Draft submitted. Good way to end the night.

There’s gotta be a way to critique the hypocrisy without glamorizing the military and war.

She wasn’t the first to do intersectional analysis but when she coined intersectionality, Kimberlé Crenshaw was saying identity politics is inadequate for addressing gender violence. And was part of a debate about racial, class, and carceral politics of feminist challenges to violence against women.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett returned to the South for first time in decades after she was exiled to cover this case. She wrote a report (included in the thread) about the men and the sharecropping economy they challenged. The report is an example of Wells-Barnett’s economic theorizing and labor activism.

James Baldwin critiqued “liberal columnists“ who “sound as though they're being daring, but they're not.” “If reality broke into one of those columns, God knows what would happen! And when it threatens to, they get up on their hind legs and say, ’Don't attack your friends!’”

To the worker in the kitchen who filled up my to-go container of potato salad to the very top: I appreciate you.

You know, Toni Morrison said, “Absorbing the lies, untruths, both transparent and nuanced, of governments, their hypocrisy so polished it does not even care if it is revealed, can lead to a wearied and raveled mind.”

As Stuart Hall and his co-authors of Policing the Crisis note, "Statistics––whether crime rates or opinion polls––have an ideological function: they appear to ground free-floating and controversial impressions in the hard, incontrovertible soil of numbers." Data literacy should understand ideology!

View from today’s gym.

Part of the history of political repression in higher ed is how Black scholars and studies have been surveilled, sometimes by colleagues. The FBI targeted Sonia Sanchez for teaching W.E.B. Du Bois. Sanchez noted how Audre Lorde was monitored as a teacher. bell hooks noted the same about herself.

As someone currently on probation at Princeton, what also stands out here is the sham faculty governance on display: Faculty panel reviews all the evidence n decides there is no grounds for suspension. Admin overrules their decision n Provost Kavita Bala calls for significant disciplinary action.

Get your writing done. Get a publication out of it. Best revenge is your paper.

Margaret Walker said, “I’m not distracted anymore. There’s nothing that’s going to happen, short of my health, that’s going to keep me from my work.” Keep writing.

An issue with some of the reading and citation practices of white progressives and lefties is some have a few nonwhite authors they will emphasize, like, or pit against each other and, in the process, extract these authors from histories and political and intellectual debates among nonwhite people.

Some of the critiques of Ezra Klein become another opening for nonBlack people to talk about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s blackness. Why is that necessary?

“People of color warned us that fascism could happen here.“ Sounds good but be more specific which individuals and organizations. Cuz a bunch of nonwhite people didn’t believe it. Even those who know racism is a problem or even talk about it, cuz not all critiques of racism are the same.

A lot of liberals to lefties romanticize nonwhite people’s politics when the politics are not the same, have some major ideological differences, and some are harmful. Taking people seriously as thinkers, writers, and activists—and as human beings—would make this political diversity more apparent.

Ta-Nehisi Coates said, “I want to be a really decent person and a great writer... And that's not small, by the way.” “You got to be able to go home at the end of the day… Your kids, your family, they have to be able to look at you and respect you as a human being, and as a person, and as a writer.”

Regarding responses to chaos, Toni Morrison noted that stillness is always an option. ”Such stillness can appear to be passivity or dumbfoundedness. But sometimes it is prayer. Sometimes it is meditation. Sometimes it is art.”

In her journal, Audre Lorde said she wanted to teach her children ”how to survive, how to love, and how to let go.”

James Baldwin resisted being a spokesman cuz they can talk in slogans. He said write for your understanding, not for the public. He warned of writers becoming personalities giving fast food. He said, “I can’t lead a movement. But I can fuck up your mind.” And his work was “to try to tell the truth.”

Bitch, get your writing done. Like Octavia E. Butler put on her calendar, “Keep your word.”

Not all labor needs to be unionized. Cuz some of it is violence work.

Assata Shakur was a revolutionary. The language of social justice minimizes that.

“The only way you can maintain or sustain in this space for that long is that you do have to pay attention to who you are and what you do and what you have done and understand the value in that. There's no value in Mariah making records that sound like somebody else.“ ❤️ www.gq.com/story/mariah...

Discussing AI covers, a writer asked Mariah Carey, “I was curious, as one of the all-time great singers, what do you think about this technology?” Carey replied, “Well, I mean, I think that it's something that some people need more than others.” The shade. And true.

Never be afraid of getting your writing done.

