newyorker--2020-01-13--The Fossilized 2020 Oscar Nominations

The Fossilized 2020 Oscar Nominations

Like clockwork , the Academy rides into the year on a tide of self-gratification , and , with a few exceptions , the results are unlovely .
For outstanding achievement in nominations , at least the industry ’ s body found ten ways to praise “ The Irishman ” for its wide-ranging artistry .
At the same time , in a year when the best movies ( including Jim Jarmusch ’ s “ The Dead Don ’ t Die , ” Jordan Peele ’ s “ Us , ” and the Safdie brothers ’ “ Uncut Gems ” ) take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comprehensive , opening visions of society that reveal machinery of breathtakingly menacing vastness , the Academy dinosaurically exhorts the cinema to buck up .
With its nostalgia for the stiff upper lips of the First World War ( “ 1917 ” : ten nominations ) , the verities of the Second World War ( “ Jojo Rabbit ” : six nominations , including Best Picture ) , the glories of pre-modern Hollywood ( “ Once Upon a Time .
.
.
in Hollywood ” : ten nominations ) , and the something-for-everyone pseudo-politics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all films with eleven nominations ) , the Academy has also excluded other movies—and their participants—and , in the process , largely turned its back on the future of the art and the confrontational power of the best filmmakers .
This is no reflection on the age of the Academy ’ s voters ( as reviews prove , there ’ s no shortage of young aesthetic conservatives , either ) but , rather , on the industry ’ s over-all protectionism—stylistic as well as substantive .
The complete repudiation of “ Uncut Gems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry closing ranks against the one prominent movie that doesn ’ t merely push the art ahead but does so derisively , with a gleeful and exuberant defiance of familiar modes of movie composition .
The most surprising omissions are of Adam Sandler from a Best Actor nomination , for a performance that alters the very notion of cinematic performance , and of the mind-bending score by Daniel Lopatin , which departs definitively from the orchestral blare-and-tinkle of other scores .
Why did Peele ’ s “ Get Out , ” two years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in major categories—Best Picture , director , actor , original screenplay ) and his movie “ Us ” get none this year ?
Because , unlike his first movie , which was centered on what was widely perceived as a clear line on the politics of race , “ Us ” includes the experience of a black American family in a shuddering story that pulls out the struts of societal comforts and certainties over all—including of the media business itself .
The Academy has a disturbingly specific idea of what black filmmakers should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The rejection of “ Us ” is a disgrace .
The recognition of Greta Gerwig ’ s “ Little Women ” in several major categories ( including Best Picture ) is welcome and notable—and the failure to nominate Gerwig for directing is scandalous .
I don ’ t think that her direction of the movie is literally among the year ’ s five best achievements in the field—but it ’ s pretty close , and it ’ s far superior to that of all the nominees except Scorsese .
The other nominations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Joker ” and “ 1917 ” ) and grandiose screenplay protection ( “ Once Upon a Time .
.
.
in Hollywood ” and “ Parasite ” ) .
Two of the Best Picture nominees excluded from the directors ’ five are “ Little Women ” and Noah Baumbach ’ s “ Marriage Story , ” two movies in which the directors ’ inventive power is neither vain nor bombastic .
Yes , an international film , “ Parasite , ” received a Best Picture nomination , and its director , Bong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but it ’ s above all a spectacular movie , in the range of his earlier “ Snowpiercer , ” filmed in a conventionally illustrative style .
It ’ s noteworthy that “ Little Women ” and “ Marriage Story , ” which have scooped up nominations for five performances ( three lead , two supporting ) , as well as for their screenplays , should be disregarded for their direction .
Yet what ’ s also noteworthy , particularly about Baumbach ’ s film , is that the actors ’ approach @ @ @ @ @ @ @ familiarly dramatic .
( Adam Driver , for instance , is altogether more provocative in Jarmusch ’ s film , “ The Dead Don ’ t Die , ” than he is in “ Marriage Story , ” for which he was nominated . )
The most original performances in “ Marriage Story ” are the supporting roles of the three lawyers ( Laura Dern , who was rightly nominated for supporting actress , plus Alan Alda and Ray Liotta , who weren ’ t nominated ) —roles that have little backstory and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gestures and sheer force of presence .
That ’ s also why it ’ s good to see Tom Hanks nominated , for his performance as Fred Rogers in “ A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood ” —and all the more outrageous that the film ’ s director , Marielle Heller , wasn ’ t nominated for her work .
Hanks ’ s performance , which seemingly etches Rogers ’ s wise and weighty words onto the screen , is strikingly original , and is conspicuously the work of Heller ’ s directorial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take their revenge at a time of crisis .
“ The Irishman ” and “ Marriage Story ” are produced by Netflix ; though released in theatres , their box-office numbers aren ’ t publicized .
Meanwhile , “ Uncut Gems , ” though playing in more than two thousand theatres nationwide , is also being released internationally by Netflix and , in other countries , will be on the site as of January 31st .
The industry ’ s crisis is reflected in the prominence of streaming in addition to the commercial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reliable and largest source of income—compounded by the fear that competition among streaming services will cut further into theatrical revenue .
It ’ s no paradox but , rather , a natural state of affairs that , in times of turmoil , political as well as industrial , filmmakers make movies of a bold originality and a confrontational fury .
The problem , for Hollywood , is that these elements are precisely the ones that are outside the bounds of studio executives to command , control , and predict .
The story of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exceptions .
That ’ s why the Academy , feeling the sands shifting beneath its feet and wondering whether it is standing in an hourglass , is clinging to existing structures and styles with a backward-looking desperation .
And , as usual , the nostalgic embrace of bygone ways entails welcoming the exclusions of earlier eras .
Not a female directorial nominee , not a black American directorial nominee , only one actor of color : the Academy is fossilizing itself .
Below are my picks for the films and performances that should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I ’ ve put my choice for winner first , in italics , and then my other picks in alphabetical order .
Here is the official list of nominations .
The year ’ s best movies offer comprehensive visions of American society—which doesn ’ t mean that they show everything but , rather , that they show the machinery underlying everything—four underworld films , literally or figuratively .
Few years offer as many audacious movies , as many wild movies ; it ’ s all the more remarkable that many of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and celebrity actors ( most of whom just happen to be brilliant in them ) .
Either of two rules would make sense : require that best director go to the director of the best picture , or ban the category from doing so .
In the interest of spreading the love , I ’ m following the latter one .
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role Forgive me , Robert De Niro .
He ’ s the anchor of “ The Irishman , ” and his minimalist performance is inseparable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experience , but , in “ Uncut Gems , ” Adam Sandler delivers a shock to the system ( both nervous and cinematic ) , a performance that goes beyond the wildest anticipations to create a new level and kind of movie energy .
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Very tough to choose ; also , it ’ s a year of multiple leads ( two lead actors in “ A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood ” and in “ The Dead Don ’ t Die , ” two lead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Fire ” ) , but Lupita Nyong ’ o ’ s multiple performance in “ Us ” is as affecting and haunting as it is virtuosic .
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Tilda Swinton ’ s performance in “ The Dead Don ’ t Die ” is by far the most inventive and surprising , but it ’ s a compositional role of gestures and inflections , whereas Laura Dern ’ s performance in “ Marriage Story , ” similarly gestural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideas and experiences .
Very tough , because it ’ s a year of apples and oranges .
The January issue of American Cinematographer details the processes involved in shooting “ The Irishman , ” and , given the technical complexity ( the de-aging technology required a three-camera rig that the crew called the “ three-headed monster ” ) , it ’ s a miracle that it looks like a movie rather than an equipment test .
The images by Claire Mathon in Mati Diop ’ s first feature , “ Atlantics , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and fantasy , with a rare freedom .
Sean Price Williams ’ s immersive , furiously active filming of “ Her Smell ” conveys , at the same time , an extraordinarily still center of observational clarity .
“ Chez Jolie Coiffure ” is a documentary , and its cinematography—by the director herself , Rosine Mbakam—discovers light and angles more original than most of the year ’ s staged re-creations .
In “ An Elephant Sitting Still , ” Fan Chao ’ s extraordinary long takes , done solely with available light , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ composed and discovered ; their difficulty vanishes with the fury and precision of their emotion , and the film would be not merely different but impossible without them .
It ’ s one of the greatest movies of recent years .
The attention lavished on the costumes in “ Little Women ” is impressive , but the costumes in “ Portrait of a Lady on Fire , ” though few , are more dramatically crucial .
Tough competition this year , but “ One Child Nation ” is a rare combination of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investigation , and political confrontation .
The editing of “ Uncut Gems ” is the logic of chaos , the reason of madness .
The little puffs of charcoal-gray dust that swish from the necks of decapitated zombies in “ The Dead Don ’ t Die ” would suffice .
I considered Jim Jarmusch ’ s “ Paterson ” to be the director ’ s reconfiguration of Wes Andersonian design , and he extends the notion here .
Achievement in Sound Editing ( which means : sound effects , voices , etc .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ means : the total sonic blend ) Martin Scorsese is one of the great digital artists of the time , and “ The Irishman ” —which , like “ The Wolf of Wall Street , ” depended on some wizardry for its settings—wouldn ’ t have been possible without his reliance on , and deployment of , effects .
Greta Gerwig ’ s reconfiguration of a beloved novel is as daring as it is accomplished , as personal as it is analytical .
I love stylish dialogue and would be happy to see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but “ Uncut Gems ” is also a masterwork of construction and plotting—its fusion of dramatic action with public events , its imaginative leaps of action , its deft interweave of private and professional lives , its sheer audacity makes it more than a treat of writing : it ’ s an exemplary act of cinematic conception .

