Category: american history

+ american history, art, dead kennedys, hardcore punk, history, music, politics, punk

The Political Power of Punk: Dead Kennedys’ “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables”

by Unknown's avatar

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading some books from the 33 1/3 series, specifically Nick Attfield’s on Dinosaur Jr.’s 1987 album You’re Living All Over Me and Michael Stewart Foley’s on Dead Kennedys’ 1980 album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. Each has been thoroughly engaging, and Attfield’s writing serves, in a lot ways, as a master class on writing about music while Foley’s does an … Read More The Political Power of Punk: Dead Kennedys’ “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables”

+

+ al green, america, american history, american literature, donald trump, JD Vance, mike johnson, politics

“This is an us problem!”: We Must Recognize Ourselves to Move Forward

by Unknown's avatar

Last week, during Donald Trump’s Joint Address to Congress, I noticed, for the first time, the fasces on each side of the podium. The fasces is an ancient symbol dating back to he Etruscans and Rome. Fasces consists of a bound bundle of rods and an axe. You can find fasces, just like swastikas, in various places. When walking around Washington D.C., you can … Read More “This is an us problem!”: We Must Recognize Ourselves to Move Forward

+ american history, graphic novels, history, james loewen, lies my teacher told me, nate powell

We Must Critically Engage With the Past or We Are Doomed to Repeat It

by Unknown's avatar

In order to understand the present and prepare for the future, we must understand the past and the ways that the past impact the present. As Frederick Douglas put it in his 1852 speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.” When … Read More We Must Critically Engage With the Past or We Are Doomed to Repeat It

+

+ american history, angela davis, civil rights, history, montgomrey, pauli murray

Our Role in the Relay of “Cosmic Composition”

by Unknown's avatar

Writing about how their time in Washington D.C. and at Howard University drew to a close in the early 1940s, Pauli Murray reflected on all the work they did, notably the 1943 sit-ins in the nation’s capital and how those sit-ins laid the foundations for the 1960s. Murray thinks about the tensions between their “urge toward kamikaze defiance of Jim Crow and the more … Read More Our Role in the Relay of “Cosmic Composition”

+

+ american history, banned books, edwidge danticat, fascism, history, sinclair lewis

Fascism Can’t Happen Here

by Unknown's avatar

Earlier this week, Edwidge Danticat published “It Can Happen Here” in Harper’s Bazaar. Danticat details how legislation in Florida reminds her of oppressive regimes in her Haiti and the repression of knowledge. She reminds us that no matter what we think, oppression and fascism can happen here, even if we think it can’t. The title of the article harkens back to Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 … Read More Fascism Can’t Happen Here

Archive
Follow me on Twitter
Follow Us

Blog at WordPress.com.