ALLISON BOLAH

There’s talk in the ‘real’ news about ‘fake’ news. Ha! During the campaign and acutely since the election, I felt/feel abused by The Atlantic and The New York Times¹, and, by extension, The New Yorker, The LA Times, and The Washington Post. ‘Old guard’ coverage was such lurid sensationalism that, over the last year, I repeatedly asked myself, ‘What is going on? Again!? They know there’s no bad press… What in the world… Why!?’ As a result, I’ve spent the last almost two months reading instead Jezebel, Buzzfeed (a lot of Darren Sands‘ work), GQ, Vice, and my beloved Hyperallergic. While there’s a lot of play on these sites, they are quick to deliver pertinent, targeted information. Still, generally, there’s an elegance that I love missing from that writing, and aesthetics matter. I’m ready to revisit some of the ‘old guard’, but how can I do so without flying into front page rage?

I’ve come up with a compromise;² great reporters work for each of those publications, so, rather than go through the front page, I’ve made a linked list of the ‘beat’ reporters and literary and arts publications that I trust to investigate the issues that matter to me:

The Atlantic (no link here; skip the front page.)

• Ta-Nehisi Coates National Correspondent, Culture/Politics/Social Issues
• Krishnadev Calamur Senior Editor, News Coverage
• James Hamblin, MD Senior Editor, Health
• Gillian B. White Senior Associate Editor, Business
• Kaveh Waddell Associate Editor, Technology
• Priscilla Alvarez Associate Editor, Politics/Health
• Alana Semuels Staff Writer, Business
• Juleyka Lantigua-Williams Staff Writer, Criminal Justice
• Ed Yong Staff Writer, Science

Unfortunately, I don’t trust The Atlantic’s Education coverage as much of it “is supported by grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Lumina Foundation” that focus on Core Curriculum, STEM subjects, and push the use of Microsoft software and hardware on districts around the country rather than on engage in meaningful dialogue with communities about what should happen in public schools.

The Washington Post
I like the work of The Washington Post’s Education Reporter Valerie Strauss – both her general coverage and The Answer Sheet, a “school survival guide for parents (and everyone else).”

In fact, The Post overall has been, it seems, much more rigorous in it’s post-election coverage than other national publications.

The LA Times
Although The LA Times Election coverage was solid – and the LATimes/USC Poll was a better predictor of the outcome than most (like, 98.9%) of other polls -, they’ve got too many problems to be on my regular reading list.

Besides, LAist.com had the best LA news I’ve ever read (and I can’t find coverage of that story on the LATimes.com at the moment, so there’s that).

The New Yorker
The whole thing is pretty even-handed, if a little dry. It is home to contributors Jelani Cobb, Vinson Cunningham, Kelefa Sanneh, Emily Nussbaum, and Hua Hsu.

Also dry and pretty even-handed, The Nation

And New Republic

And Los Angeles Review of Books

And The New York Review of Books]³

And the Paris Review⁴.

I do like the spunky irreverence of the (very) mainstream New York Magazine.

I’ve also discovered Jacobin. These guys are ROUGH! They. Do. Not. Pussyfoot. Around. Their. Radical. SOCIALISM. Very encouraging.

In the complete opposite direction, is the New York Times. I’ve had it with this rag. The Opinions section is sooooo… Gah. My opinion of the NYTimes is that it is powerless because… Who knows why! And, frankly, who cares? Well, I care because, if the newspaper of record is so weak, then of course the election turned out the way it did. Aside from The Stone, The Ethicist, On Photography, the Health section, Jenna Wortham, Wesley Morris, and Wortham and Morris’ Still Processing, I can’t think of anything they’ve reported since the election that I want to read.

Right. Don’t bother.

Inspired by Hyperallergic’s Weekend Required Reading, this list with excerpts is of reading that I’ve found helpful in the past week. There was A LOT of reading this week! One thing, however, stood out most. The link is live, but I’ve also made .pdf.

 
(If you only read one thing this week… this is the ‘major key’):

Before 1940, businessmen like Henry Ford had become their own sort of celebrity, what cultural theorist Leo Lowenthal calls “idols of production,” celebrated for their ingenuity, their hard work, their embodiment of the American spirit. The problem, however, was that most of them were boring: All work and no play made them dull men indeed.

Which is part of why coverage began to shift, over the course of the first half of the 20th century, toward “idols of consumption”: men and women who don’t make things so much as live lives of privilege. When you read about them — in the gossip columns, in magazine profiles — the focus was on where they went for lunch, what they were wearing, the lusciousness of their homes, how they spent their seemingly endless leisure time. (Today we have the same focus, only most of it plays out on Instagram instead of being filtered through the mainstream press.)

