Bench Ansfield
@benchansfield
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Writing a book on racial capitalism, risk, and real estate with @wwnorton || Society of Fellows @dartmouth || they/them
Joined August 2019
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All those articles this summer (and the summer before that...) on how much property damage BLM protests were causing? Those were insurer talking points. Amidst the 60s uprisings, insurers acted as racial capitalism's first responders. Here's how:
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Welcome to abolition! Though our calls for defunding and abolishing the police and prisons may seem brand new, many of us have been practicing abolition for decades. The transformative justice movement is one name for this effort. Here are some resources: /1
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I'm so accustomed to the academic job market tearing people away from their communities that for 9 years I've been telling my Philly loves it was unlikely I'd return anytime soon. I'm shocked to announce that in '24 I'll begin as an Asst Prof of History at Temple U...in Philly😭
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A little light at the end of a terrible weekend: here’s a photo of Ruth Wilson Gilmore in front of big Ruthie
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The term “burnout” was forged in the glow of a literal firestorm—the wave of landlord arson that ravaged NYC in the 1970s. For the Rest issue of
@JewishCurrents
, I wrote on the term’s origins in the creative destruction of the city and its workers.
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I reviewed the film Riotsville, USA for
@nybooks
. If you want to see a documentary that not only defangs the carceral state, but helps us think outside of it, see this film. It's the antidote to copaganda. It's aboliterature.
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As we rage, please remember that not every pregnant person is a woman, and abortion rights and women's rights are not interchangeable.
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I wrote a dissertation. This one's for my loves.
Taking suggestions on how to celebrate when the academic job market is so bleak.
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When I started writing my dissertation, I was on medical leave and almost certain I wouldn’t be able to complete it. This award is the fruition of all the community care it took to get me well. Care work is the closest thing to magic I’ve experienced.
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Imagine hearing "We Shall Overcome" in the mid-'60s and hearing "kill all white people." The same type of deliberate misreading is at play with "from the river to the sea." It's about criminalizing and penalizing dissent.
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We knew broken windows policing was an excuse for racialized police violence. Turns out it was phony science too. My small contribution to the effort to tear it down (THREAD):
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Safety politics continue to march toward a reactionary horizon
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Join Mariame Kaba and three brilliant abolitionist organizers for a free virtual event on transformative justice at a time of co-optation, and justice in the midst of institutional failure. April 14th at 6 ET. Open to all. Register here:
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Teachers and profs, this is a moment to learn from your students and find your courage
Our time on this earth is so brief. We might as well be brave.
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Giselle, the 7-year-old child of my dear friends, was kidnapped today by her non-custodial biological father. He is armed, last seen leaving Philly toward NYC. Please spread the word to help bring her home.
#BREAKING
: An amber alert has been issued for 7-year-old Giselle Torres. State police say Juan Pablo Torres, who allegedly abducted Giselle Torres in Pennsylvania, may be headed to the New York City area.
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It’s impossible to overstate how much good work is being produced within critical prison studies/history of the carceral state. All these arrived in the last few weeks. Congrats
@lydiajean8
@orisanmi
@mguariglia
@EmilyMBrooksPhD
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The state has not only had a monopoly on the use of force, it has had a monopoly on what it means to create safety. The transformative justice movement has been challenging that monopoly for over a decade. /2
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Not sure what Cop City is? This is Cop City.
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This one goes out to all those who've warned me that Israel is the only state in the region that protects queers
Israeli security forces have admitted to deliberately threatening and outing queer Palestinians as a tactic to intimidate them into working as informants.
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This just in from New Haven Public Schools: teachers who test positive for COVID after visiting one of the 31 states considered hotspots "may face disciplinary action, up to and including termination." In other words, NHPS threatens to fire teachers who get COVID.
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Evolving out of the confluence of restorative justice, the anti-violence movement, and prison abolition, transformative justice (TJ) is modeled on indigenous responses to violence and was theorized, developed, and is led by women and transfolks of color. /3
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I’ve never seen as many Vermonters assembled in one place as I do right now in Burlington
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It is not a catch-all replacement for the criminal legal system. It is one seed--among many--from which we must grow a new world. See anything by
@prisonculture
esp . Other leaders:
@miamingus
@thellpsx
@ejeris
@Estebantitos
@alexispauline
@adriennemaree
/5
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The moral and political clarity of this moment is so overwhelming I am finding it difficult to breathe. It’s not everyday that atrocities are presaged with warnings. I rarely pray, but at this point I fear yelling “not in our names” over and over is only that—an unheard prayer
1.1 million people will not be able to leave Gaza. So they are being threatened with something worse than displacement: they are being threatened with death.
All people with any modicum of conscience should be speaking out against this.
