The Counterpublic Papers vol. 3 no. 24

March 10, 2018

Teaching Do The Right Thing tomorrow for my film/urban theory course. The last time I saw it was probably over 20 years ago—certainly I haven’t seen it since I’ve been in Baltimore and maybe I saw it when I was in St Louis but don’t remember. I wrote a post comparing it to Fruitvale Station because I thought Ryan Coogler did a much better job portraying the interiority of Oscar Grant than Spike Lee did portraying Radio Raheem, but then I relied mostly on memory rather than a re-watching. Quick thoughts:

  • It’s still striking that we don’t know anything about Radio Raheem’s life. But the death hit me more during this viewing than it did when I watched it previously.

  • Danny Aiello should’ve received an oscar for his portrayal of Sal.

  • Although Mookie is a father we only see him with his kid twice—there’s a running Moynihanian theme throughout Do The Right Thing, and most of the “hood” movies to follow—and never alone.

  • Robin Harris died way too soon. But as I watch it, Ruby Dee (Mother Sister), Oscar Davis (da Mayor), Bill Nunn (Radio Raheem), and as an aside Danny Aiello III (the stunt actor for his father in the riot scene) have all passed.

  • There’s a trump reference talking about gentrification that i missed that sounds a LOT different now.

I think I’m going to do this movie thing more often…which leads to….

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A Wrinkle In Time. A Wrinkle in Time was the first book I remember checking out at my grade school’s “media center”. By the mid seventies the term “library” had begun to be rethought given the technology shift towards what we would now call “multi-media”. I remember, for example, creating a story board and then a slide show movie about a misunderstood monster.  I obviously knew nothing about Madeline L’engle as a six or seven year old boy, but the cover—featuring a centaur carrying three young children—sold me. If you’re interested in depth, don’t see it. The Cold War politics that shaped the novel were bled out of the movie, replaced with Oprah style self-esteem narratives as well as an implicit narrative about multi-racial community. If you’re interested in a straight adaptation of the novel don’t see it. Whole worlds disappear. But it isn’t as slow as critics argue, and is gorgeous. Wonder how long it’ll be before we get A Wrinkle in Time vs Black Panther thought pieces????

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Wrote a piece for the HufffPost on the 50th anniversary of the Kerner Commission report. Juxtapose the first paragraph of the final piece against my original first paragraph below:

In 1967 the United States had one of its most violent years ever, with over 160 urban rebellions recorded in the first nine months alone. Cities from Alton, IL to Ypsilanti, MI were effected and while many of the estimates of damages were overblown, the larger disorders (in places like Detroit and Newark) were some of the worst the nation had ever experienced. In response to the disorders, then President Lyndon Johnson established a commission led by former Illinois Governor Otto Kerner. The commission was designed to both get to the roots of the problems, and to problem solve them if possible. The resulting report, the Kerner Commission Report, called for a sweeping set of reforms totaling some $80 billion if fully implemented. These reforms included ones designed to make police more representative and more accountable to working class black communities, to integrate the news media so as to provide better reporting of ghetto conditions, and a sweeping jobs program designed to provide over 2 million public and private sector jobs. Although the report was released with much fanfare, in the wake of the Tet Offensive and diminishing political support for liberal government in general, few if any of the reports recommendations were implemented. Indeed, soon after the report was released the nation elected Richard Nixon president on a law and order campaign, a campaign that was a thinly veiled attempt to use the urban disorders to stoke racial resentment.

There’s a reason I don’t write more of these things. And why academics—particularly graduate students and young assistant faculty—should refrain as much as possible from attempting to write for the public while simultaneously attempting to write journal articles or books for academic presses. It’s not that I don’t like what the HuffPost did, I do. It’s just that writing popular pieces well requires mastering a very different style. And unless you write for your life—I didn’t get a PhD because I had puzzles I was aching to solve, but because if I don’t write I feel….off—don’t do it. It’s harder than it looks. A lot harder.

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Johns Hopkins University President Ron Daniels decided to push for state legislation allowing Hopkins to create a private police force. The money paragraph of his email to the Hopkins community:

The safety of our campus communities is a matter of utmost concern for Johns Hopkins, and the idea of a university police department has been suggested to us with increased urgency over the past year, given the challenges of urban crime here in Baltimore and the threat of active shooters in educational and health care settings. Johns Hopkins’ current security program is unusual among its peers; almost every other urban research university, across the country and in Baltimore, has a university police department as part of its security operation. 

I’m not sure how far along this is. From what I understand Hopkins hasn’t really reached out to community partners about this, and even the community internet groups that were implicitly created to communicate about “urban crime” are torn, but a number of students and some faculty recognize the unique challenges a private police force at a campus like Hopkins poses. Four challenges stand out—first, Daniels proposes working with the Baltimore Police Department as if working with them would provide the force legitimacy when it would not, second, sexual assault is arguably the biggest challenge Hopkins students face and the private police force would arguably ignore it like the BPD has, third, students of color (and faculty with kids of color) are uniquely threatened by the present security force, and fourth, undocumented students and students who look as if they may be undocumented also face serious risks. Not clear Daniels has thought all of this through but we’ll see.

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Going to be in Chicago this week. Talking about the legacy of Mark Sawyer, who passed away suddenly last year. Also revisiting the work of Harold Cruse at the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. If you’re around let me know. Will be there Tuesday-Sunday.

Lost two more folk in the past week or so (Lee Ann Fufi, Taaj Tyrone Suri). I just saw Fufi a couple of weeks ago when she came to campus to give a talk. I’m going to drive this home in as many ways as we can. We are all we have. We are not independent, but interdependent. Our interdependency is our greatest strength. Only someone who confuses high end scotch for cough syrup thinks differently. See you next week. My name is Lester Spence. This is The Counterpublic Papers.