Tis but a Scratch: the Insanity of Returning to Normal (Episode 31 of Crazy Town)
In the season finale of Crazy Town during this upside down year of 2020, it’s only fitting that a return to “normal” actually means a return to “crazy.”
Society featured
Seeing White: Skulls and Skin
Scientists weren’t the first to divide humanity along racial – and racist – lines. But for hundreds of years, racial scientists claimed to provide proof for those racist hierarchies – and some still do.
Seeing White: Chenjerai’s Challenge
“How attached are you to the idea of being white?” Chenjerai Kumanyika puts that question to host John Biewen, as they revisit an unfinished conversation from a previous episode.
Seeing White: That’s Not Us, So We’re Clean
When it comes to America’s racial sins, past and present, a lot of us see people in one region of the country as guiltier than the rest. Host John Biewen spoke with some white Southern friends about that tendency.
A Time to Speak up, but Also a Time to Shut up: White Privilege in America (Episode 30 of Crazy Town)
Is there anything crazier than the people in our towns, who are sworn to protect and serve, instead coldly taking the lives of our neighbors? Given this moment in American history marked by outrage, sadness, and massive protest, we discuss the need to address institutional racism and white privilege.
Redneck Revolutionary
So you see, even a conservative libertarian from Texas Hill Country can turn toward the light. All it takes is a commitment to boycott Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and a refusal to look away.
Seeing White: On Crazy We Built a Nation
“All men are created equal.” Those words, from the Declaration of Independence, are central to the story that Americans tell about ourselves and our history. But what did those words mean to the man who actually wrote them?
Now Is the Time – Revolution, Inner and Outer
George Floyd’s death was a flashpoint, erupting into the flame of truth, spreading over the world like wildfire. What is that truth, too long hidden, that needed to break through into the light of day, to break open our hearts?
Seeing White: Made in America
Chattel slavery in the United States, with its distinctive – and strikingly cruel – laws and structures, took shape over many decades in colonial America. The innovations that built American slavery are inseparable from the construction of Whiteness as we know it today.
Review of Love in the Ruins (Short Story and Poetry Collection Edited by John Michael Greer)
Perhaps the most striking feature of this anthology of stories and verse about romance in the deindustrial future is its rich assortment of tones and styles. Some stories are charming, others throb with as much trauma as passion and still others feel as timeless as myths.
Britain’s Claims to Being a Functioning Democracy are Only Skin Deep
Established power in this country is surrounded by a series of defensive rings. As soon as you begin to name them, you see that the UK is a democracy only in the weakest and shallowest sense.
The Inequalities Exposed by this Pandemic are About to Get even Worse
As the beginning of the end of lockdown comes into view in England, a new fear should be taking shape. We entered the pandemic a grossly unequal society; we will leave it with those inequalities sharpened and multiplied.
