These are certainly hard times (Pandemic/Policing/AAPI Hate). But over here we also popping bottles to celebrate book birthday of
#IntheShadow
. 15 years in the making! Today, we raising up all the beautiful people fighting and striving in whatever shadows they facing...cheers
Why are people responding to the SCOTUS decision with memes of Handmaid's Tale, a science fiction piece, when we have a whole ass history of bondage and the disparate application of laws staring us in the face
This "firing" does suck, but not just as a confirmation of white elite power. It also sucks because no matter how hard she carried water for Zionism, they still got rid of her ass...that's the message: no matter what you do, these folks ain't here for you
Biden (and other's) claim that eliminating student debt will disproportionately relieve those who went to elite, expensive schools is a false class politics. We know that rich folks don't take out federal loans and student debt overwhelmingly hits Black and Brown poor folks.
And this is why, long before this round of protests, I been calling for campus police abolition. Their job is not public safety but power maintenance and brand management...
When I first started in the academy, I never thought about consulting for a jigsaw puzzle. And wow, here we are! I am so proud to have written with the stunning illustration from
@noadenmon
. Bringing this small slice of Black history to life. Check it 👇🏿
The activists and artists at the Respect New Haven rally yesterday offered this stunning graphic to visualize Yale's $32 Billion endowment compared to its paltry $13 million contribution to the city of New Haven...a FRACTION of the taxes it would pay if properly assessed
The Black and Jewish uses of the term ghetto are deeper than you think...a 🧵. Most think that Black uses of the term "ghetto" originate in a description of dilapidated urban conditions of the 1960s...They'd be wrong (1)
Americans think that the hood being called the ghetto and Jewish ghettos during the holocaust have nothing to do with each other, words are just funny like that sometimes
Right now
@UMichSPH
’s commencement speaker, Jodi-Ann Burey, condemned the UMich’s leaders for not divesting in the face of the genocide in Gaza. “We are witnessing the most well-documented genocide in human history on our cell phones.”
@Imposter_Edits
It's great that community stepped up. It's also a shame that a white body is more valuable than the personhood of this Black child. Just imagine if my adult self stepped in front of this young person...I bet they would not have backed down...
Never in my wildest dreams! I am knock down humbled by this honor to join the
#FreedomScholars
family with this group of real transformative scholar activists. Thank you to all the communities I serve for confirming this work matters and
@CaseyGrants
for their stand-up support
“When people tell us that this is just that it is, this is human nature, history smacks you in the face and says ‘No, there’s another way.’”- 2022
#FreedomScholar
Dr.
@DavarianBaldwin
, Professor of American Studies at
@TrinityCollege
.
Black uses of the Jewish term ghetto go back to the 1930s (!) and it was a strategic choice...by Black people. We used the term "ghetto" to explain how the residential segregation created by racial restrictive housing covenants were not individual acts of hate but...(2)
...Black use of "ghetto" came even before yt Americans gave a damn about Hitler. And our usage wasn't first descriptive of bad conditions but a political analysis, by placing Black struggles for housing justice within a global context...more coming in my book Land of Darkness
Like
@dereckapurnell
I think SCOTUS ruling is an opportunity to create real transformative education with open admissions, free tuition, end to legacy, community control over campus access and expansion, end to campus tax exemption, equitable endowment investments...Let's Go!
...government practices of yt supremacy...just like in Germany. Consider "Ghettoes, America Style (LA Sentinel, 1938), "our own government has bee busily planning ghettos for American Negroes through the Federal Housing Authority." But also...(3)
I don't see Claudine Gay as an ally. But all this talk of standards and veritas, at institutions PREDICATED on race, gender, and class exclusion...ushering in the mediocre children of elite families to power, is laughable. Show me this America you all seek to "return" to.
This is a GAMECHANGER! Scholar and activist
#MayaWind
blows the roof off the myth of the liberal Israeli university. She offers a forensic accounting of the varied layers of complicity between Israeli unis and settler colonialism in 🇵🇸. This is a book for the moment!
Ok, so I went to graduation
@trinitycollege
today to endure some unbearable heat in a polyester robe. Thought I'd just come away with heat stroke but also picked up this nice Trustee Award for Faculty Excellence!
#honored
...Black use of the term ghetto was also used to expose the hypocrisy of Jewish Americans. See "Building Ghettoes" (Chicago Defender, 1937). In response to Judge Feinberg upholding covenants, "you are only a generation away from a Russian or a Polish ghetto" (4). The takeaway...
When talking about the white supremacy of policing (
#JusticeForTyre
), please remember that it's not the race of the officer. It's the consistent race of the officer's target...any society can train any group to be anti-black
For those still pissed by the Jim Sweet controversy in the history profession, see this
@NewYorker
piece. I was able to offer a brief take on my position and why I refused to sit on one of his AHA presidential panels.
