May 2020-May 2025

Thinking today of the murder of George Floyd, the immediate reaction in Minneapolis, and the following national/international events of the summer of 2020 — all of which started exactly five years ago. The loud and messy unrest of the understandably outraged, the violent and oppressive law-enforcement responses, and the concern/confusion of millions of witnesses and bystanders who tut-tutted and politely agreed that changes were probably necessary but took little lasting action to truly achieve them.

So much to reckon with and remember, and lessons to heed, especially in our current moment.

I’m also appreciating all the critiques reminding us that we all said a lot that summer, or played activist for a minute, but not enough was done then nor has been done since — not in state or national laws, not in our justice systems, and not in American society. How long has it been since we last wrote or said out loud affirmatively that #BlackLivesMatter?

Five years later, again our nation has suffered through a horrific spring and people are feeling overwhelmed and surrounded by danger.

I wonder: What might the summer of 2025 bring?? Will we again see emotions explode in response to an injustice so monstrous it cannot be denied? Are we ready? Are we more angry… or more afraid? Will we do better for each other this time? Will it stick?

Jews don’t want to be martyrs, thank you, so please don’t murder us for your cause

As this just happened today, I am still gathering information, as all of us are, but I’m pretty confident saying:

1) The murders of two people at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. are EXACTLY what “globalize the intifada” explicitly calls for, so when you chant that, you endorse this.

1a) If I see anyone I’m personally acquainted with say anything in the realm of “well that’s what they get for being Zionist/working for the Israel government/going to that American Jewish Committee party” or otherwise shrug off the horrifying murders of these two individuals, please know that it will change our relationship.

2) Authoritarian crackdowns on public speech, political criticism, and all 1st Amendment rights to assemble, protest and petition our government do not and will not make ANY of us safer. Fascist promises are always lies and fascism is never the answer.

2a) To make it clearer: When Tumpist fascists and hypocrites target critics and restrict Americans’ rights in order to “fight antisemitism”, that is a f’ing lie and they are endangering Jews, not helping us. They are likely to do it again/more after this. Reallllly wish they wouldn’t.

2b) Islamaphobia and generalized hatred toward Arabs, Palestinians, Gazans and their well-meaning allies in response is also dangerous and dehumanizing. Let’s not let ourselves go there, please.

3) These murders are 100% rooted in antisemitism even if the murderer seems to have framed it politically. The victims were Jewish, the event was Jewish, the venue was Jewish. This was not a specifically directed assassination — it was absolutely a terrorist attack on ordinary Jews gathering in public.

3a) Ironically, the victims were humanitarians, peace-seekers and bridge-builders, and their loss hurts the cause of Mideast peace — but even if they were teachers or blue-collar workers or creatives or homemakers or anyone else at the gathering, their deaths still would be tragic and shameful and deserving of compassion.

UGH this sucks

Let Adriana Smith RIP instead of as a braindead incubator for natalist monsters

Has everyone heard about Adriana Smith? She is brain-dead yet being kept on life support for *months* in Georgia because she was 9 weeks pregnant when she fell victim to a medical emergency. A person, an autonomous Black woman, has lost her bodily autonomy and been converted into a tissue incubator at the behest of the state.

This is unquestionably a test case for pro-birth forces — and raises questions of agency, self-determination and women’s rights to be considered full human beings apart from our reproductive functions.

This sickening stew of anti-Black racism, misogyny, misogynoir, theocratic legislation and the general dehumanization of patients who can’t advocate for themselves is setting precedents that may soon resound nationwide under cruel administrations.

Meanwhile, as bureaucrats in government and hospital administrations play politics and doctors struggle to figure out how they can serve patients yet not lose their medical licenses, her family is being forced to shoulder emotional and financial burdens beyond belief.

Links here, here and here with support from SisterSong here

GenAI isn’t a shortcut for thinking — it’s a short-circuit of the whole thought process

With AI in class, teachers don’t teach and learners don’t learn. Stop justifying it as ‘learning real-world tools’

Porting from LinkedIn:

I got into a conversation about generative AI with a self-described adjunct professor of news writing. Based on what they presented in their own words about their students’ performance and their own teaching, I had some thoughts. They are not favorable.

I won’t name this person because we don’t have a relationship and I recognize that I don’t have all the facts, just some off-the-cuff comments. I’m genuinely not interested in blasting this individual, who I see more as an archetype. Plus, their identity is also irrelevant to anyone not in their class. But the thing is, I can’t help projecting these sentiments broadly and assessing it as bad for the present moment… and worse for the future.

