thenation--2020-06-16--The Fight to Remove Georgia’s Secretary of Voter Suppression Has Begun

LaTosha Brown , the cofounder of Black Voters Matter , was out until past midnight last Tuesday , helping Georgians who had waited in line for five hours or more to cast ballots in a primary where voters in predominantly African American precincts faced unconscionable delays .
Now , she wants answers—and action .
“ The voter suppression we witnessed in Georgia , ” she says , “ is a dress rehearsal of what will come in November unless we work together and demand accountability now.
” In Georgia , calls for accountability are mounting .
And they are being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Raffensperger , whose office “ organizes and oversees all election activity ” in a state that has seen too many mangled elections over too many years .
The Rainbow Push Coalition , which has a long history of working in Atlanta , is making the case for a recall election that would remove Raffensperger from his position .
“ Accountability is vital to fix Georgia ’ s broken election system ahead of the August 11 , 2020 runoffs that will determine important elections for school board members , district attorneys , judges and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certainly in time for the November 3 , 2020 , general election which will determine the President and U.S. Senate , ” declares a petition circulated by the group that was founded by the Rev .
Jesse Jackson , the veteran civil rights campaigner and 1984 and 1988 presidential contender .
Raffensperger , the petition asserts , “ has proven himself incompetent to lead state elections after promising to modernize and protect voters.
” Charles Booker Is Changing the Thinking About Who Beats Mitch Georgia Shows How Serious the Threat of Voter Suppression @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Spend Less on the Pentagon and More on the Bronx The effort to recall Raffensperger offers a reminder that accountability must be a part of the fight against voter suppression .
Election officials have to understand that they can not oversee a “ Complete Meltdown ” —as the front-page headline of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution declared on the morning after Georgia ’ s primary voting was marred by undelivered absentee ballots , polling places that did not open on time , malfunctioning machinery , and unbearably long lines—and get away with it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ will change .
And make no mistake : There is a lot that needs to change .
Our election systems are vulnerable , as electoral fiascos in April in Wisconsin and in Georgia last week confirm .
Those vulnerabilities will be exploited by cynical election officials—and their legislative and judicial allies—just as they will be neglected by inept election officials .
Without demands for accountability , the troubles we now see in individual states could become a national crisis in a November election whose stakes will be dramatically higher .
Carolyn Bourdeaux , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate in a competitive Atlanta-area congressional district , announced after the June 9 primary , “ What has happened in this election is outrageous and completely unacceptable , and I know I speak on behalf of many in this state that we are sick of it .
Mr. Raffensperger has failed at his most important responsibility : administering safe , fair , and efficient elections .
For that reason , I am calling on him to resign immediately as Georgia Secretary of State.
” On Monday , at an Atlanta event that focused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wanda Mosley , of Black Voters Matter , addressed the secretary of state with a blunt message : “ If you aren ’ t able to do your job , resign.
” Unfortunately , Raffensperger isn ’ t exactly showing contrition .
He has blamed local elected officials for the mess—a response that led former legislator and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to declare , “ It is not sufficient to say that the county you live in determines the quality of your democracy .
That ’ s why we have the secretary of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do it right , not just the counties that have the resources , not just the counties that he likes.
” That is a vital point .
The June 9 primary was the starting point for an election year in which Georgia voters will elect two US senators and cast critical ballots in a presidential election where the state could finally be a key battleground .
There ’ s a lot of voting to come , and Raffensperger has already proven that he lacks the skills and the sense of duty that are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the people of Georgia .
As the Rainbow Push Coalition notes , his “ dereliction of duty and basic ineptitude made casting a ballot a chaotic nightmare for voters with inaccurate voter registration information provided on the Secretary of State website , malfunctioning voting machines , long lines , several hour wait times , failure to process and timely mail applications for absentee ballots , polling sites that opened late , insufficient numbers of back up paper ballots , and inadequate training of county poll workers who provided incomplete , inaccurate or false @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reasonably straightforward recall process .
A campaign to recall a sitting elected official must gather petitions signed by at least 15 percent of the number of people who voted in the last election for the post held by that official .
In Georgia , that means that a roughly 600,000 signatures—a large number , but not an overwhelming one—must be collected over the course of three months .
“ We need 583,000 valid signatures of registered Georgia voters , ” explains the Rainbow Push Coalition .
“ Once the signatures are collected , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ballot asking if Brad Raffensperger should be recalled as the Secretary of State .
The answer is Yes.
” The recall campaign , says Georgia attorney Robert Patillo , the Southeast regional director for the Rainbow Push Coalition , lays down an accountability marker for Georgia and the rest of the United States .
“ This is important for the whole country , ” he says .
“ It sends a message that voter suppression has consequences .
”

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LaTosha Brown, the cofounder of Black Voters Matter, was out until past midnight last Tuesday, helping Georgians who had waited in line for five hours or more to cast ballots in a primary where voters in predominantly African American precincts faced unconscionable delays. Now, she wants answers—and action. “The voter suppression we witnessed in Georgia,” she says, “is a dress rehearsal of what will come in November unless we work together and demand accountability now.”
In Georgia, calls for accountability are mounting. And they are being directed at Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whose office “organizes and oversees all election activity” in a state that has seen too many mangled elections over too many years. The Rainbow Push Coalition, which has a long history of working in Atlanta, is making the case for a recall election that would remove Raffensperger from his position.
“Accountability is vital to fix Georgia’s broken election system ahead of the August 11, 2020 runoffs that will determine important elections for school board members, district attorneys, judges and sheriff races across the state, and certainly in time for the November 3, 2020, general election which will determine the President and U.S. Senate,” declares a petition circulated by the group that was founded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the veteran civil rights campaigner and 1984 and 1988 presidential contender.
Raffensperger, the petition asserts, “has proven himself incompetent to lead state elections after promising to modernize and protect voters.” More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
The effort to recall Raffensperger offers a reminder that accountability must be a part of the fight against voter suppression.
Election officials have to understand that they cannot oversee a “Complete Meltdown”—as the front-page headline of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution declared on the morning after Georgia’s primary voting was marred by undelivered absentee ballots, polling places that did not open on time, malfunctioning machinery, and unbearably long lines—and get away with it. Until that understanding is established, little will change. And make no mistake: There is a lot that needs to change.
Our election systems are vulnerable, as electoral fiascos in April in Wisconsin and in Georgia last week confirm. Those vulnerabilities will be exploited by cynical election officials—and their legislative and judicial allies—just as they will be neglected by inept election officials. Without demands for accountability, the troubles we now see in individual states could become a national crisis in a November election whose stakes will be dramatically higher. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Election Breakdown Interview: Stacey Abrams Breaks Down Georgia’s (Latest) Election Meltdown Joan Walsh
Carolyn Bourdeaux, a college professor who is the Democratic candidate in a competitive Atlanta-area congressional district, announced after the June 9 primary, “What has happened in this election is outrageous and completely unacceptable, and I know I speak on behalf of many in this state that we are sick of it. Mr. Raffensperger has failed at his most important responsibility: administering safe, fair, and efficient elections. For that reason, I am calling on him to resign immediately as Georgia Secretary of State.”
On Monday, at an Atlanta event that focused on police violence and voter suppression, Wanda Mosley, of Black Voters Matter, addressed the secretary of state with a blunt message: “If you aren’t able to do your job, resign.”
Unfortunately, Raffensperger isn’t exactly showing contrition. He has blamed local elected officials for the mess—a response that led former legislator and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to declare, “It is not sufficient to say that the county you live in determines the quality of your democracy. That’s why we have the secretary of the entire state—not just the counties that do it right, not just the counties that have the resources, not just the counties that he likes.”
That is a vital point. The June 9 primary was the starting point for an election year in which Georgia voters will elect two US senators and cast critical ballots in a presidential election where the state could finally be a key battleground. There’s a lot of voting to come, and Raffensperger has already proven that he lacks the skills and the sense of duty that are required to make democracy work for all the people of Georgia.
As the Rainbow Push Coalition notes, his “dereliction of duty and basic ineptitude made casting a ballot a chaotic nightmare for voters with inaccurate voter registration information provided on the Secretary of State website, malfunctioning voting machines, long lines, several hour wait times, failure to process and timely mail applications for absentee ballots, polling sites that opened late, insufficient numbers of back up paper ballots, and inadequate training of county poll workers who provided incomplete, inaccurate or false information to voters.”
Georgia has a reasonably straightforward recall process. A campaign to recall a sitting elected official must gather petitions signed by at least 15 percent of the number of people who voted in the last election for the post held by that official. In Georgia, that means that a roughly 600,000 signatures—a large number, but not an overwhelming one—must be collected over the course of three months. “We need 583,000 valid signatures of registered Georgia voters,” explains the Rainbow Push Coalition. “Once the signatures are collected, a question will appear on the November ballot asking if Brad Raffensperger should be recalled as the Secretary of State. The answer is Yes.”
The recall campaign, says Georgia attorney Robert Patillo, the Southeast regional director for the Rainbow Push Coalition, lays down an accountability marker for Georgia and the rest of the United States. “This is important for the whole country,” he says. “It sends a message that voter suppression has consequences.”


