crying in marshalls

One thing about me, I’m going to cry in public. 

I think I lost any shame I may have once associated with the act when I lived in London; there’s nothing quite as humbling as crying in a Tube station. Especially if you know Londoners, they will ignore you every single time. 

I have just always felt everything very deeply. I was a sensitive kid who became a sensitive adult. I have joked about it a few times online, but I am certain that I have that affliction Octavia Butler wrote about in Parable of The Sower,  Lauren’s “hyperempathy”.

I hadn’t cried publicly in a while, but recently I ended up crying in Marshalls. I will admit that the store of my childhood does not typically reduce me to tears. On this day, however, I had a reasonable basis for my despair. Earlier that afternoon, I had the opportunity to reconnect with a friend I quite literally thought I was never going to see again.

In the fall of 2015, I was a senior in college at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle. Bright eyed and bushy-tailed, I was 20 years old and heading into my final fall quarter on campus. That fall, I had two formative experiences: 1) a mixed-enrollment class and 2) a civil rights pilgrimage through the American south. (I may one day write about the pilgrimage, but today, my focus is on the mixed enrollment class.)

The class was on culture, crime, and criminal justice. The uniqueness of this experience was two-fold: firstly, in its demographic composition, and secondly, in its location. I took this course with six students from my department (Law, Societies, and Justice), alongside ten incarcerated students at the Monroe Correctional Complex, a prison just north of Seattle. Once a week, we would drive up to Monroe, WA to take this criminal justice course in a small room on the prison’s campus. 

As you can imagine, nothing could have prepared me to bear witness to all of the things I had read about in all of my courses to date. Physically being within an institution that has effectively been amputated from mainstream society forced me to reckon with all of the mythologizing of prisons and prisoners I had retained. With that proximity, I was faced with so many people who had been harmed by other systems and/or individuals prior to their sentences. I was ambivalent, the experience was confounding. Transformative, but absolutely devastating. Engaging, but gut wrenching. Academically, it very quickly became one of the best classes I had ever taken. My incarcerated peers were extremely prepared and deeply engaged each week. I felt (and still feel) grateful to have had the opportunity to know them and learn from them. But the impact that the class had on me emotionally has never left me. If I think about it for too long, I can still feel the grief crawl up my throat. 

Most people on the outside never have to confront the brutality of the American criminal (in)justice system. Prisons are often located far away from big cities, separated from the general public by design. You cannot grieve what you do not see, and you will not empathize with what you do not know. As such, the breadth of the American imagination of prisons, prisoners, crime, and criminal justice has been carefully constructed through the popularity and resonance of copaganda, true crime, and decades of “tough on crime” messaging. These lenses continue to color American discourse on crime and punishment, rendering people completely disposable and irredeemable within the American machine of mass incarceration.

I never told any of my classmates but every week after class, I would go home and cry. 20 year old me did not know how to reconcile my grief over the fact that the most brilliant people I had ever interacted with were all serving life or long sentences. I felt weighed down with guilt that I and my LSJ classmates could spend so much time talking about criminal justice in theoretical terms, but my incarcerated classmates were speaking from their very real experiences. And naturally, the grief compounded. I would berate myself for crying in my apartment, knowing where they were laying their heads was a lot less kind.

My incarcerated classmates have remained with me mentally since then. I think about them and our course quite often. I am always wondering how they are doing, whether they have been released, or even if they are still alive. (A few of my classmates were elderly, and were dealing with a number of health issues while incarcerated; and thus, at the mercy of the prison healthcare system.) I was especially concerned about them during 2020, as I had been conducting research tracking global responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in prisons. As much as I saw people commiserate online about how horrible lockdowns were on the outside, I could not help but think about how my old classmates were being treated throughout the pandemic on the inside.

Fast forward to a few days ago, I was scrolling on LinkedIn and randomly came across one of my formerly incarcerated classmates’ pages. Shortly after completing the mixed enrollment course, I had been made aware that Devon would be released a few years later. In recent years, I had even come across some of his successes over the last few years on Instagram. What I did not expect to see was my old friend Arthur Longworth’s page. 

For context, Art was sentenced to Life Without Parole (LWOP) when he was 17 years old. When I met Art, he would have been about 50 years old. Art’s quiet brilliance, his capacity for introspection, and his spirit all left a lasting impact on me. When I left Monroe for the last time in 2015, I tearfully assumed I would simply never see him again. 

So, you can imagine my surprise when I came across his smiling face on LinkedIn. I immediately paused and squinted at my screen. I clicked on to his page, and then zoomed in to his default picture. As I inspected his image, I noticed that he had gotten a haircut, and even looked to be wearing normal civilian clothes (as opposed to the prison attire I remember him wearing - white tee, beige cargos). I audibly gasped at the sight of him holding a phone. I had known that he had been fighting for clemency for years, but I couldn’t quite let myself believe that he was finally free.

Naturally, I sent him a friend request and messaged him. We exchanged hellos, and I was overjoyed to find out that he was doing really well for himself. He had gotten a great new policy role for a Seattle-based law firm and even owned his own home. We arranged to meet later that week, since he would be in the city for work.

Two days later, I arrived at one of my favorite coffee shops by UW’s campus and waited for my old friend. He arrived and took a seat across from me. We spent the next few hours talking about all of the things we had been up to since 2015. He let me know that he had been released nearly 4 years ago, thanks to the Monshke decision from the Washington State Supreme Court that deemed it unconstitutional for minors to receive life sentences. What could only be described as a miracle allowed my friend (and ~50 other men) to walk out of Monroe as a free man, for the first time in 40 years.

I updated Art on all of my travels over the last few years, and asked him about his new life. How has it been adjusting to this new world? What did he think of the internet? Does he watch any shows? Did he see Sinners? (Because of course, I asked him about Sinners). In short: the internet is amazing. Prisons restrict so much access to information, so this newfound ability to have the world at his fingertips has been incredible for him. Art does not watch any television shows, but instead loves being outside in nature. (We will be going on some hikes soon!) And yes, he did watch and enjoy Sinners.

