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Rivera, Kahlo, and the Detroit Murals: A History and a Personal Journey

The year 1932 was not a good time to come to Detroit, Michigan. The Great Depression cast dark clouds over the city. Scores of factories had ground to a halt, hungry people stood in breadlines, and unemployed autoworkers were selling apples on street corners to survive. In late April that year, against this grim backdrop, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo stepped off a train at the cavernous Michigan Central depot near the heart of the Motor City. They were on their way to the new Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), a symbol of the cultural ascendancy of the city and its turbo-charged prosperity in better times. The next 11 months in Detroit would take them both to dazzling artistic heights and transform them personally in far-reaching, at times traumatic, ways.

I subtitle this article “a history and a personal journey.” The history looks at the social context of Diego and Frida’s defining time in the city and the art they created; the personal journey explores my own relationship to Detroit and the murals Rivera painted there. I was born and raised in the city, listening to the sounds of its bustling streets, coming of age in its diverse neighborhoods, growing up with the driving beat of its music, and living in the shadows of its factories. Detroit was a labor town with a culture of social justice and civil rights, which on occasion clashed with sharp racism and powerful corporations that defined the age. In my early twenties, I served a four-year apprenticeship to become a machine repair machinist in a sprawling multistory General Motors auto factory at Clark Street and Michigan Avenue that machined mammoth seven-liter V8 engines, stamped auto body parts on giant presses, and assembled gleaming Cadillacs on fast-moving assembly lines. At the time, the plant employed some 10,000 workers who reflected the racial and ethnic diversity of the city, as well as its tensions. The factory was located about a 20-minute walk from where Diego and Frida got off the train decades earlier but was a world away from the downtown skyscrapers and the city’s cultural center.

I grew up with Rivera’s murals, and they have run through every stage of my life. I’ve been gone from the city for many years now, but an important part of both Detroit and the murals have remained with me, and I suspect they always will. I return to Detroit frequently, and no matter how busy the trip, I have almost always found time for the murals.

In Detroit, Rivera looked outwards, seeking to capture the soul of the city, the intense dynamism of the auto industry, and the dignity of the workers who made it run. He would later say that these murals were his finest work. In contrast, Kahlo looked inward, developing a haunting new artistic direction. The small paintings and drawings she created in Detroit pull the viewer into a strange and provocative universe. She denied being a Surrealist, but when André Breton, a founder of the movement, met her in Mexico, he compared her work to a “ribbon around a bomb” that detonated unparalleled artistic freedom (Hellman & Ross, 1938).

Rivera, at the height of his fame, embraced Detroit and was exhilarated by the rhythms and power of its factories (I must admit these many years later I can relate to that response). He was fascinated by workers toiling on assembly lines and coal-fired blast furnaces pouring molten metal around the clock. He felt this industrial base had the potential to create material abundance and lay the foundation for a better world. Sixty percent of the world’s automobiles were built in Michigan at that time, and Detroit also boasted other state-of-the-art industry, from the world’s largest stove and furnace factory to the main research laboratories for a global pharmaceutical company.

“Detroit has many uncommon aspects,” a Michigan guidebook produced by the Federal Writers Project pointed out, “the staring rows of ghostly blue factory windows at night; the tired faces of auto workers lighted up by simultaneous flares of match light at the end of the evening shift; and the long, double-decker trucks carrying auto bodies and chassis” (WPA, 1941:234). This project produced guidebooks for every state in the nation and was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal Agency that sought to create jobs for the unemployed, including writers and artists. I suspect Rivera would have embraced the approach, perhaps even painted it, had it then existed.

Detroit was a rough-hewn town that lacked the glitter and sophistication of New York or the charm of San Francisco, yet Rivera was inspired by what he saw. In his “Detroit Industry” murals on the soaring inner walls of a large courtyard in the center of the DIA, Rivera portrayed the iconic Ford Rouge plant, the world’s largest and most advanced factory at the time. “[These] frescoes are probably as close as this country gets to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,” New York Times art critic Roberta Smith wrote eight decades later (Smith, 2015).

The city did not speak to Kahlo in the same way. She tolerated Detroit — sometimes barely, other times with more enthusiasm — rather than embracing it. Kahlo was largely unknown when she came to Detroit and felt somewhat isolated and disconnected there. She painted and drew, explored the city’s streets, and watched films — she liked Chaplin’s comedies in particular — in the movie theaters near the center of the city, but she admitted “the industrial part of Detroit is really the most interesting side” (Coronel, 2015:138).

During a personally traumatic year — she had a miscarriage that went seriously awry in Detroit, and her mother died in Mexico City — she looked deeply into herself and painted searing, introspective works on small canvases. In Detroit, she emerged as the Frida Kahlo who is recognized and revered throughout the world today. While Vogue still identified her as “Madame Diego Rivera” during her first New York exhibition in 1938, the New York Times commented that “no woman in art history commands her popular acclaim” in a 2019 article (Hellman & Ross, 1938; Farago, 2019).

My emphasis will be on Rivera and the “Detroit Industry” murals, but Kahlo’s own work, unheralded at the time, has profoundly resonated with new audiences since. While in Detroit, they both inspired, supported, influenced, and needed each other.

Prelude

Diego and Frida married in Mexico on August 21, 1929. He was 43, and she was 22 — although their maturity, in her view, was inverse to their age. Their love was passionate and tumultuous from the beginning. “I suffered two accidents in my life,” she later wrote, “one in which a streetcar knocked me down … the other accident is Diego” (Rosenthal, 2015:96).

They shared a passion for Mexico, particularly the country’s indigenous roots, and a deep commitment to politics, looking to the ideals of communism in a turbulent and increasingly dangerous world (Rosenthal, 2015:19). Rivera painted a major set of murals — 235 panels — in the Ministry of Education in Mexico City between 1923 and 1928. When he signed each panel, he included a small red hammer and sickle to underscore his political allegiance. Among the later panels was “In the Arsenal,” which included images of Frida Kahlo handing out weapons, muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros in a hat with a red star, and Italian photographer Tina Modotti holding a bandolier.

The politics of Rivera and Kahlo ran deep but didn’t exactly follow a straight line. Kahlo herself remarked that Rivera “never worried about embracing contradictions” (Rosenthal, 2015:55). In fact, he seemed to embody F. Scott Fitzgerald’s notion that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function” (Fitzgerald, 1936).

Their art, however, ultimately defined who they were and usually came out on top when in conflict with their politics. When the Mexican Communist Party was sharply at odds with the Mexican government in the late 1920s, Rivera, then a Party member, nonetheless accepted a major government commission to paint murals in public buildings. The Party promptly expelled him for this act, among other transgressions (Rosenthal, 2015:32).

Diego and Frida came to San Francisco in November 1930 after Rivera received a commission to paint a mural in what was then the San Francisco Stock Exchange. He had already spent more than a decade in Europe and another nine months in the Soviet Union in 1927. In contrast, this was Kahlo’s first trip outside Mexico. The physical setting in San Francisco, then as now, was stunning — steep hills at the end of a peninsula between the Pacific and the Bay — and they were intrigued and elated just to be there. The city had a bohemian spirit and a working-class grit. Artists and writers could mingle with longshoremen in bars and cafes as ships from around the world unloaded at the bustling piers. At the time, California was in the midst of an “enormous vogue of things Mexican,” and the couple was at the center of this mania (Rosenthal, 2015:32). They were much in demand at seemingly endless “parties, dinners, and receptions” during their seven-month stay (Rosenthal, 2015:36). A contradiction with their political views? Not really. Rivera felt he was infiltrating the heart of capitalism with more radical ideas.

Rivera’s commission produced a fresco on the walls of the Pacific Stock Exchange, “Allegory of California” (1931), a paean to the economic dynamism of the state despite the dark economic clouds already descending. Rivera would then paint several additional commissions in San Francisco before leaving. While compelling, these murals lacked the power and political edge of his earlier work in Mexico or the extraordinary genius of what was to come in Detroit.

While in San Francisco, Rivera and Kahlo met Helen Wills Moody, a 27-year-old world-class tennis player, who became the central model for the Allegory mural. She moved in rarified social and artistic circles, and as 1930 drew to a close, she introduced the couple to Wilhelm Valentiner, the visionary director of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), who had rushed to San Francisco to meet Rivera when he learned of the artist’s arrival.

Valentiner was “a German scholar, a Rembrandt specialist, and a man with extraordinarily wide tastes,” according to Graham W.J. Beal, who himself revitalized the DIA as director in the 21st century. “Between 1920 and the early 1930s, with the help of Detroit’s personal wealth and city money, Valentiner transformed the DIA … into one of the half-dozen top art collections in the country,” a position the museum continues to hold today (Beal, 2010:34). The museum director and the artist shared an unusual kinship. “The revolutions in Germany and Mexico [had] radicalized [both],” wrote Linda Downs, a noted curator at the DIA (Downs, 2015:177). Little more than a decade later, “the idea of the mural commission reinvigorated them to create a highly charged monumental modern work that has contributed greatly to the identity of Detroit” (Downs, 2015:177).

When Valentiner and Rivera met, the economic fallout of the Depression was hammering both Detroit and its municipally funded art institute. The city was teetering at the edge of bankruptcy in 1932 and had slashed its contribution to the museum from $170,000 to $40,000, with another cut on the horizon. Despite this dismal economic terrain, Valentiner was able to arrange a commission for Rivera to paint two large-format frescoes in the Garden Court at the new museum building, which had opened in 1927. Edsel Ford, the son of Henry Ford and a major patron of the DIA, pledged $10,000 for the project — a truly princely sum at that moment — and would double his contribution as Rivera’s vision and the scale of the project expanded (Rosenthal, 2015:51). Edsel also played an unheralded role in support of the museum through the economic traumas to come.

A discussion of Rivera’s mural commission gets a bit ahead of our story, so let’s first look at Detroit’s explosive economic growth in the early years of the 20th century. This industrial transformation would provide the subject and the inspiration for Rivera’s frescoes.

The Motor City and the Great Depression

At the turn of the 20th century, Detroit “was a quiet, tree-shaded city, unobtrusively going about its business of brewing beer and making carriages and stoves” (WPA, 1941:231). Approaching 300,000 residents, Detroit was the 13th-largest city in the country (Martelle, 2012:71). A future of steady growth and easy prosperity seemed to beckon.

Instead, Henry Ford soon upended not only the city, but much of the world. He was hardly alone as an auto magnate in the area: Durant, Olds, the Fisher Brothers, and the Dodge Brothers, among others, were also in or around Detroit. Ford, however, would go beyond simply building a successful car company: he unleashed explosive growth in the auto industry, put the world on wheels, and became a global folk hero to many, yet some were more critical. The historian Joshua Freeman points out that “Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) depicts a dystopia of Fordism, a portrait of life A.F. — the years “Anno Ford,” measured from 1908, when the Model T was introduced — with Henry Ford the deity” (Freeman, 2018:147).

Ford combined three simple ideas and pursued them with razor-sharp, at times ruthless, intensity: the Model T, an affordable car for the masses; a moving assembly line that would jump-start productivity growth; and the $5 day for workers, double the prevailing wage in the industry. This combination of mass production and mass consumption — Fordism — allowed workers to buy the products they produced and laid the basis for a new manufacturing era. The automobile age was born.

The $5 day wasn’t altruism for Ford. The unrelenting pace and control of the assembly line was intense — often unbearable — even for workers who had grown up with back-breaking work: tilling the farm, mining coal, or tending machines in a factory. Annual turnover approached 400 percent at Ford’s Highland Park plant, and daily absenteeism was high. In response, Ford introduced the unprecedented new wage on January 12, 1914 (Martelle, 2012:74).

The press and his competitors denounced Ford — claiming this reckless move would bankrupt the industry — but the day the new rate began, 10,000 men arrived at the plant in the winter darkness before dawn. Despite the bitter cold, Ford security men aimed fire hoses to disperse the crowd. Covered in freezing water, the men nonetheless surged forward hoping to grasp an elusive better future for themselves and their families.

Here is where I enter the picture, so to speak. One of the relatively few who did get a job that chaotic day was Philip Chapman. He was a recent immigrant from Russia who had married a seamstress from Poland named Sophie, a spirited, beautiful young woman. They had met in the United States. He wound up working at Ford for 33 years — 22 of them at the Rouge plant — on the line and on machines. They were my grandparents.

By 1929, Detroit was the industrial capital of the world. It had jumped its place in line, becoming the fourth-largest city in the United States — trailing only New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia — with 1.6 million people (Martelle, 2012:71). “Detroit needed young men and the young men came,” the WPA Michigan guidebook writers pointed out, and they emphasized the kaleidoscopic diversity of those who arrived: “More Poles than in the European city of Poznan, more Ukrainians than in the third city of the Ukraine, 75,000 Jews, 120,000 Negroes, 126,000 Germans, more Bulgarians, [Yugoslavians], and Maltese than anywhere else in the United States, and substantial numbers of Italians, Greeks, Russians, Hungarians, Syrians, English, Scotch, Irish, Chinese, and Mexicans” (WPA, 1941:231). Detroit was third nationally in terms of the foreign-born, and the African American population had soared from 6,000 in 1910 to 120,000 in 1930 (WPA, 1941:108), part of a journey that would ultimately involve more than six million people moving from the segregated, more rural South to the industrial cities of the North (Trotter, 2019:78).

DIA planners projected that Detroit would become the second-largest U.S. city by 1935 and that it could surpass New York by the early 1950s. “Detroit grew as mining towns grow — fast, impulsive, and indifferent to the superficial niceties of life,” the Michigan Guidebook writers concluded (WPA, 1941:231).

The highway ahead seemed endless and bright. The city throbbed with industrial production, the streetcars and buses were filled with workers going to and from work at all hours, and the noise of stamping presses and forges could be heard through open windows in the hot summers. Cafes served dinner at 11 p.m. for workers getting off the afternoon shift and breakfast at 5 a.m. for those arriving for the day shift. Despite prohibition, you could get a drink just about any time. After all, only a river separated Detroit from Canada, where liquor was still legal.

Rivera’s biographer and friend Bertram Wolfe wrote of “the tempo, the streets, the noise, the movement, the labor, the dynamism, throbbing, crashing life of modern America” (Wolfe, as cited in Rosenthal, 2015:65). The writers of the Michigan guidebook had a more down-to-earth view: “‘Doing the night spots’ consists mainly of making the rounds of beer gardens, burlesque shows, and all-night movie houses,” which tended to show rotating triple bills (WPA, 1941:232).

Henry Ford began constructing the colossal Rouge complex in 1917, which would employ more than 100,000 workers and spread over 1,000 acres by 1929. “It was, simply, the largest and most complicated factory ever built, an extraordinary testament to ingenuity, engineering, and human labor,” Joshua Freeman observed (Freeman, 2018:144). The historian Lindy Biggs accurately described the complex as “more like an industrial city than a factory” (Biggs, as cited in Freeman, 2018:144).

The Rouge was a marvel of vertical integration, making much of the car on site. Giant Ford-owned freighters would transport iron ore and limestone from Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula down through the Great Lakes, along the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers, and then across the Rouge River to the docks of the plant. Seemingly endless trains would bring coal from West Virginia and Ohio to the plant. Coke ovens, blast furnaces, and open hearths produced iron and steel; rolling mills converted the steel ingots into long, thin sheets for body parts; foundries molded iron into engine blocks that were then precision machined; enormous stamping presses formed sheets of steel into fenders, hoods, and doors; and thousands of other parts were machined, extruded, forged, and assembled. Finished cars drove off the assembly line a little more than a day after the raw materials had arrived at the docks.

