Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
🍉 Dr. Thrasher 🔻 Profile picture
🍉 Dr. Thrasher 🔻
@thrasherxy
Daniel Renberg Chair @medillschool. Wrote The Viral Underclass. Columnist @lithub. Writing The Overseer Class for @AmistadBooks @HarperCollins ✊🏾🌈💉
17 subscribers
Nov 29 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
For people who think I am close-minded and unbending: I have done a 180° on assisted suicide, and I changed my mind by reading and thinking with disabled scholars and activists I actually do think people should be able to end their lives if they wish, with compassion and as little pain and stigma as possible. (My biological mother took her life in a gruesome, violent way.) And I think almost everything should be decriminalized. Unfortunately…
Nov 12 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
This is *still*’ interesting. When Oprah was the host of the Oprah Winfrey Show and endorsed Obama, the candidate did not pay for the show—Oprah (Harpo Productions) did. When Oprah endorsed Harris, the candidate paid for the show. An important power shift in media. Of course Oprah, a billionaire, could have paid her staff as her quite legal contribution to the cause. Instead she let, perhaps, Black women earning minimum wage who wanted to see Harris elected and gave their meagre earnings to the campaign pay for it instead.
Nov 12 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
If you accept the truth that under Obama/Biden/Harris, more people

— were deported
— died of Covid
— were killed in genocide and wars w US weapons & $

then there is no need to panic about Trump/Miller/RFK. Hold onto your folks, your values & your work. Stay the course. Calm! Panic, in general, helps no one. It keeps you from breathing right, it keeps you from seeing clearly. Lots of folx have been working hard to get vaccines (Covid/flu/mpox) out as Biden dismantled Covid vax infrastructure. Work & learn w us, we’ve been at it for yrs now
Oct 14 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
1/4 I filed for tenure today, as has been planned for years. It has been too much pressure being investigated while also filing for tenure (a huge moment in any scholar's life in the best of circumstances), so imagonnatakeaminute to sit with what I have accomplished. I WROTE 47 journalism articles New York Times, New York, Guardian, Lit Hub, Scientific American, Atlantic, Slate, Rolling Stone 4 academic articles + 3 academic book chapters Contexts, Souls, Harvard Law Sympoisum, Imagining Queer Methodsm, Contemporary Literary Criticism 2 books The Viral Underclass (病毒 下层社会 疾病与不平等 在美国的碰撞) The Overseer Class AS I COVERED 3 PANDEMICS (SARS/MPX/HIV) 2/4 I TAUGHT In 5 years, I TAUGHT Eight different classes (six I designed from scratch) Sex and the American Empire Viruses and Viral Media Reading & Reporting L.G.B.T.Q. Health AIDS History Theater of Protest Listening to the Dead (Ungraduate Feature Writing) Graduate Feature Writing Introduction to Journalism AS I COVERED 3 PANDEMICS (SARS/MPX/HIV)
Sep 18 • 21 tweets • 4 min read
Class time: Let's use the Overton Window to discuss how pagers-as-booby-traps is really bad for humanity, and how journalists are already failing at this basic test of ethics and morality. The Overton Window was developed to address what topics can be debated, or not, in news media. (It is named for political scientist Joseph Overton, who was not an egomaniac; his colleague Joseph Lehman named it for him after his death.) A graph shpowing how ideas pass through the overtown window
Sep 16 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
BOOM! I am back in the saddle for the fall as a regular @lithub columnist with an exclusive essay on "False Profits: Why I Am Not Teaching in the Classroom This Fall" lithub.com/false-profits-… (It’s not often I get to quote my divas @pocojump, Blanche Devereux and Zora Neale Hurston all in one piece) L LIT HUB have none. But, as my friend Kia says, a person like that cannot make a person like you feel shame. And while I still hold the Renberg Chair, I want to quote two gay icons in this matter: Zora Neale Hurston ("If you are silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it") and Blanche Devereaux, when she bought condoms with Rose and Dorothy: "We're not embarrassed, we're not uncomfortable, we are not humiliated. We're gonna walk outta here today with our heads held high, secure in the knowledge that what we have done is morally and socially responsible.&...