As we spoke about his re-entry process, there were a few things he had to learn upon release that unnerved me. One of them being the fact that he had to learn how to use a fork (because of course, everything in prison can be a weapon). This denial of participation in the minutia of everyday life is one of countless, intentional decisions to dehumanize people behind bars. The barbarism of the American prison system is in its frequent, unceasing reminders of its intention to render people as disposable. Consider how these kinds of decisions can accumulate over the course of someone’s entire life inside, and you may begin to understand my cynicism over the insistence that these spaces are restorative; or, that there is any intent here larger than the will to break someone’s spirit. I think some people like to purge their own guilty consciences by regarding LWOP as the human alternative to the death penalty; taking real solace in the fantasy of prisons as rehabilitative institutions. When in reality, that sentence is a designation of life in prison in name, but effectively, a death-in-prison sentence. 

And so, dear reader, perhaps you can now understand why I found myself crying in Marshalls later that day. I left our impromptu reunion feeling a range of emotions: jubilation, relief, rage, and grief. So much grief. As I write this, I am a few days away from my 32nd birthday. I still cannot really wrap my head around my friend having been incarcerated for longer than I have been alive. Even worse, for a mistake that he made as a teenager and expressed deep regret and remorse for ever since. I wonder about all the names of the people inside that I do not know, all of the people who have been cast out at sea without a life jacket. I wonder when people start to lose their compassion for mankind. I wonder when people begin to lose their imagination for a better world. Surely, grief is the only emotional response that makes sense in this world. Grief and rage. On most days, I oscillate back and forth between the two. 

I am beyond happy for his new life, and thrilled that he’s been able to find peace and build this new, beautiful life for himself and his beautiful dogs. I am so happy that he gets to see the sun whenever he wants, that he no longer has to answer to anyone but himself. But, I cannot shake the grief of so many years lost, and the rage at how quickly we discard people. I cannot accept banishment as the bedrock of our responses to harm, or that this carceral machine is our only option. Not in a world in which abolitionists exist. Not in a world where restorative justice exists.  Whenever I remember my classmates, I return to the words of Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative: “each of us are more than the worst things we have ever done.” 

no winners in diaspora wars

If you listen closely enough, you can hear the ancestors screaming at us.

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In all my years of being chronically online, I don’t think any recurring internet discourse has been more frustrating than the diaspora wars; the cross-cultural rifts that emerge across different nationalities and/or ethnic groups that exist within the same larger racial group. 

As a first-generation daughter of African immigrants, and having grown up in the United States, I occupy a strange space in the discourse. To my parents, I am culturally American, and far closer culturally to African-Americans. To African-Americans, I am African – and distinctly not African-American. Within myself, I find it difficult to disentangle my identity from either group. However, there is an inherent, invisible distance from both groups. Despite how critical each has been in my identity formation, and how inseparable both are from how I am perceived in this country, that difference is present and informs my perspectives on the world.

Alas, this is not a sob story about my identity. Any grief I feel while writing this lives beneath the surface of the diaspora wars. With no end in sight to ICE’s de facto ethnic cleansing operations, immigrants have been thrust into the center of American discourse. And in conjunction with the immigration crackdowns popping up across the United States, the reemergence of these frictions online has been even more painful than usual. 

Earlier this month, some of the biggest celebrities in the world took impassioned pro-immigrant stances at the Grammys. Many of the speeches of support (from the likes of Bad Bunny, Oliva Dean, Billie Eilish, et al.) were embraced by the audience, and the online world watching. However, Shaboozey (a Nigerian-American country singer) made an acceptance speech that quickly caught ablaze online:

“Immigrants built this country, literally. So this is for them,” he said. “For all children of immigrants, this is also for those who came to this country in search of better opportunities, to be part of a nation that promised freedom for all and equal opportunity to everyone willing to work for it. Thank you for bringing your culture, your music, your stories and your traditions. You give America color, I love y’all so much. Thank you.” 

Within the context of the ongoing immigration crackdowns, I didn’t immediately find fault with his statement. However, his words that night eventually yielded a formal apology to African-Americans, as the backlash online was quick and loud. He went on to acknowledge the inherent erasure embedded in his misattribution of immigrants as the people who built this country. The resulting disconnect online between Black immigrants and African-Americans has resurfaced deep and troubling pre-existing tensions between both groups that often go unaddressed.

In terms of Shaboozey’s speech, I believe that context here is important. I think it is imperative to locate his comments within the context of the heightened security and surveillance that immigrants in this country are facing. From that understanding, I think it’s fair to reasonably assume he (like the other celebrities that night) wanted to use his words to uplift a group experiencing deep persecution at the moment. However, timing matters, too. He had the unfortunate luck of making that speech on the first day of Black History Month (in the United States). As a result, I can certainly understand why African-Americans felt erased from that statement. This country was built on the backs of enslaved Africans and the genocide of Indigenous Peoples. And for a group that has been through unimaginable cruelty, while constantly being deprioritized and/or completely erased from conversations (compounded with the current administration’s ongoing attempts to erase them from history), I can understand the sensitivity to those wounds. 

Following Shaboozey’s apology, I was dismayed to see that it wasn’t enough for a lot of people online. The drastically different responses to him, his initial statement, and his apology  all birthed this new wave of the diaspora wars. I felt that with the apology, he had clarified his statement, acknowledged the erasure, and reiterated his support of Black people in this country. And yet, for many people online, that was simply not enough. And although I cannot (and have no desire to) accept apologies on behalf of other people, a part of me (my criminal justice brain) sees that as a reflection of how carceral our culture is, both online and in real life. I always say that the surveillance state has everyone acting like a cop, but I’m even more reminded of such when I see how relentless internet culture is when the masses grab for the pitchforks. Mob mentality has cemented itself within the psyche of the online world. And if an apology isn’t enough, this deep desire to punish an African immigrant in perpetuity for his perceived betrayal is not actually about needing him to correct his mistake. Rather, it is to outcast him and to ostracize anyone in alignment with him. Punishment for the sake of punishment. It is a sobering reality to be confronted with, but one marred in a lot of misplaced pain.

I think that the root of the outrage reflects a deep-seated need for community repair, recognition, and restorative justice. I was talking to my book club just last week about how Truth and Reconciliation Commissions took place in South Africa post-apartheid, but there have been no parallel restorative efforts here. With all of the attempts to erase African-Americans from American history, I would argue that the opposite effect has occurred. In those glaring absences, we find immense grief and unresolved rage. But I still don’t see that repair coming from anyone other than the group responsible for the bulk of the harm against African-Americans (and that would not be Black immigrants). 

