Lizzi > Recent Status Updates

-Arab Spring
-when gov’t shut down telecommunications, protesters in Cairo were still able to spread info bc of dense population and tightly knit communities
-the complexity of protest participation motivations, although the result is the same
-US backed brutal crackdown of leftist uprising in Bahrain, in partnership w/ Saudi Arabia

•Egypt earned huge debt relief in exchange for supporting Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Neoliberal reforms did not magically deliver democratization.
•Neoliberalism & communism—authoritarianism in different flavors
•Egypt protests over the murder of Khalid Said

•when a movement insists no leaders, de facto leaders appear anyway except no fair selection/removal mechanism. Having leaders is crucial to successful revolutions.
•creating social democracy ends in one of two ways: explicit socialism or it’d fall into neoliberalism
•view on progress as means to an end (historical teleology, roots in Christianity) is dangerous—progress needs continuous maintenance

•Old Left—didn’t exist in US by mid century, New Left—ideological, “prefigurative politics”, television influences and not reaction against existing traditions
•星星之火，可以燎原。News spread to another country often inspires local resistance, and revolts happen in response to major int’l events
•”revolutionary opportunities often arise when there are divisions in the ruling class”

-burials became impersonal due to higher volume of bodies as the war went on, often times the burden of finding and shipping the bodies back home fell on kin

-poor planning and organization of burials
-a lot of times responsibility for burying the dead fell on the victor side

-legal “workarounds” to reinforce segregation
-extremely disproportionate amount of commercial/industrial waste plants near AA residential areas
-polluting buildings would only get permitted near AA and not white neighborhoods; federal judges did not “find there was explicit racial intent” and allowed this to continue, therefore polluting industry had no option but to locate near AA residences

-“killing was for black soldiers[…]the instrument of liberation; it was an act of personal empowerment and the vehicle of racial emancipation. To kill and to be[…]permitted to kill was ironically to claim a human right”
-self numbing/detachment to cope, think of self as machines. “Loss of feeling was at base a loss of self—a kind of living death that could make even survivors casualties of war”

-black soldiers’ different justifications for death: retribution for suffering, win a place in the polity thru willingness to give up lives, sacrifice for their own people’s freedom
-many had concerns of this perpetuating a tradition of black victimhood
-black soldiers fought extra hard—for equality and citizenship, and bc Confederate troops singled them out and backed them into a corner w nothing to lose

-intimate battles made it difficult for many soldiers to fire weapons and kill
-snipers were morally condemned for killing of soldiers doing personal activities w/ dehumanization of victims and absence of guilt due to the physical distance
-Confederate soldiers found it especially hard to conceptualize armed black Union soldiers, seeing them as “slaves uprising launched by the federal gov’t against the south”

-finding ways to justify killing even with Christianity’s opposition to killing. Self-defense, Confederate “crusader”/sanction for a holy war, retribution and revenge for comrades’ death.
-the thrill: firing back at someone firing at you, escaping sense of victim hood through action against enemy, hunting enemies like sport for pleasure, “Pandora’s box” after realizing one’s power in killing.

-when faith wasn’t enough for Good Death, patriotism served as replacement
-deserter execution
-the war machine brainwashes soldiers to “want” to die in order to feed the system
-created higher meanings of death as a reassuring return to the 19th century’s domestic understanding of death

-sudden deaths departed from the Good Death, sparking “prepared unpreparedness”—anticipation and acceptance of one’s imminent death to restore sense of control
-recipes of ars moriendi in letters: willingness and readiness of death, Christian conviction and calmness in the last moments as evidence of going to heaven and future salvation, a soldier’s sanctified changed way of living

-dehumanization and dissociation of souls and body due to the amount of bodies
-more soldiers died of diseases than on battlefields.
-the Good Death and Christianity, glorification of death as coping mechanism
-last words, extension of life thru the process of death itself

“He has to leave me enough control of my own life to make living look better to me than killing and dying”

I realized how easy it would be for me to continue to be still and forgive him even this[…]He was not hurting me, would not hurt me if I remained as I was.

