The Counterpublic Papers vol. 4 no. 14

The LA school district is one of the two largest districts in the country, alongside NYC. Although not as hamstrung in their ability to strike as their Chicago counterparts, who as a result of state legislation had to get support from over 75% of their dues paying members to strike (something they actually did successfully several years ago), the sheer size of the school district is prohibitive. Combine that with the recent Supreme Court Janus decision—public workers no longer have to pay dues into a union to receive the benefits—and the now “natural” distaste for the public sector more broadly and unions specifically, and you’ve got a situation where unions are under serious threat.

However, over the past couple of years we’ve seen a significant increase in teacher strikes. In fact, many of them have happened in red states. West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Arizona, none of these states strike the average reader as liberal bastions. Public schools were one of the first true victims of the neoliberal turn, with a bipartisan consensus eventually turning sharply towards market-oriented education solutions (that for some reason almost never ended up being attempted in relatively wealthy suburbs) and states severely reducing education spending.

Corey Booker, who just announced his presidential candidacy, is not half as bad as Harris is on crime, but he has her beat in his support for charters (while mayor of Newark, Booker pretty much gave the Newark public schools to Facebook).

This year, the wave hit L.A.

Each strike is different, but it’s worth going back to Chicago just for a second as far as thinking through L.A. In order to get passed the 75% legislative hurdle, the one that prevented the teacher’s union from legally striking, the union had to take a different organizing approach, building from the ground up using an approach that was both granular—dealing with the various and sundry aspects of teacher’s lives in their fullness—and broad—taking this approach not just with the individuals who were most likely to come to meetings but with the ones that were the most likely not to. This “different organizing approach” is really not that different from what it used to be. But this approach is very different than what unions transitioned into post 1970 or so.

It appears as if the L.A. union took this approach and built on it in three ways.

First it looks like they reached out to other unions, supporting them in their struggles. Second they reached out to parents and other community members as they reached out to other teachers. Third they didn’t just ask for resources for themselves when it came to negotiating. they asked for resources for their communities. You don’t get tens of thousands of people to come out in the rain in support without this type of work.

They ended up winning a series of concessions that will increase their pay, their benefits, and also generate results for the community. We are witnessing a sea change.

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Thirty years ago, conservative and centrist Democrats created entities like the Democratic Leadership Council and the Blue Dog Democrats in order to rebuild a new majority capable of seizing the presidency and both legislative chambers. The idea was to create a new majority around a set of socially conservative ideas (government was too big, individuals had to take responsibility, certain groups BLACKS BLACKS BLACKS BLACKS BLACKS BLACKS were culturally dysfunctional) on the one hand and fiscally radical ideas on the other. They didn’t get all of the political results they wanted, but they—alongside their wealthy donors—created a consensus within the party that posited that pretty much the only way to take “the center” to the extent such a thing existed, was to move rightward.

So there’s a clip going round of AOC.

     I joked on twitter that the last time a congressperson did what she just did in this clip was when Mr. Smith went to Washington.

But what we’re seeing is basically a minor example of majority construction at work.

I’ve a few friends who voted for Trump—mostly white kids I went to catholic school with. I’d be hard pressed to find any of them who’d disagree with what AOC communicates here. Public opinion bears this out. We’ve broad based support for taxing the wealthy. Broad based support for going big on climate change. Broad based support on government intervention.

Right now we don’t have a political entity ready to take advantage of this, largely because the role wealthy donors play in both parties. But we’re seeing something different at work.

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Oh.

Been meaning to show my syllabi. I’m teaching The Politics of Contemporary Black Film, and co-teaching Racial Capitalism with Sam Chambers.

The first class does give me the ability to see movies I haven’t had the chance to see, in fact forces me to see movies I haven’t really wanted to see (Selma and Black KKKlansman for instance). And then it creates a space to talk about the politics being co-produced by those films, and then the radical possibilities offered by something like a Sorry to Bother You or Detroit 48202 can foment. A small possibility I’ll teach this class again in one of the summer sessions.

(Do The Right Thing was the first movie I showed for this class. This is the second time in two years I’ve taught it. Last time I saw it and talked about it here I noted that Radio Raheem’s death hit me a lot harder this time around than it did when I saw it in the theater. That Danny Aiello really should’ve received an oscar for his portrayal of Sal, that there’s a Trump gentrification reference that sounds a lot different now. This time around—and note that DTRT turns thirty this year—what really stands out is how Lee allows room for three types of black heterogeneity—ideological heterogeneity, ethnic heterogeneity, racial heterogeneity [at the end the Korean grocery store owner fends off neighborhood folk by stating that he was black]—while allowing no room at all for sexual heterogeneity or class heterogeneity. The political solution Lee articulates (individual black business ownership) is almost the natural result of said smushing). I’m supposed to do a virtual thing of sorts for the movie in a few weeks. Will let you all know.)

The second class? Cedric Robinson coined the term “racial capitalism” in Black Marxism as a way to bring race into standard marxian theory while also creating a history of sorts of black radical politics. Over the past few years we’ve seen increased interest in and use of the term…without really getting into that history all that much. What Sam Chambers and I wanted to do was bring together a group of people for the purpose of digging into the relationship between racial politics on the one hand and political economy on the other. Sam knows the political economy stuff like the back of his hand. I know the racial politics stuff like the back of mine. Neither of us believes the term “racial capitalism” should really be a thing in this particular moment, but we both find enough in it to want to try to make a go of something.

Anyway, I've links to both syllabi above. Use them or not as you see fit. Any ideas you have, shoot them to me.

There have been a number of attempts to articulate syllabi as political projects, with perhaps the most notable being the Trump Syllabus.

I think these attempts are at best, interesting, and at worst, deeply problematic politically speaking. It takes something that we as teachers do on the daily and then posits it as a political project on the one hand and then as a peace of intellectual property on the other. Writing a syllabus, creating a link for it, posting it on social media, ends up being as politically important as organizing against a private police force. While at the same time neatly allowing for a line on the CV that can then be used to get a job or perhaps a nice honoraria check.

No.

A syllabus is a syllabus. It’s part of your job. It isn’t something worth putting on a CV. To the extent one shares it for the primary purpose of drawing attention to one’s self, it reproduces the idea that there’s this private resource in the “knowledge economy” that in sharing publicly we have to get credit for.

No pun intended, but I don’t buy it.

So take these syllabi (i think I speak for Sam) and do whatever.      

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Errata—I mentioned that Marlon James was the first non-Brit to win the Man Booker Prize. That’s not true (thanks Sam). He is though the first Jamaican (and I believe the first black man) to win the award (Paul Beatty ended winning with The Sellout the following year). Just a chapter or two into Black Leopard Red Wolf.

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