In retrospect, I think the seeds of resentment for both groups towards each other were planted long ago. Like Vic Mensa said recently, as an African, I will be the first to admit that plenty of Africans have been extremely anti-Black. Thanks to colonialism and the grim reality that nowhere in the world has been untouched by the shadow of white supremacy, antiblackness is universal. (There’s a reason that they say the sun never sets on the British empire.) However, I’d be remiss to leave out any acknowledgment of the xenophobia I have seen online and in real life towards Black immigrant groups both pre- and post- the ongoing ICE abductions. Nothing stung quite as much as seeing people that look like me proclaim online “that’s not our fight” when it came to taking up the mantle of defending Black immigrants and the need for collective resistance against ICE. Haitians have long been the very visible face of ICE’s targeting, now Somalis are facing similar scrutiny. Of course, any nonwhite person is now susceptible (regardless of your citizenship status) when the criteria for abductions is an assessment of how brown you are.

Audre Lorde warned us long ago:

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.

Not only has this rhetoric been painful, but it has also been a departure from Black radical tradition and the staunch internationalism that our heroes (Malcolm X, Assata, Paul Robeson, Huey P. Newton, et al.) all espoused. But of course, rarely do I see these perspectives or realities acknowledged. Instead, they get buried as seeds of resentment and bloom in the diaspora wars we see online. Antiblackness and xenophobia serve to till the soil of disconnect between both groups. The distancing that occurs between both groups from the other can only be explained when you confront these realities at the root. 

I think that when we turn against each other in these conversations, we have effectively chosen the wrong enemy. The enemy is not laterally positioned, or a part of another oppressed group. The enemy, the root, is colonialism and white supremacy. 

Further, this attribution of either group having “built this country” is one I see often invoked in a complimentary manner, but rarely deeply evaluated. Upon closer review, I don't think that either group actually stands to benefit from that rhetoric. Which isn’t to denigrate Shaboozey’s intentions, but to invite an examination of the defenses oppressed people deploy in times of extreme persecution and stress.

I often see other immigrants invoke this language to reassert our value to this country through our labor. To remind the oppressor that yes, we do deserve to be here; not by virtue of our humanity, but because of how we stand to improve this country. Quite frankly, I think that we are so much more than what we can contribute. And an unfortunate byproduct of this rhetoric is how it reinforces the good immigrant/bad immigrant paradigm that serves as fodder for the right. I also think this argument inherently erases the experiences of disabled people (or people who are unable to contribute to a capitalist system) and renders them even more disposable under the eyes of the empire. I think that capitalism as a system conditions people into reducing their value in a society to what they can produce. At worst, I fear we stand to lose our humanity by tethering ourselves to these standards. One of the most jarring extensions of this rhetoric emerges when people take the Kelly Osbourne route; celebrating immigrants for doing the jobs that others don’t want to do. 

As for the impact of this language on African-Americans, I had a conversation with my friend Quentin recently about why the outrage felt hollow for him.

“I get why so many folks were upset with Shaboozey’s speech, but personally, I wish the “my people built this country” spiel would die. There’s nothing endearing about the fact that so much wealth and institutions were built off the backs of slave labor. There was no agency to be had, it was forced at every turn. All reads as, ‘Ain't I American too?’ Why is that something to hang your hat on? Why are you pining for that acceptance and acknowledgment? My pride doesn’t come from being American. My pride comes from being the product of people who were packed onto ships like cargo, trafficked across seas, dropped in a place they didn’t know and managed to make a way in spite of.”

Quentin’s argument pulls apart any romanticism when you hold the labor of African-Americans up to the light, and place it next to the brutality that it took to build up this country. It’s a bittersweet thing to have to root your pride and patriotism in your labor. On most days, I would say it’s more bitter than sweet. In fact, I would argue that phenomenon is one that both African-Americans and Black immigrants experience. It crystallized for me when my friend Alex pointed to the consequences of the colonial connection, and how it has led both Black groups to lionize labor and hard work. You hear it all the time from Black elders across the diaspora, who have become some of the loudest evangelists of the bootstraps myth. 

The real gut punch of Quentin’s statement lies in the phrase: “ain’t I American, too?” In light of our conversation, I decided to revisit Frederick Douglass’s speech “What to the American Slave is the Fourth of July?”:

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy— a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the every day practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.” 

I have always seen people say that regardless of what you may have read about enslavement, it was so much worse. Douglass’s words are a reminder of the barbarism this country has inflicted on African-Americans. I think it also does a good job of rupturing any illusions about this country, which is why I have always struggled with patriotism. I cannot look at the American flag and not see blood on it.

I think these sentiments reveal something a lot more somber about the emotional state of oppressed people living in America. I would argue that lifetimes of generational trauma have forced us to functionally operate in an abusive relationship with this country. And the deployment of these defenses of both groups reminds me of some of the most common stress responses psychologists have identified (i.e., fight, flight, freeze, fawn.) “Ain’t I American, too” and “immigrants built this country” both feel like fawn responses. Vying for validation from the oppressor, as if our only worth and value as people should be flattened to what we can give to this country. Have we not given enough? And why must we defend our worthiness at all? Legitimizing the idea of worthiness of individuals validates any discussion on whether or not we deserve to be here (and makes room for discussion on who doesn’t), which only leaves us all even more vulnerable to disposability by the empire. In that lens, I think both Black immigrants and African-Americans are actually mirroring each other. Asserting our worthiness and/or deservedness to be in this country through how much we can demonstrate our utility to the empire.

With immigrants under a microscope, the president’s desperate calls for the revocation of birthright citizenship, and the threats of denaturalization of citizens, we have been barreling towards a complete undoing of our national understandings of citizenship and identity under fascism. Under these stressors, I can understand why some people feel compelled to present themselves as worthy to the American empire. But I wish more people would understand that citizenship in this country has always been a moving target. And for oppressed people, there is no amount of virtuousness you can signal that will protect you in an environment sustained by your devastation. 

Turning against our own people makes us no less safe. Not when whiteness has been the default for citizenship in this country since its inception; and white Americans are the only group who have never had to hyphenate. With whiteness as the default understanding of citizenship, every nonwhite person is forcibly positioned to prove their value to the empire.   

The diaspora wars online will have you convinced that we are far more different than we are alike. However, there are far more things that bind us than just as survivors of white supremacy. When I look across the diaspora, and especially in my travels abroad, I have always found so much comfort in recognizing the congruence of Black experiences I see reflected back to me. Our dances, our language systems, our greetings, our celebrations, our funerals, our rituals. Our handshakes, our childhood games, our food, our music, our storytelling methods. I remember reading about the invisible string theory, a myth taken from Chinese folklore that has been used today by romantics to imagine an invisible thread that connects lovers across time. I think the same theory must be true for the diaspora; there has to be something invisible connecting us. I see it so clearly when I leave the U.S., and all I see are reminders of the same faces and sounds of all of the Black people I grew up around and have been inspired by.  