Inspired by Hyperallergic’s Weekend Required Reading, this list with excerpts is of reading that I’ve found helpful in the past week. The links are live, but I’ve also made .pdfs of everything.

 
How it Feels
Hampshire College Draws Protests Over Removal of U.S. Flag

Mr. Lash, whose father was an Army officer in the Pacific during World War II, became the president of Hampshire six years ago. He said that while he was not initially equipped to understand objections to the flag, his tenure at the private liberal arts college of 1,400 was slowly teaching him to better understand those grievances.

“So something that I have been learning about over the six years but I saw with incredible intensity after the election was the genuineness and depth of the fear of people who have grown up with racism,” he said. “Who look at the deaths on city streets and say, that could easily have been me.”

“For me the flag is still a really positive symbol,” he added. “But I’m coming to be able to maintain both ideas in my heart at the same time.”

 
Things to Keep in Mind
Professor Watchlist Is Seen as Threat to Academic Freedom

Hans-Joerg Tiede, the associate secretary for the department of academic freedom, tenure and governance at the American Association of University Professors, said in an interview: “There is a continuing cycle of these sorts of things. They serve the same purpose: to intimidate individuals from speaking plainly in their classrooms or in their publications.”

He noted in a blog post that the monitoring of organizations and people deemed “radical” dated to 1934, when the conservative political activist Elizabeth Dilling published “The Red Network: A ‘Who’s Who’ and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots.”

 
Things to Remember
I Am a Dangerous Professor (and I’m in good company, it seems)

The new “watchlist” is essentially a new species of McCarthyism, especially in terms of its overtones of “disloyalty” to the American republic. And it is reminiscent of Cointelpro, the secret F.B.I. program that spied on, infiltrated and discredited American political organizations in the ’50s and ’60s. Its goal of “outing” professors for their views helps to create the appearance of something secretly subversive. It is a form of exposure designed to mark, shame and silence.

So when I first confirmed my students’ concerns, I was engulfed by a feeling of righteous indignation, even anger. The list maker would rather that we run in shame after having been called out. Yet I was reminded of the novel “The Bluest Eye” in which Toni Morrison wrote that anger was better than shame: “There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth.” The anger I experienced was also — in the words the poet and theorist Audre Lorde used to describe the erotic — “a reminder of my capacity for feeling.” It is that feeling that is disruptive of the Orwellian gestures embedded in the Professor Watchlist. Its devotees would rather I become numb, afraid and silent. However, it is the anger that I feel that functions as a saving grace, a place of being.

When Black Writers Were Public Enemy No. 1

The FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover-era surveillance of so-called dissidents—a motley assembly of Soviet sympathizers, anti-war activists and civil rights leaders—has been well documented since the 1970s. But McKay was the first, though hardly the last, of one Hoover-tracked subculture that has received less attention: black writers, including some of the most celebrated names in American letters. In the heart of the 20th century, beginning decades before the FBI’s campaign against Martin Luther King Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and, later, the Black Panthers, dozens of allegedly subversive African-American poets, novelists, essayists and playwrights were distinct targets of the agency, whose surveillance of this group was thorough, far-reaching and sometimes ruthless.

 
Where to Turn
After Trump’s Win, Secure Messaging App Signal’s Downloads Increase 400%

Bruce Schneier, a prominent security expert, told BuzzFeed News he thinks more people are installing Signal because they are afraid their communications will be intercepted and read by others. “Privacy is essential to liberty and human dignity, and encryption is one tool for maintaining privacy,” he said.

But the wider adoption of encryption is crucial to its success. “It’s important that we all use it,” Schneier said. “If only political dissidents use encryption, then they can be identified in that way.”

Inspired by Hyperallergic’s Weekend Required Reading, this list with excerpts is of reading that I’ve found helpful in the past week. The links are live, but I’ve also made .pdfs of everything. This week, I found little on the internet that matched my feelings, thoughts, and imperatives, so I also returned to texts that, in the past, grounded me:

How it Feels
Numb. Like a grind.

 
Things to Keep in Mind
How the United States Immigration System Works

Immigration to the United States is based upon the following principles: the reunification of families, admitting immigrants with skills that are valuable to the U.S. economy, protecting refugees, and promoting diversity. This fact sheet provides basic information about how the U.S. legal immigration system is designed.

