newyorker--2020-06-15--The Heart of the Uprising in Minneapolis

Although there is a robust network of activists in Minneapolis , the initial demonstrations there were improvised and leaderless , reminiscent of the Occupy movement in the U.S. and the gilets jaunes protests in France .
Tony Williams , a member of Reclaim the Block , a local advocacy group , told me , “ This uprising is not the product of any organizational strategy.
” He added that many local activists had not participated at all .
Williams , who had been part of the eighteen-day sit-in following the killing of Jamar Clark , in 2015 , said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ a lot of us who were there walked away with a lot of trauma.
” This time , rather than being physically on the ground , Williams and his colleagues focussed on channelling the public ’ s inchoate frustration into support for specific reforms .
The absence of hierarchy , and the need for direction , thrust many previously disengaged citizens into public and political life .
On May 30th , while the church members worked to salvage what they could of the Wells Fargo , Governor Walz , having declared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cities the previous day , fully mobilized the Minnesota National Guard— “ an action that has never been taken , ” he noted .
At 7:55 p.m. , every cell phone in the city received an emergency alert : “ Go home or to safe inside location .
Avoid the outdoors .
The curfew is enforceable by law.
” When the message went out , I was sitting with Lisa Kargou , an immigrant from Liberia , amid thousands of protesters in the intersection between the bank and the Fifth Precinct house .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ stay out past curfew , and she replied , “ Hell yes .
I ’ m out here .
I ’ m in it for good.
” Kargou had three sons , ages twelve , ten , and four .
“ I ’ m fighting for my kids , ” she said .
“ When they grow up to be men , I want them to be able to walk down the street without fear.
” People took turns talking through a public-address system , and most of the speeches were more personal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charge , it seemed to be an African-American man in a long T-shirt with golden fringes , who had earlier scaled a street light and draped from it an enormous cloth tapestry bearing Floyd ’ s image .
When the emergency alert sent a ripple of apprehension through the crowd , the man grabbed the microphone and implored everyone to remain calm .
“ We got ta have some order , and we have to have decorum !
” he said .
Given this projection of authority , I assumed that he was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ affiliated with an organization .
In fact , it was the first protest he had ever attended .
His name was Cornell Griffin , and he was thirty-nine years old ; he lived with his wife in Maple Grove , northwest of the city .
He ’ d worked as a mechanic , but for the past year and a half he had been depressed and living like a “ recluse ” —seldom leaving his basement and spending most of his time reading the Bible and posts on Facebook .
He hadn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months , and , when the protests began in Minneapolis , he ’ d felt no more desire to take part than he had after similar outrages .
“ I ain ’ t gon na lie , ” he said .
“ When Trayvon Martin happened , Freddie Gray , I didn ’ t do shit .
Like , nothing.
” When Floyd was killed , Griffin ’ s best friend tried to persuade him to join the protests , and for the first three days Griffin refused .
Then , a few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ d told himself , “ Either I ’ m gon na live my life in fear , or I ’ m gon na try this one dang thing and see what comes of it.
” After Griffin offered to climb the street light , the group running the P.A .
system started handing him the microphone .
He found his voice , and realized that people in the crowd were looking to him for guidance .
After the emergency alert , a man on roller skates approached Griffin and told him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and National Guard soldiers were assembling nearby : the crackdown would be violent , and the ensuing panic could cause a stampede .
The man proposed that Griffin lead away as many protesters as he could .
Griffin took the microphone and announced that a march was currently departing .
A large group began following him toward downtown .
Not long after , a phalanx of state troopers in riot gear unleashed rubber bullets , marking pellets , stun grenades , and tear gas on the remaining protesters—more than a thousand people , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of them peaceful—then rushed them with batons .
Following behind the assault was an armored tactical vehicle ; from its open hatch , a trooper aimed an assault rifle with a silencer at people .
Within minutes , the intersection had been cleared .
Disoriented and bleeding protesters , and some journalists , staggered through the gas .
Griffin ’ s wife , who ’ d stayed behind , texted him , asking where he was , and he quickly headed back .
Just outside the Fifth Precinct , he came upon a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with fear .
Griffin was attempting to get her to move when he spotted a nearby officer levelling a gun at them .
A rubber bullet hit his neck .
When I met up again with Griffin , a few days later , his neck was still scabbed over where the round had broken the flesh , and his voice was raspy from the trauma to his throat and vocal cords .
But he was in high spirits .
The protest had shifted something into focus for him .
“ For the last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like there ’ s something wrong with me , ” he said .
“ And then this happened .
And , all of a sudden , it all made sense .
It wasn ’ t me .
My city is hurting .
My city is depressed .
My city is on fire.
” The manner in which law enforcement has responded to the demonstrations in Minneapolis has only intensified the resentment fuelling the demonstrations .
Although no police officers are known to have been harmed by protesters , many protesters have been injured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Soren Stevenson , lost his left eye after being hit with a rubber bullet .
The rioting lasted only a few days ; since then , except in a few isolated instances , the main crime that protesters have committed in Minneapolis is being out past curfew .
The day after Griffin led people away from the Fifth Precinct , hundreds of peaceful demonstrators gathered downtown at the U.S. Bank Stadium .
As eight o ’ clock approached , a man with a bullhorn announced , “ If anybody ’ s confused or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on here , if you continue to stay in this area just know that they have been ordered to shoot to kill us.
” The warning set off arguments over its credibility—surely the police couldn ’ t use lethal rounds on protesters ?
Then again , hadn ’ t the President himself threatened such violence ?
Tony Clark , a twenty-eight-year-old construction worker from the Southside , had no doubt .
“ Did you not understand what Trump said ?
” he asked a group huddled around him .
“ He said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ” Clark had been a mainstay on the front lines—a vibrant presence , vocally and sartorially .
That day , he had on a camouflage-print down vest , no shirt , and his signature adornment : a quarter-size earring gauge bearing the words “ NOT TODAY SATAN.
” A cross was tattooed under his right eye , and a diamond under his left .
The previous night , I ’ d walked alongside him as he ’ d driven slowly up Thirty-first Street , through a neighborhood of wood-frame houses with front @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protesters who had fled the Fifth Precinct .
At times , he ’ d stopped his gray sedan and climbed onto its roof to jeer at pursuing police officers .
As people had gathered around his car , he had told them , “ I don ’ t give a fuck if you ’ re Vice Lord , P. Stone , Blood , Latin Kings .
We all together.
” Clark then waved toward the police : “ They the gangsters .
They the mob.
” Later , he ’ d stuck a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phone to it while it played the video of Floyd ’ s death .
“ Y ’ all hear George crying ?
” Clark had shouted .
“ This is why we ’ re out here !
” Clark had known Floyd , and had looked up to him as a mentor— “ my big homie , ” he called him .
They had often talked to each other at El Nuevo Rodeo , a club where Floyd had worked as a security guard .
Clark told me that Floyd had urged him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and to more consciously exercise a positive influence on its youth : “ He used to tell me to use my voice—that ’ s what he always said .
Having tattoos on my face , people get the wrong impression .
That ’ s what I loved about George .
He told me , ‘ As soon as you start talking—that ’ s when they ’ re gon na see you.
’ People don ’ t know George .
I needed those talks he gave me .
”

