thenation--2020-05-27--Funk for the Future

Funk for the Future

When Nick Hakim sings , it ’ s as if he ’ s talking to you and no one else .
There ’ s a certain comfort to his music , and across two EPs and his first full-length album , his songs impart the feeling of an intimate , closed-door talk with a dear friend .
In his earlier work , like the 2014 EP Where Will We Go , his sound was more traditional—veering toward straightforward R & B cuts about heartbreak , romance , and sensuality .
Three years later , on the LP Green Twins , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Roller Skates , ” “ Miss Chew , ” and “ Slowly ” borrowed the sounds of ’ 70s soul , down to the analog cassette hiss .
In the best way , Green Twins played like a warped vinyl record you ’ d find in a cardboard box in your parents ’ house or evoked that forgotten classic you snagged from a stoop sale because the cover looked cool .
It spoke to Hakim ’ s creative charm : While he conjured a bygone era of experimental soul music , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too heavily on it .
His art salutes legends like Shuggie Otis and Milton Nascimento , but it ’ s still very much Nick Hakim .
For his new album , Will This Make Me Good , the D.C.-born Hakim treks deeper into his retro aesthetic , compiling an LP of dusty tape loops , meditative chants , and lo-fi beats that , when paired with his rich falsetto , feels equally nostalgic and trippy , a kaleidoscopic mix of funk-infused soul informed by late ’ 90s Maxwell and Voodoo-era D ’ Angelo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ despondent drifter in search of peace away from the chaos and nonsense he encounters in daily life .
This is still love music , though not in the lustful sense .
Throughout the album , he urges us to adore the planet , be one with our communities , and be mindful of the mental health of friends and strangers alike .
“ Qadir , ” a sweeping seven-minute epic dedicated to a late friend with that name , is the best summation of the album ’ s thematic focus , even if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US politics on other parts of the LP .
It was the first song Hakim wrote for Will This Make Me Good , which set a pensive tone for the album .
In announcing the LP , the singer said “ Qadir ” was his attempt to convey how his friend must have felt in isolated moments .
And while the lyrics depict a man spiraling downward , the backing beat—a composition of hard drums , electric piano , strings , and flutes—ascends with each verse .
Then there are the vocals : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of experimental vocalists and producers ( including We Are King ’ s Amber Strother , rising rapper-singer Pink Siifu , and beat-makers Nelson Bandela and KeiyaA ) , sing in unison like a gospel choir .
It ’ s a stellar celebration of Qadir ’ s life and the album ’ s most captivating song .
Exploring a similar theme , the track “ Vincent Tyler ” pays homage to another person who died , a Washington man who was shot 13 years ago in the city ’ s Northwest quadrant and left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Here , Hakim sings , “ I walked over slowly and prayed that he was sleeping / I tapped his foot three times , but nobody answered.
” On “ Qadir ” and “ Vincent Tyler , ” Hakim presents the two men as tragic figures who died alone .
It ’ s also an indictment of the groups and institutions that abandoned Qadir and Tyler and let them perish .
In Hakim ’ s view , we ’ ve all detached from one another , and on the album opener , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laments how that lack of community solidarity has led to us trifling with the planet .
As he sees it , climate change is just Mother Earth raging against all the pollution we ’ ve dumped into the atmosphere .
“ Cities burning , tides that rise , ” he sings , “ pretty soon we ’ ll be underwater.
” On paper , those lyrics read almost apocalyptic , yet on the song , beneath a delicate blend of strings and bass drums , his proclamation doesn ’ t seem so alarming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a rebirth of sorts .
“ Pretty soon we ’ ll be drifting in the ocean , and we ’ ll grow scales so we can breathe.
” When he isn ’ t talking about the earth , he ’ s chastising American leaders who sell fear and drugs to its citizens as a way to control them .
The title track ’ s beat sounds machinelike , as churning and pounding as a factory operating at full tilt .
“ Don ’ t give in to the master plan !
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , light that shit up in flames.
” The song and album as a whole mark a sharp creative turn for Hakim .
Will This Make Me Good might sound messy and downright confusing .
But it works , not just because it ’ s different but also because he manages to capture the joy , pain , and uncertainty of life itself .
Musically , it doesn ’ t have the same ease of Green Twins and Where Will We Go , yet there ’ s something beguiling about the way Hakim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of past work , even if deeper listening reveals his most riotous album to date .
That he created something this frank is its own form of protest .
Take the song “ Bouncing ” : Here he describes a scene of “ lonely strangers marching through the snowstorm trying to get to work on time.
” Though this summarizes any major city , “ Bouncing ” seems to address New York , where Hakim now lives .
Bad weather tends to make the city feel desolate , and when you add the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make rent , the city can feel like a pressure cooker .
Throughout Will This Make Me Good , it ’ s clear that he is tired of , well , everything and he ’ s fighting to feel human again .
“ I just wan na get back and support my family , ” he shouts on “ Drum Thing.
” “ Fuck all the other shit .
That ’ s all that matters to me .
”

This article appears in the August 24/31, 2020 issue.
When Nick Hakim sings, it’s as if he’s talking to you and no one else. There’s a certain comfort to his music, and across two EPs and his first full-length album, his songs impart the feeling of an intimate, closed-door talk with a dear friend. In his earlier work, like the 2014 EP Where Will We Go, his sound was more traditional—veering toward straightforward R&B cuts about heartbreak, romance, and sensuality. Three years later, on the LP Green Twins, his music took on a psychedelic aura. “Roller Skates,” “Miss Chew,” and “Slowly” borrowed the sounds of ’70s soul, down to the analog cassette hiss. In the best way, Green Twins played like a warped vinyl record you’d find in a cardboard box in your parents’ house or evoked that forgotten classic you snagged from a stoop sale because the cover looked cool. It spoke to Hakim’s creative charm: While he conjured a bygone era of experimental soul music, he took from the past without leaning too heavily on it. His art salutes legends like Shuggie Otis and Milton Nascimento, but it’s still very much Nick Hakim.
For his new album, Will This Make Me Good, the D.C.-born Hakim treks deeper into his retro aesthetic, compiling an LP of dusty tape loops, meditative chants, and lo-fi beats that, when paired with his rich falsetto, feels equally nostalgic and trippy, a kaleidoscopic mix of funk-infused soul informed by late ’90s Maxwell and Voodoo-era D’Angelo. This album presents Hakim as the despondent drifter in search of peace away from the chaos and nonsense he encounters in daily life. This is still love music, though not in the lustful sense. Throughout the album, he urges us to adore the planet, be one with our communities, and be mindful of the mental health of friends and strangers alike.
“Qadir,” a sweeping seven-minute epic dedicated to a late friend with that name, is the best summation of the album’s thematic focus, even if he’s exploring personal pain and US politics on other parts of the LP. It was the first song Hakim wrote for Will This Make Me Good, which set a pensive tone for the album. In announcing the LP, the singer said “Qadir” was his attempt to convey how his friend must have felt in isolated moments. And while the lyrics depict a man spiraling downward, the backing beat—a composition of hard drums, electric piano, strings, and flutes—ascends with each verse. Then there are the vocals: Hakim and a who’s who of experimental vocalists and producers (including We Are King’s Amber Strother, rising rapper-singer Pink Siifu, and beat-makers Nelson Bandela and KeiyaA), sing in unison like a gospel choir. It’s a stellar celebration of Qadir’s life and the album’s most captivating song. Exploring a similar theme, the track “Vincent Tyler” pays homage to another person who died, a Washington man who was shot 13 years ago in the city’s Northwest quadrant and left on the snowy ground in an alley. Here, Hakim sings, “I walked over slowly and prayed that he was sleeping / I tapped his foot three times, but nobody answered.” On “Qadir” and “Vincent Tyler,” Hakim presents the two men as tragic figures who died alone. It’s also an indictment of the groups and institutions that abandoned Qadir and Tyler and let them perish.
In Hakim’s view, we’ve all detached from one another, and on the album opener, “All These Changes,” he laments how that lack of community solidarity has led to us trifling with the planet. As he sees it, climate change is just Mother Earth raging against all the pollution we’ve dumped into the atmosphere. “Cities burning, tides that rise,” he sings, “pretty soon we’ll be underwater.” On paper, those lyrics read almost apocalyptic, yet on the song, beneath a delicate blend of strings and bass drums, his proclamation doesn’t seem so alarming. Instead, he likens our demise to a rebirth of sorts. “Pretty soon we’ll be drifting in the ocean, and we’ll grow scales so we can breathe.”
When he isn’t talking about the earth, he’s chastising American leaders who sell fear and drugs to its citizens as a way to control them. The title track’s beat sounds machinelike, as churning and pounding as a factory operating at full tilt. “Don’t give in to the master plan!” he exclaims. “Burn it down, light that shit up in flames.” The song and album as a whole mark a sharp creative turn for Hakim. Will This Make Me Good might sound messy and downright confusing. But it works, not just because it’s different but also because he manages to capture the joy, pain, and uncertainty of life itself.