In an attempt to understand this country, I have found myself reading the words of the ancestors a lot over the last year. One thing I am constantly reminded of across texts, is that we have been having the same arguments for decades. In trying to write this blog post, I read The Fire Next Time over the last week to see if the spirit of James Baldwin could deliver me through writer’s block. And then, I came across this passage: 

The word “independence” in Africa and the word “integration” here are almost equally meaningless’ that is, Europe has not yet left Africa, and Black men here are not yet free. And both of these last statements are undeniable facts, related facts, containing the gravest implications for us all.” - James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time 

It’s been 63 years since he wrote those words, and sitting with how much they resonate today brings me right back to that bittersweet feeling. Whether it is via serendipity or synchronicity, I see both sides of my identity in his statement. Both sides of the diaspora wars bubbling to the surface, and both sides of my people. Europe has still not left Africa, and Black men (people) are still not yet free. 

What, to the descendant of enslaved Africans, is American patriotism amidst the rubble of enslavement? What, to the Black immigrant, is American patriotism in the wake of neocolonialism? I find both of these questions far more interesting than the surface-level aggressions that diaspora wars tend to reveal. Instead, that discourse does the work of the colonizer and ultimately ends in service of preserving white supremacy and colonialism. There are no winners in diaspora wars, and no glory in draping yourself in a bloodied flag. 

the grok of it all

I received a routine call from my doctor’s office recently, expecting to hear the familiar voice of the receptionist calling with an appointment reminder. When I answered, I was taken aback to be greeted by a strange voice: “this call is being recorded with AI.” The receptionist clicked over to remind me of my appointment, so I thanked her and confirmed, then asked her why AI was on the call. She hastily informed me that this was a top-down decision from her bosses, to ensure that proper notes get taken. (Immediately, I wondered internally why her bosses would presume that she would be incapable of taking sufficient notes.) I accepted her explanation (appreciating that this decision had not come from her), and lamented that I had not consented to any of this. I felt deeply uncomfortable with the idea of my voice being recorded and used for any future purposes forever, both without my consent and against my will.

To her credit, she conceded and even acknowledged that a few other clients had expressed similar concerns. She reassured me that AI would strictly be utilized for notetaking, but that she would pass my concerns on to her management. I thanked her, hung up, and paused for a few moments. Even in its brevity, that moment crystallized something I have been grappling with for quite some time now: AI integration has been accelerated because we live in a society where consent is neither valued nor prioritized. 

Sometimes it feels like I blinked once in 2020, and now, I cannot escape the reach of artificial intelligence. AI has very visibly been forcefully integrated into nearly every social media platform and software app. Whether these technologies are providing any necessary use or not, have changed these apps for the better, or improved user experiences, companies have rapidly embraced adoption. Not to be “left behind” in the global AI arms race, governments have incorporated AI into their software tools and tech. Even the nonprofit sector has finessed its way into the AI world, often qualifying its efforts under the messaging of “AI for good”. 

As a result of this global convergence, and the strength of media in manufacturing consent, AI resistance is often met with either defeatism, nihilism, or disgruntled calls for deference. Regular civilians are doing unpaid PR for tech billionaires, arguing people down about the so-called “inevitability” of AI. Surrendering their data for free and destroying the environment, all in exchange for AI-generated images of baby Steve Harvey and a hallucination machine masquerading as your all-encompassing virtual best friend.

Take a glance at LinkedIn and there is no shortage of fear-mongering about how a refusal to engage with the tech will render you unemployable in the future, latching on to this newfangled notion of “AI literacy”. It feels nonsensical to think that these new technologies (that we have all spent our lives without thus far) must now be embraced or else you will be left behind. Yet again, force and a dissolution of consent become key components in propping up these kinds of arguments. But, the efficacy of this messaging is clear when you see how many people have been convinced of the need for these technologies. Every day online, I am inundated with an abundance of people who now use AI on a daily basis, defending its uses so fervently as if they truly believe that they cannot continue on without these “tools”. 

If it weren’t so socially damaging, it would be quite a remarkable feat from the tech industry. To have finally cracked the ultimate question of capitalism: how do you convince people that they need the product you have designed, when they have lived their entire lives without it? To have successfully engineered a new need within the psyche of the public, making your product indispensable and recession-proofing your company. Unfortunately enough, it’s becoming more evident that the jig has worked on a large swath of the populace.

It’s interesting because I have watched the discourse change considerably online over the last year. A few different factions have emerged: the “never AI” folks, who are quite stringent on never wanting AI use. Then, there are the “AI evangelists”. Oftentimes, these are tech folks with industry experience who staunchly believe that there are some legitimate use cases for AI. And then, there are the regular civilians who have been seduced into AI use. This category of users have offloaded the bulk of their everyday responsibilities onto these chatbots: serving as their therapist, their confidant, their personal assistant, etc. Living in the United States, I do have to marginally suppress my condescension with the third group at times. As much as I align most firmly with the “never AI” category, I often think about how if we had universal healthcare, we likely wouldn’t have so many people turning to ChatGPT for medical advice and therapy. It is sobering to reflect on the myriad ways this country has failed us. And I make this distinction not to absolve people of their individual responsibility, but to add systemic failure as another layer in understanding how tech found an entry point through government-designed scarcity. Still, the weight of this systemic failure feels particularly substantial when you see some of the stories surfacing lately on AI-induced psychosis. But, alas. Greatest country in the world, am I right?

When you revoke consent by design, you create an environment sustained by a dissolution of consent. Consider that many instances of AI integration require the user to opt-out, instead of opt-in.  

On a much larger scale, one of the clearest emerging examples of the dissolution of consent is in the music industry. Against my will, I have come across the phenomenon of “AI artists”. Xania Monet and Solomon Ray, are two AI-generated Black “artists” that have received notable Spotify performance metrics (1.2m monthly listeners and 582.2k monthly listeners, respectively) and Instagram followings (196k and 135k, respectively). Their existence in the industry elevates some new, intersectional future concerns: the potential for manipulating Black likenesses by non-Black studios and production companies, and the new avenues for digital blackface. 

