“…it isn’t over yet.”

#BlackLivesMatter, COVID, and great power games | #TC71

Jun 10, 2020

Welcome to Third Cultured, a Queer Reading of the American Empire through crisis-after-crisis — written by yours truly, Kyle Borland.

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is free but – if you’d like to support it or me – subscribe below, heart this post, or support my Patreon.

Hey y’all,

I don’t have much commentary that hasn’t been better said by some of the folks below, so I thought I’d high those articles you should take some to read this week.

America, This Is Your Chance (The New York Times)
In 1963, images of racist white police officers spraying fire hoses and siccing police dogs on young black protesters in Birmingham shocked the world and propelled many white Americans to join civil rights activists in challenging racial segregation. A similar dynamic has occurred with the images of George Floyd’s death. Our nation suddenly caught a glimpse of itself in the mirror and people of all races poured into the streets to say “no more.” Now the president seems to be itching for another civil war.
I will not pretend to have a road map that will lead us to higher ground. But for those who are serious about rising to the challenge, I will share a few of the key steps that I believe are necessary if we are to learn from our history and not merely repeat it.
- We must face our racial history and our racial present.
- We must reimagine justice.
- We must fight for economic justice.
Policing Won’t Solve Our Problems (The Paris Review)
None of these initiatives by themselves will eliminate all crime and disorder. They need to be combined and new ideas would need to be developed and tested, but those who would benefit from this process lack the political will and power to do so. U.S. culture is organized around exploitation, greed, white privilege, and resentment. These are derived in large part from our economic system, but even profound economic changes do not automatically produce positive cultural changes, at least not overnight. Cultural norms also impede efforts to change these systems. What’s needed is a process in which the very struggle for change produces cultural shifts. By working together for social, economic, and racial justice, we must also create new value systems that call into question the greed and indifference that allow the current system to flourish. We must take care of each other in a climate of mutual respect if we hope to build a better world. One of the more positive aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement has been its embrace of differences of identity and the diversity of people engaged in leading it. We can’t fight racism while embracing homophobia, any more than we can fight mass incarceration by embracing a politics of punishment.
The American Nightmare (The Atlantic)
While black Americans view their experience as the American nightmare, racist Americans view black Americans as the American nightmare. Racist Americans, especially those racists who are white, view themselves as the embodiment of the American dream. All that makes America great. All that will make America great again. All that will keep America great.
But only the lies of racist Americans are great. Their American dream—that this is a land of equal opportunity, committed to freedom and equality, where police officers protect and serve—is a lie. Their American dream—that they have more because they are more, that when black people have more, they were given more—is a lie. Their American dream—that they have the civil right to kill black Americans with impunity and that black Americans do not have the human right to live—is a lie.
The Story Has Gotten Away from Us (Columbia Journalism Review)
Too often, the aggression of police officers—sometimes backed by members of the National Guard—has been shrouded by journalists’ use of passive language or depictions of mass disarray. For generations, cops have been offered the benefit of the doubt in the press; historically, people in marginalized communities have viewed major news outlets as institutions of white supremacy. This time around, we saw the gravity of the story get pulled toward the methods of protest: looting, confrontation, outsiders (possibly) bussed in to stir up trouble. A skirmish doesn’t kill, though; people do—people with tear gas and trucks and guns. And isn’t that what the demonstrations are about? That is: seeing violence for what it is, and recognizing those who caused it. Seeing the harm of policing Black communities instead of investing in them. The press, if doing its job right, should be exposing these things, too.
Where America Developed a Taste for State Violence (The New Republic)
As Washington saw it, military interventions in the Third World were a blessing to forestall a curse. But Communist parties in places like Brazil and Indonesia for the most part opposed armed insurrection in the early 1960s. Even the Cuban Communist Party had disavowed Fidel’s early attempts to seize power through force. Nonetheless, anti-Communists saw leftist subversion everywhere, a creeping peril that would gradually infiltrate the nation that let down its guard. In important ways, anti-communism was simply a new framing for the insecurities that elites far from the centers of geopolitical power had long felt. Their ability to dictate the lives of impoverished majorities rested on tradition and the intimation of violence but was inherently precarious. Popular restlessness made these elites anxious. The urgency of Cold War anti-communism gave them a justification to put it down with overwhelming force.

Stay safe and healthy, beautiful people. And, thanks for reading.

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xoxo,

Kyle (@kgborland)

PS – Download a free e-book of Alex S. Vitale’s, “The End of Policing” on Verso!

