thenation--2020-06-24--How Long Can William Barr Get Away With Laughing at Justice?

William Barr has a distinguished résumé : Aside from being one of America ’ s top lawyers , he has twice served as attorney general , first for George H.W .
Bush and now for Donald Trump .
But Barr deserves to be known for only one thing : his skill at shielding presidents from democratic accountability .
During the Bush years , he spearheaded the successful effort to save his boss and Ronald Reagan from being implicated in the Iran/Contra scandal .
When he shot down an attempt to set up a special counsel to investigate the Bush administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the invasion of Kuwait , conservative columnist William Safire referred to Barr as “ the Coverup-General.
” It was for his skill as Cover-up General that Barr was returned to his old post .
As Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told The New Yorker , “ I think he was nominated for his ability to protect Trump .
His belief in executive power was his primary qualification.
” Barr has served Trump well .
Writing in The Atlantic , George Packer observes , “ Barr has used his authority to protect Trump from two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mueller , and then the House impeachment inquiry .
He hatched his own investigation to discredit the first , personally traveling abroad to dig up evidence of a United States government conspiracy against the president.
” Acting more as Trump ’ s protective consigliere than as the guardian of the legal system , Barr has gone after such perceived Trump enemies as former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe while offering aid to Trump friends like Roger Stone and Michael Flynn .
The World Is Finally Catching Up to Spike Lee The First Wave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ On Wednesday morning , two Justice Department employees are scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Barr ’ s corruption of his office .
Prosecutor Aaron S.J .
Zelinsky will testify that political pressure was applied to give Roger Stone a lighter sentence than he would otherwise receive .
John W. Elias , a senior career official in the antitrust division , is expected to talk about Barr pressuring his department to go after the legal marijuana industry and to sabotage efforts by the State of California to regulate automobile pollution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have already been made public .
Zelinsky plans to tell the Judiciary Committee : What I heard—repeatedly—was that Roger Stone was being treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to the President .
I was told that the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia , Timothy Shea , was receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break , and that the U.S. Attorney ’ s sentencing instructions to us were based on political considerations .
I was also told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stone such unprecedentedly favorable treatment because he was “ afraid of the President.
” The Trump administration will try to dismiss Zelinsky ’ s testimony as hearsay .
And it is true that , as Zelinsky himself says , he “ was not privy to discussions with political leadership at the Department of Justice.
” Still , Zelinsky oversaw the Stone case and his testimony about the pressures he felt are important .
They fit in with a larger and known pattern of misconduct .
The sad truth about Bill Barr ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work .
Barr was part of the generation of young Republicans whose political sensibility was formed by Watergate .
But the lesson they learned was not that presidential power should be restrained .
Rather , Barr belonged to the school of Dick Cheney , Antonin Scalia , and David Addington .
This cohort of Republicans all concluded that what Watergate proved was that presidential power , at least when Republicans held the White House , needed to be more securely guarded by legal loyalists .
These advocates of “ the unitary executive ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won some singular successes—in part because the culture of elite impunity has bipartisan support .
Iran/Contra was a great success : Not only were two presidents shielded from consequences , but many underlings were pardoned .
Barr was the adviser when George H.W .
Bush pardoned a clutch of administration officials on Christmas Eve 1992 .
In issuing these pardons , Bush attacked what he called “ the criminalization of policy differences , ” and said these issues should be settled by “ the voting booth , not the courtroom.
” It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Barr and other Republican advocates of an imperial presidency that leading Democrats have bought into this idea .
When Eric Holder was nominated to be attorney general under Barack Obama , he was asked about possible investigations into officials in the George W. Bush administration responsible for spying on US citizens , and approving or ordering the use of torture .
Holder said , “ We don ’ t want to criminalize policy differences that may exist between the outgoing administration.
” Obama himself echoed these sentiments , saying , “ We need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ backwards.
” By 2012 , Holder had closed the investigations into torture without any charges ever being brought .
It ’ s still an open question whether Barr will face any thorough investigation into his corruption of the Department of Justice .
Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler has already ruled out the impeachment of Barr as a “ waste of time.
” The current hearings may generate some momentary drama—but they will soon be swamped by election news .
Democrats face a bind with Barr .
There is a narrowly pragmatic case for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” stance if Joe Biden wins the presidency .
Biden will have his hands full dealing with issues like the pandemic , the economic meltdown , and the police violence .
There ’ s little electoral advantage to going after the members of a previous administration .
It would revive partisan anger and open Biden to the charge of being petty and vindictive .
Despite these pragmatic arguments , the “ look forward ” approach has clearly failed .
Applying it to the crimes of Trump and his enablers would endanger American democracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seen an intensification of corruption thanks to the system of elite impunity that protects both parties .
The Trump administration is merely the lowest point so far of a downward cycle .
But there is always lower to go .
If there is no punishment , corruption will inevitably get worse .
Trump has created a road map for future authoritarian governments , showing how much an American president can do , providing his own party controls the Senate and he appoints a pliable attorney general .
The only way to break this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and his lackeys responsible .
It is too late for impeachment , but it is not too late for the next Democratic administration to investigate what Barr did as attorney general .
This investigation will be imperative for American democracy .

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William Barr has a distinguished résumé: Aside from being one of America’s top lawyers, he has twice served as attorney general, first for George H.W. Bush and now for Donald Trump. But Barr deserves to be known for only one thing: his skill at shielding presidents from democratic accountability. During the Bush years, he spearheaded the successful effort to save his boss and Ronald Reagan from being implicated in the Iran/Contra scandal. When he shot down an attempt to set up a special counsel to investigate the Bush administration’s dealings in Iraq prior to the invasion of Kuwait, conservative columnist William Safire referred to Barr as “the Coverup-General.”
It was for his skill as Cover-up General that Barr was returned to his old post. As Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told The New Yorker, “I think he was nominated for his ability to protect Trump. His belief in executive power was his primary qualification.”
Barr has served Trump well. Writing in The Atlantic, George Packer observes, “Barr has used his authority to protect Trump from two investigations: that of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and then the House impeachment inquiry. He hatched his own investigation to discredit the first, personally traveling abroad to dig up evidence of a United States government conspiracy against the president.”
Acting more as Trump’s protective consigliere than as the guardian of the legal system, Barr has gone after such perceived Trump enemies as former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe while offering aid to Trump friends like Roger Stone and Michael Flynn. More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
On Wednesday morning, two Justice Department employees are scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Barr’s corruption of his office. Prosecutor Aaron S.J. Zelinsky will testify that political pressure was applied to give Roger Stone a lighter sentence than he would otherwise receive. John W. Elias, a senior career official in the antitrust division, is expected to talk about Barr pressuring his department to go after the legal marijuana industry and to sabotage efforts by the State of California to regulate automobile pollution.
Zelinsky’s prepared opening statements have already been made public. Zelinsky plans to tell the Judiciary Committee:
The Trump administration will try to dismiss Zelinsky’s testimony as hearsay. And it is true that, as Zelinsky himself says, he “was not privy to discussions with political leadership at the Department of Justice.” Still, Zelinsky oversaw the Stone case and his testimony about the pressures he felt are important. They fit in with a larger and known pattern of misconduct. Current Issue View our current issue
The sad truth about Bill Barr’s career is that it proves cover-ups usually work. Barr was part of the generation of young Republicans whose political sensibility was formed by Watergate. But the lesson they learned was not that presidential power should be restrained. Rather, Barr belonged to the school of Dick Cheney, Antonin Scalia, and David Addington. This cohort of Republicans all concluded that what Watergate proved was that presidential power, at least when Republicans held the White House, needed to be more securely guarded by legal loyalists.
These advocates of “the unitary executive” (as they call it) have won some singular successes—in part because the culture of elite impunity has bipartisan support. Iran/Contra was a great success: Not only were two presidents shielded from consequences, but many underlings were pardoned. Barr was the adviser when George H.W. Bush pardoned a clutch of administration officials on Christmas Eve 1992. In issuing these pardons, Bush attacked what he called “the criminalization of policy differences,” and said these issues should be settled by “the voting booth, not the courtroom.”
It’s a testament to the success of Barr and other Republican advocates of an imperial presidency that leading Democrats have bought into this idea. When Eric Holder was nominated to be attorney general under Barack Obama, he was asked about possible investigations into officials in the George W. Bush administration responsible for spying on US citizens, and approving or ordering the use of torture. Holder said, “We don’t want to criminalize policy differences that may exist between the outgoing administration.” Obama himself echoed these sentiments, saying, “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” By 2012, Holder had closed the investigations into torture without any charges ever being brought.
It’s still an open question whether Barr will face any thorough investigation into his corruption of the Department of Justice. Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler has already ruled out the impeachment of Barr as a “waste of time.” The current hearings may generate some momentary drama—but they will soon be swamped by election news.
Democrats face a bind with Barr. There is a narrowly pragmatic case for adopting Obama’s “look forward” stance if Joe Biden wins the presidency. Biden will have his hands full dealing with issues like the pandemic, the economic meltdown, and the police violence. There’s little electoral advantage to going after the members of a previous administration. It would revive partisan anger and open Biden to the charge of being petty and vindictive.
Despite these pragmatic arguments, the “look forward” approach has clearly failed. Applying it to the crimes of Trump and his enablers would endanger American democracy. The four decades since Watergate have seen an intensification of corruption thanks to the system of elite impunity that protects both parties. The Trump administration is merely the lowest point so far of a downward cycle.
But there is always lower to go. If there is no punishment, corruption will inevitably get worse. Trump has created a road map for future authoritarian governments, showing how much an American president can do, providing his own party controls the Senate and he appoints a pliable attorney general.
The only way to break this descent into authoritarianism is to hold Trump and his lackeys responsible. It is too late for impeachment, but it is not too late for the next Democratic administration to investigate what Barr did as attorney general. This investigation will be imperative for American democracy.


