#Tamara Nopper

[inhernature]

Audre Lorde said, "Every day of our lives is practice in becoming the person you want to be.... No angel is suddenly going to descend upon you, make you brave, courageous, true...And every day that you sit back silent....remember, terrible things are being done in our name."

#audre lorde #quote #dream ahead #practice #our name #brave #angel #act #free palestine #Tamara K. Nopper #writer

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

every single book I read in 2022. all 129 of them.

jesus christ

let's start with the best of the best; everything else will get listed beneath the read more because I'm not an animal. even just picking out my favorites is honestly probably going to get pretty lengthy, even though I'm trying to keep the synopses short.

batmanisagatewaydrug's noteworthy books of 2022

Complaint! (Sara Ahmed, 2021) - necessary for anyone doing diversity work in higher education, tbh

America is Not the Heart (Elaine Castillo, 2018) - achingly gorgeous novel of heartbreak and healing.

The School for Good Mothers (Jessamine Chan, 2022) - honestly? I feel very good calling this my favorite book of the entire year. sensitive, smart, chilling.

Black Feminist Thought (Patricia Hill Collins, 1990) - truly ashamed to say I didn't read this sooner. Collins' clear-eyed analysis remains crazily spot-on 30+ years later.

Hurts So Good: The Science and Pleasure of Pain on Purpose (Leigh Cowart, 2021) - I read this book so early in 2022 and literally have not stopped thinking about it since.

Batman: King Tut's Tomb (Nunzio DeFillippis, Christina Weir, José Luis García-López, and Kevin Nowlan, 2009) - dare I say the most fun I had with a comic all year.

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty (Akwaeke Emezi, 2022) - a romance unlike any other. queer, fun, sexy, bold as hell, and joyfully life-affirming.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (Mariana Enríquez, trans. Megan McDowell, 2021) - DELICIOUSLY creepy short stories that will lurk in your brain forever.

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century (Kim Fu, 2022) - if a more perfect short story collection exists I am yet to find it.

The World We Make (N.K. Jemisin, 2022) - I normally hesitate to include sequels on a list like this, but god DAMN Jemisin is the queen of modern spec fic for a reason.

We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Mariame Kaba, edited by Tamara K. Nopper, 2021) - excellent collection of Kaba's abolitionist writings, drawing on years of organizing experience and wisdom.

Jade City (Fonda Lee, 2017) - look out! new favorite doorstopper fantasy series alert!

Priestdaddy (Patricia Lockwood, 2017) - about the best damn memoir I've ever read. heartbreaking and hysterical in turns, poetry the whole way through.

Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory (Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, 1996 and 1999) - it's always so exciting when something much-hyped lives up to the hype in every way. Batman at his grim and moody Batmaniest with a Gotham that’s deliciously bleak.

Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel, 2014) - I didn't think I'd like this book much at all, then ended up proposing on the second date. oops!

I'm Glad My Mom Died (Jennette McCurdy, 2022) - you will also be glad McCurdy's mom died, and also experience every other known human emotion along the way.

Kaikeyi (Vaishnavi Patel, 2022) - SPLENDID mythology retelling + political fantasy.

My Body (Emily Ratajkowski, 2022) - haunting haunting haunting personal essays about Ratajkowski's life as a model and subsequent alienation from her own body.

Batman: Bruce Wayne, Murderer? (Greg Rucka et al, 2002) - genuinely what can I say I'm a messy bitch and I love when the Bats are having a terrible time.

The Batman Adventures Vol. 2 #1-17 (created by Dan Slott, Ty Templeton, Rick Burchett, Terry Beatty, and Bruce Timm, 2003) - a continuation of the Batman: The Animated Series universe that frankly just fucking rules.

Little Rabbit (Alyssa Songsiridej, 2022) - a potent and erotic adult coming of age story.

The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century (Amia Srinivasan, 2021) - thorny, difficult, vital essays.

Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (Sabrina Strings, 2019) - jaw-droppingly thorough research into the role of fatpobia played and plays in the project of race-making.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong, 2019) - yeah so it turns out no one was REMOTELY exaggerating. Vuong really is That Good.

Hench (Natalie Zina Walschots, 2020) - wild fun with a ruthless protagonist and her sex villainous beetle man boss; what more could you ask for?

Love Your Asian Body: AIDS Activism in Los Angeles (Eric C. Wat, 2021) - learning about queer history makes me feel like I’m holding something so vibrant and fragile and precious right in my little queer hand. this book is an emotional journey in such a shining way.