Original poster/ O.P.:

“My students think I don’t know they’re using generative AI, because I don’t fail their papers. But I do know, and here’s the thing: Most of my students who use ChatGPT don’t do well in my class. Why? Because I’m teaching them the foundations of news writing, and ChatGPT doesn’t know how to write a straight news lead. … There are a handful of students I suspect use ChatGPT, but I can’t really tell one way or the other. If that’s the case, I’m of the opinion that they’re using it well, and that’s a skill in and of itself. Truthfully, if the content is good, it’s good — I don’t care how it came to be.

The differentiator between these two groups is the first copies and pastes, and the other takes time to revise and make it their own. AI tools aren’t going away, but I’d like to see more students learn how to use them properly earlier, rather than having to fumble around and fail their writing assignments.”

This open post left me with a prickly case of the intellectual icks.

The “I don’t care” bugged me.

Not wanting to come in exceedingly hot, I said:

“Thanks for your honesty and for sharing. Returning the honesty: I’m disappointed to see this take from a teacher of news writing. I understand it’s grounded in a kind of realism. I also can understand how my disappointment will be perceived and I can live with that.”

Someone else asked me, open-endedly:

“Why does it disappoint you?”

And since I was asked, I replied:

“Because you can’t ‘make it your own’ if you don’t fully know what ‘yours’ is in the first place. Because ‘I don’t care how it came to be’ is a moral failure for an instructor whose job specifically is to instruct students on the means and method for that ‘how’. Because school is exactly the time to learn how to think, not the time to learn how to skip the thinking.

I could go on, but I am sure there will be defenses and excuses and disagreements for all these (and more). I can’t do much about any of that, but I can be disappointed by it.”

O.P.:

“I understand your point, and — maybe to be a bit too frank — the idea that a student could be able to ‘fool me’ by getting away with using it used to make me a little mad. But the way we teach writing in a universe where generative AI exists needs to change. My job is to teach them to write good news. On some level, to succeed in a news writing class, you need to be a good writer — just as a baseline. And to use generative AI as a tool to create good news, you still need to be a good writer. If they submit a good story, I’m not sure I should care if they used a tool to create their first draft. At this point, I think we need to shift our focus on how to use it responsibly.”

I disagreed:

“Whether students can ‘fool you’ is irrelevant, and getting mad about that is ego. (Which extends to anyone reacting to AI, we all can have that reaction, not you personally.)

By using genAI they generated their first draft, they haven’t created anything. They prompted and reviewed, then revised. Not created. That’s why yes, you should care if they used it.

I would perhaps agree with you if this approach and the tools were used at the internship, fellowship or apprentice stage — after longer-form fundamentals have been laid down and internalized.

But I will not agree that this permission, or even encouragement, to shortcut actual thinking and actual effort is conscientious teaching at the student stage. I would hope a news writing teacher’s job is to teach students to gather facts, use judgment, and write well, not to just generate a summary of notes.

Yes, of course, if the students are using it outside your control, the concept of responsible use and pointed discussion of ethical concerns need to be added to the curriculum. Added around, not substituted for, *doing the work*.

But again, the not caring about the use — prioritizing only the ‘good’ appearance of the result — concerns me.”

Original poster offered this context:

“Truthfully Amy, I think we’re concerned about the same thing and hung up on semantics.”

[AW: No, we are not concerned about the same thing and semantics have nothing to do with it.]

^ (Brackets are my inside thoughts, not shared with the O.P.)

“My class is purely the most basic news writing. In our earliest assignments, I give my students a set of jumbled facts and tell them to write a story. They’ll go on to learn about how to gather those facts themselves later on.

“Ideally, they’re not using AI at all to write their stories. If they are using it, the next best case is that they’re using it to help organize their thoughts before creating a draft.

[AW: AI is not helping them and they are not organizing their thoughts. They are skipping the organizing, and not thinking at all, even at this most basic level of skill. They are not creating a draft if AI takes a set of proffered facts and “organizes” them and the students essentially just watch.]

“The things I’m teaching in my class are fundamentals: organization, AP Style, setting up a quote the proper way, etc. If you turn in a story that is written well and meets all of the fundamentals, you’ve demonstrated you understand them. If you turn in a story that’s organized well, you’ve demonstrated good judgement.

[AW: I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Recognizing as well-organized a computer-generated paragraph assembled from presented facts is not at all understanding fundamentals and is not demonstrating good judgment and is definitely not writing well. It is reading just well enough something that was written just well enough.]

“A draft copied from ChatGPT isn’t going to check the boxes I’m looking for. Again: If it’s a well-written, thought-out piece of writing, they have to demonstrate some critical thinking, whether they used ChatGPT or not. That’s what I mean when I say if it’s good, it’s good.

[AW: To say that students who read, revise and submit regurgitated genAI versions of provided copy “have to demonstrate some critical thinking” is the lowest possible bar I can imagine for critical thinking.]