Musically, it doesn’t have the same ease of Green Twins and Where Will We Go, yet there’s something beguiling about the way Hakim unpacks weighty subjects while maintaining the warmth of past work, even if deeper listening reveals his most riotous album to date. That he created something this frank is its own form of protest. Take the song “Bouncing”: Here he describes a scene of “lonely strangers marching through the snowstorm trying to get to work on time.” Though this summarizes any major city, “Bouncing” seems to address New York, where Hakim now lives. Bad weather tends to make the city feel desolate, and when you add the stress of subway commuting and working to make rent, the city can feel like a pressure cooker. Throughout Will This Make Me Good, it’s clear that he is tired of, well, everything and he’s fighting to feel human again. “I just wanna get back and support my family,” he shouts on “Drum Thing.” “Fuck all the other shit. That’s all that matters to me.”


thenation--2020-05-27--Israel’s Mizrahi Activists Are Fighting the Racist Nation-State Law

In July 2018 , human rights attorney Hassan Jabareen , a Palestinian citizen of Israel , called sociologist Yehouda Shenhav .
They had been trying since the mid-1990s to find a route for joint resistance to state oppression between Palestinian citizens and Israelis who are Mizrahi Jews ( Jews of Middle Eastern heritage , as opposed to Ashkenazi Jews , who are of European origin ) .
Jabareen had never felt the time was right—until that year , when the Israeli parliament passed the Nation-State Law .
The Nation-State Law declares that Israel is the historic homeland and nation-state of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Basic Law , Israel ’ s equivalent to a constitutional law ( Israel doesn ’ t have a constitution ) .
Jabareen ’ s call to Shenhav ( a Mizrahi Israeli ) planted a powerful seed in Shenhav ’ s mind .
Might Mizrahis want to challenge the law before the Israeli High Court , alongside appeals submitted by Palestinians , including Jabareen ’ s organization , Adalah ?
Shenhav consulted co-activist Orly Noy , who called the idea “ brilliant ” and spearheaded the effort .
The appeal , submitted on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by nearly 60 prominent Mizrahi activists and intellectuals .
Its opening paragraph acknowledges that the law primarily targets Palestinian citizens , but Noy says the petition is far more radical than a solidarity statement .
“ We ’ re petitioning because [ the Nation-State Law ] also discriminates against us.
” The law damages Mizrahis ’ connection to their roots , culture , language , and “ our ability to understand ourselves as a natural part of the geopolitical environment , which Israel very systematically tried to destroy.
” The petition aims to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mizrahi identity and rebuild it , whole , complete , and proud .
Noy references a 1996 speech by Ehud Barak , then Israel ’ s foreign minister , calling Israel a “ villa in the middle of the jungle.
” When this is your self-perception , then your attitude toward the native people of that “ jungle ” —Mizrahis and Palestinians—becomes hostile , says Noy .
Palestinians aren ’ t permitted in the villa at all .
Mizrahis are permitted “ as conditional guests , ” provided they can prove their loyalty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patriotic , to get rid of any trace of Arab-hood in their identity , their language , their cultures , their traditions , their history.
” Egyptian singers such as Umm Kulthum can be appreciated privately , at home , but not publicly .
Noy , whose family emigrated from Iran when she was 9 , remembers her father smoking water pipes in Jerusalem ’ s Old City with Palestinians— “ the closest thing he could experience to home ” —yet supporting right-wing Israeli parties .
“ This schizophrenia became the defining experience @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel ’ s Nation-State Law Proved a More Just State Is Possible 25 Years After the Oslo Accords , Independence Remains More Elusive than Ever for Palestinians The petition addresses two articles of the law : the one stripping Arabic of its status as an official state language , and the one encouraging Jewish settlement as a national value .
Regarding Jewish settlement , Noy points to the historical experience of Mizrahis whenever demography has been engineered in Israel .
In the early years of the state , Mizrahi immigrants were dumped in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and border neighborhoods and were the butt of discrimination by “ admissions committees ” in white , Ashkenazi communities .
Palestinians weren ’ t interested in these Jewish-only communities ( “ built on Palestinians ’ own stolen land , ” adds Noy ) , while Mizrahi applicants were deemed “ unsuitable.
” Reuven Abergel , a 76-year old activist who identifies as Arab , black , and Mizrahi , is a signatory to the petition .
Abergel ’ s family was brought to Israel from Morocco in 1950 , after being held for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Zionist leadership .
They were housed in Musrara , on the seam line bordering Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem .
The call to prayer on the Jordanian side made Abergel feel like he was back home in Morocco .
Abergel , then 9 , and his friends snuck across the border .
“ This is how we got arrested ; we weren ’ t supposed to be there , ” he says , adding , “ just like they arrest Palestinian kids today.
” Abergel was , he says , “ a kid who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t skipping school—there were no schools in Musrara .
There was no running water or electricity , either , or even enough food .
Abergel and his friends rotated in and out of juvenile detention centers .
During those years , Yemeni Jewish babies were kidnapped from their parents and adopted by Ashkenazi families , and radiation treatment was forced on Mizrahi children to treat/prevent scalp ringworm , causing cancer and other illnesses .
Jews from India protested their mistreatment in the early 1950s—the first to identify white supremacy in Israel , says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policeman shot and wounded a Moroccan Israeli in the poor Wadi Salib neighborhood of Haifa , riots erupted—and spread to other heavily Mizrahi cities , like Tiberias and Beer-Sheva .
After Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 , Abergel found himself with Palestinian neighbors .
“ We all had the same culture , we ate similar food , we spoke Arabic , ” he says .
Mizrahis and Palestinians opened joint market stalls , coffee shops , construction companies .
Abergel believes the political elite opposed these new alliances .
“ They started @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against them.
” The increased oppression pushed Palestinians into militant resistance , says Abergel , damaging the new relationships .
“ Once again , we started calling them the enemy.
” Students had to walk through Musrara to access Hebrew University , whose Mount Scopus campus had previously been behind enemy lines .
Some wanted hashish , widely available in Musrara , “ and this is how these students , the anarchists , became our friends , while their parents were our oppressors , ” says Abergel .
In 1970 , students told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movements , including the US Black Panthers .
“ That ’ s when we decided to get organized.
” Early in 1971 , police arrested the Mizrahi youth for distributing leaflets , and then arrested those protesting the arrests .
Abergel and other activists negotiated their comrades ’ release .
“ This is the day the [ Israeli ] Black Panthers movement started.
” Their demands were simple , he notes : to end police violence and stop mass Mizrahi incarceration , and get access to decent living conditions , education , health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ establishment responded with a heightened crackdown .
At the time , Abergel and his friends lacked political education .
“ We came from dealing hashish in streets , from spending time in different correctional institutions…but we understood that we touched a raw nerve.
” The Black Panthers grew more serious .
Abergel cowrote a Passover Haggadah through a Black Panther lens .
In their version , the Exodus was from ( rather than to ) Israel , and Prime Minister Golda Meir was Pharaoh .
They published a newspaper called The Words of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mizrahis had often been disconnected from one another in different regions of Israel , but “ suddenly everybody knew what was happening in other places.
” Panthers redistributed resources by swiping milk bottles from wealthy homes and breaking into warehouses run by Mapai ( the dominant , Ashkenazi political party ) to steal chicken , meat , and oil to distribute in Mizrahi neighborhoods .
The Panthers organized a large protest in May 1971 resulting in police brutality and fierce street fighting , injuring police and Panthers alike .
“ You could see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Abergel says .
“ We didn ’ t plan or want violence .
We wanted social justice .
The real violence is the institutional one.
” The Israeli Panthers developed relationships worldwide , including with diaspora Palestinians and US Black Panthers .
“ We started to learn and understand the greater connections of the oppressive powers.
” Today , Abergel is “ busy day and night , with my identity , my culture.
” Resisting the Nation-State Law is just one aspect of his struggle—but a crucial one .
“ [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We erased the culture of your mother and father , the culture of the Rambam [ acronym for the 12th-century Torah scholar Maimonides , who was exiled from Spain and settled in Fez and , later , Cairo ] .
’ ” With all that ’ s been taken from him , Abergel says , “ my language is the last thing left to fight for.
” The Mizrahi petition is founded on expert opinions submitted by 11 scholars , including Yonatan Mendel from Ben-Gurion University , whose research focuses on Arabic in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ language in Palestine in 1922 , during the British Mandate .
The Jewish Agency for Palestine accepted the 1947 UN partition plan , which included a commitment to protect minority rights , including language .
When the state of Israel was established the following year , Arabic ’ s official status was maintained , albeit chiefly on a symbolic level .
“ Israel was the only place back then where you would find all the spectrum of Arabic languages and dialects , ” says Shenhav , of Israel ’ s early years .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ influx of Mizrahi Jews brought dialects from Morocco , Iraq , Yemen , and Egypt .
Yet , two generations later , Arabic is considered legitimate in military contexts only .
In 2015 , Mendel and Shenhav measured Arabic proficiency among Jewish Israelis .
Less than 10 percent understood Arabic , and only 0.4 percent could read an Arabic novel .
“ There ’ s a gradual erasure of the Arabic language among Jews in Israel over the years , which is very , very depressing , ” says Shenhav .
Most Ashkenazis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of their origin , but Israel doesn ’ t border Europe , Mendel notes .
“ We border Palestinians , Syria , Egypt , and Lebanon .
Arabic should have been preserved in the Jewish community.
” Shenhav recalls a conversation with the late Palestinian author Salman Natour , who was perplexed that Israeli Jews never learned the lingua franca .
