The “great replacement theory”, “white genocide”, and “demographic winter” are all pseudoscientific conspiracy theories that did not begin, nor will they end, with Tucker Carlson or other FOX News personalities. Rather, they represent a number of deeply held American beliefs that remain at the very core of everything you’ve read in the news recently about abortion bans, anti-immigrant legislation, and conflicts over teaching race and history in public schools.
Current Affairs
Taking Stock in California: Inequity & Grief
Having meaningful conversations about systemic racism and social immobility can connect people as much as the act of absorbing someone else’s microcosm of grief and relating to it. Ideally, I think, the conversations should encompass both the macro issues and the micro everyday scenes: acknowledging the social values that might hinder social change and communicating the process of witnessing everyday pain that reminds us of our shared humanity.
Mission By Mail: Evangelism in a Pandemic
Religion is no "opiate of the masses." Rich and poor, educated and ignorant alike flock to the call of certainty in these uncertain times. Rather than action based on the fear of an angry deity’s surveillance and judgement, this is an escape from the unease within. Certainty is a kind of social power. It indicates authority. Certainty reinforces identity through the use of prescribed language. Certainty is a foundational part of action. Today’s pandemic religion is about something you can be sure of. It’s about a bid for authority seen as stolen by science, by government, by secularism, and by technology. In the same way that 'thoughts and prayers' are more of a dismissive platitude than an actual step towards healing, it’s “Amen” at a distance without much in the way of getting directly in the trenches to rescue the drowning.
Ep. #45: Financial Identity, Quiet Fields, Silencing Students & Angry Anthropologists: This Month On TFS
Simon [1:00] begins our chat by asking what happens to your identity when you become a dependent spouse; that is, when your partner is supporting the household financially and you are not, especially in a new country. “For the last maybe 20 or 30 years, the assumption has been that both men and women will … Continue reading Ep. #45: Financial Identity, Quiet Fields, Silencing Students & Angry Anthropologists: This Month On TFS