“Ultimately, my point is that my hope is students start to learn what to use AI for and what not to use AI for *before* they take my class.”

[AW: Irrelevant. The professor runs their class and should themselves be teaching what to use AI for and what not to in this context right here. This tech reached the general population just about two years ago. A blink. It’s unlikely anyone is teaching ethical AI use generally to pre-professional students, so they are not learning its use in any context… they are just using the tools in naïve and native ways without boundaries. Educators like this are not keeping up with them, nor enforcing ethics or boundaries — basically just surrendering in advance!]

The most disturbing part here is that this adjunct professor seems to think they actually are teaching judgment and critical thinking. “Responsibly”!!!!

Excuse me, what?! I am not calling for failing grades every time AI is suspected or found, but nor do I think professors should be blithely accepting shortcuts and skipped steps and pretending that’s a skill.]

This conversation was extremely illuminating, and I don’t mean that in a good way. So to end the conversation, I briefly thanked them for the additional context and disengaged, then stared depressedly out the window for a while. Days later, I can’t shake it.

***

Look, real talk: We know that not all students are strivers, and not all teachers are educators.

I’m not a parent and I’m not in touch with contemporary schooling at any level. I know most teachers are doing more than their best with little support. There are problems with administrators and DOEs at the state and federal levels. But I’m deeply concerned about how fast educational paradigms are shifting and how poorly America is setting itself up for success.

I happen to have opinions about this teacher and this coursework because I know the subject well. I’m sure each of us could get into a chat like this in our respective areas of expertise. I hope you’d have a better result! But I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that we absolutely need to demand more of our journalists-in-training — especially in this mega misinformation moment.

Parents, teach your children to demand higher standards and challenges for themselves. Self-advocating is maybe their only chance to rise beyond rock-bottom-and-sinking standards.

Thanks for reading this exceedingly long rant.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Never count new voters out

In the wake of Nov. 8, 2022, and the apparent non-slaughter by Republicans, I’ve seen a headline or two that say “Democrats defied the odds,” but no. The polls were *wrong*. That’s OK. But don’t let the pollsters frame the narrative! This racehorse/sports style coverage is destructive to democracy. Pollsters primarily survey prior voters or party affiliated voters or known donors… this makes sense, as they have the contact info, obviously. Other predictors draw from historical trends. Or the notoriously unreliable exit/spot polling. But new voters and returning voters should always be considered… sometimes they are a negligible factor, sometimes significant. And we certainly know why young people and formerly disengaged women (to offer just two example types) MIGHT have been *quite motivated* to show up this time!!!!!

I’ve refused to buy into or feed Red Wave predictions/ paranoia because I never counted out angry women, queerfolk, and young people who might be joining the electorate for the first time this year. I push for turnout because oppressed people outnumber the oppressors, always. When we show up, we win. [Suppression and shenanigans aside, and granted, that’s a big caveat.]

Today, it seems that things are worse than I hoped (Georgia, I’m sad with you but not despondent yet… and ok Florida, noted) though not as bad as we feared… and that’s an okay place to be.

On days like this, I suggest we search out and celebrate our victories, large and small, because there are many. We must acknowledge our wins… that’s the only way to keep going with the work.

The disingenuous hypocrisy of Xtian evangelicals “loving” Israel

Per this latest anti-Semitic outrage by the former guy

Never not reminding everyone that Evangelicals “love Israel” because they need it intact as part of their messianic “End Times/End of Days” prophecies, which definitely include millions of Jews dying in the fires of Armageddon, btw.

They fake-love Israel but really hate Jews and DJT doesn’t even have a “sincerely held religious belief” about it… so statements like these are even more anti-Semitic than they seem on the surface — which should seem like a whole big lot of anti-Semitic.

Feel free to look up eschatological Christianity / Christian eschatology, End Times, Armageddon, the Third Temple and the prophecy of the red heifer, and Messianic fundamentalism, etc. etc. etc. for endless proofs of “loving Israel” but really very much not loving or supporting the full existence of Judaism-practicing Jewish people.

Reconsidering the default phrase “women and people of color”

I had an inclusive language moment of thought lately: about how “women and people of color” on its face means *white women and/or everyone else*. It reinforces the idea that white people are the default and pointedly erases women of color, who are both women and not white. We should use it sparingly, if at all.

This can be very well-meant as a culturally habitual phrase, but it’s a habit that needs breaking. Words matter and fighting default white supremacy is worth some effort. But it’s not easy to determine what could or should be used instead.

While editing a speculative piece focusing on opening access of non-white/non-men to venture capital, I looked for ways to unobtrusively change up that standard phrase even if I couldn’t eliminate it.