It is on the path laid down by students
@columbia
that we now follow...today and in 1968, for campus, for Harlem, for Palestine, for the world. In constant awe of these fearless young warriors, confirming that history is not an arrow but a boomerang 🪃. Let's fight and win!!
Please see my latest
@chronicle
...takes up the recent taxation battle between Ithaca and Cornell.
Cornell can't "hoard capital like a hedge fund, occupy space like a real estate tycoon, make decisions like a ward boss, and still pay taxes like a nonprofit
Hey, new essay just dropped today for
@PublicSeminar
, "'Look a Negro'...In the Academy" using the narrative frame of Fanon's Fact of Blackness to work through the "object-hood" of being a Black professor...please take a look
The campus fight for Palestine has rightfully brought calls for university endowment transparency and ethical investment to the headlines. I want to amplify the important documentary ExclusionU, where I was featured, which takes up this issue head on.
AVAILABLE NOW on YouTube
If you freaking out over the decline of higher ed here, how can you not be outraged over our colonial proxy actually blowing up universities...this is not a metaphor.
Higher ed stand up, boycott Israeli institutions now!
The Israeli military just blew up the University of Palestine in Gaza City with 315 mines. All the universities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. We need a full academic boycott.
Ok, so it seems that the YALE Police Union is handing out these fliers, basically telling students to stay on campus bc New Haven is a cesspool...thoughts?!?!
Supposedly these are being handed out courtesy of the Yale Police union to the freshmen pouring into the city. Anyone care to ask Yale for a response? I'm a bit peeved
Professor Ruha Benjamin (
@ruha9
) using her honorary degree address at Spelman to denounce Atlanta’s Cop City, the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, and the repression of student activists 💜
Hey, check out my piece in TIME. Its time for higher ed to stop profiting of its property tax exemption and pay back to the Black an Brown communities where they sit.
#BlackLivesMatter
#BlackTwitter
And while all three students matter equally, I am outraged that the
@TrinityCollege
statement in support of its own student here's, did not explictly condemn anti-Muslim or anti-Arab violence. And we know the response would have been different if the victims were...different
Last night, Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali, and Kenan Abdulhamid—college students—shot on their way to dinner in Burlington for wearing keffiyeh. Palestinian pride and identity met with violence.
Hey everybody. Bold Type is debating whether to issue a student version paperback of
#InTheShadow
. If you also teach the book in a class, could you tag here and name the class and school?
Thanks 🙏🏿!!
You know the conversation was🔥 when students were eager to stay past 10pm to keep talking.
@DavarianBaldwin
your book had all the students in my American Studies senior seminar shook. Looking all around and at themselves in new ways! Appreciative of your work.
This was my first year in this bird app and it was nice to be proven wrong that you can't build community on this thing. Happy to be along for the ride and Happy New Year!
Our film “No Other Land” on occupied Masafer Yatta’s brutal expulsion won best documentary in Berlinale. Israel’s channel 11 aired this 30 second segment from my speech, insanely called it “anti semitic” - and I’ve been receiving death threats since. I stand behind every word.
Shout to
@hilarysburns
for speaking w/me
@BostonGlobe
on the recent Mass database showing how campus police forces have been a popular landing spot for cops behaving badly with little oversight.
Fights against qualified immunity must come to campus!
SO, a royalty check came today and reminded me that it is the 15th anniversary of
#ChicagosNewNegroes
. I am humbled that folks still rocking with CNN. It has brought me into new realms of BlackRenaissance work through lectures, teacher workshops, art exhibits, TV docs and...
Two hours...SOLD OUT!!!
Had a great time with this puzzle assembly and signing event at
@bnbooks
in Enfield, CT (a home of Paul Robeson)!!
Before < After
Here are some great photos of the forthcoming "World of the Harlem Renaissance: A Jigsaw Puzzle." We couldn't cover everything but we try to be expansive in our rendering of the era. If you like puzzles and 1920s Black history and culture, check it out!
Happy Monday! In the spirit of the first day of school, for many, I want to share this
@truthout
interview as a reminder that another university is possible. We discuss
#UniverCities
and the work of my
#SmartCitiesLab
...always critique and solutions!
A Luta Continua:
Ithaca, NY has become a new battleground over public dollars for the public good. Cornell owns about 47% of city's property. It's mostly tax exempt. If they paid taxes on land (about $35 million) that is almost half of the city's budget...(1/2)
@CaseyGrants
What a weekend! To be at the
@UrbanHistoryA
conference and led by our Prez. Joe Trotter. There is little like being affirmed and celebrated for my scholarship and activism by the Urban History community...we CAN place our research in service to broad social transformation ✊🏿!!