thenation--2020-06-25--Hong Kong’s Cartoonists Aren’t Giving Up on Dissent

In a career spanning nearly four decades , four Hong Kong chief executives , and four Chinese Communist Party leaders , Wong Kei Kwan has traced the arc of history as well as the contours of every leader ’ s face .
The political cartoonist better known by his pen name , Zunzi , is a master of caricaturing Hong Kong ’ s political elite .
One of a handful of editorial cartoonists in Hong Kong who still have a daily column in local print newspapers ( in fact , he has two ) , the 65-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find in his cartoons , even when he ’ s discussing a matter as grim as the new national security law that the Chinese government is set to impose on Hong Kong , designed to criminalize dissent .
“ It ’ s like a guillotine that may fall anytime .
That is what we find most unacceptable .
Like Monkey King ’ s circlet , which can be tightened whenever they chant the sutra , ” says Wong , referring to the crown used to tame the unruly creature in the classic Chinese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the newer forms of protest art that circulate online and are posted at makeshift Lennon Walls across the city , political cartooning is an indispensable avenue for dissent and political expression in Hong Kong .
In mainland China , distorting the image of the country ’ s leader or vilifying Chinese lifestyles would be considered a criminal offense ; anything deemed incompatible with the Chinese Communist Party ’ s values will be scrubbed from the Internet .
In Hong Kong , people are—for now—still free to illustrate their scathing opinions of those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , this creative outlet has been left relatively untouched .
Beijing announced the new national security law last month , bypassing Hong Kong ’ s local government .
It will proscribe seditious and subversive activities , and has sparked growing fears that Hong Kong ’ s freedom of expression will come to an end .
But cartoonists across generations are still refusing to be silenced , confronting the new reality in the way they know best : Where words fail , cartoons step in .
Wong ’ s work , which now appears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Ming Pao , tends to be uncannily prescient .
In 1984 , years before the British colonial government handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997 , he published a cartoon depicting Hong Kong as a bride , forced into an arranged marriage with no say over her fate .
“ Now having married into an aristocratic family , we are probably worse off .
An abused wife or servant , ” he says .
He acknowledges the growing threat to freedom of speech , but he believes that the details of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set in stone .
For now , he remains unfazed : One of his most recent cartoons , published in Ming Pao , shows Chinese President Xi Jinping sitting naked on a throne .
“ The warning that we would lose our freedom to draw has been repeated for 20 years , ” says Wong .
“ However , it depends not on a few cartoonists or a newspaper , but the social atmosphere .
Whether the commentary is in the form of cartoons or text , it is supported by the collective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this collective power that allows illustrator Ng Kap Chuen , aka Ah To , to shake off the sense of foreboding .
The 37-year-old has a massive following on Facebook and a weekly column on Yahoo News , both digital platforms that have yet to be suppressed in Hong Kong by China ’ s iron fist .
But he knows well that self-censorship creeped into Hong Kong long before the new law was introduced , with publishers and institutions steering clear of material to which they assumed the Chinese government would object .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , publishing them on local Internet forums .
Three years later , he ditched his job as a graphic designer in advertising to become a full-time independent illustrator .
When he was about to publish his first book in 2016—a collection of comics featuring the daily lives and culture of Hong Kong people , using his trademark animal characters—his publisher told him to remove the strips with references to Xi Jinping and the Chinese national flag .
The incident sent a chill down his spine : His publisher , Ming Pao Publications , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that also owns the newspaper Ming Pao .
He says now that he never expected an institution he deemed pro-democratic to self-censor out of concerns over what he calls “ imaginary laws.
” Ng fought to keep the draft intact and was eventually able to find another publisher for the book .
He stands behind his decision today , even if the price he has to pay may soon be far bigger than losing a book deal .
“ When I draw , I ask myself if it is something I truly believe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yes , that alone is enough , ” he says .
“ I don ’ t think about whether or not it will land me in jail.
” He felt the most frustrated a few years back , when Hong Kong ’ s civil society slipped into despair after the Umbrella Movement of 2014 failed to obtain any democratic concessions from the authorities .
“ I also published political artworks then , but there was absolutely no reaction from the public , ” he says .
“ For me , that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In contrast , the movement that began a year ago , in June 2019 , felt “ warm and fuzzy ” to him because of the solidarity among the community and the explosion of creative output from fellow protesters .
Since the current protests began a year ago—in response to a bill that would ’ ve allowed Beijing to extradite people from Hong Kong for prosecution in China—Ng has been putting his pen on the city ’ s pulse and drawing every other day , occasionally in tears .
“ It is why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” says Ng .
“ I know even if I die or end up in jail , there will still be many more out there , supporting the movement.
” Among the torchbearers out there—or more specifically , on Instagram—is the anonymous artist who goes by the name Harcourt Romanticist .
His oil painting Our Vantage , inspired by the work of French artist Eugène Delacroix , has become the defining image of Hong Kong ’ s revolution : Depicting young protesters in gas masks and helmets , one waving a black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social media , decked local players ’ islands on the video game Animal Crossing , and made into large banners seen at demonstrations .
Born and raised in Hong Kong , the artist prefers to remain anonymous , consenting only to an interview over Instagram direct messages .
He says that he felt bitter yet powerless against the Hong Kong Police Force ’ s brutality and state crackdown , and took to the canvas to record his emotions .
“ Political artworks serve to inform , unite , empower , and mobilize the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kong , ” says the artist .
For Our Vantage , he drew from Delacroix ’ s signature 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People , hoping to inherit its spirit of freedom .
“ Imagination is asking ‘ what if ’ , and that is the first step to question the absolute truth portrayed by a totalitarian regime .
It lets you see something beyond your eyes , yet closer to your heart.
” Wong and Ng also feel that their work could be threatening to repressive states .
“ A regime rules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ How they present themselves , under what lighting , and even what they wear are all tactics that serve to intimidate .
When you mock them and make them look funny , it breaks the spell.
” “ Satire highlights the absurdity of the government and exposes their lies , ” says Ng .
The national security law , the details of which are still unknown , is expected to take effect by September , ahead of Hong Kong ’ s elections .
The situation is bleak—but at every turn , Hong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Despite a ban on large gatherings , protesters have continued to risk arrest and gathered in flash mobs to make their grievances heard .
While the authorities banned the annual June 4 vigil marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre for the first time , on public health grounds , thousands of people defied the ban .
In a symbolic move , they stepped over toppled gates outside the city ’ s Victoria Park , where they lit candles .
( Three organizers and media tycoon Jimmy Lai now face incitement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after Hong Kong ’ s education secretary asked schools to call the cops on kids who disrespected the national anthem and threatened to punish students who chanted slogans , sang songs with political messages , or took part in a referendum on the new security law , dozens of students across the city formed human chains outside their schools , holding posters and banners to commemorate the anniversary of the protest movement .
Harcourt Romanticist is nonetheless pessimistic about Hong Kong ’ s future .
“ After almost a year of protest , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politically , but intends to silence the people who raise the problems , ” he says .
“ One thing for sure , this law isn ’ t about national security or terrorism in Hong Kong .
I see this as a tightened grip over our freedom of speech , assembly , and the press .
“ I had expected this day to come , but not so soon , ” he adds .
“ It ’ s really heartbreaking and infuriating to see Hong Kong one step closer to death in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does not imply he is giving up .
In fact , he says that is why he took great precautions to keep his identity anonymous : to ensure he has the freedom to fight on , even in a worsening landscape .
“ I can only say that I am young , ” he says , “ young enough to stand against a totalitarian regime , for as long as it takes .
”