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Anyone else watching the very quiet overtaking of
Best,
by
Warmly,
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TJ seeks alternatives to punitive justice, laying bare and addressing the underlying structures of power (patriarchy, racism, capitalism, homophobia, ableism, etc) that led to violence in the first place. It assumes that interpersonal harm is rooted in those larger structures. /4
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What we are seeing on campuses across the US is a coordinated act of retribution for 2020, meted out by cops who have been unleashed by college presidents who pretended not long ago that Black Lives Matter
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The entire cultural apparatus is working to tee up genocide.
You literally can’t make this up. They no longer want to honour Adania Shibli for her award winning novel A Minor Matter because *checks notes* it focuses on the murder of a Palestinian girl by Israeli soldiers. It’s almost like there’s a connection…
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This happened. This was the first thing I wrote after three years of medical leave and cancer treatment. Hard to process in this moment, but there's something to say about what can come out of sustained struggle--and all the support it takes to get through it.
The Louis Pelzer Memorial Award goes to Bench Ansfield
@benchansfield
for the best essay in American history by a graduate student
#OAH20Awards
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Delighted to share that my article "Broken Windows of the Bronx: Putting the Theory in Its Place" is the co-winner of the Arnold Hirsch Award for best article in a scholarly journal from the Urban History Association! Free from American Quarterly here:
Our UHA Virtual Award Ceremony is now available to view! Link to view:
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When you dupe Philly into broadcasting the word “ceasefire” to the public…
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For starters, see the new volume Beyond Survival and the how-to Fumbling Towards Repair and this toolkit from Creative Interventions
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CT ppl: Senator Chris Murphy is very close to backing a ceasefire. PRESSURE CHRIS MURPHY (202) 224-4041
My new Gaza statement:
"It's time for Israel's friends to recognize that the current approach is causing an unacceptable level of civilian harm and does not appear likely to achieve the goal of ending the threat from Hamas. I urge Israel to immediately reconsider its approach."
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Feels like Gen Z is just better at solidarity
Jenna Ortega reportedly asked to end her contract with the “Scream” franchise following Melissa Barrera getting fired.
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Chairs to the front
WATCH: Among those arrested today were Noelle McAfee, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Emory University.
I’ve asked for a comment from Emory on this arrest, no word yet.
This video provided to us by an
#Emory
PHD student. You can hear him in this video.
@ATLNewsFirst
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“We're fighting back for our own public space.”
Your subway commute may look a lot more pro-Palestine this morning, thanks to a group of guerrilla artists.
@adlankj
was on the scene:
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Before that, I'm heading to VT/NH for a 2-yr postdoc at the Dartmouth Society of Fellows. So thankful to have this time to work on my book in the woods. It feels like I won the lottery, but getting a good job shouldn't be a lottery. Neither should working where your people are.
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This is starting to feel real.
Elated & grateful to work with
@dan_gerstle
at Liveright/Norton! And ever appreciative of
@EliseCapron
@LiverightPub
@wwnorton
Thrilled to announce this book deal for the brilliant
@benchansfield
, to the similarly brilliant
@dan_gerstle
!
Bravo, bravo, bravo to you both!
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Y'all do realize that the "human shields" argument, taken to its conclusion, can only yield mass death? When any human being, any child, can be portrayed as a shelter for Hamas, Israel gets carte blanche to kill as many Palestinians as it deems necessary. It's limitless.
Horrible. Israel has an obligation to protect civilians under the laws of war. Hamas’s use of innocent Palestinians as human shields does not excuse bombing a location filled with civilians.
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To fellow Jews who remain reluctant to criticize the assault on Gaza: Listen when they tell you who they are. What other evidence do you need that the project of ethnic cleansing is underway?
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Out now in American Quarterly, my article on the intellectual origins of broken windows policing, a rollercoaster that runs thru the 1970s Bronx, the media's racialized construction of urban crisis, and Wilson & Kelling's willful manipulation of research.
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All I can say about this is that I got really sick in the middle of the program and very nearly didn't graduate. I simply wouldn't have without the constant support from family--chosen & not--especially
@nataliyabrgnsky
without whom not a word would have made it on paper.
I know I’m gushing now but *listen*
@benchansfield
is the winner of the 2021 Field Prize, one of two university-wide awards given to top dissertations!!
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Join the Abolition Collaboratory for a conversation on how abolitionist activism in the streets should shape abolition studies. Featuring Derecka Purnell
@dereckapurnell
, Andrea James, Beth Whalley, Eli Patterson, & moderated by the brilliant
@deanzacook
. May 3rd at 2:30 on Zoom
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Writers, academics, and culture workers, sign this. We make each other brave.
