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Hello, hello.
The last fortnight was both very good and, well, also the opposite.
First, the opposite of good: Living in a city under siege comes with emotional, mental, and physical costs and many Chicagoans are feeling the enormous stress of everything going on. If you are following the news and/or my posts on various social media platforms, you know how bad it is. Now, understand that things are about ten times worse on the ground. I hit a very rough patch in terms of my physical and mental well-being, almost folding up and falling down out of exhaustion. Everything takes twice or thrice as much time and effort. It’s not a permanent situation but a massive stress response to current events and parts of life, and the only way to deal with it is to slow down for a bit and work my way back out. But, yes, I have to “maintain my social media presence” so there is still a lot of posting to be done, unfortunately. I actually like most parts of being online (how else am I to keep up with the cats in my life?): it’s the “stay visible or disappear from people’s minds” part that I find truly tiring. Someday, I’ll be able to strike a different kind of balance. Someday.
But trust me, this is nothing like what thousands of people are going through. Frozen Glaciers are storming workplaces and literally hunting down people, dragging them out of classrooms in front of preschoolers. Given my politics and all my past work, you know I’m the last one to bring up children as exceptional Beings who must not be touched — but the racism of this moment is astonishing to watch, even in a city that is, historically and in this time, deeply segregated and deeply racist. Under this rubric of terror, non-white bodies are turned into chattel, and even their infants can be tear-gassed, kidnapped, and often disappeared.
How bad is it? The Chicago Tribune is a neoliberal paper that would love to end all public transit and schooling, and it wants Chicago reduced to a white suburb with some nice tall buildings, just to keep up the tourism trade. It never hesitates to publish thinly veiled racist rants against its Black socialist mayor (and keeps publishing truly dumb shit from Paul Vallas, a man who didn’t even live in Chicago but had the temerity to want to be mayor). Yet, even this paper is actually publishing reports on the escalation of violence. (For reference: the Tribune is like the New York Times, but without its veneer of liberalism.) I don’t link to the Tribune just as I don’t link to the New York Times (I was and remain furious about the October 7 lies and its hatred for Zohran Mamdani) but you can find evidence of all this on its site. I used to subscribe to the Tribune—as a writer I have to stay informed of all perspectives—but I got tired of being royally pissed off each morning, so I stopped. The Times generates enough irritation on my part every day, and I don’t need more of it.
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The surprise for me and many people is how fiercely Chicago has risen up in real resistance, and proceeded to melt glaciers with its fire and fury.
Fortunately for all of us, there is a lot of excellent reporting in outlets like Chicago Sun-Times and Block Club Chicago. Independent writers and commentators like H. Kapp-Kote and Andy Thayer are providing analyses and up to date reports on events, alongside innumerable people tweeting and writing on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Photographers like Sarah-Ji, Adriano Kalin and others are documenting events as they happen, as are thousands of people recording and photographing the daily atrocities. You can keep up with some of this on my various social media sites, but please also follow and support independent media, as much as you can (I know money is scarce for everyone). As far as possible, stop supporting places like the Times which have brought us here with their racist, biased coverage (amply demonstrated by Electronic Intifada, whose work on the matter needs more attention.) AP News, Reuters, and ProPublica do an excellent job of keeping up with current events while places like, yes Current Affairs, Truthout, Electronic Intifada, the Nation and In These Times provide both news and commentary that you need. I start every morning with Democracy Now, and we need more such outlets. But please don’t expect the news to always perfectly align with your views: if a publication or outlet you follow writes that one analysis you disagree with, that’s no reason to immediately withdraw your support. In fact, you should be wary of only following places you agree with all the time. I write about the necessity of supporting indie media here.
The good news: The writing is going really well, although you may not see all of it right away. I got excellent feedback on a major project, and I’m excited about moving forward on it. And: I got the Kamala Harris review done! It took ages: I had to spend a lot of time researching facts and watching or rewatching various interviews and podcasts since she makes so many claims and, often, as it turned out, either twists the truth or just lies. But it’s here, and in Current Affairs.