Like clockwork, the Academy rides into the year on a tide of self-gratification, and, with a few exceptions, the results are unlovely. For outstanding achievement in nominations, at least the industry’s body found ten ways to praise “The Irishman” for its wide-ranging artistry. At the same time, in a year when the best movies (including Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die,” Jordan Peele’s “Us,” and the Safdie brothers’ “Uncut Gems”) take a leap from the specific to the comprehensive, opening visions of society that reveal machinery of breathtakingly menacing vastness, the Academy dinosaurically exhorts the cinema to buck up. With its nostalgia for the stiff upper lips of the First World War (“1917”: ten nominations), the verities of the Second World War (“Jojo Rabbit”: six nominations, including Best Picture), the glories of pre-modern Hollywood (“Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood”: ten nominations), and the something-for-everyone pseudo-politics of “Joker” (which leads all films with eleven nominations), the Academy has also excluded other movies—and their participants—and, in the process, largely turned its back on the future of the art and the confrontational power of the best filmmakers.
This is no reflection on the age of the Academy’s voters (as reviews prove, there’s no shortage of young aesthetic conservatives, either) but, rather, on the industry’s over-all protectionism—stylistic as well as substantive. The complete repudiation of “Uncut Gems,” for instance, represents the industry closing ranks against the one prominent movie that doesn’t merely push the art ahead but does so derisively, with a gleeful and exuberant defiance of familiar modes of movie composition. The most surprising omissions are of Adam Sandler from a Best Actor nomination, for a performance that alters the very notion of cinematic performance, and of the mind-bending score by Daniel Lopatin, which departs definitively from the orchestral blare-and-tinkle of other scores.
Why did Peele’s “Get Out,” two years ago, get four nominations (all in major categories—Best Picture, director, actor, original screenplay) and his movie “Us” get none this year? Because, unlike his first movie, which was centered on what was widely perceived as a clear line on the politics of race, “Us” includes the experience of a black American family in a shuddering story that pulls out the struts of societal comforts and certainties over all—including of the media business itself. The Academy has a disturbingly specific idea of what black filmmakers should do—namely, to stay in their lane. The rejection of “Us” is a disgrace.
The recognition of Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” in several major categories (including Best Picture) is welcome and notable—and the failure to nominate Gerwig for directing is scandalous. I don’t think that her direction of the movie is literally among the year’s five best achievements in the field—but it’s pretty close, and it’s far superior to that of all the nominees except Scorsese. The other nominations in that category reward showy vanity (“Joker” and “1917”) and grandiose screenplay protection (“Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood” and “Parasite”). Two of the Best Picture nominees excluded from the directors’ five are “Little Women” and Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” two movies in which the directors’ inventive power is neither vain nor bombastic. Yes, an international film, “Parasite,” received a Best Picture nomination, and its director, Bong Joon-ho, was nominated for his work, but it’s above all a spectacular movie, in the range of his earlier “Snowpiercer,” filmed in a conventionally illustrative style.
It’s noteworthy that “Little Women” and “Marriage Story,” which have scooped up nominations for five performances (three lead, two supporting), as well as for their screenplays, should be disregarded for their direction. Yet what’s also noteworthy, particularly about Baumbach’s film, is that the actors’ approach to the text is recognizable, and familiarly dramatic. (Adam Driver, for instance, is altogether more provocative in Jarmusch’s film, “The Dead Don’t Die,” than he is in “Marriage Story,” for which he was nominated.) The most original performances in “Marriage Story” are the supporting roles of the three lawyers (Laura Dern, who was rightly nominated for supporting actress, plus Alan Alda and Ray Liotta, who weren’t nominated)—roles that have little backstory and derive their identities from idiosyncratic inflections and gestures and sheer force of presence. That’s also why it’s good to see Tom Hanks nominated, for his performance as Fred Rogers in “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”—and all the more outrageous that the film’s director, Marielle Heller, wasn’t nominated for her work. Hanks’s performance, which seemingly etches Rogers’s wise and weighty words onto the screen, is strikingly original, and is conspicuously the work of Heller’s directorial imagination.
The recognizable and the familiar take their revenge at a time of crisis. “The Irishman” and “Marriage Story” are produced by Netflix; though released in theatres, their box-office numbers aren’t publicized. Meanwhile, “Uncut Gems,” though playing in more than two thousand theatres nationwide, is also being released internationally by Netflix and, in other countries, will be on the site as of January 31st. The industry’s crisis is reflected in the prominence of streaming in addition to the commercial shift toward franchise films as the most reliable and largest source of income—compounded by the fear that competition among streaming services will cut further into theatrical revenue. It’s no paradox but, rather, a natural state of affairs that, in times of turmoil, political as well as industrial, filmmakers make movies of a bold originality and a confrontational fury. The problem, for Hollywood, is that these elements are precisely the ones that are outside the bounds of studio executives to command, control, and predict. The story of the art is the story of brilliant exceptions. That’s why the Academy, feeling the sands shifting beneath its feet and wondering whether it is standing in an hourglass, is clinging to existing structures and styles with a backward-looking desperation. And, as usual, the nostalgic embrace of bygone ways entails welcoming the exclusions of earlier eras. Not a female directorial nominee, not a black American directorial nominee, only one actor of color: the Academy is fossilizing itself.
Below are my picks for the films and performances that should have been nominated. In each category, I’ve put my choice for winner first, in italics, and then my other picks in alphabetical order. Here is the official list of nominations.
Best Picture
The year’s best movies offer comprehensive visions of American society—which doesn’t mean that they show everything but, rather, that they show the machinery underlying everything—four underworld films, literally or figuratively. Few years offer as many audacious movies, as many wild movies; it’s all the more remarkable that many of the best have been made with substantial budgets and celebrity actors (most of whom just happen to be brilliant in them).
“The Irishman”
“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”
“Atlantics”
“The Dead Don’t Die”
“An Elephant Sitting Still”
“Frankie”
“Her Smell”
“Little Women”
“Uncut Gems”
“Us”
Achievement in Directing
Either of two rules would make sense: require that best director go to the director of the best picture, or ban the category from doing so. In the interest of spreading the love, I’m following the latter one.
Jordan Peele (“Us”)
Marielle Heller (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”)
Jim Jarmusch (“The Dead Don’t Die”)
Josh and Benny Safdie (“Uncut Gems”)
Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”)
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Adam Sandler, in “Uncut Gems.” Photograph by Julia Cervantes
Forgive me, Robert De Niro. He’s the anchor of “The Irishman,” and his minimalist performance is inseparable from the depths of his personality and experience, but, in “Uncut Gems,” Adam Sandler delivers a shock to the system (both nervous and cinematic), a performance that goes beyond the wildest anticipations to create a new level and kind of movie energy.
Adam Sandler (“Uncut Gems”)
Robert De Niro (“The Irishman”)
Adam Driver (“The Dead Don’t Die”)
Winston Duke (“Us”)
Paul Walter Hauser (“Richard Jewell”)
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Lupita Nyong’o, in Jordan Peele’s “Us.” Photograph from Blumhouse Productions / Universal Pictures / Alamy
Very tough to choose; also, it’s a year of multiple leads (two lead actors in “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” and in “The Dead Don’t Die,” two lead actresses in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”), but Lupita Nyong’o’s multiple performance in “Us” is as affecting and haunting as it is virtuosic.
Lupita Nyong’o (“Us”)
Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”)
Adèle Haenel (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”)
Elisabeth Moss (“Her Smell”)
Melissa McCarthy (“The Kitchen”)
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Too easy.
Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”)
Eric Bogosian (“Uncut Gems”)
Bill Duke (“High Flying Bird”)
Adam Pearson (“Chained for Life”)
Clarke Peters (“Harriet”)
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Tilda Swinton’s performance in “The Dead Don’t Die” is by far the most inventive and surprising, but it’s a compositional role of gestures and inflections, whereas Laura Dern’s performance in “Marriage Story,” similarly gestural, builds on a vast network of ideas and experiences.
Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”)
Idina Menzel (“Uncut Gems”)
Florence Pugh (“Little Women”)
Tilda Swinton (“The Dead Don’t Die”)
Marisa Tomei (“Frankie”)


newyorker--2020-01-13--Daily Cartoon: Monday, January 13th

Daily Cartoon: Monday, January 13th

“ Can you believe these Best Picture nominees have the gall to run against one another ?
”

“Can you believe these Best Picture nominees have the gall to run against one another?”


newyorker--2020-01-13--How Jacqueline Durran, the “Little Women” Costume Designer, Remixes Styles and Eras