“ From your attitude toward Arabic , it seems that you ’ re temporary residents here , ” Natour told Shenhav .
“ There ’ s a connection between attitude to language @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Mendel says .
The Nation-State Law reflects a hardening attitude toward Palestinians .
Language is both a symptom of the segregation between Arabs and Jews and a facilitator of that segregation .
Mendel calls it “ dangerous ” to demote Arabic , which he calls Palestinian citizens ’ last collective right .
“ Language is culture , language is identity.
” Lowering the status of Arabic is akin to lowering the status of Palestinian citizens themselves .
According to Mendel , “ Israel wishes to degrade , to humiliate , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like playing with fuel , it ’ s like playing with matches.
” Preserving Arabic ’ s status would reflect Israel ’ s democratic values , Mendel insists , and its Jewish values as well .
Until the 12th century , Arabic was the most common language for most Jews , and continued to be a language of creative , philosophical , and religious writing for Eastern Jews .
Indeed , Hebrew and Arabic share the same roots .
Demoting Arabic cuts the tree from which Hebrew also grows .
Maintaining Arabic as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ narrow channel for Arab-Jewish thinking , looking at Arabic and Hebrew as two languages on the same shelf , ” says Mendel .
It helped to shine a small light on the existence of culture that is both Jewish and Arab , and the idea of nonseparation .
It is precisely this bilingual , binational vision that scares the increasingly supremacist , nationalist Israeli political leadership .
Jewish Israelis “ want to have hierarchy : This is a Jewish country first , this is the Hebrew language first , ” Mendel says .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Jew is a non-Arab.
” The very existence of Arab Jews threatens that false binary , a binary that the Nation-State Law strengthens .
“ People already forgot that Arabic used to be part and parcel of the Jewish identity , and especially the Jewish Arab identity , because it has been forced on them to forget this— because in order to become Israeli , you had to forget that you are also an Arab.
” Shenhav ’ s parents came to Israel from Baghdad .
As a small child , Shenhav @ @ @ @ @ @ @ went to kindergarten and I defied all this , because I wanted to be an Israeli .
A ‘ proper ’ Israeli , not associated with the language of the enemy.
” Shenhav was furious when his uncle outed him by shouting “ Allah , Allah , Allah !
” in public .
As an adult , Shenhav changed his Iraqi last name ( Sharabani ) to Shenhav , “ ivory ” in Hebrew .
“ There ’ s nothing more white than Shenhav , ” he says now , ruefully .
After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the few Israeli fatalities of the 1991 Gulf War—Shenhav embraced his mother tongue in homage .
He studied Arabic obsessively for two years , regaining his identity .
He now refers to himself as Shenhav-Sharabani and tries to be “ a real Arab Jew.
” Shenhav ’ s effort to fully live this identity is “ full of paradoxes , ” including his very mastery of Arabic in order to reclaim his roots .
His family laughed at his new Arabic , saying , “ This is not our Arabic , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Still , Shenhav publicly calls out “ Allah , Allah , Allah !
” daily , transforming his shame into pride .
As a university student , Orly Noy interviewed Palestinians for a talk show at a binational radio station .
At the same time , she enrolled in a course about Mizrahi politics .
Noy realized that the two tracks—the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Mizrahi politics—overlapped .
“ At a very early stage , I came to understand that the roots are the same , ” says Noy .
Noy hopes the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggle , though , can not center on improving Mizrahis ’ position within the existing , distorted structure .
“ We need to work with Palestinian allies to break down the walls of that [ structure ] and to reestablish something completely equal.
” Noy references the 1959 Wadi Salib uprising .
The demands of the impoverished Mizrahi youth included ending martial law over Palestinian citizens , which was in place from the end of the 1948 war until 1966 .
“ They understood intuitively something very deep about this mutual interest of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Noy says .
For her , “ reopening the channels to come up with a mutual political vocabulary that takes into regard both communities…that would be for me the most inspirational political project.
” From the time of Israel ’ s founding , Palestinians realized there was no possibility they could integrate into Israeli society ; nor did they want to .
Therefore , they retained a strong national and cultural identity .
Mizrahis , however , “ want so much to believe that they ’ re part of the system , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they have played by the Zionist system ’ s rules .
“ They got rid of their names , they got rid of their language , they got rid of the history and of the culture , and they remained—with nothing.
” Gaps between Ashkenazis and Mizrahis in education and income persist , and in some cases are growing .
Studies show lower-quality schools in Mizrahi towns and deep inequalities in budgets historically given to Mizrahi culture .
Noy believes this inequality is no accident .
“ It ’ s an immediate consequence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Western country.
” Yet Noy doesn ’ t want the Mizrahi discourse reduced to class .
Though exclusionary state policies created endemic poverty , there are wealthy Mizrahis , and certain Israeli institutions ( namely the military ) have enabled a degree of integration .
Noy is fighting for her ability to fulfill her Mizrahi identity , and to understand herself not as part of a colonial entity but as an indigenous inhabitant of the region .
She demands the right to play a role in shaping her society , envisioning a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ equal rights for both national entities .
Most of all , Noy wants Israel to acknowledge—and embrace—its existence in the heart of the Middle East .
The petition isn ’ t the first Mizrahi legal battle .
Vicki Shiran , a matriarch of the Mizrahi feminist movement , petitioned the High Court in 1981 against the Israel Broadcasting Authority , on grounds that it ignored Mizrahi contributions to Israeli nation-building .
There have since been numerous other cases addressing discrimination against Mizrahis .
But Neta Amar-Shiff , a human rights attorney with Yemeni @ @ @ @ @ @ @ calls it “ groundbreaking , ” because it stems from an identity that is simultaneously Arab and Jewish .
The solidarity with Palestinians within the petition is rooted in geographically based Mizrahi identity , moving beyond Western notions of individual civil liberties .
The petitioners are objecting to the law ’ s undemocratic suggestion of Jewish cultural supremacy .
“ Arabs and Jews are two sides of a single identity , upon which this country needs to flourish , ” says Amar-Shiff .
Israel ’ s Basic Laws require substantial participation of those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happen with the Nation-State Law , says Amar-Shiff .
Historical documents and analyses that should have been considered during the legislative process were submitted as expert opinions , with Amar-Shiff making the legal claim that Mizrahis ’ history of discrimination should have been considered before passing this Basic Law .
On a personal level , Amar-Shiff considers the initiative an opportunity to make her own statement .
“ It ’ s an honor to file this petition , ” she says .
The Mizrahi petition is one of 15 High Court petitions challenging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ human rights organizations , the High Commission for Arab Affairs , a left-Zionist party , and prominent Palestinian figures .
After a series of extension requests from the state , all of which Israel ’ s High Court granted , the hearing had been scheduled for May 3 by 11 of the High Court ’ s 15 judges , but was once again postponed to an as yet undetermined date .
Abergel doesn ’ t believe much will change , whatever the court ’ s ruling .
“ Racism and oppression are still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he says , calling the Nation-State Law “ one spot in this ongoing dark story.
” Still , the struggle is important for him .
“ My kids , my grandchildren , my great-grandchildren , my neighbors—everybody will know and remember that I never gave up .
”

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In July 2018, human rights attorney Hassan Jabareen, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, called sociologist Yehouda Shenhav. They had been trying since the mid-1990s to find a route for joint resistance to state oppression between Palestinian citizens and Israelis who are Mizrahi Jews (Jews of Middle Eastern heritage, as opposed to Ashkenazi Jews, who are of European origin). Jabareen had never felt the time was right—until that year, when the Israeli parliament passed the Nation-State Law.
The Nation-State Law declares that Israel is the historic homeland and nation-state of the Jewish people. It’s a Basic Law, Israel’s equivalent to a constitutional law (Israel doesn’t have a constitution). Jabareen’s call to Shenhav (a Mizrahi Israeli) planted a powerful seed in Shenhav’s mind. Might Mizrahis want to challenge the law before the Israeli High Court, alongside appeals submitted by Palestinians, including Jabareen’s organization, Adalah? Shenhav consulted co-activist Orly Noy, who called the idea “brilliant” and spearheaded the effort.
The appeal, submitted on January 1, 2019, was signed by nearly 60 prominent Mizrahi activists and intellectuals. Its opening paragraph acknowledges that the law primarily targets Palestinian citizens, but Noy says the petition is far more radical than a solidarity statement. “We’re petitioning because [the Nation-State Law] also discriminates against us.” The law damages Mizrahis’ connection to their roots, culture, language, and “our ability to understand ourselves as a natural part of the geopolitical environment, which Israel very systematically tried to destroy.” The petition aims to pick up the pieces of the fractured Mizrahi identity and rebuild it, whole, complete, and proud.