On June 1st, a week after the killing of George Floyd sparked a national uprising that touched every state, convulsed major cities, activated the National Guard, and sent President Donald Trump into a secure bunker underneath the White House, Terrence Floyd, George’s younger brother, visited the intersection in South Minneapolis where his sibling had died. During the previous seven days, Thirty-eighth Street and Chicago Avenue had become the site of an uninterrupted public vigil, designated by signs and banners as “sacred ground.” Barricades around the four surrounding blocks impeded traffic and law enforcement. The sidewalk outside the Cup Foods grocery store—where an employee had called the police after suspecting George Floyd of using a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill—was buried under bouquets, mementos, and homemade cards. Activists delivered speeches between the gas pumps at a filling station; messages in chalk—“fight back,” “Stay Woke”—covered the street. Volunteers passed out food and water; there was barbecue, music, tailgating. A wide ring of flowers and candles circumscribed the intersection, delineating a kind of magic circle. Later that day, within the circle, a group of indigenous women would perform the Jingle Dress Dance—a healing ritual created by members of the Ojibwe tribe during the influenza pandemic of 1918.
Terrence Floyd, who lives in New York City, arrived with a security entourage in the afternoon. As he approached the entrance to Cup Foods, guided by supporters and swarmed by an international mob of photographers and camera crews, he paused to admire a vibrant mural: his brother’s face, set inside a giant sunflower. In the background were the names of more than two dozen other black victims of police violence, including Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray. At the base of the mural, among cardboard signs, stood jugs of milk, which is used to alleviate the effects of tear gas. A couple of nights earlier, the police had conducted a raid at the site, clearing out people in violation of a citywide curfew.
Eventually, Terrence reached the curb where two officers had pinned down George’s back and legs and where a third officer, Derek Chauvin, had pressed his knee into George’s neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds while George repeated “I can’t breathe” at least sixteen times before his eyes closed and his pulse stopped. Terrence sat down on the pavement where someone had painted the white silhouette of a prostrate body, its hands manacled behind its back and angelic wings spreading from its shoulders. Bowing his head, he let out an anguished cry. He remained there for several minutes, then stood to address the crowd.
“I understand y’all upset,” he said, using a megaphone. “But I doubt y’all half as upset as I am. So if I’m not over here wilding out—if I’m not over here blowing up stuff, if I’m not over here messing up my community—then what are y’all doing? What are y’all doing?” He went on, “Let’s do this another way. Let’s stop thinking that our voice don’t matter, and vote. . . . That’s how we’re gonna hit ’em. . . . Let’s switch it up, y’all. . . . Do this peacefully. Please.”
Terrence fell silent. Or almost silent. The megaphone amplified his exhalations. A reverend, standing at his side, rubbed Terrence’s back, leaned over, and whispered in his ear, “Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.”
The protests that have proliferated across the country for the past two weeks have been both intimately specific and sweepingly ambitious, honoring a single human life while indicting a national history. In Minneapolis, they have also been about a city. The relationship between Minneapolis’s law-enforcement officials and its communities of color, though always plagued, deteriorated dramatically in the five years before Floyd’s death. In 2015, a white officer shot and killed a twenty-four-year-old unarmed African-American man, Jamar Clark, in North Minneapolis. (Another officer on the scene claimed that Clark had tried to take his gun; witnesses said that Clark was already in handcuffs.) Activists from Black Lives Matter camped out in front of a precinct house for eighteen days, in snow and frigid temperatures. One night, a white man opened fire on them, wounding five. His trial, which ended with his conviction, revealed that he had a history of making racist comments. The police forcibly tore down the encampment, evicting the protesters and arresting eight of them; in the end, no charges were brought against the officer who killed Clark.
A year later, in a suburb of Saint Paul, a thirty-two-year-old black man named Philando Castile was shot by a policeman during a traffic stop for a broken tail-light, after stating that he was in possession of a firearm. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her infant daughter were in the car. Reynolds live-streamed the immediate aftermath of the shooting on Facebook. In the video, Castile, who was licensed to carry, sits at the wheel, blood spreading through his T-shirt, while Reynolds cries “Stay with me” and the officer continues to aim his gun through the window. Castile died on film; Reynolds was handcuffed and detained; the officer, Jeronimo Yanez, was charged with manslaughter but acquitted.
“Make sure you can see how insignificant I am.” Cartoon by Colin Tom Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
In 2018, in North Minneapolis, Thurman Blevins, a black father of three, was killed by two white officers. A body camera worn by one of them captured Blevins running away—apparently with a gun—while calling over his shoulder, “Please, don’t shoot me! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!” Blevins was shot multiple times. The county prosecutor found “no basis to issue criminal charges against either officer.”
Thirty-eighth and Chicago is on the Southside of Minneapolis. African-Americans have been concentrated there and across town, on the Northside, ever since anti-black housing covenants, in the early twentieth century, prohibited them from buying homes elsewhere in the city. Subsequent infrastructure projects and redlining policies entrenched this de-facto segregation, diverting resources from the Northside and the Southside while perpetuating poverty by inhibiting African-Americans from obtaining mortgages and business loans. At the same time, predominantly white neighborhoods have grown progressively more affluent. Today, Minneapolis appears on lists of the “best places to live” even as its racial disparities rank among the worst in the country. The median annual income of black residents in the Twin Cities is less than half that of whites, and, though about seventy-five per cent of white families own their homes, only about a quarter of black families do. Unemployment is more than twice as high for black residents as it is for white residents.
Many people in Minneapolis believe that the police department both reflects and enforces these inequalities. In 1999, a law requiring officers to live within the city limits was repealed, allowing suburbanites to join the force; now most officers are white, and few live in or come from the neighborhoods they police. (Chauvin lived in Oakdale, twenty miles from where he killed Floyd.) The black community makes up about a fifth of the city’s population; nevertheless, when officers there physically subdue people—for instance, by hitting or Tasing them—sixty per cent of the time the subjects are black. A 2015 investigation by the American Civil Liberties Union found that black people in Minneapolis were nearly nine times more likely than whites to be arrested for low-level offenses such as trespassing or public consumption of intoxicants. That year, the city finally did away with ordinances against “lurking” and “spitting,” which had been disproportionately applied against black residents. In 2007, five high-ranking black officers sued the department, alleging pervasive institutional racism, including death threats, signed “KKK,” that were sent to every black officer, through the departmental mail system. The city settled the lawsuit out of court.
Patterns of bias have been accompanied by a culture of impunity. An analysis by Reuters of nearly a decade of officer-misconduct claims in Minneapolis found that ninety per cent of them resulted in no consequences. Chauvin, the subject of at least seventeen complaints, was disciplined only once; another officer involved in Floyd’s death, Tou Thao, had at least six complaints filed against him, and was sued for police brutality after he allegedly beat up a black man who was in handcuffs. (The city paid twenty-five thousand dollars to settle the case.) The only Minneapolis officer in recent memory to have been sentenced to jail for killing someone is Mohamed Noor, a black man, who shot Justine Damond, a white woman.
City officials have cited the Minneapolis police union as an obstacle to accountability. The union’s president, Lieutenant Bob Kroll, was named in the 2007 discrimination suit, which claimed that he wore “a motorcycle jacket with a ‘White Power’ badge sewn onto it.” Kroll has called Black Lives Matter a “terrorist organization” and has promoted training officers in “killology” instead of in de-escalation techniques. “I’ve been involved in three shootings myself, and not one of them has bothered me,” he said, in April. “Maybe I’m different.”
Everyone I met who lived close to Thirty-eighth and Chicago viewed the police as an alien force of constant menace and harassment. A common objection was the default belligerence of officers—their tendency to initiate physical confrontations, often under bogus pretexts. “The cops have written so many false reports on people just because they wanted to whup somebody’s ass,” one black resident told me. “It’s pure hate. Sometimes they don’t even take you to jail. They’ll take you to an alley and beat the hell out of you. It’s insane here, and people are sick of it.” Another local, who had grown up ten minutes away from the intersection, said that any infraction, no matter how minor, risked inciting police brutality: “The way they conduct themselves for very insignificant situations is way, way beyond what’s necessary. At what point do the citizens of a community say ‘enough’?”
One of the people listening to Terrence Floyd speak was Simone Hunter, a short nineteen-year-old with red-rinsed hair; she lived on the Northside, but had become a fixture at Thirty-eighth and Chicago since George Floyd was killed. Hunter told me that the infamous cell-phone video of the incident had filled her with anger and disgust. “I felt like I was going to throw up,” she said. Until then, Hunter had never attended a large-scale protest, but two days after Floyd’s death, when people gathered outside the police station in Minneapolis’s Third Precinct—Chauvin’s precinct—she joined them. A line of officers protected the building. Hunter, whose small stature can obscure her pugnacity, pushed her way to the front and furiously reproached them. “How would you feel if this was done to your sons and daughters?” she said. One officer pepper-sprayed her, at close range; another whacked her leg with a wooden baton, knocking her down. (The Minneapolis Police Department did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)
The next day, Hunter woke up with a large, dark bruise on her inner thigh. Her whole body burned—“like someone dipped me in VapoRub”—but she was eager to rejoin the protesters.
“It’s not just about George Floyd,” she told me. “It’s about all the unseen shit, where we don’t have the video.” Hunter had been removed from a difficult family situation when she was six, separated from siblings, and raised in a foster home. She had felt buffeted by an invisible, malign system her entire life, and, for her, the list of unseen shit was long. An unrelenting procession of encounters with racism had confirmed her station in a world that seemed organized against her. Recently, she said, the police had stopped and combatively interrogated her and a friend, also a black teen-ager, for driving with an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror—technically a safety violation. “We’re used to it, but we shouldn’t be,” Hunter said.
At around 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 28th, the night after Hunter had been pepper-sprayed and beaten, Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, ordered the beleaguered officers defending the Third Precinct to evacuate. Frey later explained that he had wanted to “prevent hand-to-hand combat.” The officers fled out the back of the station, on foot and in a convoy of vehicles, while protesters hurled rocks at them. A few hours later, Hunter returned to the area and was stunned by what she found: thousands of raucous young people had congregated in the street, with no law enforcement in sight, and the station was on fire. Smoke billowed from the ground floor, and people were roaming the hazy second floor, tossing through the windows anything not bolted down: documents, folders, phones. A nearby post office was also ablaze. In the middle of the intersection, an upside-down mail truck burned. A second mail truck suddenly appeared and crashed head-on into the flaming steel. The driver jumped out, and people cheered. Cars spun doughnuts, motorcycles popped wheelies, fireworks and gunshots punctuated the mayhem; a liquor store had been broken into, then burned down, and alcohol circulated among the crowd. People in ski masks and bandannas wielded hammers and baseball bats.
Later, when I asked Hunter what it had felt like to see the Third Precinct overrun, she answered, “Like fucking therapy. It was amazing. It felt like ‘Finally, we’re attacking them instead of our own people. Finally, we’re not allowing ourselves to be threatened by them.’ It felt like victory. Like, We can do this.”
I’d arrived at the scene not long after she did. The atmosphere was an electric combination of the rage that had compelled people to battle the police and an astounded euphoria over having actually prevailed. But there was also something peculiar: some people, many of them white, seemed to be deriving an inordinate amount of pleasure from the spectacle. A white guy wearing board shorts and Apple earbuds, walking a bicycle, and sipping a bottle of malt liquor approached me to announce, in a slurred voice, “They keep giving me booze!” At a strip mall opposite the station, looters of all stripes had breached a Target, a Cub Foods supermarket, and a Dollar Tree. The Target had been nearly emptied; water from ceiling-mounted sprinklers rained down, and a fast-flowing stream carried debris into the parking lot. Several teen-agers emerged from the entrance, their pant cuffs rolled up, nude mannequins under their arms.


newyorker--2020-06-15--A Photographer on the Front Lines of Philadelphia’s Protests