In 1928, Vanity Fair heralded the Rouge as “the most significant public monument in America, throwing its shadow across the land probably more widely and more intimately than the United States Senate, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Statue of Liberty.... In a landscape where size, quantity, and speed are the cardinal virtues, it is natural that the largest factory turning out the most cars in the least time should come to have the quality of America’s Mecca, toward which the pious journey for prayer” (Jacob, as cited in Lichtenstein, 1995:13). My grandfather, I suspect, had a more prosaic goal: he needed a job, and Ford paid well.

Despite tough conditions in the plant, workers were proud to work at “Ford’s,” as people in Detroit tended to refer to the company. They wore their Ford badge on their shirts in the streetcars on the way to work or on their suits in church on Sundays. It meant something to have a job there. Once through the factory gate, however, the work was intense and often dangerous and unhealthy. Ford himself described repetitive factory work as “a terrifying prospect to a certain kind of mind,” yet he was firmly convinced strict control and tough discipline over the average worker was necessary to get anything done (Ford, as cited in Martelle, 2012:73). He combined the regimentation of the assembly line with increasingly autocratic management, strictly and often harshly enforced. You couldn’t talk on the line in Ford plants — you were paid to work, not talk — so men developed the “Ford whisper” holding their heads down and barely moving their lips. The Rouge employed 1,500 Ford “Service Men,” many of them ex-convicts and thugs, to enforce discipline and police the plant.

At a time when economic progress seemed as if it would go on forever, the U.S. stock market drove over a cliff in October 1929, and paralysis soon spread throughout the economy. Few places were as shaken as Detroit. In 1929, 5.5 million vehicles were produced, but just 1.4 million rolled off Detroit’s assembly lines three years later in 1932 (Martelle, 2012:114). The Michigan jobless rate hit 40 percent that year, and one out of three Detroit families lacked any financial support (Lichtenstein, 1995). Ford laid off tens of thousands of workers at the Rouge. No one knew how deep the downturn might go or how long it would last. What increasingly desperate people did know is that they had to feed their family that night, but they no longer knew how.

On March 7, 1932 — a bone-chilling day with a lacerating wind — 3,000 desperate, unemployed autoworkers met near the Rouge plant to march peaceably to the Ford Employment Office. Detroit police escorted the marchers to the Dearborn city line, where they were confronted by Dearborn Police and armed Ford Service Men. When the marchers refused to disperse, the Dearborn police fired tear gas, and some demonstrators responded with rocks and frozen mud. The marchers were then soaked with water from fire hoses and shot with bullets. Five workers were killed, 19 wounded by gunfire, and dozens more injured. Communists had organized the march, but a Michigan historical marker makes the following observation: “Newspapers alleged the marchers were communists, but they were in fact people of all political, racial, and ethnic backgrounds.” That marker now hangs outside the United Auto Workers Local 600 union hall, which represents workers today at the Rouge plant.

Five days later, on March 12, thousands of people marched in downtown Detroit to commemorate the demonstrators who had been killed. Although Rivera was still in New York, he was aware of the Ford Hunger March before it took place and told Clifford Wight, his assistant, that he was eager “not [to] miss…[it] on any account” (Rosenthal, 2015:51). Both he and Kahlo had marched with workers in Mexico and embraced their causes. Rivera had captured their lives as well as their protests in his murals in Mexico.

As it turned out, they missed both the march and the commemoration. Instead, the following month Kahlo and Rivera’s train pulled into the Michigan Central Depot, where Wilhelm Valentiner met them. They were taken to the Ford-owned Wardell Hotel next to the Detroit Institute of Arts. The DIA was the anchor of a grass-lined and tree-shaded cultural center several miles north of downtown. The Ford Highland Park Plant, where the automobile age began with the Model T and the moving assembly line, was four miles further north on the same street. Less than a mile northwest was the massive 15-story General Motors Building, the largest office building in the United States when it was completed in 1922, designed by the noted industrial architect Albert Khan, who also created the Rouge. Huge auto production complexes such as Dodge Main or Cadillac Motor — where I would serve my apprenticeship decades later — were not far away.

Valentiner had written Rivera stating, “The Arts Commission would be pleased if you could find something out of the history of Detroit, or some motif suggesting the development of industry in this town. But in the end, they decided to leave it entirely to you” (Beal, 2010:35). Beal points out “that what Valentiner had in mind at the time may have been something like the Helen Moody Wills paintings, something that had an allegorical slant to it. They were to get something completely different” (Beal, 2010:35). Edsel Ford emphasized he wanted Rivera to look at other industries in Detroit, such as pharmaceuticals, and provided a car and driver for Rivera and Kahlo to see the plants and the city.

But when Rivera visited the Rouge plant, he was mesmerized. He saw the future here, despite the fact that the plant had been hard hit by the Depression: the complex had been shuttered for the last six months of 1931, and thousands of workers had been let go before he arrived (Rosenthal, 2015:67). His fascination with machinery, his respect for workers, and his politics fused in an extraordinary artistic vision, which he filled with breathtaking technical detail. He had found his muse.

Rivera took on the seemingly impossible task of capturing the sprawling Rouge plant in frescoes. The initial commission of two large-format frescoes rapidly expanded to 27 frescoes of various sizes filling the entire room from floor to ceiling. Rivera spent the next two months at the manufacturing complex drawing, pacing, photographing, viewing, and translating these images into large drawings — “cartoons” — as the plans for the frescoes. He demonstrated an exceptional ability to retain in his head — and, I suspect, in his dreams — what he would paint.

Rivera’s Vast Masterpieces

Rivera’s “Detroit Industry” murals are anchored in a specific time and place — a sprawling iconic factory, the Depression decade, and the Motor City — yet they achieve the universal in a way that transcends their origins. Rivera painted workers toiling on assembly lines amid blast furnaces pouring molten iron into cupolas, and through the alchemy of his genius, the art still powerfully — even urgently — speaks to us today. The murals celebrate the contribution of workers, the power of industry, and the promise and peril of science and technology. Rivera weaves together Aztec myths, indigenous world views, Mexican culture, and U.S. industry in a visual tour-de-force that delights, challenges, and provokes. The art is both accessible and profound. You can enjoy it for an afternoon or intensely study it for a lifetime with a sense of constant discovery.

Roberta Smith points out that the murals “form an unusually explicit, site-specific expression of the reciprocal bond between an art museum and its urban setting” (Smith, 2015). Over time, the frescoes have emerged as a visible and vital part of the city, becoming part of Detroit’s DNA. Rivera’s art has been both witness to and, more recently, a participant in history. When he began the project in late spring 1932, Detroit was tottering at the edge of insolvency, and 80 years later, the murals witnessed the city skidding into the largest municipal bankruptcy in history in 2013. A deep appreciation for the murals and their close identification with the spirit and hope of Detroit may have contributed to saving the museum this second time around.

I still vividly remember my own reaction when I first saw the murals. As a young boy, the Rouge, the auto industry, and Detroit seemed to course through our lives. My grandfather Philip Chapman, who was hired at Ford’s Highland Park plant in 1914, wound up spending most of his working life on the line at the Rouge. As a young boy, I watched my grandmother Sophie pack his lunch and fill his thermos with hot coffee before dawn as he hurried to catch the first of three buses that would take him to the plant. When my father, Max, came to Detroit three decades later in the mid-1940s to marry my mother, Rose — they had met on a subway while she was visiting New York City, where he lived — he worked on the line at a Chrysler plant on Jefferson Avenue.

One weekend, when I was 10 or 11 years old, my father took me to see the murals. He drove our 1950 Ford down Woodward Avenue, a broad avenue that bisected the city from the Detroit River to its northern border at Eight Mile Road. Woodward seemed like the main street of the world at the time; large department stores — Hudson’s was second only to Macy’s in size and splendor — restaurants, movie theaters, and office buildings lined both sides of the street north from the river. Detroit had the highest per capita income in the country, a palpable economic power seen in the scale of the factories and the seemingly endless numbers of trucks rumbling across the city to transport parts between factories and finished vehicles to dealers.

We walked up terraced white steps to the main entrance of the Detroit Institute of Arts, an imposing Beaux-Arts building constructed with Vermont marble in what had become the city’s cultural center. As we entered the building, the sounds of the city disappeared. We strolled the gleaming marble floors of the Great Hall, a long gallery topped far above by a beautiful curved ceiling with light flowing through large windows. Imposing suits of medieval armor stood guard in glass cases on either side of us as we crossed the Hall, passed under an arch, and entered a majestic courtyard.

We found ourselves in what is now called the Rivera Court, surrounded on all sides by the “Detroit Industry” murals. The impact was startling. We weren’t simply observing the frescoes, we were enveloped by them. It was a moment of wonder as we looked around at what Rivera had created. Linda Downs captured the feeling: “Rivera Court has become the sanctuary of the Detroit Institute of Arts, a ‘sacred’ place dedicated to images of workers and technology” (Downs, 1999:65). I couldn’t have articulated this sentiment then, but I certainly felt it.

The size, scale, form, pulsing activity, and brilliant color of the paintings deeply impressed me. I saw for the first time where my grandfather went every morning before dawn and why he looked so drawn every night when he came home just before dinner. Many years later, I began to appreciate the art in a much deeper way, but the thrill of walking into the Rivera Court on that first visit has never left. I came to realize that an indelible dimension of great art is a sense of constant discovery and rediscovery. The murals captured the spirit of Detroit then and provide relevance and insight for the times we live in today.

Beal points out that Rivera “worked in a heroic, realist style that was easily graspable” (Beal, 2010:35). A casual viewer, whether a schoolboy or an autoworker from Detroit or a tourist from France, can enjoy the art, yet there is no limit to engaging the frescoes on many deeper levels. In contrast, “throughout Western history, visual art has often been the domain of the educated or moneyed elite,” Jillian Steinhauer wrote in the New York Times. “Even when artists like Gustave Courbet broke new ground by depicting working-class people, the art itself still wasn’t meant for them” (Steinhauer, 2019). Rivera upended this paradigm and sought to paint public art for workers as well as elites on the walls of public buildings. By putting these murals at the center of a great museum in the 1930s through the efforts of Wilhelm Valentiner and Edsel Ford — and more recently, under Graham Beal and the current director Salvador Salort-Pons — the Detroit Institute of Arts opened itself and the murals to new Detroit populations. Detroit is now 80-percent African American, the metropolitan area has the highest number of Arab Americans in the United States, and the Latino population is much larger than when Rivera painted, yet the murals retain their allure and meaning for new generations.

Upon entering the Rivera Court, the viewer confronts two monumental murals facing each other on the north and south walls. The murals not only define the courtyard, they draw you into the engine and assembly lines deep inside the Rouge. The factory explodes with cacophonous activity. The production process is a throbbing, interconnected set of industrial activities. Intense heat, giant machines, flaming metal, light, darkness, and constant movement all converge. Undulating steel rail conveyors carry parts overhead. There were 120 miles of conveyors in the Rouge at the time; they linked all aspects of production and provide a thematic unity to the mural. And even though he’s portraying a production process in Detroit, Rivera’s deep appreciation of Mexican culture and heritage infuses the frescoes. An Aztec cosmology of the underworld and the heavens runs in long panels spanning the top of the main murals and similar imagery appears throughout the frescoes.

On the north wall, a tightly packed engine assembly line, with workers laboring on both sides, is flanked by two huge machine tools — 20 feet or so high — machining the famed Ford V8 engine blocks. Workers in the foreground strain to move heavy cast-iron engine blocks; muscles bulge, bodies tilt, shoulders pull in disciplined movement. These workers are not anonymous. At the center foreground of the north wall, with his head almost touching a giant spindle machine, is Paul Boatin, an assistant to Rivera who spent his working life at the Rouge. He would go on to become a United Auto Workers (UAW) organizer and union leader. Boatin had been present at the Ford Hunger March on that disastrous day in March 1932 and still choked up talking about it many decades later in an interview in the film The Great Depression (1990).

In the foreground, leaning back and pulling an engine block with a white fedora on his head may have been Antonio Martínez, an immigrant from Mexico and the grandfather of Louis Aguilar. A reporter for the Detroit News, Aguilar describes how fierce, at times ugly, pressures during the Great Depression forced many Mexicans to leave Detroit and return to their homeland. The city’s Mexican population plummeted from 15,000 at the beginning of the 1930s to 2,000 at the end of the decade. If the figure in the mural is not his grandfather, Aguilar writes “let every Latino who had family in Detroit around 1932 and 1933 declare him as their own” (Aguilar, 2018).

A giant blast furnace spewing molten metal reigns above the engine production, which bears a striking resemblance to a Charles Sheeler photo of one of the five Rouge blast furnaces. The flames are so intense, and the men so red, you can almost feel the heat. In fact, the process is truly volcanic and symbolic of the turbulent terrain of Mexico itself. It brings to mind Popocatépetl, the still-active 18,000-foot volcano rising to the skies near Mexico City. To the left, above the engine block line, green-tinted workers labor in a foundry, one of the dirtiest, most unhealthy, most dangerous jobs. Meanwhile, a tour group observes the process. Among them in a black bowler hat is Diego Rivera himself.

On the south wall, workers toil on the final assembly line just before the critical “body drop,” where the body of a Model B Ford is lowered to be bolted quickly to the car frame on a moving assembly line below. Once again, through his perspective Rivera draws you into the line. A huge stamping press to the right forms fenders from sheets of steel like those produced in the Rouge facilities. Unlike most of the other machines Rivera portrays, which are state of the art, this press is an older model, selected because of its stylized resemblance to an ancient sculpture of Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess of life and death (Beale, 2010:41; Downs, 1999:140, 144).

On the left is another larger tour group, which includes a priest and Dick Tracy, a classic cartoon character of the era. The Katzenjammer Kids — more comic icons of the time — are leaning on the wall watching the assembly line move. The eyes of most of the visitors seem closed, as if they were physically present, but not seeing the intense, occasionally brutal, activity before them. Rivera, in effect, is giving us a few winks and a nod with cartoon characters and unobservant tourists.

~ Harley Shaiken · Fall 2019.

#diego rivera #frida kahlo #detroit industry murals #painting #exibition review #review #clas berkeley

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abigailnussbaum · 4 years

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The Umbrella Academy, S2

I was pretty underwhelmed by the first season of The Umbrella Academy, and if it weren’t high summer with hardly any new TV to be seen, I might not have bothered with the second one. But to my surprise, season 2 of The Umbrella Academy is a massive - and, to my eyes, deliberate - improvement on the first. It’s not great TV by any stretch, but it’s engaging and fun to watch, and you find yourself caring about the characters and wanting to follow along with their story, all things that the dour first season failed to achieve.