Noy references a 1996 speech by Ehud Barak, then Israel’s foreign minister, calling Israel a “villa in the middle of the jungle.” When this is your self-perception, then your attitude toward the native people of that “jungle”—Mizrahis and Palestinians—becomes hostile, says Noy. Palestinians aren’t permitted in the villa at all. Mizrahis are permitted “as conditional guests,” provided they can prove their loyalty. “They need to be more patriotic, to get rid of any trace of Arab-hood in their identity, their language, their cultures, their traditions, their history.” Egyptian singers such as Umm Kulthum can be appreciated privately, at home, but not publicly. Noy, whose family emigrated from Iran when she was 9, remembers her father smoking water pipes in Jerusalem’s Old City with Palestinians—“the closest thing he could experience to home”—yet supporting right-wing Israeli parties. “This schizophrenia became the defining experience of a whole community.” More on Israel’s Nation-State Law Protests Against Israel’s Nation-State Law Proved a More Just State Is Possible Dov Khenin 25 Years After the Oslo Accords, Independence Remains More Elusive than Ever for Palestinians Rashid Khalidi
The petition addresses two articles of the law: the one stripping Arabic of its status as an official state language, and the one encouraging Jewish settlement as a national value. Regarding Jewish settlement, Noy points to the historical experience of Mizrahis whenever demography has been engineered in Israel. In the early years of the state, Mizrahi immigrants were dumped in marginalized (“development”) towns and border neighborhoods and were the butt of discrimination by “admissions committees” in white, Ashkenazi communities. Palestinians weren’t interested in these Jewish-only communities (“built on Palestinians’ own stolen land,” adds Noy), while Mizrahi applicants were deemed “unsuitable.” 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 Israel’s Repression of Palestinians Paved the Way for Its New Antidemocratic Court Israel’s Repression of Palestinians Paved the Way for Its New Antidemocratic Court Juan Cole 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 Israel’s Repression of Palestinians Paved the Way for Its New Antidemocratic Court Israel’s Repression of Palestinians Paved the Way for Its New Antidemocratic Court Juan Cole
Reuven Abergel, a 76-year old activist who identifies as Arab, black, and Mizrahi, is a signatory to the petition. Abergel’s family was brought to Israel from Morocco in 1950, after being held for two years in a detention camp by the Zionist leadership. They were housed in Musrara, on the seam line bordering Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem. The call to prayer on the Jordanian side made Abergel feel like he was back home in Morocco. Abergel, then 9, and his friends snuck across the border. “This is how we got arrested; we weren’t supposed to be there,” he says, adding, “just like they arrest Palestinian kids today.”
Abergel was, he says, “a kid who roamed the streets.” He wasn’t skipping school—there were no schools in Musrara. There was no running water or electricity, either, or even enough food. Abergel and his friends rotated in and out of juvenile detention centers. During those years, Yemeni Jewish babies were kidnapped from their parents and adopted by Ashkenazi families, and radiation treatment was forced on Mizrahi children to treat/prevent scalp ringworm, causing cancer and other illnesses. Jews from India protested their mistreatment in the early 1950s—the first to identify white supremacy in Israel, says Abergel. In 1959, after a policeman shot and wounded a Moroccan Israeli in the poor Wadi Salib neighborhood of Haifa, riots erupted—and spread to other heavily Mizrahi cities, like Tiberias and Beer-Sheva. Current Issue View our current issue
After Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, Abergel found himself with Palestinian neighbors. “We all had the same culture, we ate similar food, we spoke Arabic,” he says. Mizrahis and Palestinians opened joint market stalls, coffee shops, construction companies. Abergel believes the political elite opposed these new alliances. “They started separating us from them—and escalating the oppression against them.” The increased oppression pushed Palestinians into militant resistance, says Abergel, damaging the new relationships. “Once again, we started calling them the enemy.”
Students had to walk through Musrara to access Hebrew University, whose Mount Scopus campus had previously been behind enemy lines. Some wanted hashish, widely available in Musrara, “and this is how these students, the anarchists, became our friends, while their parents were our oppressors,” says Abergel. In 1970, students told him and his friends about global social movements, including the US Black Panthers. “That’s when we decided to get organized.”
Early in 1971, police arrested the Mizrahi youth for distributing leaflets, and then arrested those protesting the arrests. Abergel and other activists negotiated their comrades’ release. “This is the day the [Israeli] Black Panthers movement started.” Their demands were simple, he notes: to end police violence and stop mass Mizrahi incarceration, and get access to decent living conditions, education, health care, and employment. The Ashkenazi establishment responded with a heightened crackdown.
At the time, Abergel and his friends lacked political education. “We came from dealing hashish in streets, from spending time in different correctional institutions…but we understood that we touched a raw nerve.” The Black Panthers grew more serious. Abergel cowrote a Passover Haggadah through a Black Panther lens. In their version, the Exodus was from (rather than to) Israel, and Prime Minister Golda Meir was Pharaoh. They published a newspaper called The Words of the Black Panthers. Until then, Mizrahis had often been disconnected from one another in different regions of Israel, but “suddenly everybody knew what was happening in other places.” Panthers redistributed resources by swiping milk bottles from wealthy homes and breaking into warehouses run by Mapai (the dominant, Ashkenazi political party) to steal chicken, meat, and oil to distribute in Mizrahi neighborhoods.
The Panthers organized a large protest in May 1971 resulting in police brutality and fierce street fighting, injuring police and Panthers alike. “You could see stones and Molotovs flying in the air,” Abergel says. “We didn’t plan or want violence. We wanted social justice. The real violence is the institutional one.” The Israeli Panthers developed relationships worldwide, including with diaspora Palestinians and US Black Panthers. “We started to learn and understand the greater connections of the oppressive powers.”
Today, Abergel is “busy day and night, with my identity, my culture.” Resisting the Nation-State Law is just one aspect of his struggle—but a crucial one. “[The law] tells me, ‘We erased the culture of your mother and father, the culture of the Rambam [acronym for the 12th-century Torah scholar Maimonides, who was exiled from Spain and settled in Fez and, later, Cairo].’” With all that’s been taken from him, Abergel says, “my language is the last thing left to fight for.”
The Mizrahi petition is founded on expert opinions submitted by 11 scholars, including Yonatan Mendel from Ben-Gurion University, whose research focuses on Arabic in Jewish society. Arabic became an official language in Palestine in 1922, during the British Mandate. The Jewish Agency for Palestine accepted the 1947 UN partition plan, which included a commitment to protect minority rights, including language. When the state of Israel was established the following year, Arabic’s official status was maintained, albeit chiefly on a symbolic level.
“Israel was the only place back then where you would find all the spectrum of Arabic languages and dialects,” says Shenhav, of Israel’s early years. In addition to Palestinian Arabic, the influx of Mizrahi Jews brought dialects from Morocco, Iraq, Yemen, and Egypt. Yet, two generations later, Arabic is considered legitimate in military contexts only. In 2015, Mendel and Shenhav measured Arabic proficiency among Jewish Israelis. Less than 10 percent understood Arabic, and only 0.4 percent could read an Arabic novel. “There’s a gradual erasure of the Arabic language among Jews in Israel over the years, which is very, very depressing,” says Shenhav.
Most Ashkenazis don’t speak the European language of their origin, but Israel doesn’t border Europe, Mendel notes. “We border Palestinians, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. Arabic should have been preserved in the Jewish community.”
Shenhav recalls a conversation with the late Palestinian author Salman Natour, who was perplexed that Israeli Jews never learned the lingua franca. “From your attitude toward Arabic, it seems that you’re temporary residents here,” Natour told Shenhav.
“There’s a connection between attitude to language and attitude to speakers of that language,” Mendel says. The Nation-State Law reflects a hardening attitude toward Palestinians. Language is both a symptom of the segregation between Arabs and Jews and a facilitator of that segregation.
Mendel calls it “dangerous” to demote Arabic, which he calls Palestinian citizens’ last collective right. “Language is culture, language is identity.” Lowering the status of Arabic is akin to lowering the status of Palestinian citizens themselves. According to Mendel, “Israel wishes to degrade, to humiliate, the language and its speakers…and it’s like playing with fuel, it’s like playing with matches.”
Preserving Arabic’s status would reflect Israel’s democratic values, Mendel insists, and its Jewish values as well. Until the 12th century, Arabic was the most common language for most Jews, and continued to be a language of creative, philosophical, and religious writing for Eastern Jews. Indeed, Hebrew and Arabic share the same roots. Demoting Arabic cuts the tree from which Hebrew also grows.
Maintaining Arabic as an official language kept open a “narrow channel for Arab-Jewish thinking, looking at Arabic and Hebrew as two languages on the same shelf,” says Mendel. It helped to shine a small light on the existence of culture that is both Jewish and Arab, and the idea of nonseparation. It is precisely this bilingual, binational vision that scares the increasingly supremacist, nationalist Israeli political leadership. Jewish Israelis “want to have hierarchy: This is a Jewish country first, this is the Hebrew language first,” Mendel says. “An Arab is a non-Jew, a Jew is a non-Arab.” The very existence of Arab Jews threatens that false binary, a binary that the Nation-State Law strengthens. “People already forgot that Arabic used to be part and parcel of the Jewish identity, and especially the Jewish Arab identity, because it has been forced on them to forget this— because in order to become Israeli, you had to forget that you are also an Arab.”
Shenhav’s parents came to Israel from Baghdad. As a small child, Shenhav spoke only Arabic. “Then I went to kindergarten and I defied all this, because I wanted to be an Israeli. A ‘proper’ Israeli, not associated with the language of the enemy.” Shenhav was furious when his uncle outed him by shouting “Allah, Allah, Allah!” in public. As an adult, Shenhav changed his Iraqi last name (Sharabani) to Shenhav, “ivory” in Hebrew. “There’s nothing more white than Shenhav,” he says now, ruefully.
