The Counterpublic Papers, vol. 2. no. 14

So it looks like the Russians really were involved in the election. Obama, Democratic and Republican Party Senators, the Director of the FBI, and the Director of the CIA knew. Obama attempted to generate a bi-partisan strategy given his own prominent role in the election, but the GOP wasn’t having it. 

Writing “we’ve never seen anything like this before” is like writing “water is wet” at this point. A few folk think focusing on Russia is all wrong. We should really focus on what the Democratic Party got wrong. No. As far as I can see the only major US institution not directly implicated in this is the Supreme Court, because they haven’t been given an opportunity to weigh in. Both the domestic and the foreign security apparatus is involved, on opposite sides. The mainstream and the non-mainstream media is involved, on opposite sides. The Senate and the President are involved, on opposite sides.  

A few of my friends are looking to the Electoral College. Up until now, including that one time an elector ended up accidentally casting the wrong vote, the most electoral college voters to veer from their state’s vote is….one. With this election? We’re already up to seven. I’m thinking there will be more. 

I’m of two minds. On the one hand I stand by my original assertion. Electing Trump represents a crisis of epic proportions. The Electoral College might be the last best hope we have for un-electing him. Certainly there’s strong textual evidence to support the claim that the reason the Electoral College exists in the first place is to keep a demagogue from being elected. And Trump certainly fits in the demagogue category. Further, in a case of chickens coming home to roost, it’s very possible he’s a rightwing strongman installed by a foreign government. (did you ever expect to read that sentence about a US president?)

Yet and still.

This move, were it to be made, couldn’t be undone. Once electors decide, in this case for good reason, not to appoint a President that won the electoral college….then who’s to say this is the only time? More importantly, who’s to say that the next time it’ll be for an equally good reason? And who’s to say what the public response would be? The international response? 

…. 

Ta-Nehisi Coates interviewed Obama for a cover story in The Atlantic. He’s got a Facebook blurb of it online. Unless he was able to get another crack at the President I’m thinking this interview is, in hindsight, going to read as incredibly quaint given the context. Who really thinks that how the President used his bi-racial identity to navigate the hearts and minds of white voters matters right now? There is a bit where Obama talks about the dual traditions represented by Malcolm X on the one hand and Martin Luther King jr. on the other that’s worth parsing, even though he appears to not fully grasp the legacy of both thinkers. Malcolm X was a bit more than angry. Martin Luther King jr. was a bit more than conciliatory. But let’s say they weren’t deeper than this. When Obama talks about the necessity for righteous anger, when should that righteous anger be deployed? Are there any circumstances in which such an approach is warranted? 

Again, I think Coates is probably going to look back on this wishing he’d interviewed him right around now rather than several weeks ago. 

….

I got a chance to see Moonlight.  

If you get a chance, take it.

I’m not sure how many “young man’s sexual awakening” movies, novels, plays, television shows, music videos, etc. have appeared in print or onscreen….but I’m pretty sure whatever that number is can be boiled down to a handful when it comes to working class gay men, and then boiled down again when it comes to working class black men in cities like Miami. 

I don’t quite have the language so I won’t go too long. If you get a chance, check out the lighting.

(Yes. The lighting. The movie is called “moonlight” for a reason.)

It’s only within the last few years that we’ve seen people really pay attention to the way cinematographers should work with black skin. Ernest Dickerson (Spike Lee’s cinematographer) was probably one of the first to really think about it in the modern moment but it probably took a bit for the technology to catch up. If the choices cinematographer James Laxton made aren’t already taught in film school they should be. The way he uses the color spectrum to highlight not only different shades but also to use those different shades to highlight character? Masterful. 

(If you really want to see how far we’ve come and how far we’ve to go as far as filmic representations of black people, watch Moonlight, then rent John Singleton’s Boyz in the Hood or perhaps the Hughes Brothers Menace II Society. We’ve still got a long way to go in depicting certain types of addiction—it actually is possible to be a productive member of society and be addicted to crack….just as it’s possible to be a productive member of society and be an alcoholic.)  

….      

Been doing a lot of thinking and some reading on racial capitalism. Beginning to curate a list of web-essays worth bookmarking. Here’s what I have so far. It’s a small list but one that I suspect will grow.  

I wrote an essay for the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung's swiftly put together publication on Donald Trump (Donald Trump and the Rise of the Nationalist Right). Check it out and let me know what you think. 

Apologies for the week delay.