“You don’t get to be a poet without publicly asking questions that people say it’s rude to answer in public. Stay with me. What is the value of any human life? Now — what is the value of my life where I’m from, where I intend to thrive, where I’ve chosen to die?”
– Jericho Brown, “Thrive,” Oxford American (2014)

American Empire & Other Wars

A report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) think-tank accused Beijing of using the United Front Work Department to stifle criticism, infiltrate foreign political parties, diaspora communities, universities, and multinational corporations. Canada, along with Australia, is a particular target.
#BlackLivesMatter: American police shoot, kill and imprison more people than any other developed country. | Congressional Democrats introduced “The Justice in Policing Act of 2020” (decked out in kente stoles…) which includes allowing victims of misconduct to sue police for damages, banning chokeholds and requiring the use of body cameras by federal law enforcement officers, restricting the use of lethal force and facilitating independent investigations of police departments that show patterns of misconduct. | Biden, top Democrats (and Trump) oppose the growing #DefundThePolice movement. | Ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd, had his bail set at $1.25 million. | Georgia’s primaries on Tuesday foreshadowed major issues to come in the general election. | The police never stopped spying on Black activists and reporters. | The US Army is looking to rename its installations named after Confederates after General Petreaus published an op-ed in The Atlantic calling for it, following the Marine Corps’ announcement it would ban Confederate symbols on its bases. | Trump wanted to fire Defense Secretary Mark Esper last week after he publicly disagreed with the president on the use of the military against American protesters, but his staff talked him out of it. | The space industry needs to work harder at diversity and inclusion if they want a 2020 America to buy-in to the multiple missions planned this decade. | Jerry Falwell apologized for his racist tweets after Liberty University staff resignations. | France banned chokeholds and said officers could be suspended for suspicion of racism. | Kenya joined the global protests after police had killed 15 people since COVID measures began in March. | New Zealand reversed its decision to arm police.
Bolivia’s parliament declared an election in 90 days, following the announcement that the alleged election fraud never happened that the former president Evo Morales was accused.
Chile will close its embassies in Denmark, Greece, Romania, Syria, and Algeria.
China threatened to pull the plug on new nuclear plants and a high-speed rail network in the UK over Britain’s decision to sideline Huawei in its 5G network and join its Five Eyes alliance members in creating a Western-only 5G solution. In response, Huawei is on a media blitz highlighting its 20 years in the UK but it’s unlikely London budges after the CCP’s recent moves in Hong Kong.
Former VP Biden leads Trump in most national polls by 10+ points. As things stand, Joe has the best chance to unseat an incumbent since Bill Clinton in 1992.
Germany may see a 9,500 reduction in US troops very quickly. (Graphic: Statista)
Intra-Afghanistan peace talks may begin this month.
Iran would like to arrange more prisoner swaps with the US. Meanwhile, Russia is seeking universal condemnation of the US campaign to impose a permanent arms embargo on Iran.
Kosovo will remove its final trade barriers on Serbia in order to initiate talks with the EU, NATO, and to unfreeze international aid from the US.
Netanyahu said Israel may annex less of the West Bank than originally planned, showing the intense domestic and international pressure is getting to him. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas will travel to Israel next week to warn of EU sanctions should the nation proceed with its plans. Worth noting, Germany will assume the EU’s presidency and join the UN’s Security Council on July 1, the day Israel plans to initiate its annexation plans.
North Korea announced it will cut all “hotlines” with South Korea.
Russia and the US will begin nuclear arms negotiations this month, with a focus on extending the New START Treaty and bringing China into the mix.
The US Navy sailed the USS Russell, a guided-missile destroyer, through the Taiwan Strait, the seventh transit in 2020 and the second in three weeks to Beijing’s chagrin.
Trump announced he will sign the bipartisan bill calling for sanctions on Chinese officials, not including Xi, responsible for oppressing Uighur Muslims.
Turkish President Erdogan praised a phone call with Trump, saying, “After our talks on the transition process in Libya, a new era can begin between Turkey and the U.S. We had some agreements.”

“More than six months into the pandemic, this is not the time for any country to take its foot off the pedal.”
— WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

COVID-19 Updates (as of 8pm, 6/9/2020)

Total Confirmed: 7,238,723; Total Deaths: 411,177; Total Recovered: 3,370,369
US Cases: 2,045,549; US Deaths: 114,148; Recovered: 788,862; Tested: 21,048,183
136,000 – The number of new cases reported worldwide on Sunday, June 7, the most in a single day so far.
60,000,000 – Shelter-in-place measures prevented 60m COVID cases in the US.
China’s oil demand has recovered 90 percent since its initial COVID plunge. Even still, OPEC+ agreed to extend its production cuts for another month.
Dr. Fauci warned, “…it isn’t over yet.”
Latin America is the new epicenter of the virus, led by Brazil with the world’s second most amount of cases.
S&P 500 regained its 2020 losses on Monday but closed down on Tuesday.
The US entered a recession in February, before the earliest COVID measures.
US students are at a serious disadvantage going into the next school year.
The average student could begin the next school year having lost as much as a third of the expected progress from the previous year in reading and half of the expected progress in math, according to a working paper from NWEA, a nonprofit organization, and scholars at Brown University and the University of Virginia.
WHO clarified that much remains unknown about asymptomatic transmission, following an officials claim that such transmissions were “very rare.”