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Envisioning a Judaism dislodged from Zionism is far from new, but this is the first time I'm seeing its possibilities in technicolor. This fugitive Judaism is the only one that has any meaning to me.
It is hard to overstate how a new vision of American/diasporic Judaism is forming in front of us
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See also this piece by the org I work with (which is in hibernation), Philly Stands Up.
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Burnout can feel like a blunt tool for naming the toll that racial capitalism takes on our bodies and minds. But locating it in the infrastructure of the city reveals a term imprinted with a violent truth: socially-differentiated exhaustion, even destruction, can be profitable.
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Buckle up. Today is about to get gross af. This is the march they’re paying ppl $250 to attend
Tomorrow’s Pro-Genocide March in DC has announced its guest speakers including racists like Michael Rapaport & fake progressives like Van Jones.
This anti-Palestinian march, helped by the US govt, expects to gather a large crowd in support of 75 years of apartheid & occupation.
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There is only one data point you need to know right now. Four out of five starving people worldwide are in Gaza. For those of us whose tax dollars are funding this, you can either name it what it is - forced starvation by design - or you are complicit. It's simple.
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I can't wait to join all the rad students and faculty in the History Dept at
@TempleUniv
. Philly, see you soon 💜
It was a tough few years on the market. Huge gratitude for those who sustained me & solidarity with those feeling the sting of market precarity.
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Growing up, there were few things worse than being a Holocaust denier. It sickens me to watch fellow Jews refuse to believe their eyes.
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Connecticut public schools are so overwhelmed with covid numbers, they've discontinued contact tracing and yet are proceeding with school tomorrow. Incredible that I can still be shocked by policymakers' abdication of responsibility, and yet here we are
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Overwhelmed and grateful to the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize committee --
@ashoncrawley
@arsavium
and
@gnebgne
-- for this honor! And huge congrats to the winner, M. Benitez of UMD!!
As someone whose own teaching has been shaped by
@benchansfield
’s research + writing, I am overjoyed that the
@AmerStudiesAssn
has named Bench Ansfield the 2021 Finalist for the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize for Best Dissertation in the field of American Studies. So proud! ❤️🔥
#ASA2021
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My review of
@DestinKJenkins
' spectacular Bonds of Inequality is out today in Reviews in American History. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in racial capitalism & contemporary cities. Feel free to DM for a pdf
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Shame on the IDF, shame on the NYT & CNN, shame on my family members who make excuses for genocide, who have spouted genocidal ideas as long as I can remember, who raised me to believe Israel was the antidote to genocide, and who harness our ancestors' pain toward that same end
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Feeling very fortunate that Lisa Lowe and Michael Denning are steering the ship I find myself on right now
Yale American Studies faculty *unanimously* voted to support:
- “A one-year extension for our current graduate students”
- “A special, one-time, emergency allocation by the Yale Corporation to the Yale Graduate School to cover some of the Grad School's emergency costs.”
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With the Jewish and academic calendars synced, today I’m beginning the new year at Harvard’s Charles Warren Center as an American Democracy Fellow. Excited to join the good folks at CWC and grateful for this lifeline as academia caves in.
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I'll be speaking at The New School's Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies a week from today -- next Thursday night at 6pm. Come through!
RSVP here:
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27% of those hospitalized for Covid at Yale-New Haven Hospital were vaccinated. 27%.
Yet it's full speed ahead on the semester, with universities in total denial that Delta is not the same virus we had planned for in the spring. This will be a disaster.
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"In its most capacious vision, 'everyone for everyone' can be read as an abolitionist call—a way to think about safety grounded in solidarity and mutuality, raised in terrifying and precarious circumstances."
Read this piercing, urgent piece by
@dnbrgr
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Was so surprised to learn that my critical history of insurance received this recognition. Honored and grateful
@TheBHCNews
Please join
@TheBHCNews
in congratulating
@benchansfield
for their outstanding
#dissertation
and presentation:
“Born in Flames:
#Arson
,
#RacialCapitalism
, and the Reinsuring of the
#Bronx
in the Late Twentieth Century” is the
#BHC2022
#BHCKroossPrize
winner.
#insurance
#bizhis
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Are they literally trying to lose?
White House when asked what Biden's message to is to Arab-Americans as he visits Michigan tomorrow: "Israel has a right to defend it self"
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I know we’re all tired, but the bombing has not stopped, the siege remains in effect, and our work remains as urgent as ever
After Israel bombed Gaza's last operational flour mill yesterday, the entire population of Gaza, including 1.1 million children, is at "immediate" risk of starvation
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I just combined all the chapters of my dissertation into one file and it's exactly 420 pages. High school me is BEAMING
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Dartmouth & Upper Valley folks -- come out on Tuesday at 1:30 to support grad student workers demanding a living wage
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There's no love like the love for one's mentors. I wish that love for everyone
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This article shows how property insurers’ responses to the 60s uprisings helped set the course for US cities in the decades to come. Although the damage was minimal compared to an event like Hurricane Betsy in ’65, insurers worked themselves into a frenzy.