This
@BU_Tweets
land deal is straight from what I call the
#UniverCities
play book. Its schools that sit at the center of managing land and capital more broadly. Its precisely their non-profit status that helps facilitate plunder for private developers.
As a former
@BU_Tweets
professor and former resident of this LA neighborhood, I stand with the 130 residents and 40 families who will face eviction if BU sells donated apartments to for-profit buyers.
You can help by boosting this story,or emailing BU admin to voice support!
@AHAhistorians
I appreciate this statement but, based on responses and my experiences with always feeling like an outsider at
@AHAhistorians
conferences, his "mistakes" reflected a very strong and enduring sentiment amongst historians with resilient ideas about the "right" way to "do" history
Honored to give the Bertha Maxwell-Roddey Distinguished Lecture for Africana Studies
@unccharlotte
on Thursday Oct. 5. And while I am there, I will highlight a vital struggle over Charlotte's historically Black Brooklyn Neighborhood that is happening now! (1/4)
@PeterCronau
@prisonculture
But people keep subverting her politics under a banner of "human decency"...while she is clear this was an act of political solidarity...papers for everyone
I was inspired to help consult on this amazing new docu
#Uprooted
that takes on a piece of the work we do at
#SmartCitiesLab
, exploring the mid-century role of higher ed in demolishing Black and brown communities.
Salute to
@brandkells
for this work!
🫡
Colleges and universities are TOO MUCH like the real world: low-wage labor exploitation, real estate accumulation, sexual assault, debt financing, large scale security teams, private healthcare. Campuses are ground zero for political/economic struggles that touch all our lives
After years of script writing, recording, and editing, it's here! I am proud to have hosted and narrated this 12-part project for
@TheGreatCourses
, "How the Great Migration Changed America." If you have a subscription, please check it out and tell me what you think.
A wild story. The board of the University of Minnesota, one of the largest public universities in the country, has chosen the CEO of Spam and Hormel Chili as its next president. He has no academic credentials of any kind and has only taught one business class as an adjunct.
Been working with colleagues and communities on this "Renewal Project" to document higher ed's historic role in the demolition and displacement of Black and Latinx communities. Now it is slowly catching fire!
Shout to
@propublica
#ReparationsNow
Honored to join comrades from the Faculty for the Common Good slate to begin doing the work on the
@AAUP
National Council. Please join us as we build this vision of wall-to-wall organizing without regard to rank, status, or location...
#TheNewShopFloor
!
The claim that
#debtcancellation
is welfare for the elite is wild. In just higher education alone, over 60% of faculty are contingent workers who...have student debt. This is not a matter of individual poor financial choices, this scale of debt is a predatory economy...
Taken Aback! It was already an honor to just give the Dr. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey lecture for Africana Studies
@unccharlotte
. But I had no idea this Charlotte Civil Rights titan would grace us with her presence. And then...this came in the mail.
Just beautiful!!
#BeyondBlessed
🙏🏿
Schools must stop claiming to serve the public good if they transfer capital from university holdings to private developers for their profit interests. Be a good neighbor. Manage this property as affordable housing (still make a profit) or transfer it to a community land trust
@gradstuanon
@AHAhistorians
Please explain to me these halcyon days when history was politically neutral...is this when it simply carried water for American nationalism, the confederacy...European empire...oh when this time of neutral integrity
So sad to hear of the passing of Professor Steven Gregory. He was on faculty when I was a grad student at NYU. Of course he became a giant in urban anthropology and a leading light at Columbia's new Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies. Rest in Power
Love this!! Been saying for years that our political culture must reflect and express the lives and culture of the ACTUAL working class...the wc is not Ralph Kramden, Doug Heffeenan or even Norma Ray anymore, if it ever was just that...
They are not perfect but HBCUs taking the lead on best use of this CARES Act money while
@Harvard
uses theirs to pad the $40 billion endowment and buy up water rights in CA to profit off peoples impending limited resource access
@yanoula1
more impactful or relevant than an enslaved and pregnant Black woman or indigenous children at an Indian Boarding School?? I guess I should ask "recognizable" for whom?
In grand fellowship rallying with the New Haven Rising community on the day that
@Yale
begins its $6 BILLION capital campaign called "For Humanity" while the city needs the school to pay its taxes.
#YaleRespectNewHaven
#ForHumanity
If you feel so inclined, you can still register for what I think is going to be an amazing convo between myself and
@ananyaUCLA
, "Universities, Cities, and Social Justice"...Tonight @ 7pm...pull up
Judge decides that city residents have no standing to contest the private Hopkins police from holding primary jurisdiction over public streets and sidewalks...Johns Hopkins University really has become Vatican City
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Circuit Court Declines to Review Private Police Agreement Between BPD and Johns Hopkins University
Todays dismissal will be appealed.