Later in her life Assata Shakur discussed how arrogance impacts political movements and increasing the level of political activity where we are than being the vanguard. She could’ve easily said we aren’t doing as much as she did. But she encouraged us to stay committed and tender and collaborative.

Alice Walker said, “When we find our place, we know. Everything else can seem a distraction. We settle in to enjoy the beauty of Life itself.”

Octavia E. Butler described Toni Cade Bambara as "probably incapable of sitting back and saying, ‘Someone ought to do something about that!‘ whatever ‘that‘ might be. She just goes out and does it.” I love self-starters.

Creating new habits. Like Octavia E. Butler wrote in her journal, “All good things must begin.”

Toni Morrison said, “I accept and agree with the enthusiasm for my work.” But, she noted, “for me, success is not a public thing. It's a private thing. It's when you have fewer and fewer regrets.” Accolades are great, peace of mind is priceless.

The Jimmy Kimmel news got me thinking of Stuart Hall saying, “Where are the emergent forces? Where are the cracks and the contradictions? What are the elements in public consciousness one could mobilize for a different political program?"

@prisonculture.bsky.social I reread Sonia Sanchez discuss learning that the Schomburg existed. I know you know the story. But this time I noted she saw it as challenging sociology’s depiction of Black people. There’s an essay here how Sanchez, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison critiqued sociology.

Toni Morrison said it wasn’t about trusting her instincts. "Oh, I trust something else. Which is the intelligence to examine my instincts."

Like Octavia E. Butler wrote on her calendar, “Keep your word.”

To June Jordan, Toni Morrison said, “You know there's always been a fascist strain, here: It's not even political in the sense of this party or that. It's like a virus that can attach itself to Democrats or Republicans… And we know it's around. We can tell because black people are the nexus.”

“One thing that stood out to me during class was the way humor and casual language was used to make SPSS feel less intimidating... using the Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez beef was a very helpful real-world example of how some relationships may exist, but are not substantial enough.”

Toni Morrison said, “Sometimes you don’t survive whole, you just survive in part.” Still, that survival can mean a hell of a lot. As Audre Lorde said, “We must remember and comfort ourselves with that fact that survival is, in itself, a victory.”

Like Toni Cade Bambara said, “The most effective way to do it, is to do it!"

W.E.B. Du Bois enrolled in an advanced English class to improve his writing. ”Content rather than the form of my writing was to me of prime importance.” Yet “I realized that while style is subordinate to content… solid content with literary style carries a message further.” Word. Content and craft!

In a note to herself, Octavia E. Butler wrote, “Tell stories filled with facts. Make people touch and taste and know. Make people feel!“ Good writing advice for academics and researchers. All writing is a form of creative writing.

"As a Black man, I could not in good conscience vote for a resolution that aimed to rewrite history and erase the hateful things Mr. Kirk espoused." Rep. Gabe Amo, one of the nation's Black Catholic congressmen, on House Speaker Mike Johnson's resolution honoring Charlie Kirk.

June Jordan said, “Compared with 20 years ago, I am twice as strong, and I am aiming to double my strength... I keep to a fat-free diet, and I meditate twice a day. I teach full-time. I write full-time. I read like a maniac. And I fall in love easily. It's a good thing.” A simple, beautiful life.

NEW: I tracked three dozen teachers, professors and other school staff who've been forced from their job or stepped away due to their comments on Charlie Kirk and his killing Republican lawmakers are increasingly getting involved, pushing for firings www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

An assoc. principal was falsely accused of making insensitive comments about Charlie Kirk. In just 4 days, the district told me, it received over 900 harassing voicemails and 1,000 emails from people who thought it was true Around 100 students stayed home Monday www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

At a town hall, District Attorney Larry Krasner and a panel discussed tools that Philly holds to resist the Trump administration's federalizing local law enforcement by deploying the National Guard to cities.

"Globalization, Neoliberalism, and the Global Rise of Right-Wing Politics," a curated reading list of journal articles and issues published by Duke University Press, has been made freely available through October 31. Access here: buff.ly/zplaDVr

IT'S OFFICIAL: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York State, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New York City have formed the Northeast Public Health Collaborative. The collaborative will issue their own vaccine recommendations and coordinate public health efforts.

in wheaton, illinois, this morning— it appears bystanders helped chase off this crew of ice agents, who had boxed in a person's car outside a convenience store. multiple people showed up and recorded the interaction. after a brief back-and-forth with agents, the feds got in their cars and left.