United States
Troublemaker and cat parent. Social dynamics and movement, theory and resistance.
States depend on the consent of the governed: there are only a finite number of cops, and politicians, once stripped of authority and armed guards, are about as liable to die from gunshot wounds or immolation as anyone else. The deepest wish of the modern state is to forge precisely the sort of population which might perfectly support it.
There exists a cottage industry for white prospective parents who wish to adopt children of color while maintaining their liberal bona fides. One parent, who adopted an Ethiopian girl and "a newborn African-American," wrote an adoption think piece in which she announced that celebrating Kwanzaa was simply not enough - one has to "allow your child her story."
The San Francisco Bay Area has long been one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. The region, home to the booming Silicon Valley tech sector and a rising number of billionaires, also has one of the highest numbers of people without homes.
I would have dropped between 30 and 50 atomic bombs on his air bases and other depots strung across the neck of Manchuria... For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the north. The enemy could not have marched across that irradiated belt.
As a former waiter in an Asian restaurant, I know very well how many people claim to be sensitive to monosodium glutamate or MSG. Customers would demand that their meal be MSG-free to avoid the headaches or nausea or weakness they swore they would suffer afterward (Mayo Clinic).
Today's democratic-capitalist project of eliminating the poor classes through development not only reproduces within itself the people that is excluded but also transforms the entire population of the Third World into bare life.-Giorgio Agamben In early February, the Netherlands announced a total ban on inter-country adoptions.
(art by Kill Joy) Finite Frontiers No matter how we approach it, we can all see the way the future is shaping up. We are forced to admit it will be shaped by better bandwidth and higher processing speeds. Our phones now speak back; the cars have begun to drive themselves.
After months of protest encampments and housing takeovers, tenant activists have reached a landmark, if tentative, agreement with the city of Philadelphia. For the unhoused people who are self-organizing the camps, and the activists mobilizing community support, the connection between racial and housing justice is anything but incidental.
This summer, a new wave of Black Lives Matter protests picked up where the initial cycle of rebellions left off in 2014. The names Tamir Rice and Michael Brown were replaced with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, but, tragically, it seems that little else has changed.
In recent years, the word "gentrification" has reached a larger audience as shows and films, like Gentefied and The Last Black Man in San Francisco , present how American cities are being transformed. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has left millions unable to pay rent and fueled a swell of people facing eviction notices, has prompted conversations about a possible new wave of gentrification.