Stop, Look, and Listen #13
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
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This post is part of the newsletter’s ‘Stop, Look, and Listen’ series, a digest of articles and podcasts (and occasionally programmes and films) that I’ve found engaging and insightful over the past week. I also maintain a regular record of all these via Substack’s ‘Notes’ feature; you can also read these via the Notes section of my site.
Content warning: Racism.
This week’s recommended reading and listening are on the areas of:
Martin Luther King Jr., and his legacy.
Mean Girls.
Geneses of the American right.
The break-up of Britain.
Governing the American city.
Martin Luther King, Jr., and his legacy
With the US marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day last week, there were plenty of thoughtful reflections on how King went from being a hate figure for the right during his lifetime to a more shallowly celebrated, unifying figure, as well as on his and the broader civil rights movement’s legacy for the relationship between race, religion, and politics in America.
Recommendations:
Writing for his Rightlandia newsletter,
illustrates the continuity between far-right Republican activist Walter Huss’s organisation of a letter-writing campaign in early 1960s to protest a visit by Martin Luther King to Portland, and his and his wife Rosalie Huss’s coordination of a campaign against a decision to rename a street in the city after Dr King in the 1980s. He highlights the way both campaigns claimed colour-blindness and couched their complaints in language of anti-communism or democracy, and the diligent efforts by antifascist activists in Portland to unveil their deeply racist underpinnings.- , , and Kellie Carter Jackson discuss the importance the 1986 proclamation that Martin Luther King’s birthday would be a federal holiday in the US on the On This Day in Esoteric Political History podcast. They address why it took so long after Dr King’s death for this recognition to be bestowed upon him, and how some states and their representatives continued to drag their feet on implementing it for a decade and a half afterwards. They also talk about what the proclamation tells us about the posthumous sanitisation of King’s radical anti-racist politics, and the pushback against this from both right and left.
Writing for Time magazine, Dylan C. Penningroth highlights parallels between current struggles within white evangelical churches over the adoption of particular conservative political positions, and those that occurred within the National Baptist Convention, the umbrella organisation for America’s Black Baptists, in the 1960s. He highlights the extent to which the Church and its members were divided over the question of whether they should take particular stances on civil rights or focus entirely on religious affairs, and how Martin Luther King, who led a breakaway Progressive National Baptist Convention in response to efforts to coerce members into political quietism subsequently used anti-democratic methods to suppress dissent against his own approach.
On Slate’s A Word podcast, host Jason Johnson is joined by Errin Haines to talk about the recent incident in which US President Joe Biden launched his re-election campaign at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, only to have his speech interrupted by protestors critical of his government’s support for Israel over its war on Gaza. They explore what the event demonstrates about the generational divide between staunchly Democrat older Black voters and more sceptical younger ones, and its place within the broader history of Black churches as sites of political mobilisation and contestation. They also address the question of whether churches are still reliable locations for the Democrats to reach out to Black voters through, and which alternative sites they might also consider.
Mean Girls
The release of the new Mean Girls movie has prompted much discussion as to its relationship to both the original 2004 film and the Broadway musical, the reasons for it being remade, continuities and breaks from its original source material, and the way it is being marketed.
Recommendations:
- and guest talk about the new Mean Girls movie, and its surrounding marketing campaign. They address the question of why the film’s trailer seems to be intent on disguising the fact it’s a musical, and what this tells us about whom the film is marketed at. They also examine the original film’s significance as a cultural touchstone for millennials and the early 2000s, its aspects that do not translate well to the present, and why it is that cultural intellectual property from this era is being recycled now.
Jason Bailey reviews the film for Crooked Marquee. He questions the need for the remake given the continuing popularity (and relative recentness) of the original, and argues that its existence is demonstrative of a lack of imagination in both the musical theatre and film sectors. Bailey does however find much to admire in its acting and some of the new additions to the script, though less so in the songs.
