Do you ever just need a win? Have you ever just had the blues of the world hit you, causing you to stop and think to yourself, “I need something good right now or I’m gonna lose it”? Where do you normally turn? Perhaps you go outside, maybe you talk with some friends, or maybe you find comfort in literature and movies. These are better attempts to find some modicum of happiness than to look where I normally look: The world of sports.
In Keeping Faith, philosopher Cornel West explains that our investment of “existential capital” in the nation-state leaves us with “a profound, even gut-level, commitment to some of the illusions of the present epoch.” We experience amnesia when we allow our nation’s myths to be the foundation of our current reality.
This spring marks one year after mass shootings in Atlanta and Indianapolis killed Korean, Chinese, and Sikh Americans. In the year since, 1 in 5 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) nationwide have experienced a hate incident. I grieve over this nation’s racism.
Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court in a milestone for the United States and a victory for President Joe Biden, who made good on a campaign promise as he seeks to infuse the federal judiciary with a broader range of backgrounds.
Corporations, politicians, and other monied interests are often trying to find ways to derail organizing. The failed Amazon union drive back in April 2021 is certainly a notable example of this. Yet as labor scholar and activist Jane McAlevey points out, it’s also true that the reason the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union failed in Bessmer, Ala., was because they didn’t organize and incorporate support from local faith communities. McAlevey writes, “The media often played up the faith-based aspect of the campaign, with key staff of the effort being faith leaders or people of faith themselves. But there was a near-total absence of Bessemer or local Birmingham faith organizations on the endorsement list of the campaign.”
Pope Francis paid tribute on Sunday to journalists killed during the Ukraine war saying he hoped God would reward them for serving the common good whatever side they were on.
Copaganda refers to any piece of media that portrays police as a necessary social institution. While this can include viral videos of police chatting with neighborhood kids or doing lip-sync battles, the most pervasive examples of copaganda are found in pop culture.
Hawley's accusation that Jackson is soft on crime reveals a troubling perspective on people who enact harm. Hawley is one of several Republican senators who sorts the world into two types of people: People who are evil and, if given the chance, will commit horrific, reprehensible crimes over and over again, and people like the rest of us, people who need to be protected from the evil people. According to this line of thinking, ensuring this protection shouldn’t rule out the harshest measures of isolation and punishment the state can enact. We separate “them” from “us” by forever marking them as dangerous.
Farmworkers in Palm Beach, Fla. are set to march five miles in protest of Wendy’s treatment of farmworkers, and their protest has received a blessing from the Archbishop Thomas Wenski.