James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor https://t.co/nuto7N38C6
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May 4 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Thinking about this battle over language.
In June of 1966 in Greenwood, Mississippi, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) called for 'Black Power.' For many white Americans, the phrase sent chills down their spines. It was a call for violence 1/
Carmichael and others would spend an extraordinary amount of energy trying to define the term and hold off attempts to equate it with violence against white America. He even co-authored a book with Charles V. Hamilton entitled, BLACK POWER mygaryislike.wordpress.com/wp-content/upl…
Feb 26 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I am not feeling well. But I have been thinking about Russia. We tend to frame the Russian menace within the framework of the Cold War. But something else is going on. 1/
Russia is a symbol of global white nationalism. hir.harvard.edu/white-national…
Dec 11, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
DEI on campuses has become the latest bogeyman for the right and, for some, the reason for the rise of antisemitism on campuses. We need to take a hard look at what motivates these criticisms and be careful that we don't fall in line with an insidious agenda. 1/
I do believe we need to reexamine DEI. Are campuses approaching diversity as something to be managed or as a value to be cherished? There is a difference between checking boxes and understanding diversity as a critical part of mission and vision. 2/
Jun 12, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Not all the folks who embrace Trumpism are loud racists. Some are, but not all. Some are simply grasping for something to help. They are drowning. The brokenness of this country as it is drives them to ideologies of order. They need scapegoats for the hell they’re catching. 1/
We are then told to condemn the neofascists, and that alone should be our motivation. But little consideration is given to the realities of the world that drive some people to the ideology. They want to compromise and keep the order as it is. 2/
I’m sitting in a hotel room in Syracuse, NY trying to figure out how to talk about a confusion that I’m hearing from politicians and pundits: that the DESIRE for normalcy and the NEED to respond to what Covid-19 revealed about our society conflict. 1/@Sen_JoeManchin said about @POTUS that “nobody elected him to be F.D.R., they elected him to be normal and to stop the chaos.” It appears that Manchin does NOT believe that Covid-19 exposed how broken our society is. Of course, billionaires made billions. 2/
Sep 7, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I think @anneapplebaum piece in the @TheAtlantic has become a kind of genre of writing. We could easily put together a volume of essays across generations on the topic she writes about.
Is it a species of the worry about “political correctness?” Is it a lament about the lost of long form argument? Is it a kind hand wringing about the cultural transition in which we find ourselves? So much to unpack here.
Sep 1, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
My good friend @jheil is right about the clear calculus on the part of Republicans who are more interested in power and ruling than governing. But we also have to account for the millions of Americans who are follow them or push them.
Madness, in the sense I am using the word, is not to suggest that their actions aren’t purposeful. It’s to call our attention to the deeper existential issue: these people believe that they are losing their way of life. That White America is dying.
Some laud Merrick Garland's response about implicit bias I found his answer problematic. He said that "implicit bias just means every human being has biases...Everybody has stereotypes....Implicit biases are the ones we don't recognize. That doesn't make you a racist." 1/
But what if the stereotypes we hold about Black people are racist and we act accordingly? Implicit assumptions about Black people's behavior and capacities shape our interactions and decision making, with tangible consequences for how we live in this country. 2/
Feb 20, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Over the last 40 years, Republicans trashed “big government.”They sought to “starving the beast”—attacking what they called “entitlement programs,” insisting on privatization and deregulation, and eviscerating any robust conception of the public good. 1/
The devastation of Covid-19 and what is happening in Texas are the latest examples of how bankrupt this idea about government is. We need to toss aside the debate between “big and small government” and insist on responsible/transformational government. 2/
Jan 6, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
In his reflections on Dr. King, James Baldwin wrote that we were witnessing the death of segregation as we knew it, and the question was how long and how expensive the funeral would be. If only he knew. We are still in that funeral procession. 1/
Baldwin wrote in _No Name in the Street_: "An old world is dying, and a new one, kicking in the belly of its mother, time, announces that it is ready to be born. The birth will not be easy, and many of us are doomed to discover that we are exceedingly clumsy midwives." 2/
Dec 25, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Merry Christmas. Say a prayer for those who have lost loved ones and have to face this holiday season without them. Lift them up. Say a prayer for those children separated from their parents. Pray that one day soon they will feel their embrace.
Say a prayer for those who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and to put food on the table. Be mindful of the least of these on this day of excess. Say a prayer for those who are alone on this day—that they may know they are loved
Dec 17, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Who believes that $600 is a sufficient response to what is happening around this country right now? I know there are other much needed elements in the bill. But what is going on in the minds of legislators to think that $600 is sufficient?
We have to understand that the leaders of this country are CHOOSING this pain and suffering. Look at Europe. Nothing of this scale of suffering is happening there. Why? They are making dramatically different choices.
Sep 2, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
We have to change the frame. Fighting over who is more committed to “law and order” reproduces a way of thinking that undergirds a problematic view of policing in this country.
All too often the phrase, “law and order,” has been used to shift the blame and focus from police violence directed at Black people to the response of Black people to that violence. @BreeNewsome 2/
Jul 2, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Hugh Downs died today at the age of 99. His death reminded me of something. While researching _Begin Again_ at the @SchomburgCenter, I came across a beautiful exchange of letters between Downs and James Baldwin. 1/
Downs was the anchor of NBC's Today Show and wrote Baldwin expressing his admiration and his own desire to do more with his platform to address the issue of racial justice in the country. 2/
Jun 9, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Let me explain my position on @Morning_Joe. When Democrats concern themselves about the political fallout over the slogan, “defund the police,” they end up, in most instances, captitulating to a certain framing of policing that is deeply problematic. 1/@realDonaldTrump and Republicans will appeal to white fears and resentments. Use the tropes of law and order and accuse Democrats of being soft on crime. Responding to that accusation over the years has led to Democrats being complicit in building the carceral state. 2/
May 7, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
As we try and make sense of the brutal killing of #AhmaudArbery I can’t help but think of all the Black parents in this country who are filled with terror thinking about the safety of their children (whether they are an adult or a child). 1/
White Americans don’t feel this. They don’t have to worry about random white men killing their children while jogging. They don’t have to concern themselves about NYPD brutalizing their children because they are not social distancing or wearing masks 2/
Apr 21, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Thinking about @realDonaldTrump ‘s tweet about immigration. The politics of it all seem pretty straightforward. He is playing to his base and using Covid-19 as cover to dismantle our legal immigration system. 1/
But this kind of politics, especially in a moment like this one, adversely affects how we respond to the crisis. In effect, for those who listen to the president, such a politics narrows the sphere of moral concern and limits the scope of how we respond. 2/
Apr 10, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I'm looking at some of the twitter responses to a basic claim I made about the interaction of structural racism and covid-19 on @SRuhle show. The vitriol made me think of something I wrote in my new book, _Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own_
"Baldwin came to understand that there were some white people in America who refused to give up their commitments to the value gap. For him, we could not predicate our politics on changing their minds and souls. They had to do that for themselves." 2/
Mar 27, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Just thinking about the 3.3 million people who filed for unemployment insurance and all the others who have lost their jobs. Because we tether health insurance to employment, these people will now face a pandemic without health benefits. 1/
Thinking about all of those folks in the South--the poorest region in the country. Where generations of divestment in the public sector has left them extremely vulnerable, where rural hospitals have closed, and public health infrastructure is shaky at best. 2/
