thenation--2020-05-11--Animal Crossing’s Embrace of Cute, Capitalist Perfection Is Not What We Need

In Animal Crossing : New Horizons , Nintendo ’ s recently released life simulator , every day is full of opportunity .
As the sun rises on a quiet island community , my avatar emerges from its home with a spring in its step .
What to do ?
The trees are full of fruit to pick ; resources glint on the horizon .
I could buy some tulips to plant and care for over the coming months or maybe sit down and design some clothes .
Whatever I choose , my actions will be rendered via lovingly crafted animations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hard work here is designed to feel good .
When the most recent entry in the Animal Crossing franchise arrived on the Nintendo Switch at the end of March , the economy was already in free fall following the lockdowns to curb Covid-19 .
Critics acknowledged the acute circumstances , praising the game almost unanimously as exactly the kind of wholesome entertainment we needed .
It ’ s easy to see why : From its pastel colors to its cheerful anthropomorphic characters and lilting acoustic soundtrack , New Horizons soothes where others excite—the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debut in 2002 .
Back then , the freeform structure was a welcome change of pace from the escalating challenges of mainstream combat-focused titles , but over the years the series has incorporated more goals .
Now , with millions made unemployed due to the pandemic ’ s economic fallout , New Horizons might be resonating all the more because of this—a means to keep working , even just figuratively , as literal jobs are disappearing .
Except in New Horizons , work is obviously not like a regular job ; it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic value is ascribed to even the most banal tasks .
My avatar has a cell phone that comes with an app called Nook Miles , which tracks and records all my actions ; for every fish I catch or weed I pull , I ’ m rewarded with points accompanied by a bright melody and sharp endorphin kick .
The game also features a crafting system where players can transform harvested materials into new objects : Chopping down trees produces wood , while hacking at geologic formations results in rock and pieces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be used to create tools , furniture , and buildings .
But shovels , axes , and other implements are designed to break regularly , necessitating regular resource gathering and sustaining a near-endless loop of crafting .
Meanwhile , when a task is completed to earn Nook Miles , a new objective simply appears in its place—another continuous cycle .
As the days unfold , everything on the island , myself included , begins to feel like a stockpile of standing-reserve waiting to be transformed into capital or tokens .
The results of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ within the game .
Thanks to a “ share ” button on the Nintendo Switch controller , screenshots can be sent instantaneously to social media accounts ( a feature that also exists on Sony and Microsoft consoles ) .
Twitter , in particular , is awash with islands lavishly decorated by industrious players , who in turn have helped explode sales of the Nintendo Switch—the console is seemingly sold out everywhere .
In their 2009 book Games of Empire : Global Capitalism and Video Games , Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter applied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ labor ” to video games , noting how players themselves have often been mobilized as informal , uncredited creators .
Energetic fans of New Horizons have arguably produced free marketing for Nintendo , voluntarily—although perhaps unknowingly—incorporating themselves into the video game industrial complex .
The Japanese game company ’ s bottom line has swollen , albeit with a knock-on effect for material laborers across the globe , from factory workers racing to keep up with console production to miners in developing nations extracting its rare metals .
You can find critiques of such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clicker ” genre , which rose to prominence throughout the 2010s .
In these games , also described as “ incremental ” or “ idle ” games , the player begins by clicking on particular buttons to begin the production of an object .
From there , a surplus is built , upgrades are acquired , and players begin to automate parts of their business , thus removing themselves from the trenches of menial clicking .
Importantly , even when the game is closed , the algorithms continue to work , generating in-game @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as 2013 ’ s Cookie Clicker quickly ramp up their scenarios to ludicrous levels , expanding into the realm of interplanetary colonization within the space of a few hours .
Unlike New Horizons , the focus isn ’ t the player but rather the machine , which hoovers up the outsourced labor .
These games might be capitalist satire , but through their playerless mechanics , they gesture toward a scenario in which robots might liberate us all from work .
Clicker games offer a thrillingly exaggerated relief from this moment when life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Unlike other video games , 2017 ’ s Universal Paperclips , in which you play as an AI designed to produce the humble object of the title , literally resembles the site of much digital labor—the spreadsheet .
Its focus is entirely on the meteoric accumulation of raw digits , with occasional divergences into the philosophy of avant-garde sound artist Pauline Oliveros .
Despite the game ’ s deliberately pared-back visual style , if you stare at the soaring numbers for long enough , they begin to feel emancipatory and even psychedelic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but this doesn ’ t stop the scale from feeling improbable , as if you and the computer are punching through the space-time continuum together .
For Frank Lantz , cocreator of Universal Paperclips alongside Hilary Lantz and Bennett Foddy , the discussion of such aesthetic responses was crucial to the game ’ s success .
“ It ’ s deeply social , it ’ s active , it ’ s fun , and it ’ s good , ” he said .
“ It ’ s the stuff I like the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be—just in the mix more .
Less off in their own little world , less just being considered as hedonic appliances that you connect and they give you little trickles of pleasure.
” Of course , there are other ways to avoid the drudgery of New Horizons ’ chores than the accelerated automation of Universal Paperclips and other clickers .
The Longing , a mix of adventure and idle game ( meaning , like some clickers , it continues to run even when closed ) , arrived a few weeks before Nintendo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the same elements .
Controlling a single character , you can decorate a subterranean home and even create in-game artwork—but , crucially , it takes place over a set 400-day period in real time .
As a result , slowness is baked into every aspect of Austrian game maker Anselm Pyta ’ s title , including exploration of its cave setting , which often depends on ecological phenomena .
The moss needed to cushion a perilous drop takes actual weeks to grow , reframing not just what it means to play a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should adhere to .
Often there is nothing to do but close the game and wait , an act freeing in itself , now more so than ever .
There ’ s another important distinction : The Longing inverts New Horizons ’ insistence on in-game checklists by recording noteworthy disappointments .
These might result from unpassable stretches of its cave setting or unopenable doors , each simply a reminder to look beyond achievement for meaning .
In keeping with Animal Crossing ’ s founding principles , New Horizons is capable of quiet , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ avatar to sleep while rain gently tapped its window—but for the most part , it ’ s been subsumed within a modern mentality of optimization .
Games ask us to role-play—that ’ s part of their fun—whether it ’ s as an enterprising villager , machine , or lonely creature spending 400 days below ground .
But in this moment of downtime , at least for those asked to stay home , we might do well to look beyond New Horizons ’ gamified conception of the everyday .
Its stultifying islands are not @ @ @ @ @

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Nintendo’s recently released life simulator, every day is full of opportunity. As the sun rises on a quiet island community, my avatar emerges from its home with a spring in its step. What to do? The trees are full of fruit to pick; resources glint on the horizon. I could buy some tulips to plant and care for over the coming months or maybe sit down and design some clothes. Whatever I choose, my actions will be rendered via lovingly crafted animations and accompanied with satisfying sound effects; hard work here is designed to feel good.
