Slight Change of Plans - We're Sticking to the Clock!
A month ago, I did not think I'd be writing this often via newsletter. Here I am, writing the third-one-on-a-weekly-basis post, and I think this is going to be the cadence I'll stick to until I figure out what to do with my website - I'm working on a redesign but time's a fickle resource. Since this is a personal newsletter, there's no real requirement for a format, but I like "structure". I'll flesh it out over time, but you can expect at least two to four paragraphs, around six to ten links on things I'd like to share and boost and ideally a quote from something I'm reading that I really want to share. If you're still reading this, thank you!
Current Reads
At work, we're reading "Poverty, by America"; a seemingly gentle read into what makes poverty so prevalent in American life and immediately begins to pull down the curtains on the farce of the welfare system (and frankly, societal structures) that not only allow poverty to exist - it requires it. I'm only a third through, but I got the audiobook because it was the kind of book I wanted to hear versus just read. I think material like this, a short read or listen over a few days, is the kind of material I can share with people who don't really understand how bad poverty is in America and are also struggling to have a conversation about it (and our investment from it).
On my own, I'm still working through a few reads. The one that's really forcing me to pay attention and disable any defensive guards I have has been "Abolish the Family". Lewis begins the book with no punches held back: explaining something we all passively understand to some degree (or have heard from others) - that families, as we know, are inherently broken and revolve too heavily around the patriarchal mode of dominion that's prevalent in every other part of society. I can't lie, if not for the mention of the cited Black authors, I would have put this book down. And that's because it took Black people indirectly calling me out through this book to understand that I am also part of this problem as a Black man and that strife I'm working to unravel is keeping me in it (and has added more reason for me to read more works of the likes of Terrance Real and bell hooks).
Another book that has been gripping has been Anarchism and the Black Revolution. I picked this up after reading The Democracy Project, and it's precisely what I'd recommend any Black person who has any curiosity of how vile prisons were prior to the 2000s. This doesn't mean they were better, but I learned about the Black prisoner uprising that happened in upstate New York, largely in part of the collective work these prisoners built to demand more humane standards of living. America's prisons are the natural manifestation of the dark facets of the State's need to control labor and to generate a population of people forever at the whim of the State, through its "moral debt" apparatus. You can read it online at the Anarchist Library or get it in print, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Across the Web
Here's some stuff that piqued my interest since I've last written to you.
Fighter jets chase small plane in Washington area before it crashes in Virginia (Reuters): When my partner brought this story to me, I was deeply curious about so much. Why did the plane make that turn over Long Island, New York? They went in a straight line for so long - did someone just pass out? So much time had passed! Too! Many! Questions!
How Eugenics Shaped Statistics (Nautilus): Frankly, this has not surprised me, though, a month ago I would have been. Anyone trying to control people would have the luxury of morphing a field of math used to dictate how much money goes where.
Cop City is Only the Beginning, Unless We Fight (TruthOut): I don't want to give away the contents, but this podcast entry hosted by Kelly Hayes, a co-author of the newly published Let This Radicalize You, had a lot of good conversation about what we need to truly prepare ourselves for with this heavier way of corporate politics into policing begins to rise.
Wow, if you made it this far, thank you. Definitely let me know what you think, if there's anything you'd like me to highlight, reply to or consider. Until next week!