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
Sitting with the Trouble
I wanted to write something useful in these times of lockdown and uncertainty, to share practices from those years that might help others navigate this unknown territory.
From Fringe Idea to Law of the Land — a Look Inside the Creativity Fueling the Struggle to Defund the police
“Defund the Police!” has moved from fringe idea to nearly law of the land so fast, pundits have motion sickness. It shows what can happen when progressive ideas are backed by true people power in a kind of “People’s Shock Doctrine.”
For a Social, Ecological, Economic and Intercultural Pact for Latin America
Taking up proposals developed collectively in different contexts, we are proposing a Social, Ecological, Economic and Intercultural Pact for Latin America. This Pact is not a list of demands addressed to the governments of the day. Instead, it is an invitation to build collective ideas
Seeing White: A Racial Cleansing in America
In 1919, a white mob forced the entire black population of Corbin, Kentucky, to leave, at gunpoint. It was one of many racial expulsions in the United States. What happened, and how such racial cleansings became “America’s family secret.”
Campaigning for Bread and Roses
The old word “beauty” speaks to our hearts as more academic or bureaucratic terms cannot. I am especially persuaded by the power of the word to cross lines of political polarization. As, I believe, is the concept of Bread and Roses!
NOlympics, Everywhere
In NOlympians: Inside the Fight Against Capitalist Mega-Sports in Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Beyond, Jules Boykoff follows the work of NOlympics LA, contextualizing their fight against the 2028 Games in LA within a global movement to expose and combat the effects that transnational capital has on the daily lives of poor people living in cities.
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.
When the Chickens of Imagination Come Home to Roost
So we arrive in 2020, reaping the results of decades of down valuing, sidelining and undermining the imagination. The potential rewards that would emerge from letting the imagination loose are incalculable, but instead we keep it locked in tall tower, protected by the dragon of disimagination. What would it look like if we were to set it free?
Who are We? Where are we Going? Some Reflections in this COVID-19 Time
Who are we? And where are we going on this tiny planet of ours, this bright sparkle of life in a Universe so ridiculously vast? It’s a question worth exploring, if you have five minutes in your busy COVID day.
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.
United States: An Obituary
Greed, consumerism, racism, and imperial ambition sealed our nation’s fate. If, as people, we wish to move forward, we must revert to the best of our early unifying values: hard work, thrift, generosity, fairness, honesty, ingenuity, and mutual respect. We’ll need to embody these values increasingly in local institutions, businesses, and other social arrangements of every conceivable kind if we are to minimize the human cost of national failure. It’s not too soon to start.