When the most recent entry in the Animal Crossing franchise arrived on the Nintendo Switch at the end of March, the economy was already in free fall following the lockdowns to curb Covid-19. Critics acknowledged the acute circumstances, praising the game almost unanimously as exactly the kind of wholesome entertainment we needed. It’s easy to see why: From its pastel colors to its cheerful anthropomorphic characters and lilting acoustic soundtrack, New Horizons soothes where others excite—the franchise’s calling card since its debut in 2002. Back then, the freeform structure was a welcome change of pace from the escalating challenges of mainstream combat-focused titles, but over the years the series has incorporated more goals. Now, with millions made unemployed due to the pandemic’s economic fallout, New Horizons might be resonating all the more because of this—a means to keep working, even just figuratively, as literal jobs are disappearing.
Except in New Horizons, work is obviously not like a regular job; it’s suffused into an everyday existence where economic value is ascribed to even the most banal tasks. My avatar has a cell phone that comes with an app called Nook Miles, which tracks and records all my actions; for every fish I catch or weed I pull, I’m rewarded with points accompanied by a bright melody and sharp endorphin kick. The game also features a crafting system where players can transform harvested materials into new objects: Chopping down trees produces wood, while hacking at geologic formations results in rock and pieces of ore, each of which can be used to create tools, furniture, and buildings. But shovels, axes, and other implements are designed to break regularly, necessitating regular resource gathering and sustaining a near-endless loop of crafting. Meanwhile, when a task is completed to earn Nook Miles, a new objective simply appears in its place—another continuous cycle. As the days unfold, everything on the island, myself included, begins to feel like a stockpile of standing-reserve waiting to be transformed into capital or tokens. 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
The results of such labor don’t just exist within the game. Thanks to a “share” button on the Nintendo Switch controller, screenshots can be sent instantaneously to social media accounts (a feature that also exists on Sony and Microsoft consoles). Twitter, in particular, is awash with islands lavishly decorated by industrious players, who in turn have helped explode sales of the Nintendo Switch—the console is seemingly sold out everywhere.
In their 2009 book Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter applied the Italian autonomist theory of “immaterial labor” to video games, noting how players themselves have often been mobilized as informal, uncredited creators. Energetic fans of New Horizons have arguably produced free marketing for Nintendo, voluntarily—although perhaps unknowingly—incorporating themselves into the video game industrial complex. The Japanese game company’s bottom line has swollen, albeit with a knock-on effect for material laborers across the globe, from factory workers racing to keep up with console production to miners in developing nations extracting its rare metals.
You can find critiques of such rapid, unethical growth in the “clicker” genre, which rose to prominence throughout the 2010s. In these games, also described as “incremental” or “idle” games, the player begins by clicking on particular buttons to begin the production of an object. From there, a surplus is built, upgrades are acquired, and players begin to automate parts of their business, thus removing themselves from the trenches of menial clicking. Importantly, even when the game is closed, the algorithms continue to work, generating in-game capital independently of input. Titles such as 2013’s Cookie Clicker quickly ramp up their scenarios to ludicrous levels, expanding into the realm of interplanetary colonization within the space of a few hours. Unlike New Horizons, the focus isn’t the player but rather the machine, which hoovers up the outsourced labor. These games might be capitalist satire, but through their playerless mechanics, they gesture toward a scenario in which robots might liberate us all from work.
Clicker games offer a thrillingly exaggerated relief from this moment when life and work have been put on hold. Unlike other video games, 2017’s Universal Paperclips, in which you play as an AI designed to produce the humble object of the title, literally resembles the site of much digital labor—the spreadsheet. Its focus is entirely on the meteoric accumulation of raw digits, with occasional divergences into the philosophy of avant-garde sound artist Pauline Oliveros. Despite the game’s deliberately pared-back visual style, if you stare at the soaring numbers for long enough, they begin to feel emancipatory and even psychedelic. Their precipitous increases are inevitable, but this doesn’t stop the scale from feeling improbable, as if you and the computer are punching through the space-time continuum together.
A screenshot from “Universal Paperclips.”
For Frank Lantz, cocreator of Universal Paperclips alongside Hilary Lantz and Bennett Foddy, the discussion of such aesthetic responses was crucial to the game’s success. “It’s deeply social, it’s active, it’s fun, and it’s good,” he said. “It’s the stuff I like the most and I’m excited for games to be—just in the mix more. Less off in their own little world, less just being considered as hedonic appliances that you connect and they give you little trickles of pleasure.”
Of course, there are other ways to avoid the drudgery of New Horizons’ chores than the accelerated automation of Universal Paperclips and other clickers. The Longing, a mix of adventure and idle game (meaning, like some clickers, it continues to run even when closed), arrived a few weeks before Nintendo’s life simulator and shares many of the same elements. Controlling a single character, you can decorate a subterranean home and even create in-game artwork—but, crucially, it takes place over a set 400-day period in real time. As a result, slowness is baked into every aspect of German game maker Anselm Pyta’s title, including exploration of its cave setting, which often depends on ecological phenomena. The moss needed to cushion a perilous drop takes actual weeks to grow, reframing not just what it means to play a video game but whose time frames we should adhere to. Often there is nothing to do but close the game and wait, an act freeing in itself, now more so than ever.
There’s another important distinction: The Longing inverts New Horizons’ insistence on in-game checklists by recording noteworthy disappointments. These might result from unpassable stretches of its cave setting or unopenable doors, each simply a reminder to look beyond achievement for meaning.
In keeping with Animal Crossing’s founding principles, New Horizons is capable of quiet, welcomingly pointless moments—like when I left my avatar to sleep while rain gently tapped its window—but for the most part, it’s been subsumed within a modern mentality of optimization. Games ask us to role-play—that’s part of their fun—whether it’s as an enterprising villager, machine, or lonely creature spending 400 days below ground. But in this moment of downtime, at least for those asked to stay home, we might do well to look beyond New Horizons’ gamified conception of the everyday. Its stultifying islands are not the inspiration we need.


thenation--2020-05-11--Africa Is Not Waiting to Be Saved From the Coronavirus

As Covid-19 races its way across Africa , there are two stories happening at once .
The first is of governments using their armies and militarized police to beat , threaten , and shoot their way to public health .
This is the story of the Kenyan police killing more people than the disease in the week after its first recorded case and of a pregnant woman dying on the street because the Ugandan police would not let her motorcycle taxi take her to a hospital after curfew .
It is the story of governments closing their borders too late @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hospitals , and waiting for someone from somewhere else to save them .
The second is of communities knitting together their meager resources to fill the gap of failed services and absent states .
It is the story of tailors across informal settlements in Nairobi and Mombasa sewing face masks out of scrap fabric and handing them out for free after price gouging by commercial suppliers .
It is a young man renting speakers , tying them to his motorcycle , and riding through his neighborhood to let people know about a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ services without charge to put together public awareness campaigns in Somali , Maa , Zulu , Lingala , Fan Oromo , or any of the thousands of languages spoken on the continent .
It is markets and small businesses making water jerricans available for mandatory hand-washing long before governments required it .
Both of these stories are true , but only the first one is on track to enter the archives of how Africa navigated the pandemic .
Journalism , in general , is attuned to picking up failures and lapses : Even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accountability , can produce a bias for failures rather than successes .
When confronted by a new situation , the punditry and analysis is inclined to pay attention to what is likely to go wrong rather than what might go right .