My fundamental problem with the first season of The Umbrella Academy is that the show failed to convince me that its core family was worth saving. The basic premise of the show - seven superpowered children raised by an abusive tyrant who saw them purely as instruments to be deployed, and played psychological games intended to grind down their independence and prevent any chance of their feeling a stronger loyalty to one another than to him - is obviously a rich and evocative one (albeit also one that requires a depth and complexity of writing that very few superhero shows evince). But the premise of the first season - the surviving Hargreeves children, reunited at their father’s funeral, have to find a way to overcome their differences and move past their difficult upbringing or the world will literally end - kept bumping up against the simple fact that I didn’t want this family to endure. The Hargreeves were so mean to one another, and seemed to have so little affection for each other, that I couldn’t make myself believe they wouldn’t be better off just going their separate ways.

The show itself seemed to realize this, because it ended the first season with the Hargreeves’ dysfunction and inability to honestly address how badly they’d mistreated one another ultimately being the cause of the apocalypse, and with the siblings deciding that their only possible course of action was to reset their lives and rebuild their relationships from the ground up. It was the show tacitly admitting that the Hargreeves family was unsalvageable, and while that’s a bold storytelling choice, the writing just wasn’t there to support it. I finished the first season feeling rather fatigued with both the story and the characters, and uninterested in watching them relive their lives.

The second season feels like a soft reboot of that premise. The trip through time on which the first season ended is retconned - instead of sending their consciousnesses back to their childhood selves, the Hargreeves instead end up as their own adult versions in the early 1960s. The apocalypse they fled 2019 to avoid and were hoping to prevent by reliving their childhoods and repairing their relationships from first principles is essentially forgotten. Instead the Hargreeves focus on preventing a different, new apocalypse scheduled for November 25th 1963, and once they succeed at that, 2019 is altered in unspecified ways that prevent the end of the world from happening.

Most importantly, the Hargreeves suddenly feel like a family. A dysfunctional family, to be sure, whose members have to figure out how to relate to one another now that the abuser who shaped and poisoned their relationships is finally gone. But there is a suddenly a lot of affection between the siblings, even if most of it is expressed through teasing and needling at one another’s weaknesses. In S1, the Hargreeves felt like people who genuinely had no interest in knowing one another. In S2, they feel like people who don’t know how to relate to each other, but want to figure it out.

You see this in a lot of other things that the second season does to respond to frequently-voiced complaints about the first season. In S1, everyone hated how domineering Luther was and how badly he treated Vanya, so almost the first thing he does in S2 is apologize to her for his failings as a brother, and acknowledge that a large portion of the fault for her breakdown falls on him. Everyone was a bit weirded out by the Luther/Alison ship, so it gets barely any play in S1 (though with a bone thrown to the shippers right at the end). Everyone was charmed by Klaus and Diego, so they both get major storylines (and Diego, in particular, is softened and made more vulnerable, the better to take advantage of David Castañeda’s charisma). Everyone wanted more of Ben, so he becomes more vocal and even gets to interact with characters besides Klaus. Everyone got tired of Alison namechecking a daughter that we had no intrest in, so she barely comes up even though Alison is not only separated from her by a distance of sixty years, but last saw her in a world that was being destroyed by a meteor impact. And everyone came away from the first season saying “no way Vanya is straight”, and lo, she is not straight.

It’s an approach that you see in other Netflix shows - Stranger Things, in particular, is practically defined by its responsiveness to audience complaints, with each season overcorrecting in the direction of whatever reaction was most loudly expressed over the previous one. Ideally, you’d want showrunners to have a strong enough sense of their characters, story, and world that they don’t need the audience to function as a cowriter, but in the case of The Umbrella Academy, these changes are mostly to the good. I might have liked the darker story the show seemed to be telling in the first season, about a group of abused children who genuinely don’t like each other but also can’t relate to anyone outside of their family, but the writing wasn’t there for it. The lighter, softer version of The Umbrella Academy delivered by S2 actually works, so the show should stick with it.

It certainly helps that the second season shoulders several topics that I wouldn’t have expected the show to be able to address with any amount of grace. I have to admit that I cringed when I realized that Alison, trapped in the South in the early 60s, had joined the civil rights movement, because superhero stories do not have a great track record dealing with social justice, much less real-world movements. But the handling of this issue ends up being smarter and more effective than I could ever have hoped. It’s still a side-story to the main event of preventing the end of the world, but in the scenes and episodes that do place it front and center, the show is unflinching. The depiction of the lunch counter protest that Alison and her group organize, and of the vicious hostility they encounter for such a small, simple demand, is unsparing. It establishes both the depth of the hatred and violence that the protest arouses, and the impossibility of resisting “peacefully” against a system the views any assertion of your humanity as an act of violence.

I was also a bit concerned over the placement of Alison, in particular, at the center of a story like this. Obviously, as the only black member of the Hargreeves family, her experience in the 1960s would be unique, but she’s also a character who has been established as being too powerful for her own good, and having abused her power in order to dehumanize others. Placing her in a situation where she is being dehumanized because of her race felt like creating a fruitless tension, where Alison might feel reluctant to use her powers despite the fact that she is all-but powerless against the greater system of white supremacy. But again, the season manages to thread the needle, showing both the allure and the limitations of Alison’s mind control abiliites in the context of Jim Crow. I didn’t love the implication that Alison would almost immediately start misusing her powers once she decided to use them to open doors that racism had closed to her, but the show also makes it clear that her anger is justified, and her targets deserving.

By the same token, I heaved a great sigh when the season introduced Harlan and I realized that he was neuroatypical, because it felt almost inevitable that some aspect of the strangeness that follows the Hargreeves around would result in him being “cured”. But that didn’t happen! The season treats Harlan like a valuable and loved person who doesn’t need to become more “normal” for his life to be worth living. And though he does end up needing to be cured, it’s not of his autism, but of whatever Vanya does to him when she saves his life. I kept expecting the the moment when Harlan would turn to his mother and start speaking, and the fact that the season kept refusing to go there feels almost miraculous.

So yeah, the whole thing feels like a breath of fresh air, and as if the people at the helm are thinking a lot more deeply about their story, what works in it and what needs to be changed for it to work, than I would have said at the end of the first season. It’s still not an amazing story (part of the reason we’re able to spend so much time on subplots like Vanya’s romance with Sissy, Klaus’s cult adventures, Alison’s activism, or Diego and his conflicted relationship with Lila, is that the spine of the season is fairly perfunctory) but it does enough with the characters that I found myself genuinely interested in their relationships and eager to see how they would develop. I’m not used to shows rebuilding themselves like this, and it’s refreshing to see that even in the streaming era, that can still happen.

#the umbrella academy

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bummerbetch · 4 years

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Dear Humanity and Fellow Allies of the Black Lives Matter Movement,

I understand that things may feel scary and overwhelming right now, but for privileged members of society, the responsibility now more than ever, is to be an ally. Now is the time to get involved in any way you can, whether in the streets or from your home. As our continued actions manifest changes within law enforcement and government structures, we must not forget to include the change needed within our society as well. Although the bravery many are currently showing, and the sustained and strong efforts of those partaking in the movement is incredible, it does not change the minds of those who are not currently with us. We must also focus our efforts to sustain the changes we are seeing and to ensure a lasting legacy of toppling white supremacy.

Race is a social construct. What this really means, is that no one is born racist. Racism is taught, whether in the home or though the media and systems in place to keep certain members of our society in power. It is not enough to dismantle institutionalized racism if individuals within society still do not understand the pain and suffering it has caused. To unite and raise up all of humanity, we must focus not just on those who are most disenfranchised, but on those who lack education and understanding of the world’s power structures. With understanding we can achieve momentum and lasting change.

Just as we teach our children the importance of treating everyone equally, we must offer the same courtesy to those adults who were not afforded this same service as children. It is not always obvious to those who benefit from systemic racism the privilege they are afforded. And it is not always their fault. It is the fault of an underfunded and white washed public education system that serves to further the convenient and comfortable narrative of the white suppressors and their pillaging of what is now the United States.

It is difficult for anyone to admit they are wrong, or don’t understand, and it is even scarier to admit to benefiting from another's pain, even unconsciously. People are afraid of change, it is uncomfortable. But that does not mean that change is bad. For this, we must work to educate others from a place of compassion rather than anger. Those who do not understand systemic racism are also products of a broken system that can only be dismantled when people truly understand its foundations and flaws. There is no excuse for hate, and racism should not be tolerated, but please I urge everyone who already agrees with me to greet others with compassion and courage. It is only through open dialogue and honest conversation that minds can be changed and communities strengthened. We must never tolerate racism but we must also never tolerate ignorance that leads to hate.

Be strong in your sense of justice and equality for all. And be strong in educating others to the pains and horrors perpetrated by a racist system. Understand that change takes time. Those who are learning need time to process new information and work towards changing their scope and principles. The space granted to another to reeducate themself must not be confused with complacency. Patience should only be granted only to those actively working to understand their privilege and the foundations of white supremacy that the US was founded on. It must ultimately be understood that it could, sadly, take generations to undo the damage caused by an entire world history built on the backs of others. To those who are suffering, this is far too long. We all owe it to humanity to work to better ourselves and the society we live in.

Black Lives Matter. If you agree with this statement but are white and don’t believe yourself to be part of the problem; that is the problem. Whiteness as superiority has been so deeply embedded into every institution within American Society, the message may go easily unnoticed by those without Black and Brown bodies. It is a responsibility to learn about systemic oppression and injustices and understand how we may benefit so we can effect change. It is powerful to be able to admit when we do not understand and it is even more courageous to admit the understanding to oneself and to others, that they may have benefited from another’s pain. The real power is in people learning the truth and working to understand the true history of genocide and slave labor that the US is built on. Let us use education to reframe racist points of view and create a community where the safety and prosperity of all is at the forefront.

With love, compassion, and understanding, BummerBetch

#open letter #black lives matter #reeducate #protect black and brown bodies #dismantel systemic racism #stop white washing history #be an ally #educate yourselves #be compassionate #practice compassion #end white supremacy #use your privilege #betcheducation #bummerbetch

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mkobooks · 3 years

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“Nice White Parents” - Podcast Review and Thoughts on Allies and Perception

“Whenever people have asked me podcast recommendations this year, I’ve been forced to admit that I “don’t listen to serious podcasts anymore.” I really just couldn’t handle it.

However, I’m also a woman of simple tastes: I see something new in the “Serial” feed, I listen to it.

“Nice White Parents” by Chana Joffe-Walt (spelled nothing like how she says it on her podcast 😅) is not a “Serial” podcast, but it is investigative, illuminating, and infuriating in its own way. I spent some time this summer attempting to find and listen to podcasts about social justice, racial inequity, and BLM, yet most were disappointing or not as educational as I had hoped they’d be. In contrast, I found “Nice White Parents” fascinating and relatable.

Because, of course, I have “nice white parents” who were afraid of sending me to the “wrong” public school. And, thanks to the decisions they made for my education and me, I was able to spend a year working at one of those “bad schools.”

The focal point of “Nice White Parents” is the School for International Studies, a public middle school in New York. It had several names as it went through several massive changes in how it was viewed by its community. It has gone from failing and in threat of closing, to housing two separate “schools” within it, to being the “hot” school to attend, before finally becoming a potential blueprint for how to integrate a school. The driver of a lot of these changes were the titular “nice white parents,” and the history detailed in this limited series was a surprising deconstruction of school segregation and the role of white or privileged allies in social movements.

A key theme I’d like to hone in on is perception: how do people perceive the schools in their communities? How do they perceive the role of public schools in our society? How do parents perceive what is best for their kids? And how do they perceive themselves as proponents for racial equity or as perpetrators of an unequal system?

In this podcast, when (white) parents judged the South as being “backwards” because of segregation, they wrote letters to the school board championing integration. Yet, when it came down to it, many ended up perceiving the diverse schools as not being able to provide a quality education to their children. When they perceived that their local school was still not good enough, they sought to open new (integrated?) ones or develop new programs--such as the French program detailed in the first episode. And, when those programs end up being mostly white they don’t really see it as “segregation” until it’s put in explicitly racial terms.

At the same time, there was little concern for how their actions were perceived by the non-white community members. One particularly poignant moment was the interview with a Latina mom in the final episode who just wanted her school to be less crowded. Instead, the meeting she attended was solely focused on “diversity” and “equity”: what the white parents perceived as most important.

There were a few weeks this year when I made an effort to “educate” myself: I listened to “Codeswitch,” “Silence is Not an Option”, and “Reply All”, read NK Jemisin, Jacqueline Woodson, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and had discussion groups--with nearly all white participants. I’m not saying that listening to and reading BIPOC voices isn’t helpful and important to understanding and participating in this movement, yet I think it’s also equally important for allies to be critical of what that “allyship” actually means to us.

I’ve struggled with my role as an ally in the past. As I alluded to, I served a year with AmeriCorps at a high school that was probably 50% black and 50% Latinx. A major part of our training, maybe even more so than how to teach, was how to practice empathy, how to recognize systemic racism in our country and schools, and, most importantly for me, how to be an ally. It was far from easy. (And that’s not even getting into whether being Jewish means I’m white or not... and this blog post has rambled on long enough!)

I have put my money where my mouth is--I spent ten months working in that school--but I can’t shake the nagging little itch that someday when I have kids, I’ll take a look at a school like the one I worked at and another like the one I graduated from and most likely choose the latter, just as my parents did when they chose to send me to a private school for kindergarten through eighth grade.

At the same time, I know that that’s many, many years down the line, and I know that things change. That middle school my parents were so reluctant for me to attend was the one my sister graduated from! I wonder what it was that changed their perspective? What will it take to change mine?

"Nice White Parents"

https://www.podcastrepublic.net/podcast/1524080195

#podcasts #podcast review #nice white parents #allyship #educational equity

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my-halo-is-a-little-broken · 4 years

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I took this from my Facebook: I'm in a mood this morning so let's go and cover a few things! Now, I'm not black, so I may not be the most clear and concise about some of it, but damnit I'm gonna do my best on the points involving race. Also, if any of this offends you or some shit, don't even open your mouth, I don't have the patience to deal with you, stay quiet and ignore my page, or maybe even better yet, unfriend me!

White privilege: White privilege is real. I'll admit, there was a time a few years ago, I didn't think it was and I didn't understand what people meant when they said it. but now I do. and it's a real fucking thing. people need to grow up and shut the fuck up with their whining. we do have privilege just based off our skin and that needs to be recognized. We need to use that privilege to fight back and support the black community. if we don't use that privilege we are no better than the cops and others who abuse their power because we are staying silent while they do it. Silence only lends itself to the oppresser. Now, you may ask after reading that, what is white privilege? "White privilege refers to societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances." The most relevant example of this right now? Not having to fear for your life just because of your skin color when you get pulled over or stopped by cops.

Black lives matter: Now, I've seen some of y'all say "but all lives matter!" ...shut the fuck up. No one ever said they didn't, they're saying that black lives DO matter. All lives won't matter until ALL lives matter, and right now black lives espcially don't matter to a good amount people, which is why people are fighting to make them matter as they should. As the example that's been going around lately, take houses. Oh yes, all houses are important, but if one of them is on fire, it kinda makes sense for the firefighters to put out the fire at that house instead of spraying down all the houses, right? Some of you want to be oppressed so badly you scream "all lives matter!" or "straight pride!" (as another example). Be fucking thankful you don't need a movement just to be treated as a human being based on your skin. And it's not just about George anymore. He was the spark, the shot heard round the world this time. It's about all the black lives lost, it's about the years of racism, it's about the affects of slavery and segregation we still see today, it's about so much more.

