Grateful to @scholars.org for the opportunity to write this brief on the urgent need to ban corporal punishment in US schools.
Children deserve bodily autonomy, safety, and care at school and in their communities.
Just a morally corrupt, irredeemably cruel nation.
Note the case where the parents of an 8 year old and 4 month old baby were sent to detention facilities after a school bus driver called police to report another student had threatened to kill the 8 y/o girl.
www.propublica.org/article/trum...
In at least two death penalty cases, Louisiana judges found that Holland withheld evidence. In a third, he secured the conviction of a Black 16-year-old, comparing the boy to a dog and telling the jury to “get rid of it”
www.propublica.org/article/hugo...
I should say this is primarily a white American construct, though empire has constructed a US identity that, even for those denied full citizenship and equal treatment at home, leads some to buy into this entitlement when engaging ex-US.
I think a lot about how completely US American it is to feel entitled to complete safety AND zero negative economic impact when you are not only at war, but started it.
Just complete audacity and entitlement rooted in the dehumanization of others and massive overestimation of one’s own value.
Anti-ICE Protesters Convicted on Terrorism Charges for Wearing All Black
theintercept.com/2026/03/13/i...
Ali Bani Odeh (37), Waad (35), Othman (6) and Muhammad (5) died in their car in a hail of bullets. Only Khaled (11) & Mustafa (8) survived. Khaled reports crying out 'Please help me'; Israeli soldiers pulled him out by his hair, threw him to the ground, & kicked him.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/w...
McGowan: You're saying 46 Americans died, so we should attack this country. Here at home, 68,000 Americans die a year because they don't have health insurance. So, if we're going to spend billions of dollars on something…
This is absolutely bonkers and infuriating.
Must-read reporting by ProPublica.
“The situation is becoming catastrophic for millions of children across the region,” UNICEF said in a statement, noting that at least 200 children are reportedly dead in Iran, 91 in Lebanon, four in Israel, and one in Kuwait. “These numbers will likely climb...”
www.commondreams.org/news/childre...
A man who was shot by Connecticut police last year and later died had to wait 10 extra minutes for another ambulance to arrive at the scene, after another officer having an anxiety attack took the first one.
"Let me tell you one Black thing. When I consider the future, I do not land on my untimely death or resignation. I doubt they did either. I do not even cast my eyes toward my job. I cast my eyes toward a joyful horizon full of color..."
academic.oup.com/melus/advanc...
This nation will always choose profit over people, classism over community. Shame on @fortlauderdale.bsky.social and everyone involved in this disgusting project. Wishing yall bad knees, broken paddles, and sand that never washes out of your sheets.
oxfordamerican.org/oa-now/a-bat...
When you put it like this, a $75 million bribe to Melania and gutting the Washington Post seems like a small price to pay.
NEW FACE Alice Walker I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart. To examine the dark mysteries of the blood with headless heed and swirl, to know the rush of feelings swift and flowing as water. The source appears to be some inexhaustible spring within our twin and triple selves; the new face I turn up to you no one else on earth has ever seen.
YOU CAME, TOO Nikki Giovanni I came to the crowd seeking friends I came to the crowd seeking love I came to the crowd for understanding I found you I came to the crowd to weep I came to the crowd to laugh You dried my tears You shared my happiness I went from the crowd seeking you I went from the crowd seeking me I went from the crowd forever You came, too
POEM FOR MY LOVE June Jordan How do we come to be here next to each other in the night Where are the stars that show us to our love inevitable Outside the leaves flame usual in darkness and the rain falls cool and blessed on the holy flesh the black men waiting on the corner for a womanly mirage I am amazed by peace It is this possibility of you asleep and breathing in the quiet air
LOVE POEM WITH APOLOGIES FOR MY APPEARANCE Ada Limón Sometimes, I think you get the worst of me. The much-loved loose forest green sweat pants, the long bra-less days, hair knotted and uncivilized, a shadowed brow where the devilish thoughts do their hoofed dance on the brain. I'd like to say this means I love you, the stained white cotton t-shirt, the tears, pistachio shells, the mess of orange peels on my desk, but it's different than that. I move in this house with you, the way I move in my mind, unencumbered by beauty's cage. I do like I do in the tall grass, more animal-me than much else. I'm wrong, it is that I love you, but it's more that when you say it back, lights out, a cold wind through curtains, for maybe the first time in my life, I believe it.
a few of my favorite poems for the (word) lovers
Here's what DHS doesn't want you to know: Working for ICE is one of the safest jobs in America — and last year was the second-safest year for the agency on record.
And the doxxing? It hasn't actually happened even once.
The masks are justified by a lie. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/ice-s-mask...
Tear gas is banned in international warfare, yet classified as a “riot control agent” that law enforcement can use for crowd control.
“It just doesn’t work well, and it hits the weakest people the most, and causes the most complications in them,” an anesthesiology professor at Duke University said.
Elizabeth is a Columbia Heights fourth-grader who loves volleyball, learning English and giggling in the halls with her friends. She's been held in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center for nearly a month, and she and her mom have both fallen ill. sahanjournal.com/education/co...
Marimar Martinez, shot 5 times by Border Patrol in Chicago, speaks out after Renee Good, Alex Pretti deaths
'I am their voice'
NEW w/ @adrianacardmag.bsky.social: chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
ICE is demanding the employment records at a Maine jail after a sheriff openly criticized immigration agents for arresting one of his guards
Floored by this story. A man wrote a pollite email to a federal prosecutor objecting to the deportation of an Afghan seeking asylum. DHS responded with an administrative warrant to get the man's info from Google, then visited his home to intimidate him.
Since July, I've tracked at least 2,300 cases in which federal judges have ruled ICE has illegally detained people without bond or due process.
This is one that stands out:
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Despite months of warnings that Trump has been “lawless,” “destructive, and ”authoritarian,“ 149 Democratic members of the House joined with 192 Republicans to pass a sweeping military spending bill — a vote that progressive critics say exposes the hypocrisy of what claims to be an opposition party.
"We have a nice little database. Now you're considered a domestic terrorist." www.reddit.com/r/Maine/comm...
Another example of why school corporal punishment is state-sanctioned and administered abuse.
"...investigators determined they would have enough evidence establish probable cause of child abuse if the incidents hadn’t occurred on school property & by a staff member."
www.wcjb.com/2026/01/22/d...
BREAKING: Immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, a memo obtained by AP says.
I guess I do think if you participated in the arrest of a five-year-old you are probably just fundamentally incompatible with society. That you are not a safe person for humanity to be around, generally
.@DAGToddBlanche: “It’s a crime — and so they will face a jury. If they’re convicted, they will go to prison… every single American should be enraged and heartbroken at what happened yesterday in that church.
Blanche won’t investigate the killing of an innocent woman on camera but they’ve got all hands on deck for a church service being interrupted
One of my fave political stories ever: when Maine’s GOP then-Gov LePage thought that not signing bills by deadline meant they’d die.
So he ignored all these Dem bills, thinking it’d kill them.
But in Maine, if Gov just does nothing (rather than veto), a bill becomes law.
So they all became law.