Phil Graham , former publisher and president of The Washington Post once said , “ Journalism is the first draft of history.
” Whatever journalists commit to print and broadcast during this period will be among the primary pieces of information that future scholars will analyze to try to understand what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fell apart .
But so far , when it comes to Africa , the first draft is an incomplete and inaccurate story of a continent waiting to be saved .
If only the first story enters the archive , the creativity and agency of swaths of humanity will be lost , which will have consequences beyond the pandemic .
An archival record doesn ’ t pick up everything , usually just what garners the most attention or is considered the most important .
An archive , much like museums and other institutions that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , reflects the interests and predilections of those in power .
Museums outside Africa are filled with masks and pots from Africa , not necessarily because Africans themselves thought these masks and pots were interesting , but because colonizing armies and governments thought they were .
A colonial archive would likely contain exhaustive records about a white district commissioner , down to the color of his socks , but not the black woman who worked in his home .
It ’ s not because the latter is uninteresting or even unavailable for documentation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set the tone and the context for what goes into the archive , and subsequently , the stories that history will tell .
This makes the work that journalists are doing to tell the story of Covid-19 even more important .
When it comes to Africa , we who do journalism about the continent and especially from the continent know how hard it is to achieve an accurate representation of the state of society on platforms that have in-built tropes on deck and ready to launch .
Africa is spoken for and spoken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speak , and this allows only a handful of meta-narratives to survive .
We get PR-like tales of singular figures triumphant against all odds , the white savior who braves malaria to deliver unprecedented interventions , or the flailing state teetering on the edge of collapse .
The relative weakness of African media outlets means that the complexities and nuances of what is happening away from power is rarely described , let alone analyzed .
The digital has gone some way toward opening up room for other narratives .
Al Jazeera English has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from places outside centers of power , and Africa Is a Country publishes critical takes on key issues .
But digital archives are notoriously transient and even the most visible websites can disappear with the flick of a switch .
The archival record of the impact of the 1918 flu in Africa is an excellent example of how partial change how people understand agency and creativity within communities with constrained political power .
It ’ s not just about telling an accurate story .
It ’ s about how silences affect what people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ record of a community ’ s history tells them that their ancestors did nothing when faced with near certain death , they tend to believe it and act like its true .
In 1918 , a strain of influenza that would come to be known as the Spanish flu ravaged the world .
Infected people lost significant lung function as the virus paved the way for bacterial pneumonia .
Fluid and detritus accumulated in their lungs , and within days their skin turned blue and they died .
By some estimates , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world ’ s population at the time—and killed between 20 and 50 million people , making it the second deadliest pandemic in recorded history after the Black Death in the 14th century .
Extreme estimates suggest that around 3 percent of the world ’ s population died , and the knock-on effects included significant political changes around the world .
Coming at the end of World War I , the 1918 flu outbreak made that second decade of the 20th century one of the deadliest in history .
The East Africa Protectorate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the independent nation of Kenya , was not spared .
After fighting for various European forces in World War I , African soldiers came home , bringing the disease into the territory .
Many traveled inward along the Lunatic Express—the railway line that provided a route to the sea for Uganda , one of Britain ’ s most profitable colonies of the time .
A 2019 article estimated that at the Kenyan Coast—the most urbanized and settled region of the fledgling country—the Spanish flu killed 25.3 of every 1,000 people , less than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most deadly recorded outbreaks in the territory .
Accurate information about the 1918 flu is difficult enough to come by in most countries , but in colonies like Kenya , the archival record is especially complicated .
Much of what exists is the perspective of colonial officers constructing a racist political state .
So the archives talk about how black people resisted many of the efforts at quarantine , portraying them as irrational when in fact barring movement was one way the British created pools of forced labor .
In 1897 , Queen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ British Empire , but until 1920 , many ethnic groups fought back against the violence of colonization with highly organized military campaigns .
Between 1893 and 1911 , the colonial administration was forced to launch 28 major military operations in the territory , often aimed at suppressing communities that refused to collaborate with the colonizers .
The official narrative on colonization in Kenya tends to gloss over the depth and breadth of African resistance to the colonial project , but the fact is that much of the African population did not accept or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Its Former Colonies a Whiff of Schadenfreude Zimbabwe Has 5 Currencies but No Plan to Address Its Crisis In Kenya , Election Manipulation Is a Matter of Life and Death Yet by 1915 , the frequency of these operations had reduced , and the colonial government had began putting in place the racist legislative structure for domination .
Ethnic cantonment was the cornerstone of colonial oppression in Kenya , and severe punishments for leaving designated ethnic areas were a crucial part of turning free black men and women into prison labor .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Native Passes Ordinance of 1903 required Africans to have a pass to leave the district where they lived .
The 1906 Master and Servant ordinance contained criminal penalties for black Africans in urban areas who left their work posts without authorization .
In fact , six vagrancy ordinances were passed between 1898 and 1930 , each designed to punish black people for their freedom of movement—and none applied to the white or Asian populations .
In 1915 the Native Registration Ordinance set in motion the kipande system , involving cruel and inhumane punishment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 16 who did not carry a cumbersome document with their biometric details .
Why did the frequency and intensity of political resistance suddenly wane ?
On one hand , Africans were dealing with unprecedented violence from the colonial administration .
But they were also dealing with outbreaks of diseases that had never been seen in the region before .
European colonizers brought with them rinderpest , commonly known as cattle plague , which destroyed much of the indigenous cattle population , and jiggers , a small flea-like pest that burrows into feet , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to gangrene .
Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale , two historians specializing in Kenya ’ s colonial era , estimate that the Maasai community , one of the most militant groups resisting the British in East Africa , may have lost up to 40 percent of its population .
The pandemics and outbreaks in that first decade of the 20th century decimated populations and made it impossible to mount any coordinated military resistance .
This is the context in which the quarantines and public health interventions to deal with the 1918 flu were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t reflect this .
Instead , the record describes ignorant Africans disregarding the interventions of noble Europeans .
Resistance to quarantine and enforced cantonment is framed as a rejection of public health initiatives , not part of a broader resistance to the restrictions on freedom of movement placed on the African population .
It certainly doesn ’ t portray a process in which scared and confused urban populations naturally sought the comfort of their extended families back in their ethnic cantons rather than face the full violence of the racist colonial state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of how Africans behaved during the pandemic lacks empathy and nuance , because those in power did not see Africans with empathy and nuance .
The archival record of Africa ’ s experience with the 1918 flu is incomplete , because it is written from the perspective of colonizers who sought to present themselves as a benign force in an otherwise chaotic territory .
Colonization was a racist and violent enterprise couched in the language of a civilizing mission , and colonial archives of public health interventions—particularly those affecting freedom of movement—must be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these incomplete archives still reverberate anywhere governments are drawing lessons from colonial public health practices .
The violence in countries like India , Kenya , South Africa , Uganda , and other settler colonies echoes the violence of the colonial state in part because the successor independence governments read the violent colonial interventions as logical and necessary .
The archive presents violent policing response as a natural and necessary part of a public health crisis response , and the successor governments don ’ t question that .
