The Counterpublic Papers vol. 5 no. 23

I finally paid my daughter’s college deposit last week. Even though I don’t know when she’ll ever step foot in the school. It’s hard for me to imagine school opening up in the Fall given the second wave that’s almost sure to come, combined with the hard hit universities have already been taken. According to the Washington Post, the University of Michigan may end up needing a $1 billion bailout. But I did it figuring that I’ll leave that conversation for another day. The best way to navigate this is at a one day at a time pace, and in as much as that decision is a ways off, I’ll think about it then.

(It’ll be something to think about though. If Hopkins doesn’t open up fully I could be looking at four people in the house all doing some version of virtual learning/teaching. I ended up getting a zoom account because, well, we all need one….and the first time I tried to host my own conference I my screen froze several times. I think people have thought about the digital divide issues—about students who don’t have the resources to have wi-fi connections at all. I don’t think they’ve thought about the bandwidth issue—if I’ve got the math right, I’d probably need two or three times the bandwidth I currently have to handle the strong possibility of four simultaneous zoom users, which means the internet bill will probably be three or four times as high if that.)

….

A few folks wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about how Biden should go about dealing with black women voters. There’s only one group that comes close to black women in terms of their support for the Democratic Party—black men. How best to reward that constituency? The piece makes three arguments. First that the VP should be a black woman. Second that any SC opening should be filled by a black woman. Third that policies be considered.

The piece reminded me of the event I attended in NYC for Pete Buttigieg. I asked him a question about welfare policy (about TANF and about public housing) with black women specifically in mind, and he bungled it. A black woman then followed up that question with a question about Kamala Harris, who’d just dropped out of the race. She likely didn’t see the two questions as related.

For a significant segment of black people (and I’d extend this to include members of other underrepresented groups) our problems are solved by in the loose language of Bugging Out (Do The Right Thing) “having more brothers and sisters on the wall“. In this case if we have a black woman as the VP and on the SC, and after that consider policy then black women as a whole (and then black people in general) will benefit. To be fair the piece folds in pretty strong arguments for their asks—they’re right to suggest that voter mobilization is important and a good VP choice can bolster the party’s odds (given how horrible Biden is as a candidate). They’re also right to suggest that the SC will be increasingly important in wrestling back voting rights and a host of other rights.

However it’s worth noting that when it came to the policies there was one word that was never mentioned.

Welfare.

The same ideas Buttigieg stumbled over.

Which suggests that the one intersectional identity that routinely gets ignored when we’re talking about underrepresented groups is class.

Kamala Harris recently turned a corner—supporting giving Americans 2K/month until the pandemic is over. Before the pandemic she never would’ve supported such a policy. It’s possible that she’s doing so primarily because it increases her chance to become VP. This is what political responsiveness looks like and it’s a good thing.

With that said though, thinking about the Baltimore mayoral election, the black woman with the best odds of winning, the one in many way most connected to Baltimore residents, former mayor Sheila Dixon….the first thing she said when she announced she was running was that she was not a progressive democrat. It wasn’t a white police officer who called the participants of the Baltimore uprising thugs, it was Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake.

It seems to me any piece written about what someone like Biden can do for black women, should begin with policy, and then after that, talk about policy, and then after that, talk about policy, and then after that talk about positions. And in the best case scenario the people making the asks will represent real flesh and blood constituencies.

….

On March 30, 1985 Prince and the Revolution graced the stage of Syracuse, New York. The twelfth city of the tour, the concert ended up becoming a concert cd that was recently remastered. The Prince estate started streaming it yesterday and will do so for the next several hours (ending TONIGHT at midnight). Some of you don’t read this until Monday or later, but if you read it today (i.e. Sunday) and you’ve a chance check it out.

I remember that tour.

I was there—he opened in Detroit in November ’84 with seven dates— with two of my best friends. I wasn’t old enough to drive—I was 15 and some months. Didn’t have a cell phone, didn’t have a pager, hadn’t ever been to a concert in my life, much less in a huge arena with two other fifteen year olds. I remember what I wore. I remember Sheila E brought the house down. I remember how Prince started.

Do check it out before it goes.

If you’ve any question at all of why years after Prince’s loss still hurts, if you’ve questions about why he died so young, you can get a sense of it at the 36 minute mark. In about two or three minutes, Prince shows what an honest to god bandleader looks like, what a tight band sounds like, all the while putting his body through incredible amounts of stress and strain. And making it look effortless.

….

Last Monday I got a call at 9am while I still had my sleep mask on—if I’m lucky I get a full night’s sleep.

“The guest we had on today cancelled at the last minute so we need you now instead of at 9:25 like we planned.”

What?

As it stands, particularly on a Monday it takes me a bit to remember where I am and where we are (my dreams still haven’t quite caught up to the pandemic, so I’m still dreaming early 2020 before that world ended dreams). So it was all I could do to take off the mask wipe my eyes and then remember that I’d agreed to go on Detroit radio to talk about the Ahmaud Arbery case. You can find the full story here.

On that note, we’ve come a long way. Still some ways to go—this is the beginning. The next time you get a chance to do so, stop, close your eyes, and listen. The sounds of the world are strange and wondrous, creating a powerful rhythm. Your heartbeat is a part of that. Hold on to that sound.