Isaac Scott is twenty-nine .
Raised in Madison , Wisconsin , he moved to Philadelphia a couple of years ago to study ceramics at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture , at Temple University , where he worked long hours at a potter ’ s wheel .
So , when the pandemic shut down the school and his studio , he was left without an artistic outlet .
He started taking a camera with him everywhere , walking all over the city , “ trying to put down some images and ideas—for later , ” he said .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Minneapolis , and the spread of demonstrations across the country , he took to marching among the marchers , particularly along the stretch from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art .
He and his camera stayed with the protests , from the early days of intense confrontation , of vandalism and police cars in flames , to the far more peaceful days that followed .
“ I was teargassed twice , ” Scott said , as he took a morning break .
“ People were getting maced by the cops @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an experienced conflict journalist , and yet he would regularly get as close as he could to the front lines—and that meant being close to agitated police in riot gear .
“ I ’ m a six-foot-three black dude and I knew they ’ d have no issues beating me , and people like me , over the head , ” he said , describing one particular moment of confrontation and fear .
“ I could only see things like that if I was really up close and with people .
That was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to capture.
” In many cities , the effect of the demonstrations has shifted from the realm of the symbolic to the realm of policy .
In Philadelphia , the removal of a bronze statue of the notoriously racist Frank Rizzo , who was the city ’ s mayor for most of the seventies , was followed by a raft of bills introduced in the city council to reform the police department .
“ The energy is there , and the city is finally respecting what ’ s happening , ” Scott said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out there again .
There ’ s more to come .
”

Isaac Scott is twenty-nine. Raised in Madison, Wisconsin, he moved to Philadelphia a couple of years ago to study ceramics at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, at Temple University, where he worked long hours at a potter’s wheel. So, when the pandemic shut down the school and his studio, he was left without an artistic outlet. He started taking a camera with him everywhere, walking all over the city, “trying to put down some images and ideas—for later,” he said. But after the murder of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, and the spread of demonstrations across the country, he took to marching among the marchers, particularly along the stretch from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He and his camera stayed with the protests, from the early days of intense confrontation, of vandalism and police cars in flames, to the far more peaceful days that followed.
“I was teargassed twice,” Scott said, as he took a morning break. “People were getting maced by the cops at point-blank range.” He is hardly an experienced conflict journalist, and yet he would regularly get as close as he could to the front lines—and that meant being close to agitated police in riot gear. “I’m a six-foot-three black dude and I knew they’d have no issues beating me, and people like me, over the head,” he said, describing one particular moment of confrontation and fear. “I could only see things like that if I was really up close and with people. That was the kind of thing I was there to capture.”
In many cities, the effect of the demonstrations has shifted from the realm of the symbolic to the realm of policy. In Philadelphia, the removal of a bronze statue of the notoriously racist Frank Rizzo, who was the city’s mayor for most of the seventies, was followed by a raft of bills introduced in the city council to reform the police department. “The energy is there, and the city is finally respecting what’s happening,” Scott said. “Now I gotta get out there again. There’s more to come.”


newyorker--2020-06-15--How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?

How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?

In 1943 , eighteen-year-old Mary Flannery O ’ Connor went north on a summer trip .
Growing up in Georgia—she spent her childhood in Savannah , and went to high school in Milledgeville—she saw herself as a writer and artist in the making .
She created illustrated books “ too old for children and too young for grown-ups ” and dryly titled an assemblage of her poems “ The Priceless Works of M. F. O ’ Connor ” ; she drew cartoons and submitted them to magazines , noting that her hobby was “ collecting rejection slips.
” On her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Manhattan : Chinatown , St. Patrick ’ s Cathedral , and Columbia University .
Then they went to Massachusetts , and visited Radcliffe , where one cousin was a student .
O ’ Connor disliked both schools , and said so in letters and postcards to her mother .
( Her father had died two years earlier . )
Back in Milledgeville , O ’ Connor studied at the state women ’ s college ( “ the institution of higher larning across the road ” ) .
In 1945 , she made her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iowa Writers ’ Workshop , where she dropped the Mary ( it put her in mind of “ an Irish washwoman ” ) and became Flannery O ’ Connor .
Less than two decades later , she died , in Milledgeville , of lupus .
She was thirty-nine , the author of two novels and a book of stories .
A brief obituary in the Times called her “ one of the nation ’ s most promising writers.
” Some of her readers dismissed her as a “ regional writer ” ; many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ woman .
We are still learning who Flannery O ’ Connor was .
The materials of her life story have surfaced gradually : essays in 1969 , letters in 1979 , an annotated Library of America volume in 1988 , and a cache of personal items deposited at Emory University in 2012 , which yielded the “ Prayer Journal , ” jottings on faith and fiction from her time at Iowa .
Each phase has deepened the portrait of the artist and furthered her reputation .
Southerners , women , Catholics , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We call her Flannery ; we see her as a wise elder , a literary saint , poised for revelation at a typewriter set up on the ground floor of a farmhouse near Milledgeville because treatments for lupus left her unable to climb stairs .
O ’ Connor is now as canonical as Faulkner and Welty .
More than a great writer , she ’ s a cultural figure : a funny lady in a straw hat , puttering among peacocks , on crutches she likened to “ flying buttresses.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ visage is on a stamp .
A recent book of previously unpublished correspondence , “ Good Things Out of Nazareth ” ( Convergent ) , and a documentary , “ Flannery : The Storied Life of the Writer from Georgia , ” suggest a completed arc , situating her at the literary center where she might have been all along .
The arc is not complete , however .
Those letters and postcards she sent home from the North in 1943 were made available to scholars only in 2014 , and they show @ @ @ @ @ @ @ woman .
In Massachusetts , she was disturbed by the presence of an African-American student in her cousin ’ s class ; in Manhattan , she sat between her two cousins on the subway lest she have to sit next to people of color .
The sight of white students and black students at Columbia sitting side by side and using the same rest rooms repulsed her .
It ’ s not fair to judge a writer by her juvenilia .
But , as she developed into a keenly self-aware writer , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jokes , asides , and a steady use of the word “ nigger.
” For half a century , the particulars have been held close by executors , smoothed over by editors , and justified by exegetes , as if to save O ’ Connor from herself .
Unlike , say , the struggle over Philip Larkin , whose coarse , chauvinistic letters are at odds with his lapidary poetry , it ’ s not about protecting the work from the author ; it ’ s about protecting an author who is now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work largely deserves the love it gets .
O ’ Connor ’ s fiction is full of scenarios that now have the feel of mid-century myths : an evangelist preaching the gospel of a Church Without Christ outside a movie house ; a grandmother shot by an escaped convict at the roadside ; a Bible salesman seducing a female “ interleckshul ” in a hayloft and taking her wooden leg .
The late story “ Parker ’ s Back , ” from 1964 , in which a tattooed ex-sailor tries to appease his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Christ inked onto his back , is a summa of O ’ Connor ’ s effects .
There ’ s outlandish naming ( Obadiah Elihue Parker ) , blunt characterization ( “ The skin on her face was thin and drawn as tight as the skin on an onion and her eyes were gray and sharp like the points of two icepicks ” ) , and pungent speech ( “ Mr .
Parker .
.
.
You ’ re a walking panner-rammer !
” ) .
There ’ s the way the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and profound , and the sense , as she put it in an essay , “ that something is going on here that counts.
” There ’ s the attractive-repulsive force of religion , as Parker submits to the tattooer ’ s needle in the hope of making himself a holy image of Christ .
And there ’ s a preoccupation with human skin , and skin coloring , as a locus of conflict .
O ’ Connor defined herself as a novelist , but many readers now come to her through her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truth to emerge from the expansion of her body of work is that the nonfiction is as strong and strange as the fiction .
The 1969 book of essays , “ Mystery and Manners , ” is both an astute manual on the craft of writing and a statement of precepts for the religious artist ; the 1979 book of letters , “ The Habit of Being , ” is bedside reading as wisdom literature , at once companionable and full of barbed , contrarian insights .
That they are books was part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
She made carbon copies of her letters with publication in mind : fearing that lupus would cut her life short , as it had her father ’ s , she used the letters and essays to shape the posthumous interpretation of her fiction .
Even much of the material left out of those books is tart and epigrammatic .
Here is O ’ Connor , fresh from Iowa , on what a writing program can do for a writer : Here she is on life in Milledgeville , from a 1948 letter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ writers ’ colony in upstate New York :