I used:

* people of color and women of all backgrounds

* female managers and people of color

* people of color or women

* marginalized people

* nontraditional managers

…and added one stat specifically citing women of color vs all/white women, for a skosh of visibility. (“… say X% of [managers] are female. Other reports add that only one-third of those are women of color.”

I also removed half a dozen usages of “minorities”/ “women and minorities”. That phrase is also common, plus concise, but I understand why using the broad term “minorities” is offensive, inaccurate, and dehumanizing.

Doing this extra sensitivity step is important to me, even if it could seem like overthinking. Ugh. So much work to do.

PS: Someone offered a solution I found workable: “women/people of color” — tying the two groups more together and allowing for overlap.

The sole truth

As I’m sure you’ve all figured out, low self-esteem is not one of my personality traits. So trust and believe me when I say that I don’t have great feet. They do their job just fine, I thank them for that, and we mostly leave each other alone. I don’t mani-pedi and you will never see me in strappy sandals. So I was mostly surprised and very amused when what I’m going to assume is a young entrepreneur politely asked if he could photograph the soles of my feet. Not the tops, not the toenails, not the shoes… just the soles of my bare not-great feet. He gave me a few instructions, which I’m also going to assume increases the marketability and salability of the images, took his pics, thanked me and we went our separate ways.

Ah, capitalism! You are funny sometimes!

Ownership and control of one’s own body is a basic human dignity and an essential human right. And it’s nobody else’s goddamned business.

In the wake of the Dobbs decision (SCOTUS leak or official ruling), whenever I see a woman publicly sharing a deeply tragic, unbearably private story of her painful pregnancy termination, I am simultaneously profoundly grateful yet furious and also outraged that she has damn good reason to do so.

Her horror should not be the public’s concern, like any medical care should not be under a state’s control… yet here we are.

And so here come all the many pleading testimonials for the cause of bodily autonomy. Abortion patients have many reasons, and all are valid. We need to understand more, and shame less. Regardless of circumstances, every individual must be allowed the liberty of their own body.

I wish all Americans could come to value the parent’s life above the potential life. This woman should never have suffered this long, delaying the inevitable due to guilt and denial imposed by programming.

Abortion is health care. Abortion saves lives. Safe abortions preserve fertility and childbearing ability. Expert abortion care allows families to try again. Abortion is more pro life than any forced birth ever will be.

Also, I’ll be repeating this message frequently: Abortion bans are against my religion. Yes, against even very conservative Judaism. The health and welfare of the parent is always the priority, in all our scripture forever. If a Christian theocrat holds up some Jewish opportunist who wants to get famous for saying anything else per “the rights of the unborn” or whose / which life must be preserved, etc., extend them the same credence and credulity that you would give a Candace Owens on matters pertaining to the general opinion of Black folks in America. It’s profiteering propaganda.

So no, absolutely no: It is not an issue for “people of faith”.

Abortion bans are *Christian* fundamentalist theocracy.

A new respect for ‘Dirty Dancing’ in a new era

As an ardent, states-based abortion rights fight looks to be gearing up in America and on social media, I would like to start seeing more people referencing Dirty Dancing and fewer The Handmaid’s Tale.

Handmaid’s Tale is a compilation of horrors but it also is easy to consider it a fantasy or future state. We know we’re being melodramatic by invoking it as a spectre of what’s to come. Gilead is pure fiction, based only loosely on real abuses women have suffered in various times and places. It feels safer to scream about something that doesn’t exactly exist.

On the other hand, Dirty Dancing is a realistic story about a time well within most Americans’ living memory, based squarely within popular American culture. We’ve all seen it, but a lot of us have rather overlooked its truth-as-fiction, myself included. It thus hasn’t received the respect that is due: It’s unapologetic abortion rights activism and classism critique with a layer of heroic romance and a killer soundtrack as bait. Seriously.

I always knew about the “abortion subplot” and never thought deeply about it. But now I see it’s hardly a subplot… it’s the catalyst for action, the reason for character development, the source of pathos and tension, upon which the entire dramatic structure of the entire film rests.

PENNY, I now recognize, is the heart of the whole story. Baby isn’t the heroine here — merely the audience surrogate for understanding what most women can, have and will face without reproductive rights and bodily autonomy!! Baby was living complacently until she realized the stakes, and the consequences, and it changed her world completely.

When everything seemed to be “settled law,” in the ’80s and ’90s, I thought it was nice to have a movie with the historic awareness element. Now that we’re reminded that nothing is settled, and rights can disappear in a moment, there’s a whole new prism to view this through.

A lot of us are just now catching up to Baby.

And it’s not the Handmaids I’m afraid of.