About halfway through Greta Gerwig ’ s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott ’ s “ Little Women , ” Amy March ( Florence Pugh ) is standing in an artist ’ s atelier in eighteen-sixties Paris , explaining to her childhood crush , Laurie ( Timothée Chalamet ) , that she must marry rich .
This is not because she is a pampered prima donna , but because she desires a large life , one in which she might have some control over her path .
“ Don ’ t sit there and tell me that marriage is not an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Amy says , wrapping up an argument that Alcott only hinted at in the text .
“ It may not be for you , but it most certainly is for me.
” Then she asks Laurie to unbutton her painting smock .
She has to meet with a wealthy suitor .
This was the moment when I realized that something very interesting was happening with the clothes in “ Little Women , ” which were overseen by the English costume designer Jacqueline Durran .
Gerwig zooms in on Laurie ’ s fingers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ linen apron , then follows her as she swishes purposefully across the room in a robin ’ s-egg hoopskirt and flings a ruffled cream-colored capelet , with intricate floral embroidery , across her shoulders .
The outfit is beautiful and ridiculous .
“ How do I look ?
” she asks Laurie , but she already knows .
She looks like a cake , like a bisque doll , like a woman gallantly marching toward security .
Despite the nineteenth-century setting , she also seems strangely au courant , as if she has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michele ’ s Gucci shows dedicated to feathers and furbelows .
There ’ s a modernity to this Amy , fresh as a lemon wedge .
Even in a cape that should look baroque and overwhelming , she manages to look dauntless .
On Monday , Durran , who is fifty-three , was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design for “ Little Women , ” her seventh nomination in this category .
( She won in 2012 , for “ Anna Karenina.
” ) When I met Durran for tea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wore blue jeans and a vintage gray cardigan , her toffee-brown hair pulled back into a messy chignon .
She told me that Amy ’ s cape is one of her favorite artifacts from the film , because it was something of a fashionable Frankenstein ’ s monster : Durran had bought a delicately embroidered but moth-eaten shawl some years before , and saw an opportunity to revive it when she was dressing Pugh .
She hired a seamstress to graft the fragile needlework onto a new cape , a surgery that took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she said .
Cutting up and remixing clothing is part of Durran ’ s process .
Although she works primarily in period pieces , she doesn ’ t feel particularly sentimental or precious about old finery .
Her most famous creation is Keira Knightley ’ s Kelly-green , bias-cut evening gown for “ Atonement , ” a dress so unforgettable that Entertainment Weekly celebrated its tenth anniversary .
Durran told the magazine that she eschewed pure fidelity to the time period in order to conjure a mood , a season , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put on if it was the hottest day of the year.
” “ I ’ m under no illusion that the dress that I ’ ve created isn ’ t a true 1934 dress , ” she said .
“ It ’ s a combination of elements that has been made up by someone with a modern perspective.
” The same dynamic is at work in Durran ’ s designs for Matthew Macfadyen ’ s caddish , open-chested shirts in “ Pride & Prejudice , ” Marion Cotillard ’ s Gothic pearl headbands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Necco-wafer-colored dystopian pastels she created with Sinéad Kidao for the “ Black Mirror ” episode “ Nosedive.
” These are costumes that feel embodied , tangible .
They conjure lust , fear , sunniness followed by sorrow .
They feel sweated in , rumpled , cried in .
Durran , whose work is also featured in Sam Mendes ’ s new film , “ 1917 , ” and in the forthcoming “ Batman ” reboot , with Robert Pattinson , told me that she wants the characters she dresses to look as if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Amy ’ s cape , for example , looks effortful and almost gaudy—we know that Amy is putting in extravagant effort to elicit a proposal—but it also moves .
The cape ripples and bounces as she heaves herself into a carriage , wriggling her voluminous skirt into the tiny seat .
It all looks fairly cumbersome , which is to say it looks realistic .
Amy ’ s sister Jo ( Saoirse Ronan ) , on the other hand , prefers writing plays in an attic to attending social dances .
Instead of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cotton dresses and plain woolly skirts , paired with men ’ s waistcoats and collared work shirts .
Her one concession to vanity is her “ writing jacket , ” a green , military-style moleskin coat that she wears as a kind of armor when she sits down to work by candlelight .
Durran wanted this jacket to look like a piece that Jo had stolen for herself .
“ She may have worn things that were her father ’ s or things boys had left in the house , ” she explained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as her writing costume.
” When Durran was a child , her godmother sent her a trunk of velvet opera coats and nineteen-thirties chiffon tea dresses , which sparked a lifelong interest in vintage fashion .
She studied philosophy at university and then worked in an academic bookshop in London , but she soon rediscovered a knack for hunting down coveted collector ’ s pieces .
In the nineteen-eighties , that meant rummaging through bins and back rooms for mod minidresses and go-go boots .
She started a side business running a secondhand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; soon , she was selling clothes full time .
She was watching a soap opera when it struck her that she wanted to be a costume designer—it suddenly occurred to her that someone must be selecting the outfits she was seeing on television .
And she suspected that her talent for rooting out mint-condition old pieces might allow her to slip sideways into the profession .
On a whim , she called up the costume house Angels , one of the world ’ s largest suppliers of clothing for film , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a costumier .
( Their warehouse features a hundred and sixty thousand square feet of tuxes and trumpet gowns and pannier skirts ; they have film credits for Jedi robes and Errol Flynn ’ s swashbuckling garb and Victorian tea dresses from “ Titanic.
” ) She asked for an entry-level position , and she got the job by passing a test in which she had to accurately date items of vintage clothing .
Durran ’ s first task at Angels was selecting the shoes for extras in the bio-pic “ Chaplin , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1992 .
She then began assisting the Welsh costume designer Lindy Hemming , who won an Oscar for Mike Leigh ’ s Gilbert and Sullivan bio-pic “ Topsy-Turvy.
” Leigh continued to hire Durran , and it was their collaborations that led to “ Little Women ” —Gerwig is a big Mike Leigh fan .
The element of remixing that has always been crucial to Durran ’ s work finds a new means of expression in “ Little Women ” through Laurie and Jo , who swap clothing throughout the film .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on one knee in a mock proposal , presenting a flashy ring to Laurie , who is wearing a buttercup-colored paisley vest .
Years later , as she refuses Laurie ’ s real proposal of marriage , Jo is wearing that same vest beneath an oversized camel blazer .
It is a subtle note that says a lot : Jo ’ s longing to transcend the social limitations placed upon her gender ; the profound closeness a person can share with another in their youth ; the idea that she is walking away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her chest .
Jo would rather dress like a man than be tied down by one .
The vest-swapping is just one of so many small details that makes Gerwig ’ s film feel both comfortable and contemporary .
Durran gave the actors a lot of leeway to put together their own looks , particularly Chalamet , which often led to flyaway shirttails and artfully dishevelled neckties .
She told Chalamet to research British Teddy Boys , while Gerwig told him to read Baudelaire .
“ He has such an instinct for how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would wear it how he would want to wear it , ” Durran said .
“ So it ’ s not that he ’ s wearing anything that is the wrong period ; he just styles it his own way.
” Part of Durran ’ s mission is to make vintage clothes look covetable to the modern viewer .
Meg ( Emma Watson ) has a chartreuse winter scarf that is , in its way , as surprising to the eye as the “ Atonement ” dress ; in fact , when Gerwig @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it might be too neon for a girl from nineteenth-century Concord .
( Durran assured her that it was authentic : bright aniline dyes had just been invented , and absinthe green was all the rage .
“ I do think the Victorians were brighter than we thought they were , ” Durran said . )
And several friends have told me that “ Little Women ” made them desire a sontag : a crisscrossed scarf that wraps around the breasts and fastens at the waist , and that hasn ’ t been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and fifty years .
Durran found several patterns for woollen sontags , also known as “ bosom friends , ” in publications like Godey ’ s Lady ’ s Book , a popular fashion guide out of Philadelphia that Alcott and her sisters might have read for inspiration .
In the wrong hands , the scarves would look dowdy , but Durran paired them with unexpected pieces—preppy plaid skirts , long crimson capes , jaunty newsboy caps—that gives them an oddball chic .
Speaking for myself , I came home from “ Little @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Victorian blouses with a Chalamet-esque flair .
Like Amy , I suddenly knew what I wanted—to live inside Durran ’ s world just a little bit longer .