In 1943, eighteen-year-old Mary Flannery O’Connor went north on a summer trip. Growing up in Georgia—she spent her childhood in Savannah, and went to high school in Milledgeville—she saw herself as a writer and artist in the making. She created illustrated books “too old for children and too young for grown-ups” and dryly titled an assemblage of her poems “The Priceless Works of M. F. O’Connor”; she drew cartoons and submitted them to magazines, noting that her hobby was “collecting rejection slips.”
On her travels, she and two cousins visited Manhattan: Chinatown, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Columbia University. Then they went to Massachusetts, and visited Radcliffe, where one cousin was a student. O’Connor disliked both schools, and said so in letters and postcards to her mother. (Her father had died two years earlier.) Back in Milledgeville, O’Connor studied at the state women’s college (“the institution of higher larning across the road”). In 1945, she made her next trip north, enrolling in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she dropped the Mary (it put her in mind of “an Irish washwoman”) and became Flannery O’Connor.
Less than two decades later, she died, in Milledgeville, of lupus. She was thirty-nine, the author of two novels and a book of stories. A brief obituary in the Times called her “one of the nation’s most promising writers.” Some of her readers dismissed her as a “regional writer”; many didn’t know she was a woman.
We are still learning who Flannery O’Connor was. The materials of her life story have surfaced gradually: essays in 1969, letters in 1979, an annotated Library of America volume in 1988, and a cache of personal items deposited at Emory University in 2012, which yielded the “Prayer Journal,” jottings on faith and fiction from her time at Iowa. Each phase has deepened the portrait of the artist and furthered her reputation. Southerners, women, Catholics, and M.F.A.-program instructors now approach her with devotion. We call her Flannery; we see her as a wise elder, a literary saint, poised for revelation at a typewriter set up on the ground floor of a farmhouse near Milledgeville because treatments for lupus left her unable to climb stairs.
O’Connor is now as canonical as Faulkner and Welty. More than a great writer, she’s a cultural figure: a funny lady in a straw hat, puttering among peacocks, on crutches she likened to “flying buttresses.” The farmhouse is open for tours; her visage is on a stamp. A recent book of previously unpublished correspondence, “Good Things Out of Nazareth” (Convergent), and a documentary, “Flannery: The Storied Life of the Writer from Georgia,” suggest a completed arc, situating her at the literary center where she might have been all along.
The arc is not complete, however. Those letters and postcards she sent home from the North in 1943 were made available to scholars only in 2014, and they show O’Connor as a bigoted young woman. In Massachusetts, she was disturbed by the presence of an African-American student in her cousin’s class; in Manhattan, she sat between her two cousins on the subway lest she have to sit next to people of color. The sight of white students and black students at Columbia sitting side by side and using the same rest rooms repulsed her.
It’s not fair to judge a writer by her juvenilia. But, as she developed into a keenly self-aware writer, the habit of bigotry persisted in her letters—in jokes, asides, and a steady use of the word “nigger.” For half a century, the particulars have been held close by executors, smoothed over by editors, and justified by exegetes, as if to save O’Connor from herself. Unlike, say, the struggle over Philip Larkin, whose coarse, chauvinistic letters are at odds with his lapidary poetry, it’s not about protecting the work from the author; it’s about protecting an author who is now as beloved as her stories.
The work largely deserves the love it gets. O’Connor’s fiction is full of scenarios that now have the feel of mid-century myths: an evangelist preaching the gospel of a Church Without Christ outside a movie house; a grandmother shot by an escaped convict at the roadside; a Bible salesman seducing a female “interleckshul” in a hayloft and taking her wooden leg. The late story “Parker’s Back,” from 1964, in which a tattooed ex-sailor tries to appease his puritanical wife by getting a life-size face of Christ inked onto his back, is a summa of O’Connor’s effects. There’s outlandish naming (Obadiah Elihue Parker), blunt characterization (“The skin on her face was thin and drawn as tight as the skin on an onion and her eyes were gray and sharp like the points of two icepicks”), and pungent speech (“Mr. Parker . . . You’re a walking panner-rammer!”). There’s the way the action hurtles to an end both comic and profound, and the sense, as she put it in an essay, “that something is going on here that counts.” There’s the attractive-repulsive force of religion, as Parker submits to the tattooer’s needle in the hope of making himself a holy image of Christ. And there’s a preoccupation with human skin, and skin coloring, as a locus of conflict.
O’Connor defined herself as a novelist, but many readers now come to her through her essays and letters, and the core truth to emerge from the expansion of her body of work is that the nonfiction is as strong and strange as the fiction. The 1969 book of essays, “Mystery and Manners,” is both an astute manual on the craft of writing and a statement of precepts for the religious artist; the 1979 book of letters, “The Habit of Being,” is bedside reading as wisdom literature, at once companionable and full of barbed, contrarian insights. That they are books was part of O’Connor’s design. She made carbon copies of her letters with publication in mind: fearing that lupus would cut her life short, as it had her father’s, she used the letters and essays to shape the posthumous interpretation of her fiction.
Even much of the material left out of those books is tart and epigrammatic. Here is O’Connor, fresh from Iowa, on what a writing program can do for a writer:
It can put him in the way of experienced writers and literary critics, people who are usually able to tell him after not too long a time whether he should go on writing or enroll immediately in the School of Dentistry.
Here she is on life in Milledgeville, from a 1948 letter to the director of Yaddo, the writers’ colony in upstate New York:
Lately we have been treated to some parades by the Ku Klux Klan. . . . The Grand Dragon and the Grand Cyclops were down from Atlanta and both made big speeches on the Court House square while hundreds of men stamped and hollered inside sheets. It’s too hot to burn a fiery cross, so they bring a portable one made with electric light bulbs.
On her first encounter, in 1956, with the scholar William Sessions:
He arrived promptly at 3:30, talking, talked his way across the grass and up the steps and into a chair and continued talking from that position without pause, break, breath, or gulp until 4:50. At 4:50 he departed to go to Mass (Ascension Thursday) but declared he would like to return after it so I thereupon invited him to supper with us. 5:50 brings him back, still talking, and bearing a sack of ice cream and cake to the meal. He then talked until supper but at that point he met a little head wind in the form of my mother, who is also a talker. Her stories have a non-stop quality, but every now and then she does have to refuel and every time she came down, he went up.
Reviewers of O’Connor’s fiction were vexed by her characters’ lack of interiority. Admirers of the nonfiction have reversed the charge, taking up the idea that the most vivid character in her work is Flannery O’Connor. The new film adroitly introduces the author-as-character. The directors—Mark Bosco, a Jesuit priest who teaches a course on O’Connor at Georgetown, and Elizabeth Coffman, who teaches film at Loyola University Chicago—draw on a full spread of archival material and documentary effects. The actress Mary Steenburgen reads passages from the letters; several stories are animated, with an eye to O’Connor’s adage that “to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.” There’s a clip from John Huston’s 1979 film of her singular first novel, “Wise Blood,” which she wrote at Yaddo and in Connecticut before the onset of lupus forced her to return home. Erik Langkjaer, a publishing sales rep O’Connor fell in love with, describes their drives in the country. Alice Walker tells of living “across the way” from the farmhouse during her teens, not knowing that a writer lived there: “It was one of my brothers who took milk from her place to the creamery in town. When we drove into Milledgeville, the cows that we saw on the hillside going into town would have been the cows of the O’Connors.”
In May, 1955, O’Connor went to New York to promote her story collection, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” on TV. The rare footage of O’Connor lights up the documentary. She sits, very still, in a velvet-trimmed black dress; her accent is strong, her demeanor assured. “I understand you are living on a farm,” the host prompts. “Yes,” she says. “I only live on one, though. I don’t see much of it. I’m a writer, and I farm from the rocking chair.” He asks her if she is a regional writer, and she replies:


Punishment by Pandemic

DeMarco Raynor , who is incarcerated at Cummins Unit , a penitentiary in southeast Arkansas , had been approved for its most prestigious job : working at the governor ’ s mansion .
Prison labor at the mansion is a “ longstanding tradition , which kept down costs , ” Hillary Clinton wrote , in a memoir .
( She noted that “ onetime murderers ” proved to be the best employees . )
Raynor saw the position , which was unpaid , as a chance to meet people with the power to grant him clemency .
But , shortly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officer said that he had violated prison rules by wearing slippers that he had made himself .
The job was revoked .
Raynor believed that the officer had intentionally thwarted his opportunity .
“ I still maintain my manhood , and he felt like that was too much , ” Raynor said .
Another officer once told him , “ Man , you walk around just like you ’ re free.
” Raynor is forty-one , and is serving a life sentence for shooting a man during a drunken confrontation , when he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black , was convicted by eleven white jurors and one black woman .
“ I will die remembering her name , ” he told me .
“ She looked at me the whole trial like I was her son , and then , when the verdict came back , she couldn ’ t look at me.
” Raynor monitors his use of language , so that he doesn ’ t assimilate to institutional life .
He refuses to call food “ money ” ; he will not invite people to his “ house @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He bristles when prisoners , working unpaid jobs , describe an officer as their “ boss.
” Raynor is part of a group of men at Cummins who call themselves the Think Tank .
They have all been in prison for more than fifteen years , many serving life sentences they received when they were teen-agers or in their early twenties .
They consider it their role to guide younger men .
Raynor , who had ambitions of being a psychiatrist , likes to break down the meaning of words like “ Negro @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death , ” and to discuss how language shapes our identities .
He and his friends hold study sessions on the history of black people in America— “ The black man must be awakened to the knowledge that he is not what this society has taught him to be , ” Raynor wrote , for a recent session—and circulate books about mindfulness and maintaining romantic relationships .
“ We are trying to take care of our children , ” Qadir , another member of the Think Tank , told me .
Qadir , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that using his full name would result in retaliation ) , is a clerk in the prison ’ s kitchen .
When he notices that men are sick or struggling , he provides them with double portions , along with a note : “ Don ’ t think you ’ re going to live on this .
I ’ ve only got a certain number of people I can help.
” In mid-March , when the coronavirus first arrived in Arkansas , the Think Tank discussed the story of Noah .
Qadir told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ building an ark , and he is saying , ‘ Get ready .
Prepare.
’ But no one was listening.
” Raynor found the story of Moses more relevant : “ I view it more like , these are the plagues that God is sending upon Pharaoh , who is in love with his authority , in order to let his people go.
” Every morning , more than a hundred men at Cummins Unit go to work on the Hoe Squad .
Dressed in white , they pile into an open trailer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the prison ’ s fields .
Cummins sits on nearly eighteen thousand acres of land and has a hundred and ten thousand chickens , two thousand cattle , and forty-one horses .
The men on the Hoe Squad pull weeds , dig ditches , and pick cotton , cucumbers , and watermelons .
Arkansas is one of only a few states where prison labor is free .
( Other states pay a nominal wage , such as ten cents an hour . )
A dozen “ field riders ” —officers on horseback @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and , if anyone lags , they threaten to “ call the truck ” : a major will drive the inmate to a group of isolation cells known as the Hole .
In late March , the men at Cummins began questioning the logic of going into the fields during the pandemic .
Raynor , whose mother had been a corrections officer at another prison in Arkansas , said , “ I counselled the men that they were endangering their health by continuing to squish into a trailer , shoulder to shoulder , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Hoe Squad , who asked to go by his initials , D.B.
, agreed , as did dozens of others .
When officers called their names for work , D.B .
said , “ we all laid down in our beds.
” The men were disciplined for “ unexcused absence ” —a violation that carries a punishment of up to fifteen days in isolation .
“ There ’ s a global pandemic that is air-born , ” one man wrote in a formal grievance , on March 26th .
“ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the field thus putting my life in danger.
” Asa Hutchinson , the governor of Arkansas , had asked that businesses cease “ nonessential functions , ” and D.B .
couldn ’ t understand how the work of the Hoe Squad qualified as essential .
Sometimes , he and the other men would spend a day removing grass with a hoe , in order to clear land for planting ; when they finished , a tractor would swiftly mow the same patch .
It seemed as if the prison was trying to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time .
Once , when Raynor was assigned to the Hoe Squad , he told an officer that it didn ’ t make sense to use gardening tools rather than modern farming technology .
The officer responded , “ We don ’ t want your brain .
We want your back.
” On April 1st , the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that an officer who worked on the farm at Cummins had tested positive for the coronavirus .
“ You would think our captains or sergeants or majors would warn us about something like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speak about it , ” another officer , whom I ’ ll call Marie , told me .
“ They kept everything in the closet .
If you didn ’ t catch the news , you were in the blind.
” A spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Corrections had told the Gazette that the infected officer didn ’ t work inside prison walls , but Marie knew that officers couldn ’ t go a day without interacting with inmates .
“ The inmates run the penitentiary , ” she told me .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ fingers for nothing .
If the inmates don ’ t do it , it ’ s not going to get done.
” The next day , Marie and a few other officers wore masks to work , but , when they entered the prison , they were told to put the masks away .
“ They don ’ t want the inmates frantic , ” Marie said .
She left her mask in her car .
A few days later , a forty-nine-year-old inmate , Daryl Hussey , who has been in prison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of bed .
Hussey lived in an open barracks , as do about half the men at Cummins , which houses nearly two thousand prisoners .
In these barracks , some fifty metal cots are arranged in rows , many less than three feet from one another , and bolted to the floor .
When the men lie down , they can smell one another ’ s breath .
One of the men in the Think Tank , Dashujauhn Danzie , was the “ picket man ” in Hussey ’ s barracks : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than a week , he had noticed that Hussey wasn ’ t showering , eating , or sending his clothes to the wash .
When people asked Hussey what was wrong , Danzie said , “ he just nodded his head like he was straight .
”

