In a review, Toni Cade Bambara said of a book, “It is serious, well written, effective in its demystification, valuable as a model of hardheaded but caring analysis, principled in its criticism, important.” Goals.

Seriously, more of us who study and politically challenge the impact of technology on work and workers today need to engage the scholarship and politics of James Boggs.

June Jordan said, “I teach whether or not I feel like it, where I teach without stint because… I am no fool. It’s my job and either I work or I do without everything you need money to buy.” I appreciate this cuz educators and academics are often expected to see the work as only a calling, not a job.

We deserve better art, better writing, and better analyses.

James Baldwin said, “It is difficult to keep your mind and your eye on what you know to be complex, which everyone else wishes to make simple, to remain fixed on what you know to be the truth beneath… It is a matter of stamina.” This is why we train at the gym.

In her piece about being a Barnard dropout, delivered at Barnard, June Jordan dedicates a paragraph saying nice things about the Sociology classes she took.

In a description of financial documents included in the June Jordan Papers, it‘s noted that “Jordan saved a staggering number of receipts to substantiate tax-deductions.”

Barbara Smith said the Combahee River Statement’s “anticapitalist perspective provides a level of realism and analytical clarity,” like understanding “‘freedom’ under an economic system whose purpose is to exploit masses of working people in order to create profits for the few doesn’t make sense.”

Barbara Smith said, “Expectedly, the right wing is repulsed by identity politics… What is more disturbing is that a lot of people on the left also attack identity politics and are similarly unaware of the source of the term or what anticapitalist Black women actually meant by it.”

Today’s gym. A lot of the workout is reaching my limit, trying to get to the floor safely, and having to get back up again and again and again. Prolly got back up about 40 times today. I kinda like it.

Dionne Brand has a poem in which she notes that “neo-fascists are glamour boys in the New York Times, do we realize they are more afraid of communists than fascists, that is not good news for us.”

The issue isn’t identity politics. It’s what you’re using it for.

So who’s gonna critique the Catholic church for practicing identity politics when defending immigrants? Hopefully no one!

In a class where many are aware that deportations are happening, students said, after learning about it, we didn’t know Asian immigrants were getting deported. So much work to do. Onwards.

From this minister's op-ed: "People wanting to experience God are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility than we ever were in church...God does not live in our houses of worship, but...with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment."

It’s not just about recognizing class politics, it’s about refashioning class politics to be a critique of capitalism, exploitation, and privatization instead of reactionary, punitive, deficit-minded, equality in suffering bullshit.

A lot of challenges to privilege end up demanding more deprivation, suffering, and punishment for everyone and calling it equality.

Rather than trivializing how much toilet paper Ghislaine Maxwell has access to behind bars, remember that most incarcerated people have little to their name. Toilet paper isn't a luxury – it's a basic necessity.

I don’t know if we‘ll politically win. I don’t think anybody can say that with certainty. But I think it’s important to try. We deserve better than this.

MAGA’s ongoing war on academic freedom, reflected in headlines from the last 24 hours.

In “A Talk to Teachers,” James Baldwin said, “You must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance.”

Today’s shoutout to the Portland ICE protest: “Sweating Out the Fascists” 1980’s themed aerobics workout and neon outfits greeted ICE agents. www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...

And it’s unfortunate because we can easily see this coverage around accommodations for Maxwell curdle into a reactionary push to make prisons even more punitive for everyone.

High profile black and white cases like Diddy’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s often serve to distract from the quotidian violence of the system visited upon people who aren’t cartoonishly villainous. www.prisonpolicy.org/federaltrack...

A lot of people are going to walk away from the Ghislaine Maxwell coverage with the impression that our prison system isn’t punitive enough but I’d say it highlights how most everyone else is treated with *deliberate* cruelty.

I can high knee jump rope! I worked so hard to get here.

I wrote about the supposed conservative "civil war" over antisemitism as more of a lovers' spat for @liberalcurrents.

“Teachers and librarians are scared to get fired. So we make sure these books are still accessible. Some of our book smugglers can’t tell you who they are, but they’re out there.” - Tony Diaz, founder of Librotraficantes (Reporting Texas) @penamerica.bsky.social

Trying to psyche myself up to go to the gym by reminding myself that W.E.B. Du Bois said, “We must rapidly come to the place where the man all brain and no muscle is looked upon as almost as big a fool as the man all muscle and no brain.”

U.S. visas can be denied for obesity, cancer and diabetes, Rubio says. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Ruth Wilson Gilmore said, "It’s a shame that the concept of the prison-industrial complex has atrophied in the way that it has... the tendency has been to narrow, narrow, narrow, to some notion of, as you said, private prisons and corporate greed."

Alessandra Moctezuma, widow of Mike Davis, noted, "He always loved to make bumper stickers to put on the cars." The last one Davis created said, "Under the shelter of each other, we survive."

In immigrant rights discourse and scholarship, people note “crimmigration” to draw attention to how immigration enforcement criminalizes migrants. But some of the crimmigration work focuses on mobilizing sympathy for “innocent” immigrants while still ignoring immigrants with criminal convictions.

In a lesson on immigration enforcement I showed my class a video featuring organizers talking about how the immigrant rights movement has often ignored or distanced itself from immigrants with criminal convictions. A video from the beginning of this decade but this is still an issue.

As of this morning, Starbucks workers across the country are officially ON STRIKE. And we're prepared for this to become the biggest and longest ULP strike in Starbucks history. Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX

BREAKING: Starbucks workers have launched a massive, nationwide strike. Baristas in 40 cities have walked off the job on the busiest day of Starbucks' year. Upwards of 12,000 @sbworkersunited.org members could ultimately go on strike as the union escalates.

@hypervisible.blacksky.app See this? www.menshealth.com/health/a6561...

Stuart Hall said, “I am convinced that no intellectual worth his or her salt… can afford to turn dispassionate eyes away from the problems of race and ethnicity that beset our world.” Word.

The way people use low-flying class analysis to defend powerful institutions and capitalism is bonkers.

In her journal, Octavia E. Butler said that striving is sexy and being sanctimonious isn’t and I agree.

During an interview for a podcast I said people deserve to be bitter for having been ignored or dismissed, until now, when they’ve noted how racist and politically dangerous things are. And that I hope the deservedly bitter keep studying and organizing. But they’re not mean or elitist for being mad.

A much younger man at the bus stop told me I have nice teeth. Flirting has gotten really weird, lol.

Think I figured out a big personal goal for 2026. Just gotta get my life together to accomplish it.

A lot of government workers are employed in education (including higher ed faculty and staff) or by the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, or federal and local law enforcement.

"The military welfare state is hidden in plain sight, its welfare function camouflaged by its war-making auspices. Only the richest Americans could hope to access a more systematic welfare network." aeon.co/essays/how-t...

I wrote this, about Project 100,000, five years ago. "Considering how military service is deployed as a liberal form of policing may be instructive for contemplating the totality of state repression against political insurgency." abusablepast.org/military-ser...

I learned that fact checking, such a vital part of journalism and the battle against misinformation that is increasingly at risk of becoming obsolete, was often the work of women.

Met three of my major personal and professional goals for this year and am now plotting next year's.

Some may already be doing this but something I do to start class is to show a recent headline and connect it to a concept or theory we’ve learned. A lot of students don’t know some of the most recent news about political affairs but many share that they look things up once it’s on their radar.

Like Beyoncé said, “There are so many internet therapists, comment critics, and experts with no expertise.“