The first-ever first public memorial in the U.S. dedicated to the honest remembrance of state violence at the hands of police.

There was definitely a larger audience for the academic panel I was on many years ago at 8 am on a Saturday in Las Vegas.

Printing this to hand to prospective students and their parents in particular who ask why they should major in Sociology.

And Phyllis Hyman and Angie Bofill and Gil Scott Heron and Angie Stone and and and.

Gahdamn!!! That might be the best basketball Finals game I've seen since I watched the Bulls win their first championship in 1991.

The racial composition of the crowd inside and the crowd outside is quite telling.

White supremacy has become supercharged by the presidential administration, the congress, and this supreme court. It existed before but it was more subtle, now it's been empowered. All 3 branches of government have been captured by segregationists & they are gleefully rolling us back to Dred Scott.

Supreme Court rules Black voters had no rights which the white man was bound to respect

borrowing from the other app so that all of these women’s names are shared & remembered.

I have thought about my desire for a half smoke from Ben's Chili Bowl too many times than I'll publicly admit. It's been almost a decade since I've even been to DC.

Mask off moment here from likely candidate for Chicago Mayor

Definitely the outcome I wanted to see, both for her politics and so that she'll stop texting me. I was getting more texts from Melissa Conyears-Ervin than I was from my kids. Not thrilled about Ford but I'll take it.

ALL RISE FOR THE CHICAGO NATIONAL ANTHEM

Immediately, off the top: Stevie Prince--his work on the Muppets was my youngest's entree into His Royal Badness Andre 3000 Janelle Monae George Clinton Tyler, The Creator

Sinners 5: Caints

anyways…Happy Black History Month to all my people 🖤🤎 I love US ✊🏾

Elizabeth Catlett & Alberto Beltrán, Untitled (Composition for a Peace Poster), c. 1950 www.artic.edu/artworks/222...

Having teachers through eighth grade note their intelligence, pleasantness in class, and absolute inability to stop getting in trouble for talking too much.

Anyone else having flashbacks to Dorothy Zbornak’s ill-fated birthday visit to Mr. Ha Ha’s Hot Dog Hacienda?

The first time I went into a prison for research, as we were being taken inside, the state police located next door started doing very loud target practice. Not knowing that fact, we thought we were walking into a prison break. Side note: the series Prison Break was filmed just a few miles away.

My job as a parent is done. The 16 year old just came home, not only playing The Gap Band’s “Outstanding”but singing the hell out of it. Charlie Wilson would be proud.

First, the protest a couple blocks away, then the sound of whistles and now multiple helicopters flying over head. ICE is definitely back in town.

The number of times I’ve invoked the memory of the first “When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong” skit while in meetings. I also fantasize about my last day of work looking something like this.

Grading on a snowy December day in suburban Chicago and Gil Scott Heron's "Winter in America" just started playing. Listening to him describe being "taken over by the season of ice/ICE" almost seems too on the nose. Now if I was grading assignments for my class on Octavia Butler's Parables series...

Sing a song…

I feel an overwhelming need to deep clean my kitchen. That can mean only one thing—it’s time to sit down and tackle the mound of grading, reviews, letters of recommendation, and writing that must be done within the next two weeks.

This is pretty close to what driving at night through Chicago has started to feel like for me (thus my not doing it any more).

The irony of Kool Moe Dee on Rock the Bells radio.

Chicago has had one 9/11 worth of people disappeared since the attacks began in September. Los Angeles has had two 9/11s since June.

The viewer in me has enjoyed All Her Fault but now the Black Chicagoan in me is giving major side eye to a white character not only being from South Shore but having his white foster mom describe the whole neighborhood as being destroyed by OxyContin. South Shore deserves better than this depiction.

When it comes to innovating structural racism

In giving a student feedback on an assignment, I typed government “shitdown” and now I’m very reluctant to correct my spelling. It’s so apt as the government is ensuring all this shit rains down on us while destroying the few umbrellas we had.

Thanks to the student who shared on our discussion board that Nat King Cole’s “‘Tis Autumn” is his favorite fall song. I’m listening now for the first time and ‘tis perfect. Found my grading soundtrack for today!

“Chicago is the future.“ @joseolivarez.bsky.social for @chicagomag.com

Well, I know what I’ll now be using as an example of a racist policy that is racially neutral on its face (no pun intended).

@authorwinifred.blacksky.app, my mom is on vacation with her cousins & they were talking about family history. She just texted to let us know they were talking about the midwives who delivered my grandmother and her sisters in rural Alabama. Of course, I thought about you carrying on this legacy.

@tennillenallen.blacksky.app's project is so so cool and necessary; I'm so honored to get to help her bring it to light check out this AMAZING primary source introduction and keep an eye out for further amazing developments!! www.beyondtheconfinesofplace.org/the-brown-book

Today is the launch of my video series & website on “The Brown Book”, a guide to Black Joliet, Illinois in the late 50s. The streets that were once the heart of a bustling community are now home to the county jail and vacant lots. We document that here www.beyondtheconfinesofplace.org/the-brown-book

Once again, the limits of autocorrect reveal themselves. I’m a sociologist and am pretty certain that I meant to type data and not Sara in the text I just sent. This might be the first time I’ve ever actually typed that name on this phone so I have no idea what would have sparked that little moment.

If this older white woman in the nail salon is any indication, there is much anger and outrage at the ICE invasions in and around Chicago. She’s talking about what she sees as the role and responsibility of older people like herself.

This explains why I started hearing so many low-flying helicopters as I was reading on my patio.

I live less than five miles from Broadview and I have not heard this much helicopter activity in my nearly two decades of living here.

There are multiple assignments I’ve retired now that I can’t recommend a number of federal websites or most major newspapers in good faith.

Chante Moore’s Bitter is full of hate and it’s amazing. youtu.be/HjyHl_Zlymo?...

Share a favorite black and white movie. Paris Blues

The differences can be even more granular than that. My husband and I are both Chicagoans, both born in the 70s, both middle class. He’s from the South Side and I’m from the West Side. We do not always know what the other is saying.

I think about this whenever I listen to blues/blues soul singers like Bobby Blue Bland and Tyrone Davis. Also Lenny was real vulnerable in Cause I Love You—he was risking the old hot grits treatment if not his life, wailing about his ex. He was grieving his old woman to his new woman far too hard

The white women were raging against tariffs and saying “Thanks Donnie” all up and down the aisles during my trip to HomeGoods today.

David Brooks stays committed to proving that he never should have been awarded with anything by the American Sociological Association.

What is perfect timing? Finishing a peloton ride just as my husband walks in the door with dinner.