In Time magazine, Moises Mendez II looks at the ways in which the film is similar to and different from both the original Mean Girls film and stage show, and why. He highlights the replication of most of the original film’s most famous lines (sans those which would now be deemed offensive), the excision of some songs from the musical to ensure sufficient brevity, the incorporation of social media, and the changing of the film’s ending (without changing its meaning).
- makes the case for Mean Girls’ Regina George being read as a lesbian in this piece for The Daily Beast. They highlight the aspects of George’s character development in the original 2004 film that support a queer reading, and how George (and popular cultural texts more generally) are interpreted by queer fans with markedly more subtext than is the case for a more heteronormative audience. De Cretaz also examines how George’s and other characters’ queerness has been deliberately far more foregrounded in the new remake, both in the film itself, and in its cast’s comments about it.
Geneses of the American right
On the origins of the contemporary American right, including the political violence of the War of Independence and the Civil War, transformations in the workings of capitalism, and the dynamic relationship between conservatives and the far right.
Recommendations:
Mark Klobas interviews Scott Gac about his book Born in Blood: Violence and the Making of America on the Exchanges podcast on
. They discuss the rootedness of the American political order in the War of Independence, and the Continental Congress’s imposition of hierarchy and discipline on exclusionary but internally more democratic militia. They explore the violent nature of democracy in antebellum America, epitomised by presidents like Andrew Jackson and by the dispute over the nascent state of Kansas, as well as by the institution of slavery more generally. Finally, they switch focus to the continued presence of violence in the American political order after the Civil War, including capital’s deployment of violence against organised labour and continued white supremacist hostility to the participation of Black men in politics after emancipation.- interviews about her new book Race, Rights, and Rifles The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture on ’s Political Science channel. They discuss the roots of the National Rifle Association in a classical republican tradition that centred on the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier and in conception and practice continually excluded women and African Americans symbiotically with the armed forces. They also explore the way this became bound up with the imbuing of consumerism and gun purchasing with a certain moral force in the twentieth century, and the worrying correlation between gun ownership and NRA support on the one hand and support for political violence on the other in contemporary America.
On the If Books Could Kill podcast,
and Peter Shamshiri turn their attention to Donald Trump’s 1987 book, The Art of the Deal. They situate the book within the context of Trump’s ascent as a New York real estate developer prior to that point (and to his early 1990s bankruptcy), its efforts to portray his (dubious) side of high-profile controversies over architectural style and treatment of his tenants, its place within a new culture of transforming business figures into celebrities, and its harbingers of Trump’s future politics, including his deceitfulness, his reactionary ideology and crudely entrepreneurial approach to governing.On the Know Your Enemy podcast,
and are joined by historian Kim Phillips-Fein to discuss the historiography of the American right. They cover the way that Republican electoral success in the 1980s and the winding back of some of the achievements of the New Deal resulted in a liberal historiographical project of rethinking some of their original assumptions and interpreting the right in more empathetic and less pathologising ways, and how that interpretation of the history of the American right was in turn challenged by Trump’s 2016 win in the presidential election. They also explore the relationship between conservatives and the far right in the US, and the shifting ecosystem of politicians, intellectuals, and social movements which underpins it, and the challenges of periodising that evolving relationship.
The break-up of Britain
On the sources of the fragility of the United Kingdom as an entity, including the decline of the Union as a compact between its constituent parts, political sclerosis in Northern Ireland, and the rise of nationalism in Scotland.
Recommendations:
On the Past Present Future podcast, David Runciman talks to Mike Kenny about the origin, state, and future of the United Kingdom. They discuss its roots in the English conquest of Wales and Northern Ireland, but also in the partnership of mutual convenience between England and Scotland. Kenny explains how the Union reached its zenith in the Second World War and post-war settlement, but then began to come undone with the political rise of Scottish and Welsh nationalism in the 1970s, amid deindustrialisation. While the Union seemed to have been repurposed under New Labour through devolution, as part of a project of also embracing Europeanisation and multilevel governance, the subsequent rise of the SNP and the only narrow vote against Scottish independence in the 2014 election leaves the Union’s future unclear. Runciman and Kenny also discuss the possible still unfolding implications of both Brexit and the COVID pandemic, and the likely effects of a future Labour government cleaving to the status quo constitutionally and a devolution-sceptical, Anglo-British nationalist Conservative opposition.
