The Counterpublic Papers vol. 7 no. 21

I am now a couple of weeks out of the semester and into the summer.

I think I can say with accuracy that it’s been the worst semester I’ve ever had, teaching wise. Teaching last year was tough because we were largely sequestered to our homes and constrained to zoom….but I felt the actual structure of the course and the interactions I was able to foster through zoom were ones that met the needs of the moment. I felt that both courses spoke to some of the key issues we were facing as a society, and I felt that together we were able to create a community that helped all of us get through (at least a little) the struggles we were facing.

I can’t really say that about this semester. I wasn’t able to make the classes (Black Politics II, and American Racial Politics) relevant enough to contemporary issues, and I wasn’t able to bring the same degree of energy into the classroom I’m capable of bringing. A big chunk of this can be chalked up to the fact that we never created the type of robust institutional structure that could enable everyone to “get back to normal”…and the lack of that structure puts us all in a situation where we’re forced to fulfill all of our responsibilities with only a fraction of the material and non-material resources that would allow us to do so. But whatever the case, while I’m by no means alone—most of the faculty I know feel similar—and I understand the importance of grace (extending it to others and to one’s self is vitally important), I am going to look back at this semester as one in which I had a certain responsibility, and failed.

Every class we teach we’ve the opportunity to change someone’s lives. Adom Getachew writes of “world making.” For me, world making begins in the classroom. I had a chance to develop students’ world making skills, and I came up short.

I’m planning now to make sure next year is better.

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On a better note I was finally able to workshop the book manuscript I’ve been working on for the better part of a decade in Chicago. Thanks so much to the kind folk at the Northwestern Race and Political Economy workshop for taking an extra day. For those who don’t know, the book (tentatively titled “Through Thick and Thin: The Political Production of Responsibility”) uses the contemporary politics of HIV/AIDS to talk about post-post civil rights era black politics. Almost 25 years ago Cathy Cohen wrote The Boundaries of Blackness as an attempt to understand then contemporary black politics and the internal dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, using HIV/AIDS as the vehicle through which to do so. I’m building on her work. It’s taken a long time to write for a number of reasons, but I think I can finally see the end of the tunnel. And I’ve Chloe Thurston and the kind folk who came to the workshop and stayed an extra day to thank.

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A lot’s happened since the last newsletter, but as much as has been written about what appears to be the overturning of Roe vs Wade….but there’s one thing I’m not sure has been talked about.

Roe vs Wade was decided at a remarkably important moment for women’s rights…but it was also decided at a moment in which overpopulation was posited as one of the most important problems we faced. The dystopian film Soylent Green (starring Charleston Heston) comes out the same year Roe vs Wade was decided and was set in 2022. Its central premise is that the world’s population has exploded to the point where the bulk of its population no longer can be fed using real food.

The right of women to control their own bodies works alongside a growing consensus that one of the best things we could do to sustain our lives was reduce the rate of population growth.

We’re now, I think, facing a different problem. Not one of overpopulation…but rather one of underpopulation. When we think of the political forces currently fighting to end Roe vs Wade, we tend to think of the reactionary forces that bring together a combination of white nationalists and evangelicals, who want to reverse the demographic trend that will soon have the nation looking more or less like California. And this isn’t wrong—that is the central tendency.

But what happens when underpopulation is clearly articulated as a problem akin to climate change? Roe vs Wade wasn’t decided because overpopulation was identified as a problem—but the ruling and the reproductive rights politics that followed were aided by the fact that what women wanted just so happened to solve a pressing global problem. There are a number of potential solutions to underpopulation—but I think the solution people are going to take to, will be a solution that doesn’t just take women’s right to terminate a pregnancy away, but something far more invasive and dire.

I know there are people who’ve thought about this and have a bit more insight. Articles and links welcome.

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I mentioned climate change. My friend Hollis Robbins moved to Utah to take a deanship. She dropped something on me that I haven’t quite wrapped my head around but the New York Times just picked up. Not only is the Salt Lake in Utah decreasing in size….it’s basically the only thing keeping the city safe, as when it dries up it’ll release toxic gases that’ll likely render the city a ghost town. More here—although the first sentence is kind of a killer.

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A few weeks ago the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s IRS tax documents were released. The organization has some $42 million in assets, and has come under scrutiny over its spending and over its governing structure.

I wrote about the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Knocking the Hustle. Institutionalization was perhaps the first problem they had to deal. Once the bus boycott became a cause célèbre boycott organizations had to figure out what to do with the money—people were literally putting money in the mail and sending it to Martin Luther King jr. directly. People like Ella Baker stepped into the gap to provide institutional leadership, understanding that doing so would enable the bus boycott to become something more durable.

Few expected support for Black Lives Matter to grow as rapidly as it did. But we’ve got a long history of organizational development and organizational failure in black communities.

That long history was ignored.

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I turned 53 last week. It’s been a strange ride to say the least.

I’m glad many of you have taken that ride with me.