Bodies & Water

I think about my kneecaps , my ear canal , the slight webbing between toes & fingers ; I think about brown bodies , my body ; how my belly ebbs & sinks & floats & calms in water ; I think about black bodies , about statistics , how 65 % of black American children can not swim ; 60 for Latinx children ; 79 from low income families .
How statistics hold history in the sharp end of a tack ; my brother & me thrown out of swim lessons for causing trouble ; limbs reach & tread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ takes a term like access , wads it into a crumpled shape , in search of any receptacle other than a docket ; our cells contain wet & wombing history of sea & salt in our nervous systems ; our cells crave water & in turn crave equity ; no magic equation exists to explain why what ’ s made of water wants water ; no need .
The human body consists of organs & tissues & hydrogen & calcium & sodium & chlorine & water & water & water & water .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Fuck your count of my offensive features—labia , mustache , mammary glands , black hair on my nipples , thoughts in my cranium , uterus , hopes sewn in cerebrum , words readied at tongue— you dominate narrative : a scratched record caught in dilapidated loop , white noise that coats ammonia down my throat to attempt erasure ; history of attempts .
You can not remove water from water , sea from sea .

This article appears in the June 29/July 6, 2020 issue.
I think about my kneecaps, my ear canal, the slight webbing
between toes & fingers; I think about brown bodies, my
body; how my belly ebbs & sinks & floats & calms in
water; I think about black bodies, about statistics, how 65%
of black American children cannot swim; 60 for Latinx
children; 79 from low income families. How statistics hold
history in the sharp end of a tack; my brother & me thrown
out of swim lessons for causing trouble; limbs reach & tread,
lacking know-how; how a statistic takes a term like access,
wads it into a crumpled shape, in search of any receptacle
other than a docket; our cells contain wet & wombing
history of sea & salt in our nervous systems; our cells crave
water & in turn crave equity; no magic equation exists to
explain why what’s made of water wants water; no need. The
human body consists of organs & tissues & hydrogen &
calcium & sodium & chlorine & water & water & water &
water. Why must my water offend your water? Fuck your
count of my offensive features—labia, mustache, mammary
glands, black hair on my nipples, thoughts in my cranium,
uterus, hopes sewn in cerebrum, words readied at tongue—
you dominate narrative: a scratched record caught in
dilapidated loop, white noise that coats ammonia down my
throat to attempt erasure; history of attempts. You cannot
remove water from water, sea from sea.


thenation--2020-06-16--I used a tool to reach…

I used a tool to reach…

I used a tool to reach a tool I used to make a tool I used to make a metaphysics @ @ @ @ @ rocket scientists , those medieval scholars , were exhaustively doing and knowing the heavy spatial @ @ @ @ @ , scolding us , singing while dreaming , knowing foe from friend .
I used @ @ @ @ @ I used to renounce others I spoke to in words I thieved from trash and @ @ @ @ @ system and I went on flying with a slice .

This article appears in the June 29/July 6, 2020 issue.
I used a tool to reach a tool I used
to make a tool I used to make
a metaphysics. The crows, those rocket scientists,
those medieval scholars, were exhaustively doing
and knowing the heavy spatial world, writing
their summa, scolding us, singing while dreaming,
knowing foe from friend. I used the body to make
beliefs I used to renounce others I spoke to in words
I thieved from trash and made further rips
in the system and I went on flying with a slice.


Tough-Talking Trump

If he ’ s so tough , one asks , why did he hunker Inside that White House armor-plated bunker @ @ @ @ @ why did it make sense To build a fence around the White House fence ?
@ @ @ @ @ must have shelter when Those bone spurs get to acting up again .

This article appears in the June 29/July 6, 2020 issue.
If he’s so tough, one asks, why did he hunker
Inside that White House armor-plated bunker?
With protests peaceful, why did it make sense
To build a fence around the White House fence?
Because, perhaps, he must have shelter when
Those bone spurs get to acting up again.


thenation--2020-06-16--Letters From the June 29/July 6, 2020, Issue

Re “ After Corbyn , After Covid ” by Gary Younge [ June 1/8 ] : As an ex–Labour MP and ex-minister for Europe , I would like to qualify the conventional wisdom from him that the UK chose “ to leave the European Union in a referendum .
A significant section of the [ Labour Party ] insisted that people didn ’ t know what they were doing and should vote again.
” It ’ s true that about one in three of the UK ’ s registered voters fell for a populist , xenophobic , immigrant-bashing Brexit campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the North—and I represented one for 18 years—while the totality voted for Brexit , most identifiable Labour voters did not .
To put it another way , while I rarely got more than 50 percent of the vote , it was enough to make me an MP ; racists from the anti-Semitic British National Party or the xenophobic UK Independence Party , as well as the European-hating Tories , split the remainder .
When it came to the Brexit plebiscite , which was largely a referendum on immigration , Labour seats but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politics whipped up by Boris Johnson in the manner of Donald Trump .
But please don ’ t depict millions of decent working-class Labour voters as anti-immigrant xenophobes .
That cliché is simply wrong .
Not all but most of Labour ’ s 500,000 members wanted to take the fight to the Tories .
More than 1 million people marched in London against Brexit last year urging a second vote .
Alas , party leader Jeremy Corbyn had not changed his EU-hostile views since the 1970s , a time of left hostility to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the rabidly anti-European Tories and their backers in the Murdoch press .
The party was confused and demoralized as a result .
Corbyn was unelectable for other reasons , notably his appearances on platforms with rabid Jew-haters and various terror outfits and a sense he wasn ’ t a patriot .
Since 2018 there has been a narrow majority against rupturing links with Europe , as confirmed by the May 2019 European Parliament elections .
Sadly , Labour could not speak for the anti-isolationists in Britain because of very poor quality leadership @ @ @ @ @ @ @ MacShane perfectly illustrates the two conceits that alienated Labour from much of its base and kept the party divided .
First , he infantilizes the broader electorate , assuming to know better than the people what they voted for when they voted to leave the EU .
Like him , I backed Remain .
But it ’ s not plausible to support democracy only when democracy supports you .
It suggests contempt and breeds the very cynicism that leads to disaffection and support for extremists .
Second , he infantilizes the Labour members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him for everything .
The fact is the Remain campaign was poorly run , and Labour voters backed Remain by the same margin as Scottish National Party voters .
Could it be that the reason people like MacShane keep ending up on the losing side is that they believe voters are incapable of divining their own interests , both inside the Labour Party and out ?
“ Would it not be simpler , ” as playwright Bertolt Brecht once wrote , “ to dissolve the people and elect another ?
” Gary Younge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gutter Politics Just Keep Getting Nastier ” by Sasha Abramsky [ TheNation.com , May 26 ] wildly misrepresents the H-1B guest worker program .
It has been widely abused by employers for cheaper indentured labor .
It is not an act of altruism ; instead , it ’ s a way for employers to pad their profits while underpaying H-1B workers and undercutting US workers .
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have long recognized how the program is abused and have proposed the only sensible reform : higher minimum wages .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Sherrod Brown have repeatedly introduced bipartisan reform legislation that would raise wages .
Representatives Bill Pascrell and Ro Khanna have introduced companion legislation in the House .
In my article , I specifically said the visa program benefited the country by attracting talent to US shores—and that in a global economy , it benefits the broader economy and culture to have skilled immigrants ( and other immigrants ) park their talents and their aspirations in the US rather than elsewhere .
The H-1B visa system is certainly ripe for reform , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other progressives have proposed wage reforms around it—which I would support .
But that ’ s clearly not why Donald Trump and his senior policy adviser Stephen Miller propose hiking H-1B workers ’ wages ; they do it as part of a broader restriction on all sorts of immigration , and that has to be seen in this xenophobic context .
It ’ s simply nonsense to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they genuinely care about prevailing wages , given all the assaults underway against US labor protections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paid sick leave , their hostility to extending unemployment benefits , their forcing meatpacking employees back to work in contaminated facilities , etc .
So yes , by all means , reform the H-1B program , but do it to make immigration and wage law fairer , not to eviscerate yet another entry point into the United States for immigrants .
“ CARES Bears Repeating ” [ June 15/22 ] by Mike Konczal misstated the name of an organization providing analysis of unemployment insurance .
It is the National Employment Law Project , @ @ @ @ @ @ @