Never Have I Ever (Isabel Yap, 2021) - EXCITING short story collection centered on girls having Just The Weirdest Time.

and everybody else:

fiction:

Light From Uncommon Stars (Ryka Aoki, 2021)

Our Wives Under the Sea (Julia Armfield, 2022)

A Tiny Upward Shove (Melissa Chadburn, 2022)

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Becky Chambers, 2022)

Disorientation (Elaine Hsieh Chou, 2022)

The Laws of the Skies (Grégoire Courtois, trans. Rhonda Mullins, 2019)

The Monster Baru Cormorant (Seth Dickinson, 2018)

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant (Seth Dickinson, 2020)

Greenland (David Santos Donaldson, 2022)

Dead Collections (Isaac Fellman, 2022)

The Halloween Moon (Joseph Fink, 2021)

A Dowry of Blood (S.T. Gibson)

Nightmare Alley (William Lindsay Gresham, 1946)

The Vegetarian (Han Kang, trans. Deborah Smith, 2015)

The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka, trans. William Aaltonen, 1915)

Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Toshikazu Kawaguchi, trans. Geoffrey Trousselot, 2019)

Woman, Eating (Claire Kohda, 2022)

Long Division (Kiese Laymon, 2014)

Jade War (Fonda Lee, 2019)

No One is Talking About This (Patricia Lockwood, 2021)

Portrait of a Thief (Grace D. Li, 2022)

Elatsoe (Darcie Little Badger, 2020)

A Snake Falls to Earth (Darcie Little Badger, 2021)

Glitterati (Oliver K. Longmead)

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir, 2019)

Harrow the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir, 2020)

Nona the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir, 2022)

The Memory Police (Yoko Ogawa, trans. Stephen Snyder, 2019)

Even Though I Knew the End (C.L. Polk, 2022)

100 Boyfriends (Brontez Purnell, 2021)

Flowers for the Sea (Zin E. Rocklyn, 2021)

Any Way the Wind Blows (Rainbow Rowell, 2021)

Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice, 1976)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Benjamin Alire Sáenz, 2012)

Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World (Benjamin Alire Sáenz, 2022)

Into the Riverlands (Nghi Vo, 2022)

Siren Queen (Nghi Vo, 2022)

Strange Beasts of China (Yan Ge, trans. Jeremy Tiang, 2020)

short story collections:

The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer (Janelle Monáe, Yohanco Delgado, Eva L. Ewing, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Danny Lore, and Sheree Renée Thomas, 2022)

Walking on Cowrie Shells (Nana Nkweti, 2021)

Terminal Boredom (Izumi Suzuki, trans. Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O’Horan, 2021)

nonfiction:

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Judith Butler, 1990)

How to Read Now (Elaine Castillo, 2022)

Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (Melissa Gira Grant, 2014)

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat (Aubrey Gordon, 2020)

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color (Ruby Hamad, 2020)

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness (Da'Shaun L. Harrison, 2021)

Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service (Tajja Isen, 2022)

One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter (Scaachi Koul, 2017)

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (Revised Edition) (Kiese Laymon, 2020)

Sister Outsider (Audre Lorde, 1984)

Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Lessons I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers (Dylan Marron, 2022)

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism (Amanda Montell, 2021)

World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments (Aimee Nezhukumatathil)

Histories of the Transgender Child (Jules Gill-Peterson, published as Julian Gill-Peterson, 2018)

Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance (Jessamyn Stanley, 2021)

A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk (edited by Valerie Steele, 2013)

Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution (Revised Edition) (Susan Stryker, 2008)

The End of Policing (Alex S. Vitale, 2017)

The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life (Michael Warner, 1999)

Read My Lips: Sexual Subversions and the End of Gender (Riki Wilchins, published as Riki Anne Wilchins, 1997)

poetry:

Short Talks (Anne Carson, 1992)

Content Warning: Everything (Akwaeke Emezi, 2022)

Prelude to Bruise (Saeed Jones, 2014)

Alive at the End of the World (Saeed Jones, 2022)

Bright Dead Things (Ada Limón, 2015)

Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals (Patricia Lockwood, 2014)

Nature Poem (Tommy Pico, 2017)

Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Ocean Vuong, 2016)

Time Is a Mother (Ocean Vuong, 2022)

comics:

Batman: One Bad Day - Mr. Freeze (Gerry Duggan, Matteo Scalera, and Dave Stewart, 2022)

Spandex - Fast and Hard (Martin Eden, 2012)

Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour (Tee Franklin, Max Sarin, and Marissa Louise, 2022)

Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? (Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert, 2009)

The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes (Neil Gaiman, Sam Keith, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcom Jones III, 1988)

The Sandman: In the Doll's House (Neil Gaiman, Michael Zulli, Mike Dringenberg, Chris Bachalo, Malcolm Jones III, and Steve Parkhouse, 1989)

The Sandman: Dream Country (Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Malcolm Jones III, Colleen Doran, and Charles Vess, 1991)

The Sandman: Season of Mists (Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Malcom Jones III, Mike Dringenberg, Matt Wagner, P. Craig Russell, George Pratt, and Dick Giordano, 1992)

The Sandman: A Game of You (Neil Gaiman, Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, Bryan Talbot, Stan Woch, and George Pratt, 1993)

Run, Riddler, Run (Gerard Jones and Mark Badger, 1992)

Catwoman: When in Rome (Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, 2005)

Batman: Year One (Frank Miller and David Mazzicchello, 1986)

Batman: One Bad Day - Penguin (John Ridley, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, and Arif Prianto, 2022)

Batman: Bruce Wayne - Fugitive (Greg Rucka et al, 2002)

Batman: One Bad Day - Two-Face (Mariko Tamaki, Jaiver Fernandez, and Jordie Bellaire, 2022)

Batman & Robin Eternal Vol 1 & Vol 2 (James Tynion IV and Scott Snyder, 2015 and 2016)

Batman: Their Dark Designs (James Tynion IV, Guillem March, and Tomeu Morey, 2020)

The Joker War Saga (James Tynion IV and Jorge Jiménez, 2021)

Papergirls Vol. 1-6 (Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, 2016-2019)

Real Hero Shit (Kendra Wells, 2022)

Poison Ivy #1-6 (G. Willow Wilson and Marcio Takara, 2022)

and some gaming guides!