After Shenhav’s father passed away—ironically, one of the few Israeli fatalities of the 1991 Gulf War—Shenhav embraced his mother tongue in homage. He studied Arabic obsessively for two years, regaining his identity. He now refers to himself as Shenhav-Sharabani and tries to be “a real Arab Jew.” Shenhav’s effort to fully live this identity is “full of paradoxes,” including his very mastery of Arabic in order to reclaim his roots. His family laughed at his new Arabic, saying, “This is not our Arabic, it’s not the Iraqi dialect.” Still, Shenhav publicly calls out “Allah, Allah, Allah!” daily, transforming his shame into pride.
As a university student, Orly Noy interviewed Palestinians for a talk show at a binational radio station. At the same time, she enrolled in a course about Mizrahi politics. Noy realized that the two tracks—the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Mizrahi politics—overlapped. “At a very early stage, I came to understand that the roots are the same,” says Noy.
Noy hopes the Mizrahi petition will stimulate co-resistance. The struggle, though, cannot center on improving Mizrahis’ position within the existing, distorted structure. “We need to work with Palestinian allies to break down the walls of that [structure] and to reestablish something completely equal.”
Noy references the 1959 Wadi Salib uprising. The demands of the impoverished Mizrahi youth included ending martial law over Palestinian citizens, which was in place from the end of the 1948 war until 1966. “They understood intuitively something very deep about this mutual interest of Palestinians and Mizrahis in Israel,” Noy says. For her, “reopening the channels to come up with a mutual political vocabulary that takes into regard both communities…that would be for me the most inspirational political project.”
From the time of Israel’s founding, Palestinians realized there was no possibility they could integrate into Israeli society; nor did they want to. Therefore, they retained a strong national and cultural identity. Mizrahis, however, “want so much to believe that they’re part of the system,” says Noy. For 70 years, they have played by the Zionist system’s rules. “They got rid of their names, they got rid of their language, they got rid of the history and of the culture, and they remained—with nothing.”
Gaps between Ashkenazis and Mizrahis in education and income persist, and in some cases are growing. Studies show lower-quality schools in Mizrahi towns and deep inequalities in budgets historically given to Mizrahi culture. Noy believes this inequality is no accident. “It’s an immediate consequence of this white self-image of Israel as a Western country.” Yet Noy doesn’t want the Mizrahi discourse reduced to class. Though exclusionary state policies created endemic poverty, there are wealthy Mizrahis, and certain Israeli institutions (namely the military) have enabled a degree of integration. Noy is fighting for her ability to fulfill her Mizrahi identity, and to understand herself not as part of a colonial entity but as an indigenous inhabitant of the region. She demands the right to play a role in shaping her society, envisioning a state for all its citizens, with equal rights for both national entities. Most of all, Noy wants Israel to acknowledge—and embrace—its existence in the heart of the Middle East.
The petition isn’t the first Mizrahi legal battle. Vicki Shiran, a matriarch of the Mizrahi feminist movement, petitioned the High Court in 1981 against the Israel Broadcasting Authority, on grounds that it ignored Mizrahi contributions to Israeli nation-building. There have since been numerous other cases addressing discrimination against Mizrahis.
But Neta Amar-Shiff, a human rights attorney with Yemeni roots who wrote the current petition, calls it “groundbreaking,” because it stems from an identity that is simultaneously Arab and Jewish. The solidarity with Palestinians within the petition is rooted in geographically based Mizrahi identity, moving beyond Western notions of individual civil liberties. The petitioners are objecting to the law’s undemocratic suggestion of Jewish cultural supremacy. “Arabs and Jews are two sides of a single identity, upon which this country needs to flourish,” says Amar-Shiff.
Israel’s Basic Laws require substantial participation of those most affected. This didn’t happen with the Nation-State Law, says Amar-Shiff. Historical documents and analyses that should have been considered during the legislative process were submitted as expert opinions, with Amar-Shiff making the legal claim that Mizrahis’ history of discrimination should have been considered before passing this Basic Law. On a personal level, Amar-Shiff considers the initiative an opportunity to make her own statement. “It’s an honor to file this petition,” she says.
The Mizrahi petition is one of 15 High Court petitions challenging the Nation-State Law. Other petitioners include human rights organizations, the High Commission for Arab Affairs, a left-Zionist party, and prominent Palestinian figures. After a series of extension requests from the state, all of which Israel’s High Court granted, the hearing had been scheduled for May 3 by 11 of the High Court’s 15 judges, but was once again postponed to an as yet undetermined date.
Abergel doesn’t believe much will change, whatever the court’s ruling. “Racism and oppression are still embedded in Zionist institutions and ideology,” he says, calling the Nation-State Law “one spot in this ongoing dark story.” Still, the struggle is important for him. “My kids, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, my neighbors—everybody will know and remember that I never gave up.”


thenation--2020-05-27--Universities to Grad Students: Drop Dead

On May 1 , graduate students at more than 75 public and private universities across the United States and Canada mobilized under the name “ X Campus ” to protest conditions for student workers .
United under hashtags such as # HighEdWorksBecauseWeDo and # MayDay2020 , students at Yale University , the University of Chicago , the University of California–Santa Barbara and many other schools used their platforms to draw attention to unfair working conditions as a result of growing austerity in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic .
While the choice to mobilize on May Day—a day historically used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rights across the world—was strategic , many of these students have been protesting working conditions for years .
Graduate student workers , who often run labs , assist professors , and even teach their own courses on campus , often receive very low pay , are not guaranteed housing , and do not have benefits such as paid sick leave .
As universities enact austerity measures such as increased furloughs and pay decreases as a result of the pandemic , many student workers are nervous that their already tenuous living conditions will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ story was produced for Student Nation , a section devoted to highlighting campus activism and student movements from students in their own words .
For more Student Nation , check out our archive .
Are you a student with a campus activism story ?
Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler at samantha @ thenation.com .
The Student Nation program is made possible through generous funding from The Puffin Foundation .
Students across the board used social media as a means to alert the public and the press of the conditions they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Bloomington , student workers used the hashtag # wheresthemoneyIU on Twitter and Facebook to both communicate with the university itself and alert the public to how the school is treating its labor force in this moment of crisis .
“ As student workers , we are required to pay about $ 1,300 every year in mandatory fees to the university to cover things like technology and building maintenance , ” Valentina Luketa , a graduate student at Bloomington , told The Nation .
“ Right now while we ’ re working from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ university resources , we are still expected to pay that fee .
Our paychecks are already so low , and the portion we have to pay back to the school is about 10 percent of our wages .
We are demanding that these fees be removed.
” According to the university ’ s website , room and board plus indirect cost and other fees is more than $ 21,000 , far more than most student worker ’ s stipends .
As an international student , Luketa is responsible for paying an additional fee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She ’ s worried that if she loses her job due to the college ’ s austerity plans , she might suddenly lose her student visa and have to leave the country .
“ We ’ ve noticed a pattern where schools are quick to furlough or get rid of labor on campus to make sure their revenue is not affected , ” Luketa said .
“ But a lot of these schools have huge endowments , about as big as the GDP of my home country of Croatia in some cases .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ use that money to protect workers and protect the educational experiences of students.
” Many student workers have been meeting to discuss their shared grievances for months .
Uday Jain , a sixth-year PhD candidate at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago , said that he has been attending Zoom calls with graduate students at several other universities since March to discuss possible actions , structural challenges , and possibilities for new coalition-building .
Weeks of meetings and Slack discussions allowed students to gather knowledge about shared working conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for their collective rights .
“ We are anticipating that the cuts to higher education in the wake of the coronavirus will be worse than the cuts after the financial crisis of 2008 , ” Jain said .
“ We are fighting collectively for private and public institutions to take this moment to invest deeply in their workers and the communities that they anchor .
We are resisting a higher education model that guarantees the reproduction of a tiny class of elite at the expense of the large majority of precarious professional and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggling to make ends meet.
” The University of Chicago is the eighth-largest employer in the city and the largest employer on the city ’ s South Side , a region that is home to majority low-income and black and brown people .
In many ways , the fight to ensure living wages for university workers affects not only its students but also the thousands of people employed at schools across the country .
“ Our institutions operate large medical centers , do cutting-edge research in science and technology , develop real estate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ numbers of people in our communities , ” said Jain .
“ The institution has an endowment of $ 8.5 billion , supplemented by an additional $ 5.4 billion in recent fundraising efforts .
This superbly wealthy institution has the money and the responsibility to support the South Side and the city of Chicago in this moment of grave crisis.
” Student workers at the University of Chicago are demanding a relief grant for graduate students , more transparency about university funding , protection for local union workers , and a 50 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ graduate students .
The school has refused to bargain with student demands , according to Jain .
Student workers in Canada have also been organizing for better working conditions amid the pandemic .
At least 13 open letters and petitions are circulating in Canadian universities to ask for a better response to graduate students ’ needs across the country .
At the University of Quebec in Montreal , student workers are protesting the exclusion of foreign students from the Canadian Emergency Student Benefit and asking the school to remove several months of tuition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Montreal , we know that our salaries only account for 1 percent of the university budget , but we also know that without our work almost no research would get done and the cost of teaching would be much higher , ” Luc Chicoine , a PhD student at the University of Quebec , told The Nation .
“ So not only is our essential work underpaid , we don ’ t get much recognition for it either .