In a career spanning nearly four decades, four Hong Kong chief executives, and four Chinese Communist Party leaders, Wong Kei Kwan has traced the arc of history as well as the contours of every leader’s face.
The political cartoonist better known by his pen name, Zunzi, is a master of caricaturing Hong Kong’s political elite. One of a handful of editorial cartoonists in Hong Kong who still have a daily column in local print newspapers (in fact, he has two), the 65-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair speaks in the same colorful analogies you find in his cartoons, even when he’s discussing a matter as grim as the new national security law that the Chinese government is set to impose on Hong Kong, designed to criminalize dissent.
In 1984, while Sino-British negotiations over the Hong Kong handover were still ongoing, local cartoonist Zunzi depicted the city as a bride being pushed into an arranged marriage. (Zunzi)
“It’s like a guillotine that may fall anytime. That is what we find most unacceptable. Like Monkey King’s circlet, which can be tightened whenever they chant the sutra,” says Wong, referring to the crown used to tame the unruly creature in the classic Chinese novel.
From traditional newspaper editorial cartoons to the newer forms of protest art that circulate online and are posted at makeshift Lennon Walls across the city, political cartooning is an indispensable avenue for dissent and political expression in Hong Kong.
In mainland China, distorting the image of the country’s leader or vilifying Chinese lifestyles would be considered a criminal offense; anything deemed incompatible with the Chinese Communist Party’s values will be scrubbed from the Internet. In Hong Kong, people are—for now—still free to illustrate their scathing opinions of those in power. Even as self-censorship tightens, this creative outlet has been left relatively untouched. Related Article The Infinite Heartbreak of Loving Hong Kong Wilfred Chan
Beijing announced the new national security law last month, bypassing Hong Kong’s local government. It will proscribe seditious and subversive activities, and has sparked growing fears that Hong Kong’s freedom of expression will come to an end.
But cartoonists across generations are still refusing to be silenced, confronting the new reality in the way they know best: Where words fail, cartoons step in.
Wong’s work, which now appears in the Chinese language newspapers Apple Daily and Ming Pao, tends to be uncannily prescient. In 1984, years before the British colonial government handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997, he published a cartoon depicting Hong Kong as a bride, forced into an arranged marriage with no say over her fate. “Now having married into an aristocratic family, we are probably worse off. An abused wife or servant,” he says. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
“Two police officers are injured,” 2014. In this prescient piece, Zunzi pointed out the power disparity between the police and protesters. (Zunzi)
He acknowledges the growing threat to freedom of speech, but he believes that the details of the new security law are not yet set in stone. For now, he remains unfazed: One of his most recent cartoons, published in Ming Pao, shows Chinese President Xi Jinping sitting naked on a throne. “The warning that we would lose our freedom to draw has been repeated for 20 years,” says Wong. “However, it depends not on a few cartoonists or a newspaper, but the social atmosphere. Whether the commentary is in the form of cartoons or text, it is supported by the collective power of society.”
It is precisely this collective power that allows the illustrator who goes by the name Ah To to shake off the sense of foreboding.
The 37-year-old has a massive following on Facebook and a weekly column on Yahoo News, both digital platforms that have yet to be suppressed in Hong Kong by China’s iron fist. (He asked The Nation not to share his real name because of the national security law.) But he knows well that self-censorship creeped into Hong Kong long before the new law was introduced, with publishers and institutions steering clear of material to which they assumed the Chinese government would object.
“History is repeating itself,” 2019. This work references the iconic “tank man” photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. (Ah To)
Ah To has been drawing cartoons since 2010, publishing them on local Internet forums. Three years later, he ditched his job as a graphic designer in advertising to become a full-time independent illustrator. When he was about to publish his first book in 2016—a collection of comics featuring the daily lives and culture of Hong Kong people, using his trademark animal characters—his publisher told him to remove the strips with references to Xi Jinping and the Chinese national flag. The incident sent a chill down his spine: His publisher, Ming Pao Publications, is a subsidiary of a media conglomerate that also owns the newspaper Ming Pao. He says now that he never expected an institution he deemed pro-democratic to self-censor out of concerns over what he calls “imaginary laws.”
Ah To fought to keep the draft intact and was eventually able to find another publisher for the book. He stands behind his decision today, even if the price he has to pay may soon be far bigger than losing a book deal. “When I draw, I ask myself if it is something I truly believe in, and if the answer is yes, that alone is enough,” he says. “I don’t think about whether or not it will land me in jail.”
He felt the most frustrated a few years back, when Hong Kong’s civil society slipped into despair after the Umbrella Movement of 2014 failed to obtain any democratic concessions from the authorities. “I also published political artworks then, but there was absolutely no reaction from the public,” he says. “For me, that’s scarier than the national security laws.”
In contrast, the movement that began a year ago, in June 2019, felt “warm and fuzzy” to him because of the solidarity among the community and the explosion of creative output from fellow protesters. Since the current protests began a year ago—in response to a bill that would’ve allowed Beijing to extradite people from Hong Kong for prosecution in China—Ah To has been putting his pen on the city’s pulse and drawing every other day, occasionally in tears.
“It is why I can stay calm despite the legislation,” says Ah To. “I know even if I die or end up in jail, there will still be many more out there, supporting the movement.”
Among the torchbearers out there—or more specifically, on Instagram—is the anonymous artist who goes by the name Harcourt Romanticist. His oil painting Our Vantage, inspired by the work of French artist Eugène Delacroix, has become the defining image of Hong Kong’s revolution: Depicting young protesters in gas masks and helmets, one waving a black bauhinia flag, it was circulated on social media, decked local players’ islands on the video game Animal Crossing, and made into large banners seen at demonstrations.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, the artist prefers to remain anonymous, consenting only to an interview over Instagram direct messages. He says that he felt bitter yet powerless against the Hong Kong Police Force’s brutality and state crackdown, and took to the canvas to record his emotions.
“Political artworks serve to inform, unite, empower, and mobilize the public during the protest movement in Hong Kong,” says the artist. For Our Vantage, he drew from Delacroix’s signature 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People, hoping to inherit its spirit of freedom. “Imagination is asking ‘what if’, and that is the first step to question the absolute truth portrayed by a totalitarian regime. It lets you see something beyond your eyes, yet closer to your heart.”
Wong and Ah To also feel that their work could be threatening to repressive states.
“Putting Out The Fire,” 2019. Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam inflames the situation. (Ah To)
“A regime rules by fear,” says Wong. “How they present themselves, under what lighting, and even what they wear are all tactics that serve to intimidate. When you mock them and make them look funny, it breaks the spell.”
“Satire highlights the absurdity of the government and exposes their lies,” says Ah To.
The national security law, the details of which are still unknown, is expected to take effect by September, ahead of Hong Kong’s elections. The situation is bleak—but at every turn, Hong Kongers have put up a staunch resistance. Despite a ban on large gatherings, protesters have continued to risk arrest and gathered in flash mobs to make their grievances heard.
While the authorities banned the annual June 4 vigil marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre for the first time, on public health grounds, thousands of people defied the ban. In a symbolic move, they stepped over toppled gates outside the city’s Victoria Park, where they lit candles. (Three organizers and media tycoon Jimmy Lai now face incitement charges for the event.) Days after Hong Kong’s education secretary asked schools to call the cops on kids who disrespected the national anthem and threatened to punish students who chanted slogans, sang songs with political messages, or took part in a referendum on the new security law, dozens of students across the city formed human chains outside their schools, holding posters and banners to commemorate the anniversary of the protest movement.
Harcourt Romanticist is nonetheless pessimistic about Hong Kong’s future. “After almost a year of protest, the regime tries not to solve problems politically, but intends to silence the people who raise the problems,” he says. “One thing for sure, this law isn’t about national security or terrorism in Hong Kong. I see this as a tightened grip over our freedom of speech, assembly, and the press.
“I had expected this day to come, but not so soon,” he adds. “It’s really heartbreaking and infuriating to see Hong Kong one step closer to death in the hands of a few.” But that does not imply he is giving up. In fact, he says that is why he took great precautions to keep his identity anonymous: to ensure he has the freedom to fight on, even in a worsening landscape.
“I can only say that I am young,” he says, “young enough to stand against a totalitarian regime, for as long as it takes.”