About halfway through Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women,” Amy March (Florence Pugh) is standing in an artist’s atelier in eighteen-sixties Paris, explaining to her childhood crush, Laurie (Timothée Chalamet), that she must marry rich. This is not because she is a pampered prima donna, but because she desires a large life, one in which she might have some control over her path. “Don’t sit there and tell me that marriage is not an economic proposition, because it is,” Amy says, wrapping up an argument that Alcott only hinted at in the text. “It may not be for you, but it most certainly is for me.” Then she asks Laurie to unbutton her painting smock. She has to meet with a wealthy suitor.
This was the moment when I realized that something very interesting was happening with the clothes in “Little Women,” which were overseen by the English costume designer Jacqueline Durran. Gerwig zooms in on Laurie’s fingers as he slowly undoes Amy’s linen apron, then follows her as she swishes purposefully across the room in a robin’s-egg hoopskirt and flings a ruffled cream-colored capelet, with intricate floral embroidery, across her shoulders. The outfit is beautiful and ridiculous. “How do I look?” she asks Laurie, but she already knows. She looks like a cake, like a bisque doll, like a woman gallantly marching toward security. Despite the nineteenth-century setting, she also seems strangely au courant, as if she has just stepped out of one of Alessandro Michele’s Gucci shows dedicated to feathers and furbelows. There’s a modernity to this Amy, fresh as a lemon wedge. Even in a cape that should look baroque and overwhelming, she manages to look dauntless.
On Monday, Durran, who is fifty-three, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design for “Little Women,” her seventh nomination in this category. (She won in 2012, for “Anna Karenina.”) When I met Durran for tea recently in a midtown-Manhattan hotel, she wore blue jeans and a vintage gray cardigan, her toffee-brown hair pulled back into a messy chignon. She told me that Amy’s cape is one of her favorite artifacts from the film, because it was something of a fashionable Frankenstein’s monster: Durran had bought a delicately embroidered but moth-eaten shawl some years before, and saw an opportunity to revive it when she was dressing Pugh. She hired a seamstress to graft the fragile needlework onto a new cape, a surgery that took several days. “It was painstaking,” she said.
The costumes of Jacqueline Durran, who is seen at right, feel embodied, tangible—as if her characters really live in them. Photograph by Wilson Webb
Cutting up and remixing clothing is part of Durran’s process. Although she works primarily in period pieces, she doesn’t feel particularly sentimental or precious about old finery. Her most famous creation is Keira Knightley’s Kelly-green, bias-cut evening gown for “Atonement,” a dress so unforgettable that Entertainment Weekly celebrated its tenth anniversary. Durran told the magazine that she eschewed pure fidelity to the time period in order to conjure a mood, a season, a temperature, “what you might put on if it was the hottest day of the year.” “I’m under no illusion that the dress that I’ve created isn’t a true 1934 dress,” she said. “It’s a combination of elements that has been made up by someone with a modern perspective.” The same dynamic is at work in Durran’s designs for Matthew Macfadyen’s caddish, open-chested shirts in “Pride & Prejudice,” Marion Cotillard’s Gothic pearl headbands in “Macbeth,” and the Necco-wafer-colored dystopian pastels she created with Sinéad Kidao for the “Black Mirror” episode “Nosedive.” These are costumes that feel embodied, tangible. They conjure lust, fear, sunniness followed by sorrow. They feel sweated in, rumpled, cried in.
Durran, whose work is also featured in Sam Mendes’s new film, “1917,” and in the forthcoming “Batman” reboot, with Robert Pattinson, told me that she wants the characters she dresses to look as if they really live in their clothing. Amy’s cape, for example, looks effortful and almost gaudy—we know that Amy is putting in extravagant effort to elicit a proposal—but it also moves. The cape ripples and bounces as she heaves herself into a carriage, wriggling her voluminous skirt into the tiny seat. It all looks fairly cumbersome, which is to say it looks realistic. Amy’s sister Jo (Saoirse Ronan), on the other hand, prefers writing plays in an attic to attending social dances. Instead of corsets and boning, Jo wears baggy cotton dresses and plain woolly skirts, paired with men’s waistcoats and collared work shirts. Her one concession to vanity is her “writing jacket,” a green, military-style moleskin coat that she wears as a kind of armor when she sits down to work by candlelight. Durran wanted this jacket to look like a piece that Jo had stolen for herself. “She may have worn things that were her father’s or things boys had left in the house,” she explained. “She was appropriating a uniform as her writing costume.”
Instead of corsets and boning, Jo (Saoirse Ronan) wears plain woolly skirts. Photograph by Wilson Webb / Sony Pictures Amy (Florence Pugh) is dressed to look like a woman marching gallantly toward security. Photograph from Columbia Pictures / Alamy
When Durran was a child, her godmother sent her a trunk of velvet opera coats and nineteen-thirties chiffon tea dresses, which sparked a lifelong interest in vintage fashion. She studied philosophy at university and then worked in an academic bookshop in London, but she soon rediscovered a knack for hunting down coveted collector’s pieces. In the nineteen-eighties, that meant rummaging through bins and back rooms for mod minidresses and go-go boots. She started a side business running a secondhand clothing stall at the Portobello Road market; soon, she was selling clothes full time. She was watching a soap opera when it struck her that she wanted to be a costume designer—it suddenly occurred to her that someone must be selecting the outfits she was seeing on television. And she suspected that her talent for rooting out mint-condition old pieces might allow her to slip sideways into the profession.
On a whim, she called up the costume house Angels, one of the world’s largest suppliers of clothing for film, and where a young Alexander McQueen worked as a costumier. (Their warehouse features a hundred and sixty thousand square feet of tuxes and trumpet gowns and pannier skirts; they have film credits for Jedi robes and Errol Flynn’s swashbuckling garb and Victorian tea dresses from “Titanic.”) She asked for an entry-level position, and she got the job by passing a test in which she had to accurately date items of vintage clothing. Durran’s first task at Angels was selecting the shoes for extras in the bio-pic “Chaplin,” starring Robert Downey, Jr., in 1992. She then began assisting the Welsh costume designer Lindy Hemming, who won an Oscar for Mike Leigh’s Gilbert and Sullivan bio-pic “Topsy-Turvy.” Leigh continued to hire Durran, and it was their collaborations that led to “Little Women”—Gerwig is a big Mike Leigh fan.
The element of remixing that has always been crucial to Durran’s work finds a new means of expression in “Little Women” through Laurie and Jo, who swap clothing throughout the film. In one scene, Jo bends down on one knee in a mock proposal, presenting a flashy ring to Laurie, who is wearing a buttercup-colored paisley vest. Years later, as she refuses Laurie’s real proposal of marriage, Jo is wearing that same vest beneath an oversized camel blazer. It is a subtle note that says a lot: Jo’s longing to transcend the social limitations placed upon her gender; the profound closeness a person can share with another in their youth; the idea that she is walking away from Laurie yet keeping him close to her chest. Jo would rather dress like a man than be tied down by one.
The vest-swapping is just one of so many small details that makes Gerwig’s film feel both comfortable and contemporary. Durran gave the actors a lot of leeway to put together their own looks, particularly Chalamet, which often led to flyaway shirttails and artfully dishevelled neckties. She told Chalamet to research British Teddy Boys, while Gerwig told him to read Baudelaire. “He has such an instinct for how things can be worn, and he would wear it how he would want to wear it,” Durran said. “So it’s not that he’s wearing anything that is the wrong period; he just styles it his own way.”