Our Readers, Gary Younge, Sasha Abramsky

This article appears in the June 29/July 6, 2020 issue.
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Labour Agonistes
Re “After Corbyn, After Covid” by Gary Younge [June 1/8]: As an ex–Labour MP and ex-minister for Europe, I would like to qualify the conventional wisdom from him that the UK chose “to leave the European Union in a referendum. A significant section of the [Labour Party] insisted that people didn’t know what they were doing and should vote again.”
It’s true that about one in three of the UK’s registered voters fell for a populist, xenophobic, immigrant-bashing Brexit campaign in 2016.
But in Labour seats in the North—and I represented one for 18 years—while the totality voted for Brexit, most identifiable Labour voters did not. To put it another way, while I rarely got more than 50 percent of the vote, it was enough to make me an MP; racists from the anti-Semitic British National Party or the xenophobic UK Independence Party, as well as the European-hating Tories, split the remainder. When it came to the Brexit plebiscite, which was largely a referendum on immigration, Labour seats but not all Labour voters supported the hate politics whipped up by Boris Johnson in the manner of Donald Trump. But please don’t depict millions of decent working-class Labour voters as anti-immigrant xenophobes. That cliché is simply wrong.
Not all but most of Labour’s 500,000 members wanted to take the fight to the Tories. More than 1 million people marched in London against Brexit last year urging a second vote. Alas, party leader Jeremy Corbyn had not changed his EU-hostile views since the 1970s, a time of left hostility to European partnership.
He boycotted the protests against the rabidly anti-European Tories and their backers in the Murdoch press. The party was confused and demoralized as a result. Corbyn was unelectable for other reasons, notably his appearances on platforms with rabid Jew-haters and various terror outfits and a sense he wasn’t a patriot.
Since 2018 there has been a narrow majority against rupturing links with Europe, as confirmed by the May 2019 European Parliament elections. Sadly, Labour could not speak for the anti-isolationists in Britain because of very poor quality leadership from 2016 to ‘19. Current Issue View our current issue
Denis MacShane
london
Younge Responds
Denis MacShane perfectly illustrates the two conceits that alienated Labour from much of its base and kept the party divided. First, he infantilizes the broader electorate, assuming to know better than the people what they voted for when they voted to leave the EU. Like him, I backed Remain. But it’s not plausible to support democracy only when democracy supports you. It suggests contempt and breeds the very cynicism that leads to disaffection and support for extremists. Second, he infantilizes the Labour members who twice voted for Corbyn and blames him for everything. The fact is the Remain campaign was poorly run, and Labour voters backed Remain by the same margin as Scottish National Party voters. Could it be that the reason people like MacShane keep ending up on the losing side is that they believe voters are incapable of divining their own interests, both inside the Labour Party and out? “Would it not be simpler,” as playwright Bertolt Brecht once wrote, “to dissolve the people and elect another?”
Gary Younge
london Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
No Act of Altruism
The article “Trump’s Gutter Politics Just Keep Getting Nastier” by Sasha Abramsky [TheNation.com, May 26] wildly misrepresents the H-1B guest worker program. It has been widely abused by employers for cheaper indentured labor. It is not an act of altruism; instead, it’s a way for employers to pad their profits while underpaying H-1B workers and undercutting US workers.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have long recognized how the program is abused and have proposed the only sensible reform: higher minimum wages. Senators Bernie Sanders, Dick Durbin, and Sherrod Brown have repeatedly introduced bipartisan reform legislation that would raise wages. Representatives Bill Pascrell and Ro Khanna have introduced companion legislation in the House.
Ron Hira
Associate Professor,
Howard University
washington
Abramsky Responds
In my article, I specifically said the visa program benefited the country by attracting talent to US shores—and that in a global economy, it benefits the broader economy and culture to have skilled immigrants (and other immigrants) park their talents and their aspirations in the US rather than elsewhere.
The H-1B visa system is certainly ripe for reform, and Ron Hira is absolutely correct that Sanders and other progressives have proposed wage reforms around it—which I would support. But that’s clearly not why Donald Trump and his senior policy adviser Stephen Miller propose hiking H-1B workers’ wages; they do it as part of a broader restriction on all sorts of immigration, and that has to be seen in this xenophobic context. It’s simply nonsense to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they genuinely care about prevailing wages, given all the assaults underway against US labor protections and workplace safety, their opposition to paid sick leave, their hostility to extending unemployment benefits, their forcing meatpacking employees back to work in contaminated facilities, etc.
So yes, by all means, reform the H-1B program, but do it to make immigration and wage law fairer, not to eviscerate yet another entry point into the United States for immigrants.
Sasha Abramsky
sacramento
Correction
“CARES Bears Repeating” [June 15/22] by Mike Konczal misstated the name of an organization providing analysis of unemployment insurance. It is the National Employment Law Project, not the National Employment Law Center.


thenation--2020-06-16--Neil Gorsuch Stuns the Nation, Does the Right Thing

The LGBTQ community has officially and emphatically been included in the protection offered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 .
In three consolidated cases called Bostock v. Clayton Country Georgia , the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Civil Right Act ’ s Title VII prohibition of discrimination in the workplace on the basis of “ sex ” includes a prohibition against discriminating against gays , lesbians , and transgendered people .
Archconservative Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion .
He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts , as well as the four liberal justices : Ruth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sotomayor , and Elena Kagan .
Often , when you have one of these opinions signed by both liberal and conservative justices , the decision is very narrow .
In such situations , it ’ s not unusual for one side or the other to write what ’ s called “ concurring ” opinions , in which they will agree with the outcome but offer their own , usually more expansive , reasons for arriving at the conclusion .
Not this time .
Gorsuch wrote a civil rights opinion whose main substance could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or Harvey Milk .
Here are two sentences from the opinion that I never expected to hear from a conservative justice appointed by Donald Trump and approved by Mike Pence : “ The statute ’ s message for our cases is equally simple and momentous : An individual ’ s homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions .
That ’ s because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.
” That is no half measure .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the activists and advocates and lawyers and allies who have long said that discrimination against the LGBTQ community is illegal .
It is also , by far , the biggest legal win for the transgender community , ever .
It is not a perfect ruling .
While any of the liberal justices could have written the same opinion in substance , the chief justice ’ s decision to let Gorsuch write it gave Gorsuch a chance to lay intellectual cover for future bad decisions he will make .
Gorsuch is doing what ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : He ’ s saying that when the text is clear , he doesn ’ t have to go back to the “ original ” intent of the lawmakers .
Which sounds good , until you remember that Gorsuch claims special powers to know when the text is clear and when it is unclear .
In this case , Gorsuch ’ s interpretation of the text comports with a modern understanding of the law .
In another case , however , Gorsuch might decide that an archaic definition is “ clear , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the text is unclear and look at what Thomas Jefferson would have wanted .
Gorsuch ’ s interpretation of the text is going to work against a robust protection of rights more often than it works to promote them .
But that can be a problem for another day .
Today , Gorsuch divined that the text of Title VII “ clearly ” protects gay and trans people , which is a happy conclusion and the right conclusion .
It is also , it must be said , the same conclusion a mere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looking at the last 30 years of legal precedent .
Despite the seismic nature of the ruling , no new rights were granted in this case .
That ’ s because many lower federal courts have deemed that the LGBTQ community is functionally protected by Title VII since the 1989 case Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins .
In that case , the court ruled that employers could not discriminate against people who didn ’ t conform to the sexual stereotype preferred by their employer .
It ’ s basically the “ no , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” case .
The Bostock case came about all these years later not as part of a progressive effort to make those Title VII protections apply explicitly to the LGBTQ community , but as the result of decades of conservative activism , led by groups like the Federalist Society and the judges they support , to get the LGBTQ community excluded from the protections many judges and scholars think they already enjoy .
The conservative goal has been to force Congress to rewrite Title VII to explicitly include LGBTQ people , thus giving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fight about , while trusting total gridlock in Washington to prevent any such rewrite from ever happening .
The majority opinion shifts the burden away from the courts and puts it squarely on anti-LGBTQ politicians to continue this fight .
If conservatives want to change the law , they are now free to organize and elect congresspeople and senators who oppose LGBTQ rights and want to run on a platform rewriting the Civil Rights Act to exclude them .
One way to know that this was a major victory for the LGBTQ community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meltdown over the decision .
( Ben Shapiro ’ s tears taste particularly delicious right now . )
While Gorsuch ’ s majority opinion was just 33 pages , Justice Samuel Alito ’ s dissent was 54 pages , and included 172 pages of appendices that he offered as evidence , clear as I can tell , of the importance of genitalia over time .
Trying to include all of this supposed evidence briefly crashed the Supreme Court website when the opinion was initially released .
Anything that makes Alito this mad is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Still , the more important dissent might have been written by alleged attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh .
Yes , the justice that Susan Collins vouched for dissented from an LGBTQ rights opinion , something that Collins herself pretended not to notice when she tweeted out support for the court ’ s decision in Bostock .
Kavanaugh argued that whether or not he thinks the LGBTQ community should be included in Title VII protections is irrelevant , since “ we are judges , not Members of Congress.… Under the Constitution ’ s separation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is to interpret and follow the law as written , regardless of whether we like the result.
” He , like the conservative lawyers who argued this case , pretends that Title VII does not already include the LGBTQ community , and argues that it is not the role of the court to extend the scope of that law .
This is significant , because it is exactly the same argument John Roberts made in his dissent from the marriage-equality decision , Obergefell v. Hodgers .
In that case , Roberts wrote : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about : It is not about whether , in my judgment , the institution of marriage should be changed to include same-sex couples .
It is instead about whether , in our democratic republic , that decision should rest with the people acting through their elected representatives , or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law.
” America ’ s Racist Police Won ’ t Be Dismantled by 2 Weeks of Protests SCOTUS Is Back in Session and Cruelty Is on the Docket @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump From the Rule of Law I don ’ t know if Roberts has changed his mind on marriage equality .
But I do know that when Kavanaugh effectively read Roberts ’ s own argument against marriage equality back to him , Roberts declined to go in for another round .
Roberts ’ s decision to switch sides is an important sign .
Given the polarization of American politics , it ’ s unlikely that new LGBTQ rights laws are going to be written any time soon .
Conservative politicians are very good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people use , while many purple-state Democrats would rather hope for gay and trans rights than fight for them .
If we ’ re not going to get new , robust laws about equality , then we ’ re going to need courts to continue including the LGBTQ community in what equal rights laws already exist .
Bostock is a significant civil rights victory and , with Gorsuch and Roberts on board , it feels durable as well .
But make no mistake : Anti-LGBTQ discrimination has not been defeated .
To risk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like surviving the Battle of Britain—invading Normandy and kicking the fascists off the continent is still a long way off .
Republicans will try to use this judicial defeat to motivate their base to show up to vote on November 3 .
Liberals have to be equally motivated to turn out in November and defend this victory .

