Must-Reads and a Quick Love Note

Your weekly curated list of must-reads is here. From the surveillance and punishment of student activists to tools for resisting nihilism, here are some of the most important articles I’ve read this week.

• Project Analyzing Human Language Usage Shuts Down Because ‘Generative AI Has Polluted the Data’ by Jason Koebler. "The creator of an open source project that scraped the internet to determine the ever-changing popularity of different words in human language usage says that they are sunsetting the project because generative AI spam has poisoned the internet to a level where the project no longer has any utility."
• MBS: No Saudi-Israel Normalization Until Palestinians Get a State by Annelle Sheline. “With the recent announcement by Saudi Arabia and the vote in the UN, the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israel’s military aggression is increasingly isolating the United States.”
• Inside Columbia’s Surveillance and Disciplinary Operation for Student Protesters by Sarah Huddleston and Maya Stahl. “Some legal scholars warned of a chilling effect—the quelling of expression in fear of legal or disciplinary retaliation—settling over campus due to the University’s surveillance and discipline of students involved with on-campus activism.”
• Anatomy of a Pogrom by Talia Lavin. “To wield this sort of calumny is to ready the ground for the destruction of innocents, and there is no escaping the moral stain of its promulgation.”
• Lebanon Death Toll Rises as UN Experts Condemn Israel’s Attacks as War Crimes by Sharon Zhang. "'In my past 25 years in practice, I’ve never removed as many eyes as I did yesterday,' Warrak said."
• Cut Up and Leased Out, the Bodies of the Poor Suffer a Final Indignity in Texas by Mike Hixenbaugh, Jon Schuppe and Susan Carroll. “The commissioners were elated at the prospect of saving up to a half-million dollars a year. But one, Andy Nguyen, questioned the morality of dissecting bodies of people with no family to consent and raised the possibility of survivors coming forward later, horrified to learn how their relatives were treated.”
• ‘Water Is Coming.’ Floods Devastate West and Central Africa by Ruth Maclean and Ismail Alfa. “Flooding caused by the rain has devastated cities and towns across west and central Africa in recent days, leaving more than 1,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed.”
• The Right Wants Us to Submit to Nihilism. Here Is Where I’m Searching for Hope by Lewis Raven Wallace. “Daily inundated with pulls toward nihilism, I stay hopeful through a careful practice, a careful focus on what matters. Here are five things keeping me hopeful right now.”
• Calling Kamala Harris a ‘Marxist’ Insults the Legacy of Black Women Radicals by Jesse Hagopian. "There is a long and powerful tradition of Black women Marxists who have reimagined how to achieve social justice in the face of systemic oppression: Harris is not one of them. Their impact has largely been underappreciated and in many states today, the Republican Party has made it illegal to learn about their contributions to the understanding of the overlapping structures of capitalism, systemic racism, sexism, and heterosexism.

Books

Several times recently, I have found myself recommending L.A. Kauffman’s book Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism. Direct Action explores the evolution of disruptive protest over the last 40 years and weaves a larger story about radicalism in the US. If you’ve ever wondered what happened after the protests of the late 60s and early 70s peaked, you might want to read this book. I’ve been recommending Direct Action to students a lot lately. These words from the book’s introduction should explain why:

The movements profiled in this book embraced a particular set of organizing practices, deeply shaped by feminism and queer radicalism, in response to a broad sense of crisis and retrenchment after the 1960s. Of course they wanted to remake American society, but many concluded that they first had to remake the American left, much of which seemed dispirited and directionless as the grand hopes of the sixties receded.

After revisiting the book's introduction this week, I'm inclined to reread it myself.

Invisible Giants

This week, I attended a preview screening of Invisible Giants, a film based on the book Lifting As They Climbed by Mariame Kaba and Essence McDowell. Mariame and Essence shared about 30 minutes of the film before hosting a discussion. Invisible Giants will explore some of the histories featured in Lifting As They Climbed, which charts the historical and social contributions of 78 Black women on Chicago's South and West Sides. The book structures these stories in five self-guided walking tours. Lifting As They Climbed is a cherished community resource that has inspired works of fiction, art exhibitions, and the creation of other community-led walking tours. Some of the projects Lifting As They Climbed has informed are featured in Invisible Giants. More resources are needed to complete the film. If, like me, you want to see the finished product, you can donate here to ensure that Mariame, Essence, and filmmaker Tom Callahan can complete this documentary.

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts this week are about my partner, Charlie. Wednesday of next week is our 20th wedding anniversary. Some of you have met Charlie at protests or organizing events over the years. He is reliably by my side, my devoted partner in crime. He handles the sound work for my podcast, Movement Memos, and makes my disabled life livable with a tremendous amount of care. When I get depressed and start to despise myself, as I occasionally do, he reminds me of how he sees me and grounds me in his truth. 

While many couples grow apart with time, we’ve been lucky. The people we’ve become, over the course of two decades, are far more compatible than our younger selves ever were. 

I’m lucky. 

We’re lucky. 

We love each other, and we are loved by great people. 

What more could anyone ask for?

Next week, I will be celebrating our relationship and taking a break from this newsletter. That means no feature piece or must-read list. If you will miss hearing from me, I apologize, but sometimes, we have to make space for joy. I hope you will do the same – whatever that means for you. Laugh with your friends. Tell people what they mean to you. Eat some cake. Remember that amid all of the fucked up, broken, and wicked workings of this world, there are people who casually remind us, in their everyday ways of being, that humanity can do better – and sometimes does.

Here’s to the love of my life. I love you, Charlie, and I’m glad we’re on this ride together.

Much love,

Kelly