Monster of the Week (Michael Sands, 2012) - great game. so cool. cannot wait to actually play it someday.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians (April Kit Walsh, 2021)

special shame zone because I want you to know how bad this sucked, do not read this:

Rethinking Sex: A Provocation (Christine Emba, 2022). patronizing, puritanical, reductive, painfully cisheteronormative. weirdly afraid of group sex. not actually that provocative, just aggressively Catholic.

and last but most certainly least, a comic that I want to remind you all fucking sucked just one more time before the year is done.

Batman: One Bad Day - The Riddler (Tom King and Mitch Gerads, 2022)

Tom King, go fuck yourself. Mitch is cool though, the art slapped.

#bookblr #if you find a typo in here no you didn't xoxo #feel free to tell me your thots or ask about any of these i love to talk about my unhinged reading habit

[seasonaldepressionmp3]

[thelonguepuree]

Camille Walsh examines how, as a trope, “the taxpayer” is a citizen who is white, tax paying, and deserving. While African Americans have at times invoked taxpayer rights, Walsh shows how “the taxpayer” is a raced figure that implies “an ‘untaxed other’ who does not pay taxes and therefore has not earned rights.” Raúl Carrillo and Jesse Myerson note a related danger of the “taxpayer” frame: “Although most of us pay taxes of some kind, every time we say ‘taxpayer money’ we prolong the illusion that society depends on certain kinds of people so we can have nice things.” Ocasio-Cortez’s depiction of affluent, white suburbanites as simply pursuing different budget priorities politically puts “the taxpayer” in the driver’s seat and also suggests that affluent, white suburbanites are the vanguard of abolitionist budgeting. In this scenario, their tax revolt is against the carceral state. Ocasio-Cortez’s suburb model and its deployment to support defunding the police treat state and city budgets as if they are balanced like a household budget. She is not alone in this approach, as many divest-invest strategies do the same. What Carrillo and Myerson draw our attention to is that there is actually enough money to fund whatever we want: “Politicians may act like the U.S. government has the same constraints as a household or business, but the U.S. government can’t go broke. It can impose silly constraints on itself, like the debt ceiling, but people who actually know how monetary operations work know the U.S. government cannot run out of dollars.” Or, as Carrillo has provocatively stated elsewhere, “The U.S. government can never run out of money in the same way that the NBA can never run out of points.” So what does this mean for local budgets? States, cities, and municipalities are not monetarily sovereign in that they do not print their own money and, as monetary subjects, they must get revenue in ways that are legally allowed. This can involve taxes, fines and fees, municipal bonds, philanthropy, and private investment. The federal government, however, is monetarily sovereign, as it can print money. Thus, the federal government can provide funding, whether through the Federal Reserve or Congress. Some have considered how this works in relationship to defunding the police. Eric Levitz notes, “It is not possible to mount a remotely credible response to the recent uprisings over police violence and discrimination while forcing cities to slash spending. . . . Anyone who would like the United States to make meaningful progress on racial justice . . . must call on Congress to cease needlessly starving state governments of funding.” Along with calling on Congress to stop starving us, another demand can be for the democratization of the Federal Reserve, as proposed by Jasson Perez in a recent podcast. What Levitz and Perez don’t mention is that the federal government can always fund more of everything — including both local policing and social services. Such a possibility could undercut a divest-invest strategy and means we need to make more explicit the political demand to never fund the police, regardless of the budget. What their commentaries do draw our attention to are the layers of public finance that shape the budgets cities have to work with and that are obscured in Ocasio-Cortez’s emphasis on budget priorities among affluent, white suburbanites. They also help us move beyond the taxpayer frame, which is useful since putting the taxpayer in the driver’s seat could always backfire as a divest-invest strategy. After all, those with more power and money may decide they are willing to pay higher taxes to keep policing and may weaponize their identity as “taxpayers” to do so.

Tamara K. Nopper, “Abolition Is Not a Suburb,” The New Inquiry (x)

#tamara nopper #abolition is not a suburb #the new inquiry #taxation #taxpayers #alexandria ocasio-cortez #divestment politics #modern monetary theory

[wagesof]

“The White Anti-Racist is an Oxymoron: An Open Letter to ‘White Anti-Racists’” by Tamara K. Nopper (published in Race Traitor and ChickenBones under the name Kil Ja Kim in 2003)

I received an annoying e-mail about white people and their struggle to do anti-racist work. I keep reading and hearing white people talk about their struggle to do anti- racist organizing, and frankly it gets on my nerves. So I am writing this open letter to white people who engage in any activist work that involves or affects non-whites. Given that the US social structure is founded on white supremacy, and that there is a global order in which white supremacy and European domination are at large, I would challenge any white person to figure out what movement or action they can get involved in that will not involve or affect non-white people.