thenation--2020-06-25--It’s Time to Disarm the Police

It’s Time to Disarm the Police

Watch the harrowing video of Rayshard Brooks being shot in the back by Atlanta police and the conclusion is inescapable : These people should not be allowed to carry guns .
The same can be said of the police in Louisville , Ky. , who killed Breonna Taylor as she slept in her own bed , the Minnesota cop who killed Philando Castile , the officer in North Charleston , S.C. , who killed Walter Scott , and the Cleveland cop who shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice .
The list of African Americans shot and killed by police is a shameful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time when doctors , nurses , and hospital cleaners have to beg for protective equipment and bus drivers and postal workers are expected to risk death to keep our cities functioning , the demand to divert funds from often obscenely militarized police forces to health , education , housing , and other public services is irresistible .
But perhaps it is also time to consider a corresponding measure that would fundamentally change the relationship between law enforcement and those being policed : taking away their guns.2 Defund the Police .
And the Military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ North American colonies , like their counterparts in Europe , went unarmed , their ranks drawn from the communities they patrolled .
Even as these volunteers were gradually replaced by professional police forces—first in Boston in 1838 and then in New York , Chicago , and other cities—they carried no weapon more deadly than a short club .
It was slavery and the enforcement of racial subjugation that first led US police to carry guns .
While Northern cities maintained a civilian watch , Charleston and other Southern ports instituted slave patrols—armed bands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ population into submission and return runaways to their enslavers .
Texas Rangers , who were charged with patrolling the border with Mexico and enforcing the theft of land from Native Americans , also carried firearms.3 The relationship between armed police and racism wasn ’ t confined to the South or the West .
In 1851 , Boston abolitionists attempted to free Thomas Sims while he was being held under the newly enacted Fugitive Slave Act .
Boston police equipped themselves with borrowed cavalry sabers to disperse the demonstrators enraged by a court decision @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While slave patrols in the South were reborn after the Civil War as police departments to enforce black codes and Jim Crow laws , police departments in the North increasingly took on the role of strikebreakers confronting a militant and largely immigrant workforce , whether on the streets of New York ’ s Lower East Side or in the steel towns of the newly industrial Midwest .
At first , police were merely authorized to provide their own weapons .
It wasn ’ t until the 1890s that New York ’ s reform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police commissioner , Theodore Roosevelt , outfitted the NYPD with pistols .
Police needed guns not to protect themselves or the public but to defend capital from the claims of labor.4 Disarming the police won ’ t solve racism .
Nor would it have saved George Floyd or Eric Garner or , lest we forget , Arthur Miller or Michael Stewart , but it is a step toward diminishing cops ’ wholesale impunity.5 Over 90 percent of London ’ s Metropolitan Police , whose creation in 1829 is regarded as the model for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unarmed .
While police brutality can kill even without a gun , the extreme rarity of police shootings in Britain should give Americans pause .
As should the reality—no mere utopian dream—of a huge , economically polarized , multicultural city where policing remains by consent rather than by superior firepower.6 Addressing the epidemic of US gun violence will require confronting our culture , with its glorification of violence , and our history of colonial depredations .
But we have to start somewhere .
Why not seize this moment to remove the daily threat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans and their families ?
Why not remove one factor from the brutal calculus of ordinary American violence ?
Let ’ s act—not just to save money but also to save lives—and disarm the police.7

This article appears in the July 13/20, 2020 issue.
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Watch the harrowing video of Rayshard Brooks being shot in the back by Atlanta police and the conclusion is inescapable: These people should not be allowed to carry guns. The same can be said of the police in Louisville, Ky., who killed Breonna Taylor as she slept in her own bed, the Minnesota cop who killed Philando Castile, the officer in North Charleston, S.C., who killed Walter Scott, and the Cleveland cop who shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice. The list of African Americans shot and killed by police is a shameful legacy that stretches back generations.1
In a time when doctors, nurses, and hospital cleaners have to beg for protective equipment and bus drivers and postal workers are expected to risk death to keep our cities functioning, the demand to divert funds from often obscenely militarized police forces to health, education, housing, and other public services is irresistible. But perhaps it is also time to consider a corresponding measure that would fundamentally change the relationship between law enforcement and those being policed: taking away their guns.2 Related Article Defund the Police. And the Military, Too. Andrew J. Bacevich
Night watchmen in the North American colonies, like their counterparts in Europe, went unarmed, their ranks drawn from the communities they patrolled. Even as these volunteers were gradually replaced by professional police forces—first in Boston in 1838 and then in New York, Chicago, and other cities—they carried no weapon more deadly than a short club. It was slavery and the enforcement of racial subjugation that first led US police to carry guns. While Northern cities maintained a civilian watch, Charleston and other Southern ports instituted slave patrols—armed bands whose purpose was to terrorize the enslaved population into submission and return runaways to their enslavers. Texas Rangers, who were charged with patrolling the border with Mexico and enforcing the theft of land from Native Americans, also carried firearms.3
The relationship between armed police and racism wasn’t confined to the South or the West. In 1851, Boston abolitionists attempted to free Thomas Sims while he was being held under the newly enacted Fugitive Slave Act. Boston police equipped themselves with borrowed cavalry sabers to disperse the demonstrators enraged by a court decision to send him back to Georgia. While slave patrols in the South were reborn after the Civil War as police departments to enforce black codes and Jim Crow laws, police departments in the North increasingly took on the role of strikebreakers confronting a militant and largely immigrant workforce, whether on the streets of New York’s Lower East Side or in the steel towns of the newly industrial Midwest. At first, police were merely authorized to provide their own weapons. It wasn’t until the 1890s that New York’s reform mayor, William Strong, and his police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, outfitted the NYPD with pistols. Police needed guns not to protect themselves or the public but to defend capital from the claims of labor.4
Disarming the police won’t solve racism. Nor would it have saved George Floyd or Eric Garner or, lest we forget, Arthur Miller or Michael Stewart, but it is a step toward diminishing cops’ wholesale impunity.5 Related Article The Death of Cop Propaganda Allegra Hobbs
Over 90 percent of London’s Metropolitan Police, whose creation in 1829 is regarded as the model for America’s professional forces, remains unarmed. While police brutality can kill even without a gun, the extreme rarity of police shootings in Britain should give Americans pause. As should the reality—no mere utopian dream—of a huge, economically polarized, multicultural city where policing remains by consent rather than by superior firepower.6
Addressing the epidemic of US gun violence will require confronting our culture, with its glorification of violence, and our history of colonial depredations. But we have to start somewhere. Why not seize this moment to remove the daily threat of death by police that haunts African Americans and their families? Why not remove one factor from the brutal calculus of ordinary American violence? Let’s act—not just to save money but also to save lives—and disarm the police.7


