Roundup

Grad Workers: Choose Solidarity with New Haven

by Adom Getachew and Sarah Haley

Two former Yale PhD students argue that the university's graduate student union offers not just benefits and protection to graduate student workers, but the chance for them to work in solidarity with other university and New Haven workers across the vast racial and socioeconomic divides separating city and campus. 

Forget Apology, the Right is Doubling Down on Inciting Violence Against LGBTQ Americans

by Thomas Lecaque

The campaign of encouraging stochastic terror against LGBTQ communities won't be deterred by a tragedy like the Colorado Springs killings. 

From Solidarity to Shock Therapy: The AFL-CIO and the End of the Cold War

by Jeff Schuhrke

The AFL-CIO's leadership saw the emergence of the Polish Solidarity movement in 1980 as an opportunity to advance their anticommunist agenda. Did they also undermine the ability of a post-Soviet left to protect workers' interests against global capitalism? 

The Roundup Top Ten for November 23, 2022

The Roundup of the top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week drops early for the Thanksgiving holiday. 

Postcard From Detroit

by Mattie Webb

The city of Detroit is a fitting location for an archive documenting not only American labor history but the connections between US-based unions and the antiapartheid movement in South Africa. 

The US-China Relationship: Why It Collapsed, How it Can Be Fixed

by Jake Werner

The split between the US and China precedes the leadership of Biden, Trump, and Xi, as politicians in both countries have increasingly come to see the others' prosperity as a threat. Solving the split requires looking to the problems of global market capitalism that exacerbated the rift. 

Blacks and Jews—Again

by Michael Eric Dyson

At a moment of rising authoritarianism in America and the world, it is necessary for Black America and American Jews to recognize antisemitism as a species of white supremacy that threatens both groups. 

Putin's Invasion of Ukraine Won't Set Off a Nuclear Scramble

by Eric Brewer, Nicholas L. Miller, and Tristan Volpe

It seems that Russia's invasion of Ukraine may eventually help the cause of nuclear nonproliferation, if the United States approaches its allies with the right mix of defense assurances and aid to civilian nuclear power that may serve as a "hedge" to reassure other governments that they could develop weapons, even if they don't. 

Larry Krasner and the Limits of "Law and Order"

by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Pennsylvania Republicans have launched a futile effort to impeach the reformist Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, defying local democracy to try to score political points through a backlash exploiting white voters' fears of crime. 

DeSantis v. Trump: More Polish, Less Bombast, Same Threat to Democracy?

by Annika Brockschmidt

Conservatives appear eager to boost Ron DeSantis as a "normal" conservative without Trump's "big lie" baggage. Yet his political career is a monument to the pursuit of minority rule, from gerrymandering to voting rights. 

Black Family History Opens New Archives

by Paula C. Austin, Catherine Nelson and Donna Payne Wilson

Paula Austin's history of Black Washington depended on the knowledge and memorial work of generations of Black families, who have preserved history that is not kept in traditional archives. 

School Politics at the Center of DeSantis's Conservatism

by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd

Although contemporary conservatives tend to malign public schools and teachers, they are tapping into a long historical legacy in which widespread education was conditioned on the promise that schools would inculcate nationalism and the morality of conservative ruling elites. 

Push Confederates Out of Gettysburg for Good

by Kevin M. Levin

Why are the forces that fought to preserve slavery, and who invaded the free state of Pennsylvania and kidnapped free Black Americans into slavery in 1863, allowed to march in Gettysburg's Remembrance Day parade? 

Is Environmental Damage Really Sabotage by Capital?

by R.H. Lossin

 The term "capitalist sabotage" describes intentional destructive activity in service of profit, and is a more accurate label than "accident" or "unintended consquence" for the environmental change that will cause a million unnecessary deaths a year over the coming decades. 

The Clinton-Era Law that Still Devastates Black Families

by Dorothy E. Roberts

The Adoption and Safe Families Act mandated state intervention to protect children from neglect, but did nothing to ensure an economic and social safety net to mitigate hardship. The result, spurred by anti-Black tropes, was an acceleration of family breakup by state agencies. 

Our Adoption Policies have Harmed Children

by Mical Raz

Changes adopted under the Clinton administration elevated the adoption of children from foster care as a policy goal, which had the effect of marginalizing biological parents from the process, sometimes contrary to children's best interests. 

How Kanye West Uses the Language of Black Liberation to Serve White Supremacy

by Ashley D. Farmer

"West’s brand of Black Power is preoccupied with conspicuous consumption and wealth accumulation. Becoming a billionaire was not what the Black Panthers had in mind."

So Close and Yet Shofar: Where Does MAGA Go From Here?

by Annika Brockschmidt and Thomas Lecaque

There is not likely to be any course correction after the defeat of Trump-endorsed candidates as long as they continue to double down on false accusations of election fraud and rally around symbols of Christian nationalism. 

The Roundup Top Ten for November 18, 2022

The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week. 

Lunchtime in Italy: Work, Time and Civil Society

by Jonathan Levy

The Italian lunchtime insists that time be organized around communal rituals and sustenance, not work. Does the utter foreignness of this attitude in America help explain the current national derangement?