DeMarco Raynor, who is incarcerated at Cummins Unit, a penitentiary in southeast Arkansas, had been approved for its most prestigious job: working at the governor’s mansion. Prison labor at the mansion is a “longstanding tradition, which kept down costs,” Hillary Clinton wrote, in a memoir. (She noted that “onetime murderers” proved to be the best employees.) Raynor saw the position, which was unpaid, as a chance to meet people with the power to grant him clemency. But, shortly before he was to begin, an officer said that he had violated prison rules by wearing slippers that he had made himself. The job was revoked. Raynor believed that the officer had intentionally thwarted his opportunity. “I still maintain my manhood, and he felt like that was too much,” Raynor said. Another officer once told him, “Man, you walk around just like you’re free.”
Raynor is forty-one, and is serving a life sentence for shooting a man during a drunken confrontation, when he was twenty. Raynor, who is black, was convicted by eleven white jurors and one black woman. “I will die remembering her name,” he told me. “She looked at me the whole trial like I was her son, and then, when the verdict came back, she couldn’t look at me.” Raynor monitors his use of language, so that he doesn’t assimilate to institutional life. He refuses to call food “money”; he will not invite people to his “house” when he means his cell. He bristles when prisoners, working unpaid jobs, describe an officer as their “boss.”
Raynor is part of a group of men at Cummins who call themselves the Think Tank. They have all been in prison for more than fifteen years, many serving life sentences they received when they were teen-agers or in their early twenties. They consider it their role to guide younger men. Raynor, who had ambitions of being a psychiatrist, likes to break down the meaning of words like “Negro” and “chattel” and “death,” and to discuss how language shapes our identities. He and his friends hold study sessions on the history of black people in America—“The black man must be awakened to the knowledge that he is not what this society has taught him to be,” Raynor wrote, for a recent session—and circulate books about mindfulness and maintaining romantic relationships. “We are trying to take care of our children,” Qadir, another member of the Think Tank, told me. Qadir, who is forty-four (and who feared that using his full name would result in retaliation), is a clerk in the prison’s kitchen. When he notices that men are sick or struggling, he provides them with double portions, along with a note: “Don’t think you’re going to live on this. I’ve only got a certain number of people I can help.”
In mid-March, when the coronavirus first arrived in Arkansas, the Think Tank discussed the story of Noah. Qadir told me, “Here was a man building an ark, and he is saying, ‘Get ready. Prepare.’ But no one was listening.” Raynor found the story of Moses more relevant: “I view it more like, these are the plagues that God is sending upon Pharaoh, who is in love with his authority, in order to let his people go.”
Every morning, more than a hundred men at Cummins Unit go to work on the Hoe Squad. Dressed in white, they pile into an open trailer, and a tractor pulls them deep into the prison’s fields. Cummins sits on nearly eighteen thousand acres of land and has a hundred and ten thousand chickens, two thousand cattle, and forty-one horses. The men on the Hoe Squad pull weeds, dig ditches, and pick cotton, cucumbers, and watermelons. Arkansas is one of only a few states where prison labor is free. (Other states pay a nominal wage, such as ten cents an hour.) A dozen “field riders”—officers on horseback, wearing cowboy hats—patrol the inmates, and, if anyone lags, they threaten to “call the truck”: a major will drive the inmate to a group of isolation cells known as the Hole.
In late March, the men at Cummins began questioning the logic of going into the fields during the pandemic. Raynor, whose mother had been a corrections officer at another prison in Arkansas, said, “I counselled the men that they were endangering their health by continuing to squish into a trailer, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.”
An inmate assigned to the Hoe Squad, who asked to go by his initials, D.B., agreed, as did dozens of others. When officers called their names for work, D.B. said, “we all laid down in our beds.” The men were disciplined for “unexcused absence”—a violation that carries a punishment of up to fifteen days in isolation. “There’s a global pandemic that is air-born,” one man wrote in a formal grievance, on March 26th. “I’m being forced to go out into the field thus putting my life in danger.”
Asa Hutchinson, the governor of Arkansas, had asked that businesses cease “nonessential functions,” and D.B. couldn’t understand how the work of the Hoe Squad qualified as essential. Sometimes, he and the other men would spend a day removing grass with a hoe, in order to clear land for planting; when they finished, a tractor would swiftly mow the same patch. It seemed as if the prison was trying to demonstrate the needlessness of their labor and time. Once, when Raynor was assigned to the Hoe Squad, he told an officer that it didn’t make sense to use gardening tools rather than modern farming technology. The officer responded, “We don’t want your brain. We want your back.”
On April 1st, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that an officer who worked on the farm at Cummins had tested positive for the coronavirus. “You would think our captains or sergeants or majors would warn us about something like this, but they didn’t speak about it,” another officer, whom I’ll call Marie, told me. “They kept everything in the closet. If you didn’t catch the news, you were in the blind.” A spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Corrections had told the Gazette that the infected officer didn’t work inside prison walls, but Marie knew that officers couldn’t go a day without interacting with inmates. “The inmates run the penitentiary,” she told me. “Officers don’t lift their fingers for nothing. If the inmates don’t do it, it’s not going to get done.” The next day, Marie and a few other officers wore masks to work, but, when they entered the prison, they were told to put the masks away. “They don’t want the inmates frantic,” Marie said. She left her mask in her car.
A few days later, a forty-nine-year-old inmate, Daryl Hussey, who has been in prison for twenty-three years, stopped getting out of bed. Hussey lived in an open barracks, as do about half the men at Cummins, which houses nearly two thousand prisoners. In these barracks, some fifty metal cots are arranged in rows, many less than three feet from one another, and bolted to the floor. When the men lie down, they can smell one another’s breath. One of the men in the Think Tank, Dashujauhn Danzie, was the “picket man” in Hussey’s barracks: he did all the laundry. For more than a week, he had noticed that Hussey wasn’t showering, eating, or sending his clothes to the wash. When people asked Hussey what was wrong, Danzie said, “he just nodded his head like he was straight.”
On April 10th, Hussey passed out, and he was tested for the coronavirus. When the results came back positive, the Hoe Squad was finally suspended. Hussey was taken to the Hole in a wheelchair. In an e-mail, Dexter Payne, the director of the Division of Correction, had instructed all his wardens to “prepare a portion/area of your punitive isolation areas to house inmates effected by the CoronaVirus.”
Danzie stripped Hussey’s bed himself. Then he went to the nurse’s station to ask for a boil bag, so he could separate Hussey’s sheets from the rest of the wash. Danzie said that the nurse there, Shirley Lubin Wilson, told him, “Get the fuck away from my window.” In a federal civil-rights lawsuit last year, Wilson was accused of wrapping a telephone cord around an inmate’s neck while a second nurse blocked the surveillance camera. (A spokesperson for Wellpath, a for-profit health-care provider that runs the infirmaries in Arkansas prisons, said that the company “believes these allegations to be without merit.” Wilson didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
“Can you be more specific?” Cartoon by David Sipress Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
Four nurses tested the forty-six other men in Hussey’s barracks for the coronavirus, administering numerous tests without changing their gloves. All but three men had it. Raynor’s barracks was also tested. Raynor said that a sergeant later shouted into the barracks, “Y’all are negative.” But Raynor noticed that when a man defecated a few feet away from him he wasn’t bothered by the smell. He asked his cousin to call the prison’s central office to find out the results of his test. He was positive. “I went around the barracks telling the guys, ‘I’m positive, and you probably are, too.’ ”
Inmates in the prison’s garment shop were given a new task: manufacturing eighty thousand masks for prisoners and officers throughout the state. A woman named Carrie Coleman told me that her son had sewn masks at Cummins for two days while he had a fever and chills. (It wasn’t until he had a temperature of a hundred and four degrees that he was carried to the infirmary.) Marie said that the masks kept falling off her face; when she talked, she sucked the material into her mouth. Then she noticed that the wardens and deputy wardens were secretly wearing masks they’d brought from home underneath the state-issued ones.
On April 21st, Wellpath held drive-through testing for officers. “If your test results are positive,” a memo from the Arkansas Department of Health said, “you may need to work if you do not display any symptoms.” Governor Hutchinson, in his daily press conference, explained, “In terms of the guards that might have tested positive, it is my understanding that they would only be guarding barracks in which the inmates have tested positive.” He added, “So those precautions are in place, and certainly they are logical.” But Marie couldn’t make sense of the policy: all the guards were passing through the same entrance, checkpoints, and hallways.
An inmate named Donnie said that when an officer came to the door of his barracks, where men had tested positive, he asked if she had the virus, and she said that she hadn’t been tested. “Our newspaper says you must be positive for corona if you’re working our barracks,” Donnie told her. He said that she responded sarcastically, “Well, they say your beds are six feet apart, too.”
One night, an older inmate told Marie that he was struggling to breathe. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked as if he were about to faint. Marie asked a sergeant to escort him to the infirmary, but, she said, the sergeant told her, “Tell him to go get on that kiosk”—a computer touched by dozens of inmates each day—so that he could fill out a request to visit the infirmary, known as a sick call.
Amie Burrow, a nurse who worked for Wellpath until late 2019, in several Arkansas prisons, said that, when inmates put in sick calls, they typically weren’t seen by a doctor for at least two weeks. Sometimes the infirmary nurses would become so overwhelmed by sick calls that—to avoid being fined if they didn’t respond within three days, as was the policy—they would shred them. (Inmates who don’t have access to a kiosk write their requests on paper slips.) “It was general operating procedure,” Burrow told me. “I watched nurses put the paper sick calls in the shredder and never blink an eye.” When inmates complained, the nurses would say, “Oh, the slip got lost in the box,” or “You filled out the wrong form.” Burrow said, “They could easily blame it on the inmate.”
Marie finally called a Code Green, the signal for medical emergency, on the prison radio system. A nurse arrived with a wheelchair, but the infirmary was full. Instead, the man was taken to a holding cell. He had no bed, toilet, or running water. “A lot of times, they forget the inmates are there,” Marie said. “They’ll stay there for hours—hours.”