Protests vs riots vs looting: Not all these people are the same. Protesting is included in our FIRST amendment, meaning that when the founding fathers were thinking of what they wanted, that's what they thought of first and as being the most important. The protesters now are marching for black lives and other things such as police reform. Many (most) of them are trying to stay peaceful! It's so widespread now because it's been ignored and shoved down before. So now they're taking to the big cities in mass, making it so they are HEARD! You wanna say they're inconvincing people or shit, well good. That's the point. Protests, even when peaceful, aren't meant to be comfortable. They are there to get a message across. Now, there's been cases of the protests turning into riots. Occasionally it has been started by the protesters. And that's because they're angry, and fed up with not being heard. I'll pull out an analogy a good chunk of y'all will understand, even if it's fictional. Remember in Hunger Games, when Katniss put flowers around Rues body, and District 11 started to riot? It's like that. These people are angry, tired, frustrated, and hurt, and they've been ignored when they've tried to be peaceful, so now they're doing what they KNOW will get attention. But despite this, most of the riots aren't started by protestors, especially POC ones. No, most of them are started by white people getting big heads and wanting to say "FUCK DA POLICE/AUTHORITY" or even the cops themselves. Most people that start destroying property are white, and usually black people try and stop them from doing it. And then you have the cops. Destroying medical supplies, firing rubber bullets and tear gasat peaceful protesters, physically pushing them, etc even when they have NO reason to. And before you cite MLKs peaceful protests, many of those ended with the cops setting dogs on the protesters or spraying with fire hoses or beating them with batons. And this leads to riots because it riles people up, they get even angrier. And then you have the looters. Most looters aren't even with the protests, and instead are trailing behind them to loot stores because they know the protesters will get the blame. Oh, and cops have been documented looting too.

Cops: now, this one is really touchy, but let's go and I'll try and articulate it best I can. There can be cops that do good for their community, have good intentions at heart, but here's the thing. Our justice system, especially the cop part, is corrupt in one way or another, and has many flaws. It needs fixed. These people may join with good intentions, but they are joininga system that is inherently bad. And before y'all want to try and start shit with me over this, I just took a semester long class over this. The system has racism ingrained into it's core, even if people don't realize it. That's why the current system needs dismantled and a new one that will actually do good needs put in place. There's so so so much that ties into it, such as better mental health treatments, community outreach programs, and more. With the current system, cops are not meant to help people, but rather control them, even if they don't realize it. Do you know why we have so many shows about cops? Have you ever heard of Dragnet? Dragnet was originally started to show the cops in a good light because people were not happy with cops, so they started making propaganda, yes, that's what it truly is, to make the cops look good, to make them out to be these pillars of righteousness and whatnot so they could start getting the public on their side. And thus the long and still strong tradition of cop shows are around, whether it be reality TV like Cops, or complete fiction like Law & Order. And even if these shows do make steps to address shortcomings of the police system, their roots are still in propaganda. Circling back, you also have the cops that stand by and do nothing. As I said earlier, silence lends itself to the oppresser, and when cops don't speak up, they are doing the same.

Children (and pets/animals) at protests: Here's the thing. people bringing their kids and pets are more than likely bringing them to PEACEFUL protests. Now you may say, "well they should know it could turn violent!" ...It's called a peaceful protest for a REASON. Ok, let's say it does turn violent? Cops are still directly targeting children. And even if they aren't, they see the kids, and instead of rethinking what they're about to do, they still do it, they still mace and tear gas those kids. And guess what? Some of them aren't even with the protests! some of the kids that have been maced and tear gassed have been with their BYSTANDER parents as they have to pass through the area to get to their homes or wherever. like the little girl whose mom was driving them somewhere and they got caught in tear gas the police had been throwing, and were gassed out of their car. as the mom was trying to take care of her daughter a cop came up to them. the mom said (screamed) "she's just three" multiple times, and that they weren't at the protest, just trying to get home, and despite that, the cop looked directly at the little girl and then threw the canister directly at her, causing it to blow up in her face. And the police animals. I agree, those animals should not be subjected to pain. It is not their choice to be there, they don't know what they're doing, they're just doing as trained. I've seen people get more upset about the police animals than I have kids, and you cry that parents choose to bring their kids. Well, cops are choosing to bring their animals. Neither kids nor animals on either side should be getting hurt, hell, no one should, the protests are meant to stay peaceful.

Protesters going missing and other things: Multiple protestors have magically "disappeared", unlawfully arrested, or detained without food, water, etc. and who knows what else. This should not be happening. These people aren't just disappearing, they shouldn't have to fear for basic rights or even for their fucking lives when exercising their first amendment right. Curfews have been a big issue. A curfew will be announced just a few minutes before, or get changed so people get caught outside with no where to go, thus getting arrested. Or like in Chicago, where the bridges were raised so they had no way to leave. Or other places where they are blocked in so they technically violate curfew. Or places where protesters are told to clear out or they'll get arrested, and instead of giving them time to leave, they start arresting them right away. Or what about when people are sitting there, just trying to talk to the police, hands up, and are still arrested?

There's so much more I could say, but I do want to leave off with this. So many ask why young people are so involved with this. we have been raised on a diet of Hunger Games, Divergent, Avatar: The Last Air Bender, Harry Potter, Steven Universe, and so much more. We have been taught to fight back injustice and oppression, to make our voices be heard and to help make others voices be heard. We have been raised by parents to speak out and defend ourselves. We have already lived through pain and suffering in our short lives, and we are tired of it. So we are damn sure going to fight back and try to make this shitty little world even a tiny bit better for whoever we can. We are told this is the land of the free, and that we can be whoever we please and get to live our lives as we see fit, and damnit, we are going to make that happen for ALL of us.

#blacklivesmatter #black lives fucking matter #black lives count #black lives have always mattered #black lives are important #black lives matter #black lives have value #black lives movement #justice for george floyd #justice for floyd #blm movement #blm protests #protest

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citymaus · 3 years

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“Some of the early southern American police forces were born out of slave patrols. In other parts of the country, groups of men were hired to protect the property of the wealthy. After the Civil War during Reconstruction, many local sheriffs maintained a similar function to the slave patrols through their enforcement of segregation and disenfranchisement of previously enslaved Africans. Enforcement started out and continues to predominantly be about protecting wealthy and white comfort at the expense of the lives of Black and Brown folks.

The invention of the automobile represented a new threat to public safety, with the first US automobile fatality taking place as early as 1899. Regulations were needed to prevent reckless driving, and police began enforcing speed limits and other safety laws.

“Policing the roads was always about more than just public safety. It was about the exercise of various types of power: local power, racial power, and making money.” —Cotton Seiler, author of Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America.

The over-reliance on police for traffic enforcement in the US has a serious impact on freedom of mobility for Black and Brown people.

In the modern era, researchers at Stanford University analyzed data from close to 100 million traffic stops between 2011 and 2017 and found Black drivers were more likely to be pulled over and have their car searched than white drivers, which the researchers stated was evidence of systemic racial profiling. Latinos, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islander Americans are also disproportionately stopped while driving, which in many cases can lead to arrest and deportation. According to the US Burea vu of Justice, the traffic stop is the most common interaction between US residents and police officers. It is understandable that members of these these communities may feel distrust and uncertainty when interacting with law enforcement.

the chicago tribune, 17.03.17 reported that the police department was writing exponentially more bike tickets in black neighborhoods than majority-white ones.

“Oboi Reed form the mobility justice nonprofit Equiticity said that when he first started organizing community bike rides in predominantly Black and Brown lower-income neighborhoods, he heard from young people that they didn’t ride their bikes because they felt they were being targeted by the police. That was a new concept to him at the time, but he took their word for it. He added that when he shared the youths’ concerns with mainstream transportation advocates and Chicago Department of Transportation officials, often the response was disbelief—people didn’t believe the police were actually guilty of profiling cyclists of color. But years later the Tribune data proved that officers were, in fact, writing exponentially more bike tickets in communities of color, and a police spokesperson eventually admitted that this was due to bike enforcement being used a pretext to conduct searches in high-crime areas.

“The vast majority [of the contact] that BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] folks have with the police is in the act of exercising our human right to mobility….The vehicles of mobility are our sidewalks, trains, buses, and vehicles that are a major part of our cities. That’s where the collision happens.”

That’s a harmful situation because people require mobility for improved educational opportunities, job opportunities, opportunities to improve their health, etc. “When our mobility is restricted, any number of life outcomes become constricted. The nature of policing in [Chicago] is to constrict our movement.” He referenced slave patrols as “the foundation of policing.”

“I always think about mobility justice literally being the intersection and the arteries of every social justice movement,” Río Oxas said. “It’s how we get to school, work, the clinic, our friends, the mountains, the ocean. That’s mobility justice.””

read more: chi.streetsblog, 14.12.2020.

#transportation #inequity #equity #chicago #racism #police #police brutality #black lives matter

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ellaintrigue · 4 years

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Photo credit: Julio Cortez/AP

George Floyd's fiance pleads against the violent protests: https://www.thedailybeast.com/george-floyds-fiancee-pleads-…

YES, racism is alive and well. So is sexism, rape culture, and homophobia, but you don't see the Me Too movement hurting people and destroying property...

YES, George Floyd was murdered. But this goes far beyond racism. I never deny racism, the recent murder of a black man by two white guys in a pickup was clearly racist. But this is an issue of MEN. And POLICE. Cops have always killed people, it's all a matter of what gets the most publicity. I see a photo collage going around of black people that have been shot recently by cops and I find it offensive. Where are the white, Asian, and Hispanics that have also been shot by the police? What about the recent shooting of a white woman? We are all equals, right? https://apnews.com/57b423dcf5e54bdb801d7ea564416a0a

Foolish liberal hypocrisy. Meanwhile I am seeing younger democratic socialists applauding the looting as capitalism being put in its place. What the hell? You see the first article above, George Floyd's loved one said he never wanted this. And what exactly is the relevance to his death? What did Target stores do to George Floyd? How is the guy walking down the street with a backpack of stolen liquor bottles contributing to justice?

This is bullshit of the greedy and the brainwashed, race issues and social topics have been long lost. The majority of the protesters seem to be males enjoying violence. Which again, is what it comes down to.

While a huge feminist, I have no problem admitting that men have their own separate laundry list of issues. Difficulty speaking out, and difficulty getting help for whatever problems they may have because of the stigma of society where men are still not allowed to admit "weakness." I see it in my own father who has outbursts from being overwhelmed by various things. Having to be a tough guy and a financial supporter to a disabled wife but unable to accept or seek support himself.

There are A LOT of angry men out there. Shit, they're justified for the most part! I would definitely not want to be a man. And that is where the position of authority comes in... overcoming your struggles as a male youth and becoming a cop or correctional officer.

There are so many great cops out there! But, I haven't met many of them. Because not everyone overcomes their past and becomes a good cop. Whatever they grew up with or were born with makes them relish power, control, and violence.

I, a lower class (former middle class) white woman, have been victimized by the police. If you think that's a fucking joke because I'm white, refer back to the original point: POLICE VICTIMIZE PEOPLE OF ALL AGES, RACES, GENDERS, ETC.

A few years ago I read an article about a rapist cop. He raped more than one woman, but when they reported it, they were dismissed because he was a cop. His peers made sure he was above the law. So then he rapes an older black woman, someone's grandmother. She raised hell and he finally got in trouble. Was she listened to because she was black? HELL TO THE NO, women are treated like shit. A black woman? I've seen black women treated horribly my entire life. It's just how it is.

But no one felt like bringing this pig to justice, because, well, white male cop. Cops obviously deal with criminals and folks they will naturally regard as lower class, and none of these folks are going to be believed over a cop. From dating men of questionable backgrounds, I have heard horror stories of prisoners being beaten by cops and correctional officers and all kinds of shit. But who is going to believe some felon over a police officer?

May marked the 4 year anniversary of my ex-boyfriend almost killing me. It was hell, I struggled all month. My mom having cancer, the anniversary, the pandemic, now everyone running around setting shit on fire because they want free TVs... HOLY FUCK. PTSD trigger much?

I've wanted to talk about that, but I felt I couldn't, because, well, he's stalked me since. How did this happen? People think I was a battered woman but that's not true. Women stay with abusive partners and I did not. I got with this guy knowing he had a record, as others before him, but did not expect the onslaught of mental illness. The guy before him was bipolar and would shut down, lay on the bed and just be totally mute or sob. This new guy, after about 3 months into a relationship, would have manic episodes that would lead to suicide attempts. Over time I found out that he was a diagnosed bipolar, and rumored (unconfirmed) schizophrenic. I begged and begged for him to stick to taking meds, which clearly helped over the course of months, but he would stop taking them because he felt he "didn't need them," which is the cruelest cliche of the mentally ill and why so many don't function at all.

So I ended up having to call the cops on him multiple times in the course of 3 years when he lost his shit. Not once did he ever harm me, although you can see, and I can see, now, that it was unhealthy and dangerous for everyone involved regardless. The first time I dealt with the cops over him was when he got a DUI in my truck with his friend. but the friend was driving. I woke up at midnight to this chaos and remember a black female cop intimidating me and screaming at me because I was standing near a beer bottle on the ground and I was "hiding evidence." Which was bullshit since the driver had already been arrested. Who the fuck cares about a random Bud Light bottle lying in my yard? The DUI was in Ocean City. Whatever.

The same fucking night my shitfaced, manic boyfriend logs onto my computer and reads like 7 years worth of texts between me and a male friend, accusing me of fucking him. After a long night of dealing with the other drama it was like hell never ended. He's on my computer, looking at everything I have and accusing me of cheating. Never met the dude, never tried to be with the dude, but that seemed pretty moot. Even if your partner has nothing to hide, you shouldn't be going through their shit. IF YOU DO NOT TRUST THE PERSON YOU ARE WITH, LEAVE THEM. IF YOU HAVE ONGOING ISSUES WITH MANIA OR PARANOIA, GET HELP.

Well, perhaps I seem a hypocrite in protesting violence against women, and I did something I'm not proud of: I punched the fuck out of him. He then got up and put my shotgun in his mouth. He didn't pull the trigger but obviously that scarred me for life. I called 911 and they chased him down in the woods and took him to the mental ward in Salisbury. I dealt with 3 male cops that were kind to me and said I did the right thing by hiding the gun afterward and calling 911. My neighbor also helped me, which I am incredibly grateful for.

I should have left, hands down. But because I never felt physically threatened by him: I felt I was helping him, he could get better, and I kept trying. I have never been a woman that wanted a "project" as some people want, where they find someone to fix or better as a person. But I loved this man and tried my best, stupid as I was.

He was fine for months after that, another huge factor in me staying. We were just boyfriend and girlfriend, enjoying life, until he had another manic episode. Once he went 6 months with no signs of anything at all. Again, at this point in things, I have nothing to candycoat in my life. I am an open book, and in 2018, came out about being raped by a man in 2011, and got judged harshly. I've had to accept that no matter what I say, I will be questioned and put down because that is how victims are treated.

So in 2015 he came home late at night, screaming the FBI were in the bushes and smashing things. He accused me and a family member of conspiring with the government against him and stripped half of his clothes off, threatening to kill himself. Just like that, he would go from a calm person that worked all day to a raging maniac in the most literal form.