thenation--2020-06-25--How Visual Culture Is Implicated in Mass Incarceration

According to the Prison Policy Initiative ’ s ( PPI ) 2020 report , there are close to 2.3 million people currently incarcerated by the United States justice system .
This includes individuals who are in state and federal prisons , municipal jails , and immigration detention facilities , as well as juvenile detention facilities , military prisons , Indian Country jails , state psychiatric wards , and prisons in US territories .
This number represents the highest incarceration rate in the world , an alarming statistic by any account , but it is vital to remember that these people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They are mothers .
They are fathers .
They are male identified , female identified , and genderqueer .
They are often poor , often black , often brown .
They are students and migrants and children .
They are writers and poets .
They are artists .
Marking Time : Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration It is this last group to whom Rutgers professor and art historian Nicole R. Fleetwood devotes her new book , Marking Time : Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration .
Fleetwood began her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part as a way for her to negotiate her relationship to the carceral state as a family member of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people .
It was the 2012 invitation of a former student to deliver a presentation about what Fleetwood terms “ the visual records ” of her relatives ’ incarceration and that archive ’ s emotional impact that gave her the idea of working on a deeper inquiry .
“ I had been mulling over doing a project on visuality and prisons , ” she writes in the book ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it would be too emotionally challenging for my family and me .
But after that first presentation , something unexpected happened—something that would continue to happen over the years of lecturing and doing research on prison art.
” As Fleetwood went on to share her story and the visual ephemera that represented her connection to carcerality—drawings , family photographs , cards , and paintings—others began to share their stories with her .
Marking Time originates from these encounters and in doing so offers a broader assessment of the visual culture of mass incarceration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s investigation responds to two central questions : How has the colossal reach of the prison industrial complex shaped contemporary art institutions and art making ?
Secondly , how does visual art help to reveal the depths and devastation of our nation ’ s penal system ?
These are questions that concern the terms and conditions of freedom and bondage ( or what Fleetwood calls “ un/freedom ” ) .
These are also the questions she employs to reveal how mass incarceration has become interwoven with cultural production .
In this way , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ text whose author does not mask her investment in an abolitionist framework that might lead to a world without prisons .
Truthfully , any assessment of the prison industrial complex in the United States is always urgent .
Because Covid-19 poses a dire threat to and exposes the extreme vulnerabilities of incarcerated populations , Marking Time ’ s release is especially timely , as an awareness of the impacts of mass incarceration seeps deeper and more insistently into everyday language .
Fleetwood reminds her readers that the stakes are high , not just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loved ones , but for all of us who also believe ourselves to struggle against the carceral state .
“ Carceral aesthetics ” is the term Fleetwood uses to define the creative practices that result from conditions of mass incarceration .
For her , carceral aesthetics encompasses the “ ways of envisioning and crafting art and culture that reflect the conditions of imprisonment , ” and it becomes the key tool with which she navigates the landscape of prison art—which includes art made by both incarcerated and non-incarcerated artists—in order to better understand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ systems of incarceration that have expanded significantly in the United States since the 1970s .
If carceral aesthetics names the relationship between visual culture and the prison industrial complex , then the concepts of “ penal space ” “ penal time ” and “ penal matter ” become central to our understanding of how such an aesthetic proposition takes shape in the first place .
These terms refer to the “ immobility , invisibility , stigmatization , lack of access , and premature death [ that ] govern the lives of the imprisoned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fleetwood writes .
“ Such deprivation becomes raw material and subject matter for prison art.
” To talk about prisons , those who are inside them , and what their art signifies requires an intentional vocabulary , one that Fleetwood carefully offers .
Choosing to begin Marking Time with this exposition is necessary for understanding the meeting point of Fleetwood ’ s critical analysis of art made by both incarcerated and non-incarcerated artists and what this work tells us about how the prison system in this country touches so much of everyday life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for example , is made from the wrappers of several different snack and candy items , such as Oreo cookies , Skittles , beef jerky , and canned tuna , all products acquired by Reams while incarcerated and therefore categorized by Fleetwood as forms of penal matter .
These food products are supplied to many prisons by Union Supply Group of California , one of the country ’ s main commercial prison package vendors .
In his appropriation of these materials for his art—a tactic key to Fleetwood ’ s larger thesis—Reams @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it profiteers from the selling of overpriced and poor quality food items .
These items are consistently bought as commissary goods for incarcerated people by their family and community members , who in turn are already the least likely to earn livable wages or have access to nutrient-rich food options .
Indeed , Fleetwood ’ s training as an art historian is evident , as her analysis follows a narrative arc that moves across artistic mediums and within the physical architecture of prison itself .
This includes assessments of art made by prison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the work of incarcerated artists , collaborative projects between incarcerated artists and non-incarcerated artists , and work made by artists in solitary confinement .
Marking Time , however , never becomes too wrapped up in its own theory to forget that the prison industrial complex is a system of people , many of whom are the most vulnerable among us .
This is not a task of sentimentality .
From the extensive interviews that are central to her research methodology , we learn where artists grew up , whether or not they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been incarcerated , but we never learn what led to their incarceration .
This decision feels particularly weighted in the context of abolition , where advocates argue that it is necessary to move beyond categories of offense .
Portraiture , Fleetwood argues , serves as a counternarrative to the ways in which those who are incarcerated are visually indexed .
Take for example the work of painter Ronnie Goodman , whose portraits of his fellow prisoners “ elevate [ them ] from the austerity and constraint of their environment.
” These portraits refuse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or “ offender ” that are represented by the circulation of the mug shot or prison identification cards .
Portraiture ( including self-portraiture ) allows these artists and their sitters to affirm subjectivity .
Unlike Goodman , whose status within the general population while incarcerated afforded him ( limited ) access to supplies via commissaries , art classes , and even dedicated art spaces within the prison , there are artists who create while held in solitary confinement and must navigate significant material constraints .
It was the acquisition of a contraband camcorder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to covertly film their time in the isolation unit of Northern State Prison in Newark , N.J .
The goal was to illuminate the many abuses that they , and other individuals held in this wing away from the general population , suffer at the hands of correction officers .
The footage , which is incorporated into the 2008 documentary An Omar Broadway Film , depicts the physical harm the officers did to the prisoners .
Fleetwood points to one instance in particular in which a friend of Broadway has allowed the filmmaker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which to her is a deliberate use of penal matter “ to document the violence and horror of management-control units.
” The creative practices of incarcerated artists function as important assertions of their humanity .
Their art is often a testimony to ongoing physical and psychological harm and marks the passage of time as friends , family , and other loved ones continue to visit , support , advocate for , and wait for the release of the prisoners in their lives ( assuming release is even a possibility ) .
Still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , financial , and at times political relationships that have formed between incarcerated and non-incarcerated artists , often mediated and underscored by a vast network of nonprofits that has ballooned just as the prison population itself has .
She appropriately names these relationships “ fraught imaginaries ” in order to underscore what is , in fact , a nebulous connection of individuals who occupy different places within the carceral geographies : different sites of freedom and un/freedom .
Fleetwood outlines a matrix of philanthropic funders—including the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation ’ s “ Artist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Foundation ’ s Art for Justice Fund—that are prepared to funnel resources into an ever-expanding art infrastructure .
This philanthropy acts as a container for prison arts programs and the web of penal administrators who control the very access needed for programs to exist .
In describing this system , her spotlight is always on those artists who are incarcerated , working to create a new terrain of freedom for themselves .
In this context , we are introduced to artists such as Lisette Oblitas , whose multi-media work Phyllis Porter Place Setting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ larger installation Shared Dining , a collaboration between artists at York Women ’ s Prison , the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum , Three Guineas Foundation , and the photographer ( and non-incarcerated artist ) Susan Meiselas .
The project allowed the women of York to honor other women who have inspired them .
Oblitas ’ s installation commemorated the life of Phyllis Porter , the woman who was fatally struck in a car accident Oblitas was involved in .
During her time at York , Oblitas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with Porter ’ s family , learning more about Porter as a mother and person .
The installation , as a result , becomes a site for reckoning and reconciliation .
“ For one , ” Oblitas tells Fleetwood , “ I could feel that I was forgiven and that I was loved , and I loved her back.
” Marking Time moves fluidly between this art historical survey and a sharp attention to the social apparatuses that have enabled the very foundation of the prison state .
For this , Fleetwood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Michel Foucault , and Ruth Wilson Gilmore , a seminal voice in the prison abolitionist movement , to provide further scaffolding for understanding the radical gestures of incarcerated artists .
Gilmore , in particular , offers an ever present reminder that it is possible to organize ourselves , resources , and society in a manner that refuses the logic of the violence of prisons and , instead , points toward healing .
Marking Time then can also be viewed as a study in intimacy : how it is cultivated , protected , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perpetuates harm .
To this end , the photograph is a medium key to Fleetwood ’ s writing and analysis .
Photography enables a type of connectivity central to friends , relatives , loved ones , and artists mining the architectures—emotional and physical—of the prisons .
“ They are something to hold onto between prison visits , or during the long wait for the family member to return home , if that ever happens.
” As the book concludes , Fleetwood shares more of her personal story , and we see photographs of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her aunts , as well as her two male relatives who have been incarcerated .
It is a gesture that reminds readers that this study is an effort that transcends the purely academic .
That so many of us are , directly or indirectly , implicated in a relationship to the carceral state .
To look closely at the relationship between mass incarceration and contemporary art is not just a scholarly pursuit .
It is one that is personal .
It is one that should point us toward wrestling with the failings of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away , dispose of , and forget large swaths of its citizenry .
More than this , it is one that should encourage us to ask and attempt to answer another central question : Where can the body rest and be free ?

