Sandhya Dirks
@audiosand.bsky.social
3.4K followers 1.7K following 740 posts
Journalist, audio documentarian, writer person. Assistant professor of English at Dartmouth. Previously: NPR race and identity correspondent, “alarmingly divisive" signal: sandhya_.96 Podcasts: On Our Watch, American Suburb.
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Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
atrupar.com
Q: We've seen images out of Chicago of federal agents shooting faith leaders with pepper balls and arresting journalists. Where's the limit for you on what's acceptable conduct by federal agents?

MIKE JOHNSON: I've not seen them cross the line yet.
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
hunterw.bsky.social
NEW: I took a long look at the Proud Boys and found some of their most extreme chapters are sharing ICE recruiting materials on encrypted apps and even suggesting members have joined up. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/in-the-...
The first
Antifa
Counter Terrorism
Task Force
Trump already gave so many of us jobs with ICE. We may have to start recruiting soon to fill all these spots.
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
prisonculture.bsky.social
The Regime's goal is to grind everyone down. Plain & simple. Our goal is to refuse this by taking turns to fight where and how we can. When one group needs to bow out, then another group needs to step in and so on. We don't all have to do everything. We can all do something though. Stay in the fight
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
zdroberts.bsky.social
This year's MediaFest - a conference for student journalists has a Faith breakout section that includes speakers from the Alliance Defending Freedom - a SPLC designated Hate Group (oddly CJR's article doesn't mention that).

I hope attendees and sponsors pull out.
www.cjr.org/feature/stud...
But in recent weeks, MediaFest’s schedule has been amended to include people from other religious backgrounds. There will be more than twenty faith track speakers, on panels tackling such questions as “Can the Bible inform reporters on how to cover the news?” and discussing censorship on the basis of faith. “We even have a Muslim coming,” said Naomi Balk—who Thursday, October 16th
Freedom to report with faith
Faith Central
1:00 PM – 1:50 PM
Cabin John
Description
As culture shifts away from religion, reporters are caught in a paradox: non-religious reporters report on topics of faith, and reporters of faith report on non-religious topics. What does it look like to report with objectivity in an age where not all perspectives are viewed as valid? Hear from Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, as he shares lessons from history about freedom of the press.
Speaker
Tyson Langhofer, Alliance Defending Freedom, Senior Counsel, Director of Center for Academic Freedom Alliance Defending Freedom
SPLC Designated Hate Group
Related: Anti-LGBTQ
Founded: 1994
Location: Scottsdale, Ariz.
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
The entire incident is infuriating and terrifying. She’s a Latina woman who was working a service job. On her way home late at night, with her headphones in, she was detained for an hour by masked federal agents who wouldn’t give her their names.
Maria Greeley, 44, had just finished working a double shift at the Beach Bar on Ohio Street
earlier this month when she said she was surrounded by three federal agents who grabbed her, forced her hands behind her back and zip tied her.
Headphones in, Greeley had been focused on getting home to her two dogs for a walk.
Instead, she said she was detained by masked agents who did not answer when she asked for names. They questioned her for an hour, she said.
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
Wow, wow, wow. This has always been legally possible but the law has virtually never been enforced — and now this is the SECOND case I've heard of in the last month (first involving a person with a green card) of a noncitizen being charged for failure to carry their papers.
royalpratt.bsky.social
NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...
ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fined Rueben Antonio Cruz $130 for not having his papers with him.
www.chicagotribune.com
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
donmoyn.bsky.social
"Residents in Chicago and Portland are living in a police state where masked armed forces kidnap who they want to kidnap, where they have to listen to public officials routinely lie about what is happening in their neighborhoods." donmoynihan.substack.com/p/purge-merg...
strictlychristo.bsky.social
Federal Secret Police and plainclothes ICE agents kidnap multiple people from a neighborhood in Chicago. They then deploy teargas and brutally beat neighbors who come out to express their concern.
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
victorerikray.bsky.social
Between this, the resegregation of the military, and the retooling of the Department of Justice to focus on (fake) discrimination against white Christians, and eviscerating Civil Rights Act enforcement, they have nearly erased the structural legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.
audrelawdamercy.bsky.social
Wednesday is gonna be a rough day:

The Supreme Court will be hearing oral argument in a pair of cases that threaten what little remains of the federal government’s ability to protect voters from racial gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act

ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/louis...
Louisiana v Callais: The Republicans Justices Are Getting Ready to Finish Off the Voting Rights Act
In Louisiana v Callais, John Roberts will have the chance to finish his decades-long war on. voting rights.
ballsandstrikes.org
audiosand.bsky.social
I am one hundred percent going to do this, if I ever publish my book(s)
sarahgailey.bsky.social
books should have an anti-acknowledgements section where the author talks shit about all the people who fucked them over while they were trying to write the thing. not bc I personally want to write one but bc I love gossip
rachelfeder.bsky.social
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
sarahgailey.bsky.social
books should have an anti-acknowledgements section where the author talks shit about all the people who fucked them over while they were trying to write the thing. not bc I personally want to write one but bc I love gossip
rachelfeder.bsky.social
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
audiosand.bsky.social
... the inability to really understand how to deal with bad faith attacks on facts is a deeper problem plaguing legacy journalism. One many Cassandras screamed about, unheard. From some parts of npr, have come clear & powerful articulations of systemic racism:

view.nl.npr.org?qs=c1cd83147...
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view.nl.npr.org
audiosand.bsky.social
To be clear, IN THIS ONE CASE the editor who told me that was actually someone I really liked. In a sense they weren't wrong - it is a "contested topic." Which is the result of a concerted anti-fact campaign from the right. We live in a time when facts are contested. But...
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
letsgomathias.bsky.social
"We tend to like our noble lawbreakers to be comfortably in the past, where time and death have sanitized them into heroes, and to suffer those who struggle against injustice in the present only grudgingly, if at all."
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
radleybalko.bsky.social
This was a big honking red flag when it happened. But it also wasn't a terribly surprising move after the Senate confirmed a guy who defended war criminals to be Secretary of Defense.
jennycohn.bsky.social
“[M]ilitary lawyers & legal experts told Military.com the administration's firings of the Air Force, Army & Navy's top judge advocates…sets an alarming precedent for a crucial job in the military, all as…Trump has mused about using the military in unorthodox & potentially illegal ways.” 2/25/25…1/
'People Are Very Scared': Trump Administration Purge of JAG Officers Raises Legal, Ethical Fears
Military lawyers and legal experts told Military.com the administration's firings of the Air Force, Army and Navy's top judge advocates general politicizes and sets an alarming precedent for a crucial...
www.military.com
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
unraveledpress.com
ICE is all over the city and burbs today, including Waukegan. Multiple reports on social media from people who have found empty work vans and are trying to locate family of their owners. This is a near daily occurrence now.
audiosand.bsky.social
Small detail re: the former station reporter now FPropagandist who complained NPR "inserted" the word racist into a headline. I was an NPR correspondent covering race. I had to fight tooth & nail to call objectively racist things racist.

I was also told that systemic racism was a "contested topic"
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
adamserwer.bsky.social
I used to think people just didn’t understand what Columbus did but now I think some are really attached to him (as opposed to other worthy italians to celebrate) because their whole thing is not only getting away with doing horrible things but forcing everyone to praise them for being horrible
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
jakewittich.bsky.social
The same ICE agent who handcuffed Ald. Jessie Fuentes has been filmed in at least 3 other violent encounters, including the viral arrest of a woman in Waukegan in front of the mayor.

“He’s obviously a danger to individuals and particularly women," Fuentes said.

Read more at @windycitytimes.com
Ald. Jessie Fuentes to file lawsuit against ICE agent who handcuffed her in Humboldt Park incident - Windy City Times
Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th Ward) is preparing to file a lawsuit against the ICE agent who handcuffed and threatened to arrest her at Humboldt Park Health earlier this month. In an interview with Windy ...
windycitytimes.com
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
royalpratt.bsky.social
NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...
ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fined Rueben Antonio Cruz $130 for not having his papers with him.
www.chicagotribune.com
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
joelhs.bsky.social
Of course the "Free Press" decided that this is the person the world needs to hear from right now.
"Free Press" headline: "Woody Allen Remembers Diane Keaton"
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
yearly reminder to people insisting that we view Christopher Columbus as "a man of his time" that *the people responsible for the Spanish Inquisition* thought Columbus was out of pocket
tlecaque.bsky.social
Christopher Columbus was dragged back to Spain in chains by a crusading knight, convicted of tyranny and immeasurable cruelty, pardoned by Isabella but banned from returning to Hispaniola.

Fuck Columbus.