The archive does not record @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humiliated and assaulted Kenya ’ s black population as a factor in why Africans may have resisted quarantine measures .
As a result , the modern state may not realize that using police to enforce quarantine in informal settlements with a long history of police brutality may be opposed .
The archive registers the problem not as a violent state clamping down on a society that they had been brutalizing , but as the irrational resistance of natives against the well-meaning efforts of a righteous colonial state .
The illusion that some violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because the “ native ” is inherently resistant to logic is inherited from colonizers and sustained because the archive is rarely critically interrogated .
Archives are not neutral ; they ’ re sites for contestation and projections of power .
This is why historians from the global south , like Brenda Sanya , a Kenyan feminist scholar , argue that questioning a nation ’ s history as represented by the archive is absolutely necessary .
An archive is a living thing in which what is explicit and what is silent are equally important @ @ @ @ @ @ @ records are silent on what Kenya ’ s African population did to save themselves during the 1918 flu .
Certainly the traditional medical interventions that had been refined over centuries of community health practice must have struggled to respond to a novel virus .
But faced with widespread death and devastation , I don ’ t believe that African communities did nothing other than wait for their oppressor to tap into their benevolent side .
African traditional medicine had well-established practices for dealing with outbreaks of familiar diseases .
For example , variolation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which healthy people were exposed to the blood of infected people to develop resistance to it , was recorded in Kenya , South Sudan , Nigeria , and other parts of the continent .
Community health systems existed and were often strong , but the colonizing forces had no interest in them , as they were keen to promote the idea of superior European health systems .
The risk of diminishing the agency of African communities in this way persists .
The HIV/AIDS pandemic has killed an estimated 35 million people globally , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regions .
Much like rinderpest and jiggers , this was a virus that was imported to the continent , where it insinuated itself into existing social practices .
In Western Kenya , for example , the practice of wife inheritance , which leaders in some communities argue provided a social safety net for widows and orphans , created specific vulnerabilities where women whose partners died of HIV/AIDS transmitted the disease to their new partners , and their families , or contracted it from their new partners .
In Kenya , HIV/AIDS hit communities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hard .
As long as African communities didn ’ t understand the risk of HIV/AIDS , behavior didn ’ t change and the virus trounced societies .
But communities learned , conduct changed , and Western Kenyans now have robust nonmedical responses to HIV/AIDS .
The same can be said of the Ebola outbreak of 2015 .
Projections that the outbreak would devastate the populations of the Mano River basin—Liberia , Sierra Leone , Guinea , and Guinea Bissau—were confounded , not because a vaccine was developed or because the historically underfunded and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Community behavior shifted the trajectory of the outbreak .
People developed vocabularies for communicating the threat and the response to it , and funding and other forms of support went to frontline health workers who guided communities through the threat .
Faced with novel and complex diseases , African communities did not sit back and wait for the disaster to destroy them .
They rallied the best they could with whatever was available .
This pandemic is calling for tools that the media is not accustomed to using , one of which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the story of this moment will look like 50 or 100 years from now .
Which brings us back to the original challenge : What will the archives say that Africans did during the Covid-19 pandemic ?
Will the archives tell the story of foreigners coming into help people who were already helping themselves ?
Or will they tell of a wave of saviors from abroad , framing Africans as passive recipients of foreign aid ?
How can we capture the complexity and agency of African communities in the face of this pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or diminishing the threat of the coronavirus ?
This is the task for journalists covering Africa and Covid-19 : Hold space for communities that those in power would rather not hear .
It is a tremendous challenge .
Very few African countries have media markets that can pay for quality , independent investigative and documentary journalism .
Many are dependent on Western donor governments to sustain their public health coverage , and this tips the scale in favor of stories that make those organizations look good .
Other outlets operate as PR vehicles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the countries that are their strong allies .
Few foreign outlets are interested in true partnership with African journalists , and for the few critical journalists the erosion of press freedom across the continent is devouring whatever space they have to work .
But the archives of the 20th century pandemics , including HIV/AIDS , underscore how important it is for the first draft of history to rise to the challenge .
Flawed and partial accounts of pandemics that understate the agency of affected communities and overstate the contribution of foreign interventions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ period .
People who don ’ t see their agency and creativity valued in the official history of how they survived may give that agency away—making room for new eras of colonization .

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As Covid-19 races its way across Africa, there are two stories happening at once. The first is of governments using their armies and militarized police to beat, threaten, and shoot their way to public health. This is the story of Kenyan police killing more people than the disease in the week after its first recorded case and of a pregnant woman dying on the street because Ugandan police would not let her motorcycle taxi take her to a hospital after curfew. It is the story of governments closing their borders too late, diverting money to security instead of hospitals, and waiting for someone from somewhere else to save them.
The second is of communities knitting together their meager resources to fill the gap of failed services and absent states. It is the story of tailors across informal settlements in Nairobi and Mombasa sewing face masks out of scrap fabric and handing them out free after price gouging by commercial suppliers. It is a young man renting speakers, tying them to his motorcycle, and riding through his neighborhood to let people know about a new disease. It is translators offering their services without charge to put together public awareness campaigns in Somali, Maa, Zulu, Lingala, Fan Oromo, or any of the thousands of other languages spoken on the continent. It is markets and small businesses making water jerricans available for mandatory handwashing long before governments required it.
Both of these stories are true, but only the first one is on track to enter the archives of how Africa navigated the pandemic. Journalism, in general, is attuned to picking up failures and lapses: Even the best-intentioned media, premised on demanding accountability, can produce a bias for failures rather than successes. When confronted by a new situation, the punditry and analysis are inclined to pay attention to what is likely to go wrong rather than what might go right. Phil Graham, a former publisher and president of The Washington Post once said, “Journalism is the first draft of history.” Whatever journalists commit to print and broadcast during this period will be among the primary pieces of information that future scholars will analyze to try to understand what we were all doing as the world fell apart. But so far, when it comes to Africa, the first draft is an incomplete and inaccurate story of a continent waiting to be saved. If only the first story enters the archive, the creativity and agency of swaths of humanity will be lost, which will have consequences beyond the pandemic.
An archival record doesn’t pick up everything, usually just what garners the most attention or is considered the most important. An archive, much like museums and other institutions that lay claim to being custodians of history, reflects the interests and predilections of those in power. Museums outside Africa are filled with masks and pots from Africa not necessarily because Africans themselves thought these masks and pots were interesting but because colonizing armies and governments thought they were. A colonial archive would likely contain exhaustive records about a white district commissioner, down to the color of his socks, but not the black woman who worked in his home. It’s not because the latter is uninteresting or even unavailable for documentation; it is because those in power set the tone and the context for what goes into the archive and, subsequently, the stories that history will tell. 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
This makes the work that journalists are doing to tell the story of Covid-19 even more important. When it comes to Africa, we who do journalism about the continent and especially from the continent know how hard it is to achieve an accurate representation of the state of society on platforms that have inbuilt tropes on deck and ready to launch. Africa is spoken for and spoken about but so rarely allowed to speak, and this allows only a handful of narratives to survive. We get PR-like tales of singular figures triumphant against all odds, the white savior who braves malaria to deliver unprecedented interventions or the flailing state teetering on the edge of collapse. The relative weakness of African media outlets means that the complexities and nuances of what is happening away from power are rarely described, let alone analyzed. The digital has gone some way toward opening up room for other narratives. Al Jazeera English has carved a global niche for deepening reporting from places outside centers of power, and Africa Is a Country publishes critical takes on key issues. But digital archives are notoriously transient, and even the most visible websites can disappear with the flick of a switch.
