It’s hard to figure out which disaster to look at — the climate-change-driven storms, the rampage shootings, the hate crimes, the war crimes, the online meltdowns of people allergic to nuance. No, I’m not linking to any of those things.
The recent Polish elections, in which young people drove a surge of turnout and pushed back a severe right-wing trend in government, give me reason for optimism. But while the right was in power, things were pretty grim, and a single electoral victory doesn’t mean permanent success. For years, national and local governments in Poland have been championing an anti-LGBT ideology — see this profile from 2020 of a woman living in what was deemed an “LGBT-free zone.” It’s not just something that shows up in human-interest stories, either: a recent working paper identified a surge in all-cause deaths, suicide deaths, and suicide attempts among LGBT people in Poland during the anti-gay crusades.
And there’s no reason to think it couldn’t happen here. Hate crimes of all kinds are way up, and rising percentages of Americans support political violence. There is a coherent, consistent movement to erase anything that isn’t exactly perfectly straight and white. Yeah, sure, it’s hilarious that Alabama libraries just banned a children’s book because the author’s last name was “Gay.” But take a look at the incredible reporting from Judd Legum’s Popular Information: Scholastic has just added a quick and easy checkbox for schools running book fairs: should we include any diversity? Basically, if you’re a school librarian and you want to avoid any hassle, you can just pick the “all white, all straight” selection. Bio of John Lewis? Bio of Harvey Milk? Story about two penguins raising a chick? Too controversial, skip ’em all.
Legum has been a key source of information on the book-ban situation in Florida, the vanguard of the “anti-woke” movement. He was the first to report that Manatee County school librarians had been ordered to purge all books with any gay characters. Local news picked up the story, although two Hearst-owned TV stations claimed it was fake, then, when confronted with evidence, put the whole thing into the memory hole. In other words, not only is there a movement to erase and normalize queerness, there is also a concerted effort to make you think it’s not happening.
The New York Times, as usual, fumbled the ball earlier this month with their profile of two families “moving out of state because of political polarization.” On the one hand, a family leaving Iowa because their child’s medical care is now a crime. On the other, a family leaving Oregon because they didn’t like looking at homeless people and were angry about freeway tolls. Because sure, pal, there’s gotta be exactly two sides to every story, and they’re equally valid.
Better: The New Yorker’s profile of a family of American domestic refugees fleeing anti-LGBT policies.
Other Reading
New Yorker: Evan Osnos China’s Age of Malaise
Philadelphia Inquirer: Will Bunch on the right’s “Red Caesar” plan for a US dictatorship
Chicago Magazine: Profile of a woman getting $500 a month in a UBI pilot program
Bad Cop No Donut
- A woman in Mississippi reported her 37-year-old son missing, and police were unable to find him for 7 months. Only, they had found him: he’d been struck and killed by a police cruiser the very night he went missing. They had even identified him, they just forgot to tell his mother, despite her coming to them repeatedly for help with her missing persons case. Instead, they buried him in a pauper’s grave. Her track record with police interactions wasn’t great to begin with: the same police department beat her brother to death when he was 62. In both cases, the officers were found not to be at fault.
- The Chicago Sun-Times investigates deep connections between CPD and right-wing terror organizations.
Joy
- OK I wouldn’t be thrilled about the couch but this is hilarious.
- Building community bike-ride by bike-ride (with skeletons).
- Setting sail in a giant pumpkin… as a fundraiser for science!
Secretly Ironic 