The Mail

Ben Taub ’ s account of Victor Vescovo ’ s extraordinary mission to reach the five deeps of the world ’ s oceans left me in awe ( “ Five Oceans , Five Deeps , ” May 18th ) .
I became concerned , however , about the implications that it may have for the future of private exploration .
As one member of Vescovo ’ s motley crew puts it , the group ’ s accomplishment is akin to a “ daily flight to the moon.
” But a key difference is that the quest to put a man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ collective enterprise in spirit ; it was also overseen by a national government .
Though Vescovo ’ s willingness to collaborate with scientists is admirable , he admits that someone with a private submarine like his could become a “ Bond villain , ” capable of disrupting markets for profit or of salvaging lost nuclear weaponry .
In an age in which billionaires such as Elon Musk are becoming increasingly involved in science and exploration , one wonders whether it is wise to celebrate these types of conquests by the ultra-wealthy .
Taub @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reminds us that we still have much to learn about the world ’ s oceans—and that it is single-minded ( and often independently financed ) entrepreneurs who lead the way down .
As I describe in my book “ Sealab , ” the U.S. Navy ’ s program of that name , developed in the nineteen-sixties , was spearheaded by an iconoclastic medical officer , Captain George Bond , who cajoled skeptics into pursuing his space-age dream of equipping “ aquanauts ” to operate from undersea versions of space stations .
Sealab yielded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to go a thousand feet or deeper—a depth that , these days , commercial divers generally reach only when they ’ re working in offshore oil fields .
Might it finally be time for a true “ wet NASA ?
” Or should we continue to rely on enthusiasts like Vescovo to address John F. Kennedy ’ s observation that “ knowledge of the oceans is more than a matter of curiosity .
Our very survival may hinge upon it ” ?
If only another President would set as ambitious a deadline for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a moon landing .
We should all praise the organizations that Jia Tolentino mentions in her piece about mutual aid ( “ Can I Help You ?
” May 18th ) .
However , readers should be careful not to look at these groups through rose-colored glasses , or to construct false dichotomies between mutual aid and charitable organizations .
Not all charities are inflexible behemoths : around sixty per cent of the nearly one million charitable 501 ( c ) 3 organizations in the U.S. have an annual income of less than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ notes , many mutual-aid organizations end up registering as nonprofit charities in order to provide legal protection to workers and volunteers , and to accept tax-deductible donations .
It seems that Tolentino is writing just as much about mutual aid as she is about the “ paradox of scale ” —the idea that large organizations have more capacity to help but are more bureaucratic , whereas smaller organizations work more closely with communities but are relatively limited in their reach .
Even so , mutual-aid organizations , nonprofits , and charities are all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ citizens ’ initiatives .
Letters should be sent with the writer ’ s name , address , and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail @ newyorker.com .
Letters may be edited for length and clarity , and may be published in any medium .
We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we can not reply to every letter .

Leagues Under the Sea
Ben Taub’s account of Victor Vescovo’s extraordinary mission to reach the five deeps of the world’s oceans left me in awe (“Five Oceans, Five Deeps,” May 18th). I became concerned, however, about the implications that it may have for the future of private exploration. As one member of Vescovo’s motley crew puts it, the group’s accomplishment is akin to a “daily flight to the moon.” But a key difference is that the quest to put a man on the moon was not only a collective enterprise in spirit; it was also overseen by a national government. Though Vescovo’s willingness to collaborate with scientists is admirable, he admits that someone with a private submarine like his could become a “Bond villain,” capable of disrupting markets for profit or of salvaging lost nuclear weaponry. In an age in which billionaires such as Elon Musk are becoming increasingly involved in science and exploration, one wonders whether it is wise to celebrate these types of conquests by the ultra-wealthy.
Andrew Wofford
Bryn Mawr, Penn.
Taub’s fine story about Victor Vescovo reminds us that we still have much to learn about the world’s oceans—and that it is single-minded (and often independently financed) entrepreneurs who lead the way down. As I describe in my book “Sealab,” the U.S. Navy’s program of that name, developed in the nineteen-sixties, was spearheaded by an iconoclastic medical officer, Captain George Bond, who cajoled skeptics into pursuing his space-age dream of equipping “aquanauts” to operate from undersea versions of space stations. Sealab yielded scientific breakthroughs that would eventually enable divers to go a thousand feet or deeper—a depth that, these days, commercial divers generally reach only when they’re working in offshore oil fields. Might it finally be time for a true “wet NASA?” Or should we continue to rely on enthusiasts like Vescovo to address John F. Kennedy’s observation that “knowledge of the oceans is more than a matter of curiosity. Our very survival may hinge upon it”? If only another President would set as ambitious a deadline for ocean exploration as J.F.K. did for a moon landing.
Ben Hellwarth
Santa Monica, Calif.
Helping Hands
We should all praise the organizations that Jia Tolentino mentions in her piece about mutual aid (“Can I Help You?” May 18th). However, readers should be careful not to look at these groups through rose-colored glasses, or to construct false dichotomies between mutual aid and charitable organizations. Not all charities are inflexible behemoths: around sixty per cent of the nearly one million charitable 501(c)3 organizations in the U.S. have an annual income of less than a hundred thousand dollars. As Tolentino notes, many mutual-aid organizations end up registering as nonprofit charities in order to provide legal protection to workers and volunteers, and to accept tax-deductible donations. It seems that Tolentino is writing just as much about mutual aid as she is about the “paradox of scale”—the idea that large organizations have more capacity to help but are more bureaucratic, whereas smaller organizations work more closely with communities but are relatively limited in their reach. Even so, mutual-aid organizations, nonprofits, and charities are all part of the vital non-governmental sector of citizens’ initiatives.
John P. Casey
Center for Nonprofit Strategy and Management
Baruch College, CUNY
New York City
•
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.


newyorker--2020-06-15--Slide Show: New Yorker Cartoons June 22, 2020

“ Do you think you and Daddy might be brave enough to sleep in your own bed tonight ?
”

“Do you think you and Daddy might be brave enough to sleep in your own bed tonight?”
Cartoon by Emily Flake


newyorker--2020-06-15--“George Floyd,” by Terrance Hayes

“George Floyd,” by Terrance Hayes

You can be a bother who dyes his hair Dennis Rodman blue in the face of the man kneeling in @ @ @ @ @ music of his wrist- watch your mouth is little more than a door being knocked @ @ @ @ @ fire around the afternoon came evening ’ s bell of the ball and chain around @ @ @ @ @ brother ground down to gunpowder dirt can be inhaled like a puff the magic bullet @ @ @ @ @ and fires the life of the party like it ’ s 1999 bottles of beer @ @ @ @ @ who sleep in the streets do not sleep without counting yourself lucky rabbit ’ s @ @ @ @ @ do not sleep without making your bed of the river boat gambling there will be @ @ @ @ @ water bored to death any means of killing time is on your side of the @ @ @ @ @ Emmett till the break of day Emmett till the river runs dry your face the @ @ @ @ @ till the end of time