That said, I want to begin with what has become a realization for me through the help of different politically conscious friends. There is NO SUCH THING AS A WHITE ANTI-RACIST. The term itself, ‘white anti-racist ́ is an oxymoron. In the following, I will explain why. Then, I will begin to detail how this impacts non-white people in organizing work specifically, along with how it affects non-white people generally.

First, one must realize that whiteness is a structure of domination. As such, there is nothing redeemable or reformed about whiteness. Intellectuals, scholars and activists, especially those who are non-white, have drawn our attention to this for years. For example, people such as Malcolm X, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Barbara Smith, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Ida B. Wells, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Frank Wilderson, Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton, and many, many others who are perhaps less famous, have articulated the relationship between whiteness and domination.

Further, early on people such as Douglass and DuBois began to outline how whiteness is a social and political construct that emphasizes the domination, authority, and perceived humanity of those who are racialized as white. They, along with many other non-white writers and orators, have pointed to the fact that it was the bodies who were able to be racialized as ‘white ́ were viewed as rational, authoritative, and deserving. Additionally, and believe me, this is no small thing, white people are viewed as human. What this means is that when white people suffer, as some who are poor/female/queer do, they nevertheless are able to have some measure of sympathy for their plight simply because they are white and their marginalization is considered an emergency, crisis or an issue to be concerned about.

Moreover, even when white people have been oppressed by various dimensions of classism, homophobia and heterosexism, they have been able to opt for what DuBois, in his monograph Black Reconstruction brilliantly called ‘the psychological wage of whiteness. ́ That is, whites who are marginalized could find comfort, even if psychological, in the fact that they were not non-white. They could revel in the fact that they could be taken as white in opposition to non-white groups. The desire for this wage of whiteness was also what drove many white people, albeit marginalized, to engage in organized violence against non-whites.

Of course, legal cases such as the Dred Scott Decision along with many different naturalization cases involving Asian individuals, has helped to encode a state- sanctioned definition of whiteness. But there are other ways in which white people are racialized as white by the state. They are not stopped while driving as much as non- white people. Their homes and businesses are not raided and searched as much by police officers, INS or License and Inspections (L&I). White people's bodies are not tracked and locked up in prisons, detention centers, juvenile systems, detention halls in classrooms, and ‘special education ́ classes as much as those of non-white people. White people’s bodies are generally not the site of fear, repulsion, violent desire, or hatred.

Now some might point out to me that white people are followed, tracked and harassed by the police. This is true. White women experience state-sanctioned discrimination. Queer whites are the subject of homophobia, whether by individuals or by the state through laws and police violence. Some activist whites are harassed by the police. White people who play rap music and wear gear are stopped by cops. Poor whites can be criminalized by the state, especially around welfare issues. What I want to point out is that, while I do not condone police violence and harassment, there is a way in which white people will not be viewed as inherently criminal or suspect unless they are perceived as doing something that breaks particular norms. Further, the breaking of particular class and sexuality ‘norms ́ is highly racialized, meaning that it is generally when white people engage in acts that appear to the state not appropriately ‘white ́ that they are subject to state violence. In other words, white people experience state violence when their bodies engage in acts normally considered deviant and inherent in non-white people.

Other racial groups, particularly Blacks and Native Americans, are considered inherently criminal no matter what they do, what their sexual identity is or what they wear. Further, it has always struck me as interesting that there are white people who will attempt to wear what will signify ‘Blackness, ́ whether it is dreadlocks (which, in my opinion, should be cut off from every white person’s head), ‘gear, ́ or Black masks at rallies. There is a sick way in which white people want to emulate that which is considered ‘badass ́ about a certain existential position of Blackness at the same time they do not want the burden of living as a non-white person. Further, it really strikes me as fucked up the way in which white people will go to rallies and taunt the police with Black masks in order to bring on police pressure. What does it mean when whites strategically use Blackness to bring on police violence? Now I know that somewhere there is a dreadlocked, smelly white anarchist who is reading this message and who is angry at me for not understanding the logic of the Black masks and its roots in anarchism. But I would challenge these people to consider how they are reproducing violence towards Blackness in their attempts to taunt and challenge the police in their efforts.

Now back to my point that white anti-racism is an oxymoron. Whiteness is a social and political construct rooted in white supremacy. Drawing from the work of Frank Wilderson, I understand white supremacy as a structure and system of beliefs rooted in European and US imperialism in which certain racialized bodies (non-white) are selected for premature negation whether through cultural, physical, psychological genocide, containment or other forms of social death. White supremacy is at the heart of the US social system and civil society. In short, white supremacy is not just a series of practices or privilege, but a larger social structure and system of domination that overly-values and rewards those who are racialized as white. The rest of us are constructed as undeserving to be considered human, although there is significant variation within non-white populations of how our bodies are encoded, treated and (de)valued.

Now, for one to claim whiteness, one also is invested in white supremacy. Whiteness itself is a political term that emerged among European white ethnics in the US. Some who used the term white were those who were part of the dominant social structure, such as the slave owning class, which included many of the US ‘founding fathers. ́ Others were European ethnics, many of them reviled, who chose to cast their lot with whiteness rather than that with those who had been determined as non-white. In short, anyone who claims to be white, even a white anti-racist, is identifying with a history of European imperialism and racism transported and further developed into the US.