A true story about how this came to be placed in CA even though it was originally intended for my website: I happened to be chatting with publisher Nathan J. Robinson and mentioned that I was about to review 107 Days. His eyes lit up and he said, “We’d hoped to feature it, but no one in the office here will even touch the book: could we have your review?” And so, here we are. I’m very pleased with how it turned out—both Nathan and Associate Editor Alex Skopic are amazing, intuitive editors and helped hammer this into its final shape. Any remaining issues are mine alone.
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The Harris review will be the last outside work for a while, because I really do have to focus on a number of projects, including my books. I will have some shorter pieces out on this website before the end of the year, including one on Zohran Mamdani. You’re likely to see a surge of essays in one week, and then nothing for a week or two, but it will all even out to about at least one new essay every week. These Updates may not be as regular, especially for the remainder of the year. I anticipate taking some time off, and my health is overall bad enough that I may just lie low for a while. I’m often very tired, and I work as and when I can, so my schedule is generally shot to hell which makes appointments particularly hard. Writing is what keeps me going, and I plan on continuing with it, of course: I have to reserve very precious and scarce energy for the work and some truly enormous and important projects and life tasks. (All will be revealed, soon/ish.)
As always, I cannot thank my supporters enough for all they have done to help keep my work going. Many of you have been with me for decades now, and I am forever grateful.
NEW WORK
“Kamala Harris’s Memoir Shows Exactly Why Her Campaign Flopped,” in Current Affairs.
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FROM THE ARCHIVE
I decided to focus on my trauma work this past week, and realised I still have quite a few more to showcase. There will be more links next week. As you know, many parts of my work on trauma have been plagiarised by different writers, so I wanted to make sure to maintain a record of what I’ve produced over the years. As for plagiarism and moving forward on that, including using legal measures: watch this space.
A Monica for Our Time: Reinventing Sex and Trauma in the Age of #MeToo.
Your Trauma Is Your Passport: Hannah Gadsby, Nanette, and Global Citizenship
Trauma and Capitalism or, Your Trauma Story Will Kill You
Class Shock: Affect, Mobility, and the Adjunct Crisis
Confession, Neoliberalism, and the Big Reveal
ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB!
The Crook, the Professor, His Wife, and Her Pet Poetry Project: Harvard’s Crimson details some of the exchanges between Larry Summers and Jeffrey Epstein. Be warned that the emails demonstrate a high level of misogyny. This is unsurprising since one of the men famously does not think women are as intelligent as men, and the other used the bodies of economically vulnerable teenagers as objects to be traded for favours.
Americans are barely making it, according to this report on Pymnts: “Beyond the Budget: Inside the Paycheck-to-Paycheck Economy.”
Here’s Ben Schacht’s “‘Like the story of the Exodus’: How Chicago’s Working-Class Jewish Immigrants Reacted to the Haymarket Affair.” (November 11 was the 138th anniversary of the execution of the Haymarket martyrs.)
“My University Just Taught Extremists How to Eliminate Academic Programs They Don’t Like,” by Alexandra Edwards, is an excellent and necessary piece.
Here’s ProPublica on the ongoing issues faced by domestic violence survivors.
And ProPublica on that massive raid in Chicago: “I Lost Everything”: Venezuelans Were Rounded Up in a Dramatic Midnight Raid but Never Charged With a Crime.”
Here’s Natalie Y. Moore on the escalation of tyranny in Chicago (and how people are resisting).
I’m still working on a long Ezra Klein essay (as in, an essay on Ezra Klein that will be long and take time). “Eventually You’re Going to Have to Stand for Something,” by A.R. Moxon, is a really interesting take on the subject.
Newts are being protected, as they should be.
Sea Turtles are no longer endangered!
That’s all for now. As I said above, this may become a fortnightly Update.
Do follow me on social media if you’d like to keep up with my posts, especially the ones on current events. I post a lot of news items and commentary (mine and that of others) on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and occasionally on LinkedIn. I can be found on Twitter (@NairYasmin) and Facebook (Yasmin.Nair), LinkedIn, and Instagram (Bekargyan). I am not accepting new friends on FB, but you can always use the “follow” option there. Facebook tends to stay static, and it’s extremely buggy so it’s best to refresh the page each time you visit, to make sure you’re seeing all my current posts.
This is where I got this week’s title.
I will see you next time. Stay well.
Image: Antonio Calderara, Untitled/”The Market Square in Orta),” 1929.
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