Audio: Read by the author.
You can be a bother who dyes
his hair Dennis Rodman blue
in the face of the man kneeling in blue
in the face the music of his wrist-
watch your mouth is little more
than a door being knocked
out of the ring of fire around
the afternoon came evening’s bell
of the ball and chain around the neck
of the unarmed brother ground down
to gunpowder dirt can be inhaled
like a puff the magic bullet point
of transformation both kills and fires
the life of the party like it’s 1999 bottles
of beer on the wall street people
who sleep in the streets do not sleep
without counting yourself lucky
rabbit’s foot of the mountain
lion do not sleep without
making your bed of the river
boat gambling there will be
no stormy weather on the water
bored to death any means of killing
time is on your side of the bed
of the truck transporting Emmett
till the break of day Emmett till
the river runs dry your face
the music of the spheres
Emmett till the end of time


newyorker--2020-06-15--Presidential Trolley Problems, by Riane Konc

There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward five people .
You can pull a lever and change the trolley ’ s path so that it hits only one person , but you aren ’ t aware of this option because you ’ re too busy spray-painting “ THE CHINESE TRAIN ” on the side of the trolley .
Question : Will your approval rating go up by two percentage points , or by seven ?
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward five people .
You can pull a lever and change the trolley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only one person .
Technically , the trolley should be able to come to a stop long before a disaster occurs , but two years ago you cut the trolley ’ s brakes .
Who could have seen this coming ?
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward five people .
But there is a lever you can pull and change the trolley ’ s path so that it hits only one .
Whom should you put in charge of pulling the lever ?
I mean , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t believe in trolleys , right ?
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward millions of people .
But has anybody thought about how , if you had dropped a nuclear bomb on the trolley for no reason , many more lives would have been lost ?
You made the tough call ; you said , “ You know , let ’ s not drop a nuclear bomb on the trolley for no reason.
” Everyone keeps trying to change the subject with all this talk about a lever—but , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thank you .
No one says thank you very much for not dropping a nuclear bomb on the trolley for no reason .
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward a giant bag of money .
You can pull a lever and change the trolley ’ s path so that , instead of hitting the money , it hits a million grandmothers .
This should be simple : All people want to kill their grandmother , right ?
But if you kill your grandmother that means she won ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bill every year on your birthday and sometimes on Easter .
So there ’ s a lot to consider .
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward millions of people .
The number could have been much smaller , but , until recently , you were loudly encouraging people to climb onto the tracks and speculating publicly about whether the trolley even existed .
Still , if you act now , you can help thousands of people get off the tracks before the trolley arrives .
Why are so many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tracks now saying rude , nasty things like “ Help !
Help !
” ?
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward two million people .
You can pull a lever and change the trolley ’ s path so that it hits only about a hundred thousand people .
Instead of thinking about pulling the lever , perhaps you could retweet a conspiracy theory that New York doctors are running a black market for ventilators ?
The Cure Worse Than the Disease There is a runaway trolley speeding down the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can pull a lever that will save hundreds of thousands of lives .
But there ’ s a problem : the lever is greasy , and if you touch it not only will your hands get gunk on them but you ’ ll also stain your shirt .
And you like that shirt .
You hate to say it , but , in this case , could the solution be worse than the problem ?
And why hasn ’ t anyone on the tracks complimented your nice , crisp shirt ?
There is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If it continues on its path , it will run into millions of retirement funds .
You can pull a lever and change the trolley ’ s path so that it runs into millions of people instead , thank God .
This one is simple , so the only question is : Isn ’ t it cool that you get to pull the lever and still call yourself “ pro-life ” ?
A runaway trolley is speeding down the tracks toward millions of people .
There is a lever that can be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousands of lives , but only the train conductor can pull it .
So , why is everyone screaming at you ?
Why do they keep yelling crazy things like “ You ’ re the conductor—do something !
” ?
What ?
Just because you ’ re wearing the conductor ’ s uniform ?
Is it because you ’ ve been yelling for the entire train ride about how great it was that they gave you the train-conductor job and how you have probably set a record for train conducting , whatever that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you never wanted to actually do the work of conducting a train—and that you just wanted to wear the stupid hat ?
♦

The Paint Job
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward five people. You can pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so that it hits only one person, but you aren’t aware of this option because you’re too busy spray-painting “THE CHINESE TRAIN” on the side of the trolley.
Question: Will your approval rating go up by two percentage points, or by seven?
The Super-Shocking Surprise
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward five people. You can pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so that it hits only one person. Technically, the trolley should be able to come to a stop long before a disaster occurs, but two years ago you cut the trolley’s brakes.
Who could have seen this coming?
The Contingency Plan
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward five people. But there is a lever you can pull and change the trolley’s path so that it hits only one.
Whom should you put in charge of pulling the lever? I mean, it’s easy: the guy who doesn’t believe in trolleys, right?
The Hero
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward millions of people. But has anybody thought about how, if you had dropped a nuclear bomb on the trolley for no reason, many more lives would have been lost? You made the tough call; you said, “You know, let’s not drop a nuclear bomb on the trolley for no reason.”
Everyone keeps trying to change the subject with all this talk about a lever—but, in the meantime, no one says thank you. No one says thank you very much for not dropping a nuclear bomb on the trolley for no reason.
The Sacrificial Grandparent
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward a giant bag of money. You can pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so that, instead of hitting the money, it hits a million grandmothers.
This should be simple: All people want to kill their grandmother, right? But if you kill your grandmother that means she won’t be able to send you a five-dollar bill every year on your birthday and sometimes on Easter. So there’s a lot to consider.
The Trolley Advisory
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward millions of people. The number could have been much smaller, but, until recently, you were loudly encouraging people to climb onto the tracks and speculating publicly about whether the trolley even existed. Still, if you act now, you can help thousands of people get off the tracks before the trolley arrives.
Why are so many of the people who climbed onto the tracks now saying rude, nasty things like “Help! Help!”?
The Sneaky Doctor
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward two million people. You can pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so that it hits only about a hundred thousand people.
Instead of thinking about pulling the lever, perhaps you could retweet a conspiracy theory that New York doctors are running a black market for ventilators?
The Cure Worse Than the Disease
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks toward millions of people. You can pull a lever that will save hundreds of thousands of lives. But there’s a problem: the lever is greasy, and if you touch it not only will your hands get gunk on them but you’ll also stain your shirt. And you like that shirt.
You hate to say it, but, in this case, could the solution be worse than the problem? And why hasn’t anyone on the tracks complimented your nice, crisp shirt?
The Retirement Plan
There is a runaway trolley speeding down the tracks. If it continues on its path, it will run into millions of retirement funds. You can pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so that it runs into millions of people instead, thank God.
This one is simple, so the only question is: Isn’t it cool that you get to pull the lever and still call yourself “pro-life”?
The Conductor
A runaway trolley is speeding down the tracks toward millions of people. There is a lever that can be pulled to slow the trolley and save thousands of lives, but only the train conductor can pull it.
So, why is everyone screaming at you? Why do they keep yelling crazy things like “You’re the conductor—do something!”? What? Just because you’re wearing the conductor’s uniform? Is it because you’ve been yelling for the entire train ride about how great it was that they gave you the train-conductor job and how you have probably set a record for train conducting, whatever that means?
How do you explain that you never wanted to actually do the work of conducting a train—and that you just wanted to wear the stupid hat? ♦


Choreography Under Lockdown

In recent weeks , the vinyl surface known as marley , which covers the floor of many dance studios and stages , has been cut into pieces and shipped around the world to professional dancers exiled to their homes .
I have been watching some of these dancers , standing on these outposts of abandoned theatres , in their kitchens and living rooms , as they take their daily ballet class on Zoom , Instagram , YouTube .
They are doing it for one another and for themselves : class preserves the body , but above all it tames the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; there are rules to be followed , tasks to perform , ideals to achieve .
It breaks things down , ordering the limbs in repetitive exercises that every dancer knows by heart , like a daily prayer .
Ordinarily , dancers begin class slowly , holding a barre or the back of a chair for support , until they feel their legs , feet , and spine and find their “ center ” —center of body , of gravity , of mind .
As brain and body begin to cohere , dancers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mirroring body—for more expansive movements , like turns and leaps .
Class holds a reassuring promise : work hard and you will improve .
At its best , it can feel like a purification .
As a former dancer , I have never felt my body so lightened , steadied , and purged of anxiety as I have at the end of class .
Dancers spend their lives digging inside their bodies , searching for hidden reservoirs of emotion .
That ’ s part of what class is about—but it is rarely , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Taken alone , class can become mechanical .
An accomplished teacher draws on centuries of knowledge and also on close observation—of mood , aura , carriage , the stubbornness in a joint of the foot , the fear lodged in a knotted muscle—to touch just the right spot to make the dancer ’ s whole skeleton realign .
A hand between the shoulder blades or a finger pressed into a palm can suddenly reveal a secret or unexpected source of expression— “ That ’ s it !
” —and everyone present sees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ access that kind of revelation by yourself or on Zoom .
And , since most kitchens and living rooms are without much of a “ center ” to move into , many dancers find themselves confined to the barre , holding on , in their most dependent and vulnerable state .
Watching their lonely devotion to the basics of their craft—bending the knees or arching the back—we feel their grit and heartbreak .
Their class is truncated , a communal rite cut down to a startlingly raw solo form .
Dancers are also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Copeland and a group of ballerinas dancing Michel Fokine ’ s elegiac “ Dying Swan ” in their homes .
You can see stars of the Paris Opera Ballet passing steps like footballs , punting from one dancer to the next , kitchen to patio , to Prokofiev ’ s “ Romeo and Juliet.
” More fun , the Australian Ballet ’ s “ Wilis in Corps-en-tine ( A ‘ Giselle ’ Skit ) , ” or , more interesting and less sentimental , Mark Morris ’ s new video dances , choreographed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lonely Waltz , ” another “ Lonely Tango.
” George Balanchine rightly said that watching dance on TV was like reading about a murder in a newspaper—a poor approximation of the terror of the real event .
And , for all its offerings , the new online dance world feels cramped and constrained .
Dancers are a kind of urban wildlife , and as they crop their bodies to Zoom squares we can almost feel their horizons shrinking .
They can , too .
Watch a dancer in Valencia , taking out his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ full-bodied solo for a cheering audience hanging from windows , before bowing back into his quarantine pen .
These outpourings are touching , desperate , and , ultimately , a kind of requiem : Remember us !
In New York , dance will not be the same .
Much has been lost , but there was a surfeit of bling , especially in the ballet world .
Less could really be more .
The basic structures—where and how dance is performed—are not all that will be questioned .
The virus has already changed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seem suddenly mysterious , weakly defended .
Our sense of time , the dancer ’ s tool and trade , has also been jarringly disrupted , but in this , at least , dancers are prepared .
Living in the present is part of the training .
“ What ’ s the matter with now ?
” Balanchine famously said .
“ You might be dead tomorrow.
” In this moment of collective grief , I am reminded that dance has always been death ’ s close companion , a way of mourning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ During the Black Death , artists depicted the Dance of Death , with skeletons gleefully accompanying rich and poor alike to the grave .
In the early nineteen-hundreds , as a child in Petrograd , Balanchine lived through war and revolution , suffered from malnutrition , and saw the piles of bodies and mass graves that were populating the city .
Few choreographers were more preoccupied with death and grief , or brought a more erotic and heightened sense of life and joy to the stage .
The First World War also produced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Expressionist dance and an influence on early American modern dance .
Deeply affected by her work with crippled and traumatized veterans , including her brother , and by her own suffering from tuberculosis , she developed a style of movement that was weighted and contracted from the gut and back .
Her solo dances , performed barefoot , had heavy overtones of piety and redemption , with titles such as “ Death ” and “ Sacrifice.
” Later in the century , anguish over the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki produced its very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Butoh .
And the AIDS epidemic gave us , among other works , Bill T. Jones ’ s “ D-Man in the Waters.
” Today , we have Jamar Roberts .
Last fall , for the Alvin Ailey company , he made “ Ode , ” a dance in response to gun violence .
Rather than stricken bodies or the sound of gunfire , it features six elegant black men , bare-chested and wearing simple pants , set against a spray of colorful flowers .
Their bodies appear almost ornate , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ harsh free jazz of Don Pullen ’ s “ Suite ( Sweet ) Malcolm ( Part 1 : Memories and Gunshots ) , ” from 1975 , has a stubborn poise .
At the end , five of the dancers fuse together in a kind of human chain , not just hand to hand but body to body— “ one long arm , ” Roberts has called it—and this one long arm lowers a lifeless man to the ground in a heap .
As they fade off the stage , he is left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , beneath the flowers .
The dance is not a lament , not the blues , but a more gentle act , a wreath laid on a grave .
At the end of May , in a commission from the Guggenheim ’ s “ Works & Process ” series , Roberts produced an extraordinary five-minute dance titled “ Cooped.
” He choreographed , designed , directed , performed , and shot ( on an iPad ) this “ fever dream , ” alone , in a basement , surrounded by shadows that seem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ created by a floor lamp and a flashlight .
The tense music was composed , arranged , and performed ( remotely ) by David Watson ( bagpipes ) and Tony Buck ( drums ) .
At the opening of the dance , Roberts comes into view seemingly hanging upside down from the ceiling .
The image is shocking , but he is glistening and beautiful , swaying as his elbows sweep the floor .
His arms cross over his head and he uses them like legs to push off into a suspended state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to another ceiling or surface .
In this Kafkaesque space , gravity and weight do not operate in normal ways .
Nor does his body .
At one point , he shudders inside , quaking to the edge of his human form ; at other times he is quieted but weird , his fingers moving anxiously across his torso .
By the end , he is some kind of creature in an awkwardly collapsed backbend , supported precariously by the balls of his feet and the crown of his head .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his hand grasps his chin and turns his face abruptly from the camera .
♦