However, this does not mean that white people who go around saying dumb things such as ‘I am not white! I am a human being! ́ or, ‘I left whiteness and joined the human race, ́ or my favorite, ‘I hate white people! They're stupid! ́ are not structurally white. Remember, whiteness is a structure of domination embedded in our social relations, institutions, discourses, and practices. Don’t tell me you're not white but then when we go out in the street and the police don’t bother you or people don’t ask you if you’re a prostitute, or people don’t follow you and touch you at will, act like that does not make a difference in our lives. Basically, you can’t talk, merely ‘unlearn ́ or think through whiteness, as all of these annoying trainings for white people to ‘unlearn ́ racism will have you think.

#Tamara K. Nopper #Tamara Nopper #whiteness #allyship #antiracism

[notchainedtotrauma]

But abolition is not just the absence of policing or captivity; it is also about creating different models of accountability and harm reduction. It is about recognizing the social and political construction of crime as well as the violence and futility of captivity for trying to make us safe, while also attending to the reality that people can and do engage in harmful and violent behaviors that need to be socially addressed. Abolition, then, involves figuring out what nonpunitive accountability looks like in public.

Abolition is Not a Suburb by Tamara K. Nopper

#Tamara K. Nopper #the carceral state is waiting #the possibilities of refusal #liberation work

[31n13]

#racial violence #racism #crime #tamara k nopper #abolition

[abolitioncommunism]

While discussing abolition during the Rising Majority panel, Ocasio-Cortez proclaimed, “And to say, you know, we not actually wanting anything different, the world that we’re fighting for already exists, it just exists for some people, and we want it to exist for all of us.” The world that already exists, according to Ocasio-Cortez, is the affluent, white suburb. Yet these suburbs are part of a spatialized racial-class design in which capitalism and anti-Blackness structure public finance. Affluent, white suburbanites may seek protection for their children in ways that legitimate carcerality for others who serve as the specter of criminality and “deserving” harsh punishment, and often use their money, power, influence, and racial status to evade accountability for real harms they commit. Taken together, this cannot be what abolition looks like. While we are told the suburb gives us a model of the world we’re fighting for, looking to the affluent, white suburb for quick inspiration can only work if we ignore the logic and design of racial capitalism and carcerality we seek to undo. Ultimately, the suburban frame, even when employed with the best intentions, works against what is required of abolition. As Ruth Wilson Gilmore tells us, “Abolition requires that we change one thing: everything.”

Tamara K. Nopper, ‘Abolition is Not a Suburb’

#abolitionism #police abolition #police abolitionism #abolish the police #defund the police #u #quote #tamara k. nopper

[crimsonhermesseras]

Punishing Immigrants: US Immigration Enforcement and the Prison Indust ...

Topics: DHS agencies, early policies, immigrant categories, policies of 1980s-1990s, 287g, SCOMM, Criminal Alien Program, sanctuary cities, detention and deportation, life after deportation.

Tamara’s Twitter: HERE

#tamara k nopper #immigration #progressive #american sign language

[profeminist]

“Too many fetishize people not having boundaries in terms of time and labor as doing good work. Like Zora Neale Hurston said, "Lack of power and opportunity passes off too often for virtue."

-  tamara k. nopper 

#exploitation #zora neale hurston #zora neale hurston quotes #quotes

[robertogreco]

Any theory you got, practice it. And when you practice it, you make some mistakes. When you make a mistake, you correct that theory, and then it will be corrected theory that will be able to be applied and used in any situation That’s what we’ve got to be able to do. … A lot of us read and read and read, but we don’t get any practice.

Fred Hampton, "The People Have to Have the Power" (via Tamara K. Nopper)

#Fred Hampton #practice #theory #unschooling #iteration #reading #application

[surrealistnyc]

A Spark in Search of a Powderkeg

Rebellion is its own justification, completely independent of the chance it has to modify the state of affairs that gives rise to it. It’s a spark in the wind, but a spark in search of a powder keg.

André Breton

If only one thing has brought me joy in the last few weeks, it began when the matriarchs at Unist’ot’en burned the Canadian flag and declared reconciliation is dead. Like wildfire, it swept through the hearts of youth across the territories. Reconciliation was a distraction, a way for them to dangle a carrot in front of us and trick us into behaving. Do we not have a right to the land stolen from our ancestors? It’s time to shut everything the fuck down!

Tawinikay (aka Southern Wind Woman)

The toxic cargo carried in Canadian pipelines, whether it be tar sands oil or fracked liquid natural gas (LNG), is, according to all serious climate scientists, a major, perhaps even decisive contribution to global warming, i.e. ecological catastrophe.   Meant to fuel industrial expansion, the pipelines have themselves become fuel for revolt. Designed to move these dirty fossil fuels from one location to another, they are a crucial element in normalizing the dubious paradise of unlimited growth in awe of which all obedient consumer/citizens are supposed to genuflect. In what the colonial mapmakers have called British Columbia (BC), resource extraction has always been the name of the game. However, the emergence in February of this year of a widespread oppositional network ranging from “land back” Indigenous warriors to elder traditionalists and from Extinction Rebellion activists to anarchist insurrectionaries was heartening. Railways, highways and ferries were blockaded, provincial legislatures, government administrative offices, banks and corporate headquarters were occupied. The catalyst for this rebellion was a widespread Indigenous uprising that refused the illusory promises of reconciliation. Together, these rebel forces disrupted business as usual in solidarity with the Unist’ot’en Big Frog clan of the Wet’suwet’en tribal house.