The archival record of the impact of the 1918 flu in Africa is an excellent example of how people understand agency and creativity in communities with constrained political power. It’s not just about telling an accurate story. It’s about how silences affect what people imagine is possible. When the official record of a community’s history tells them that their ancestors did nothing when faced with near-certain death, they tend to believe it and act as if it were true.
In 1918 a strain of influenza that would come to be known as the Spanish flu ravaged the world. Infected people lost significant lung function as the virus paved the way for bacterial pneumonia. Fluid and detritus accumulated in their lungs, and within days, their skin turned blue, and they died. By some estimates, the outbreak infected 500 million people—about one-third of the world’s population at the time—and killed 20 million to 50 million people, making it the second-deadliest pandemic in recorded history, after the Black Death in the 14th century. Extreme estimates suggest that around 3 percent of the world’s population died, and the knock-on effects included significant political changes around the world. Coming at the end of World War I, the 1918 flu outbreak made that second decade of the 20th century one of the deadliest in history. Current Issue View our current issue
The East Africa Protectorate, the British colony that would become the independent nation of Kenya, was not spared. After fighting for various European forces in World War I, African soldiers came home, bringing the disease into the territory. Many traveled inward along the Lunatic Express, the railway line that provided a route to the sea for Uganda, one of Britain’s most profitable colonies of the time. A 2019 article estimated that at the Kenyan coast, the most urbanized and settled region of the fledgling country, the Spanish flu killed 25.3 of every 1,000 people—fewer than the international average but one of the deadliest recorded outbreaks in the territory.
Accurate information about the 1918 flu is difficult enough to come by in most countries, but in colonies like Kenya, the archival record is especially complicated. Much of what exists is the perspective of colonial officers constructing a racist political state. So the archives talk about how black people resisted many of the efforts at quarantine, portraying them as irrational when in fact barring movement was one way the British created pools of forced labor.
In 1897, Queen Victoria declared the protectorate part of the British Empire, but until 1920, many ethnic groups fought back against the violence of colonization with highly organized military campaigns. Between 1893 and 1911, the colonial administration was forced to launch 28 major military operations in the territory, often aimed at suppressing communities that refused to collaborate with the colonizers. The official narrative on colonization in Kenya tends to gloss over the depth and breadth of African resistance to the colonial project, but the fact is that much of the African population did not accept or even tolerate British imperialism. More From Nanjala Nyabola What Gives You Hope Keeps You Fighting May 9, 2023 A New Form of Propaganda Has Targeted the Central African Republic May 2, 2023 What the World Should Know About Sudan April 25, 2023
Yet by 1915, the frequency of these operations had reduced, and the colonial government had begun putting in place the racist legislative structure for domination. Ethnic cantonment was the cornerstone of colonial oppression in Kenya, and severe punishments for leaving designated ethnic areas were a crucial part of turning free black men and women into prison labor. The Native Passes regulation of 1900 and the Native Passes Ordinance of 1903 required Africans to have a pass to leave the district where they lived. The 1906 Master and Servant ordinance contained criminal penalties for black Africans in urban areas who left their work posts without authorization.
Six vagrancy ordinances were passed from 1898 to 1930, each designed to punish black people for their freedom of movement, and none applied to white or Asian populations. In 1915 the Native Registration Ordinance set in motion the kipande system, involving cruel and inhumane punishment for black men over the age of 16 who did not carry a cumbersome document with their biometric details.
Why did the frequency and intensity of political resistance suddenly wane? Africans were dealing with unprecedented violence from the colonial administration. But they were also dealing with outbreaks of diseases that had never been seen in the region before. European colonizers brought with them rinderpest, commonly known as cattle plague, which destroyed much of the indigenous cattle population, and jiggers, a small flealike pest that burrows into feet, crippling the infected person and sometimes leading to gangrene. Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale, two historians specializing in Kenya’s colonial era, estimate that the Maasai community, one of the most militant groups resisting the British in East Africa, may have lost up to 40 percent of its population. The pandemics and outbreaks in that first decade of the 20th century decimated populations and made it impossible to mount any coordinated military resistance.
This is the context in which the quarantines and public health interventions to deal with the 1918 flu were deployed, but the archival record doesn’t reflect this. Instead, the record describes ignorant Africans disregarding the interventions of noble Europeans. Resistance to quarantine and enforced cantonment is framed as a rejection of public health initiatives, not part of a broader resistance to the restrictions on freedom of movement placed on the African population. It certainly doesn’t portray a process in which scared and confused urban populations naturally sought the comfort of their extended families in their ethnic cantons rather than face the full violence of the racist colonial state in urban centers. The official story of how Africans behaved during the pandemic lacks empathy and nuance because those in power did not see Africans with empathy and nuance.
The archival record of Africa’s experience with the 1918 flu is incomplete because it is written from the perspective of colonizers who sought to present themselves as a benign force in an otherwise chaotic territory. Colonization was a racist and violent enterprise couched in the language of a civilizing mission, and colonial archives of public health interventions—particularly those affecting freedom of movement—must be read against that reality.
The consequences of these incomplete archives still reverberate anywhere governments are drawing lessons from colonial public health practices. The violence in countries like India, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, and other settler colonies echoes the violence of the colonial state in part because the successor independence governments read the violent colonial interventions as logical and necessary. The archive presents violent policing response as a natural and necessary part of a public health crisis response, and the successor governments don’t question that.
The archive does not record the violence of the kipande system that humiliated and assaulted Kenya’s black population as a factor in why Africans may have resisted quarantine measures. As a result, the modern state may not realize that using police to enforce quarantine in informal settlements with a long history of police brutality may be opposed. The archive registers the problem not as a violent state clamping down on a society that they had been brutalizing but as the irrational resistance of natives against the well-meaning efforts of a righteous colonial state. The illusion that some violence is necessary to achieve public health goals because the “native” is inherently resistant to logic is inherited from colonizers and sustained because the archive is rarely critically interrogated.
Archives are not neutral; they’re sites for contestation and projections of power. This is why historians from the global South, like Brenda Sanya, a Kenyan feminist scholar, argue that questioning a nation’s history as represented by the archive is absolutely necessary. An archive is a living thing in which what is explicit and what is silent are equally important. And critically for today, these records are silent on what members of Kenya’s African population did to save themselves during the 1918 flu. Certainly the traditional medical interventions that had been refined over centuries of community health practice must have struggled to respond to a novel virus.
But I don’t believe that African communities faced with widespread death and devastation did nothing other than wait for their oppressors to tap into their benevolent side. African traditional medicine had well-established practices for dealing with outbreaks of familiar diseases. For example, variolation, a precursor to modern-day vaccination in which healthy people were exposed to the blood of infected people to develop resistance to it, was recorded in parts of the continent, including what are now Kenya, South Sudan, and Nigeria. Community health systems existed and were often strong, but the colonizing forces had no interest in them, as they were keen to promote the idea of superior European health systems.