In recent weeks, the vinyl surface known as marley, which covers the floor of many dance studios and stages, has been cut into pieces and shipped around the world to professional dancers exiled to their homes. I have been watching some of these dancers, standing on these outposts of abandoned theatres, in their kitchens and living rooms, as they take their daily ballet class on Zoom, Instagram, YouTube. They are doing it for one another and for themselves: class preserves the body, but above all it tames the mind. It is logical, rigorous; there are rules to be followed, tasks to perform, ideals to achieve. It breaks things down, ordering the limbs in repetitive exercises that every dancer knows by heart, like a daily prayer.
Ordinarily, dancers begin class slowly, holding a barre or the back of a chair for support, until they feel their legs, feet, and spine and find their “center”—center of body, of gravity, of mind. As brain and body begin to cohere, dancers move to the center of the studio—space mirroring body—for more expansive movements, like turns and leaps. Class holds a reassuring promise: work hard and you will improve. At its best, it can feel like a purification. As a former dancer, I have never felt my body so lightened, steadied, and purged of anxiety as I have at the end of class.
Dancers spend their lives digging inside their bodies, searching for hidden reservoirs of emotion. That’s part of what class is about—but it is rarely, as it is now, solitary work. Taken alone, class can become mechanical. An accomplished teacher draws on centuries of knowledge and also on close observation—of mood, aura, carriage, the stubbornness in a joint of the foot, the fear lodged in a knotted muscle—to touch just the right spot to make the dancer’s whole skeleton realign. A hand between the shoulder blades or a finger pressed into a palm can suddenly reveal a secret or unexpected source of expression—“That’s it!”—and everyone present sees the change. You can’t access that kind of revelation by yourself or on Zoom. And, since most kitchens and living rooms are without much of a “center” to move into, many dancers find themselves confined to the barre, holding on, in their most dependent and vulnerable state. Watching their lonely devotion to the basics of their craft—bending the knees or arching the back—we feel their grit and heartbreak. Their class is truncated, a communal rite cut down to a startlingly raw solo form.
Dancers are also performing online. You can watch Misty Copeland and a group of ballerinas dancing Michel Fokine’s elegiac “Dying Swan” in their homes. You can see stars of the Paris Opera Ballet passing steps like footballs, punting from one dancer to the next, kitchen to patio, to Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.” More fun, the Australian Ballet’s “Wilis in Corps-en-tine (A ‘Giselle’ Skit),” or, more interesting and less sentimental, Mark Morris’s new video dances, choreographed on Zoom. One is titled “Lonely Waltz,” another “Lonely Tango.”
George Balanchine rightly said that watching dance on TV was like reading about a murder in a newspaper—a poor approximation of the terror of the real event. And, for all its offerings, the new online dance world feels cramped and constrained. Dancers are a kind of urban wildlife, and as they crop their bodies to Zoom squares we can almost feel their horizons shrinking. They can, too. Watch a dancer in Valencia, taking out his garbage, break into an aching, full-bodied solo for a cheering audience hanging from windows, before bowing back into his quarantine pen. These outpourings are touching, desperate, and, ultimately, a kind of requiem: Remember us!
In New York, dance will not be the same. Much has been lost, but there was a surfeit of bling, especially in the ballet world. Less could really be more. The basic structures—where and how dance is performed—are not all that will be questioned. The virus has already changed our sense of our bodies, which seem suddenly mysterious, weakly defended. Our sense of time, the dancer’s tool and trade, has also been jarringly disrupted, but in this, at least, dancers are prepared. Living in the present is part of the training. “What’s the matter with now?” Balanchine famously said. “You might be dead tomorrow.”
In this moment of collective grief, I am reminded that dance has always been death’s close companion, a way of mourning since at least the Middle Ages. During the Black Death, artists depicted the Dance of Death, with skeletons gleefully accompanying rich and poor alike to the grave. In the early nineteen-hundreds, as a child in Petrograd, Balanchine lived through war and revolution, suffered from malnutrition, and saw the piles of bodies and mass graves that were populating the city. Few choreographers were more preoccupied with death and grief, or brought a more erotic and heightened sense of life and joy to the stage.
The First World War also produced Mary Wigman, a founder of German Expressionist dance and an influence on early American modern dance. Deeply affected by her work with crippled and traumatized veterans, including her brother, and by her own suffering from tuberculosis, she developed a style of movement that was weighted and contracted from the gut and back. Her solo dances, performed barefoot, had heavy overtones of piety and redemption, with titles such as “Death” and “Sacrifice.” Later in the century, anguish over the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki produced its very own dance form in the ashen bodies of Butoh. And the AIDS epidemic gave us, among other works, Bill T. Jones’s “D-Man in the Waters.”
Today, we have Jamar Roberts. Last fall, for the Alvin Ailey company, he made “Ode,” a dance in response to gun violence. Rather than stricken bodies or the sound of gunfire, it features six elegant black men, bare-chested and wearing simple pants, set against a spray of colorful flowers. Their bodies appear almost ornate, and their movement, to the at times harsh free jazz of Don Pullen’s “Suite (Sweet) Malcolm (Part 1: Memories and Gunshots),” from 1975, has a stubborn poise. At the end, five of the dancers fuse together in a kind of human chain, not just hand to hand but body to body—“one long arm,” Roberts has called it—and this one long arm lowers a lifeless man to the ground in a heap. As they fade off the stage, he is left there, alone, where he began, beneath the flowers. The dance is not a lament, not the blues, but a more gentle act, a wreath laid on a grave.
At the end of May, in a commission from the Guggenheim’s “Works & Process” series, Roberts produced an extraordinary five-minute dance titled “Cooped.” He choreographed, designed, directed, performed, and shot (on an iPad) this “fever dream,” alone, in a basement, surrounded by shadows that seem to close in on him—an effect ingeniously created by a floor lamp and a flashlight. The tense music was composed, arranged, and performed (remotely) by David Watson (bagpipes) and Tony Buck (drums).
At the opening of the dance, Roberts comes into view seemingly hanging upside down from the ceiling. The image is shocking, but he is glistening and beautiful, swaying as his elbows sweep the floor. His arms cross over his head and he uses them like legs to push off into a suspended state, then he quickly reattaches, insect-like, to another ceiling or surface. In this Kafkaesque space, gravity and weight do not operate in normal ways. Nor does his body. At one point, he shudders inside, quaking to the edge of his human form; at other times he is quieted but weird, his fingers moving anxiously across his torso. By the end, he is some kind of creature in an awkwardly collapsed backbend, supported precariously by the balls of his feet and the crown of his head. As his long arm reaches across his body, his hand grasps his chin and turns his face abruptly from the camera. ♦
A Guide to the Coronavirus