- is joined by former senior civil servant Alan Whysall and researcher Conor Kelly on the UCL Uncovering Politics podcast to talk about the recent breakdown of power-sharing in Northern Ireland and its future prospects. They explain why the 1998 Good Friday Agreement produced a durable peace in Northern Ireland but not necessarily good governance, even when power-sharing has been functioning, leaving a legacy of failing state institutions. They also cover the roots of the current collapse of power-sharing arrangements due to Unionist discontent with the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol, demographic changes that challenge Unionist electoral primacy, and British government inattention. Finally, they look ahead to Northern Ireland’s future and prospects for better governance, including potential reforms to the power-sharing process, and the complicating factor of impending elections in both the UK and Ireland.
Tom Leeman examines the career of Alex Salmond, and his role in the political rise of Scottish nationalism, with guest Murray Pittock on The Hated and the Dead podcast. They explore how Salmond’s political career commenced against the backdrop of the Scottish National Party’s first surge of electoral success in the 1970s, and his subsequent rise to party leader through his skill at being able to appeal to both left and right-wing Scottish nationalists. They also explore his role in the SNP’s transformation into the dominant party in the Scottish Parliament and his inexpensive but eye-catching policymaking as First Minister. Finally, they consider the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, how it played out as it did and its subsequent effects on Scottish society, and why efforts to build a new electoral vehicle for Scottish nationalism around Salmond, the Alba Party, has thus far proven ineffective with voters.
Governing American cities
On the shifting ways in which American politicians have sought to run the country’s cities and provide services to their citizens, from expansion through reform to retrenchment.
Recommendations:
Patricia Strach and Kathleen S. Sullivan join
to talk about their new book, The Politics of Trash: How Governments Used Corruption to Clean Cities, 1890–1929, on ’s Political Science channel. They reveal the broad range of practices in garbage collection in American cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, involving public, contractor, and citizen-led approaches. They also examine the resources cities drew upon in collecting garbage, including corruption, emphasising gendered expectations, and blaming marginalised communities when things went wrong.On
’s Policing, Incarceration, and Reform channel,interviews Emily Brooks about her book Gotham’s War Within a War: Policing and the Birth of Law-and-Order Liberalism in World War II-Era New York City. She explains how Republican Fiorello La Guardia sought to transform policing and public services more generally as a rejection of the previously corrupt, ethnically-biased system of patronage operated by Tammany Hall Democrats. Brooks discusses the way that fears around juvenile delinquency, miscegenation, vice and sexual disease, and gambling, heightened by the context of war, fuelled a new, professionalised form of policing that was ostensibly colour-blind but disproportionately targeted African American communities, as well as the ways in which those communities negotiated and responded to that policing.Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert are joined by Kim Phillips-Fein to talk about New York’s mid-1970s fiscal crisis on the Love Is the Message podcast. They discuss the city government’s history of providing a far more comprehensive array of public and welfare services than was otherwise standard in the US, and how it began to rack up increasing unsustainable debt amid white flight, deindustrialisation, and changes in financial markets. They also explore the reasons why the city government opted to drastically reduce provision of essential services rather than pursuing alternative revenue-raising methods, and the way the administration of then President Gerald Ford blamed the city for its own problems and refused to provide assistance in ways rooted both in developing neoliberal thinking about the state and a moralising hostility to New York’s racial diversity, queer communities, and general reputation for politically radical movements. Finally, they address the question of whether New York’s reputation as a dangerous and violent place at this time was in any way merited, and the creative possibilities that that moment of flux opened up.
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