According to the Prison Policy Initiative’s (PPI) 2020 report, there are close to 2.3 million people currently incarcerated by the United States justice system. This includes individuals who are in state and federal prisons, municipal jails, and immigration detention facilities, as well as juvenile detention facilities, military prisons, Indian Country jails, state psychiatric wards, and prisons in US territories. This number represents the highest incarceration rate in the world, an alarming statistic by any account, but it is vital to remember that these people can never be reduced to mere abstractions. They are mothers. They are fathers. They are male identified, female identified, and genderqueer. They are often poor, often black, often brown. They are students and migrants and children. They are writers and poets. They are artists. Books in Review Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration By Nicole R. Fleetwood Buy this book
It is this last group to whom Rutgers professor and art historian Nicole R. Fleetwood devotes her new book, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Fleetwood began her research in a personal manner, in part as a way for her to negotiate her relationship to the carceral state as a family member of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. It was the 2012 invitation of a former student to deliver a presentation about what Fleetwood terms “the visual records” of her relatives’ incarceration and that archive’s emotional impact that gave her the idea of working on a deeper inquiry. “I had been mulling over doing a project on visuality and prisons,” she writes in the book’s introduction, “but was afraid that it would be too emotionally challenging for my family and me. But after that first presentation, something unexpected happened—something that would continue to happen over the years of lecturing and doing research on prison art.” As Fleetwood went on to share her story and the visual ephemera that represented her connection to carcerality—drawings, family photographs, cards, and paintings—others began to share their stories with her. Marking Time originates from these encounters and in doing so offers a broader assessment of the visual culture of mass incarceration in the United States.
Fleetwood’s investigation responds to two central questions: How has the colossal reach of the prison industrial complex shaped contemporary art institutions and art making? Secondly, how does visual art help to reveal the depths and devastation of our nation’s penal system? These are questions that concern the terms and conditions of freedom and bondage (or what Fleetwood calls “un/freedom”). These are also the questions she employs to reveal how mass incarceration has become interwoven with cultural production. In this way, Marking Time is itself an urgently political text whose author does not mask her investment in an abolitionist framework that might lead to a world without prisons. Truthfully, any assessment of the prison industrial complex in the United States is always urgent. Because Covid-19 poses a dire threat to and exposes the extreme vulnerabilities of incarcerated populations, Marking Time’s release is especially timely, as an awareness of the impacts of mass incarceration seeps deeper and more insistently into everyday language. Fleetwood reminds her readers that the stakes are high, not just for those who are incarcerated and their loved ones, but for all of us who also believe ourselves to struggle against the carceral state. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
“Carceral aesthetics” is the term Fleetwood uses to define the creative practices that result from conditions of mass incarceration. For her, carceral aesthetics encompasses the “ways of envisioning and crafting art and culture that reflect the conditions of imprisonment,” and it becomes the key tool with which she navigates the landscape of prison art—which includes art made by both incarcerated and non-incarcerated artists—in order to better understand how such work envisions an end to systems of incarceration that have expanded significantly in the United States since the 1970s.
If carceral aesthetics names the relationship between visual culture and the prison industrial complex, then the concepts of “penal space” “penal time” and “penal matter” become central to our understanding of how such an aesthetic proposition takes shape in the first place. These terms refer to the “immobility, invisibility, stigmatization, lack of access, and premature death [that] govern the lives of the imprisoned and their expressive capacities,” as Fleetwood writes. “Such deprivation becomes raw material and subject matter for prison art.” To talk about prisons, those who are inside them, and what their art signifies requires an intentional vocabulary, one that Fleetwood carefully offers. Choosing to begin Marking Time with this exposition is necessary for understanding the meeting point of Fleetwood’s critical analysis of art made by both incarcerated and non-incarcerated artists and what this work tells us about how the prison system in this country touches so much of everyday life.
Kenneth Reams’s collage Capitalization, for example, is made from the wrappers of several different snack and candy items, such as Oreo cookies, Skittles, beef jerky, and canned tuna, all products acquired by Reams while incarcerated and therefore categorized by Fleetwood as forms of penal matter. These food products are supplied to many prisons by Union Supply Group of California, one of the country’s main commercial prison package vendors. In his appropriation of these materials for his art—a tactic key to Fleetwood’s larger thesis—Reams indicts Union Supply Group as exploitative as it profiteers from the selling of overpriced and poor quality food items. These items are consistently bought as commissary goods for incarcerated people by their family and community members, who in turn are already the least likely to earn livable wages or have access to nutrient-rich food options.
Indeed, Fleetwood’s training as an art historian is evident, as her analysis follows a narrative arc that moves across artistic mediums and within the physical architecture of prison itself. This includes assessments of art made by prison collectives, the role of portraiture in the work of incarcerated artists, collaborative projects between incarcerated artists and non-incarcerated artists, and work made by artists in solitary confinement. Marking Time, however, never becomes too wrapped up in its own theory to forget that the prison industrial complex is a system of people, many of whom are the most vulnerable among us. This is not a task of sentimentality. From the extensive interviews that are central to her research methodology, we learn where artists grew up, whether or not they are parents, and how long they have been incarcerated, but we never learn what led to their incarceration. This decision feels particularly weighted in the context of abolition, where advocates argue that it is necessary to move beyond categories of offense.
Portraiture, Fleetwood argues, serves as a counternarrative to the ways in which those who are incarcerated are visually indexed. Take for example the work of painter Ronnie Goodman, whose portraits of his fellow prisoners “elevate [them] from the austerity and constraint of their environment.” These portraits refuse the sole representation of “criminal” or “offender” that are represented by the circulation of the mug shot or prison identification cards. Portraiture (including self-portraiture) allows these artists and their sitters to affirm subjectivity.
Unlike Goodman, whose status within the general population while incarcerated afforded him (limited) access to supplies via commissaries, art classes, and even dedicated art spaces within the prison, there are artists who create while held in solitary confinement and must navigate significant material constraints. It was the acquisition of a contraband camcorder that allowed Omar Broadway and Buddy Randolph to covertly film their time in the isolation unit of Northern State Prison in Newark, N.J. The goal was to illuminate the many abuses that they, and other individuals held in this wing away from the general population, suffer at the hands of correction officers. The footage, which is incorporated into the 2008 documentary An Omar Broadway Film, depicts the physical harm the officers did to the prisoners. Fleetwood points to one instance in particular in which a friend of Broadway has allowed the filmmaker to film his bruises and other injuries, which to her is a deliberate use of penal matter “to document the violence and horror of management-control units.”
The creative practices of incarcerated artists function as important assertions of their humanity. Their art is often a testimony to ongoing physical and psychological harm and marks the passage of time as friends, family, and other loved ones continue to visit, support, advocate for, and wait for the release of the prisoners in their lives (assuming release is even a possibility). Still, Fleetwood does not ignore the artistic, financial, and at times political relationships that have formed between incarcerated and non-incarcerated artists, often mediated and underscored by a vast network of nonprofits that has ballooned just as the prison population itself has. She appropriately names these relationships “fraught imaginaries” in order to underscore what is, in fact, a nebulous connection of individuals who occupy different places within the carceral geographies: different sites of freedom and un/freedom.
Fleetwood outlines a matrix of philanthropic funders—including the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s “Artist as Activist” program and the Ford Foundation’s Art for Justice Fund—that are prepared to funnel resources into an ever-expanding art infrastructure. This philanthropy acts as a container for prison arts programs and the web of penal administrators who control the very access needed for programs to exist. In describing this system, her spotlight is always on those artists who are incarcerated, working to create a new terrain of freedom for themselves.
In this context, we are introduced to artists such as Lisette Oblitas, whose multi-media work Phyllis Porter Place Setting, was created as part of the larger installation Shared Dining, a collaboration between artists at York Women’s Prison, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, Three Guineas Foundation, and the photographer (and non-incarcerated artist) Susan Meiselas. The project allowed the women of York to honor other women who have inspired them. Oblitas’s installation commemorated the life of Phyllis Porter, the woman who was fatally struck in a car accident Oblitas was involved in. During her time at York, Oblitas was able to communicate, via letters, with Porter’s family, learning more about Porter as a mother and person. The installation, as a result, becomes a site for reckoning and reconciliation. “For one,” Oblitas tells Fleetwood, “I could feel that I was forgiven and that I was loved, and I loved her back.”
Marking Time moves fluidly between this art historical survey and a sharp attention to the social apparatuses that have enabled the very foundation of the prison state. For this, Fleetwood consistently turns to scholars like Fred Moten, Michel Foucault, and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a seminal voice in the prison abolitionist movement, to provide further scaffolding for understanding the radical gestures of incarcerated artists. Gilmore, in particular, offers an ever present reminder that it is possible to organize ourselves, resources, and society in a manner that refuses the logic of the violence of prisons and, instead, points toward healing.
Marking Time then can also be viewed as a study in intimacy: how it is cultivated, protected, and nurtured in an environment that only perpetuates harm. To this end, the photograph is a medium key to Fleetwood’s writing and analysis. Photography enables a type of connectivity central to friends, relatives, loved ones, and artists mining the architectures—emotional and physical—of the prisons. “They are something to hold onto between prison visits, or during the long wait for the family member to return home, if that ever happens.” As the book concludes, Fleetwood shares more of her personal story, and we see photographs of the author, her mother, and her aunts, as well as her two male relatives who have been incarcerated. It is a gesture that reminds readers that this study is an effort that transcends the purely academic. That so many of us are, directly or indirectly, implicated in a relationship to the carceral state.
To look closely at the relationship between mass incarceration and contemporary art is not just a scholarly pursuit. It is one that is personal. It is one that should point us toward wrestling with the failings of a society that can so easily lock away, dispose of, and forget large swaths of its citizenry. More than this, it is one that should encourage us to ask and attempt to answer another central question: Where can the body rest and be free?


