pickIn this vital condemnation of the genocide in Gaza, El Akkad juxtaposes scenes from that devastated place with moments from his own life as well as the reactions of many in the west, from looking away to applauding the violence. It is not a screed or polemic but a devastating examination of facts. Everyone should read this.
“What happened to the U.S businesses that collaborated with fascism? Corporations like DuPont, Ford, General Motors, and ITT owned factories in the enemy countries that produced fuel, tanks, and planes that wreaked havoc on allied forces. After the war instead of being prosecuted for treason ITT collected 27 million from the U.S government for war damages inflicted on its German plants by allied bombings. G.M collected over 33 million
pickI really enjoyed listening to this
The old myths are tricky, and they can catch any of us in their trap. Yes, it‘s racist to pass policies that we know will harm Black people. At the same time, it is also racist to ignore the ways those same policies hurt poor white people—because racism‘s myths are designed to keep Black and white people segregated so they cannot come together to transform a system that doesn‘t serve most of us. If we‘re going to be anti-racist and⬇️
So-called “election integrity” measures have been introduced in states with long histories of voter suppression, using the contemporary tools of voter roll purges or voter ID requirements to narrow the voting pool and reduce the potential power of a multiethnic voting coalition. I call this reality James Crow, Esquire—the result of Jim Crow‘s son going to law school and coming back to undermine democracy through more sophisticated means. Is it⬇️
In my latest Friday Reads booktube episode: artisan cheese touring on Vancouver Island; Victoria gardens; and 6 books.
https://youtu.be/B4BlfSUOVi0
#trans authors #OzFiction #kidlit #memoir #Gaza
pickAnother book from the Pushkin Collection - this is a collection of short pieces by George Orwell of his observations on England and its sociology. Some pieces are well known (Shooting an Elephant) but it was the final piece of the book - The Lion and the Unicorn - that really captured me, as it is still applicable in many ways today as it was years ago. Warning: some outdated language common to the time in which it was written.
What are you willing to give up to alleviate someone else‘s suffering? […] the prevailing answer echoing from the mouths of so many of one‘s own neighbours is: Nothing at all.
How does one finish the sentence: “It is unfortunate that tens of thousands of children are dead, but…”
The literary critic Northrop Frye once said all art is metaphor & a metaphor is the grammatical definition of insanity. What art does is meet us at the site of our insanity, our derangement, the plainly irrational mechanics of what it means to be human.
