Pressed Coffee 06: June 19 - 25, 2020
Good morning! Here are a few good reads and things from the past seven days.
On Society & Politics
Dear Comrades, Friends, and Readers—Publisher’s Message from the Brooklyn Rail
This “letter from the publishers” is more so a timeline of Trump’s racist behavior, checking in with us and reminding us of who our current and possibly future President is. At the end, they give tribute to the Black lives that have been lost at the hands of white supremacy, including George Floyd (1973-2020), Breonna Taylor (1993-2020), Tony McDade (1982-2020), Ahmaud Arbery (1994-2020), James Scurlock (1998-2020), and Nina Pop (1992-2020). It’s hard not to get emotional.
From Phong Bui via Brooklyn Rail
June 23
Do police keep schools safe? Fuel the school-to-prison pipeline? Here’s what research says.
Some seemingly blunt points backed by research should still be met with a critical mind! What’s your opinion on police in schools?
By Matt Barnum for Chalkbeat
June 24
'The Computer Got It Wrong': How Facial Recognition Led To False Arrest Of Black Man
If you didn’t know, technology can be racist. It dates as far back as the invention of the camera, and even further. Robert Williams is a Black man who was wrongfully arrested because facial recognition mistook him to be a shoplifter. If only technology and the police worked as hard to save Black lives as they do to protect places like Shinola...
Reported by Bobby Allen for NPR
How Corporations Try To Be More Human Than Humans
One disingenuous friendship, I’d say.
Written by Eli Zeger for Current Affairs
On Arts & culture
June 23
2,292 Plants Fill the Audience in Opening Performance at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu
I can’t help but look at two plants sitting next to each other in the theater and think they’re on a first (maybe second) date :’)
Reported by Grace Ebert for Colossal
June 24
“What’s Actually Happening”: Looking for History in Jordan Peele’s “Get Out”
I love this review. Honestly, I once long ago decided I hated reading reviews. But this one. This one makes me want to read more. It’s an essay about an essay within a book about a movie. It’s concerned with the Black Horror genre, an “up-and-coming” genre that we should all take a moment to consider. And if you’ve seen Get Out, this review is particularly enlightening.
Written by Ryan Coleman for Los Angeles Review of Books
On Everything Else
Mi casa es mi refugio: At the Service of Mexican Modernism in Casa Barragán
“The role architecture has played in the continuation of social discrimination and in the reinforcement of poor working conditions in Mexico throughout the twentieth century—especially in residential design—should not be underestimated.6 Looking closely at these service spaces reveals the relationships Mexicans have constructed as a society, with architects as accomplices, between housekeepers and their employers. And since service rooms have long been a requirement of the residential real estate market in Mexico, no architect, regardless of their fame or position, can avoid their expected inclusion. In Casa Barragán, the architect was both designer and occupant, and he wasn’t alone.”
Written by Francisco Quiñones and published in Avery Review
AIA Releases Design Strategies for Safer Schools post COVID-19
Reported by Christele Harrouk for ArchDaily
What we’re loving
THIS WEEKEND: Streaming Event via the Smithsonian Museum of American Art: Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message, The Message is Death
“The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, in consultation with the artist Arthur Jafa, have joined together to stream Jafa’s artwork “Love is the Message, The Message is Death” (2016) continuously for 48 hours on Hirshhorn.si.edu and AmericanArt.si.edu beginning at 2 p.m. ET Friday, June 26. This event is the first time the artist has authorized showing the video outside of a museum or gallery setting.”
Two roundtable panel discussions convened by the artist will take place Saturday, June 27, at 2 p.m. ET and Sunday, June 28, at 2 p.m. ET. The participants Saturday are Peter L'Official, Josh Begley, Elleza Kelley, and Thomas Lax. Participants Sunday are Aria Dean, Rashaad Newsome, Isis Pickens, and Simone White; both panels are moderated by Tina Campt, the Owen F. Walker Professor of Humanities and Modern Culture and Media at Brown University.
Flyer and info from DetroitWillBreathe.info
Detroit Marches with Detroit Will Breathe and many other organizations!
This weekend, marches will be targeting very specific neighborhoods for very specific demands!
Saturday, June 27: Justice for Theo Gray March
A march to demand justice for Theo Gray, a young man from Detroit killed by St. Clair Shores police in 2018.
Rally at Lakeview High School at 3:30 PM.
March to the police precinct at 4:00 PM.
Sunday, June 28: Your Fight is My Fight March
At Patton Park in Southwest Detroit
Meet at 4pm
This is a statement from members of the Latino community on recent events in the country (as posted on event page):
“The death of George Floyd at the hands of the police has shaken the nation’s conscience.
His cruel murder caught on camera, seen and shared by millions, has sparked enormous pain and anger. Not because he was the first or the only one to suffer the same fate, but because it is no longer possible for us to accept one more case.
Previously, it was Breonna Taylor, who was shot eight times while resting in her bedroom when an anti-narcotics team entered her house “by mistake.”
And before it was Ahmaud Arbery, “confused” for a thief and assassinated by a former police officer and her son while exercising during the pandemic.
All were seen as “threats” by a racist system that discriminates daily only on the basis of skin color.
And in recent days, Latinos living in this country have seen how our lives are also worth very little to those who carry a gun and a badge. Sean Monterrosa, 22, was killed while surrendering in Vallejo, California. Andrés Guardado, an 18-year-old Salvadoran-American, was shot dead at his workplace, also with the same excuse that he was “mistaken” for a criminal. In case anyone had any doubts, these extrajudicial executions also hit the immigrant community hard.