The risk of diminishing the agency of African communities in this way persists. HIV/AIDS has killed an estimated 35 million people globally, and Africa is one of the worst-affected regions. Much like rinderpest and jiggers, the pandemic came from abroad, and the virus insinuated itself into existing social practices. In Western Kenya, for example, the practice of wife inheritance, which leaders in some communities argue provided a social safety net for widows and orphans, created specific vulnerabilities in which women whose partners died of HIV/AIDS transmitted the disease to their new partners and their families or contracted it from their new partners. In Kenya, HIV/AIDS hit communities hard that practiced wife inheritance through the 1990s. As long as African communities didn’t understand the risk of HIV/AIDS, behavior didn’t change, and the virus trounced societies. But communities learned, conduct changed, and Western Kenyans now have robust nonmedical responses to HIV/AIDS.
The same can be said of the Ebola outbreak of 2015. Projections that the outbreak would devastate the populations of the Mano River basin—Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Guinea Bissau—were confounded not because a vaccine was developed or because the historically underfunded and ignored health systems magically transformed overnight. Community behavior shifted the trajectory of the outbreak. People developed vocabularies for communicating the threat and the response to it, and funding and other forms of support went to frontline health workers who guided communities through the threat. Faced with novel and complex diseases, African communities did not sit back and wait for the disaster to destroy them. They rallied the best they could with whatever was available.
This pandemic is calling for tools that the media is not accustomed to using, one of which is thinking beyond the news cycle to what the story of this moment will look like 50 or 100 years from now.
Which brings us back to the original challenge: What will the archives say that Africans did during the Covid-19 pandemic? Will the archives tell the story of foreigners going in to help people who were already helping themselves? Or will they tell of a wave of saviors from abroad, framing Africans as passive recipients of foreign aid? How can we capture the complexity and agency of African communities in the face of this pandemic without pandering to simplistic developmental narratives or diminishing the threat of the coronavirus?
This is the task for journalists covering Africa and Covid-19: Hold space for communities that those in power would rather not hear. It is a tremendous challenge. Very few African countries have media markets that can pay for quality, independent investigative and documentary journalism. Many are dependent on Western donor governments to sustain their public health coverage, and this tips the scale in favor of stories that make those organizations look good. Other outlets operate as PR vehicles for their home governments and by extension for the countries that are their strong allies. Few foreign outlets are interested in true partnership with African journalists, and for the few critical journalists, the erosion of press freedom across the continent is devouring whatever space they have to work.
But the archives of the 20th century pandemics, including HIV/AIDS, underscore how important it is for the first draft of history to rise to the challenge. Flawed and partial accounts of pandemics that understate the agency of affected communities and overstate the contribution of foreign interventions can have consequences long after the emergency period. People who don’t see their agency and creativity valued in the official history of how they survived may give that agency away—making room for new eras of colonization.


thenation--2020-05-11--One Hospital System’s Response to Covid-19? Union-Busting.

Justin Howe was born at Mercy Health Hackley hospital in Muskegon , Mich. , 39 years ago .
His mom was a nurse there , and he worked there for 10 years , eventually becoming president of the nurses ’ union local .
Then , on April 3 , Mercy administrators called him into a room before the start of his shift and fired him .
The reason , he was told , was a HIPAA violation ; they claimed that Howe had accessed medical records without authorization .
( Howe and his union representatives deny the claim and contend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) The real reason Howe was fired , he and his union reps say , is obvious : Howe had recently gone to the media about the hospital ’ s lack of protection for its workers during the Covid crisis .
Before Howe spoke to a local paper and to TV news , the hospital was not providing workers with N95 masks , and barred them from using ones donated by the public .
“ It ’ s sad that we can count on the community to protect us , but we can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Howe told a local CBS affiliate .
“ We want to thank other local unions and the community for having our backs.
” Ten days later , he was fired .
“ It ’ s retaliation , plain and simple , ” Howe said .
“ There was no HIPAA violation before I went to the media .
The larger picture is that they want to bust the unions.
” Mercy declined to comment for this story , but released a statement after the firing saying it stood behind its decision @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michigan Nurses Association , a labor union that purports to advocate for nursing best practices , has chosen to advance this false story in order to promote itself in the media.
” Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic , Howe and other Mercy employees say , the health system has sought to cut costs , let go of workers , and use misinformation to turn workers against their unions .
Many hospitals , including Mercy , have lost money over the last few weeks , because they ’ ve been forced to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these procedures will now resume .
“ They ’ re taking advantage of the crisis , ” Hasan Zahdeh , president of the Michigan Union of Healthcare Workers , said .
“ Covid gave them an excuse to skirt their legal obligation to bargain with the union .
Every day they come up with a new policy .
It ’ s really hard to keep up with.
” Mercy is one of the largest health systems in the Midwest , and it is wholly owned by one of the largest health systems in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both entities are Catholic charities , they operate similarly to corporations .
Trinity employs more than 125,000 people , brought in over $ 19 billion in revenue last year , and pays its top executives millions .
In 2018 , Mercy ’ s director was paid nearly $ 1.2 million .
According to the Michigan Nurses Association , Howe ’ s firing is part of a pattern of Mercy and Trinity ramping up union-busting actions during the pandemic .
One of the most worrisome signs is that Trinity has recently hired two notorious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early April that administrators had given Matt Patterson and Doug Seaton Trinity e-mail addresses , and began cc ’ ing them on communications with union representatives .
Seaton refers to himself as a “ lawyer for employers , ” and in 2017 , the Trump administration considered appointing him to the National Labor Review Board , making him more than likely the first union avoidance consultant ever in the running for a spot on the board .
“ He was passed up because he was too far right , even for Trump , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s working for Trinity .
“ That is scary.
” Seaton has worked on several union-busting campaigns against nurses ’ unions in the last few years , including one against 27,000 home health-aid workers in Minnesota , which is often described as the largest union decertification campaign in US history .
So far , that effort has failed .
Patterson , for his part , has been employed by a number of conservative think tanks , from Americans for Tax Reform to the Competitive Enterprise Institute .
He became famous in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prevent Volkswagen workers in Tennessee from organizing with the United Auto Workers .
The German car company said it was neutral on unionization , a rarity in the manufacturing world , but far-right groups funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat the labor movement ’ s efforts .
In a 2013 presentation , Patterson bragged about pitting workers against the union , using the media to create an anti-union narrative in Tennessee , and building an anti-union intelligence network “ from Chattanooga to Germany to Detroit.
” Patterson compared the UAW to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ North ” and said standing up to them was akin to carrying on the fight of Tennessee ’ s Confederate soldiers .
“ The employees of Mercy are diverse , and to hire someone who has that view of minorities , it ’ s disappointing to say the least , ” Zahdeh said .
Union-Busting in the Name of God Patterson , according to the Michigan Nurses Association , became directly involved in labor relations at Mercy right around the time Howe was terminated , and Seaton began being cc ’ d on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ union that Seaton ’ s role was “ lead labor consultant.