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Full essay in the Chronicle:
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This needs to be bigger news. Macron calls for a ceasefire.
Macron has called on the world to "work toward a cease-fire" in Gaza.
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@KeeangaYamahtta
Its self-immolation seems pretty rapid to me! It only took a few weeks to undo decades of base building
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Despite being branded as a racial justice measure, this insurance initiative benefited nobody more than absentee landlords, setting the stage for further ruin.
Sorry about the paywall--DM me for a copy!!
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But it wasn’t a broken window that drew passersby into the fray; it was the spectacle of Stanford researchers destroying a car in the middle of campus. In place of Z's critique of inequality, W+K invented a broken window and invested it with the ability to spur vandalism. /13
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In James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling’s 1982 broken windows essay in the Atlantic, a single source is cited to “prove” the link between one broken window and “a thousand broken windows”—claiming a connection b/t visual cues of disorder and neighborhood deterioration. 2/18
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This criminological cockroach should be exposed as being constructed upon shaky intellectual ground. From its origins to its ruinous rise, the broken-windows theory was just that — broken. It’s time to tear it down. /18
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This source is a 50-year-old experiment conducted in the Bronx and Palo Alto by social psychologist Philip Zimbardo. The authors of broken windows distorted its findings to suit their purposes. Their broken windows theory was founded on a lie. /3
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After years of redlining neighborhoods of color, they threatened to abandon cities once and for all. In 67, an offshoot of the federal Kerner Commission stepped in with a public-private insurance program to keep insurance flowing to cities.
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Featuring narration by
@tobihaslett
, Sierra Pettengill's
@riotsvilleusa
chronicles the fake towns built by the Army to train the police and Nat'l Guard how to respond to the '60s urban uprisings. It was a theater for honing politically acceptable forms of state repression.
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This is starvation by design.
New Interview: I talked to Arif Husain, the chief economist of the World Food Programme, about the food crisis in Gaza, why it may get worse, and what it means for Gaza’s children.
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I visit archives for a living and still have no clue what it means to "archive" something in gmail
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Extraordinary day of mail
@demonicground
@DestinKJenkins
@DrownedNegro
@prisonculture
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Huge thanks to
@AriBrostoff
and
@ArielleLAngel
for their tremendous work on this piece over many, many drafts. And big love to the Working Group on Globalization and Culture and
@nataliyabrgnsky
for reminding me that solidarity & collaboration are burnout’s antidotes.
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This was no radical critique; it was an indictment of law-and-order politics that viewed vandalism as a senseless act. His conclusions were in keeping with liberal criminology’s response to the 1960s uprisings. /9
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Erased from their account was the essence of the Zimbardo study—the researchers themselves enacted the majority of the destruction. By erasing this key detail, W+K manipulated Zimbardo’s experiment to draw a line between one broken window and “a thousand broken windows.” /12
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He installed a car in the Bronx and Palo Alto and surveilled the cars for days. 10 minutes passed before the informal economy of the Bronx made itself known. Zimbardo was surprised that the “vandals” were a white, “well-dressed” family. /5
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For Zimbardo, what happened in the Bronx and at Stanford suggested that crowd mentality, social inequalities, and community anonymity could prompt anyone—even Stanford grad students!— to act destructively. /8
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@ztsamudzi
It's also worth noting that in the aftermath of the 1960s uprisings, the federal government started offering something called "riot reinsurance" for "riot-prone areas." Here's the cover of the report, issued by an offshoot of the Kerner Commission in '68.
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Such an honor to receive this recognition from jurors
@elizabhinton
and
@geohumanist
Let it be more wind in the sails of the housing justice movement and the struggle to find a way beyond racial capitalism.
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Primary. Biden. Fucking. Now.
The latest NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll finds a majority of Democrats think Israel’s military response to the attacks by Hamas have been “too much.”
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How do we know that Target will be able to recoup its losses in Minneapolis? Because in the aftermath of the 1960s uprisings, the federal government launched property insurance programs to hedge against uprisings like the one unfolding right now. Minnesota's started in 1968.
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If you need help remembering how to feel the weight of what’s happening, read this
Today in
@thenation
we have a piece by Lujayn, a 14-year-old girl in Gaza, that has floored me every time I've read it. It's about what happened when an Israeli bulldozer came to destroy the house she was staying in, and you must, must, must read it.
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By exploiting this set of fears and meanings, the broken windows theory has continually regenerated itself even in the face of damning critiques by scholars and BLM activists. /17
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