Why are White evangelical Protestants in the United States so likely to justify discrimination based on religious or moral conviction? Because they’ve done it before. Christians using our religion to shield ourselves from the consequences of our social prejudice isn’t new. It’s also not a personal attack, though that’s little assurance for Muslims, LGBTQ people, […]
Denial and opinions
There are two films called “Denial” out this year. One, a documentary, features climate change and the US energy system. I watched the other, a quiet drama based on a book about Emory professor Deborah Lipstadt’s legal confrontation with Holocaust denier David Irving. In 1994, Lipstadt was traveling around the US speaking about her recent book, Denying […]
A second look at failure
One of the tools I’ve been using this week to cope with the steady stream of chaotic political news is playing with scales of distance and time: How many light-years between Earth and—oh, I don’t know—Pegasus. How long human history is. How short recorded history is in relation to the age of the Earth. How […]
Normalcy is not a refuge
Ever since the new US president declared his candidacy, commentators have speculated about his mental health, armchair diagnosing him, and making claims about his psychological competence as if malignant politics would be comprehensible if only we had the right DSM label for it. This tactic demeans millions of people who live with mental health conditions […]
Nostalgia is no way to build a life
One of my favorite things is looking at the stars, especially in areas with low levels of light pollution. When I lived in Jamaica, my grandparents still had an exposed balcony (we installed railings when my grandmother developed dementia). I would sometimes sit on the balcony, long after my grandparents had gone to bed. Their […]
Weaving with parallel lines in mind
You can count on Jacobin to offer a grinch-like critique of a mass moment like New Year’s Day. And so they did, by republishing an essay from Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci. “I hate these New Year’s,” Gramsci writes. “The date becomes an obstacle, a parapet that stops us from seeing that history continues to unfold […]