In theory, when you create these Black AI-generated “artists”, you can make them say whatever you want them to. You can force their likeness to engage with any politics, use their figure as the face of any agenda you want to push. They have nullified any pushback from the artist by design. In turn, they have duped the listener into thinking they are supporting Black musicians. Consent completely gets erased from either side of the equation. The average listener may not be able to detect any of the giveaways of an AI song that an audio engineer, or any other skilled musician may be able to pick up on. Without any labeling of AI-generated music to delineate these distinctions on the app, even if you want to abstain from listening to AI-generated music, it feels like a statistical inevitability that you will be forced to without your consent or knowledge. Suno (an app that allows people to generate music with AI) has increased that likelihood. Suno generates Spotify’s entire music catalog every 2 weeks (approximately 7 million songs per day).

Some of the more unsettling uses I’ve seen of AI have been its deployment to generate people’s likenesses posthumously. Every time I remember the eerie hologram of Tupac at Coachella, I think about how technology has been shaping this future of perpetual digital servitude for years. Last year, the BBC used AI to resurrect Agatha Christie’s likeness for an online course. While these may seem like innocuous decisions to some, I personally think that using someone’s likeness in perpetuity is a gross violation of consent, and presents a number of new ethical concerns. It feels especially heinous when you consider all of the people who never even had the chance to consent to this use, such as the likes of Tupac and Agatha Christie.

No exploration of AI and consent can truly be complete without an undertaking of the monstrosity that is Grok, Twitter’s AI chatbot. Just last week, I came across stories of users tagging Grok to remove hijabs and saris, and to completely undress images of women. A new wave of crimes are now shaping the internet experience, with the ability for users to generate nonconsensual deepfakes of women, children, etc. Because of course, the worst predators on the internet have also turned to using Grok to generate deepfakes of children and CSAM. The most vulnerable groups of people will continue to be exploited through this tech, rife with consent violations. With Grok generating thousands of deepfakes per day, what feels most devastating is the realization that we have truly only scratched the surface here with how much harm there is to come. 

I can’t help but worry about the future of deepfakes, and what other novel, nefarious purposes people find for their use. Here, we have uncharted territory: how do you navigate the online world absent concrete distinctions between what is real and what is not? If regular Twitter users can use AI to generate something as iniquitious as a nonconsensual deepfake, they can also use that chatbot to generate events or actions that have never happened, misrepresent people and politicians through speeches that they never made, etc. In an online environment already saddled with a deep misinformation problem, we are careening towards an unusable internet. No thanks to our governments that have propped up the broligarchy, and the tech companies that have done their best to quash any legitimate criticism from AI ethicists. 

With all things considered, I continue to anchor my stance on AI with an eye towards its future impacts. Most notably, I always return to AI’s environmental implications. It’s not lost on me that some of the most resource-intensive data centers (the facilities used to power AI) are being built in mainly poor, Black areas. To name just a few locations, Elon’s XAI has hitched its wagon to Memphis, and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has sunk its talons into rural Louisiana. Capitalism, like AI integration, thrives in an environment that nurtures its extraction through force. 

I find comfort in seeing communities start to protest these corporate efforts, and can only hope that public opinion continues to shift against AI for the betterment of the people and the environment. As the staggering costs of AI integration become too unmistakable to ignore, I wonder at what point will people reconsider if these technologies were truly ever free. 

the elephant in the room

In a year saddled with so much voter apathy, Zohran Mamdani’s campaign seemed to have done the impossible: get people excited about politics (and politicians) again. Like everyone else in this country, I had been closely following the New York City mayoral race for months. Watching the results come in on election night, I realized that his campaign had reignited something in me that I thought had been long gone: genuine optimism. 

And while I would love to continue to revel in the joy of the election night win, I woke up the next morning and was quickly reminded of the relentless Islamophobia that had plagued this election cycle. From Cuomo’s racist AI-generated ads portraying "Criminals for Mamdani", or his insistence that Mamdani would cheer on another 9/11, or even Rudy Giuliani’s post-election day crashout (complete with images of 9/11), much of the response to his candidacy had dredged up some of the most racist and Islamophobic tropes. One of Cuomo’s ads even went so far as to darken and lengthen Zohran’s beard, lightening his skin, clearly trying to portray a distinct image of him laden with Islamophobic intent. 

With all of that in mind, I think it’s imperative to consider how the tropes deployed against him worked in concert to push a much deeper anti-immigrant sentiment. Politicians throughout this cycle relied on false narratives about both immigrants and crime to manipulate the ongoing moral panic about both issues. This was very clearly wielded against Zohran at many points and was only enhanced through Islamophobia. When Republicans called for his denaturalization, I was reminded of a few things: how easy it is for the state to render you stateless; how Islamophobia provides space for immigrants to be rendered “The Other”; and how that otherization, combined with the criminalization of immigrant groups, both work to rationalize any abuse as a necessary evil by the state.

Many of us have grown accustomed to some of the pettiness that often emerges in politics, but this race felt markedly different. It certainly didn’t help that the attacks surfaced in tandem with a notable absence of support from his would-be allies, other members of the Democratic Party. I expected opposition from his actual opponents, but watching the endorsements roll in for this guy felt very telling. 

You might assume that the same party that had suffered such a catastrophic loss in the last election would have rushed to endorse the young, exciting candidate who had energized people across the country. Unfortunately, nope. That was simply too much to expect from the octogenarians at the helm of the party. Notably, Chuck Schumer never endorsed Mamdani; a glaring omission, considering how much Mamdani had been so well-received by young people across the country. Hakeem Jeffries had also been under pressure to endorse him for months, finally doing so a little over a week out from the election. Although you can’t expect much from the same people who are more focused on prostrating themselves for AIPAC money and who see their role as “keeping the left Pro-Israel." It all feels particularly damning when you think about the kinds of people the Democratic Party has been much more eager to embrace.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò recently wrote about shame and the departure from political correctness over the last few years. His words are ones I continue to return to as I metabolize moments like the responses to the Mamdani campaign. 

“A key aspect of the way we lived with each other before these self-styled epochal developments involved exactly the ‘social shame and cultural pressure’ that Klein and other influential voices now come to condemn: ‘political correctness’ as it was known in earlier days, or ‘wokeness’ as it has come to be rebranded in recent years.” 