newyorker--2020-01-13--The Changing Meaning of Affirmative Action

The terrible paradox of the civil-rights movement is that outlawing racial discrimination made it harder to remediate its effects .
Once we amended the Constitution and passed laws to protect people of color from being treated differently in ways that were harmful to them , the government had trouble enacting programs that treat people of color differently in ways that might be beneficial .
We took race out of the equation only to realize that , if we truly wanted not just equality of opportunity for all Americans but equality of result , we needed to put it back in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ affirmative action .
The term was introduced to the Kennedy Administration almost sixty years ago , and its arrival was somewhat haphazard .
According to Nicholas Lemann ’ s history of meritocracy , “ The Big Test , ” the man who suggested it was an African-American lawyer named Hobart Taylor , Jr .
He was a Texan , and when John F. Kennedy was sworn in , in 1961 , he dropped in on the inaugural ball for Texans in order to shake hands with the new Vice-President , Lyndon B. Johnson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him to come by his office .
When Taylor showed up , Johnson handed him a draft of what would become Executive Order 10925 , setting up the President ’ s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity , which Johnson was to chair .
Taylor read the draft and said he thought it could use a little work ; Johnson asked him to do a rewrite .
And that is when Taylor inserted the words “ affirmative action.
” He liked the phrase , he later said , because of the alliteration ( or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flexible phrase because Kennedy ’ s committee was a bureaucratic entity with a vague mandate meant to signal the Administration ’ s commitment to fairness in employment .
Its purview , like the purview of committees dating back to the Administration of Franklin Roosevelt , was the awarding of federal contracts , and its mandate was to see that companies the federal government did business with did not discriminate on the basis of race .
The committee had no real enforcement mechanism , though , so “ affirmative action ” was intended to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their workforce something like “ Don ’ t just stand there .
Do something.
” What they were supposed to do , aside from not discriminating , was unspecified .
“ Do something ” is still one of the meanings of “ affirmative action ” today .
Many firms and educational institutions have affirmative-action or diversity officers .
Their job is to insure not only that hiring and promotion are handled in a color-blind manner but that good-faith efforts are made to include racial minorities ( and sometimes individuals in other categories , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ persons ) in the hiring pool , and , if they are qualified , to attempt to recruit them .
In this context , “ affirmative ” means : demonstrate that you did your best to find and promote members of underrepresented groups .
You do not have to give them preferential treatment .
Since the late nineteen-sixties , however , affirmative action has also had a more proactive meaning , as the name of an effort to attain a certain number , or , as it ’ s called today , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a business or an educational institution by , if necessary , giving applicants from those groups preference over similarly or better qualified whites .
This form of affirmative action is usually branded by those who disapprove of it with the dreaded Q-word , “ quota.
” After 1978 , when the Supreme Court declared racial quotas unconstitutional , affirmative-action programs avoided any suggestion of the Q-word .
But that is essentially what affirmative action in this second sense entails .
You can use terms like “ targets ” and “ goals , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but if you have an idea of the point at which you would attain a critical mass then you have a quota .
Apart from stone-cold racists , everyone is happy , or claims to be happy , with affirmative action in the first sense .
And many people are happy , or will say they are , with affirmative action in the second sense so far as the outcome is concerned .
Legally , we want the system to be color-blind ; we want everyone to have the same rights .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t want their racial or gender identities to be ignored .
They want them to be recognized and respected .
People take a civic pride in having a racially diverse workplace or educational institution .
It ’ s just that many would rather not contemplate too closely the means used to achieve it .
Of the people who like racial diversity but don ’ t like affirmative action in the preferential sense , there are two types .
One type believes that we can ban all forms of preferential treatment and , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against discrimination , still achieve equality of result .
These people see affirmative action as unfairly penalizing those who are not biased themselves and who have enjoyed no personal benefit from discrimination , and they see it as stigmatizing members of underrepresented groups with the suspicion that they are underqualified for the jobs they hold or the school they attend .
The other type of affirmative-action skeptic is the person who knows that this is wishful thinking but is unable to get his or her head around the idea that the way to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law professor Melvin Urofsky , in “ The Affirmative Action Puzzle ” ( Pantheon ) , says he is agnostic on the issue , but he would seem to be a person of the second type .
He wants racial diversity , and he knows that it is not going to come about on its own very soon , but he thinks that specific goals or targets are at odds with the rights of individuals .
That ’ s why he calls it a puzzle .
The history of affirmative action is woven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the history of American race relations is woven into the history of America .
It is the eternal bone in the national throat .
So when Urofsky takes us through the history of affirmative action—he starts with Reconstruction , but the story really begins in the nineteen-sixties—he is giving us what amounts to a history of the country from John F. Kennedy to Donald Trump .
You see the decades go past as you read , and the special flavor of each Presidency comes back : Kennedy ’ s uncomfortable recognition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that transcended his customary political pragmatism , Johnson ’ s miraculous emergence as the Moses of racial equality , Nixon ’ s inveterate scheming , Reagan ’ s bland duplicity , Obama ’ s undramatic realism .
Then we get to Trump , who , Urofsky points out , “ is the first Republican since the civil rights revolution to reach the White House without campaigning against affirmative action.
” Urofsky doesn ’ t say so , but one reason Trump ignored the issue is probably that politicians who oppose affirmative action normally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blindness , and Trump is not color-blind .
( Alternative-facts explanation : Donald Trump is the least racist person you have ever met . )
There is a whole library on racial inequality and efforts to address it , and “ The Affirmative Action Puzzle ” does not offer many novelties .
But the book , just by the accumulation of sixty years ’ worth of evidence , allows us to reach some useful conclusions , and the most important of these is that affirmative action worked .
The federal government , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 1964 Civil Rights Act and its legislative progeny—notably the Education Amendments of 1972 , home to the notorious ( in the R.B.G .
sense ) Title IX , banning sex discrimination in federally assisted educational institutions—and forced businesses to hire women and racial minorities .
And they did .
Study after study suggests that it is just not the case that “ it would have happened anyway.
” In 1981 , for example , as Urofsky tells us , the Reagan Labor Department commissioned a report on gains in hiring among African-Americans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1974 and 1980 the rate of minority employment in businesses that contracted with the federal government , and were therefore susceptible to being squeezed , rose by twenty per cent , and the rate of employment of women rose by 15.2 per cent .
In companies that did not contract with the government , the rates were twelve per cent and 2.2 per cent , respectively .
This was so contrary to everything that Reagan had been saying about affirmative action that the Labor Department hired an outside consulting firm to vet its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the news that the methods and the conclusions were valid , the Administration did the only thing it could do .
It refused to release the report , thus allowing politicians to go on telling the public that affirmative action didn ’ t work .
But it did .
And guess what ?
So did the War on Poverty .
In 1959 , the poverty rate was an estimated twenty-two per cent ; in 1975 , it was below twelve per cent , which is about where it is today .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than the population of Canada . )
The claim that government programs always backfire was Reagan ’ s campaign calling card—even though he did not eliminate a single major spending program during the eight years he was in office—and it has become one of the most dangerous canards in American politics .
Politicians repeat it , and people nod their heads .
Meanwhile , the rich get richer .
Did white men suffer as a result of affirmative action ?
That turns out to be a difficult question to answer .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prove that a minority hire almost always took place at the expense of a better-qualified white person , ” Urofsky says .
He also tells us that there are “ no reliable data ” on whether men were shut out of jobs that were offered to women .
“ Almost always ” would indeed be hard to prove .
Obviously , just by the nature of the policy , some significant number of whites and males who would have been admitted or hired before affirmative-action programs were in place were not .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever says , “ You were not hired because you ’ re white ” or “ You were admitted because you ’ re black , ” proving discrimination is complicated .
Americans have come to accept that race and gender are always in the mix , but we can ’ t be certain that either one made the difference in any particular case .
Urofsky ’ s view is that , over all , white men did not go without jobs or the chance to attend college .
Turned down by one place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number who were “ victimized ” by affirmative action , he says , is “ minuscule.
” Certainly this is true in the case of college admissions .
Most colleges accept almost everyone who applies , so when we talk about race-conscious admissions we are talking about policies that affect a relatively small number of people .
Urofsky borrows from Thomas Kane , of the Brookings Institution , an analogy to handicapped parking spaces : a driver looking to park who does not have a permit might feel “ excluded ” driving past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or she usually finds a place to park .
The main source of Urofsky ’ s frustration is the Supreme Court , which , he complains , has spent fifty years kicking around the constitutionality of race-conscious hiring and admissions practices without ever coming up with what he calls “ a workable jurisprudence.
” There is no Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade for affirmative action , no well-established precedent .
A lot of the cases that people rely on about university admissions are 5–4 decisions .
And some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , insofar as affirmative action constitutes an exception to the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment , it will eventually time out ( much as a majority of the Court recently decided , in Shelby v. Holder , that part of the Voting Rights Act has outlived our need for it ) .
The Court ’ s unpredictability in such cases not only distresses law professors like Urofsky .
It also creates uncertainty in the marketplace .
The judicial parameters are known : to pass constitutional muster , an affirmative-action program must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ must be narrowly tailored , and it must survive strict scrutiny .
But one can never be sure how the Court will apply these criteria , or whether it will one day decide that all affirmative-action programs are unconstitutional per se and close out the exception .
So groups that oppose racial preferences keep relitigating what is basically the same case , in the hope that a shift in the Court ’ s makeup will produce a definitive result .
The Court is effectively inviting these lawsuits .
The marketplace matters because the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the N.A.A.C.P .
and the Democratic National Committee .
The biggest defenders are corporations and the military .
Thousands of firms adopted affirmative-action programs after 1969 , when the Nixon Administration began insisting on diversity benchmarks for government contractors , and “ in little more than a decade , ” Urofsky says , “ affirmative action became a way of life for many large corporations.
” Once those programs were put into place , they remained .
The same thing happened with the 1964 Civil Rights Act .
The most controversial part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ applies to public accommodations , like restaurants and hotels .
This struck at what was , along with suppression of African-American voting rights , one of the pillars of Jim Crow : social segregation .
In December , 1964 , five months after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law , the Supreme Court , in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States , upheld the constitutionality of Title II under the commerce clause .
All public accommodations that fell within the reach of Congress ’ s power were prohibited from discriminating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ business .
On the contrary .
From a business viewpoint , refusing to serve people who want to rent a room in your hotel or order a sandwich at your lunch counter is irrational .
The only economic incentive for denying them service is a fear of their driving white customers away .
Once the Court made it clear that every hotel and lunch counter must serve every customer regardless of race , that fear was significantly reduced .
Under Jimmy Carter , affirmative-action requirements were extended to virtually all firms , educational @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that received contracts or grants from the federal government—which covers a lot of the national waterfront .
By and large , the courts went along .
And so did businesses .
When a company is serving customers of different races , it wants to present a diversified face .
If you are selling cars to African-Americans , you do not want all the salesmen in your showroom to be white .
If , to achieve this result , a company diversifies on its own , it is open to lawsuits claiming reverse discrimination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a police department or a fire department ) adopts a race-conscious hiring program under government guidance it is immunized .
When Reagan made noises about abolishing affirmative-action requirements , the National Association of Manufacturers lobbied him to leave the program alone .
It was helping manufacturing companies do what they could not have done without it .
The biggest problem businesses had wasn ’ t that they couldn ’ t find qualified women and minorities .
It was dealing with labor unions , whose seniority systems overwhelmingly favored white male workers .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) The extent of the corporate buy-in was put on dramatic display in 2003 , when the Supreme Court heard Grutter v. Bollinger , another admissions case , this one involving the University of Michigan Law School .
The Court received sixty-nine amicus briefs ( a lot ) arguing in favor of Michigan ’ s affirmative-action admissions program , and among the amici were General Motors , Dow Chemical , and Intel , along with the largest federation of unions in the United States , the A.F.L.-C.I.O .
They supported affirmative-action admissions because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a diversified workforce .
The Court also received , in Grutter , what became known as “ the military brief.
” This was an amicus brief signed by big-name generals like Norman Schwarzkopf , Wesley Clark , and John Shalikashvili ; by a former Defense Secretary , William Cohen ; and by former superintendents of the service academies , all of which , of course , are government agencies .
“ At present , ” they told the Court , “ the military can not achieve an officer corps that is both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ service academies and the ROTC use limited race-conscious recruiting and admissions policies.
” They were saying that if the Court ruled against Michigan it would be upending efforts , up to that point highly successful , to maintain a diverse officer corps .
The Court voted to uphold the Michigan program , but it was a 5–4 decision .
No sector is more committed to diversity than higher education is , but it has proved to be one of the stickiest areas for affirmative action , both legally and practically .
Urofsky , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is more patient with the trouble that universities have had in achieving diversity than he is with the problems of labor unions , to which , in general , he is uncharitable .
It is true that probably the main reason Nixon promoted affirmative-action programs was to pit African-Americans against labor , both traditionally Democratic voting bases .
And , by many accounts , he succeeded , and created Archie Bunker—the Reagan Democrat , a man who resents special government help for minorities .
Still , the leadership of unions like the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own membership , were active in support of civil rights .
Higher education and unions have a similar problem when it comes to changing the demographics : we are dealing with a cake that can not be unbaked .
The undergraduate population turns over every four years , but the faculty turns over every forty years .
When the new students arrive on campus , they often wonder where the professors of color are .
The answer is : wait twenty years , and they will show up .
Even so , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their student bodies is striking .
As late as 1969 , less than five per cent of all professors had African or Asian ancestry , and around eighty per cent were men .
Schools like Harvard and Stanford have had trouble even getting to gender balance .
In 1976 , women made up 1.6 per cent of the arts and sciences faculty at Yale and one per cent at Princeton , although both schools had been admitting women for seven years .
Even at Berkeley , which had been admitting women since 1871 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cent of the faculty .
Today , less than thirty per cent of all university faculty at Stanford are women , and seven per cent are classified as underrepresented minorities .
At Harvard , twenty-seven per cent of tenured faculty are women , and eight per cent are underrepresented minorities .
On the other hand , student bodies , where race- and gender-conscious admissions policies can have an effect more quickly , have diversified .
In 1976 , eighty-three per cent of university students were white ; in 2016 , fifty-seven per cent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ students in that period increased from ten to fourteen ; the percentage of students that the government categorizes as Hispanic increased from less than four to more than eighteen .
The percentage of black and Latinx graduates ( as opposed to enrollees ) also increased ( although graduation rates for both groups are lower than for whites ) .
Did affirmative-action admissions help ?
Starting in the mid-nineties , opponents of affirmative action were able to get laws passed prohibiting the use of race in admissions at public universities in several states , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The top public universities in those states tried to attract minority students by other means , but Urofsky says that the percentage of black and Hispanic students has dropped significantly .
Do students admitted under affirmative-action criteria benefit from their educations ?
Historically , black students as a group have tended to underperform academically—to get lower grades than their SAT scores predict .
( So do varsity athletes . )
Nevertheless , William Bowen and Derek Bok showed , in “ The Shape of the River ” ( 1998 ) —the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to that point—that of seven hundred black students who entered twenty-eight selective schools under race-preferential criteria in 1976 , thirty-two per cent attained doctorates or professional degrees , as compared with thirty-seven per cent of white students .
Nearly a hundred and twenty-five of the black students were business executives , and more than three hundred were “ civic leaders ” ( running youth or community groups , for example ) .
Race-conscious admissions policies , Bowen and Bok concluded , have been “ highly successful ” in advancing educational and societal goals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when we are considering colleges and jobs , there is a pipeline problem .
That ’ s why , as Urofsky notes , the greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action have been white women .
They went to the same high schools that their brothers did ( and most of them probably got better grades ) .
That ’ s also why Barack Obama seemed to be focussed more on improving K-12 for minority children than on expanding access to post-secondary education .
The success of affirmative action in employment and university admissions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gaps between whites and blacks .
Although the poverty rate for blacks and Hispanics has dropped some since 1970 , it is still more than double the rate for whites .
Americans of color are starting from much farther behind .
Millions never get on board a train that most whites were born on .
“ O.K.
, I may have had one bite.
” The Supreme Court case that admissions offices rely on today is Regents of the University of California v. Bakke .
It was decided in 1978 , and , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is still the law of the land .
Bakke is a good example of the jurisprudential confusion around affirmative action : the Court managed to produce six opinions in that case .
The plurality opinion , by Lewis Powell , struck down an admissions program at the University of California at Davis School of Medicine , from which Allan Bakke , a white man , had been twice rejected , but it upheld the right of schools to use race-conscious admissions programs .
The problem at Davis was that the medical school @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for everybody and one that effectively considered only minority applicants , for whom sixteen places were set aside .
Bakke was able to show that his record was superior to the records of some of the students who had been admitted through the special program .
The Davis program was obviously not narrowly tailored .
One consideration that the university offered in the way of compelling state interest was its belief that minority M.D.s might end up practicing in underserved communities .
Powell found no evidentiary basis for this , and it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could have investigated whether applicants had worked with underserved communities in the past .
They did not , and Powell suggested that such a standard might be a better proxy than race .
Another consideration Davis offered was the aim of “ countering the effects of societal discrimination.
” But Powell , though he allowed that specific race-conscious remedies could be justified by specific instances of discrimination , dismissed the general invocation of discrimination as “ an amorphous concept of injury that may be ageless in its reach into the past.
” Still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a diversified medical-school class was constitutionally permissible , and he played a trump card that is almost never mentioned in discussions of the case , including Urofsky ’ s .
Admissions programs determined by race are in violation of both the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act , which outlaws racial discrimination in institutions that receive federal funding .
Those rights were largely on Bakke ’ s side : you couldn ’ t discriminate against whites simply because nonwhites had once been discriminated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that another right was in play : the First Amendment ; specifically , the right of academic freedom .
There is no constitutional right of academic freedom , but Powell cited a 1957 case , Sweezy v. New Hampshire , in which Felix Frankfurter , in a concurring opinion , quoted South African jurists to the effect that the principle of academic freedom allows a university to determine who will teach its classes and who will sit in its classrooms .
Powell concluded that , since Davis could reasonably decide that a diverse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ considerations of an applicant ’ s race—as one factor among others—can fall within the exercise of a constitutionally protected right .
( Under the Court ’ s ruling , Bakke was admitted to Davis and he became a doctor ; Urofsky says that he went on to work at the Mayo Clinic , where one of his patients was Lewis Powell . )
The Michigan case , Grutter v. Bollinger , in 2003 , was basically a relitigation of Bakke .
As was Fisher v. Texas , in 2013 , and the second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fisher II , in 2016 .
The Fisher cases involved a white woman who was turned down for admission to the University of Texas at Austin , U.T.
’ s flagship campus .
Her lawyers argued that , even if she were rejected solely because of her grades and not her race , she could still claim a “ Constitutional injury ” from being subjected to an unfair admissions process .
Each time , the Court upheld the constitutionality of using race as a factor in admissions , but they were close calls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 4–3 .
The current Harvard College admissions case , Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard , is the same case one more time .
The person behind both Fisher and the Harvard case is Edward Blum , a man who for whatever reason has decided to devote his time to preventing a small number of black and brown teen-agers from attending colleges that are desperate to have them .
Harvard won at the trial level because the judge ruled that its admissions program is consistent with other Supreme Court decisions , such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , since Powell ’ s decision cited the Harvard admissions program as a model .
But , given the composition of the Supreme Court , it is all too likely that it will decide that the country has timed out of this particular form of remediation .
For remediation is fundamentally what affirmative action is .
Affirmative action has expanded to cover many kinds of difference , and , since Bakke , to be thought of as in service to a general social commitment to diversity per se—so that now people say things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
, ” as though that somehow presented the same moral demand as a commitment to racial diversity .
But the reason we have affirmative action is that we once had slavery and Jim Crow and redlining and racial covenants , and that we once had all-white police forces and all-white union locals and all-white college campuses and all-white law firms .
To paraphrase George Shultz , Nixon ’ s Secretary of Labor : for hundreds of years , the United States had a racial quota .
It was zero .
Affirmative action @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done to black people .
The Fourteenth Amendment protects white people , too , but that is not why it needed to be written .
The Court ’ s decision in Shelby v. Holder vacating a central provision of the Voting Rights Act has backfired .
It turns out that , when you remove enforcement mechanisms and remedial oversight , things tend to revert to the status quo ante .
The whole history of affirmative action shows , as Urofsky somewhat reluctantly admits , that when the programs are shut down minority representation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , is politically constructed and politically maintained .
It doesn ’ t just happen .
It ’ s a choice we make as a society .
It is possible to understand the opposition to affirmative action of white conservatives , like Ronald Reagan , who regard civil-rights laws as federal overreach and affirmative action as enshrining the un-American notion of group rights .
And it is possible to understand the opposition of black conservatives , like Clarence Thomas , who see it as patronizing to African-Americans .
But it is hard to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of many white liberals that has persisted since the nineteen-seventies .
Did these people really imagine that passing a law against discrimination would reset race relations overnight ?
Do they really think that white Americans , wherever they work or go to college , do not carry a lifelong advantage because of the color of their skin ?
Do they really believe that there should be no sacrifice to make or price to pay for the systematic damage done to the lives of millions of American citizens and the men and women who @ @ @ @ @