Alt text:
Wow...please watch students
@Penn
say enough...enough fossil fuels, enough displacement, enough tax taking and not giving...be a source of good in West Philly!
Dozens of student protesters representing the Fossil Free Penn organization flooded the field during Penn’s homecoming game against Yale Saturday at Franklin Field.
The group planned the action after an ongoing fight with Penn over climate issues and community justice.
See new article about reparations. They feature our comrades fighting against UGA's historic demolition of the Linnentown community and its legacies...higher ed has been central to harm and must remain so in repair
#ReparationsBeyondSlavery
Just over a year ago I was interviewing this community activist and nurse for my book
#IntheShadow
as she helped fight back against a university medical school trying to steamroll the Fruit Belt neighborhood. Now
@Indiawaltonbflo
will be the next mayor of Buffalo...salute queen!
"The myth of rugged individualism is a lie.
By building coalitions in community, anything is possible.
I owe everything that I am, every victory, to the people who have been so faithful in supporting me."
@Indiawaltonbflo
today on
@NewDay
REALLY excited to be in this conversation about "Disclose and Divest." I also helps open up analysis on Higher Ed's broader political economy and how to move forward with true justice at the center.
Thank you
@CaseyGrants
and especially
@crojasphd
🙏🏿!
@Teri_Kanefield
But when we just vote Democrat, the same groups repeatedly get their issues sacrificed at the alter of "just win." The Democrats have to give us a vision and approach that commands votes not just a defensive posture of "at least we're better than the other guys"
Great piece by
@AsheeshKSi
about how wealthy private unis actually drain resources from public education and the need for real change...and thanks for the shout!
via
@truthout
Just a quick reminder: Its on tomorrow!
@ScholarsForSJ
will host a conversation with me and the amazing Rod Ferguson choppin' it up @ 4:30 EST, "Thoughts on an Abolitionist University: Freeing Higher Education From Itself." Please, come join us.
I guess this bird app is going down. Damn I just got here. I am hardly tech oriented, so I came here with all kinds of reluctance. But I was wonderfully surprised with the community that I found and created on here. Thanks to you all who make social media an actual place to be 🙏🏿
Tax exempt endowments have become mechanisms of wealth hoarding. There must be appropriate taxation, increased financial aide, more tenure track jobs, and greater public service to communities with this wealth.
via
@markets
Happy to give a keynote this morning alongside
@lorgia_pena
for the Faculty of Color workshop virtual symposium. Talking about the Spaces of Pain and Possibility in the Neoliberal University. This was a great community!
Shout to
@mep04005
!
Excited to use my research and organizing to discuss the dangers of nonprofit real estate and how to fight back! Please check out, "Educational Purposes? Campus Land as a Site of Struggle" in the
@npquarterly
's Movement Economies special issue 👇🏿
As a billionaire takes £250 million of taxpayer money during a national crisis of poverty and hunger to throw himself a hat wearing party, remember the same ideology that claims some people are born kings and others subjects also says some are born masters and others slaves.
@KellyMSocia
@llchristyll
Wait, so you are saying that at UMass Lowell, you would need TWO books by your sixth year and that a book and 4 chapters would be BEHIND in the fourth year??!! Man come on!! Really??
Peace to all my bay area riders standing ten toes for
#PeoplesPark
and freedom from the
@UCBerkeley
stranglehold on property and housing costs in the area...
And for those surprised by Santa Ono's draconian approaches to humane labor practices
@UMich
....just look back at his presidency
@uofcincy
during the campus police killing of Samuel DuBose.
#NoSurprises
This past winter, I was invited to read a poem at
@UMich
President Santa Ono's inauguration and given the impression that I could determine the poem's content. I pitched a poem about my single mother returning to college in her 40s as a non-traditional student. 🧵
"Academia is a place, not a calling." Shout put to
@KacieLucchini
for throwing my best words back in my face and putting me in community with some of the greatest students and staff activists, always demanding for more and better. All love, all the time 🫶🏿✊🏿!!
The Center for Campus History hosted a student lunch today with
@DavarianBaldwin
focused on scholar activism and among the many thought-provoking things that were said there is one thing I can’t shake. It was so good I had to write it down.
Yeah this partnership between
@UofCalifornia
and Blackstone has been a long time coming. With this in Northern Cali and
@BU_Tweets
in the southern cali, it's time to coordinate and tool up against these various university designs on land management and financial plunder.
48,000 of your academic workers just went on strike because of their deep rent burden and you turn around and do this
@UCPrezDrake
? The contempt
@UofCalifornia
shows for its students, it’s workforce, and the communities where it’s campuses are located is shameful
If there is any sector that is best prepared to implement police abolition, its higher education...and their policing isn't about safety but brand management.