When considering the consequences of the collective abandonment of political correctness, it comes as no surprise that we have seen the normalization of such flagrant bigotry. Pushing the line on the norms governing moral etiquette, the Overton Window has shifted so far to the right that all of the -phobias and -isms that were once seen as reprehensible and career-damaging have now become commonplace. Plainly, so many of the hateful things that people say publicly out loud now would have had them ostracized just a few years ago. This shift away from political correctness, coupled with the shortage of tangible social penalties, has made space for an outward embrace of open white supremacists, Nazis, Islamophobes, etc. 

And say you choose to defend marginalized groups? There are now swaths of people who will flatten your position as “virtue signalling” and “performative activism.” What does it say about where we are in society that extending care to other people is automatically perceived as performance? But, I digress.

Throughout the election cycle, there were a few moments when the candidates were asked various questions to indicate their stance on Israel and Palestine. (A little odd, given the fact that Israel is not located within any of the boroughs of New York City). Regardless, this has obviously become a much more politically salient conversation across the country, especially in the last year. In the New York mayoral race, I think it’s important to understand how this question was leveraged strategically, specifically against Mamdani.

Any answer other than a resounding affirmation that Israel has the right to exist would have lent itself to the deployment of one of the most successful tools of Israeli propaganda: the conflation that any critique of Israel is a critique of Jewish people everywhere. Israel, as a colonial, political project, has been extremely effective in conflating antisemitism with antizionism. Antizionism is an opposition to Zionism (the movement for the creation of the Jewish state in the Middle East); antisemitism is the prejudice and discrimination towards Jewish people. Suppose you can get people to accept the conflation of antizionism with antisemitism, the Israeli state becomes much more effective at nullifying the protest movements against the genocide. As a result, this conflation has been extremely effective in manufacturing consent with the actions of the state of Israel. When deployed, it dually silences efforts in support of Palestinians and shields the Israeli government from legitimate criticism.

To his part, Mamdani reiterated a clear, coherent, and fair position on Israel every single time. In one debate, the candidates were asked where they would travel on their first foreign trip as Mayor, with both Andrew Cuomo and Whitney Tilson responding that they would travel to Israel. Mamdani answered that he would stay in New York City, focusing on New Yorkers. Oddly enough, the moderator then asked (only Mamdani) if he would visit Israel, to which he responded that he wouldn’t. Rather, his focus remained on standing up for Jewish New Yorkers and meeting them wherever they were in the city, whether in their boroughs or synagogues. Bizarrely, the moderator continued to press the question: "Yes or no, do you believe in a Jewish State of Israel?” Mamdani answered, "I believe Israel has a right to exist." The moderator asked, "As a Jewish state?" Mamdani replied: "As a state with equal rights." Setting aside the devious implications behind this line of questioning, the implication that a man running for mayor of an American city must pledge his allegiance to a foreign state, or be deemed otherwise traitorous, is objectively baffling. 

Further, this line of interrogation towards the sole Muslim candidate in the race is illustrative of how much of a stronghold the conflation of antisemitism and antizionism has in American political discourse, and how much more dangerous it becomes when weaponized with Islamophobia. This line of questioning is also unhelpful because it forces people into making a false choice; reinforcing this framing implies that you can only support Jewish people or Palestinian people (not both). Personally, I think that is patently false. And I think it plays into the reality that many people treat politics like a zero-sum game, internalizing one community's gain as a loss to themselves. I firmly disagree with that notion and would argue that you can support a free Palestine while remaining steadfastly in support of Jewish people. Support of one community doesn’t inherently quash any efforts in support of the other. Speaking out against the actions of the Israeli government should not be taken as an indictment on all Jewish people - that would be antisemitism at work.

One of the most prominent organizations against antisemitism, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), has unfortunately helped steward Islamophobia in the name of combating antisemitism. Following his election-night victory, the ADL announced the launch of the Mamdani Monitor to track the new administration’s priorities and appointments, as well as a tip line for people to report antisemitic incidents in NYC. Considering that tracking elected officials would be an unprecedented effort for the ADL, this immediately felt unsettling for many reasons. 

Firstly, in his election night speech, Mamdani explicitly named antisemitism as one of his priorities: “... and we will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism.” Secondly, the ADL faced backlash for its response to Elon's Nazi salute. More recently, a Maine Democrat came under fire for an alleged Nazi tattoo, which elicited no response from the ADL. If the ADL’s mission is to target antisemitism, why are its efforts the loudest against the Muslim Mayor-elect (who has consistently expressed support for Jewish people)? Quite frankly, I believe that Jewish people are done a disservice when efforts to combat antisemitism are reduced to 1) ensuring complete obedience with the Israeli government and 2) being used to facilitate heightened surveillance of Muslims and other non-Jewish people. 

Despite all of this, I remain very excited for the people of New York. I maintain a healthy skepticism of all politicians; still, I hope that Mamdani can translate his incredible campaign into meaningful change for New Yorkers. 

I wrote this piece because I don’t think enough non-Muslims are speaking up for Muslims. As a Christian (and simply as a person who cares about other people), I see it as my duty to speak up for Muslims in the face of so much rampant, disgusting Islamophobia. I follow plenty of Muslim and Jewish writers who have spoken out against the Islamophobia that’s surfaced over the last year, and I wanted to be another voice speaking out against it as well. 

In a world that’s moved so far away from political correctness, Islamophobia feels like the elephant in the room. Everyone knows it’s there, but nobody acknowledges its presence. The legacy of the War on Terror continues to loom heavily over this country, but that shadow unfairly hovers prominently over all Muslims. There is no doubt in my mind that there will continue to be Islamophobic attacks against Mamdani and every other Muslim, and I think that we need to be loudly pushing back on them at every instance. 

everything is that deep

In the early days of the COVID pandemic, I was cautiously optimistic that we were on the cusp of freeing ourselves from the shackles of celebrity worship. I had assumed that something about seeing those with the most privilege bemoan isolating themselves in their mansions would shake something up within the rest of us, their viewership. Regrettably, I see now how I was unfortunately far too optimistic with that take. Stan culture is so deeply embedded in our society, and it informs how much resistance there is online to any reasonable critique of our faves - whether that be politicians, influencers, musicians, movie stars, etc. 

There’s something to be said about who working-class people identify themselves with, and how often that alignment is not a reflection of their lived reality or experiences, but of their aspirations. That also explains why you will regularly see everyday people online, dying on the hill to defend people who share no material reality or class solidarity with them. Instead, they may find a false sense of kinship or representation if they share the same gender identity or cultural background with said celebrity. With that in mind, I think it’s really important for us to unpack our allegiance to people who have shown us plainly they do not care about us; they only want to extract the most capital from us. 