I called 911 and was in tears by the time two very tall male cops showed up. That is the main thing I remember, I am 5'2 and these men were both over 6'0 and stood way too close to me. My boyfriend was running around screaming utter nonsense and one cop talked to him, another talked to me. The two men ID'd me and laughed at the fact I always wore lipstick, in the pic and in real life, a habit since I was 14. Then they told me they weren't going to do anything with my boyfriend, who was still screaming and stomping around. I said, "but he's clearly unstable and threatening to kill himself." Both of the cops stood roughly two feet from me, and the heavyset olive skinned officer moved in even closer, shining his flashlight in my face, his breath bearing down on me, and said, "if you call 911 or anyone again tonight, you will both be arrested."

I felt scared of them at this point and they told me my option was to leave my home, leaving my boyfriend there. They asked me if I had family in the area and I said no. "Well, we can't help you then. Plus we want to go and get dinner," the thick one said, before laughing with his partner, who was a thinner blond man. So they waited until I got in my car and left, then they left, leaving my ex still standing screaming in the middle of the yard.

I had nowhere to go, so I went to his aunt's house and spent the night. At one point in the night I heard my boyfriend's truck screech through Berlin, looking for me, but knew I couldn't call 911 anymore because I WAS threatened. And cops can do what they want, no one is going to listen to some white trash chick with a crazy boyfriend.

I called 911 one other time before things got truly worse (I know, right). I got one of the cops that I had dealt with when he put the shotgun in his mouth and he threw him in the mental ward after a brief car chase.

By spring 2016 my boyfriend wasn't working, binge drinking, and seeming off on a regular basis so I somehow managed to drop him off at a homeless shelter despite him initially standing in a Wendy's parking lot screaming I was out to get him.

Finally, in May he became increasingly manic before literally waking up one morning with this weird hollow look in his eyes and screaming the worst threats against me and his family I had ever heard. First I tried to be calm, then I tried to run from him when I thought he wasn't looking and he ran after me and jumped on me. And that was the first time I felt actually afraid that he would hurt me. I thought he would hit me. Instead, he dragged me through the woods by my ankles so hard my leggings were pulled down and became filled with dirt, leaves, and sticks, threw me on the porch and then dragged me into my house. He tortured me for 1-3 hours. I think it was between 1 and 2 hours. Years later I sat down with a shrink and told her, I can't remember, I truly can't. I just remember the intense fear and shame of what it would be like for my dad to come into my house and find me dead. The doctor pursed her lips as she listened to me and reassured me that people with PTSD often have trouble remembering details. In fact, I couldn't piece together how bad the whole thing was until 2018, around the same time I talked about being raped, because I had repressed memories so hard. There was a point where I vividly remembered everything both men had done to me respectively, including a lifelong physical injury I had also blocked out. Like, I knew it was there, I just never allowed myself to think about why.

Instead of killing me, thank fuck, my boyfriend left me lying on a plastic floor mat he had just put a cigarette out in that he been holding over my eye and walked out of the house, stealing my truck. So I called 911, in a sort of daze I seemed the most worried about the stupid truck. But I really couldn't comprehend anything at that point. I shouldn't have bothered calling, because ding-dong, who is at the door, but one of the cops that essentially kicked me out of my house in 2015, leaving me to wonder if my boyfriend would kill himself or burn the place down. The thin, blond cop. The first thing I noticed was his eyes when I spoke to him that day. His pupils were tiny pin-pricks and it was shockingly noticeable. He looked like he was blind or something, because he had wide blue irises with these teeny tiny pupils. Frankly it was creepy, but wasn't relevant to the situation. I told him my ex went nuts, then stole my truck. He starts screaming at me and asking me what I wanted to do, and why the hell did I call. I completely shut down and just felt scared of him. Thinking about telling him about the assault just evaded my head, all I could think was that I was being cornered and I had to get away. He walked around the yard looking at other shit my ex had torn up, yelled at me some more, then left. This cop was almost manic and I was afraid he would arrest me for annoying him.

I finally got my truck back with the help of my grandmother after watching my boyfriend acting insane in front of his boss, who he had driven to. The man got a restraining order against him that week after seeing the violent instability and I made our breakup official at the same time. I knew I was done the second he dragged me through the woods. That was the first time he had ever put hands on me and the torture session would be the last. (I was lucky in that he had tossed me around and suffocated me in a headlock, etc., rather than getting a knife or something... it could have been so much worse.)

At this point, regardless of what people around him did, my now-ex was clearly gone mentally. Not sure how or why it got that bad, but all of his issues just imploded on him at once, almost overnight. So 2016 to 2018 he stalked me and made my life a living hell. He called me and I was afraid to disconnect my number right away because I felt it was a way of tracking him/how dangerous he was any particular day. After screaming for him to leave me alone and calling the cops even more times failed, I felt I had to be nice to him to keep him at bay, or when he started coming into my job, so I wouldn't make a scene. I finally got a domestic violence order in 2017 and stood before the court and described my assault so the judge to decide if I had just cause.

About a month after that, my ex called me threatening to kill himself so I felt super happy about calling 911. Finally they would put his ass in jail. A cop in his early 20's showed up, flirted with me, called his boss and they told me that there was not enough cause to jail my ex. The cop told me to "just talk things over" with my ex and then left after staring at my tits through my sweatshirt.

More time goes by, more bullshit, afraid to go to work, afraid to come home at night. Mace didn't make me feel safer, guns didn't make me feel safer, having coworkers didn't make me feel safer. My dad was screaming at me that I had brought this all on myself by being with a nut for so long. I felt like a hunted animal. My boss complained about me calling out of work over this. Finally my ex's other ex-girlfriend who he was with after me comes into my job, says he assaulted her, and that he was dangerously obsessed with me and my boss finally took me seriously.

I couldn't do anything about phone calls or online harassment. He would message me online telling me he hated me and stuff and I would just block him. Then, one day in September, during Ocean City bike week, he showed up on a bicycle, cornering me in the parking lot of my job as I walked to my shift. I was in utter terror and for a moment he looked like he would attack me again but I just kept on walking, and did not pause. My coworker wanted to know why I was being confronted and I said "THAT'S HIM, THAT'S HIM. I'M SO SORRY, NIKKI, I'M NOT CLOCKING IN RIGHT NOW. I AM CALLING 911."

Two cops showed up, a male and a female and ID'd me, and looked at my DV order. I asked if it was okay for me to lift the sweater on my front seat up to get my purse and the male cop brushed that off, acting like I was a non-threat. But I knew I had to move slow, because, well, cops shoot people. White, black, male, female, non-bindary-gender, whatever.

They saw I had all my paperwork in order then they started fucking yelling at me! They told me they really didn't have time to look for him since it was Bike Week and they were busy! I don't know what else they said to me, I think they were confused about what phone number I used the most because I had 2 at that point. I broke into tears and the male cop said "you don't have to do none of that." I walked back into the store and they came back in again, and my coworker told everyone later on how nasty the cops were too me. I knew it wasn't just me but it was good to finally have a witness this time around.

They looked around for my ex at two known locations then gave up, I had called and asked. 3 days later he attacked his other ex, the one that I had spoken to and they arrested him on both that and my DV order. He was jailed for several months and since then his stalking has been infrequent aside from him popping up on Tumblr this winter to make fun of my cat dying. Because I left him, for assaulting me, he now, in whatever the fuck is left of his mind, wants me to live a life of hell. During one phone call he screamed "YOU WILL NEVER BE HAPPY UNTIL I'M HAPPY."

I'd love to count on him staying gone, but I know better. His brother added me on FaceBook not too long ago and I said hi, and he said "you know you're the love of my brother's life, right?" I told him I wanted nothing to do with my ex. "Not even friends?" I told him that my ex tried to kill me then made my life hell and he said he didn't know and the conversation ended.

I'm not afraid of my ex's brother. I don't think he added me purely to help my ex. This man isn't crazy. This man didn't try to kill me, and isn't going to. But the sheer mindfuckery of it: how can you try to get back with the woman you abused? How can you use threats to try and get back with her? Another time my ex called me and screamed over me posting pictures with my last ex, mocking it. Why would I be with him, instead of the guy that abused me?

...Why would I want to be with a guy that I felt safe with that never abused me? Golly gosh, no idea. But it's all just a headfuck that I will be scarred by for life.

Summary: Cops and the severely mentally ill are capable of ruining the lives of anyone, of any color. 🤷‍♀️

#PTSD

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scrambledgegs · 4 years

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Clear and present Terror

An episode from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Back in the early 1990s, it was during my grade school years that my siblings and I enjoyed watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, starring none other than Will Smith (whom I was lucky enough to have seen in person around 5 years ago and was immensely star-struck). There was a particular Fresh Prince episode that I never forgot – the one where Carlton Banks (the Bel-Air born-and-raised, naïve-and-sheltered son of Will’s successful attorney, Uncle Phil), encounters his first brush at racism. I did not fully understand the context of the episode, but for some reason it stuck in my head and heart as a kid.

Many years later, this episode resurfaced just last May 2020 when The Fresh Prince became available on Netflix. When that particular episode came out, I sat up in familiar surprise, as it triggered flashbacks of my childhood. I now understood it on a deeper level, watching it with the eyes of a thirty-three-year-old.

The episode entitled “Mistaken Identity,” starts off with Carlton borrowing a Mercedes-Benz from one of his father’s wealthy White colleagues and drives off to Palm Springs. Unknown to him, Will has snuck inside the car and suddenly surprises him during the drive. The two African-American male teen cousins are driving at night and are not familiar with the area, and thus, drive at a slow pace to check directions. They are eventually made to pullover by two White policemen, and then asked to step out of the car.

Immediately, Will knows what is happening while Carlton remains totally clueless and makes one blunder after another. They are accused of not only stealing the luxury car, but accused of being the perpetrators behind a whole series of car thefts in that area. The police officers put the two behind bars in the county jail.

Uncle Phil and Aunt Vivian eventually come to their rescue due to Will’s witty and street-smart quick-thinking and get them out of jail, but the episode ends with Carlton and Will arguing about what transpired. Back in the comforts of the Banks estate in posh Bel-Air, Carlton remains adamant in his belief (or denial) that the cops were merely doing their job because they were driving “below the speed limit.” Will retorts that Carlton should open his eyes to reality and leaves the room exasperated. Wizened Uncle Phil ends the episode by admonishing Carlton that he had a similar experience when he was much younger, also being stopped by White cops on the road. He has always asked himself if they were really “just doing their job.”

It has been more than 25 years since I last saw that particular episode, and I realized, what has really changed since then?

The #BlackLivesMatter Movement (BLM)

The ultra-sensitive and once-tabooed subject of racism has exploded into our immediate line of sight, due to snowballing economic repercussions and unravelling anxieties from COVID-19 and the worldwide lockdowns. During these dark times, certain people like Chinese nationals, including Chinese-Americans and Asians with Chinese features have been the target of hatred and racism. For instance, a close Filipina friend of mine living in a European country, was recently shouted at by someone driving a motorbike as she walking on the street. The motorist angrily shouted at her repeatedly to “close her mouth” in the language of that country. I’ve also heard of stories of Asian immigrants in Europe being thrown bottles in their direction by the locals of that country, and there continues to be many other similar, saddening stories across the globe.

Still, the Black American struggle has specifically been put at the forefront of the United States and the world today, as the homicide of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police during this pandemic, sparked the resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. This anti-Black racism (and “anti state-sanctioned violence against Blacks”) movement, has since then spread like wildfire to many states all over the U.S thanks to social media platforms. Other countries and prominent individuals have also rallied to the cause and expressed their solidarity through social media. The message rings loud: It is not to diminish the experiences of other marginalized peoples and groups, but aims to cast the bright spotlight on the distinct and continuing struggles of African Americans and people of African descent. African Americans wish to speak their hard truths in front of a global stage, and we certainly can’t blame them.

The Innocence Files

It would be hypocritical of me to talk about struggle and experiences of African Americans, but I would like to reference my insights from a Netflix true crime docu-series, The Innocence Files that in my opinion, gave much context to their centuries-long discrimination. The Innocence Files was a tremendous and tragic eye- opener. It is about the Innocence Project, co-founded by attorneys, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld who challenge the U.S. legal and criminal justice system to overturn wrongful convictions against minorities, particularly African Americans. Due to issues of police coercion, misguided eyewitness accounts and ridiculous, terribly inaccurate and “leading evidence,” the wrongfully convicted are put away on death row in maximum security prisons for decades. Furthermore, when White prosecutors, as well as judges, are found to be in the wrong after convictions are overturned, do not receive any form of punishment. There is no personal accountability, nor retribution. In fact, most of them go on to have stellar careers.

As a non-American, it helped me better understand the situation of the Black community in United States, and my heart really went out to them. It infuriated me, and I found myself cursing at the TV. It is clear that slavery is not dead in America – but exists in modern-day, in the forms of marginalizing practices, systemic discrimination and prejudiced people in positions of authority. African Americans are still very much caught up in vicious cycles that continue to cripple them and the generations to come.

In the words of my friend, a Chinese-American, true-blue, born and raised New Yorker: “it starts all the way back during the slavery years…and how the government would red line certain neighborhoods to decide on which neighborhoods get more funding. This results in many domino effects…social infrastructure is built on the economics of how funding gets allocated. So, if African Americans are stuck in a bad neighborhood, they get less financial help from the get-go. It becomes a vicious cycle, and even if they do get a good education which is hard enough growing up in a poor neighborhood with little resources, they still face the reality of racism in corporate society that is dominated by the Whites. It starts even with your resume.”

Yet, I still must say that in my opinion, I condemn opportunists (who are not all African American even) who used the BLM to their advantage and justification to murder, loot, engage in arson and cause unnecessary damages to neighborhoods and livelihoods. I get they are pushed to their wits end - but we got to draw the line somewhere. I believe there are still boundaries as to the way we express ourselves. There are even celebrities and common people alike getting onboard to further their own public image. They aren’t making things better but instead, muddling the urgent and important message of this cause. Nakikiepal at nakikiuso lang.

Fear, Ignorance, Prejudice and Racism

Let’s admit it though. All of us in this world have bits of prejudice inside of us. Some are unfortunately, more pronounced than others, while those on the extreme end of the spectrum, let it dictate their life mantras; thus, taking things too far. However, this is also not to say that “a little” or “subconscious” prejudice is okay either because these ideologies can also be manifested in small yet oppressive ways if we are not careful. Such network of beliefs is rooted from or formed in our upbringing, especially from beliefs handed down by our families or through experiences. This includes single or limited encounters that can cause us to generalize and stereotype all people in a particular culture, sub-culture and group. This is another deadly train of thought that we ought to regularly keep in check. Self-awareness and admitting one’s shortcomings are the first steps.

Re-examination as a Non-American from the Philippines

Again, I am not in the best position to talk about the subject matter of racism, especially in the context of the Black American struggle, but if I may so, share some of my experiences from living in the United States for five years (2004-2009), and how the recent fiery current events have gotten me to take a step back too and assess my own thoughts.

