As discussed previously, this is my weekly Twitter roundup. Note that tweets of articles generally include header images from the articles, which are not included here unless they happen to be available under a free license. Most are not. But I now add most of my commentary here, where I’m not restricted by the message length.

diagrams showing the division of the day and of the week

I also don’t generally attach pictures to posts with quotations.

9:03 – Mon 08 March 2021

The Long History of ‘America Uncanceled’ from Other Words

Conservatives’ rage against “cancel culture” boils down the idea that people should be allowed to behave as abusively to one another as they wish, and any limitation on that — or even criticism of it — is an infringement on freedom.

I’ve been making the point for years—if you go investigate my old Quora answers, you can almost certainly find some quickly—that “freedom of speech” means exactly that to right-wing types: They want to defend everything they say, up to incitement to riot, but even informing them of the consequences of their statements is supposed to be harmful.

12:01 – Mon 08 March 2021

The first step in that process is to root out white supremacy, starting with impeaching the white supremacist in chief.

Cori Bush

9:04 – Tue 09 March 2021

Equality Act Coverage Provides a Platform for Hate—but Not for Trans Voices from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

…opponents were given space to make false or misleading claims about the impact of the bill, while proponents were rarely given a chance to offer a vision of what they hoped the bill would accomplish.

I’m somewhat disappointed that the author doesn’t bother to link this to similar stories over the years. For all the efforts that Republicans make to convince people that there’s a “liberal bias” to media, the fact of the matter is that corporate media can almost always be counted on to spend most of its limited coverage on the more powerful group in a conflict.

12:02 – Tue 09 March 2021

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.

Emily Brontë

9:05 – Wed 10 March 2021

Revisiting reparations: Is it time for the US to pay its debt for the legacy of slavery? from The Conversation

There has never been a leveling of the playing field, or payments for the debt of unpaid labor over 250 years of slavery.

I wrote about reparations last month, so it’s nice to see the idea coming back into circulation.

12:04 – Wed 10 March 2021

Fate sits on these dark battlements and frowns,

And as the portal opens to receive me,

A voice in hollow murmurs through the courts

Tells of a nameless deed.

Ann Radcliffe

9:01 – Thu 11 March 2021

Women in politics: A timeline from Share America

Representing Montana, she said, “I may be the first woman member of Congress, but I won’t be the last” after her 1916 win.

It’s worth pointing out that, despite Montana’s state-level suffrage law, there was a period when it was easier for women to be elected to office than vote.

12:05 – Thu 11 March 2021

I may be the first woman member of Congress, but I won’t be the last.

Jeanette Rankin

Yes, I pulled the quote right from the morning post. Sue me…

9:02 – Fri 12 March 2021

Wow a Republican Voted for the George Floyd Bill—Nevermind, Wrong Button from VICE News

Gooden’s vote was a bit unexpected, as he’s been a hard-line and reliable pro-Trump conservative representing a district Trump won in 2016 by nearly 30 points.

It turns out the vote was unexpected for Gooden, too.

That’s right. Someone in Congress apologized accidentally voting in favor of police accountability.

Just to be clear, this was a week that also included Senator Ron Johnson patting himself on the back for delaying the COVID-19 relief bill, many Republicans trying to explain why their constituents voting and being able to pay their bills is actually a bad thing, and the party bullied a designer into taking credit for their CPAC stage shaped like a Nazi symbol. If it was previously too subtle what side of history they want to be on, they’ve made it impossible to miss.

12:03 – Fri 12 March 2021

Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Bonus

Because it accidentally became a tradition early on in the life of the blog, here’s a sixth article that didn’t fit into the week, but too weird or important to not mention.

Minneapolis Cancels Plan to Hire Influencers for Derek Chauvin Trial, Is Very Sorry from VICE Motherboard

On Friday, the city council voted to move forward with a campaign to hire social media influencers—for a flat rate of $2,000 each—to spread its messaging during Chauvin’s trial, as part of a $1.2 million communications strategy focused on controlling protests and preventing property damage.

The fact that it was even considered shows that they already suspect that the outcome in the trial won’t be good, and are more interested—to the tune of a million dollars—in preventing citizens from making their voices heard than anything approaching justice.

30 Years After Rodney King, LAPD Still Corrupt and Violent and Brutal from Common Dreams

By and large, stunningly little has shifted since Rodney King’s assault and the resulting national outrage. As is common, King was vilified as a drug-addled thug; otherwise, the LAPD made small changes—adding body cameras, reining in a police chief who argued black people were dying from police chokeholds because their neck veins were different from “normal people’s”—but overall, says an ACLU attorney, “It’s the same old disproportionate stops, targeting, harassment, brutalizing and killing.”

This shouldn’t be surprising, honestly. As advocates for police abolition have pointed out, the only tool police officers have is force, but they’re sent to deal with a wide variety of situations. That’s corrosive to society and dangerous to the police officers.

Credits: Header image is Circular diagrams showing the division of the day and of the week from a manuscript drafted during the Carolingian Dynasty.