The terrible paradox of the civil-rights movement is that outlawing racial discrimination made it harder to remediate its effects. Once we amended the Constitution and passed laws to protect people of color from being treated differently in ways that were harmful to them, the government had trouble enacting programs that treat people of color differently in ways that might be beneficial. We took race out of the equation only to realize that, if we truly wanted not just equality of opportunity for all Americans but equality of result, we needed to put it back in. Our name for this paradox is affirmative action.
The term was introduced to the Kennedy Administration almost sixty years ago, and its arrival was somewhat haphazard. According to Nicholas Lemann’s history of meritocracy, “The Big Test,” the man who suggested it was an African-American lawyer named Hobart Taylor, Jr. He was a Texan, and when John F. Kennedy was sworn in, in 1961, he dropped in on the inaugural ball for Texans in order to shake hands with the new Vice-President, Lyndon B. Johnson.
They chatted, and Johnson asked him to come by his office. When Taylor showed up, Johnson handed him a draft of what would become Executive Order 10925, setting up the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, which Johnson was to chair. Taylor read the draft and said he thought it could use a little work; Johnson asked him to do a rewrite. And that is when Taylor inserted the words “affirmative action.” He liked the phrase, he later said, because of the alliteration (or the assonance).
Taylor needed a flexible phrase because Kennedy’s committee was a bureaucratic entity with a vague mandate meant to signal the Administration’s commitment to fairness in employment. Its purview, like the purview of committees dating back to the Administration of Franklin Roosevelt, was the awarding of federal contracts, and its mandate was to see that companies the federal government did business with did not discriminate on the basis of race. The committee had no real enforcement mechanism, though, so “affirmative action” was intended to communicate to firms that needed to integrate their workforce something like “Don’t just stand there. Do something.” What they were supposed to do, aside from not discriminating, was unspecified.
“Do something” is still one of the meanings of “affirmative action” today. Many firms and educational institutions have affirmative-action or diversity officers. Their job is to insure not only that hiring and promotion are handled in a color-blind manner but that good-faith efforts are made to include racial minorities (and sometimes individuals in other categories, such as women or veterans or disabled persons) in the hiring pool, and, if they are qualified, to attempt to recruit them. In this context, “affirmative” means: demonstrate that you did your best to find and promote members of underrepresented groups. You do not have to give them preferential treatment.
Since the late nineteen-sixties, however, affirmative action has also had a more proactive meaning, as the name of an effort to attain a certain number, or, as it’s called today, “critical mass,” of underrepresented groups in a business or an educational institution by, if necessary, giving applicants from those groups preference over similarly or better qualified whites. This form of affirmative action is usually branded by those who disapprove of it with the dreaded Q-word, “quota.” After 1978, when the Supreme Court declared racial quotas unconstitutional, affirmative-action programs avoided any suggestion of the Q-word. But that is essentially what affirmative action in this second sense entails. You can use terms like “targets” and “goals,” both of which are constitutionally legit, but if you have an idea of the point at which you would attain a critical mass then you have a quota.
Apart from stone-cold racists, everyone is happy, or claims to be happy, with affirmative action in the first sense. And many people are happy, or will say they are, with affirmative action in the second sense so far as the outcome is concerned. Legally, we want the system to be color-blind; we want everyone to have the same rights. But socially we understand that people don’t want their racial or gender identities to be ignored. They want them to be recognized and respected. People take a civic pride in having a racially diverse workplace or educational institution. It’s just that many would rather not contemplate too closely the means used to achieve it.
Of the people who like racial diversity but don’t like affirmative action in the preferential sense, there are two types. One type believes that we can ban all forms of preferential treatment and, so long as we enforce existing laws against discrimination, still achieve equality of result. These people see affirmative action as unfairly penalizing those who are not biased themselves and who have enjoyed no personal benefit from discrimination, and they see it as stigmatizing members of underrepresented groups with the suspicion that they are underqualified for the jobs they hold or the school they attend.
The other type of affirmative-action skeptic is the person who knows that this is wishful thinking but is unable to get his or her head around the idea that the way to end discrimination is by discriminating. The law professor Melvin Urofsky, in “The Affirmative Action Puzzle” (Pantheon), says he is agnostic on the issue, but he would seem to be a person of the second type. He wants racial diversity, and he knows that it is not going to come about on its own very soon, but he thinks that specific goals or targets are at odds with the rights of individuals. That’s why he calls it a puzzle.
The history of affirmative action is woven into the history of American race relations, and the history of American race relations is woven into the history of America. It is the eternal bone in the national throat. So when Urofsky takes us through the history of affirmative action—he starts with Reconstruction, but the story really begins in the nineteen-sixties—he is giving us what amounts to a history of the country from John F. Kennedy to Donald Trump.
You see the decades go past as you read, and the special flavor of each Presidency comes back: Kennedy’s uncomfortable recognition that civil rights was a moral issue that transcended his customary political pragmatism, Johnson’s miraculous emergence as the Moses of racial equality, Nixon’s inveterate scheming, Reagan’s bland duplicity, Obama’s undramatic realism. Then we get to Trump, who, Urofsky points out, “is the first Republican since the civil rights revolution to reach the White House without campaigning against affirmative action.” Urofsky doesn’t say so, but one reason Trump ignored the issue is probably that politicians who oppose affirmative action normally do so in the name of color blindness, and Trump is not color-blind. (Alternative-facts explanation: Donald Trump is the least racist person you have ever met.)
There is a whole library on racial inequality and efforts to address it, and “The Affirmative Action Puzzle” does not offer many novelties. But the book, just by the accumulation of sixty years’ worth of evidence, allows us to reach some useful conclusions, and the most important of these is that affirmative action worked. The federal government, with the backing of the courts, weaponized the 1964 Civil Rights Act and its legislative progeny—notably the Education Amendments of 1972, home to the notorious (in the R.B.G. sense) Title IX, banning sex discrimination in federally assisted educational institutions—and forced businesses to hire women and racial minorities.
Cartoon by Lila Ash Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
And they did. Study after study suggests that it is just not the case that “it would have happened anyway.” In 1981, for example, as Urofsky tells us, the Reagan Labor Department commissioned a report on gains in hiring among African-Americans and women. It found that between 1974 and 1980 the rate of minority employment in businesses that contracted with the federal government, and were therefore susceptible to being squeezed, rose by twenty per cent, and the rate of employment of women rose by 15.2 per cent. In companies that did not contract with the government, the rates were twelve per cent and 2.2 per cent, respectively.