To give a short background, before living in the U.S. (as well as Japan), I had only lived in the Philippines my whole life. Fortunately, as a college student in the U.S., in the melting-pot and liberal state of Massachusetts, I met all kinds of people of diverse backgrounds, heritages, ethnicities and nationalities that finally opened my eyes to a whole new world beyond the sheltered Metro Manila bubble. I had a number of African-American friends and classmates, and in my experience, I can easily say they were smart, kind, warm-hearted and tremendously multi-talented. I graduated from college in May 2008 – the same year that Barrack Obama won his first Presidential election. Like most people from the largely- democratic states in the East Coast, I was ecstatic and celebrated the much anticipated “Change is Coming.”

However (please read on first that I may qualify…), after graduation and seeking employment in 2008 – during what were also the bleak years of the Financial Crisis, I experienced different kinds of encounters with African-Americans when I moved to New York City. I must admit that these encounters initially caused me to irrationally adjust my overall rosy view of them. Looking back, I admit that I failed to factor in that I was encountering strangers in a big city, on the streets and subways and was not in the vicinity of school anymore, so of course things will be starkly different. These were also hard times. Among the encounters that I remember were the following.

The stories I have just narrated are also examples of limited negative encounters that pushed me to initially engage in stereotyping. Often times, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. However, like I said, I failed back then, to piece together the whole context of my encounters – that I was living in a bustling American city, the Big Apple no less, with all kinds of characters in existence. This has has taught me to be try to be bigger than my biases and fears and resist from making sweeping statements. I know for one that given different situations, I do not hold the same fears and notions against African Americans, or all kinds of peoples for that matter. If you get down to it really, all nationalities and races are of course, capable of anything – whether it is trouble and crime, and likewise, capable of good just the same.

I do question myself if I was wrong to react in those ways? This can be subject to debate. You tell me, as I myself am unsure. I can say however, that regardless of race, I would have been scared by any male figure that approached me during those tense situations. It just so happened that all those situations I recall, involved African American men – this is something I have later on reexamined as well. Why were they more often than not, African American? Today, I realize it says something more about the United States’ unequal systems and cultures, rather than about African Americans themselves.

Color-blind?

Things brings me to ask myself as well, am I truly color-blind? I would give the honest answer of No I am not. However, I know I wouldn’t deliberately hurt or oppress anyone because of the color of their skin, heritage or background – this may be the case for most of us, but the times of today are telling us that this is still not enough for change to happen. Turns out we have to be more in touch with our thoughts and emotions because they turn into actions. We have to make conscious efforts to re-work our thoughts if they detour towards that prejudiced lane, and if we do witness any form of oppression, it is our obligation to be vocal or concretely do something.

For us Filipinos, I also just have to say that it shouldn’t be about joining the BLM or related bandwagons just for the sake of, or to feel like we have done our part by simply posting black squares and hashtags. For me, this is a total cop-out if we aren’t making deliberate choices everyday to do right by our immediate community.

Terror is Everywhere

It is important to understand the true narrative of the BLM and related riots in the United States, and although they may not directly apply to the Philippines, there are tons of relevant issues that hit close to home.

It is easy to not get involved or to judge situations from the confines of our homes, but something my dad used to, and still always says is that, if we don’t do our part in speaking out, or showing protests through our own ways against injustices done to our neighbors – then we might as well be accessories to the crime. One day similar injustices will be hurled against us, and because we didn’t speak out, there will be nobody left to speak out on our behalf.

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undergroundusa · 25 days

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It’s Time To Admit The Social Justice Movement Is Founded On Racism

SHARE & EDUCATE

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hardtoswallowtruthpills · 4 years

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Jenna Marbles Didn't "Do Blackface"; Here is How Cancel-Culture Broke the Internet’s Adult in the Room

On May 31, 2020 Jenna Marbles, a well known Youtuber with about 20.3 million subscribers tweeted out in regards to African American’s rights to life and the Black Lives Matter movement. Marbles stated that “This is not a political issue, this is a human rights issue.This is systematic racism and oppression at the hands of law enforcement in our country. We want justice and we want change. It shouldn't have happened once and it should never happen again.This is not a discussion”. Almost a month later, though, Jenna Marbles released a video on her Youtube channel vaguely titled “A Message”. Her subscribers would come to find when watching this video that Marbles was officially quitting YouTube over messages she had received asking her to address videos that were made in 2011 and 2012 for their “racist” content, as well as asking her to apologize. Marbles obliged, officially ‘canceling herself’ as some have said. Most of her fans are concerned about the break that Jenna Marbles is taking from the internet. Most even begging her not to leave Youtube permanently, but, there are bigger issues within this whole debacle that are being overlooked.

Mainly, how did we get to the point where the current generation (which yours truly is a part of by the way) is so sensitive, that we harassed, intimidated, and bullied potentially one of the biggest voices on Youtube for the Black Lives Matter movement off the internet for an indefinite amount of time?

Don’t worry dear reader, you probably are wondering what could have possibly caused such a thing. Well, as most media outlets will tell you, Jenna Marbles quit youtube, and in turn the internet, because of accusations of her “doing blackface”. Surface level this sounds bad, doesn't it? It almost seems like her getting driven off the internet by a vocal minority almost seems expected, but remember, this is only surface deep. There's a whole bunch of stuff under the surface that needs to be unpacked, stuff that exposes why those who went after Marbles are, to put it lightly, hypocritical, or if you want it put bluntly, full of it. All of them though, have gone too far. Dear reader, this is a prime example of how the cancel-culture we have created is toxic slacktivism that gets us nowhere, and diminishes real world issues, and inevitably has broken one of the internet adults in the room.

The video that Marbles addressed in her apology that brought on the blackface accusations was one in which she did an “impression” of Niki Minaj. Here's the thing though...she was overly tanned at the time, filming in low lighting, and was wearing a cheap, acrylic, neon pink wig. With all factors combined, it becomes clear that none of this was “blackface” as the slacktivist warriors claim, it was just really bad filming technique. At the end of the video, Marbles even claims that it was “just a joke and that she loves and respects minaj”. We see in this clip one the wig is off, that Marbles was a spray-tan junkie at the time, which was common for girls in their 20’s about a decade ago.

Marbles also went on to apologize for a rap video she did, once again about a decade ago, for an original song called “Bounce on that Dick”. The rap was about toxic masculinity and the misogyny that toxic masculinity encourages. The lyrics express how men constantly brag about penis size or their attempts to sexualize women is ingrained in society's toxic notions of sexuality and masculinity. In this video Marbles, done up as a stereotypical asian man raps "Hey Ching Chong Wing Wong, shake your King Kong ding dong,". In her apology she admits it was racist and wrong and that she has privated the video because of the hurtful stereotype it portrays. Still though, it is being used against her even after apologizing.

Marbles also goes on to mention some of the other private videos on her channel. Claiming that she herself found most of them to be expressions of the internalized misogyny she held within herself back then. All of the videos she mentions in her apology have been privatized instead of deleted, showing in a way that Marbles is not going to pretend like these things didn’t happen, but she is also actively making sure that the videos cannot offend anyone anymore.

For context, all of the videos that she discussed were around 8 to 10 years old as of this year. Meaning that in the oldest videos, Jenna Marbles would have been 22. Most 22 year olds at the time made mistakes, Jenna Marbles is not an exception to the rule, especially since the internet was becoming a vast place where anyone and everyone could express their thoughts and opinions. Sadly though, it seems this vocal minority that took it upon themselves to harass Marbles for an apology in the name of social justice think that just because she is a public figure, that at 22 she should’ve seen that in 10 years, this would come back to haunt her. The social justice slacktivists that seem to think they have done good in this world also forgot that in 2010, that was the humor of the time. Jenna was participating in humor that, back before cancel culture was really a thing, was considered harmless. She was doing impressions right along Shane Dawson’s Shanaynay, a Ghetto caricature that frequently appeared in videos on his first channel ShaneDawsonTV, or NigaHiga’s fake infomercials that would sometimes contain Ghetto or Gangster impressons and over the top asian impressions. Jenna was right there in terms of misogynistic or sexist stereotyping becoming a joke with Smosh, which compared a “Just Dance” game character to “A Skinny Ron Jeremy”, or comparing soft McDonald's fries to what the penises of men with erectile dysfunction would look like. Needless to say all of these creators couldn't see a decade into the future. It was acceptable to joke about these things back in the day in terms of Youtube culture. Since everyone in 2020 is now overly sensitive to decades old content, though, it is enough to get a creator “canceled”, even if they have shown significant improvement over those 10 years.

This vocal minority deliberately targeted Marbles, and pulled up videos from her past back up in an attempt to find something, anything problematic with her. Mind you, this is someone who’s most exciting, recent content was hydro-dipping a pair of crocs, acid washing old sweatshirts, and throwing a birthday party for her greyhound, complete with treats for the dog, and a framed picture of Jerry Sinfeld as a birthday gift. Those who contacted her about her past and demanded an apology are directly responsible for what happened. They can claim it was Jenna’s choice to leave as much as they want, but would Jenna have made this choice if she weren’t harassed and bullied to the point where she felt her very existence on Youtube was hurtful? Would she have walked away if she weren’t scared that anything she could possibly say would inevitably offend someone? Most likely, the answer here is no. Instead of educating, or politely correcting past errors in private direct messages, these people decided it was their god-given right to demand an apology for videos that were made 10 years ago. They know that these videos and mistakes don't reflect the Jenna Marbles we all knew for the past 3 years, the one that actually changed and grew from it all.

These people seem clueless that their crusade for clicks and apologies they can turn around and deny under the guise of “the creator not meaning it” are diminishing every aspect of real-life issues and movements. If this continues the way that it is, if Smosh, or NigaHiga, or Shane Dawson are next in line for the cancel-culture call out machine. If they’re next to be accused of deliberately offending people, and when they apologize being told what their intentions were by internet strangers, who’s going to be there when they need big creators to back up their cause the most? The answer is nobody, nobody with a platform will be there to support them.

These people seeking to call out and cancel big name celebrities and public figures for their “racism” are ultimately going to hurt the Black Lives Matter movement. If anyone, celebrity or everyday citizen were on the fence with their support and they saw the Jenna Marbles fiasco, do you think they would be willing to support these movements? Especially in the case of Jenna MArbles, who openly defended the group before the accusations and cancelling began? They probably would be running for the hills. When we let people get away with being toxic, we are complicit in cancel-culture, If we are calling someone out for something that happened a decade ago, if we feel the need to air out their dirty laundry, without first addressing that the ones doing the aring out may have their own dirty laundry, then we let hypocrites get away with their hypocrisy. If you honestly support the Black Lives Matter movement, you would understand that change comes through education of the self and others, through protest, through showing those in power that we will no longer stand for their oppression of the minority. What does not bring about change is liking comments that harass people for mistakes made a decade ago, by canceling anyone over these mistakes, by driving a woman away from a platform where millions could’ve heard the message that she was trying to spread because of the entitled and toxic personality that these people seem to possess. All of this is driving people away from a social justice movement that is trying to bring about change, and is silencing those who are trying to be heard. Those who participate in this kind of toxic cancel-culture, are making movements like the Black Lives Matter movement an utter joke to those who are trying to understand, or worse, those who like life the way it is, who like their privilege, and want movements like this to be undermined.

In the end, it should be believed that those who called Jenna Marbles out OWE her an apology. Your toxicity drove away a proponent to a movement that could have made a difference. You made a woman who has continually educated herself over the last decade up and leave because you refused to believe that change was possible. These participants also OWE an apology to their closest Black Lives Matter chapter, for they need to understand how much their participation has diminished the message and work of those trying to actually make a difference. Maybe after this experience, they will realize that making a change doesn't happen through cyber-bullying. Perhaps, these people who participated in the cancel-culture that drove away Jenna Marbles will realize that they haven’t done anything to better themselves until they pick up a book from a Black author, or actually take to the streets and march for what should be a basic human right. Besides, maybe marching will also give these people a long-needed lesson on how it feels to have your speech repressed, and how discouraging it is when others won’t listen to what you have to say, just like how they did not listen to all of those apologies they demanded get thrown their way.

For now though, sadly, we get to live with the ramifications of the actions of a few. As long as Jenna is off the internet, there is one less platform bringing the much needed attention to a much needed movement. So, thank you cancel-culture, you silenced someone who has grown and was using their privilege to speak up for the good of those who cannot speak for themselves by claiming they were the very thing they were speaking out against. We all hope you're proud of what you did, that you feel superior for bullying someone. Since you like to cause ramifications like this to come to be, we hope that you ride off this high for a long time, specifically so you leave the rest of those using their platforms and privilege for good alone.

#cancel culture is toxic #cancel culture is stupid #cancel culture #jenna marbles #jenna #youtube #youtuber #blacklivesmatter #blm #hard to swallow pills #truth #truthful opinion

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crazycoke-addict · 5 years

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why ur fav is problematic: Selena Gomez

Here’s the thing I love Selena Gomez I mean I wouldn’t say I stan her, but she is one of my favs. However even though she’s one of my favs I got to admit she has done problematic things and hasn’t really open up to it. The biggest one is when she decided to work with Director/alleged molester Woody Allen. If many of u don’t know, back in 1993 Woody Allen was accused of sexually molesting his adopted daughter, Dylan when she was seven. While the was happening, he was also having an affair with Soon-Yi, Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter and has a creepy obsession with younger girls. I suggest you read “Perspective| I read decades of woody Allen's private notes. He’s obsessed with teenage girls”. n an interview, when asked if Selena knew about the allegations on Woody Allen. She answered by saying that she heard about the allegations during when Harvey Weinstein was getting exposed. She said:

“To be honest, I’m not sure how to answer- not because I’m trying to back away from it. (the Weinstein allegations) actually happened right after I had started (on the movie). They popped up in the midst of it. and that’s something, yes, I had to face and discuss. I stepped back and thought, ‘wow, the universe works in interesting ways.’“

But there’s a chance, she might be lying because her mum replied to an Instagram comment and said Selena knew about the allegations because her mum told her before Selena auditioned for the role like five times.

She has also done cultural appropriation mainly on Indian culture. Back in 2013, Selena performed at the MTV awards for her new single “Come and Get it”. She wore a Hindu Bindi on her forehead and basically used it as a fashion statement, when it’s not. this didn’t fit well for Hindu Leaders and explained that the bindi on the forehead is an ancient tradition in Hinduism and has religious significance. Hindu statesman Rajan Zed said that the bindi on the forehead is sometimes referred as the third eye and the flame, and it is an auspicious religious and spiritual symbol. is not meant to be thrown around loosely for seductive effects or a fashion accessory aiming at mercantile greed. n one of her birthdays, she had a “gypsy-themed” party and I learnt that the word gypsy is actually a racial slur for a group of people; Romani. Please read “Why you can't use the word G*psy” on main ethics for more information.

Back in 2016 when social media was against Taylor Swift and calling her a snake.Selena tweeted that we should focus on the important things, this didn’t fit well with people and someone quote tweeted which got Selena’s attention. the person quoted tweeted by saying “Good Question! why haven’t you or Taylor not said a thing about #Blacklivesmatter or police brutality?” Selena replied to the tweet by saying “Oh lol so that means if I hashtag something I save lives? No-I could give two fucks about ‘sides’. You don’t know what I do.” but then quickly deleted it. I agree on the second part, however it was the first part that got people upset. One thing about picking a side is to make sure you pick the right side, for the black lives matter case, there’s one side where it’s the black community whom are leading this movement and people from other races supporting it and not saying “but what about all lives matter” because they know that it’s not all lives matter until Black lives matter. The other side is the white supremacy group who are defending the cop who killed the black person for no reason and they only got suspended. No Prison sentence meaning No Justice. Fast Foward when she participated the March for our lives movement, she posted many pictures but each of them had the same caption which was:

The last two obviously shouts “hypocrisy” and this didn’t fit well with people because how can she say that march for our lives is not just a hashtag, but implied that BLM was. Even though it isn’t. It’s a movement that speaks out against Police Brutality on black people.

