Yo, Miss! (No. 3)

Stand Back and Stand By?

Nov 27, 2022

I tried to give myself some time to rest over the Thanksgiving break. If any of you know me at all, I do not rest much.

However, Elon Musk’s lame ultimatum to his Twitter employees on Wednesday to commit to a new “hardcore” Twitter or leave the company with severance pay inspired me to tone it down a bit.

As we mock Musk’s out-of-touch management style (hustling and girl bossing feels very pre-pandemic), it is important to acknowledge that most people do not have a choice to take a break from the grind. However, this is all due to the way our capitalistic system works.

By the way, in my attempts to stay off of Twitter for many obvious reasons, I set up a Post.News account and I like the vibes there so far. I am looking forward to more likeminded people to get off the waitlist and join me.

Yes, I had big plans to take a break from the news. However, I got reeled back in when I learned that Trump dined with despicable racist, antisemite and white nationalist Nick Fuentes and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night. It is not like this meeting came as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Trump told the Proud Boys, a white nationalist hate group, to “stand back and stand by” during the September 2020 debate. The January 6th Committee established that this served as a rallying cry for the extremist group:

I will be the first to admit that I struggle with unplugging from the news and politics. As someone who studies and teaches history, I am also aware that people have always felt like they were living during “unprecedented times.” That is why I feel so lucky to get to spend most of my days thinking and talking about history. However, it does not make alarming events like the rise of antisemitism, relentless attacks on BIPOC people, and the existence of hate crimes any easier to process.

As long as these headlines keep screaming at all of us, I will find it challenging to stand back. Even casual students of history know what happens when people turn a blind eye to hate and violence.

I want to thank We Are Teachers and Mark Gudgel for profiling me:

My Recommendations of the Week

My Running Playlist of the Week🎶:

What I’m Reading 📚:

In case you missed this article the other week, Bouie looks to history to make predictions about where our country is moving:

If there’s any period similar to ours, with two evenly matched coalitions, each struggling to attain a lasting victory over the other, it is in the late 19th century, with its sharp partisan polarization, closely contested national elections and astonishingly high turnout. Then, as now, the margins were narrow; then, as now, the fights were fierce; and then, as now, the combination of the two pushed some of the strongest and most ideological partisans to try to rig the game in their favor.
What changed things, then, was essentially a shock to the system. The collapse of the Populist movement, the rise of Jim Crow in the South and the nationwide suppression of labor cemented the grasp of industrial capital — working mostly through the Republican Party — on the entire political system. It would take a catastrophe, the Great Depression, to fully loosen it.

I even had my AP U.S. History students read this essay last week since we were studying the “Era of Good Feelings” and he references this time period in his analysis.

My Favorite Podcast This Week 📱:

Honestly, I have been listening to Gaslit Nation for years and I was even lucky enough to be a guest on the show. Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states and they warned America about election hacking before the 2016 election. In their podcast, they consistently deliver insightful analysis and context to understand today’s headlines.