Sep 5 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
BREAKING: My fall LGBTQ reporting & virus classes were cancelled & I’m not allowed to teach at Medill while I’m “investigated.” Whatever happens, I’ll be fine— like Medill, I “write boldly & tell the truth fearlessly”— but I’ll neither stay nor go quietly.
Image I’ll have more to say in an essay soon, but for now, plz watch this @democracynow segment & note that this is an explicit attack on ppl who speak about Palestine, ESPECIALLY on Black/PoC LGTBQ ppl.
Aug 22 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
🧵This is a good summary of where we are with monkeypox (MPOX, MPX): most ppl’s frame of reference, understandably, is SARS 2 (Covid), a virus also born in the viral underclass but with a very different virology. For some perspective, in the next tweet… Today the WHO reported a 9% increase in MPOX cases globally between June and July. In June, the total case count was 1,310, rising to 1,425 in July. These numbers are much lower compared to the 2022 outbreak. August and September will provide a clearer picture of whether this outbreak is significant, as countries are now ramping up their awareness efforts. On average there are currently more new cases of Covid EVERY DAY in the United States ALONE than there are MPX cases currently in the world IN TOTAL 99,596,741 1,659 Deaths 1,104,000 -24 1 Month 3 Month 6 Month All ti
May 12 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I have been thinking through something and it won't go away. I do not in any way want to minimized the horror of Gaza. I have seen three of these solidarity encampments grow, thrive and be dismantled, and I see how they are a metaphor for life in Palestine in some ways. Each camp is its own little world. Life is modest, and not easy, but people carve out a little world, and they make something beautiful. Jews, Christians and Muslims live together relatively peacefully, until the police or Zionists show up and create chaos and bring violence.
May 7 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Today I am meditating on two of Baldwin’s quotes about children— “For these are all our children, we will all profit by or pay for what they become” and the one below. They both mirror how I feel about students—as teachers, they are all ours to protect. The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality. ー James Baldwin I am a college professor, and I teach and learn with (and from) adults, and I do not mean to infantilize them. But I do feel protective of them, and I am aware that all faculty have a responsibility for the wellbeing of students, whether they are on our campus or others.
May 4 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Greetings friends from Lincoln Park, Chicago and Day 5 of DePaul University’s Liberation Zone. It’s a GORGEOUS day. To counter the lies fed to you by cops, uni admins, the mainstream media, the White House & Netanyahu himself, let’s look around at what’s happening here! Sign - depauk liberstion zone This is a Catholic Vincentian school and its Christian values are being interrogated by students in many places. As you enter the Liberation Zone, there a wall (50 feet long?) of names of children killed in Gaza.
Names of kids
Apr 29 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
BREAKING: for weeks, @shahanmufti & I have worked together to co-author & gather 50 signatures for a letter demanding the New York Times commission an independent investigation of "Screams Without Words." @laurawags has the story @washingtonpost washingtonpost.com/style/media/20… Our letter was signed by more than 50 professors of journalism and communication at more than a dozen universities across the United States and Canada. It was delivered to A. G. Sulzberger and the NYT editor of standards and can be read in full here: washingtonpost.com/documents/adc3…
Please click on link for full text of this letter
Apr 26 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
No, I am not tenured. How will I account for yesterday and today and tomorrow? Will our board forgive me when I go up and let me stick around? Doesn’t matter. This is the job: to speak about important matters. And protecting our students is the only thing that matters right now. We must speak against the genocide. We must speak about the state and corporate suppression of free speech on our campuses. And we must backup our brilliant, brave, creative and wonderful students—putting our bodies between them and uni admin or cops if we must.