A year ago, I found out that she donated money to the black lives matter, it’s still a question when she donated the money. An anonymous donated 1 million to the Times Up fund and people confirmed it be Selena. Times Up is a movement that is the equivalent to the me Too movement and is determine to stop the sexual harassment in Hollywood. I think this is Selena’s way of saying sorry for working with woody Allen. However it’s gonna take some time for people to forgive because what she said or did hurt a lot of people. Selena considers herself an activist yet she doesn’t seem to speak vocally about the important things like racism or sexual abuse. So these are the reasons why Selena Gomez is problematic.

#selena gomez #problematic #cultural appropriation #racism #black lives matter #hypocrisy #times up now

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zelmagludina-blog · 5 years

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Black facing

In this blog, I am going to be discussing how black facing, a widely historically known event has still been seen throughout our generation through social media platforms such as Instagram, Tumblr or any other easily assemble internet source. The purpose of this blog is to bring awareness to how black facing has been promoted throughout history and has traces of it still seen in today society that have been overshadowed by other events guided towards the general public. Blackface movement has been seen throughout history and thought to have been disappeared in the 2000s yet is purely masked by social media that presses on other topics that gain the general public eye and overshadows movements like black facing.

Black facing originated around the early 1830s and had really taken the general publics attention around the year 1845 when people began to perform mistral shows, musicals and wrote music that was orientated around black facing, the performers were most often white middle age men who changed the style of their language, movement, and overall character by painting their skin black in order to play the role of a black man/women primarily to entertain the middle age class.

Black facing is a very important topic because it can influence one's life in a negative way by being surrounded by such immoral events that no human should ever experience. We need to take such events more importantly and bring justice to people that have to experience things like black facing in their daily life. In my research blog, I will be analyzing how all of these events have led to where black facing is now and how the society views it in the current age vs. how it was view back in 1800′s.

In a news article that was published on February 7th, 2019 a news report has released an image of Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam back in 1984 was spotted in a racist yearbook for Eastern Virginia Medical School he discussed how his values have changed since that time. He also does not plan to resign from his position yet he was later asked to resign from his position after the incident had come to be heard by more people. I believe it is outrageous how someone with a history of clear black facing could even become affiliated with the government, I thought there were stricter laws on the background check, especially for the government? Or was it because of previous family history that he was so easily accepted into becoming a governor?

The photo on the right shows an image of two men, one dressed in a KKK costume and the other is in blackface, the photo is taken from a 1984 yearbook of Ralph Northam. He does not admit to which one was he said it was an irrelevant fact. Under the photo the quote “ There are more old drunks than old doctors in this world so I think I’ll have another beer”. The quote can be interpreted in many ways but my view on it is that he wanted to be like the general public, follow trends and fit in. People like Northam have taken positions in the government and have been a part of the society, with a background of black facing nobody should be allowed to have power over governmental issues dealing with society.

An article discussing the historical events that have had a major influence on black facing found on “Blackface!” Blackface! - Blackface History Prior to Minstrel Shows article states that Thomas Dartmouth “the father of American minstrelsy” performed song and dance routines in blackface in 1828 New York City. he was a widely known artist that really helped the growth of blackface throughout history.

In 1842 songwriter Daniel Decatur Emmett had devised a program of singing and dancing blackface. 1850’s minstrel shows developed into a standard format of three parts developed by Edwin Christy. There Are multiple different personas that have made an enormous impact on the blackface movement, each from a different aspect which combined made the blackface movement a normal, day to day aspect. There were no laws that had made blackfacing illegal and so black people had to be exposed to such unhuman instances throughout their life.

A current event that has made the headlines on December 15, 2018, was Prada's new collection which depicted blackface in their new collection. The figures were black and had large red lip monkeys. People believe such controversy would have never occurred if Prada had a more diverse workforce with having very few people of any other race then white working on their staff. Prada has made many apologies regarding this event but the collection and idea should have never been made in the first place.

Pradas collection had a very strong similarity to a “Three blackface masks Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture” It was a gift of the Collection of James M. Caselli and Jonathan Mark Scharer. The blackface mask has the same style as Prada's hoodies, with a black and red mouth. The similarities cannot be mistaken and Prada has crossed the line with releasing the 2018 collection, “When are you going to allow black folks to be decision-makers, to be something other than window dressing at your company, so you don’t have Sambo window dressing?” states a reporter. She had observed that most of the population that worked in the store had been of one race, and so no other cultural influences had been introduced which led to such outcomes.

A current event posted on November 24, 2018, shows a Video posted by a family-run hardware store in Ireland that had his skin painted black, the video was to promote Black Friday sales, not only is the painting in black he also waggles his tongue during the video resembling a savage look to add on to the black painted skin. These portrayals of African Americans were what created jezebel and uncle tom and others. Such events still occur in today's society and could be detrimental to ones mental health on how one views the world.

Rachel Dolezal a box braider extraordinaire who has recently changed her name to avoid going to trial for welfare fraud has agreed to pay over $9,000 in restitution and complete 120 hours of community service to avoid going on trial for welfare fraud. Rachel claims to have seen herself as black rather than white beginning with her childhood, even though both of her parents are fully white. Through all of the lies, she has been through she “has made multiple allegations that she’s been a victim”. Rachel has made multiple statements that she has “a huge issue with blackface” she also had mentioned in the article “that she wants to be photographed in the sun so that her skin looks darker”. It is one thing to want to have a more complex skin color and have your hair curly, Rachel Dolezal took it to another level by claiming to be black, receiving support from the government and many more.

Many factors influence the way black facing had originated, drawing from all of these sources, there is great history in black facing, and multiple factors have influenced the growth and evolution of such performances and how It had become a social norm throughout the years. Blackfacing is still seen in today's society and there are many structural aspects such as dialogic arrangements, character, narrative mechanics of blackface that became the dominant ways in which one represented blackness. There were many widely known people that greatly affected the mass entertainment of these performances throughout history and in today's society we see people that are involved in the government field have had an association with black facing.

From analyzing multiple sources that all involve a type of black facing, some direct and some indirect, we can see how any of these events could make an impact on someone's life. If events such as these went unnoticed they would end up growing and possibly shifting back into the way it used to be in the 1800s, social media is a powerful tool and people need to learn to utilize it to our best abilities and to grow as a society.

Methodological issues are associated with being socially acceptable and thought as humor. The methods that we could begin to establish in a society are to bring awareness and not undermine any morally wrong situations that could lead to trauma. methodologies involving racial differences could be viewed as a socially influenced, could lead back to colonialism involving power and control ones has upon someone else.

MLA citations

“Blackface!” Blackface! - Blackface History Prior to Minstrel Shows, www.blackface.com/ blackface-history.htm

Barr, Sabrina. “Prada Issues Apology after Accusations over Blackface Imagery.”www.independent.co.uk/life-style/prada-blackface-racism-backlash-criticism-apology-statement-fashion-a8684636.html.

Rahim, Zamira. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/black-friday-2018-blackface-smyths-homevalue-ireland-racist-promotional-video-a8649841.html.

Hopper, Nate. “Rachel Dolezal, White Privilege and Appropriating Culture.” Time, Time, 20 Apr. 2017, time.com/4748965/rachel-dolezal-stranger-interview/.

Kelly, Caroline. “Northam Apologizes for 'Racist and Offensive' Costume.” CNN, Cable News Network, 7 Feb. 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/politics/northam-blackface-photo/ index.html.

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theliberaltony · 5 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

A few months ago a friend wrote me an email with the subject line, “What is Sean McElwee.”

This is the kind of question that occurs to a person who spends a lot of time on Twitter. In 2018, McElwee’s tweets seemed to abound in liberal cyberspace. He was best known for his jeremiads about abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement — for much of the past year, McElwee’s handle read as “we’re going to abolish ICE.” The online racket attracted attention. MSNBC host Chris Hayes interviewed him, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand showed up to the weekly happy hour he throws, and he was named to the Politico 50 along with the likes of Mick Mulvaney, Alan Dershowitz and one Donald J. Trump. Quite a lot for a 26-year-old whose main gig is at a fledgling think tank he co-founded, Data For Progress.

But still, what is he? McElwee calls himself a “jackass of all trades” but admits that trying to explain his value to those not enmeshed in the online world of politics — potential donors to his think tank, say — is difficult.

Sean McElwee is one of many young activists articulating a far-left vision of the Democratic Party.

Hayley Bartels for FiveThirtyEight

“I’m like Radiohead for donors — you can’t really explain why I’m good but everyone knows that I’m good at it,” McElwee shouted over the din of bar talk at one of his happy hours on a recent evening in New York City. “The thing I try to say is, ‘Look, I don’t know what to tell you, I wrote a report on the Green New Deal three months before the Green New Deal was a thing. I tweeted about abolish ICE before abolish ICE was a thing. I fucking raised $850,000 for down-ballot candidates from small dollar contributions.’ I’m not sitting around telling you how the fuck I do it, I don’t have time to do that.” (McElwee, it should be noted, says “fuck” an awful lot.)

McElwee is one of a cadre of young left activists whose voices have grown louder in the years following Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump. Many came of political age in the decade following the financial crash of 2008, and many are disillusioned by a Democratic Party they think has been ideologically hollowed out. They’ve organized outside the traditional party apparatus — the Democratic Socialists of America, the Justice Democrats — and worked to get representation in Congress, pushing figures like newly minted congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley. Now they find themselves holding greater purchase than ever before in the formal Washington political process.

For a few years now, Democratic voters have shown they’re primed for a leftward shift, and this rising group of activists and politicians wants to push them even further. At the heart of the young left’s project is a discomfort with the free market capitalist system under which we live. It’s a system deeply ingrained in many Americans’ identities, though increasingly less so: 2016 was the first year since Gallup started tracking the question that it found Democrats had a more positive view of socialism than they did of capitalism.

This new group of activists wants to capitalize on that shift. And they’re doing it by tweeting incessantly and acting impertinently toward their fellow Democrats. Unlike bright young political things of years gone by, their purpose is to confound the party’s leadership, not earn their praise.

To this end, McElwee calls himself an “Overton Window Mover.” It’s a high-minded allusion to how activists can influence the national conversation to make fringey ideas seem less radical. He and the others have already opened the Democrats’ window, and the winds of change that blow through it might be more F5 tornado than gentle summer breeze.

McElwee’s weekly happy hour is a water cooler for young progressives in New York City.

Hayley Bartels for FiveThirtyEight

My stop at McElwee’s weekly happy hour for left- wing activists and writers came just before Christmas. Twinkly lights brightened the bar’s dinge, and I grabbed a beer that was astonishingly cheap for New York City — one attendee told me that the “accessible” price of the drinks was in keeping with the progressive ethos of the group. Because he’s worried that right wing trolls might crash the weekly gathering, McElwee asked me not to reveal the happy hour’s location, but plenty of the city’s left-leaning activists and journalists know about it. “A pretty high percentage of people got invited to the happy hour via Twitter DM,” Eric Levitz of New York Magazine told me.

McElwee’s attendees — over a dozen — were scattered in pockets around the bar, some seated at a corner table, others hanging out closer to the kegs. Apparently the New Republic and The Nation both had parties that evening, McElwee told me later, so the turnout was pretty decent, all things considered. The conversation spun from rifts in the leadership of the Women’s March to the war in Yemen to how one woman at the bar had to take the day off after Ocasio-Cortez was elected because she had been overcome with emotion. (Many refer to Ocasio-Cortez simply as “AOC,” putting the 29-year-old freshman congresswoman alongside LBJ and FDR in the ranks of the politically monogrammed.)

“These are really left people, not party hacks,” Rachel Stein, an activist who works on local New York City issues, told me. The young left is a loose confederation of like-minded activists organized in like-minded groups rather than a monolithic movement with explicit goals. Organizers work for both established and emerging left-wing groups, but all share an ethos of pushing mainstream Democratic politics in a more explicitly progressive direction. Women’s marches, environmental protests at Standing Rock, and anti-racism demonstrations might draw a similar set of figures from this young left world.

Since the 2016 election, the left’s political and cultural influence has ballooned. Membership in the Democratic Socialists of America grew exponentially during the first years of the Trump administration, thanks in part to the invaluable PR that was the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. At the same time, the “dirtbag-left” comedy and politics of Chapo Traphouse, a popular podcast, helped shape a certain shared sensibility among a socialist millennial set. (An excerpt from the Chapo hosts’ new book reads, “Capitalism, and the politics it spawns, is not working for anyone under 30 who is not a sociopath.”)

Many young left activists think the time has never been more right, the culture never more ready, to move left-wing politics into the mainstream. “This moment has radicalized liberals and electoralized radicals,” Maurice Mitchell, the 38-year-old new director of the Working Families Party, a New York-based progressive-left organization with close ties to the labor movement, told me.

A few days before the happy hour, I’d hopped a bus to mid-Brooklyn to meet with Waleed Shahid, communications director of the Justice Democrats, a group of Bernie Sanders campaign alumni recruiting progressive candidates to Congress. (New York City’s five boroughs are home to a number of the young leftists.) Shahid is even-keeled, if intense, and a card-carrying member (literally) of the Democratic Socialists of America. “My joke is that unlike Barack Obama, I am a Muslim socialist,” he said. He graduated from college in 2013 and worked for the Sanders campaign in 2016, followed by stints with Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon.

Protest movements like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and the Climate March have spent years trying to push Democrats — and the U.S. at large — further to the left.

EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images, Joshua LOTT/AFP/Getty Images, Citizens of the Planet/Education Images/UIG via Getty Images

“I come from this loose network of basically millennials who were a part of all the different social movements that erupted under Obama,” Shahid told me. It was a group that had voted for the Democratic president but found themselves disappointed by many of his policies. “The people I learned organizing from were people from Occupy Wall Street, the Dreamer movement, People’s Climate March, 350.org, Black Lives Matter — that whole world which was all 22-32 [years old], mostly.”

That so many young Democratic agitators have come to their politics through movements tied to America’s racial strife has distinctly flavored their approach to the country’s economic system. “I recognized that the best way to respond to the white nationalist populism was to develop a multiracial left populism,” Mitchell told me as we sat in his Brooklyn office. In a rich turn of irony, the progressive party is housed in JPMorgan Chase’s Brooklyn outpost, the bank’s name emblazoned above the threshold. While the lobby was festooned with Liberace-inspired reindeer decorations for Christmas, Mitchell’s office was stacked to the ceiling with file boxes, one of which was labeled “crap.”

Maurice Mitchell, is the leader of the Working Families Party, a progressive organization founded by a coalition of left-leaning voices.