Pair that celebrity worship with the surge in anti-intellectualism, and we often end up hearing from the “it’s not that deep” crowd when there’s any pushback towards their fave. While anti-intellectualism may seem innocuous, I think about how the fascist country we are in counts on your resistance to critical thinking to ensure your obedience. These elements may seem disconnected at first… but when you start to consider each issue as being interconnected, you can better see how they have concocted the perfect storm.

Celebrity worship survives through regular people subscribing to anti-intellectualism. Stan culture requires a lot of cognitive dissonance to thrive. I believe that no one is above critique. But many people online are unwilling to acknowledge their blind spots with their faves. You cannot have both firm principles and show unwavering loyalty to a celebrity who acts or behaves in a manner that contradicts your principles - hence, the cognitive dissonance. And I think that people internalize critiques of the celebrities they defend because they see any critique of them as an indictment of themselves. That discomfort you feel when forced to face the reality of a celebrity you have idolized is the feeling of cognitive dissonance. 

When grappling with criticism of their faves, people tend to immediately deploy the “it’s not that deep” argument, waving the flag of anti-intellectualism. In turn, this spread of stan culture has effectively created the conditions for obedience. Obedience to capitalism, obedience to politicians, obedience to new, harmful systems. In the absence of critical thinking, we all become a bunch of mindless, endlessly loyal worker bees under capitalism, conditioned to fall in line behind anything or anyone. (No matter how harmful they may be towards us.) 

Hubris has a lot of people convinced that they are simply “too smart” or too aware to fall victim to manipulation, propaganda, misinformation, dog whistles, etc. I think what people miss with this presumption is the false promise that your intellect can insulate you and your emotions.

Fear and anger serve as such powerful engines of society. Both drive the populace towards visceral reactions to everything from pop culture moments to human rights issues. Fear drives so much of the messaging that the news media anchors their output in, such as the politicization of “crime waves” or the talk of “war-ravaged Portland”. Anger drives viewers to engage with contentious shows and topics (ragebaiting). To their credit, both strategies work. Fear-mongering and rage-baiting are effective ways to get people to engage with content and to serve as de facto advertisers for them by posting their 30-part opinions online.

There is no shortage of cultural and political moments to point to when thinking about how the media and/or companies have engineered our fear or anger against us to drive engagement with their content and/or their politics. A few months ago, Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle partnered up for an odd ad for denim, which was immediately met with outrage online. Anti-intellectualism reared its head with the plentiful responses of “it’s not that deep”, when people started to unpack the clear language of eugenics in the video. Sweeney said:

"Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue."

In the fascist world we are living in, context matters. It’s not lost on me how strange it was for the focus of a denim ad to feature a white woman, with blue eyes and blonde hair, opining on how “great” her genes/jeans are. But, I guess it’s not that deep, right? 

Taylor Swift recently put out an album, The Life of a Showgirl, that has received a considerable amount of backlash. Swifties and non-Swifties alike have gone back and forth on some alleged allusions to Black women on the album (“I’m not a bad bitch, and this isn’t savage”), critiques of songs like Opalite, which introduce contrasts between darkness and light (which is odd, considering Travis’s relationships with Black women), etc. As far as the lyrics go, it has been quite telling to see people who have defended her artistry through her lyricism for years now find issue with people problematizing the depth in her lyrics. 

In one of the more bizarre developments since, Swift also came under fire for a promotional necklace she released (and has since taken down), allegedly laden with Nazi iconography. And yet, plenty of her stans have rushed to her defense online to either a) feign ignorance or b) claim that “it’s not that deep”.

Whether or not the criticisms hold credence, I think the rush to defend Swift is a reflection of the impulse I mentioned earlier - a knee-jerk reaction from stans to protect their fave, given their shared identity. Swift represents the epitome of white girlhood (despite her age), and she’s built a following of girls who see themselves in the awkward teenager/scorned lover she presents to the world. Perhaps critiquing her would force her stans to reckon with themselves, their own identities, and how closely aligned they actually are with their billionaire fave.

Since being on Bluesky, I have seen quite vividly how stan culture presents itself in everyday conversations about politicians. If you live under a rock, you may have heard that a certain former VPOTUS is on a book tour right now. While on that book tour, she has been on the receiving end of vocal heckling from attendees in response to her involvement in aiding the genocide in Palestine. 

Given the fact that she is now actively rewriting her role in the genocide on this book tour, and that no American politician has dealt with the repercussions of their war crimes in the Hague, I think it’s safe to assume that the heckling is likely to be the worst thing that she will have to deal with. Frankly, I think that any politician who has facilitated war crimes should be booed for the rest of their days. But seeing how quickly regular people have rushed to her defense online, the impact of stan culture on how we make room for criticism of our elected officials becomes even more visible.

Many of the defenses of Harris have been born out of a loyalty to shared identity. People have rushed to defend her, providing cover for any reasonable critiques of her actions by flattening the protests as a dual attack on her womanhood and Blackness. In that regard, I do not believe that it is inherently misogynistic to hold a Black woman accountable for the things that she did in office - I see it as being honest. Harris continues to benefit from the mantra ‘protect Black women,’ and the genocide against Palestinians continues. While I find comfort in people embracing the directive to protect Black women, that protection should not render us incapable of perpetuating harm. I think that we lose our integrity and our principles when we continue to lead with that mantra, uncritically.  

All things considered, everything actually is that deep to me. I think that we collectively need to be more critical about the news we consume, the music we listen to, and the people we choose to represent us. Instead of blindly accepting all of the messaging we receive, it’s important to think critically about what celebrities are saying and selling. What and who we choose to defend is often a deep reflection of our politics. While some of us may not be willing to leave celebrities behind, at the very least, I think it is imperative to resist the impulse to accept anti-intellectualism. The powers that be need your uncritical obedience to sustain themselves, and we make it far too easy for them to do so. Reserve your unwavering loyalty for your principles, not to a party, a politician, or any celebrity. 

the making of a martyr

I spent the better part of my Sunday afternoon listening to and reading the transcript from the conversation between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein. Coates is one of my favorite contemporary writers, and given his response to Klein’s NYT op-ed in Vanity Fair on Charlie Kirk, I was surprised to see the news of their conversation. As I started listening, I was even more surprised to find out that they are friends (or at least, acquainted enough to text pretty frequently).