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The LGBTQ community has officially and emphatically been included in the protection offered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In three consolidated cases called Bostock v. Clayton County Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Civil Right Act’s Title VII prohibition of discrimination in the workplace on the basis of “sex” includes a prohibition against discriminating against gays, lesbians, and transgendered people.
Archconservative Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as the four liberal justices: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Often, when you have one of these opinions signed by both liberal and conservative justices, the decision is very narrow. In such situations, it’s not unusual for one side or the other to write what’s called “concurring” opinions, in which they will agree with the outcome but offer their own, usually more expansive, reasons for arriving at the conclusion.
Not this time. Gorsuch wrote a civil rights opinion whose main substance could have been written by Sotomayor—or Thurgood Marshall or Harvey Milk. Here are two sentences from the opinion that I never expected to hear from a conservative justice appointed by Donald Trump and approved by Mike Pence: “The statute’s message for our cases is equally simple and momentous: An individual’s homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions. That’s because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”
That is no half measure. Those sentences are a complete victory for the activists and advocates and lawyers and allies who have long said that discrimination against the LGBTQ community is illegal. It is also, by far, the biggest legal win for the transgender community, ever.
It is not a perfect ruling. While any of the liberal justices could have written the same opinion in substance, the chief justice’s decision to let Gorsuch write it gave Gorsuch a chance to lay intellectual cover for future bad decisions he will make. Gorsuch is doing what’s called a “textualist” reading: He’s saying that when the text is clear, he doesn’t have to go back to the “original” intent of the lawmakers. Which sounds good, until you remember that Gorsuch claims special powers to know when the text is clear and when it is unclear. Current Issue View our current issue
In this case, Gorsuch’s interpretation of the text comports with a modern understanding of the law. In another case, however, Gorsuch might decide that an archaic definition is “clear,” while in still another he might decide the text is unclear and look at what Thomas Jefferson would have wanted. Gorsuch’s interpretation of the text is going to work against a robust protection of rights more often than it works to promote them. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
But that can be a problem for another day. Today, Gorsuch divined that the text of Title VII “clearly” protects gay and trans people, which is a happy conclusion and the right conclusion. It is also, it must be said, the same conclusion a mere mortal could have come to by simply looking at the last 30 years of legal precedent.
Despite the seismic nature of the ruling, no new rights were granted in this case. That’s because many lower federal courts have deemed that the LGBTQ community is functionally protected by Title VII since the 1989 case Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. In that case, the court ruled that employers could not discriminate against people who didn’t conform to the sexual stereotype preferred by their employer. It’s basically the “no, she doesn’t need to smile more” case.
The Bostock case came about all these years later not as part of a progressive effort to make those Title VII protections apply explicitly to the LGBTQ community, but as the result of decades of conservative activism, led by groups like the Federalist Society and the judges they support, to get the LGBTQ community excluded from the protections many judges and scholars think they already enjoy. The conservative goal has been to force Congress to rewrite Title VII to explicitly include LGBTQ people, thus giving conservative political candidates another culture-war issue to fight about, while trusting total gridlock in Washington to prevent any such rewrite from ever happening.
The majority opinion shifts the burden away from the courts and puts it squarely on anti-LGBTQ politicians to continue this fight. If conservatives want to change the law, they are now free to organize and elect congresspeople and senators who oppose LGBTQ rights and want to run on a platform rewriting the Civil Rights Act to exclude them.
One way to know that this was a major victory for the LGBTQ community is that alt-right forces are having a meltdown over the decision. (Ben Shapiro’s tears taste particularly delicious right now.) While Gorsuch’s majority opinion was just 33 pages, Justice Samuel Alito’s dissent was 54 pages, and included 172 pages of appendices that he offered as evidence, clear as I can tell, of the importance of genitalia over time. Trying to include all of this supposed evidence briefly crashed the Supreme Court website when the opinion was initially released. Anything that makes Alito this mad is, almost by definition, very good.
Still, the more important dissent might have been written by alleged attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh. Yes, the justice that Susan Collins vouched for dissented from an LGBTQ rights opinion, something that Collins herself pretended not to notice when she tweeted out support for the court’s decision in Bostock. Kavanaugh argued that whether or not he thinks the LGBTQ community should be included in Title VII protections is irrelevant, since “we are judges, not Members of Congress.… Under the Constitution’s separation of powers, our role as judges is to interpret and follow the law as written, regardless of whether we like the result.” He, like the conservative lawyers who argued this case, pretends that Title VII does not already include the LGBTQ community, and argues that it is not the role of the court to extend the scope of that law.
This is significant, because it is exactly the same argument John Roberts made in his dissent from the marriage-equality decision, Obergefell v. Hodges. In that case, Roberts wrote: “Understand well what this dissent is about: It is not about whether, in my judgment, the institution of marriage should be changed to include same-sex couples. It is instead about whether, in our democratic republic, that decision should rest with the people acting through their elected representatives, or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law.” More from Mystal America’s Racist Police Won’t Be Dismantled by 2 Weeks of Protests Elie Mystal SCOTUS Is Back in Session and Cruelty Is on the Docket Elie Mystal SCOTUS May Have Just Decided to Exempt Trump From the Rule of Law Elie Mystal
I don’t know if Roberts has changed his mind on marriage equality. But I do know that when Kavanaugh effectively read Roberts’s own argument against marriage equality back to him, Roberts declined to go in for another round.
Roberts’s decision to switch sides is an important sign. Given the polarization of American politics, it’s unlikely that new LGBTQ rights laws are going to be written any time soon. Conservative politicians are very good at stoking MAGA fears over which bathroom people use, while many purple-state Democrats would rather hope for gay and trans rights than fight for them. If we’re not going to get new, robust laws about equality, then we’re going to need courts to continue including the LGBTQ community in what equal rights laws already exist.
Bostock is a significant civil rights victory and, with Gorsuch and Roberts on board, it feels durable as well. But make no mistake: Anti-LGBTQ discrimination has not been defeated. To risk a war analogy: This case is like surviving the Battle of Britain—invading Normandy and kicking the fascists off the continent is still a long way off.
Republicans will try to use this judicial defeat to motivate their base to show up to vote on November 3. Liberals have to be equally motivated to turn out in November and defend this victory.