       ​As objective chance would have it, the primary Indigenous land defense camp is situated not far from the same Hazelton, B.C. area to which surrealist Kurt Seligmann and his wife Arlette had journeyed in 1938. During that time, they visited Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en villages, marveled at the imaginative power of the totem poles and ceremonial objects, made field notes, shot 16mm film, collected stories and recorded mythic histories. Now, in 2020, growing numbers of these same Indigenous peoples have been threatening to bring the Canadian economy to a grinding halt. Unwilling to be bought off by corporate petrodollars or mollified by a legal system that has never done anything but pacify, brutalize, or betray them in the process of stealing their land, Indigenous peoples passionately fought back against the forces of colonial law and order in a radical whirlwind of willful disobedience and social disruption. One action built upon another in creating a rolling momentum that seemed unstoppable. When one railroad blockade would be busted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), another would spring up in its place elsewhere extending the frontlines of the battle all across the continent. Then the debilitating Covid-19 virus arrived to compound the damage that had previously been done to the capitalist economy by the incendiary virus of revolt. The resistance of these Indigenous communities against the pipelines concerns all of us, worldwide, since they are on the front lines of the struggle to prevent cataclysmic climate change.

       ​In the future, a key question will be whether Canadian authorities can successfully put the genie of Indigenous rebellion back in the colonial bottle of “reconciliation”. As surrealists, we hope they will not, and we stand in solidarity with the unreconciled insurgent spirit of defiant Indigenous resistance. A new reality is to be invented and lived instead of the one that today as yesterday imposes its environmental miserabilism and its colonialist and racist hierarchies.  As surrealists, we honor our historical affinity with the Kwakwaka’wakw Peace Dance headdress that for so long had occupied a place of reverence in André Breton’s study during his lifetime before being ceremoniously returned in 2003 to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island by his daughter, Aube Elléouet, in keeping with her father’s wishes. With this former correspondence in mind, we presently assert that our ongoing desire to manifest the emancipation of the human community as distinctively undertaken in the surrealist domain of intervention is in perfect harmony with the fight of the Indigenous communities of the Americas against globalized Western Civilisation and its ecocidal folly.

                                                                                                               Surrealists in the United States: Gale Ahrens, Will Alexander, Andy Alper, Byron Baker, J.K. Bogartte, Eric Bragg, Thom Burns, Max Cafard, Casi Cline, Steven Cline, Jennifer Cohen, Laura Corsiglia, David Coulter, Jean-Jacques Dauben, Rikki Ducornet, Terri Engels, Barrett John Erickson, Alice Farley, Natalia Fernandez, Brandon Freels, Beth Garon, Paul Garon, Robert Green, Maurice Greenia, Brigitte Nicole Grice, Janice Hathaway, Dale Houstman, Karl Howeth, Joseph Jablonski, Timothy Robert Johnson, Robin D.G. Kelly, Paul McRandle, Irene Plazewska, Theresa Plese, Michael Stone-Richards, David Roediger, Penelope Rosemont, LaDonna Smith, Tamara Smith, Steve Smith, Abigail Susik, Sasha Vlad, Richard Waara, Joel Williams, Craig S. Wilson

Surrealists in the UK: Jay Blackwood, Paul Cowdell, Jill Fenton, Rachel Fijalkowski, Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Merl Fluin, Kathy Fox, Lorna Kirin, Rob Marsden, Douglas Park, Michel Remy, Wedgwood Steventon, Frank Wright, the Leeds Surrealist Group (Gareth Brown, Stephen J. Clark, Kenneth Cox, Luke Dominey, Amalia Higham, Bill Howe, Sarah Metcalf, Peter Overton, Jonathan Tarry, Martin Trippett), the London Surrealist Group (Stuart Inman, Philip Kane, Timothy B. Layden, Jane Sparkes, Darren Thomas) and the surrealists of Wales (Jean Bonnin, Neil Combs, David Greenslade, Jeremy Over, John Richardson, John Welson)

Surrealists in Paris: Ody Saban and The Surrealist Group of Paris (Elise Aru, Michèle Bachelet, Anny Bonnin, Massimo Borghese, Claude-Lucien Cauët, Taisiia Cherkasova, Sylwia Chrostowska, Hervé Delabarre, Alfredo Fernandes, Joël Gayraud, Régis Gayraud, Guy Girard, Michael Löwy, Pierre-André Sauvageot, Bertrand Schmitt, Sylvain Tanquerel, Virginia Tentindo, Michel Zimbacca)