With the pandemic and the explosion of public spending and deficits , we are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cycle of austerity that will lead to more budget cuts.
” Canadian higher education is structured very differently fro , universities in America .
Canada has very few private colleges , and the cost of tuition is usually much lower .
Despite this , Canadian students like Chicoine found they had many similar grievances to student workers in the United States .
“ What we all have in common is the burden of the double status as student and worker , ” Chicoine said .
“ Student workers are so often patronized because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this gave less value to the work we do .
This shared understanding of who we are and what we fight for makes it very easy for all of us to connect , and the current crisis makes this even more obvious.
” One of the most common demands from student workers is a universal one-year extension of studies and research .
Students at Northwestern University , Stanford University , New York University , and Princeton University have all asked for this .
At Yale University , which has a $ 30 billion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ funded one-year extension for all graduate students .
As a result , the university is allowing departments to individually dole out one-year extensions on a case by case basis , a measure that has many students concerned .
“ The policy pits lower-year cohorts versus upper-year cohorts , current graduate student employees versus future ones , and faculty against graduate student employees , ” Alexander Kolokotronis , a fourth-year graduate student employee at Yale University and a member of its campus ’ s Concerned and Organized Graduate Students , told The Nation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ women , people of color , first-generation graduate student employees , and those with families .
This movement is not just about universal extension for graduate student employees .
This is about a stance against austerity.
” As student workers organize for better working conditions on campus , many have attempted to reason directly with their respective universities ’ administrations .
At the University of California in Santa Barbara , where graduate students have been on strike since the fall quarter of 2019 to protest low wages and insufficient housing , the administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests have taken place .
Instead , the dean of the Graduate Division wrote a letter encouraging upset students to seek support at the campus ’ s counseling services .
“ We have been met with a ruthless cold shoulder , ” said Matt Harris , a sixth-year PhD candidate .
“ The administration at UC Santa Barbara has not responded to us or acknowledged that there was even a strike.
” Though they did not communicate with student activists , the administration was closely following what they did .
According to recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Guard provided military surveillance equipment to the University of California at Santa Cruz ’ s Police Department in order to surveil striking students at UC Santa Cruz , UC Santa Barbara , and other schools in the UC system during the Cost of Living Adjustment ( COLA ) strike in February .
As a result of the protest , many of the students involved were fired from their teaching positions .
According to Harris , student workers at UC Santa Barbara have been fighting for a COLA so that they can afford housing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
While these conditions were already precarious in 2019 , Covid-19 and the move to online teaching via Zoom has only furthered these economic and housing crises .
“ To make ends meet , many graduate students picked up side hustles like tutoring or working at the public library or a coffee shop , but now those extra gigs have diminished or disappeared , ” Harris said .
“ We simply can not afford to continue to live here and work here and pretend that everything is good.
” Students at Rutgers University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in getting face-time with their school ’ s administrators , though student organizers say the meetings have not been successful .
“ I ’ ve met with several different levels of university administration since the start of our shutdown , ” said Alexandra Adams , a fifth-year PhD candidate in the department of biological sciences at Rutgers University–Newark .
“ It ’ s been unsurprising ; they are shamelessly unwilling to be helpful in any capacity .
The deans have been sympathetic but are seemingly unwilling to push back against those above them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ address the problem.
” At Rutgers , students are demanding an extension of contracts for all graduate workers , a freeze of funding caps for graduate students , the creation of an internal emergency fund , and the reinstatement of part-time lecturers who were recently subjected to a hiring freeze by the university .
While the school has argued that measures were instituted in order to save funds , Adams argues that certain decisions , such as the hiring freeze for part-time lecturers , do not make sense financially , as these workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fewest benefits from the school .
“ Rutgers has a pretty transparently massive budget of liquid reserves that they don ’ t feel is meant to be used for student and worker relief , and instead they have taken to austerity measures such as the mass firing of contractually insecure workers , ” Adams said .
“ This saves them a few million dollars , rather than the hundreds of millions they would save if they did as little as furlough the pay of a handful of their top administrators making $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This makes it seem pretty clear that this is not really about the money for them , ” she said .
“ It ’ s common knowledge that funding for students and schools comes directly from our central administration , but the university is going so far as to try and declare financial hardship .
They disgust me.
” At New York University , student workers delivered demands to the administration in March and have yet to receive a meaningful response from the school .
To protest unfair working conditions , several teaching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sick out ” on the last week of classes wherein student workers all used their sick days at the same time to force three days of paid time off and effectively bring an early end to the semester for NYU students .
“ I ’ m taking part in the sick out because I am convinced it is the only way to make the NYU administration listen to our demands , ” Sarah Sklaw , a 5th year PhD candidate in history , told The Nation .
“ I ’ ve seen that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on low-income students and students of color .
They don ’ t have the technology they need or space to study at home , and they have more responsibilities to care for siblings and parents .
NYU pays lip service to diversity without actually providing resources to support them .
So I ’ m sicking out for myself and also for my students.
” Protesting student workers at New York University also compiled a document titled “ NYU Can Afford It.
” In it , they break down the school ’ s finances @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than enough to provide aid to employees .
The document reveals that in addition to the school ’ s $ 4.3 billion endowment , the university also holds over $ 2 million in cash and several of its top administrators such as the university ’ s president and chief investment officer make over $ 1 million a year in salary , which has not been reduced in any efforts to preserve the school ’ s budget .
Faculty at New York University are also protesting poor housing conditions provided by the school .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraught with difficulties on a number of fronts : Because of social distancing measures , students can not gather on campus in person to discuss demands or next steps .
As the virus continues to spread , many students are still unsure if they will be able to return to campus in the fall , which also upsets their ability to negotiate with their respective universities in the upcoming semester .
“ We will continue to fight next semester no matter what , especially because conditions are worsening by the minute , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now , student workers at IU do not have paid sick leave , so if a student falls ill with the coronavirus , they do not have any income , and it ’ s up to another overworked and overwhelmed graduate student to pick up their classes for no extra pay .
This is not a sustainable way to work or live .
We plan on using the summer to congregate in bigger numbers , share resources , and enter the fall semester ready to pressure our universities to make real changes that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pressuring their universities to provide them with measures that protect them financially .
But more than anything , these students are demanding respect .
“ Academic workers worldwide perform the labor that makes our institutions run , ” said Jain .
“ We teach the classes and we do the research .
We deserve basic labor protections and a seat at the table when decisions are made that affect our lives .
This is especially the case during this pandemic when the most vulnerable are the most harmed by top-down measures of higher-education @ @ @

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On May 1, graduate students at more than 75 public and private universities across the United States and Canada mobilized under the name “X Campus” to protest conditions for student workers.
United under hashtags such as #HighEdWorksBecauseWeDo and #MayDay2020, students at Yale University, the University of Chicago, the University of California–Santa Barbara and many other schools used their platforms to draw attention to unfair working conditions as a result of growing austerity in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.
While the choice to mobilize on May Day—a day historically used to celebrate and advocate worker’s rights across the world—was strategic, many of these students have been protesting working conditions for years.
Graduate student workers, who often run labs, assist professors, and even teach their own courses on campus, often receive very low pay, are not guaranteed housing, and do not have benefits such as paid sick leave. As universities enact austerity measures such as increased furloughs and pay decreases as a result of the pandemic, many student workers are nervous that their already tenuous living conditions will be put under even more stress. This story was produced for Student Nation, a section devoted to highlighting campus activism and student movements from students in their own words. For more Student Nation, check out our archive. Are you a student with a campus activism story? Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler at [email protected]. The Student Nation program is made possible through generous funding from The Puffin Foundation.
Students across the board used social media as a means to alert the public and the press of the conditions they are protesting. At the University of Indiana, Bloomington, student workers used the hashtag #wheresthemoneyIU on Twitter and Facebook to both communicate with the university itself and alert the public to how the school is treating its labor force in this moment of crisis. “As student workers, we are required to pay about $1,300 every year in mandatory fees to the university to cover things like technology and building maintenance,” Valentina Luketa, a graduate student at Bloomington, told The Nation. “Right now while we’re working from home and can’t even use university resources, we are still expected to pay that fee. Our paychecks are already so low, and the portion we have to pay back to the school is about 10 percent of our wages. We are demanding that these fees be removed.” 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
According to the university’s website, room and board plus indirect cost and other fees is more than $21,000, far more than most student worker’s stipends. As an international student, Luketa is responsible for paying an additional fee of $700 to the university. She’s worried that if she loses her job due to the college’s austerity plans, she might suddenly lose her student visa and have to leave the country.
“We’ve noticed a pattern where schools are quick to furlough or get rid of labor on campus to make sure their revenue is not affected,” Luketa said. “But a lot of these schools have huge endowments, about as big as the GDP of my home country of Croatia in some cases. We’re just asking them to use that money to protect workers and protect the educational experiences of students.” Current Issue View our current issue
Many student workers have been meeting to discuss their shared grievances for months. Uday Jain, a sixth-year PhD candidate at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, said that he has been attending Zoom calls with graduate students at several other universities since March to discuss possible actions, structural challenges, and possibilities for new coalition-building. Weeks of meetings and Slack discussions allowed students to gather knowledge about shared working conditions and challenges in order to properly advocate for their collective rights.