” Representatives from Trinity did not respond to requests for comment on this story .
The hiring of Patterson and Seaton is part of a trend of anti-union actions at hospitals and elsewhere , according to Gordon Lafer , a researcher at the Economic Policy Institute .
“ They ’ re facing increased interest of hospital workers to organize new unions , and are using these firms to engage in aggressive intimidation tactics to stop that from happening , ” Lafer said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Economic Policy Institute , the use of these anti-labor consultants is at an all-time high , and employers are spending $ 400 million a year on these union-busting firms .
Clients often give these companies large bonuses for successfully fending off union campaigns , according to the EPI report , and the individual consultants can make hundreds of dollars an hour .
These campaigns often target nurses , because their unions are some of the largest in the country .
There are now “ labor relations consultants ” that are solely dedicated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The right wing , the corporate elite understand how strategic nurses are to the labor movement , ” said Jane McAlevey , a union organizer , The Nation ’ s strikes correspondent , and author of A Collective Bargain : Unions , Organizing , and the Fight for Democracy .
“ Hospital administrators try to come off as doing something good , but really they ’ re just taking public money and hiring union-busting thugs.
” At Mercy , the anti-union fight is growing more intense .
Right after the hospital fired Howe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 11-minute Facebook video in which he blamed the unions for causing confusion during the pandemic .
“ They ’ re using unprecedented and defamatory information and tactics all designed to create credible fear in the community , ” Allore said in response to allegations about the lack of protective equipment .
“ They are forcing us to take time out to respond [ to their demands ] and are putting lives on the line.
” Then , late on a Friday night in early April , Mercy sent an e-mail to union members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ union until noon the next day , a Saturday , to respond .
Shortly after that , administrators notified employees that they would allow people to borrow paid time off from the future in order to take paid time off during the pandemic .
They then rescinded that offer , and sent out a staff-wide message blaming the union for the rescindment .
“ It ’ s demoralizing , and it makes the union look weak or incompetent , ” Zahdeh said .
“ I ’ ve been working there a long time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their employees to be unionized .
But this aggressiveness is new.
” Howe and the union haven ’ t given up .
He and the Michigan Nurses Association on Monday filed a lawsuit against Mercy Health , claiming it had violated the state ’ s whistle-blower laws by punishing him for speaking out .
Howe said he hopes the suit forces Mercy to reinstate his employment .
“ I have knowledge and skills that need to be utilized right now , ” Howe said .
“ And here I am sitting on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ”

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.
Justin Howe was born at Mercy Health Hackley hospital in Muskegon, Mich., 39 years ago. His mom was a nurse there, and he worked there for 10 years, eventually becoming president of the nurses’ union local. Then, on April 3, Mercy administrators called him into a room before the start of his shift and fired him. The reason, he was told, was a HIPAA violation; they claimed that Howe had accessed medical records without authorization. (Howe and his union representatives deny the claim and contend that Mercy has provided no evidence.)
The real reason Howe was fired, he and his union reps say, is obvious: Howe had recently gone to the media about the hospital’s lack of protection for its workers during the Covid crisis. Before Howe spoke to a local paper and to TV news, the hospital was not providing workers with N95 masks, and barred them from using ones donated by the public.
“It’s sad that we can count on the community to protect us, but we can’t count on our own hospital,” Howe told a local CBS affiliate. “We want to thank other local unions and the community for having our backs.”
Ten days later, he was fired.
“It’s retaliation, plain and simple,” Howe said. “There was no HIPAA violation before I went to the media. The larger picture is that they want to bust the unions.”
Mercy declined to comment for this story, but released a statement after the firing saying it stood behind its decision and was “incredibly disappointed that the Michigan Nurses Association, a labor union that purports to advocate for nursing best practices, has chosen to advance this false story in order to promote itself in the media.”
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Howe and other Mercy employees say, the health system has sought to cut costs, let go of workers, and use misinformation to turn workers against their unions. Many hospitals, including Mercy, have lost money over the last few weeks, because they’ve been forced to pause elective surgeries—though Mercy says some of these procedures will now resume. Current Issue View our current issue
“They’re taking advantage of the crisis,” Hasan Zahdeh, president of the Michigan Union of Healthcare Workers, said. “Covid gave them an excuse to skirt their legal obligation to bargain with the union. Every day they come up with a new policy. It’s really hard to keep up with.”
Mercy is one of the largest health systems in the Midwest, and it is wholly owned by one of the largest health systems in the country: Trinity Health. Though both entities are Catholic charities, they operate similarly to corporations. Trinity employs more than 125,000 people, brought in over $19 billion in revenue last year, and pays its top executives millions. In 2018, Mercy’s director was paid nearly $1.2 million. 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 Michigan Nurses Association, Howe’s firing is part of a pattern of Mercy and Trinity ramping up union-busting actions during the pandemic. One of the most worrisome signs is that Trinity has recently hired two notorious anti-labor consultants. Union reps noticed in early April that administrators had given Matt Patterson and Doug Seaton Trinity e-mail addresses, and began cc’ing them on communications with union representatives.
Seaton refers to himself as a “lawyer for employers,” and in 2017, the Trump administration considered appointing him to the National Labor Review Board, making him more than likely the first union avoidance consultant ever in the running for a spot on the board.
“He was passed up because he was too far right, even for Trump,” Zahden said. Now, Seaton’s working for Trinity. “That is scary.”
Seaton has worked on several union-busting campaigns against nurses’ unions in the last few years, including one against 27,000 home health-aid workers in Minnesota, which is often described as the largest union decertification campaign in US history. So far, that effort has failed.
Patterson, for his part, has been employed by a number of conservative think tanks, from Americans for Tax Reform to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He became famous in the anti-union world for his successful fight to prevent Volkswagen workers in Tennessee from organizing with the United Auto Workers. The German car company said it was neutral on unionization, a rarity in the manufacturing world, but far-right groups funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat the labor movement’s efforts. In a 2013 presentation, Patterson bragged about pitting workers against the union, using the media to create an anti-union narrative in Tennessee, and building an anti-union intelligence network “from Chattanooga to Germany to Detroit.” Patterson compared the UAW to the “invading Union force from the North , ” and said standing up to them was akin to carrying on the fight of Tennessee’s Confederate soldiers.
“The employees of Mercy are diverse, and to hire someone who has that view of minorities, it’s disappointing to say the least,” Zahdeh said. Related Article Union-Busting in the Name of God Amy Littlefield
Patterson, according to the Michigan Nurses Association, became directly involved in labor relations at Mercy right around the time Howe was terminated, and Seaton began being cc’d on e-mails shortly thereafter. Trinity told the union that Seaton’s role was “lead labor consultant.” Representatives from Trinity did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
The hiring of Patterson and Seaton is part of a trend of anti-union actions at hospitals and elsewhere, according to Gordon Lafer, a researcher at the Economic Policy Institute. “They’re facing increased interest of hospital workers to organize new unions, and are using these firms to engage in aggressive intimidation tactics to stop that from happening,” Lafer said.
According to a forthcoming report from the Economic Policy Institute, the use of these anti-labor consultants is at an all-time high, and employers are spending $400 million a year on these union-busting firms. Clients often give these companies large bonuses for successfully fending off union campaigns, according to the EPI report, and the individual consultants can make hundreds of dollars an hour.