newyorker--2020-01-14--Can Elizabeth Warren Unify Democrats?

Can Elizabeth Warren Unify Democrats?

On the first Saturday evening in January , at a town hall at the Grand River Conference Center , in Dubuque , Iowa , Elizabeth Warren took a question from a man who looked slightly out of place in a crowd of more women than men , many of them in their twenties , and dressed as though they might go out afterward .
He was well over six feet tall and heavyset , with a shaved head and a goatee .
He said that his name was Tim , and that he meant to ask his question “ in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year and more than a hundred and fifty town halls into her Presidential campaign , seemed to know what was coming .
She said , “ Why does this make me uneasy ?
” People in the crowd laughed , and then , with a spirited , resigned air , she said , “ Go ahead , Tim.
” Tim said that he was an evangelical Christian , and that he found himself “ continually bombarded by Democratic candidates who demonize my beliefs , calling them bigoted and intolerant.
” On issues like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he and Warren were bound to disagree , but he wanted to know what she might offer to voters like him .
A man in a “ Make America Great Again ” hat stood and applauded vigorously , as if something brave had been said .
As Warren began to answer , it sounded as if she was going to give one kind of reply , the kind Pete Buttigieg might give , about the ways in which faith knits together conservative and progressive Americans .
“ I was born and raised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ve been a Sunday-school teacher .
Most of the scripture I quote is still King James .
I ’ m old school on this.
” It seemed possible that Warren might pivot here to an issue on which she might find some common ground with a conservative—Amazon ’ s profiteering , maybe , or , more ambitiously , her proposed tax on wealth—but instead she went for the point of greatest contrast : abortion .
“ I understand that you and I may have differences—there may be a lot of different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ But here ’ s what I ’ m certain about .
And that is , a woman who is in the position of trying to decide what she ’ s going to do about a pregnancy that she may not have planned for , may not have hoped for , may have been forced upon her , is a woman who should be able to call on anyone for help .
She should be able to call on her partner , she should be able to call on her mom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on her priest or rabbi or pastor .
But the one entity that should not be in the center of that very hard decision is the federal government.
” There was a loud burst of applause , and , if she had lost Tim , she ’ d done so intentionally , to show the Democrats in the room that she was emphatically on their side .
The exchange was a small moment in a very long campaign , but I ’ ve thought about it frequently in the eventful week since , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between Warren and Bernie Sanders , the only Democratic candidate who leans further to the left , sharpened into outright hostility .
Over the weekend , Politico reported that some Sanders volunteers were working from a script that instructed them to criticize Warren by saying that “ people who support her are highly-educated , more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what.
” Warren called Sanders an old friend and said that she was “ disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We all saw the impact of the factionalism in 2016 , and we can ’ t have a repeat of that.
” Some political reporters noticed that , on Twitter , Warren staffers and surrogates had started pitching her as the “ unity candidate , ” the figure who might span the breach between the party ’ s Sanders faction and its establishment one .
For anyone who has paid attention to the past Democratic primary , “ factionalism ” carries a particular meaning : a repeat of the conflict between Sanders and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alliance that relies on young working-class voters and a progressive one built around educated women .
In 2016 , the Sanders camp offered an economic critique of the Clinton coalition ; Clinton ’ s side offered an identity-based critique of the Sanders campaign .
Clinton won , and then she lost .
On Monday , several outlets reported that , in a private conversation in 2018 , Sanders told Warren that a woman could not win the Presidency , and eventually Warren put out a statement making the allegation herself .
( Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are again .
There are plenty of reasons why it might have seemed to Warren ’ s camp like a good time to start drawing a distinction with Sanders .
In fund-raising , in national polls , and in surveys of the early states , Warren is running either third or fourth , and her momentum has been slowing since the fall .
It might help her campaign to remind voters that she , with Amy Klobuchar , is one of just two Democratic candidates left on the debate stage who are not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Warren could plausibly lay claim to both the mantle of “ unity ” and to Clinton ’ s voters is a clear expression of a deep historical turn , in which the Party ’ s base is steadily becoming more female , more educated , more progressive .
Sanders envisions a transformative coalition of the working class , and the two other leading candidates , Joe Biden and Buttigieg , each want to summon different versions of a bipartisan consensus .
Warren was a registered Republican as late as 1996 , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ position at Harvard .
And so it is interesting that one of the final turns in the Presidential campaign before the Iowa caucuses , on February 3rd , has been the emergence of Warren as a Democratic partisan .