“We are anticipating that the cuts to higher education in the wake of the coronavirus will be worse than the cuts after the financial crisis of 2008,” Jain said. “We are fighting collectively for private and public institutions to take this moment to invest deeply in their workers and the communities that they anchor. We are resisting a higher education model that guarantees the reproduction of a tiny class of elite at the expense of the large majority of precarious professional and working-class teachers and researchers who are constantly struggling to make ends meet.”
The University of Chicago is the eighth-largest employer in the city and the largest employer on the city’s South Side, a region that is home to majority low-income and black and brown people. In many ways, the fight to ensure living wages for university workers affects not only its students but also the thousands of people employed at schools across the country.
“Our institutions operate large medical centers, do cutting-edge research in science and technology, develop real estate, train lawmakers, and employ large numbers of people in our communities,” said Jain. “The institution has an endowment of $8.5 billion, supplemented by an additional $5.4 billion in recent fundraising efforts. This superbly wealthy institution has the money and the responsibility to support the South Side and the city of Chicago in this moment of grave crisis.”
Student workers at the University of Chicago are demanding a relief grant for graduate students, more transparency about university funding, protection for local union workers, and a 50 percent reduction in tuition for both undergraduate and graduate students. The school has refused to bargain with student demands, according to Jain.
Student workers in Canada have also been organizing for better working conditions amid the pandemic. At least 13 open letters and petitions are circulating in Canadian universities to ask for a better response to graduate students’ needs across the country. At the University of Quebec in Montreal, student workers are protesting the exclusion of foreign students from the Canadian Emergency Student Benefit and asking the school to remove several months of tuition fees.
“At the University of Montreal, we know that our salaries only account for 1 percent of the university budget, but we also know that without our work almost no research would get done and the cost of teaching would be much higher,” Luc Chicoine, a PhD student at the University of Quebec, told The Nation. “So not only is our essential work underpaid, we don’t get much recognition for it either. With the pandemic and the explosion of public spending and deficits, we are afraid that we will enter a new cycle of austerity that will lead to more budget cuts.”
Canadian higher education is structured very differently fro, universities in America. Canada has very few private colleges, and the cost of tuition is usually much lower. Despite this, Canadian students like Chicoine found they had many similar grievances to student workers in the United States. “What we all have in common is the burden of the double status as student and worker,” Chicoine said. “Student workers are so often patronized because of the student status, as if this gave less value to the work we do. This shared understanding of who we are and what we fight for makes it very easy for all of us to connect, and the current crisis makes this even more obvious.”
One of the most common demands from student workers is a universal one-year extension of studies and research. Students at Northwestern University, Stanford University, New York University, and Princeton University have all asked for this. At Yale University, which has a $30 billion endowment, students are demanding a fully funded one-year extension for all graduate students. As a result, the university is allowing departments to individually dole out one-year extensions on a case by case basis, a measure that has many students concerned.
“The policy pits lower-year cohorts versus upper-year cohorts, current graduate student employees versus future ones, and faculty against graduate student employees,” Alexander Kolokotronis, a fourth-year graduate student employee at Yale University and a member of its campus’s Concerned and Organized Graduate Students, told The Nation. “It will disproportionately be slanted against women, people of color, first-generation graduate student employees, and those with families. This movement is not just about universal extension for graduate student employees. This is about a stance against austerity.”
As student workers organize for better working conditions on campus, many have attempted to reason directly with their respective universities’ administrations. At the University of California in Santa Barbara, where graduate students have been on strike since the winter quarter of 2020 to protest low wages and insufficient housing, the administration has yet to formally acknowledge that any protests have taken place. Instead, the dean of the Graduate Division wrote a letter encouraging upset students to seek support at the campus’s counseling services.
“We have been met with a ruthless cold shoulder,” said Matt Harris, a sixth-year PhD candidate. “The administration at UC Santa Barbara has not responded to us or acknowledged that there was even a strike.”
Though they did not communicate with student activists, the administration was closely following what they did. According to recent reporting from Vice, the California National Guard provided military surveillance equipment to the University of California at Santa Cruz’s Police Department in order to surveil striking students at UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, and other schools in the UC system during the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) strike in February. As a result of the protest, many of the students involved were fired from their teaching positions.
According to Harris, student workers at UC Santa Barbara have been fighting for a COLA so that they can afford housing, food, and health care security. While these conditions were already precarious in 2019, Covid-19 and the move to online teaching via Zoom has only furthered these economic and housing crises. “To make ends meet, many graduate students picked up side hustles like tutoring or working at the public library or a coffee shop, but now those extra gigs have diminished or disappeared,” Harris said. “We simply cannot afford to continue to live here and work here and pretend that everything is good.”
Students at Rutgers University in New Jersey have been more successful in getting face-time with their school’s administrators, though student organizers say the meetings have not been successful. “I’ve met with several different levels of university administration since the start of our shutdown,” said Alexandra Adams, a fifth-year PhD candidate in the department of biological sciences at Rutgers University–Newark. “It’s been unsurprising; they are shamelessly unwilling to be helpful in any capacity. The deans have been sympathetic but are seemingly unwilling to push back against those above them that actually have the money to effectively address the problem.”
At Rutgers, students are demanding an extension of contracts for all graduate workers, a freeze of funding caps for graduate students, the creation of an internal emergency fund, and the reinstatement of part-time lecturers who were recently subjected to a hiring freeze by the university. While the school has argued that measures were instituted in order to save funds, Adams argues that certain decisions, such as the hiring freeze for part-time lecturers, do not make sense financially, as these workers are generally the lowest paid and receive the fewest benefits from the school.
“Rutgers has a pretty transparently massive budget of liquid reserves that they don’t feel is meant to be used for student and worker relief, and instead they have taken to austerity measures such as the mass firing of contractually insecure workers,” Adams said. “This saves them a few million dollars, rather than the hundreds of millions they would save if they did as little as furlough the pay of a handful of their top administrators making $200k a year or more.
“This makes it seem pretty clear that this is not really about the money for them,” she said. “It’s common knowledge that funding for students and schools comes directly from our central administration, but the university is going so far as to try and declare financial hardship. They disgust me.”
At New York University, student workers delivered demands to the administration in March and have yet to receive a meaningful response from the school. To protest unfair working conditions, several teaching assistants at the school organized a “sick out” on the last week of classes wherein student workers all used their sick days at the same time to force three days of paid time off and effectively bring an early end to the semester for NYU students.
“I’m taking part in the sick out because I am convinced it is the only way to make the NYU administration listen to our demands,” Sarah Sklaw, a 5th year PhD candidate in history, told The Nation. “I’ve seen that the burden of Covid is falling disproportionately on low-income students and students of color. They don’t have the technology they need or space to study at home, and they have more responsibilities to care for siblings and parents. NYU pays lip service to diversity without actually providing resources to support them. So I’m sicking out for myself and also for my students.”
Protesting student workers at New York University also compiled a document titled “NYU Can Afford It.” In it, they break down the school’s finances and argue that the university has more than enough to provide aid to employees. The document reveals that in addition to the school’s $4.3 billion endowment, the university also holds over $2 million in cash and several of its top administrators such as the university’s president and chief investment officer make over $1 million a year in salary, which has not been reduced in any efforts to preserve the school’s budget. Faculty at New York University are also protesting poor housing conditions provided by the school.
Campus organizing amid the coronavirus has been fraught with difficulties on a number of fronts: Because of social distancing measures, students cannot gather on campus in person to discuss demands or next steps. As the virus continues to spread, many students are still unsure if they will be able to return to campus in the fall, which also upsets their ability to negotiate with their respective universities in the upcoming semester.
“We will continue to fight next semester no matter what, especially because conditions are worsening by the minute,” said Luketa. “For example right now, student workers at IU do not have paid sick leave, so if a student falls ill with the coronavirus, they do not have any income, and it’s up to another overworked and overwhelmed graduate student to pick up their classes for no extra pay. This is not a sustainable way to work or live. We plan on using the summer to congregate in bigger numbers, share resources, and enter the fall semester ready to pressure our universities to make real changes that will protect us.”
Student workers are pressuring their universities to provide them with measures that protect them financially. But more than anything, these students are demanding respect.
“Academic workers worldwide perform the labor that makes our institutions run,” said Jain. “We teach the classes and we do the research. We deserve basic labor protections and a seat at the table when decisions are made that affect our lives. This is especially the case during this pandemic when the most vulnerable are the most harmed by top-down measures of higher-education austerity.”


thenation--2020-05-27--Surviving the Virus, Reading ‘Late Victorian Holocausts’

Jackson Heights , Queens—At first , Covid-19 descended like a slow-motion March snowstorm—the preparing , the suiting up , the slowing of traffic , and quieting of city sounds .
Once my husband , Ajay , got sick , time stretched out .
I suppose it was from staying inside a two-room apartment with an incapacitated adult , punctuated by sirens and the constant buzz of my phone .
Something Is Happening Here is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind , a living memorial to radical journalist Andrew Kopkind , who from 1982–94 was the magazine ’ s chief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ calls , and then press calls , I cooked and cleaned—it was Ajay who had stocked our home with necessities in the week prior .
The few things we needed , neighborhood friends provided , dropping them outside the door we didn ’ t open .
Later , another friend dropped off more supplies , and I waved out our apartment window at her , behind her own car window .