Surrealists in Canada: Montréal (Jacques Desbiens, Peter Dube, Sabatini Lasiesta, Bernar Sancha), Toronto (Beatriz Hausner, Sherri Higgins), Québec City (David Nadeau), Victoria (Erik Volet), the Ottawa Surrealist Group (Jason Abdelhadi, Lake, Patrick Provonost) and the Inner Island Surrealist Group (as.matta, Jesse Gentes, Sheila Nopper, Ron Sakolsky)

The Surrealist Group of Madrid: Eugenio Castro, Andrés Devesa, Jesús Garcia Rodriguez, Vicente Gutiérrez Escudero, Lurdes Martinez, Noé Ortega, Antonio Ramirez, Jose Manuel Rojo, María Santana, Angel Zapata

Surrealists in Sweden: Johannes Bergmark, Erik Bohman, Kalle Eklund, Mattias Forshage, Riyota Kasamatsu, Michael Lundberg, Emma Lundenmark, Maja Lundgren, Kristoffer Noheden, Sebastian Osorio

Surrealists in Holland: Jan Bervoets, Elizé Bleys, Josse De Haan, Rik Lina, Hans Plomp, Pieter Schermer, Wijnand Steemers, Laurens Vancrevel, Her de Vries, Bastiaan Van der Velden

Surrealists in Brazil: Alex Januario, Mário Aldo Barnabé, Diego Cardoso, Elvio Fernandes, Beau Gomez, Rodrigo Qohen, Sergio Lima, Natan Schäfer, Renato Souza

Surrealists in Chile: Jaime Alfaro, Magdalena Benavente, Jorge Herrera F., Miguel Ángel Huerta, Ximena Olguín, Enrique de Santiago, Andrés Soto, Claudia Vila

 The Middle East and North Africa Surrealist Group: Algeria (Onfwan Foud), Egypt (Yasser Abdelkawy, Mohsen El-Belasy, Ghadah Kamal), Iraq (Miechel Al Raie), Syria (Tahani Jalloul), and Palestine (Fakhry Ratrout)

Surrealists in Prague: Frantisek Dryje, Joe Grim Feinberg, Katerina Pinosova, Martin Stejskal, Jan Svankmajer

The Athens Surrealist Group (Elias Melios, Sotiris Liontos, Nikos Stabakis, Theoni Tambaki, Thomas Typaldos, Marianna Xanthopoulou)

Surrealists in Costa Rica: Gaetano Andreoni, Amirah Gazel, Miguel Lohlé, Denis Magarman, Alfonso Peña

Surrealists in Buenos Aires: Silvia Guiard, Luís Conde, Alejandro Michel

Surrealists in Australia: Anthony Redmond, Michael Vandelaar, Tim White

Surrealists in Portugal: Miguel de Carvalho, Luiz Morgadinho

Surrealists in Bucharest (Dan Stanciu), Mexico (Susana Wald), and the Canary Islands (Jose Miguel Perez Corales)

 Postscript: During the process of gathering signatures for the above declaration, we were inspired to see its uncompromising stance against white supremacy and police repression reflected in the brightly sparkling flames of the Minneapolis uprising that lit a powder keg of pent-up rage and incited an earth-shaking eruption of spontaneous rebellion in the streets of America. It was only fitting that in solidarity with the uprising about police brutality kicked off by George Floyd’s execution/lynching at the hands of the police, anti-racism protestors in the United States would take direct action by beheading or bringing down statues of Christopher Columbus, genocidal symbol of the colonial expropriation of Native American lands. (Guy Girard, Michael Löwy, Penelope Rosemont, and Ron Sakolsky, June 18, 2020).

[sivavakkiyar]

really feel bad for the Asian American left elders. I can not find a single book any of them made to document the AA Left that doesn’t center Richard Aoki in some way (which, as a phenomenon, Tamara Nopper diagnosed best). Still, that must have absolutely shaken them to their core

[nopperediting]

Tamara K. Nopper Editing tnopper.editing AT gmail

Hiring an editor is an investment in both your intellectual project and your professional advancement.

Many people dedicate extensive time, skills, and emotions to exploring ideas and trying to pose and answer intellectual questions in writing and want to be published. Ideas are meaningful and so is the time and work put into committing them to the page. Getting published can also impact earning an income or landing or keeping a job. Taken together, getting published is about fulfilling our intellectual vision and purpose as well as meeting professional obligations and goals. But many struggle to express themselves as writers or to complete projects.  And at times, this struggle can have negative consequences for careers. The stakes are high and the publishing industry is just that, an industry. So too is academia.

As an editor, I can help. And as a researcher and writer who has had my work reviewed and published, I can relate. Unlike a friend or colleague, who may read primarily for interesting content or intellectual merit, I read for all of this and engage in the series of tasks necessary for improving the quality of writing and having the document as publishable as possible.

I draw from my extensive experience in research, writing, editing, reading, teaching, and curriculum development to help authors complete their writing projects and stay focused on deadlines and long-term writing and career goals. And I am really good at what I do. Some people may write well or read and understand what was written. Many may have interesting ideas and be great verbal interlocutors. But they cannot always explain to others how to strengthen their writing, the mechanics, logic, and steps of getting from one stage to another, or how to situate work in intellectual conversations or the market. Nor can they always help someone organize and complete an entire book. I can.