These campaigns often target nurses, because their unions are some of the largest in the country. There are now “labor relations consultants” that are solely dedicated to preventing nurses from organizing.
“The right wing, the corporate elite understand how strategic nurses are to the labor movement,” said Jane McAlevey, a union organizer, The Nation’s strikes correspondent, and author of A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy. “Hospital administrators try to come off as doing something good, but really they’re just taking public money and hiring union-busting thugs.”
At Mercy, the anti-union fight is growing more intense. Right before the hospital fired Howe, Mercy President Gary Allore released an 11-minute Facebook video in which he blamed the unions for causing confusion during the pandemic. “They’re using unprecedented and defamatory information and tactics all designed to create credible fear in the community,” Allore said in response to allegations about the lack of protective equipment. “They are forcing us to take time out to respond [to their demands] and are putting lives on the line.”
Then, late on a Friday night in early April, Mercy sent an e-mail to union members announcing possible furloughs, and gave the union until noon the next day, a Saturday, to respond. Administrators also notified employees that they would allow people to borrow paid time off from the future in order to take paid time off during the pandemic. They then rescinded that offer, and sent out a staff-wide message blaming the union for the rescindment.
“It’s demoralizing, and it makes the union look weak or incompetent,” Zahdeh said. “I’ve been working there a long time. Any employer doesn’t want their employees to be unionized. But this aggressiveness is new.”
Howe and the union haven’t given up. He and the Michigan Nurses Association on Monday filed a lawsuit against Mercy Health, claiming it had violated the state’s whistle-blower laws by punishing him for speaking out.
Howe said he hopes the suit forces Mercy to reinstate his employment. “I have knowledge and skills that need to be utilized right now,” Howe said. “And here I am sitting on the sidelines. It’s difficult.”


thenation--2020-05-11--Covid-19 Is Forcing an Exodus From Peru’s Cities

The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on a visual chronicle of untold stories as the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States and the rest of the world—read more from The Invisible Front Line .
—The Editors Lima , Peru—In Peru ’ s capital city , an exodus is underway .
Outside bus terminals and in makeshift encampments on the sides of roads , thousands of people are struggling to get out .
The coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing shutdown of the country ’ s economy is bringing about a radical reversal of long-standing migration patterns , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s response to the crisis .
Lima is a city of migrants : The country ’ s largest city has for decades lured migrants from Peru ’ s peripheries , people looking to earn a living they couldn ’ t obtain in their home region .
From a little over 1,000,000 residents in the 1950s , the city has rapidly expanded to more than 10 million today .
Many of the new arrivals live in crowded , improvised housing , and earn their money day-to-day .
When the pandemic made it impossible to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t afford to remain in the city even if they wanted to .
So they are taking to the roads .
“ We ’ re more afraid of hunger than the virus , ” Wilson Granda told me , as he was waiting with 10 of his relatives for a bus to Ayabaca in the north of Peru , more than 30 hours away .
Regional governments are working to provide transportation for those who want to return to their hometowns , but the scale of the reverse migration is daunting : More @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government for bus transportation home , and that ’ s only those who have registered .
That has left people like Granda to wait , sometimes days at a time , before their spot on a bus opens up .
Before the pandemic hit Peru , I had been working with native communities in the Amazon for some years , and the last trip I was able to make , in February , before the internal borders were closed was to work in the highlands jungle on a project about the threats facing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s coca-producing regions .
Drug trafficking , depopulation , and illegal logging had plagued these communities for years , doing their own part to spur migration to the cities .
Now , many who left are returning .
When Peru went under lockdown , many native communities closed their borders too , but that didn ’ t stop the virus from making its way into some communities in the Amazon and the Andes .
Among the people I spoke with on the streets of Lima , many are from the Amazon regions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ northern coast of Peru .
The situation is changing quickly , but these remote communities are on high alert , many of them days away from a hospital .
Many of the people now leaving Lima are on their way to these communities , and the risk now is that they may carry the virus with them .
Something that I heard a few times was , “ At least there we have a farm , in Lima you can ’ t plant , ” and perhaps this will be one lasting change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jobs that are really fundamental for our existence .
But first , these people have to get home .
“ We ’ ve been waiting for more than 15 days and we need to go back , ” Richard Pangoa told me , as he and his wife and three little girls were walking in the direction of Pucallpa in the north jungle of Peru , more than 400 miles away .
“ We can ’ t keep sleeping in the streets .
We ’ ll just walk .
”

The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on a visual chronicle of untold stories as the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States and the rest of the world—read more from The Invisible Front Line. —The Editors
Lima, Peru—In Peru’s capital city, an exodus is underway. Outside bus terminals and in makeshift encampments on the sides of roads, thousands of people are struggling to get out. The coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing shutdown of the country’s economy is bringing about a radical reversal of long-standing migration patterns, and revealing the flaws in the government’s response to the crisis.
Lima is a city of migrants: The country’s largest city has for decades lured migrants from Peru’s peripheries, people looking to earn a living they couldn’t obtain in their home region. From a little over 1,000,000 residents in the 1950s, the city has rapidly expanded to more than 10 million today. Many of the new arrivals live in crowded, improvised housing, and earn their money day-to-day. When the pandemic made it impossible to continue working, many people couldn’t afford to remain in the city even if they wanted to. So they are taking to the roads.
“We’re more afraid of hunger than the virus,” Wilson Granda told me, as he was waiting with 10 of his relatives for a bus to Ayabaca in the north of Peru, more than 30 hours away. Regional governments are working to provide transportation for those who want to return to their hometowns, but the scale of the reverse migration is daunting: More than 170,000 people have registered with the government for bus transportation home, and that’s only those who have registered. That has left people like Granda to wait, sometimes days at a time, before their spot on a bus opens up.
Before the pandemic hit Peru, I had been working with native communities in the Amazon for some years, and the last trip I was able to make, in February, before the internal borders were closed was to work in the highlands jungle on a project about the threats facing Ashaninka communities in one of the country’s coca-producing regions. Drug trafficking, depopulation, and illegal logging had plagued these communities for years, doing their own part to spur migration to the cities. Now, many who left are returning.
When Peru went under lockdown, many native communities closed their borders too, but that didn’t stop the virus from making its way into some communities in the Amazon and the Andes. Among the people I spoke with on the streets of Lima, many are from the Amazon regions of Loreto and Piura, on the northern coast of Peru. The situation is changing quickly, but these remote communities are on high alert, many of them days away from a hospital. Many of the people now leaving Lima are on their way to these communities, and the risk now is that they may carry the virus with them.
Something that I heard a few times was, “At least there we have a farm, in Lima you can’t plant,” and perhaps this will be one lasting change from this crisis, a revaluing of jobs that are really fundamental for our existence. But first, these people have to get home.
“We’ve been waiting for more than 15 days and we need to go back,” Richard Pangoa told me, as he and his wife and three little girls were walking in the direction of Pucallpa in the north jungle of Peru, more than 400 miles away. “We can’t keep sleeping in the streets. We’ll just walk.”