thenation--2020-06-16--The US Government Kills Black People with Impunity Both at Home and Abroad

In early February of this year , 18-year-old Nurto Kusow Omar Abukar was blown to smithereens by American air strikes as she sat down for dinner with her family in Jilib , Somalia .
Hurled indiscriminately by the US Africa Command ( Africom ) in its hunt for al-Shabaab militants , the bombs also injured Abukar ’ s younger sisters Fatuma , age 12 , and Adey , age 7 , as well as their 70-year-old grandmother , Khadija Mohamed Gedow .
A few weeks later , on February 24 , Africom lobbed a Hellfire missile that killed 53-year-old banana @ @ @ @ @ @ @ village of Kumbareere .
As the murders of Abukar and Mohamud tragically demonstrate , the US military has inflicted some of the most grotesque forms of violence on Africans under the pretext of protecting Americans .
According to Amnesty International , the United States has conducted over 170 aerial raids since 2017 , triple the number of the previous three years , killing between 900 and 1,000 Somalis .
And while there has been almost no public uproar about black African civilian casualties of America ’ s War on Terrorism abroad , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enforcement at home .
Months after Africom ’ s bombardments in Somalia , many of us watched and wept in horror as George Floyd was asphyxiated on the streets of Minneapolis , his immobile body pinned down by the knee of a white police officer .
The irony that Floyd ’ s demise occurred on Africa Day , May 25 , which commemorates the founding of the Organization of African Unity , was not lost on those of us who see the continuities of anti-black racism on both sides of the Atlantic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Floyd lies a glaring connection : While US militarization in Africa frames the black body as an “ enemy without , ” American policing deems the black body an “ enemy within.
” As with the deadly shelling of Somalia , American “ shadow wars ” in Africa are fought covertly and violate international law .
The highly secretive and advanced nature of these military operations—which rely on artificial intelligence , drones , and surveillance technology—renders them invisible to American citizens .
Yet they persist .
Day after day , year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” of the United States make manifest a desire to control territories far away , to exploit and extract their resources , and to subdue their people ; the “ security needs ” of white America make manifest a desire to police black bodies into submission , to push them to the fringes , and in many cases to annihilate them .
In both instances , the rhetoric of “ keeping America safe ” is a vision that regards racialized bodies as threats to be eliminated .
According to this white supremacist line @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not only dangerous but also disposable .
It must be shackled and suffocated , caged and contained , burned and bludgeoned .
Police brutality in America and US militarization in Africa operate under similar logics .
America ’ s military parades around Africa like a peacock brandishing its plumes .
Since Africom commenced in 2008 with active combat missions in over a dozen African countries—including Ethiopia , Kenya , and Uganda—it has “ conducted more than 1,500 air attacks , commando raids , and other ground missions in Libya and Somalia alone , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the United States has pelted Libya with at least 776 strikes since 2011 , many during the first round of assaults unleashed by NATO and the Obama administration in “ support ” of the rebels who executed Moammar El-Gadhafi .
We Africans are all too familiar with this outward expression of American aggression and its structural dismissal of black life—from the use of machine guns and tanks to drones and rocket-propelled grenades .
Now , according to the American Civil Liberties Union , much of this wartime weaponry has been transported as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States in a covert move to militarize law enforcement .
And so when active duty troops were deployed in the District of Columbia to squash protests prompted by Floyd ’ s death , we were not surprised .
While a group of 89 former American defense officials declared that “ the military must never be used to violate constitutional rights , ” the human rights of Africans are flouted regularly by the United States ’ militarized foreign policy .
Since 9/11 , in fact , the US military has used a range @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pads in Niger and airfields in Kenya and Djibouti to running training exercises meant to beef up the repressive capacity of affiliate governments—to expand its footprint in the continent .
Yet , even though African Union Commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat aptly denounced racialized police violence in the United States , there hasn ’ t been a similarly forceful condemnation of the militarization of American engagement in Africa .
In fact , some African leaders have even been the greatest threats to black life in the continent .
Just these last months , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , police and military have killed innocent citizens of Liberia , Kenya , Nigeria , Rwanda , South Africa , and Uganda .
These acts of cruelty follow a long history of anti-black violence .
Euro-American whites in particular have weaponized state-sanctioned hostility against people of black African descent for as long , it seems , as the earth has titled on its axis .
Myriad examples stain our histories with blood : from the torture and execution of Mau Mau revolutionaries in 1950s Kenya by British colonizers to the assassination in 1961 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the aid of Belgian and American collusion ; from the 1999 shooting of unarmed Guinean national Amadou Diallo by four white officers on his New York doorstep to the scorching to death of Sierra Leonean Oury Jalloh while in German police custody in 2005 ; from the 2016 murder of Malian Adama Traoré by French law enforcement to the 2018 gunning down of Afro-Brazilian feminist activist and politician Marielle Franco in Rio de Janeiro by the “ Crime Bureau.
” Militarization Has Become Our National Religion Death From Above : US Air Strikes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ Inside the Secretive US Air Campaign In Somalia Indeed , anti-black brutality is a global affliction , and it ’ s not just confined to the four corners of the United States .
The forces of racism have been kneeling on the necks of black people in Africa , Asia , Australia , Europe , and Latin America for centuries .
The righteous rage exhibited by Africans on the streets of Lagos , Lusaka , Monrovia , Nairobi , and Tripoli in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in D.C. , Chicago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York has been powerful to witness .
But this must not remain a unidirectional show of support .
When innocent African lives are snuffed out as a result of America ’ s War on Terrorism in the Sahel , the Horn of Africa , and the Gulf of Guinea , we must also rise up .
Although the Movement for Black Lives ( # BlackLivesMatter ) has rightly demanded the divestment and defunding of American police forces , and “ a cut in military expenditures , ” added to this appeal should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presence in Africa and formal investigations into atrocities already committed .
This moment is an important inflection point for global black solidarity , for a return to the black internationalism of a bygone era , which clearly defined the continuities between civil rights struggles in America and demands for decolonization in Africa .
While condemning modern-day lynchings in the so-called “ land of the free , ” we must also denounce America ’ s militarized massacres abroad .
The murders of George Floyd , Nurto Kusow Omar Abukar , and Mohamud Salad Mohamud @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black lives will never truly matter in the United States unless they also matter in Africa and its diasporas .