And right here in Detroit, less than two weeks ago, Priscilla Slater died alone in a Harper Woods jail cell, just a few miles away, without anyone offering her medical help.
In all these cases, the common factor is that the police have tried to hide the evidence to defend their own from justice. The videos are missing, witnesses are ignored, and the voices of family members are not covered by the press.
But amid so much tragedy, a great hope has begun to emerge: the people have said “Enough.”
From Minneapolis to Louisville, from New York to Los Angeles, hundreds of thousands have stood up to say that the unnecessary death of another human being hurts us all, and that SOLIDARITY is how the people express their love for one another. They have demanded an end to this unjust, cruel and inhuman system that violates the most basic rights of Black people in this country.
And these mobilizations have been incredibly effective, opening up new possibilities across the country. Now, as never before, there is a public debate on the violence of the current police system, and there is a window of opportunity for making profound changes to guarantee the safety and well-being of the population, especially those who face the harshest discrimination.
In this context, we all have two options: continue looking the other way, carrying on with our individual routines, or joining the powerful call to mobilization, saying “we are here with you”.
We must also clearly confront the racism and prejudice that exist within our immigrant communities, knowing that the division of the oppressed is what allows this system to continue. If we unite, we are all stronger together, and our voices cannot be ignored.
For George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, for all our Black neighbors and friends who have been killed, unjustly imprisoned, and harmed by racism in this country, and for justice for their families.
For Andrés Guardado, Sean Monterrosa and all immigrants who have also faced discrimination.
For all our relatives, neighbors and coworkers who have suffered deportation.
For those who have spent months or years in prison just for dreaming of a better future in this country.
For the mothers and fathers cruelly separated from their sons and daughters.
For the girls and boys caged like animals on the border.
For all of them, for you, for us, we say: No more INJUSTICE, no more SILENCE, no more IMPUNITY!
For RESPECT, DIGNITY and PERMANENT PROTECTION for 11 million undocumented people!
We invite everyone to join the struggle for our rights: we have so much to gain!
- End the police understood as a system of repression and social control
- No more racist hatred, no more discrimination, abuse, harassment and violence
- End the racist structure of the prison system
- Immediate abolition of ICE
- End family separations and unjustified arrests
- Legal immigration status for all who live, study and work in this country
- Full social rights for all: from driver’s licenses to fair wages, contracts, pensions and unemployment insurance, the right to health care, education and housing, and much more.”
30s Book Review
Excerpt from Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
In recent weeks, we’ve shared many books that are essential reads, not just in this moment, but books that have always been urgent. One book that I didn’t include in this list is Trevor Noah’s Born A Crime—not included because, really, it just didn’t come to mind, which makes sense because this book is my current read not for the reasons nox library has been promoting others—I didn’t pick this book up as one to coincide with the movement against white supremacy.
My longtime friends since second grade and I decided over a month ago to partake in a book circle. Our locations span the US, from Arkansas, Chicago and Detroit, to Vermont and New York. Our book circle works like this:
There’s a designated week in which Aisling in Vermont mails one of her favorite books to Kirsten in New York.
Kirsten then mails her favorite book to Bailey in Arkansas.
Bailey mails hers to Anna in Chicago, who then mails hers to Ana, who is also in Chicago, and then Ana mails one of her favorite books to me—I’m in Detroit.
Ana sent me Born A Crime. What I love about this book circle is that I learn something about one of my oldest best friends that I had previously neglected to recognize. I don’t watch Trevor Noah but I don’t have anything against him. It's an interesting fact to realize that Ana chose this book first to read and then to send to me. When I opened my mail, Cameron (my partner) immediately stated he wants to read Noah’s book after me. So I guess I also learned that’s a bonding point between my two closest friends.
Born A Crime is an autobiography that focuses on Trevor Noah’s childhood in South Africa, in about the 1980s and early 90s. It takes place mostly under the Apartheid—something that I admittedly never learned about in school (no surprise) nor in dialogue with friends, family and neighbors. I’ve been thinking a lot about why this might be. The South African Apartheid: a severely intricate system of racial segregation that lasted until the 1990s. The 1990s! Why was this something so many of us in the US had neglected to place in our understanding of history? Or maybe it wasn’t “so many of us”; maybe it was just me who neglected to make room for this long-term historic attack on human rights into my mental encyclopedia of history. But I seriously doubt that’s the case—I know I’m not the only one to live with a privilege that allowed me to never before reckon with Apartheid. So what came as surprising to me when I began reading this book, is that already, not even halfway through the book, had I learned so much more about global white supremacy through Noah’s stories than I had learned in my 18 years of US education. (Okay, maybe that didn’t come as a surprise.)
So although Born A Crime isn’t about the United States, its insight on Apartheid still feels informative on our own system of institutionalized and individualized racism, with comedic breaks to keep us sane. I don’t think it’s the book to read to learn about these things, but I would suggest it as a light read that still lets us learn during times when we are so prone to becoming burnt out. For times when we desperately need to keep going. Maybe that’s a sloppy end to a “review,” but the 30-second mark has been passed. Just pick the book up and see for yourselves.
– Danielle Francisca
LULA + RAIKOU <3
War is over
When we eradicate the oppressive systems of white supremacy.
Love and Peace from Raikou and me.
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