As I listened to their conversation, I was reminded of many conversations I’ve had with so many “well-meaning” white liberals over the years. Klein spends the bulk of the interview trying to persuade Coates into the idea that we must engage with the Charlie Kirks of the world as a matter of political strategy. He effectively reduces so much of the failure of the Democratic party to an abandonment of people we “disagree with”. 

It has been very interesting (derogatory) to see so many people come out in droves to whitewash Kirk’s very documented legacy of hatred. And it has been extremely revelatory whether or not they understand who they are actually abandoning when they ask us to make concessions for bigotry and bigots; they are willing to make that choice. Personally, I believe that we do not need to throw the most vulnerable groups of people under the bus to move our people forward. And by engaging with the Charlie Kirks of the world, and contributing to sanitizing his legacy, that is exactly what we do.

To his credit, Coates resists that pressure from Klein throughout their conversation. He acknowledges Kirk’s murder as a “horror”, while still holding his line on people and values over political strategy. He thankfully also problematizes the deep desire we have seen from people to detach his legacy from his life:

And I don’t take any joy in saying this, but we sometimes soothe ourselves by pointing out that love, acceptance, and warmth are powerful forces. I believe they are. I also believe hate is a powerful force. I believe it’s a powerful, unifying force. And I think Charlie Kirk was a hatemonger. 

It quickly became clear to me how much people like Ezra Klein see politics as an ideological thought experiment. Klein’s ability to separate Kirk’s life (all of the vitriol in his own words and actions) from his death (what happened to him) is the clearest reflection of his privilege. He sees engaging with Kirk as a necessary evil to widening the net, an exercise in the Jubilee-style of seeing “both sides” with people committed to others’ dehumanization. By treating politics as a thought exercise, he sees engaging with someone like Kirk, who is diametrically opposed to his values on paper, as an innocuous effort. Perhaps, even as an intellectual endeavor in pursuit of objectivity. With that understanding, it’s easy to see how much he simply fails to understand Coates throughout their conversation.

Coates recognizes that many of his readers have never shared Klein’s same privilege to see politics in that way. He goes on to explain why, as a result, many of us would naturally find it a lot harder to muster up any sort of empathy for a man who explicitly and loudly wished a similar fate for many of us.

I think Klein was also clearly looking for Coates to indulge his desire to admire Kirk. He comes across in the conversation (a few times) arguably as deeply enamored with Kirk. Even in his original op-ed in the NYT, he infamously argued that Kirk was doing politics “the right way”. In his decision to separate the man from his words,  I think he allowed himself to indulge the martyrization that the media propped up around him in light of his death. And given the blowback online, I think he wanted to use this conversation to get Coates to appease his desire to like Kirk. He wanted him to tell him that it was okay to admire the white nationalist propagandist, to want to include him in our tent.

At one point in their conversation, Ta-Nehisi spends some time talking about how he sees himself as a writer as part of his ancestry, and how that tradition is inseparable from his understanding of political violence in this country:

The fact of the matter is, as horrifying as the killing of Charlie Kirk was, and as horrifying as the feeling is in this moment, that we are in an era of political violence — and I don’t want to sound flip here. Political violence is the norm for the Black experience in this country. It just is. I don’t even mean like the Malcolm X, Martin Luther King variety of it — which is the norm, too.

You would be hard-pressed to have a conversation with a Black person in this country who is a descendant of slavery and not have them be able to tell you themselves: Look, my uncle, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, they lived in a small town in Mississippi, in Tennessee, in Alabama, and they got into some sort of dispute with a white man. Either they were lynched or we had to run.

Political violence runs through us. It is our heritage. Is that good? No. Do we valorize it? Absolutely not. Do we minimize it? Absolutely not.

But a life free of it is not a thing that’s really in reach in my time.

Klein responded:
Sometimes I think that having a historical scope that wide can make the present too deterministic.

And in that moment, I saw the play. I saw most visibly where our paths diverge, from journalists, intellectuals, pundits, and regular people trying to understand the world. The line between actively engaging with the history of this country and the desire to turn away from it, and to sanitize it. This is a play I am all too familiar with. 

When faced with the ugly truth of this country’s sins against communities of color, plenty of “well-meaning” liberals would rather avert their gaze and narrow the aperture of history. Using specific moments of violence (like Kirk’s murder) to further narratives on the perpetrators of said violence is a deliberate (and dangerous) choice. It constrains violence to specific moments against one specific group, in stark contrast to the long scope of political violence against multiple groups of color throughout our history. This twisting of history encourages an erasure of the very real lived experiences Black people have had (and continue to have) with racial terror.

Oddly enough, Coates’s acknowledgment of history (where we have been and what we have already endured) is precisely what allows him in the conversation to operate in a much more optimistic ideological positioning than Klein. Klein swan dives into the pessimism that many have attributed to Coates’s early work. It’s interesting to see them oscillate between fatalism, doomerism, and pessimism to land in a more realistic place at the end.

I finished the conversation thinking a lot about the backlash period that Klein touched on, and that I have seen many people talk about online. For many people of privilege, I think that they see cancel culture as the worst thing that can happen to them. Klein discusses some of the backlash over the last few years as the “politics of content moderation”, and laments about an unwillingness to engage “even opportunistically”. 

I actually do think we’re living in a backlash period of multiple movements, but I don’t see it in the same way that Klein does. I think the pendulum always swings back and forth.

Politically, I think that we’re in the backlash period of the Obama years and the Black Lives Matter movement. I think that becomes clear in the ways we’ve seen white nationalism normalized and platformed, and with people like Kirk becoming global martyrs. Quite often, I think that we are also dealing with the backlash from the #MeToo movement, when I reflect on how incel culture has been normalized and how so much discourse has shifted to prioritize the “male loneliness epidemic”. With all of the attacks on trans people and other members of the LGBT community, I think we’re dealing with backlash born purely out of hatred (of trans people wanting to live normal lives) and of the marriage equality wins. 

With all of that in mind, I land where Coates lands by the end of their conversation. I think we can actively choose to resist doomerism. I don’t think an unwillingness to engage with both sides is problematic because I firmly believe that we can get through this without sacrificing anyone in the process. I do not think we need to fight fascism with fascism.

And in light of the last few weeks, I do think we need to be a lot more honest and judicious about the people we choose to venerate. As Coates said, “I always think it’s important to differentiate how people die versus how they live.”