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In early February of this year, 18-year-old Nurto Kusow Omar Abukar was blown to smithereens by American air strikes as she sat down for dinner with her family in Jilib, Somalia. Hurled indiscriminately by the US Africa Command (Africom) in its hunt for al-Shabaab militants, the bombs also injured Abukar’s younger sisters Fatuma, age 12, and Adey, age 7, as well as their 70-year-old grandmother, Khadija Mohamed Gedow. A few weeks later, on February 24, Africom lobbed a Hellfire missile that killed 53-year-old banana farmer Mohamud Salad Mohamud in the nearby village of Kumbareere.
As the murders of Abukar and Mohamud tragically demonstrate, the US military has inflicted some of the most grotesque forms of violence on Africans under the pretext of protecting Americans. According to Amnesty International, the United States has conducted over 170 aerial raids since 2017, triple the number of the previous three years, killing between 900 and 1,000 Somalis. And while there has been almost no public uproar about black African civilian casualties of America’s War on Terrorism abroad, they parallel black civilian casualties of domestic law enforcement at home.
Months after Africom’s bombardments in Somalia, many of us watched and wept in horror as George Floyd was asphyxiated on the streets of Minneapolis, his immobile body pinned down by the knee of a white police officer. The irony that Floyd’s demise occurred on Africa Day, May 25, which commemorates the founding of the Organization of African Unity, was not lost on those of us who see the continuities of anti-black racism on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the fate of Abukar, Mohamud, and Floyd lies a glaring connection: While US militarization in Africa frames the black body as an “enemy without,” American policing deems the black body an “enemy within.”
We can’t breathe. Current Issue View our current issue
As with the deadly shelling of Somalia, American “shadow wars” in Africa are fought covertly and violate international law. The highly secretive and advanced nature of these military operations—which rely on artificial intelligence, drones, and surveillance technology—renders them invisible to American citizens. Yet they persist. Day after day, year after year.
The “security needs” of the United States make manifest a desire to control territories far away, to exploit and extract their resources, and to subdue their people; the “security needs” of white America make manifest a desire to police black bodies into submission, to push them to the fringes, and in many cases to annihilate them. In both instances, the rhetoric of “keeping America safe” is a vision that regards racialized bodies as threats to be eliminated. According to this white supremacist line of reasoning, the black body is not only dangerous but also disposable. It must be shackled and suffocated, caged and contained, burned and bludgeoned. Police brutality in America and US militarization in Africa operate under similar logics. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
America’s military parades around Africa like a peacock brandishing its plumes. Since Africom commenced in 2008 with active combat missions in over a dozen African countries—including Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda—it has “conducted more than 1,500 air attacks, commando raids, and other ground missions in Libya and Somalia alone,” according to The Intercept. Indeed, the United States has pelted Libya with at least 776 strikes since 2011, many during the first round of assaults unleashed by NATO and the Obama administration in “support” of the rebels who executed Moammar El-Gadhafi.
We Africans are all too familiar with this outward expression of American aggression and its structural dismissal of black life—from the use of machine guns and tanks to drones and rocket-propelled grenades. Now, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, much of this wartime weaponry has been transported as excess equipment to police departments across the United States in a covert move to militarize law enforcement.
And so when active duty troops were deployed in the District of Columbia to squash protests prompted by Floyd’s death, we were not surprised. While a group of 89 former American defense officials declared that “the military must never be used to violate constitutional rights,” the human rights of Africans are flouted regularly by the United States’ militarized foreign policy. Since 9/11, in fact, the US military has used a range of systems and strategies—from operating drone launching pads in Niger and airfields in Kenya and Djibouti to running training exercises meant to beef up the repressive capacity of affiliate governments—to expand its footprint in the continent.
Yet, even though African Union Commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat aptly denounced racialized police violence in the United States, there hasn’t been a similarly forceful condemnation of the militarization of American engagement in Africa. In fact, some African leaders have even been the greatest threats to black life in the continent. Just these last months, under the guise of enforcing Covid-19 lockdowns, police and military have killed innocent citizens of Liberia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda.
These acts of cruelty follow a long history of anti-black violence. Euro-American whites in particular have weaponized state-sanctioned hostility against people of black African descent for as long, it seems, as the earth has titled on its axis. Myriad examples stain our histories with blood: from the torture and execution of Mau Mau revolutionaries in 1950s Kenya by British colonizers to the assassination in 1961 of Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba with the aid of Belgian and American collusion; from the 1999 shooting of unarmed Guinean national Amadou Diallo by four white officers on his New York doorstep to the scorching to death of Sierra Leonean Oury Jalloh while in German police custody in 2005; from the 2016 murder of Malian Adama Traoré by French law enforcement to the 2018 gunning down of Afro-Brazilian feminist activist and politician Marielle Franco in Rio de Janeiro by the “Crime Bureau.” Militarization Militarization Has Become Our National Religion William Astore Death From Above: US Air Strikes in Somalia Could Constitute ‘War Crimes’ Amanda Sperber Inside the Secretive US Air Campaign In Somalia Amanda Sperber
Indeed, anti-black brutality is a global affliction, and it’s not just confined to the four corners of the United States. The forces of racism have been kneeling on the necks of black people in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and Latin America for centuries. The righteous rage exhibited by Africans on the streets of Lagos, Lusaka, Monrovia, Nairobi, and Tripoli in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and New York has been powerful to witness. But this must not remain a unidirectional show of support. When innocent African lives are snuffed out as a result of America’s War on Terrorism in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and the Gulf of Guinea, we must also rise up.
Although the Movement for Black Lives (#BlackLivesMatter) has rightly demanded the divestment and defunding of American police forces, and “a cut in military expenditures,” added to this appeal should be the complete demilitarization of the US presence in Africa and formal investigations into atrocities already committed.
This moment is an important inflection point for global black solidarity, for a return to the black internationalism of a bygone era, which clearly defined the continuities between civil rights struggles in America and demands for decolonization in Africa.
While condemning modern-day lynchings in the so-called “land of the free,” we must also denounce America’s militarized massacres abroad. The murders of George Floyd, Nurto Kusow Omar Abukar, and Mohamud Salad Mohamud must remind us again and again that black lives will never truly matter in the United States unless they also matter in Africa and its diasporas.


thenation--2020-06-17--Climate-Justice Stories Are in Every Community, Waiting to Be Told

“ Every city has its George Floyd , ” the Rev .
Jesse Jackson said after attending Floyd ’ s June 4 funeral service in Minneapolis .
No stranger to white supremacist violence , Jackson was 26 when he witnessed the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King on a motel balcony in Memphis .
The murder of Floyd , Jackson added , “ photographed by a terrified and courageous 17-year-old girl , has made it impossible to ignore police violence against black people.
” Indeed , the media has taken notice .
But police brutality is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities of color must endure .
It is factually indisputable that the poor and people of color in the United States and around the world suffer first and worst from climate-driven catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina , whose 15th anniversary comes in August .
The same is true of standard air and water pollution , such as the lead-laden drinking water provided to residents in Flint , Mich. , the majority of whom are black .
But only rarely does mainstream news coverage make the point that such environmental violence is pervasive , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and economic bias .
“ There ’ s an [ environmental justice ] story in virtually every neighborhood that feels on a par with Flint , Mich. , ” Varshini Prakash , the executive director of the youth climate group the Sunrise Movement , told journalists at a recent Covering Climate Now “ Talking Shop ” webinar .
Born in the United States and of Indian descent , the 27-year-old Prakash recognized as a teenager that “ people around the world , many who looked like me , didn ’ t have water @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family ’ s ancestral home in southern India was near a village “ where Coca-Cola used up all the drinking water…and [ was ] selling farmers fertilizer that was actually chemical sludge.
” Go to Louisiana ’ s “ Cancer Alley , ” she urged the journalists—referring to the 85 miles of land straddling the Mississippi River , north of New Orleans , where petrochemical plants occupy former slave plantations—and once again it ’ s the poor and people of color who are left to cope with horrific pollution .
The environmental justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ waiting to be told .
But most news organizations have missed it , devoting what little climate coverage they do primarily to the words and deeds of scientists , politicians , and activists , who are often white and well-off , and focusing on such abstract concepts as parts per million of carbon dioxide , instead of the tangible human tragedies climate change is already wreaking in some communities .
Just Like Covid-19 , Racial Justice Is a Climate Story More in this series “ If you ’ re not getting into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ climate change ] , then you ’ re not telling the real climate story , ” Kendra Pierre-Louis , a veteran climate change reporter , most recently for The New York Times , told journalists during the Talking Shop event .
“ It ’ s almost like journalistic negligence , because you ’ re speaking in highly technical terms , when the whole reason you ’ re reporting on [ climate change ] is because it has implications for society and humans .
And you ’ re leaving that part of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some stellar exceptions to the rule , however .
The Times interviewed leading black environmentalists about climate change and concluded that racism “ makes it impossible to live sustainably.
” After describing how Hurricane Harvey , in 2016 , wrecked a modest family home near a Texas oil refinery , CNN asked “ whether fossil fuel companies…should help cover the tab ” by compensating homeowners whose lives are upended by climate disasters .
And CBS News interviewed one of the pioneers of environmental justice activism , Peggy Shepard , a cofounder of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who described how mainstream green groups and environmental justice organizations are now collaborating on an “ Equitable and Just National Climate Platform.
” Sometimes , coverage can wrongly imply that racial and economic injustice is only an occasional aspect of the climate story .
Too many newsrooms feel like , “ ‘ Oh , we ’ ve done the ecojustice story for this year , we can move on , ’ ” Pierre-Louis said .
“ [ But ecojustice ] is something that needs to be embedded in all aspects of climate reporting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embedded in all aspects of other reporting .
If you ’ re an energy reporter and you ’ re reporting on Exxon ’ s quarterly earnings and you ’ re not mentioning climate change , that ’ s gross negligence.
” Reporting on climate injustice strikes some editors as improperly activist .
Yessenia Funes , of Earther , attributed this view in part to the lack of racial diversity in many newsrooms .
“ I ’ ve been lucky to work at news organizations that center environmental justice , ” said Funes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ some newsrooms create obstacles for reporters to pursue these types of stories .
I think that is often a result of reporters or editors who don ’ t have a clear understanding of the climate crisis and , more importantly , the inequity that ’ s baked into the climate crisis.
” The solution is pretty simple , she said : “ Just hire more people of color .
I don ’ t understand why that ’ s such a difficult thing for news organizations to do.
” Further , news organizations must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ box to be checked , when it ’ s actually an editorial outlook to be embraced , Pierre-Louis , who is black , said .
“ You want to hire people who look like me but think like you , ” she once told a newsroom executive .
“ Racism isn ’ t getting worse , it ’ s getting filmed , ” actor Will Smith observed in 2016 .
Smith ’ s comment resurfaced on social media after the video of George Floyd ’ s murder sparked unprecedented worldwide protests .
Environmental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very much , which means that the general public isn ’ t aware of what ’ s happening .
Scientists project that this summer will bring “ one of the most active ” hurricane seasons ever to the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and extreme heat to many parts of the world .
For unfortunate reasons , then , newsrooms might soon have ample opportunities to do better .

