Am I allowed to breathe? Is that a punishable offense? Am I allowed to feel Is that a shot? Are my thoughts read like my letters scanned and stored to be used against me later My dreams dissected and distorted Tearing apart the meanings Digging for something anything Does my firing neuron Have sinister intentions […]
Archives for August 2020
“So Are White People”: A Discussion of Race, Class, and Police Violence
JS: Last week President Trump was asked about the epidemic of Black people murdered by police in the United States. His response was: “So are white people. More white people, by the way.” TA: I have heard this argument before, including from a student of mine. The point I always make is it’s about the […]
TGIF
When I was a young teenager, the local Catholic parish, The Church of the Holy Trinity, would sponsor what they called a Friday Night Social. This was held at the Norwegian Hall, right across from the Los Angeles Hotel in the Berea neighborhood of Durban, South Africa. A few years later, I became a denizen […]
CoreCivic Responds to Hard Crackers
Well, well, well, imagine our surprise when we received an email message from Ryan Gustin, the Public Affairs Manager of CoreCivic, the outfit that operates the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Tennessee, in response to an interview about the prison that Hard Crackers published on June 4th. Our interview was with the wife of a […]
Dead Teachers Can’t Teach
Today, August 3rd teachers in Knoxville, Tennessee report to work. Despite climbing COVID rates and fears and anxieties of teachers, parents and students, the superintendent of Knox County schools has not backtracked from his plan to reopen schools. Knoxville, a liberal bastion in a red state, has not broken rank from the likes of Governor […]
Killing Time
You can hear a sulking refrain from some corners of the internet lately, usually from armchair revolutionaries, celebrity leftists, or just the “extremely online”: the militant phase of the 2020 uprising against police terror is over—liberal reformers have successfully coopted it. The refrain comes tinged with defeat and a sense that things are already done. […]