They seemed to like him, hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time[…]I had thought my feelings were complicated because he and I had such a strange relationship. But then, slavery of any kind fostered strange relationships. Only the overseer drew simple, unconflicting emotions of hatred and fear[…]it was part of the overseer’s job to be hated and feared while the master kept his hands clean.

I could recall feeling relief at seeing the house, feeling that I had come home. And having to stop and correct myself, remind myself that I was in an alien, dangerous place.

“Somehow, I always seem to forgive him for what he does to me. I can’t hate him the way I should until I see him doing things to other people”

I knew a little towns and rivers miles away—and it hadn’t done me a damned bit of good! What had Weylin said? That educated didn’t mean smart. He had a point. Nothing in my education or knowledge of the future had helped me to escape. Yet in a few years an illiterate runaway named Harriet Tubman would make nineteen trips into this country and lead three hundred fugitives to freedom.

Waylon, for instance, had known just how far to push Sarah. He had only sold three of her children—left her one to live for and protect.

I was beginning to realize that he loved the woman—to her misfortune. There was no shame in raping a black woman, but there could be shame in loving one.

She had done the safe thing—had accepted a life of slavery because she was afraid[…]the frightened powerless woman who had already lost all she could stand to lose, and who knew as little about the freedom of the North as she knew about the hereafter”

Methods of segregation changed after the 1917 Buchanan decision: economic zoning, banning interracial marriage, arguing AA depreciate property value (cuz they’d rather die than live with black people), creating barriers between white and black neighborhoods through industrial zoning then reject mortgages to AA because “the industrial areas is a risk to the property value of nearby single family homes”…etc

-media attempted to argue for the ban of mixed race marriage despite the fact racial amalgamation was already considerably advanced resulting from frequent rapes of slaves by masters.

-city planner Robert Witten said regarding the Buchanan decision that race zoning is necessary in reducing racial conflicts, promoting public peace for both whites and colored races (🫩)

“Or if I had to stay here, why couldn’t I just turn these two kids away, turn off my conscience, and be a coward, safe and comfortable?”

-1876 Red Shirts massacre’d AA and abolished civil rights of freed slaves. Fraudulent white ballots were cast so much it exceeded the entire voting age population.
-Benjamin Tillman bragged about “seizing the first opportunity to provoke a riot” (the rage baiting of white supremacists has never changed)
-Black towns thrived. Jim Crow laws demolished their success and drove out/killed the black populations.

-A lower federal court found the referendum requirement of federal gov’t to be unconstitutional bc it wasn’t required for low income senior citizen housing, thus strong racial motivation. This was ruled otherwise by Supreme Court. It seems the low doesn’t matter, only those in power, even still today.
-irreparable damage had been done by the time federal courts recognized the wrongs of segregation.

“‘The kids are just imitating what they’ve seen adults doing,’” he said. “They don’t understand…”
“They don’t have to understand. Even the games they play are preparing them for their future-and that future will come whether they understand it or not.”

“The ease seemed so frightening”…“Us, the children…I never realized how realism people could be trained to accept slavery”

-PWA put in much effort in reconstructing already integrated neighborhoods just so they can create segregation, despite violating the constitution.
-Many vacant white housing units struggled to find residents despite black workers’ long waiting lists.
-Authorities followed a principle that if a neighborhood had even a few AA residents, it should become AA neighborhood entirely. Some old school pure racism shit…

-Harold Ickles established “neighborhood composition rule” where federal housing projects should reflect previous racial composition of neighborhoods.
-but PWA segregated projects even where there was no previous pattern of segregation.
-When the gov’t created designations however they wanted, the result was AA crowding into neighborhoods where AA were already living, thus them turning into slums.

-Banks would not finance construction nor issue mortgages w/o government approval; FHA wouldn’t insure loans to a co-op that included AA members.
-FHA refused to insure mortgages for whites in a neighborhood where AA were present; white realtors selling to AA were ostracized by society and blacklisted by real estate boards. Even if you’re a non-racist white, the system forced you to participate in white flight.

-De facto vs. de jure
-In Richmond CA around WW2, federally financed housing for AA was poorly constructed and intended to be temporary; white workers housing was built farther inland closer to white neighborhoods. This established segregated living patterns til this day.
-“War guest” program leased rooms to white families only.