On the first Saturday evening in January, at a town hall at the Grand River Conference Center, in Dubuque, Iowa, Elizabeth Warren took a question from a man who looked slightly out of place in a crowd of more women than men, many of them in their twenties, and dressed as though they might go out afterward. He was well over six feet tall and heavyset, with a shaved head and a goatee. He said that his name was Tim, and that he meant to ask his question “in all due respect.”
Warren, a year and more than a hundred and fifty town halls into her Presidential campaign, seemed to know what was coming. She said, “Why does this make me uneasy?” People in the crowd laughed, and then, with a spirited, resigned air, she said, “Go ahead, Tim.”
Tim said that he was an evangelical Christian, and that he found himself “continually bombarded by Democratic candidates who demonize my beliefs, calling them bigoted and intolerant.” On issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, he said, he and Warren were bound to disagree, but he wanted to know what she might offer to voters like him. A man in a “Make America Great Again” hat stood and applauded vigorously, as if something brave had been said.
As Warren began to answer, it sounded as if she was going to give one kind of reply, the kind Pete Buttigieg might give, about the ways in which faith knits together conservative and progressive Americans. “I was born and raised Methodist,” Warren said. “I’ve been a Sunday-school teacher. Most of the scripture I quote is still King James. I’m old school on this.” It seemed possible that Warren might pivot here to an issue on which she might find some common ground with a conservative—Amazon’s profiteering, maybe, or, more ambitiously, her proposed tax on wealth—but instead she went for the point of greatest contrast: abortion.
“I understand that you and I may have differences—there may be a lot of different views in this room,” Warren said. “But here’s what I’m certain about. And that is, a woman who is in the position of trying to decide what she’s going to do about a pregnancy that she may not have planned for, may not have hoped for, may have been forced upon her, is a woman who should be able to call on anyone for help. She should be able to call on her partner, she should be able to call on her mom, she should be able to call on her priest or rabbi or pastor. But the one entity that should not be in the center of that very hard decision is the federal government.” There was a loud burst of applause, and, if she had lost Tim, she’d done so intentionally, to show the Democrats in the room that she was emphatically on their side.
The exchange was a small moment in a very long campaign, but I’ve thought about it frequently in the eventful week since, as what had been a respectful relationship between Warren and Bernie Sanders, the only Democratic candidate who leans further to the left, sharpened into outright hostility. Over the weekend, Politico reported that some Sanders volunteers were working from a script that instructed them to criticize Warren by saying that “people who support her are highly-educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what.” Warren called Sanders an old friend and said that she was “disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me.” She added, “We all saw the impact of the factionalism in 2016, and we can’t have a repeat of that.” Some political reporters noticed that, on Twitter, Warren staffers and surrogates had started pitching her as the “unity candidate,” the figure who might span the breach between the party’s Sanders faction and its establishment one.
For anyone who has paid attention to the past Democratic primary, “factionalism” carries a particular meaning: a repeat of the conflict between Sanders and Hillary Clinton, and between a left-populist alliance that relies on young working-class voters and a progressive one built around educated women. In 2016, the Sanders camp offered an economic critique of the Clinton coalition; Clinton’s side offered an identity-based critique of the Sanders campaign. Clinton won, and then she lost. On Monday, several outlets reported that, in a private conversation in 2018, Sanders told Warren that a woman could not win the Presidency, and eventually Warren put out a statement making the allegation herself. (Sanders denied the story.) Here we are again.
There are plenty of reasons why it might have seemed to Warren’s camp like a good time to start drawing a distinction with Sanders. In fund-raising, in national polls, and in surveys of the early states, Warren is running either third or fourth, and her momentum has been slowing since the fall. It might help her campaign to remind voters that she, with Amy Klobuchar, is one of just two Democratic candidates left on the debate stage who are not white men. And yet the news that Warren could plausibly lay claim to both the mantle of “unity” and to Clinton’s voters is a clear expression of a deep historical turn, in which the Party’s base is steadily becoming more female, more educated, more progressive. Sanders envisions a transformative coalition of the working class, and the two other leading candidates, Joe Biden and Buttigieg, each want to summon different versions of a bipartisan consensus. Warren was a registered Republican as late as 1996, when she was forty-seven and held an endowed position at Harvard. And so it is interesting that one of the final turns in the Presidential campaign before the Iowa caucuses, on February 3rd, has been the emergence of Warren as a Democratic partisan.
Follow Warren for even a weekend and it’s plain enough that her approach on the stump hasn’t changed much over the past year: she gives a ten-minute introductory speech and then takes an hour of questions from the audience. The speech was the same when I saw it in New Hampshire, in August, and in Council Bluffs, Iowa, last January, before the campaign had officially started. “I have it almost memorized at this point,” Isabella O’Connor, a nineteen-year-old intern for the campaign, told me not long after we’d both seen a Warren town hall in Manchester, Iowa.
Warren’s account begins with her humble beginnings in Oklahoma, where as a child, she says, she used to line her dolls up against a wall and conduct class; she says that her only ambition was to be a teacher. In the version that I saw at several events in Iowa last week, Warren had subtly deëmphasized the poverty of her upbringing—I did not hear a tale, which she often told earlier in her campaign, about how her family nearly lost its home, after her father suffered a heart attack, and her mother put on her best dress and psyched herself up for a job interview at Sears, pacing at home and repeating, “We will not lose this house.” Now Warren’s introduction is more focussed on her own path, and it is more obviously about the obstacles she has encountered as a woman. The gestures are the same—the fist in the air to emphasize a point, the aw-shucks quality that fades once the questions begin and her professorial persona resurfaces—but the story has a specificity that Clinton’s never really did. Warren wins a debate scholarship to college. She gets married and drops out. She finds a commuter school that she can afford on a part-time waitressing salary, and then is fired from a job as a special-education teacher when she gets pregnant. She divorces and then remarries. In the background, as she ascends the stage, Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” is playing.
The specificity of Warren’s campaign has won her a cadre of devoted, talented staffers and volunteers, many of them women in their twenties, that seems unmatched in the Democratic primary. At the Dubuque town hall, a young woman approached the microphone and said to Warren, winningly, that, though the two had never met, “you are my best friend in my dreams.” “The stories about Warren staffers in Iowa and how far they go to sell her candidacy regularly circulate among rival campaigns, eliciting both eye rolls but also grudging admiration,” the Washington Post reported earlier this month. In the piece, a longtime Iowa Democratic activist marvels, “It’s like, where did they find these kids?” They find them in exactly the same places Democrats have always found talented kids, but, in this case, they have a somewhat different attitude toward power. Regina Logan, a Warren volunteer who is the student-body president at Grinnell College, told me, “Women often have to work twice as hard for less glory and less credit and more criticism. Her career, in a lot of ways, is that story.”


newyorker--2020-01-14--Introducing Meghan and Harry’s Etsy Shop

Welcome to Meghan and Harry ’ s Etsy shop !
In order to facilitate our transition to financial independence , we are pleased to announce the creation of SussexFul , your new fave spot for all things ( formerly senior ) royal .
Steeped in tradition yet committed to smashing tiresome norms , we offer an array of home goods for your little castle and the coolest garb , both ceremonial and casual .
Sit down , have a cuppa , and take a look around !
Live , Love , Laugh , The Duke and Duchess of Sussex Miniature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a pair ) : Meghan needed something to do with her hands ; press junkets are so , so boring .
Royal nappies ( £49.99 ) : Keep your princeling as dry as our famous British wit with these super-soft nappies embroidered with the royal coat of arms !
* * * DISCONTINUED DUE TO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT * * * Fascinators , varied ( 10 p. ) : Who actually wants these hideous things ?
Honestly , free with purchase—of anything .
Meghan and Harry wax figures ( £100 plus shipping ) : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than we ’ d anticipated , and if you think they were creepy before they started melting .
.
.
Walk-in freezer recommended !
Tiaras , scepters , ermine stoles ( price on request , serious offers only ) Kate ’ s diary ( £1,000,000 ) : YES , IT ’ S REAL AND IF YOU WANT IT BACK YOU ’ LL PAY UP , CATHERINE .

Welcome to Meghan and Harry’s Etsy shop! In order to facilitate our transition to financial independence, we are pleased to announce the creation of SussexFul, your new fave spot for all things (formerly senior) royal. Steeped in tradition yet committed to smashing tiresome norms, we offer an array of home goods for your little castle and the coolest garb, both ceremonial and casual. Sit down, have a cuppa, and take a look around!
Live, Love, Laugh, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex
AVAILABLE ITEMS
PRINCELY AF sweatshirt (£80): Sharpie on a Champion-brand hooded sweatshirt—the perfect blend of highborn-lowbrow!
Your Royal Highness rolling papers (£2 per pack): Puff, puff, pass, pauper!
Miniature palace guards made from Q-tips (£6 a pair): Meghan needed something to do with her hands; press junkets are so, so boring.
Royal nappies (£49.99): Keep your princeling as dry as our famous British wit with these super-soft nappies embroidered with the royal coat of arms! * * * DISCONTINUED DUE TO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT * * *
Fascinators, varied (10 p.): Who actually wants these hideous things? Honestly, free with purchase—of anything.
Meghan and Harry wax figures (£100 plus shipping): These are harder to keep looking nice than we’d anticipated, and if you think they were creepy before they started melting . . . Walk-in freezer recommended!
Tiaras, scepters, ermine stoles (price on request, serious offers only)
Kate’s diary (£1,000,000): YES, IT’S REAL AND IF YOU WANT IT BACK YOU’LL PAY UP, CATHERINE.