and turmoil. Each day the news felt sadder and scarier. And yet each day felt the same as the day before. The cocktail of the summer was tap water. The blockbuster of the summer was a meme of Reese Witherspoon’s face. Kids didn’t go to camp; teenagers didn’t scoop ice cream; no one went to Tuscany. The lucky were bored; the unlucky grieved. There just wasn’t much for the scrapbook. |
But we all did some things worth remembering! Since it’s the Friday before Labor Day weekend, I thought I’d look back on some of my favorite Op-Eds of the summer. If you haven’t read these yet, I hope you’ll enjoy them now. |
On the subject of the coronavirus, there was Dave Eggers on the testing insanity and Jerry Seinfeld’s don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out Op-Ed on New York. |
I learned a lot from the aerosol expert Linsey Marr, who explained the risks of airborne transmission. (There were so many questions and comments for Linsey that we asked her to host a conversation with readers on Reddit; you can read more of her advice about saying safe during the pandemic here.) |
Jason DeParle from the newsroom wrote an essential piece on what might happen to young people, arguing that “with hunger rising, classrooms closing and parental stress surging, the pandemic is a threat to low-income children of epochal proportions, one that could leave an entire generation bearing its scars.” |
And probably my favorite: My colleague Basharat Peer wrote about two friends in India, one Muslim, one Dalit, one who lived, one who died, and the journey he went on to tell their story. |
But the two most powerful Op-Eds of the summer, I think, have to be the ones by Caroline Randall Williams and John Lewis. The first — “You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument” — made many readers see our shared history in a new way. And Mr. Lewis’s Op-Ed, “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation,” written shortly before his death, was a gift to the country he left behind. (You can also listen to Morgan Freeman reading it aloud.) |
Finally, here are two pieces that stuck with me even if they didn’t make it to the top of the most-emailed list: one, an ode to balconies; the other, an Op-Doc about crying. Crying on balconies — what better way to sum up the summer of 2020? |
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