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This article is adapted from “The Climate Beat,” the weekly newsletter of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism initiative committed to more and better climate coverage.
“Every city has its George Floyd,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said after attending Floyd’s June 4 funeral service in Minneapolis. No stranger to white supremacist violence, Jackson was 26 when he witnessed the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King on a motel balcony in Memphis. The murder of Floyd, Jackson added, “photographed by a terrified and courageous 17-year-old girl, has made it impossible to ignore police violence against black people.”
Indeed, the media has taken notice. But police brutality is not the only violence black Americans and other communities of color must endure. It is factually indisputable that the poor and people of color in the United States and around the world suffer first and worst from climate-driven catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina, whose 15th anniversary comes in August. The same is true of standard air and water pollution, such as the lead-laden drinking water provided to residents in Flint, Mich., the majority of whom are black. But only rarely does mainstream news coverage make the point that such environmental violence is pervasive, chronic, and carries a clear racial and economic bias.
“There’s an [environmental justice] story in virtually every neighborhood that feels on a par with Flint, Mich.,” Varshini Prakash, the executive director of the youth climate group the Sunrise Movement, told journalists at a recent Covering Climate Now “Talking Shop” webinar. Born in the United States and of Indian descent, the 27-year-old Prakash recognized as a teenager that “people around the world, many who looked like me, didn’t have water” or other basic necessities. Her family’s ancestral home in southern India was near a village “where Coca-Cola used up all the drinking water…and [was] selling farmers fertilizer that was actually chemical sludge.” Go to Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” she urged the journalists—referring to the 85 miles of land straddling the Mississippi River, north of New Orleans, where petrochemical plants occupy former slave plantations—and once again it’s the poor and people of color who are left to cope with horrific pollution. Covering Climate Now How to Stop the Spread of Climate Disinformation Erika Seiber and Michael Khoo A Soundtrack for the Climate Emergency Mark Hertsgaard Can Gen Z Save the Midterms for Democrats? Mark Hertsgaard
The environmental justice story has long been sitting there, waiting to be told. But most news organizations have missed it, devoting what little climate coverage they do primarily to the words and deeds of scientists, politicians, and activists, who are often white and well-off, and focusing on such abstract concepts as parts per million of carbon dioxide, instead of the tangible human tragedies climate change is already wreaking in some communities. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
“If you’re not getting into the context of who is being affected by [climate change], then you’re not telling the real climate story,” Kendra Pierre-Louis, a veteran climate change reporter, most recently for The New York Times, told journalists during the Talking Shop event. “It’s almost like journalistic negligence, because you’re speaking in highly technical terms, when the whole reason you’re reporting on [climate change] is because it has implications for society and humans. And you’re leaving that part of the story out.”
Recent days have brought some stellar exceptions to the rule, however. The Times interviewed leading black environmentalists about climate change and concluded that racism “makes it impossible to live sustainably.” After describing how Hurricane Harvey, in 2016, wrecked a modest family home near a Texas oil refinery, CNN asked “whether fossil fuel companies…should help cover the tab” by compensating homeowners whose lives are upended by climate disasters. And CBS News interviewed one of the pioneers of environmental justice activism, Peggy Shepard, a cofounder of the Harlem-based WE ACT for Environmental Justice, who described how mainstream green groups and environmental justice organizations are now collaborating on an “Equitable and Just National Climate Platform.” Current Issue View our current issue
Sometimes, coverage can wrongly imply that racial and economic injustice is only an occasional aspect of the climate story. Too many newsrooms feel like, “‘Oh, we’ve done the ecojustice story for this year, we can move on,’” Pierre-Louis said. “[But ecojustice] is something that needs to be embedded in all aspects of climate reporting, and climate change needs to be embedded in all aspects of other reporting. If you’re an energy reporter and you’re reporting on Exxon’s quarterly earnings and you’re not mentioning climate change, that’s gross negligence.”
Reporting on climate injustice strikes some editors as improperly activist. Yessenia Funes, of Earther, attributed this view in part to the lack of racial diversity in many newsrooms. “I’ve been lucky to work at news organizations that center environmental justice,” said Funes. “It’s really unfortunate that some newsrooms create obstacles for reporters to pursue these types of stories. I think that is often a result of reporters or editors who don’t have a clear understanding of the climate crisis and, more importantly, the inequity that’s baked into the climate crisis.” The solution is pretty simple, she said: “Just hire more people of color. I don’t understand why that’s such a difficult thing for news organizations to do.”
Further, news organizations must regard diversity as more than a bureaucratic box to be checked, when it’s actually an editorial outlook to be embraced, Pierre-Louis, who is black, said. “You want to hire people who look like me but think like you,” she once told a newsroom executive.
“Racism isn’t getting worse, it’s getting filmed,” actor Will Smith observed in 2016. Smith’s comment resurfaced on social media after the video of George Floyd’s murder sparked unprecedented worldwide protests. Environmental injustices still aren’t getting filmed very much, which means that the general public isn’t aware of what’s happening. Scientists project that this summer will bring “one of the most active” hurricane seasons ever to the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and extreme heat to many parts of the world. For unfortunate reasons, then, newsrooms might soon have ample opportunities to do better.


