Essays Archive - Page 88 of 131

Sentencing the Present: Part Five

Critical conversations in a time of crisis

June 4, 2020 • by Benjamin Bernard, Jonathon Catlin, Benjamin P. Davis, Jodi Dean, Shannon Hoff, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Zein Murib, Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Rocío Zambrana

This is the final seminar of the "Sentencing the Present" series. For previous seminars, see part one, part two, part three and part four. A sentence is protean: It can describe, question, or cry out. A sentence is critical: In passing judgment, it names wrongs, makes decisions, and declares publicly. In ...

Activism

The Anti-Racist Uprising in Brooklyn

A report from the streets

June 3, 2020 • by Natasha Lennard

Since March, sirens have become a consistent soundtrack where I live in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights. For weeks, this was the sound of ambulances, ushering thousands to nearby hospitals from the predominantly African American area, hard hit by the pandemic. But in recent days, the sirens have carried a different meaning. Night ...

Race

Killer Mike on the Murder of George Floyd

The Atlanta rapper addresses his community

June 1, 2020 • by Killer Mike

On Saturday, May 29, the rapper Killer Mike, best known for his work with the duo Run the Jewels, joined the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, at a televised press conference. Killer Mike usually appears in a choreographed setting, like the official music videos for Run the Jewels tracks like ...

Activism

In the Face of Terror

A statement in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd

June 1, 2020 • by Dwight A. McBride

I, like so many others, am both hurt and angered by the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. And as a Black American, this is also deeply personal for me. To be shown repeatedly that we have no guarantee of safety even in the course of ...

Activism

The Whole World is Watching

The American Left at a crossroads, redux

May 31, 2020 • by James Miller

I am a spectator to the fire this time. A resident of Manhattan, locked down during our pandemic, sheltering in place as an older person with a pre-existing condition, I now watch the world, not from my perch near Union Square, but from a bungalow in Connecticut, far removed from ...

Race

Amy Cooper: The Paradox of the Shameless White Liberal

How pious white anti-racism can contribute to racist behavior

May 29, 2020 • by Musa al-Gharbi

It is unclear what the appropriate consequences for something like this should be, given how dire the consequences of her actions could have been (as recent events in Minneapolis sadly confirm). However, Ms. Cooper has already paid a high price for her transgression: She has been publicly shamed and terminated ...

Amy Cooper: The Paradox of the Shameless White Liberal

Theory & Practice

Sentencing the Present: Part Four

Critical conversations in a time of crisis

May 28, 2020 • by Jonathon Catlin, Benjamin P. Davis, Moira Weigel, Susan Kang, Martin Shuster, Audrey Borowski and Stephanie Degooyer

This seminar is part of an ongoing series. To read the previous issues in the "Sentencing the Present" series, see: part one, part two, and part three. A sentence is protean: It can describe, question, or cry out. A sentence is critical: In passing judgment, it names wrongs, makes decisions, ...

North America

America’s Weimar Moment, Redux

A preface to our symposium on the left

May 28, 2020 • by James Miller

It seems like an eternity. But it was only a few months ago, before the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, that it seemed possible that the Democratic Party might have as its Presidential candidate an avowed socialist – Bernie Sanders. On February 6, 2020, Public Seminar ran a comment entitled “America’s Weimar ...

North America

The Story Behind DSA’s Non-Endorsement of Joe Biden

“Be it therefore resolved, the Democratic Socialists of America will not endorse another Democratic Party presidential candidate should Bernie Sanders not prevail”

May 28, 2020 • by Andrew Sernatinger

I joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in the fall of 2017. I’m a millennial, but by then, I’d been an activist for the better part of twenty years. I’d been in the anti-war movement as a high school student after 9/11. I grew up in the suburbs of ...

The Story Behind DSA’s Non-Endorsement of Joe Biden

The New School

Hanging in Union Square

H. T. Tsiang and the New School

May 28, 2020 • by Mark Larrimore

Among the challenges facing the New School in the coming years will be navigating the increasingly charged relationship between the United States and China. Links with students and partners in China are a significant part of the life of the New School, but not our institutional storytelling. To counter likely ...

Democracy

The Empire Strikes Back

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement faces an uncertain future

May 28, 2020 • by Mark Frazier

On May 22, 2020, the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing announced it would debate a new national policy for Hong Kong, a draft piece of legislation with an imposingly long and misleadingly soporific title: “Decision of the National People’s Congress on Establishing and Completing the Hong Kong Special Administrative ...

Democracy

Troilus and Cressida and a Diseased Body Politic

Reading Shakespeare in a time of plague

May 28, 2020 • by Emily Pitts Donahoe

We are perennially curious about what Shakespeare can teach us about our own world, hoping to find instruction and solace in his plays, poems, and exemplary turns of phrase. Recently, this curiosity has produced a score of tweets and articles speculating about Shakespeare’s productivity during periods when the plague ravaged London, ...

Essays

Sentencing the Present: Part Five

Critical conversations in a time of crisis

The Anti-Racist Uprising in Brooklyn

A report from the streets

Killer Mike on the Murder of George Floyd

The Atlanta rapper addresses his community

In the Face of Terror

A statement in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd

The Whole World is Watching

The American Left at a crossroads, redux

Amy Cooper: The Paradox of the Shameless White Liberal

How pious white anti-racism can contribute to racist behavior

Sentencing the Present: Part Four

Critical conversations in a time of crisis

America’s Weimar Moment, Redux

A preface to our symposium on the left

The Story Behind DSA’s Non-Endorsement of Joe Biden

“Be it therefore resolved, the Democratic Socialists of America will not endorse another Democratic Party presidential candidate should Bernie Sanders not prevail”

Hanging in Union Square

H. T. Tsiang and the New School

The Empire Strikes Back

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement faces an uncertain future

Troilus and Cressida and a Diseased Body Politic

Reading Shakespeare in a time of plague

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