 
Things to Remember
To the Reader (Forward to Acts of Resistance: Against the Tyranny of the Market)
Pierre Bourdieu

So I would not have engaged in public position-taking if I had not, each time, had the – perhaps illusory – sense of being forced into it by a kind of legitimate rage, sometimes close to something like a sense of duty.

 
Where to Turn
Saving the Life That Is Your Own: The Importance of Model’s in the Artist’s Life
Alice Walker

Recently, I read at a college and was asked by one of the audience what I considered the major difference between the literature written by black and by white Americans. I had not spent a lot of time considering this questions, since it is not the difference between them that interests me, but, rather, the way black writers and white writers seem to me to be writing one immense story – the same story, for the most part – with different parts of this immense story coming from a multitude of different perspectives. Until this is generally recognized, literature will always be broken into bits, black and white, and there will always be questions, wanting neat answers, such as this.

Still, I answered that I thought, for the most part, white American writers tended to end their books and their characters’ lives as if there were no better existence for which to struggle. The gloom of defeat is thick.

By comparison, black writers seem to always be involved in a moral and/or physical struggle, the result of which is expected to be some kind of larger freedom. Perhaps this is because our literary tradition is based on the slave narratives, where escape for the body and freedom for the soul went together, or perhaps this is because black people have never felt themselves guilty of global, cosmic sins.

This comparison does not hold up in every case, of course, and perhaps does not really hold up at all. I am not a gatherer of statistics, only a curious reader, and this has been my impression from reading many books by black and white writers.

Inspired by Hyperallergic’s Weekend Required Reading, this list with excerpts is of reading that I’ve found helpful in the past week. The links are live, but I’ve also made .pdfs of everything:

How it Feels
Preparing For The End Of Obamacare

Joel Walker, 30, of Dayton, Ohio, began to fix his rotting teeth after he got health care coverage for the first time in ten years under a Medicaid expansion. He’s waiting now to be fitted for dentures. “It should be the first time in — wow — a decade that I’ll be able to smile with a mouthful of teeth,” Walker said.

Walker, who is also taking medication for a heart condition, said he has felt as though he was “inside a steel cage of depression” since the election, worrying what will happen if he loses access to his dentist, cardiologist, or the medicine he’s dependent on if the ACA is repealed. He voted for Hillary Clinton, but for the first time in 28 years, his county, Montgomery, flipped Republican. “To put it bluntly, I felt a little betrayed,” Walker said.

Trump Will Have Access To Personal Info Of “Dreamers” For Deportation Efforts

A former high-ranking federal immigration official told BuzzFeed News that despite promises by the Obama administration to not use the information — including fingerprints, addresses, and employment records — for deportation purposes, there is nothing stopping Trump from doing so.

“As a matter of law, there are no restrictions on the Trump administration from using that information however they please,” said John Sandweg, former acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and previous acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

That doesn’t bode well for the so-called “Dreamers” fretting over whether Trump will move in another direction.

“It’s really problematic, it makes me really fearful for my safety,” said Miriam Meza, a recipient of Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and student at Brown University. “It not only potentially endangers me, but my family as well.”

 

Things to Keep in Mind
Government Employees On Trump: “Everything. Is. Fucked.”

There’s a disconnect, though, over how dangerous the Trump administration can be. Many career attorneys at my agency think about how it will be bad, but understand that it won’t really impact their day to day lives, so there’s more acceptance. Noneducated staffers who are more likely to live paycheck to paycheck seem to have a better grasp of what terrible things could be lying in wait.

The best advice I can give to my fellow federal employees is to stay; we owe our fellow citizens a functioning government. And hysterically leaving before Trump lobs his first bomb will make his second, third, and tenth bombs seem that much more normal. If you are going to resign in moral outrage, do it at the most powerful moment, which is not now.

Letter to US Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey from New Jersey Senator Cory Booker

I write to urge the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to thoroughly investigate the recent wave of press-reported hate crimes occurring throughout our nation. I request that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI each respond to me in writing by December 14, 2016, detailing your plans to combat the rising number of hate crimes occurring nationwide…

I am deeply troubled by the latest findings in the FBI’s 2015 Hate Crimes Statistics report that show a spike in the hate crimes against Muslim Americans, and recent news stories that have detailed numerous hateful acts since Election Day targeting certain minority populations in the United States, namely Jews, Muslims, Latinos, African Americans, and LGBT people.