thenation--2020-06-25--Letting Go of Robert E. Lee at Washington and Lee University

The first time I walked inside Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University , I noticed an overpowering , musty odor before I spotted the larger-than-life mass of marble in the sanctuary that depicts a prone Confederate General Robert E. Lee in uniform , as if asleep on the battlefield .
Symbolism can leave an enduring stench .
For over a century , the bones of the slave-owning Lee family have been kept in a crypt in the chapel ’ s cellar .
Because of them and other relics of the Confederacy housed there , the building reeks of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racism , and of the lies of the Lost Cause myth that persists in honoring Lee , a man who acted dishonorably throughout his life .
Lee ’ s image as a kind slave master , noble but doomed warrior , and proponent of reconciliation between North and South after the Civil War is a prime example of the power of revisionist history—and an efficient PR machine .
Perhaps as pernicious is the other story of Lee , the great educator .
It ’ s a myth that has been perpetuated since 1870 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University , which bears responsibility for the miseducation of thousands of students through its deification of a man who betrayed his country and fought to keep millions of black people enslaved .
Now , as people around the world rise up to protest against institutional racism , it is time for Washington and Lee University to begin to make amends for its role in peddling a false narrative .
It is time for the board of trustees to drop Lee from the university ’ s name .
A small private school in Lexington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claims it can trace its roots to 1749 and credits its survival to George Washington ’ s timely donation in 1796 of shares of stock in the James River Canal Co. that would be worth millions today .
To show their gratitude , trustees renamed the school after Washington .
It defies logic , 150 years after Lee ’ s death , for W & L to give him credit for making the university the first-class liberal arts institution it is today .
He doesn ’ t deserve it .
The thousands of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ came after him do .
They include brave young men and women of color who often found themselves alone , underestimated , and ridiculed as they sought their educations on an overwhelmingly white campus .
Until it frees itself of Lee , the university will never achieve its stated goals of diversity and inclusion , no matter how much money it says it ’ s going to throw at the effort .
Only by removing Lee ’ s name can the university overcome its inability to recruit and retain African American students and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name , the student body will remain largely “ white and loaded , ” as W & L is known .
Lee is undeserving of recognition in the university ’ s name because he was a racist and a traitor .
He broke up families of slaves , selling them off , in violation of the wishes of their original owners .
And he is unworthy of respect as a college president because he looked the other way when his students were accused of harassing female teachers in a Freedmen ’ s Bureau @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in town .
In an interview with the New York Herald after the Civil War , Lee said he thought black people should be “ disposed of.
” He told Congress the black man was inferior and could not be educated .
“ I do not think that he is as capable of acquiring knowledge as the white man is , ” Lee testified .
For years , W & L had credited Lee with creating the school ’ s fabled student-run honor system .
He did not .
A commission on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2018 .
If Lee had created an honor system , he would ’ ve violated it during his testimony before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction in Congress on February 17 , 1866 , less than a year into his term as college president .
Lawmakers wanted to know whether he and other Southerners supported reconciliation with the North .
Lee ’ s answers were disingenuous , as he “ pleaded near total ignorance of political conditions and local debate , ” historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor wrote in Reading the Man : A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Private Letters .
“ Lee ’ s performance was a masterpiece of reticence , ” she wrote .
But “ in private he penned political treatises that throb with controlled rage ” as he discussed with his friends his resentment of the powers the national government exerted over Southern states .
The lawmakers also pressed Lee about whether he took an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy at the start of the war .
“ I do not recollect having done so ; but it is possible that , when I was commissioned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I do not recollect whether it was required .
If it was required , I took it ; or , if it had been required , I would have taken it ; but I do not recollect whether it was or not.
” Here was a man who barely missed finishing first in his class at the US Military Academy at West Point .
His “ I don ’ t recall ” defense rings as hollow then as it does today when major public figures use it to wiggle out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9 , 1865 , Lee did not know whether he would be charged with treason .
According to Pryor , Lee panicked when a judge in Norfolk urged an indictment that June .
Lee appealed to Grant , a fellow West Point graduate , to reiterate the terms of his surrender and the accompanying amnesty that spared his life .
The military academy ’ s “ long gray line ” of graduates and cadets had shielded Lee from a firing squad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got the job as president of Washington College after a trustee overheard one of the general ’ s daughters complain at a party in Richmond that her father needed work .
In September , Lee mounted his horse , Traveller , and headed to Lexington , where he found a college heavily in debt and struggling .
It is true that Lee oversaw repairs , raised money , recruited students and injected the college with a practical streak of education by emphasizing chemistry , engineering and mining .
He even is credited with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become better journalists .
Pryor ’ s extensive study of letters written by Lee and others revealed that many of the college ’ s students were Confederate veterans who revered the general .
But she also found that Lee had a “ fierce and violent temper , prone to extreme expression.
” He was hard to please .
He never apologized when wrong .
One student remembered hiding behind a building ’ s column when he saw Lee pass , according to Pryor ’ s book .
Lee even beat up his old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pryor wrote .
But the most damning account of Lee the college president i s John M. McClure ’ s essay , “ The Freedmen ’ s Bureau School of Lexington versus ‘ General Lee ’ s Boys.
’ ” In 1865 , members of the town ’ s black community had pooled their money to rent space for use as a school .
“ Within a week of the school ’ s opening , more than three hundred students—ranging in age from very small children to grandparents in their sixties—nearly overwhelmed ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enthusiasm for education , wrote McClure , who is currently director of research and publications at the Virginia Historical Society .
The white townspeople responded by taunting black children as they walked to school , threatening black workers for seeking education , and charging black customers higher prices in local stores .
Washington College students joined forces with cadets from the nearby Virginia Military Institute to harass the black students and their teachers .
“ The college students frequently threw stones at the school ’ s windows and loudly sang ‘ rebel songs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ” according to McClure ’ s essay .
“ Teachers were called ‘ Yankee bitches ’ so often that the insult ‘ hardly impress [ ed ] ’ them after the first few months , ” McClure wrote .
“ Men often stood in the women ’ s path as they walked home from school in the evening , forcing the teachers to push past them .
On several occasions the students jostled the women and made ‘ vulgar suggestions.
’ ” The white college students and cadets also sexually abused young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , McClure wrote .
Some of the men were “ sexual predators , ” who tried to kidnap and rape young black women .
Others pressured young black women into sexual relationships .
“ The threat of violence was omnipresent in such encounters : black women and girls undoubtedly knew they risked being assaulted if they denied their aggressors ’ demands , ” according to McClure ’ s essay .
Lee knew about his students ’ harassment of the black school ’ s students and teachers .
He also knew about two violent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ freedmen .
“ Lee had sent out advisories forbidding his students to take part in these activities , ” Pryor wrote .
But as one student told his parents , “ It was reported that the Gen. had dismissed some of the boys , but I have not known of any leaving.
” Pryor reached the only possible conclusion : “ The number of accusations against Washington College boys indicates that he either punished the racial harassment more laxly than other misdemeanors or turned a blind eye to it.
” W & L @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years to dispel the myth of Lee , the educator , other than remove a couple of battle flags from the chapel .
Instead , it has ignored the facts .
It ’ s hard to believe the university didn ’ t know about McClure ’ s research or Pryor ’ s work .
McClure ’ s findings were revealed at a large gathering of Civil War scholars at the University of Richmond in 2002 and included in a compilation of the conference ’ s papers in a book , Virginia ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pryor ’ s book was published two years later to critical acclaim and won several awards , including the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize established to honor “ the finest scholarly work ” on Abraham Lincoln or the Civil War era .
The university ’ s reputation is in peril if it continues to pretend that Lee was more than he was .
Its enrollment model is not sustainable—and it ’ s embarrassing for a school of its caliber in the 21st century .
In 2019 , 79 percent of W & L ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only 3.3 percent were African American .
It is going to get increasingly hard to persuade a generation of high school students who care about diversity to attend a university named after a Confederate general .
“ Time catches up with kingdoms and crushes them , gets its teeth into doctrines and rends them , ” as author James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time .
“ Time reveals the foundations on which any kingdom rests , and eats at those foundations , and it destroys doctrines by proving them to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who idolize Lee to believe , but he did not like being president of Washington College .
“ The work of the college annoyed him at best , ” Pryor wrote , and he told his son that he wanted to leave .
It ’ s time to let him go .