REUTERS / Jonathan Bachman

Mitchell, 38, is the first person of color to head the Working Families Party. “The aging Jewish radical can take you only so far,” outgoing director Dan Cantor told The New York Times when Mitchell’s appointment was announced in April 2018. Mitchell spent years as a community organizer on Long Island and most recently worked at Blackbird, a communications firm he co-founded that is closely allied with the Movement for Black Lives. By Mitchell’s telling, he’s spent most of his career at the outskirts of Democratic politics, sometimes in opposition to its elected officials, living “somewhere in that place apart.”

Trump’s election, though, had made the Democratic mainstream more receptive to ideas once thought to be liberal pipe dreams. “We’re in a moment of political realignment and it’s disorienting,” Mitchell said. “People are looking for solutions, and people instinctively understand — even people working in centrist think tanks — that the solutions of the past will not take us out of this moment of realignment and will not take us into the future.”

What’s difficult, Mitchell said, is that while the culture is primed for a shift, the details still have to be ironed out.

“It starts off by recognizing that this economy is insufficient for all of our needs, for all of our people having dignity — and then we have to transition, we have to figure out how to transition while we still live under neoliberal capitalism,” he said. “That’s the work that we’re doing.”

Alexandra Rojas is the executive director of Justice Democrats, a group of Bernie Sanders campaign alumni working to recruit more diverse working class candidates to run for Congress.

REUTERS / Jonathan Bachman

Alexandra Rojas, Justice Democrats’ 23-year-old executive director, was 13 years old when the financial crisis of 2008 hit. She recalls nothing of Washington’s deliberations over bank bailouts, only difficult conversations with her parents about scaling back. McElwee’s memories of the historic moment are similarly fuzzy. “I thought it was weird there was an organization called ‘Bear Stearns,’” he said. That childhood naivete was shed over the next decade, and the events of those years left an indelible impression; Rojas, McElwee and so many of their activist agemates were shaped by an early exposure to the potential dangers of the free market.

Much of the Democratic Party’s present identity crisis has its roots in the worldwide crash of financial markets late in George W. Bush’s presidency and at the beginning of Barack Obama’s term of office. Complicated financial products crumpled the U.S. housing market, and widespread unemployment, foreclosures and homelessness followed. While banks and investment firms failed, none of their heads were jailed for wrongdoing.

At the time, Democrats were divided over how to deal with the crisis. Elizabeth Warren — then a Harvard professor — made her first full step into Washington politics as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Warren devotes a large portion of her 2014 book, “A Fighting Chance,” to her memories of the crisis — namely, that the government was far too credulous of the banks’ requests. “Now Treasury was giving $20 billion in additional TARP bailout funds to Citibank, plus a $306 billion taxpayer guarantee.”

There was a fundamental divide in how Democrats approached solving the crisis. Dodd-Frank, the legislation that would eventually pass in response to the crash, took an incremental approach to industry reform. But there was a faction that favored broader, more systemic structural reforms of the system. The more incrementalist reform won out under Obama, thanks in no small part, some thought, to lobbying by the heads of investment banks.

“Elizabeth Warren shouldn’t be the outer bound; we should have some people who are much more radical,” Krugman said.

“The financial industry has so much clout and so much influence, not just because of the money but because they’re smart people, they’re persuasive, they have great tailors,” Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel laureate in economics told me over coffee on a recent afternoon in Manhattan while wearing a tidy, if not tailored, outfit featuring a scarf and zip-up sweater. “I had a little bit of experience trying to persuade Obama and associates of taking a harder line on the bailouts,” he said. But Krugman didn’t prevail. “Jamie Dimon [chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase] cuts a really impressive figure, even though in fact he’s dead wrong about many of the crucial issues.”

Krugman called the emerging clutch of young activists’ skepticism about capitalism useful, and a necessary counterbalance to the lobbying and financial strength of Wall Street. Though in some aspects, he said, the far-left movement hasn’t reached intellectual maturity. “The truth is there aren’t a lot of technically adept people from that [far-left] position, which is not because there couldn’t be, but because they haven’t been a factor — it’s all new.” He continued, name checking his fellow Nobel laureate, “If you’re having meetings in which Joe Stiglitz and I are the farthest left voices, that’s a limiting spectrum and it would be helpful if there were people beyond.”

In part, that’s because before the financial crisis, American policy makers, including Democrats, didn’t do much about income inequality or widespread financial system reform. Mike Konczal, an economic fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think tank, characterized past Democratic attitudes toward financial reform as mostly centered on workers increasing their skills and education. Democrats in the Bill Clinton era were still near-uniformly bullish on capitalism. “The system more or less worked fine, it was just a matter of getting people access to the system,” he said. “There wasn’t a big problem with the economy itself, it was just that some people were excluded from it.”

Many of the young leftists were emboldened by Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Democratic primary campaign in 2016.

Win McNamee / Getty Images

In the last decade, the far left has found the problems too great to ignore. The Occupy Wall Street movement kicked things off a few years after the financial crisis but was plagued by a perception that its demands to end income inequality were too vague and the organization too decentralized. But in recent years, progressive politics have found more precise policies and voices in figures like Warren and Sanders. Rojas, the director of Justice Democrats, dropped out of community college in 2015 to work for the Sanders campaign. “I’ve had to experience what it’s like to have four or five jobs, each at $7.50, to make rent. I saw my dad suffer during the financial crisis,” she said. “I’m someone who comes from a family that really loves work and is hard working but has also experienced a capitalist system that’s run amok.”

The rising far-left Democratic activists are necessary counterpoints, Krugman told me, pushing new ideas to the masses. “Banking is on the one hand a deeply technical issue, but on the other hand it’s too important to be left solely to the technocrats,” he said. “Elizabeth Warren shouldn’t be the outer bound; we should have some people who are much more radical.”

The Democrats’ freshmen class in the House is filled with young progressives like Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. //

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / AFP / Getty Images, Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call, Stephen Maturen / Getty Images, Cheriss May / NurPhoto via Getty Images

With its incessant tweets and Instagrams, the young left has in essence begun a long session of political exposure therapy with the Democratic mainstream, popularizing ideas that many people have never heard of before or ones that would have been laughed down at first mention not so long ago.

It hasn’t gone over well with some factions of the party. In an exit interview following her November 2018 loss, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said she wished Ocasio-Cortez well, but called her “a bright and shiny new object who came out of nowhere.” She advised her to “stick to issues we can actually accomplish something on,” saying, “the rhetoric is cheap. Getting results is a lot harder.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has been more measured, but in the wake of Ocasio-Cortez’s primary upset, she tamped down suggestions that the surprise election was indicative of a radical shift in the party. “Nobody’s district is representative of somebody else’s district,” Pelosi said. “It should not be viewed as something that stands for everything else.”

That hasn’t stopped Ocasio-Cortez from using her ever-growing national platform to push for new candidates like herself all over the country. In November she announced that she would support Justice Democrats’ effort to primary Democratic members in the 2020 election, a move that’s seen as highly unusual, if not uncollegial. Maneuvers like that haven’t universally endeared her, even to sympathetic members of the party. In the weeks following the November election, one anonymous staffer from the Progressive Caucus told the Atlantic, “She’s so focused on truly Instagramming every single thing that, aside from the obvious suspects in her friendship circle, she’s not taking the time to capitalize on building relationships with members as much as she should.” (Recently, Ocasio-Cortez helped lead a Twitter class for members of the Democratic caucus.) In a recent Politico piece, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said, “I’m sure Ms. Cortez means well, but there’s almost an outstanding rule: Don’t attack your own people, we just don’t need sniping in our Democratic caucus.” Corbin Trent, Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesman, told FiveThirtyEight that the freshman would stay the rhetorical course and continue to support efforts to primary Democrats. “Most of her time is spent sniping Republicans and white supremacists — very little time is spent in intraparty conflict. It’s a mountain out of a molehill.”

“Politics is a swamp of confirmation bias,” Mitchell said.

Perhaps the policy activists care most about promoting in the next year is the Green New Deal. It’s a plan that’s been pushed by a group of high-profile new Democratic legislators, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ocasio-Cortez, who proposed creating a new congressional committee to develop a detailed plan. As of now, the policy specifics are vague, but the plan’s broad goals are to fund a “massive investment in the drawdown in greenhouse gases,” explore renewable energy sources, and train Americans in new, more sustainable jobs. Recently, Elizabeth Warren endorsed the idea of a Green New Deal, which Ocasio-Cortez was quick to point out on Twitter. (Cory Booker and Sanders have also voiced support.)

Krugman is also bullish on the young left’s centerpiece policy. “If the Green New Deal means that we’re going to try to rely on public investment in technologies and renewables and things that will make it easier for people to use less fossil fuel, that’s a pretty good start,” he said.

The policy that has him more worried is single-payer health care, a centerpiece of Sanders’s campaign that many likely 2020 candidates have already come out to support. “That’s a huge amount of money — you can’t just do that by running up the deficit. You’d have to be collecting a bunch of new taxes, which is a reason for concern,” he said.

Krugman has been thinking about other ways to fiddle with the market system, though.

“I’ve been trying to do a little exercise with myself. I think with the fall of communism, we’d say central planning, government control of production doesn’t really work. But actually that’s not totally true,” he said. “What I try to put together is what could plausibly actually not be capitalist, actually not be markets — maybe 20-25 percent of the economy.” Things like health care, education, and utilities are all in the mix.

“We’re all going to fucking die of climate change,” McElwee said. “We have to accelerate, accelerate, accelerate.”

McElwee and I had dinner at a midtown Chinese restaurant on the same day that Ocasio-Cortez had tweeted one of his Data For Progress visualizations showing the rise in the number of tweets mentioning the “Green New Deal” since the summer of 2017. “Never underestimate the power of public imagination,” she wrote. It had been retweeted nearly 3,000 times and garnered 17,000 likes. Was the virality of the tweet and the promotion of a once-obscure policy idea some kind of success in and of itself, I asked.

“What is success? It’s power, it’s having a vision of the world that’s different from the status quo and enacting that vision,” McElwee said in between bites of scallion pancakes. At well over 6 feet tall with a uniform of puffy jackets and baseball hats, McElwee gives the impression of an overgrown teenage boy, fervent but with flashes of seeming self-awareness for his big talk. “And if three years from now Data for Progress has not enacted its vision, has not exercised itself upon the world and its ideas on the world, then we will have failed and we should stop doing this.”

Wasn’t that self-imposed timeline a little quick for broad political change to happen, I asked.

“We’re all going to fucking die of climate change,” McElwee shot back. “We have to accelerate, accelerate, accelerate.”

A trademark of the young left movement is its urgency of mission. This, coupled with a deep disdain for establishment politics, has made the dissemination of their gospel of change — particularly online — sharp-elbowed and disdainful of naysayers. “You don’t win over these people, you crush them,” McElwee told me of Republicans the first time we met. “I don’t make friends with Republican operatives. I don’t try to reach across the aisle. I think they’re bad people and I don’t want to be associated with them and you’ll never find a picture of me shaking hands with David Frum or something,” he said, referring to George W. Bush’s former speechwriter who is now a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Now that some of the left’s candidates have found themselves in office, agitation from inside the party is a tactic that will be put to greater use. After her election, Ocasio-Cortez attended a sit-in at Pelosi’s office over climate change. Tlaib unsuccessfully asked the Democratic leader to put her on the powerful House Appropriations Committee — an assignment that typically goes to seasoned members. (Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez have both been placed on the Financial Services Committee.) And on the first day of the 2019 House session, Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ro Khanna of California said they would vote against Democrats’ rules for the new Congress because they included a measure that necessitated any spending be offset by spending cuts or revenue increases. For progressive politicians pushing massive government-funded programs like Medicare for all and the Green New Deal, the rules are not seen as bureaucratic minutiae, but as sabotage.

When I asked Shahid if the new left movement was going to be the Democrats’ version of the House Freedom Caucus, his answer was unequivocal: “Yes, it is.”

He had another historical example in mind, too: Thaddeus Stevens and the Radical Republicans, a group of abolitionists who stridently pushed for Lincoln’s Republican Party to abolish slavery. “Politics is still the art of compromise, you still have to pass legislation,” Shahid said. “But the idea is on whose terms is the compromise?” Every transformative president, he said, had found himself pushed into radical new policies by movements. (Ocasio-Cortez said something similar in a 60 Minutes interview that aired a few weeks after Shahid and I talked.) Abraham Lincoln had the abolitionists at his throat, Franklin Roosevelt had labor unions pushing for the New Deal, and Lyndon Johnson had civil rights leaders prodding him toward reforms of racist laws.

“Maybe we can make Joe Biden into a Lincoln,” he said.

So whom do young leftists want as their 2020 candidate? And what role will their movement have throughout the campaign?

“I want the left to really think seriously about the fact that the core of our strategy right now is if we endorse the right person, they will owe us,” McElwee told me. The left, he said, should take a page out of big businesses’ book and not care what candidate is ultimately chosen. “Knowing what the fuck you’re talking about, having the right contacts with the right staffers who you need to call to make sure the right amendment is passed at the right time — we’re much worse at that. We don’t actually have that capacity built up.” For an idealist, McElwee has a tendency toward Machiavellian realism.

McElwee said he could live with a Biden or a Beto O’Rourke as the Democrats’ presidential nominee, which is heresy in some progressive circles. Shahid voiced a more common progressive view of O’Rourke, comparing him to Emmanuel Macron, the young centrist president of France. “He says beautiful things, but what does he believe in?”

Mitchell, for one, was put off by the rumblings of support for O’Rourke coming from Obama World. “It’s outrageous. What O’Rourke did was pretty amazing, but he lost by more than 200,000, and Stacey [Abrams] and Andrew [Gillum] lost by a hair. So how is his loss a signal that he’s a rising star and Stacey and Andrew’s losses are definitive losses — they need to regroup and figure things out? Somebody needs to explain that to me.”

A recent poll of Democrats in Iowa, a largely white state that holds the nation’s first primaries, put Biden, Sanders and O’Rourke in the lead. Mitchell thinks that figures of the Democratic establishment are too eager to cede the party to centrist figures who appeal to a particular slice of the electorate.

“Basically what they’re saying is the Democrats need a white man that can talk to other white men and not scare this imagined centrist voter away with too much radical talk about totally restructuring our economy,” Mitchell said. “Politics is a swamp of confirmation bias.”

Regardless of who the party nominee turns out to be, it seems inarguable that the young left’s ideas will filter their way into the race. Shahid told me he thought that one strategy is for his ideological cohort to staff presidential campaigns. Justice Democrats, however, will focus on the next batch of congressional campaigns. “The biggest achievement we’ve gotten outside Ocasio was building a pipeline for candidate recruitment that actually reaches working class people,” Rojas said.

McElwee said his plans are mostly to stick to the issues. Right around the new year, his Twitter name changed to read “we’re going to pass AVR” — automatic voter registration — and a new website popped up promoting a new project to pass AVR in New York state. The Daily News had a piece on it, and McElwee’s feed was a litany of retweets of progressives cooing over the initiative. McElwee had told me that if he ever stopped seeing what the next new thing was, he’d get out of politics, lose 40 pounds, and try to sell his method as the next big fad diet. As he downed the last of his sake and finished my soup dumplings, it seemed clear he wasn’t in that headspace just yet.

“I’ll clearly support whoever the nominee is,” McElwee told me. “I think all of these people can be moved. They’re pieces on a chess board that’s so much larger than them. And I want to be helping move those chess pieces.”

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