How surreal a comfort it was to see my friend ’ s face , as we talked on our phones , looking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through panes of glass .
All of us who are suddenly nonessential and staying at home experience this crisis through many windows .
There are the actual windows , and the glossy screens of our phones and tablets , our televisions and computers .
As we watch , the national frames expand to include what some of us have been talking about for years—the deadly consequences of prioritizing profit over people , over planet .
I imagined tens of thousands of people peering into their screens for Angela Davis and Astra Taylor , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who like many other workers tell the truth as corporate executives spin and spin .
Go to Work or Stay Home ?
An Essential Worker Is Forced to Make a Wager With Fate .
If the Coronavirus Is a Wildfire , Colonialism Has Fueled the Blaze More in this series When I looked away from the screens , my perspective would shrink to the sound of Ajay ’ s rapid breathing .
He alternated long stretches of unconsciousness with short bouts of wakefulness , when he chugged grapefruit juice and spouted lucid insights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ajay is much better now .
The sirens in Jackson Heights are fewer , but the mass graves are more numerous .
The sense of Covid-19 as a threatening snowstorm reminded me of my childhood obsession with the Little House books , especially The Long Winter .
I read those racist , reactionary novels constantly—something about them caught my little brown Jewish New Yorker imagination , a fantasy world of self-reliance so different from anything I knew .
I can still recall the way Ma forced a rhythm inside their cabin as , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into one another , days becoming weeks becoming a season .
The town ’ s men argued about rationing the town ’ s store of grain against the one store owner ’ s profiteering , about saving the seed for spring , or distributing it to stave off starvation .
The story of climate in The Long Winter is told , in a different context , in Mike Davis ’ s Late Victorian Holocausts .
So much about Covid-19 feels like what he catalogs : the punitive , racist assumptions that workers are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ human , physical , and social needs .
Looking at the painted squares on parking lots that our society “ offers ” unhoused people in lieu of homes , or hearing how Amazon workers keep themselves away from immunocompromised loved ones , I think of Davis piecing together the British authorities ’ separation of families dying of famine from one another by gender in work houses .
Outside my apartment , essential workers braved the mass transit and the virus and the small paychecks .
Inside our two rooms , Ajay would sleep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Zoom calls proliferated as more workers took action—their courage a bright hope against the sirens and the fog .
Sometimes I spaced out and considered my father ’ s mother , R.S .
Nagarathnamma , who died in December at 95 .
She was born in 1924 , some three decades after the focus of Davis ’ s book , and 21 years before Winston Churchill ’ s choices would again starve millions of Indians .
In Late Victorian Holocausts , I found her hometown ’ s mortality rate in charts—tiny @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is that our family survived .
I know the odds of survival then depended on advantages not dissimilar to having a full fridge today while most of the country struggles with an unexpected $ 400 expense ( like stocking a freezer in case of a pandemic ) .
I think of the charts some future historian will make—the data visualizations , the contact-tracing like a family tree , until the branch dead-ends with someone who might , say , have a heart too weak to survive a bout of the virus .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to cherish it .
She loved precision , and despaired that I would never learn it .
( I haven ’ t . )
She and the rest of my Indian family taught me most of what I know about how to care for others—emotionally , physically , logistically .
I have leaned on those skills , both to care for my husband and to function as our world falls apart .
But employing those skills carries a price .
For 20 years , from age 17 to 35 , when my father @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to spend time with my family there .
It was always hard to leave , but my grandmother prized stoicism , something else I have never learned , and I liked to please her .
Once back on the plane , buckled into a seat , surrounded by indifferent strangers and with nowhere to go for 18 hours , I would face the tiny window and freely sob about distance and the uncertainty of who would still be there when I returned .
I think of those feelings now from our Queens apartment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for long hours , by a big window that looks out over an empty sidewalk .
When will our city return ?
Who will still be here ?
For now , it is enough to take courage from the workers on my screens , and Ajay ’ s returning health , and the contagious solidarity spreading , onscreen and off .
Something Is Happening Here is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind , offering scenes from a pandemic—a series of dispatches from Kopkind ’ s far-flung network of participants , advisers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nation contributor and Kopkind program director JoAnn Wypijewski , it will appear weekly on thenation.com and kopkind.org .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
J ackson H eights, Q ueens—At first, Covid-19 descended like a slow-motion March snowstorm—the preparing, the suiting up, the slowing of traffic, and quieting of city sounds. Once my husband, Ajay, got sick, time stretched out. I suppose it was from staying inside a two-room apartment with an incapacitated adult, punctuated by sirens and the constant buzz of my phone. Something Is Happening Here is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind, a living memorial to radical journalist Andrew Kopkind, who from 1982–94 was the magazine’s chief political writer and analyst.
Between Zoom calls, and then press calls, I cooked and cleaned—it was Ajay who had stocked our home with necessities in the week prior. The few things we needed, neighborhood friends provided, dropping them outside the door we didn’t open. Later, another friend dropped off more supplies, and I waved out our apartment window at her, behind her own car window. How surreal a comfort it was to see my friend’s face, as we talked on our phones, looking at each other across a street, through panes of glass.
All of us who are suddenly nonessential and staying at home experience this crisis through many windows. There are the actual windows, and the glossy screens of our phones and tablets, our televisions and computers. As we watch, the national frames expand to include what some of us have been talking about for years—the deadly consequences of prioritizing profit over people, over planet.
I imagined tens of thousands of people peering into their screens for Angela Davis and Astra Taylor, for Amazon strikers like Mario Crippen, who like many other workers tell the truth as corporate executives spin and spin. Scenes From a Pandemic Untethered, or The Year of Living Virtually Patricia J. Williams The Art of the Meal Mary Lewis Maybe We Shouldn’t Go Back to Normal Bri M.
When I looked away from the screens, my perspective would shrink to the sound of Ajay’s rapid breathing. He alternated long stretches of unconsciousness with short bouts of wakefulness, when he chugged grapefruit juice and spouted lucid insights on the snapping of supply chains. Ajay is much better now. The sirens in Jackson Heights are fewer, but the mass graves are more numerous.
The sense of Covid-19 as a threatening snowstorm reminded me of my childhood obsession with the Little House books, especially The Long Winter. I read those racist, reactionary novels constantly—something about them caught my little brown Jewish New Yorker imagination, a fantasy world of self-reliance so different from anything I knew. I can still recall the way Ma forced a rhythm inside their cabin as, outside, the blizzards began to blend into one another, days becoming weeks becoming a season. The town’s men argued about rationing the town’s store of grain against the one store owner’s profiteering, about saving the seed for spring, or distributing it to stave off starvation.
The story of climate in The Long Winter is told, in a different context, in Mike Davis’s Late Victorian Holocausts. So much about Covid-19 feels like what he catalogs: the punitive, racist assumptions that workers are shirkers, rather than community members with human, physical, and social needs. Looking at the painted squares on parking lots that our society “offers” unhoused people in lieu of homes, or hearing how Amazon workers keep themselves away from immunocompromised loved ones, I think of Davis piecing together the British authorities’ separation of families dying of famine from one another by gender in work houses. 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
Outside my apartment, essential workers braved the mass transit and the virus and the small paychecks. Inside our two rooms, Ajay would sleep and wake as his body needed, and the Zoom calls proliferated as more workers took action—their courage a bright hope against the sirens and the fog.
Sometimes I spaced out and considered my father’s mother, R.S. Nagarathnamma, who died in December at 95. She was born in 1924, some three decades after the focus of Davis’s book, and 21 years before Winston Churchill’s choices would again starve millions of Indians. In Late Victorian Holocausts, I found her hometown’s mortality rate in charts—tiny windows that show how near a thing it is that our family survived. I know the odds of survival then depended on advantages not dissimilar to having a full fridge today while most of the country struggles with an unexpected $400 expense (like stocking a freezer in case of a pandemic). I think of the charts some future historian will make—the data visualizations, the contact-tracing like a family tree, until the branch dead-ends with someone who might, say, have a heart too weak to survive a bout of the virus.
My grandmother loved beauty and taught me to cherish it. She loved precision, and despaired that I would never learn it. (I haven’t.) She and the rest of my Indian family taught me most of what I know about how to care for others—emotionally, physically, logistically. I have leaned on those skills, both to care for my husband and to function as our world falls apart. But employing those skills carries a price.
For 20 years, from age 17 to 35, when my father died, I flew to India often to spend time with my family there. It was always hard to leave, but my grandmother prized stoicism, something else I have never learned, and I liked to please her. Once back on the plane, buckled into a seat, surrounded by indifferent strangers and with nowhere to go for 18 hours, I would face the tiny window and freely sob about distance and the uncertainty of who would still be there when I returned.
I think of those feelings now from our Queens apartment, where I feel metaphorically buckled in for long hours, by a big window that looks out over an empty sidewalk. When will our city return? Who will still be here?
For now, it is enough to take courage from the workers on my screens, and Ajay’s returning health, and the contagious solidarity spreading, onscreen and off.
Something Is Happening Here is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind, offering scenes from a pandemic—a series of dispatches from Kopkind’s far-flung network of participants, advisers, guests, and friends. Edited by Nation contributor and Kopkind program director JoAnn Wypijewski, it will appear weekly on thenation.com and kopkind.org.