Along with my skills, experience, and knowledge of the publishing industry, I bring to my editing a key principle: I don’t edit and tell, i.e., I am discreet. While an editor is not a friend, being privy to sensitive information (doubts you may have about your research and writing or how you feel about your boss, your colleagues, your department chair, someone whose work you are writing about, or a co-author) is often part of the editing process and being able to trust your editor is important for your writing and the completion of your project.

In this spirit, I do not post the names of my authors on my website. I have positive reviews from my authors and, with their permission, I may provide their information for references.

Specialties:

I specialize in working with (but not limited to) academic and non-fiction authors.  Along with working with authors published by trade presses, I have collaborated with scholars working on their first book for tenure and those writing their second or third books post-tenure, with scholars submitting articles for peer-reviewed journals, scholars writing case studies, and graduate students working on dissertations. My academic clients represent and engage various disciplines, including Sociology, Political Science, Philosophy, History, Africana Studies, Anthropology, Public Health, Urban Studies, Education, Ethnic Studies, Religion, Women’s and Gender Studies, Asian American Studies, English, Science and Technology, and Business. The home institutions of these authors include Columbia University, University of California Berkeley, University of California Irvine, University of California Riverside, Rutgers University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Toledo, Morehouse College, DePaul University, Penn State University, University of Pennsylvania, Ohio State University, The City College of New York, Northwestern University, Georgia State University, The University of Colorado Boulder, Roger Williams University, Princeton University, Drexel University, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, University of Massachusetts Boston, University of Oregon, Wesleyan University, Rhodes College, Villanova University, University of Southern California, and San Jose State University.

I have also worked on trade press books, some by authors who have a strong cultural imprint through other mediums. Some trade press books I’ve worked on are post-tenure books written by academics w looking to expand their audiences, reach, and writing style. 

Regardless of the type of book or press, I work with my authors to meet their stated research, publishing, and career goals. In this vein, I consider what future publications may be generated from what they have written thus far and how their current projects fit in with their larger professional goals. I also bring to bear my knowledge of the industries of publishing and higher education. Basically, when I read and edit I pay attention to both the intellectual contributions and marketing opportunities.

Additionally, I have freelanced for several trade presses. My work with them includes serving as a liaison between authors and publishers, developmental editing, copyediting, proofreading, and permissions.

Finally, I have worked with authors, particularly scholars, on making their research and academic writing more accessible to a broad readership in terms of writing, presentation, and formatting. Most recently, I collaborated with The University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice (SP2)  on the major project Top Ten, which involved working closely with faculty authors on book chapters, facilitating writing workshops, and presenting to the board of SP2.

Editing and writing experience:

I have written academic and non-academic publications. Additionally, I have guest edited academic journals and edited and co-written community organization newsletters, magazines, and brochures, taught as a professor of writing intensive courses at universities, developed writing curriculum for university certification, and was employed as a tutor at the Temple University Writing Center. I have also been employed as an international business consultant for the Temple University Small Business Development Center, conducting research and writing extensive reports for U.S. small firms with international operations; these reports detailed foreign markets, relevant foreign government offices and policies, global banking, industry and business forecasts, and entry strategies. At the Fox School of Business at Temple University, I trained students in the International Business Practicum to conduct this type of business research and write reports for small firms with international operations.

As a well-published author, I have experience working with editors for a variety of publications (academic and non-academic), including proposing special issue journals and individual submissions, writing and submitting articles and chapters for consideration, and responding to editorial comments and reviews. I also serve as a reviewer for academic journals.

Editing services:

Conceptualizing and drafting the writing project

Developmental editing: editing for structure, organization, logic, consistency,

Line editing: editing for language use, tone, redundancy, and better wording

Copyediting: proofreading, formatting, style consistency, flagging for factual errors

Research and fact checking

Indexing

Bibliographic work

Responding to reviews and revise and resubmits

Writing coaching

Contact information and pricing:

Please contact me at tnopper.editing AT gmail to schedule a brief, free consultation to discuss your editing needs and pricing.

#editing #edits #books #articles #writers #writing #winning

[tumamek]

The employment of the mutual misunderstanding framework suggests Asian storeowners desire identification with, and from Black customers across class and race lines. Yet many studies of Asian immigrant storeowners show they hold racist views of Black people and associate them with negative qualities purportedly absent among Asians. And when Asian Americanists emphasize that Asian storeowners do identify with Black customers, the timing of such pronouncements seem preemptive. Solicited comments often appear, in print at least, when the store is considered at risk of being the target of a protest during urban uprisings, such as recently in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland.

Tamara K. Nopper, On Terror, Captivity, and Black-Korean Conflict

#settler colonialism #asian heritage month #anti blackness #anti blackness in Asian communities #Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

[zzkt]

A summary of Octavia E. Butler's advice for writers: 1. "Read omnivorously..." 2. "Forget about talent." 3. "Write, every day, whether you like it or not. Screw inspiration." 4. "It's certainly not a matter of sitting there and having things fall from the sky." 5. "Persist."

— tamara k. nopper (@tamaranopper) March 3, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/tamaranopper/status/1102043025780457477)

#IFTTT #Twitter #tamaranopper