Apr 25 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
Wrapping up my first shift as an EJP faculty support for the Northwestern Gaza Solidarity encampment. An exciting day, and I’ve never felt more connected with my students. Heading home before my shift tomorrow, but first, let me share some things about the camp. Students and tents on a lawn The camp is a sight of music, political education, mutual aid and sign making. The students are experimenting with how to teach, feed each other, make art and organize together.


Guitar
Pamplers
Watwr and food
Free palestine signs
Apr 19 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
As night falls and waking up at 5 AM, flying to New York and 8 hours of street reporting non-stop catches up with me, I am about to leave this party and let these young ppl who welcomed me into their space carry on. But first, some final thoughts… Full yard at columbia First, THIS is what university life should be! I saw and experienced some extraordinary things: running into old friends, having substantive conversations with students (from here and even Northwestern/Medill), learned from students, learned in teach ins....But most of all...
Apr 19 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
1. PHEW. I am overwhelmed seeing all the photos in Pulitzer Hall at @columbiajourn of all the Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza and Lebanon Image 2. Can’t even see them all in one photo photos in Pulitzer Hall at @columbiajourn of all the Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza and Lebanon
Apr 11 • 26 tweets • 6 min read
A side note to the Berkeley law dinner fiasco: Professors shouldn't have work events with students in their homes!!! This is a problem which extends beyond this situation. "Chemerinsky, who is Jewish, says that the incident is the latest in antisemitic attacks on him and that free speech does not extend to his home." OK, then don't have work events in your house! latimes.com/california/sto…
Apr 10 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
Cheap rent made Philip Glass possible too, who told me in 2012: “The problem is, when I came to New York, it’s much more difficult now. You could work 3 days a wk loading a truck or driving a cab, and you’d have enough money to live off of" the other 3+ weeks to do your art! “Work," Glass said, "was a seasonal business! Can you imagine??? "You worked the weekends around the first of the month. And then you had the middle of the month to do your sculpture or your painting or your poetry or whatever you do." Cheap rent made that possible!
Apr 3 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
As the sheriff evicted an elderly couple and was removing a handicapped woman with Parkinson's disease from their home, her partner doused himself with gas and set himself on fire. "This," Aaron Bushnell so presciently said, "is what our ruling class has decided will be normal." Neighbors react to eviction that ended with 1 dead after man set himself on fire Oklahoma County Sheriff Tommie Johnson III said his deputies saved one life today, but the outcome wasn't what they wanted The framing of this story is wild - the headline makes it about the neighbors' reactions, and the sub headline says the sheriff's office "saved one life today, but the outcome wasn't what they wanted." But the deputies' actions took a life, they didn't save any lives.
Apr 1 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
This is very sad, but I have some thoughts. I think Cecilia would have wanted the truth out there (I certainly do) as she didn't want anyone to feel shame about anything, but I think she'd be sad the major response is to arrest and prosecute the dealers. patch.com/new-york/new-y…
Famed NYC Trans Activist Died From Fentanyl-Laced Drug Overdose: Feds Cecilia Gentili, 52, was sold fentanyl-laced heroin by two men who now face federal drug charges, federal prosecutors said. Matt Troutman, Patch Staff ® Posted Mon, Apr 1, 2024 at 1:15 pm ET Updated Mon, Apr 1, 2024 at 1:29 pm ET I never feel comfortable when young-ish people die and no one says why. It's usually because they died of overdose or suicide (or, going back a few decades tho sometimes still now, AIDS). Treating them as unspeakable only increases stigma.

Cecilia didn't do stigma.
Mar 25 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
It is enraging how swiftly the United States has dismantled an established govt funded aid entity like UNRWA & replaced it w Go Fund Me. Just as the US has disinvested in public schools & healthcare, the US is forcing desperate ppl to beg online & use a crowdfunding platform. The US uses our tax dollars to destroy Palestinian people's homes, farms, water systems, schools, and hospitals and lives with bombs, then BANS the use of tax dollars for UNRWA to help those same people (or ANY Palestinian agency if Palestine complains to the ICC or ICJ).