I reread the DMs I’d exchanged with this novelist to make sure I wasn’t misremembering. But no, the thread starts with him sending me a request to sign an open letter and telling me I’m “doing the Lord’s work out there friend. Thanks for taking all the hits.” And continues —> With him bringing up a very prominent black public intellectual in a pretty mocking way. It ends with me telling him some months later that he’d presumed too much familiarity between us and that I took issue with something else he said. In no way did I “threaten violence” —>

I have been reading and writing about race for many years at this point, and I have never quite seen an argument like this before: This idea makes no sense: “When we say, in general, that the ancient Egyptians were Black and, more specifically, that Cleopatra was Black,” Dr. Haley wrote, “we claim them as part of a culture and history that has known oppression and triumph, exploitation and survival.”

AOC’s statement on the left is literally and directly contradicted by reporting in the NYT:

https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1656038618933149724

I absolutely believe we need greater mental health and housing services and stronger social safety nets as many wealthy societies have, but he left the mental health facility he was given room and board in instead of prison after 13 days.

Two almost identical shootings. Right next to each other on the NYT today. The latter was even fatal, but there was no racial angle to apply, both the victim and the trigger-happy elderly shooter were white. Hence the fatality gets lower billing, much smaller headline, no photo. News organisations need to ask themselves why they are making the framing decisions they are making and whether this actually reinforces racial division.

Camus rarely explicitly wrote about race, but in The Rebel, in the section on Nietzsche, this exquisite line:

“Race has been turned into a special aspect of the species, and the individual has been made to bow before this sordid god.” Camus is one of the few who really never missed.

The word “Blacks” is trending on Twitter right now. It’s nothing but random videos of assaults conditioning viewers to draw negative conclusions about an entire racial group based on the worst representations. This is reprehensible and Twitter is devolving into something dark.

I never understood the French desire to retire as soon as possible and then have a decade or 2 or 3 to do what you really want on a pension. I always thought work was foundational to sense of self and I’d do it til the end. Now I just hope AI won’t take that future away. Clearly my view here is unpopular, and I get it. Am surprised tho how many Americans think the French way is best. I work to pay for the things I want and need and even a fair pension would require too much downsizing to be desirable in the early 60s if we’re living decades more.

In which I argue (again) that the term is compromised beyond redemption: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… A pox on both your houses

I've got a new essay on the phenomenon of "wokeness" in this month's @TheAtlantic. It has been revelatory for me to see the ways U.S. culture and institutions changed after the summer of 2020, and how that transformation has reverberated internationally.
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi… I worked on this for a year. I know it will frustrate people in France with whom I largely agree, as well as people in the U.S. on both sides of the debate.

going back through so many images and quotes I saved since 2020 and just being amazed all over again (the above was in the Washington, D.C. metro)

From Orwell's sort of obscure essay "Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool":

"The distinction that really matters is not between violence and non-violence, but between having and not having the appetite for power. There are people who are convinced of the wickedness both of armies and of police forces, but who are nevertheless much more intolerant and inquisitorial in outlook than the normal person who believes that it is necessary to use violence in certain circumstances.

Firing a prof for rigor:

‘most students in organic chemistry want to become doctors.

“Unless you appreciate these transformations at the molecular level,” he said, “I don’t think you can be a good physician, and I don’t want you treating patients.” ‘ nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/… Scary:

“We urge you to realize,” the petition said, “that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and low grades has failed to make students’ learning and well-being a priority and reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well as the institution as a whole.”

This article is insane and just a lie. @gawker has been harassing me for months now and I just ignore it because it’s not real journalism, but this has to be retracted. I never heard of this movie until now and wasn’t anywhere near Austin at the premiere. gawker.com/media/thomas-c… It’s astonishing. It seems to me this “reporter” @tarpleyhitt simply did her research by looking at @annakhachiyan’s Instagram stories and mistakenly assuming we were in the same place because she reposted a story of me wearing (a very funny) Red Scare T-shirt. Beyond pathetic

Not enough high-quality sports writing out there I’m desperate for it

English soccer hooligans and aging chavs rooting for Liverpool have descended on Paris in droves for the weekend. That is one of the craziest social types in the whole world. Like 50 years old, wearing jerseys and stumbling through the streets drunk and singing songs all night.

Wake up in the morning to news of the NYC subway shooting and go to bed with news of Texas school shooting. it’s just tragic. What can you say? This is a choice. A collective choice that is made again and again.

“But as a white South African, he came up in a time and place in which there was hardly a free exchange of ideas”

Very strange piece of reporting. People must be judged as individuals and on their own actions, not the cultures they happen to be born into. nytimes.com/2022/05/05/wor… I’m really shocked this is not technically an opinion piece.

What is the Venn diagram of people who reject vaccine mandates on the principle of bodily autonomy yet celebrate the government’s intent to deny bodily autonomy to women, even those who are raped, access to safe and legal abortion? There is surely some overlap out there… There is room to disagree on both issues in good faith, but I think one has the duty at least to be consistent

Interesting, I feel like there was a letter making this exact same point two years ago. Wasn’t it published in ⁦@Harpers⁩ or something? nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opi…

A couple years ago when my best friend told me he was profiling a comedian running for president in Ukraine for the New Yorker, I kind laughed at the idea. Jokes on me—Zelensky is the most physically courageous and inspiring national leader of this era. Here is @yaffaesque’s@the excellent piece btw newyorker.com/magazine/2019/…

Got into Portland, Oregon yesterday and I don’t think “dystopian” is too strong a word to reach for insofar as this is a society whose streets are absolutely saturated with people leading dehumanized lives. One man screamed in rage and anguish outside my hotel for the entirety of the night.