thenation--2020-06-17--Charli XCX’s Experiment In Radical Transparency

In mid-March , around the time lockdown measures started forcing people to become intimately familiar with their own four walls , a subset of Internet-facing artists searched for the silver lining .
“ Just a reminder that when Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague , he wrote King Lear , ” tweeted the singer-songwriter Roseanne Cash .
Her sentiment was parroted , and ridiculed , ad nauseam across the platform .
1 It is , of course , cavalier to propose that this quarantine can be treated like a writers ’ retreat rather than a black hole of financial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that such a stance stems from an obsession with productivity at a time when the flaws of capitalism are more visible than ever ) .
But for some , creativity is a coping strategy—at least , that ’ s what the British musician ( and self-described workaholic ) Charli XCX told the 1,000 fans who attended an April 6 Zoom call , on which she announced that her time in quarantine would be spent making her fourth album , how i ’ m feeling now , from scratch and sharing the entire process @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Charlotte Aitchison , specializes in a strain of pop that is propulsive and sticky , layered with notes of bubblegum sweetness and cyborg freakiness .
Her music is often called “ futuristic , ” but the question of whether Charli ’ s is the pop of the future—or whether her peers in the genre are just comparatively retrograde—has been raised ( by critic Shaad D ’ Souza , among others , in a recent essay for Paper ) .
The cybertronic glitching and brain-frying distortion that characterize Charli ’ s music seem symptomatic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of our times.3 Such chaotic aesthetics make Charli a thoroughly of-the-moment pop star .
And in a more tactical sense , the mechanisms through which she ’ s historically created and disseminated her music also position her to respond to present circumstances .
Charli , whose moniker is derived from an adolescent chatroom screen name , spent years releasing songs and building a community on Myspace before ever signing a record contract .
Since then , she ’ s aligned herself with PC Music , a wayward electronic music collective founded by A.G. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , who once described its ethos via its name , which “ alludes to how the computer is a really crucial tool…for making amateur music that is also potentially very slick ” —that is , music that blurs the boundaries between bedrooms and professional recording studios.4 Now , more than a decade into her career , Charli can hardly be considered an amateur , but her scrappiness and collaborative spirit have persisted .
And with no option but to record at home , the willingness she shares with her collaborators to forgo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to this project .
Combined with her Internet savvy and very online fanbase , these attributes give Charli a unique ability to push the bounds of creative possibility within the context of a music industry that has largely been shuttered by the ongoing crisis .
The result is the first—and perhaps the defining—quarantine album .
5 A deadline for the record ’ s release was set : May 15 .
Not without considerable stress and at least one teary social media confessional , Charli delivered on a remarkably tight schedule .
The finished @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the point .
how i ’ m feeling now was a process-oriented experiment—a creative exercise in transparency and fan engagement , the success of which hinged more on the sense of community it fostered than on the quality of the songs it generated ( which , not for nothing , are very good ) .
6 Charli has gravitated toward process over product before .
She ’ s sometimes treated her songs like living texts , pulling bits from previous releases and reshaping them into something familiar but new , as she does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s “ c2.0 , ” a reprise of last year ’ s “ Click.
” With this project , she further razed the distinction between something in its final form and something worth putting out into the world .
She handwrote lyrics on Instagram Live .
She tweeted out working track lists .
On April 10 , she posted early snippets of four songs and asked her followers to weigh in on which she should release next ( “ claws , ” a bouncy song with lyrics fit to print on candy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ audio files , so that fans could produce their own remixes , and a downloadable green-screen edit of the “ claws ” video , so they could superimpose their own visuals.7 Even before this experimental undertaking , Charli made the kind of music that galvanized people .
With their ecstatic references to fast cars , party drugs , and all-night raves , her songs have found a natural home at after-hours gatherings—particularly in queer circles , which comprise a significant and highly visible portion of her fan base .
( “ Imagine logging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reads the most-liked comment on a video of her performing at last year ’ s Pitchfork Music Festival . )
The party girl persona that thrives in sweaty , darkened rooms has its limits , though , especially now that Charli ’ s beloved clubs are temporarily shuttered .
8 The parties on how i ’ m feeling now are wistfully imagined .
“ In real life , could the club even handle us ?
” she asks on opener “ pink diamond , ” a churning , industrial , would-be going-out track @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” in the spirit of its name , spins the mundane tasks of housebound existence ( “ wake up late , eat some cereal / try my best to be physical ” ) into a high-octane cry for release ( “ I want anthems , late nights , my friends , New York !
” ) .
But those familiar with Charli ’ s work will notice that , overall , her bacchanalian attitude has ebbed .
This leaves room for uncharacteristically sentimental material , from “ forever ” and its loved-up musings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” on which she calls herself “ wife ” — “ without the holy matrimony.
” 9 Charli made her quarantine album viable by reprioritizing and celebrating the forms of connection that are within reach—whether online , connecting with collaborators and fan communities , or in her home .
Currently , the latter is a Los Angeles residence she shares with her longtime , on-and-off boyfriend ; as a result , how i ’ m feeling now contains some of Charli ’ s most shacked-up work to date .
Don ’ t expect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a homebody , but for now , this thematic pivot brings a welcome bit of tenderness .
Partying can be a means of escape from the tribulations of the world—but if you ’ re lucky , so can love.10

In mid-March, around the time lockdown measures started forcing people to become intimately familiar with their own four walls, a subset of Internet-facing artists searched for the silver lining. “Just a reminder that when Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote King Lear,” tweeted the singer-songwriter Roseanne Cash. Her sentiment was parroted, and ridiculed, ad nauseam across the platform. 1
It is, of course, cavalier to propose that this quarantine can be treated like a writers’ retreat rather than a black hole of financial and emotional despair (not to mention that such a stance stems from an obsession with productivity at a time when the flaws of capitalism are more visible than ever). But for some, creativity is a coping strategy—at least, that’s what the British musician (and self-described workaholic) Charli XCX told the 1,000 fans who attended an April 6 Zoom call, on which she announced that her time in quarantine would be spent making her fourth album, how i’m feeling now, from scratch and sharing the entire process in real time.2
Charli XCX, born Charlotte Aitchison, specializes in a strain of pop that is propulsive and sticky, layered with notes of bubblegum sweetness and cyborg freakiness. Her music is often called “futuristic,” but the question of whether Charli’s is the pop of the future—or whether her peers in the genre are just comparatively retrograde—has been raised (by critic Shaad D’Souza, among others, in a recent essay for Paper). The cybertronic glitching and brain-frying distortion that characterize Charli’s music seem symptomatic of profound alienation and hyper-stimulation—two defining characteristics of our times.3
Such chaotic aesthetics make Charli a thoroughly of-the-moment pop star. And in a more tactical sense, the mechanisms through which she’s historically created and disseminated her music also position her to respond to present circumstances. Charli, whose moniker is derived from an adolescent chatroom screen name, spent years releasing songs and building a community on Myspace before ever signing a record contract. Since then, she’s aligned herself with PC Music, a wayward electronic music collective founded by A.G. Cook (Charli’s frequent collaborator), who once described its ethos via its name, which “alludes to how the computer is a really crucial tool…for making amateur music that is also potentially very slick”—that is, music that blurs the boundaries between bedrooms and professional recording studios.4 Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Now, more than a decade into her career, Charli can hardly be considered an amateur, but her scrappiness and collaborative spirit have persisted. And with no option but to record at home, the willingness she shares with her collaborators to forgo a “professional” setup proved crucial to this project. Combined with her Internet savvy and very online fanbase, these attributes give Charli a unique ability to push the bounds of creative possibility within the context of a music industry that has largely been shuttered by the ongoing crisis. The result is the first—and perhaps the defining—quarantine album. 5
A deadline for the record’s release was set: May 15. Not without considerable stress and at least one teary social media confessional, Charli delivered on a remarkably tight schedule. The finished product, though, is almost beside the point. how i’m feeling now was a process-oriented experiment—a creative exercise in transparency and fan engagement, the success of which hinged more on the sense of community it fostered than on the quality of the songs it generated (which, not for nothing, are very good). 6
Charli has gravitated toward process over product before. She’s sometimes treated her songs like living texts, pulling bits from previous releases and reshaping them into something familiar but new, as she does on how I’m feeling now’s “c2.0,” a reprise of last year’s “Click.” With this project, she further razed the distinction between something in its final form and something worth putting out into the world. She handwrote lyrics on Instagram Live. She tweeted out working track lists. On April 10, she posted early snippets of four songs and asked her followers to weigh in on which she should release next (“claws,” a bouncy song with lyrics fit to print on candy hearts, won). She shared audio files, so that fans could produce their own remixes, and a downloadable green-screen edit of the “claws” video, so they could superimpose their own visuals.7
Even before this experimental undertaking, Charli made the kind of music that galvanized people. With their ecstatic references to fast cars, party drugs, and all-night raves, her songs have found a natural home at after-hours gatherings—particularly in queer circles, which comprise a significant and highly visible portion of her fan base. (“Imagine logging into Grindr at this concert,” reads the most-liked comment on a video of her performing at last year’s Pitchfork Music Festival.) The party girl persona that thrives in sweaty, darkened rooms has its limits, though, especially now that Charli’s beloved clubs are temporarily shuttered. 8
The parties on how i’m feeling now are wistfully imagined. “In real life, could the club even handle us?” she asks on opener “pink diamond,” a churning, industrial, would-be going-out track. Another song, “anthems,” in the spirit of its name, spins the mundane tasks of housebound existence (“wake up late, eat some cereal / try my best to be physical”) into a high-octane cry for release (“I want anthems, late nights, my friends, New York!”). But those familiar with Charli’s work will notice that, overall, her bacchanalian attitude has ebbed. This leaves room for uncharacteristically sentimental material, from “forever” and its loved-up musings on eternity to “7 years,” on which she calls herself “wife”—“without the holy matrimony.” 9
Charli made her quarantine album viable by reprioritizing and celebrating the forms of connection that are within reach—whether online, connecting with collaborators and fan communities, or in her home. Currently, the latter is a Los Angeles residence she shares with her longtime, on-and-off boyfriend; as a result, how i’m feeling now contains some of Charli’s most shacked-up work to date. Don’t expect the party queen to emerge from lockdown a homebody, but for now, this thematic pivot brings a welcome bit of tenderness. Partying can be a means of escape from the tribulations of the world—but if you’re lucky, so can love.10