 

Things to Remember
Two State Abortion Laws are a Preview of What’s to Come

Earlier this week, Indiana State Representative Curt Nisly said that he would introduce a legislation that would outlaw all abortions in the state.

The “Protection at Conception” legislation, as Nisly is calling it, would make all abortions a prosecutable crime. The Indianapolis Star reports that the bill would allow the state to prosecute anyone who participated in the procedure. “You would treat the death of an unborn child like you would any other human being,” Nisly told the newspaper.

The Star suggests that the legislation, while clearly unconstitutional, is the result of anti-choice advocates feeling emboldened by the election of Donald Trump. While on the campaign trail, Trump said that women who have abortions should be “punished,” though he later softened that language. For all of his disinterest in abortion during the campaign, Trump has promised to appoint anti-choice judges. In a recent interview with 60 Minutes, the President-Elect said that he would appoint a Supreme Court justice committed to the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

Why the Art World Must Not Normalize Donald Trump’s Presidency

It is not the duty of private citizens (or anyone, actually) to automatically line up behind someone who has scapegoated the most vulnerable people in the country and threatened peaceful protesters and his political opponent with violence in order to win — exhibiting the unmistakable qualities of fascism. Participation in US democracy has its mechanical dimensions (voting and accepting the results, living within legal parameters), but also its fluid dimensions, where the checks and balances of government must be further checked by an awake population that is ready to respond by ceasing business as usual and organizing resistance to bigotry and violence if needed. From time to time throughout history, it has been needed.

 

Where to Turn
Letter from Birmingham Jail

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth…

#GrabYourWallet

Hi. I’m a customer / fan of your brand. Unfortunately I’ll no longer be able to shop there because you do business with the Trump family. If you were to no longer do so I would consider returning as a customer. Please communicate my feedback to store management. // (Optional: I have shopped at your store/brand for X years. I will be shopping at (name your local store or closest shopping competitor) until these products are no longer available for sale.” // Here’s what I said to a rep who said “Well, we don’t carry Donald’s products”: Because Ivanka campaigned passionately for Donald, now has an official role on his presidential transition team, and has been meeting with heads of state inappropriately, I feel her brand has been permanently politicized.

(It took me a lot longer to put this together than I anticipated, so I missed the ‘report’. My first L.)

Inspired by Hyperallergic’s Weekend Required Reading, this list with excerpts is of reading that I’ve found helpful in the past week. The links are live, but I’ve also made .pdfs of everything:
 
How it Feels
Seeking Community: Memories of ‘The Poetry Project’

In light of what happened on November 8th in America, I think a conversation about community is important for many reasons, not the least being the rather utopian idea that there is someplace you can go where you feel safe. I came to the project because I knew that I would meet poets there and I did. But I didn’t necessarily always feel welcome in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, which is one reason why I have no nostalgia for that time.

I’m Tired of Good White People

I’m sure they voted. And maybe they campaigned and canvassed and volunteered. And maybe they were genuinely disappointed by the results of the election. But they have the luxury to not really give a fuck 12 hours later—to discuss the election results with the same glib curiosity and intrigue they’d discuss sabermetrics or James Harden’s true shooting percentage—because this election doesn’t change much for them. It’s not a sweeping referendum on their status as full citizens. It’s not confirmation that their country would rather choose a self-sabotaging white supremacy than witness you make even a modicum of progress.

 

Things to Keep in Mind
Things Laura Learned

Remember: They will do whatever the fuck they want because they can.

What Emily Learned

Invite staffers on “field trips” and show them what it’s like in your communities. Show them the work you are doing. It works.

 

Things to Remember
Autocracy: Rules for Survival

Rule #1: Believe the autocrat.
Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.
Rule #3: Institutions will not save you.
Rule #4: Be outraged.
Rule #5: Don’t make compromises.
Rule #6: Remember the future.

What Is the Role of an Intellectual During a Revolution?

 

Where, maybe, to Turn
Start to Process the Election at These NYC Cultural Spaces and Events

BUFU — a project dedicated to deconstructing the Black and Asian relationship, whose name stands for “by us, for us” — is teaming up with Yellow Jackets — a queer and intersectional “Yellow American collective” — to host this event. The focus is in three parts: “Process/ Mourn/ Activate.” Bring some food to share. More info here.

A List of Pro-Women, Pro-Immigrant, Pro-Earth, Anti-Bigotry Organizations That Need Your Support

The National Immigration Law Center is dedicated to fighting for the rights of low-income immigrants through litigation, policy analysis and advocacy, and various other methods. Donate or learn how you can attend a local training here.