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The first time I walked inside Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University, I noticed an overpowering, musty odor before I spotted the larger-than-life mass of marble in the sanctuary that depicts Confederate General Robert E. Lee in uniform, as if asleep on the battlefield.
Symbolism can leave an enduring stench. For over a century, the bones of the slave-owning Lee family have been kept in a crypt in the chapel’s cellar. Because of them and other relics of the Confederacy housed there, the building reeks of the cruelty of slavery, of elitism and racism, and of the lies of the Lost Cause myth that persists in honoring Lee, a man who acted dishonorably throughout his life.
Lee’s image as a kind slave master, noble but doomed warrior, and proponent of reconciliation between North and South after the Civil War is a prime example of the power of revisionist history—and an efficient PR machine.
Perhaps as pernicious is the other story of Lee, the great educator. It’s a myth that has been perpetuated since 1870 by my employer, Washington and Lee University, which bears responsibility for the miseducation of thousands of students through its deification of a man who betrayed his country and fought to keep millions of black people enslaved.
Now, as people around the world rise up to protest against institutional racism, it is time for Washington and Lee University to begin to make amends for its role in peddling a false narrative. It is time for the board of trustees to drop Lee from the university’s name.
A small private school in Lexington in southwestern Virginia, W&L claims it can trace its roots to 1749 and credits its survival to George Washington’s timely donation in 1796 of shares of stock in the James River Canal Co. that would be worth millions today. To show their gratitude, trustees renamed the school after Washington.
It defies logic, 150 years after Lee’s death, for W&L to give him credit for making the university the first-class liberal arts institution it is today. He doesn’t deserve it. The thousands of students, faculty, and staff who came after him do. They include brave young men and women of color who often found themselves alone, underestimated, and ridiculed as they sought their educations on an overwhelmingly white campus. Current Issue View our current issue
Until it frees itself of Lee, the university will never achieve its stated goals of diversity and inclusion, no matter how much money it says it’s going to throw at the effort. Only by removing Lee’s name can the university overcome its inability to recruit and retain African American students and faculty. Absent a change in the name, the student body will remain largely “white and loaded,” as W&L is known.
Lee is undeserving of recognition in the university’s name because he was a racist and a traitor. He broke up families of slaves, selling them off, in violation of the wishes of their original owners. And he is unworthy of respect as a college president because he looked the other way when his students were accused of harassing female teachers in a Freedmen’s Bureau school and preying on young black women in town. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
In an interview with the New York Herald after the Civil War, Lee said he thought black people should be “disposed of.” He told Congress the black man was inferior and could not be educated. “I do not think that he is as capable of acquiring knowledge as the white man is,” Lee testified.
For years, W&L had credited Lee with creating the school’s fabled student-run honor system. He did not. A commission on the university’s history debunked that lie in 2018. If Lee had created an honor system, he would’ve violated it during his testimony before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction in Congress on February 17, 1866, less than a year into his term as college president. Lawmakers wanted to know whether he and other Southerners supported reconciliation with the North. Lee’s answers were disingenuous, as he “pleaded near total ignorance of political conditions and local debate,” historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor wrote in Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters.
“Lee’s performance was a masterpiece of reticence,” she wrote. But “in private he penned political treatises that throb with controlled rage” as he discussed with his friends his resentment of the powers the national government exerted over Southern states.
The lawmakers also pressed Lee about whether he took an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy at the start of the war. “I do not recollect having done so; but it is possible that, when I was commissioned, I did,” he testified. “I do not recollect whether it was required. If it was required, I took it; or, if it had been required, I would have taken it; but I do not recollect whether it was or not.” Here was a man who barely missed finishing first in his class at the US Military Academy at West Point. His “I don’t recall” defense rings as hollow then as it does today when major public figures use it to wiggle out of legal jams.
In the months after his surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, Lee did not know whether he would be charged with treason. According to Pryor, Lee panicked when a judge in Norfolk urged an indictment that June. Lee appealed to Grant, a fellow West Point graduate, to reiterate the terms of his surrender and the accompanying amnesty that spared his life. The military academy’s “long gray line” of graduates and cadets had shielded Lee from a firing squad in Appomattox—and did so again.
Lee got the job as president of Washington College after a trustee overheard one of the general’s daughters complain at a party in Richmond that her father needed work. In September, Lee mounted his horse, Traveller, and headed to Lexington, where he found a college heavily in debt and struggling. It is true that Lee oversaw repairs, raised money, recruited students and injected the college with a practical streak of education by emphasizing chemistry, engineering and mining. He even is credited with spearheading an effort to educate printers to become better journalists.
Pryor’s extensive study of letters written by Lee and others revealed that many of the college’s students were Confederate veterans who revered the general. But she also found that Lee had a “fierce and violent temper, prone to extreme expression.” He was hard to please. He never apologized when wrong. One student remembered hiding behind a building’s column when he saw Lee pass, according to Pryor’s book. Lee even beat up his old horse in a fit of rage, Pryor wrote.
But the most damning account of Lee the college president i s John M. McClure’s essay, “The Freedmen’s Bureau School of Lexington versus ‘General Lee’s Boys.’” In 1865, members of the town’s black community had pooled their money to rent space for use as a school. “Within a week of the school’s opening, more than three hundred students—ranging in age from very small children to grandparents in their sixties—nearly overwhelmed” the school’s teachers with their enthusiasm for education, wrote McClure, who is currently director of research and publications at the Virginia Historical Society.
The white townspeople responded by taunting black children as they walked to school, threatening black workers for seeking education, and charging black customers higher prices in local stores.
Washington College students joined forces with cadets from the nearby Virginia Military Institute to harass the black students and their teachers. “The college students frequently threw stones at the school’s windows and loudly sang ‘rebel songs’ during impromptu evening ‘parades,’” according to McClure’s essay.
“Teachers were called ‘Yankee bitches’ so often that the insult ‘hardly impress[ed]’ them after the first few months,” McClure wrote. “Men often stood in the women’s path as they walked home from school in the evening, forcing the teachers to push past them. On several occasions the students jostled the women and made ‘vulgar suggestions.’”
The white college students and cadets also sexually abused young black women and students at the school, McClure wrote. Some of the men were “sexual predators,” who tried to kidnap and rape young black women. Others pressured young black women into sexual relationships. “The threat of violence was omnipresent in such encounters: black women and girls undoubtedly knew they risked being assaulted if they denied their aggressors’ demands,” according to McClure’s essay.
Lee knew about his students’ harassment of the black school’s students and teachers. He also knew about two violent confrontations between his students and teachers and freedmen. “Lee had sent out advisories forbidding his students to take part in these activities,” Pryor wrote. But as one student told his parents, “It was reported that the Gen. had dismissed some of the boys, but I have not known of any leaving.” Pryor reached the only possible conclusion: “The number of accusations against Washington College boys indicates that he either punished the racial harassment more laxly than other misdemeanors or turned a blind eye to it.”
W&L has done little in the past 20 years to dispel the myth of Lee, the educator, other than remove a couple of battle flags from the chapel. Instead, it has ignored the facts. It’s hard to believe the university didn’t know about McClure’s research or Pryor’s work. McClure’s findings were revealed at a large gathering of Civil War scholars at the University of Richmond in 2002 and included in a compilation of the conference’s papers in a book, Virginia’s Civil War, published in 2005. Pryor’s book was published two years later to critical acclaim and won several awards, including the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize established to honor “the finest scholarly work” on Abraham Lincoln or the Civil War era.
The university’s reputation is in peril if it continues to pretend that Lee was more than he was. Its enrollment model is not sustainable—and it’s embarrassing for a school of its caliber in the 21st century. In 2019, 79 percent of W&L’s 1,860 undergraduates were white, and only 3.3 percent were African American. It is going to get increasingly hard to persuade a generation of high school students who care about diversity to attend a university named after a Confederate general.
“Time catches up with kingdoms and crushes them, gets its teeth into doctrines and rends them,” as author James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time. “Time reveals the foundations on which any kingdom rests, and eats at those foundations, and it destroys doctrines by proving them to be untrue.”
It may be hard for people who idolize Lee to believe, but he did not like being president of Washington College. “The work of the college annoyed him at best,” Pryor wrote, and he told his son that he wanted to leave.
It’s time to let him go.