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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 1h

It's such a great part of the city. And (as I'm sure you know) the oldest Mexican community in Chicago.

Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 1h

Achievement unlocked: teachers emailing me to ask if I happen to have any kombucha mother they could borrow for a science lesson, because the word around the school is that I would have something like that

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 3h

That disconnect, between how they treated me as a flesh and blood person, and how they talked about my people and others in the abstract, still confuses me. I guess I thoughtlessly used "gay" as a slur back then, until one of my friends came out, but then I, y'know, stopped doing that.

Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 3h

My best friend as a young kid, because we lived on the same street, was from a Limbaugh-listening family and, yeah. They did know I was Jewish and the jokes still flowed from some of them. They were always nice to me but somehow thought this was okay.

The Rude Pundit @rudepundit.bsky.social · 5h

I was a Young Republican for a brief time in the 1980s (for real). I promise you they talked like this back then. They didn’t know I was Jewish, so the Holocaust jokes flowed freely. It all helped radicalize me against the right.

Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 1d

“Epithets like “f----t,” “retarded” and “n--ga” appeared more than 251 times combined”

If you ever had any doubt that the youth wing of the GOP is fully radicalized and proudly racist these days:

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Reposted by Jesse Raber

Nora Flanagan @noraflanagan.bsky.social · 5h

School safety patrols are forming all over Chicago. I helped organize a training last night in one of the last neighborhoods you might expect. People are furious, and they’re done feeling helpless.

Jes @jwolfe73.bsky.social · 18h

I gave up my lunch hour today to stand on a street corner in my neighborhood as school was letting out to try and make sure the government didn't fuck with the kids or their families as they walked home, so that is where things are at right now in this country.

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 4h

The fantasy makes perfect sense: AI as 1-on-1 customized tutoring, a la Stephenson's (bad) novel *The Diamond Age*. Even assuming it worked, though, the problem is that it imagines learning as solitary for each student rather than being a social experience.

Reposted by Jesse Raber

50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑 @50501movement.bsky.social · 17h

Please remind us who the domestic terrorists are again.

Photo from Chicago: DHS militarized agent holding a gun up directly in someone’s face as the victim has their hands up, pleading for them not to shoot.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 15h

Yeah, that is a tear gas canister being fired toward the retreating couple holding the baby

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News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 22h

BREAKING: Major clashes in southeast Chicago this pm.

DHS agents who crashed a car had eggs thrown at them. According to ABC7, they then fired pepper balls at local residents. It’s now a scene of flying rocks & tear gas.

Chicago was never a war zone. But Trump’s militia is turning it into one.

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 22h

yeah it'd be easy to forget but Joe (the boxcar children's grownup cousin who regularly appears) is an archeologist specializing in Native stuff and there are a number of one-off Native characters who are usually helpful but also frozen in amber and on the verge of "vanishing"

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 23h

ABC news video of this situation: m.facebook.com/watch/?v=103...

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 1d

though I just had A Talk with my 7yo about representation of Native Americans in The Boxcar Children so that's a low bar...

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 1d

I dunno, there certainly is a distinction there, but when the fantasy of racial dominion is the central theme, it's already bad enough that I wouldn't, say, give it to a teenager without having A Talk first

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 1d

though Barsoom is also a fantasy of pitiless ubermensch empire

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 1d

unfortunately Burroughs's politics are leaps and bounds worse than Kipling's. Kipling is tormented by the moral burden of empire while Burroughs is basically Steven Miller

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 1d

Yup, and for this reason there are resources for coordinating rapid responders from less-affected areas who want to help out on the SW Side. If you're doing RR on the North Side, consider organizing rides for shifts on the SW Side.

Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 1d

I say this because the way user demographics skew on this site, it's more likely that somebody here's going to be closely connected to Rogers Park than to Gage Park or Brighton Park. I want you to know that Sunday's tactics are familiar to southwest siders and other highly targeted communities.

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 1d

yes! Marc Redfield's *Phantom Formations* is excellent theoretical background on this. for me the spellbinding question is, is there a kind of aesthetics that is so essentially democratic that education in it couldn't become fascist? (a subject of my first book)

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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 1d

Rogers Park and surrounding neighborhoods were hit hard by immigration enforcement activity over the weekend.

There's no competition here, but I want to name that the same heavy, violent, fast-moving abduction pattern has invaded the southwest side about three times a week for over a month now.

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 1d

Right?! I think I have a couple but they're hard-earned. Just having a contrarian "star rating" of a famous author isn't unhinged. You need to do the work to develop a whole theoretical apparatus for a truly unhinged opinion.

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 1d

Interesting, in a very boring way, how many of these are aome variation on "here's a truth bomb, 'prestige' is a con, the 'classics' suck, and if a book doesn't provide a constant stream of 'entertainment' that's a skill issue tbh"

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 2d

I'm afraid to look at the cottage core influencers to check on this claim

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 2d

no way dude. I'll keep banging this drum that the novel is heavily indebted to Cather. it's a celebration of capitalism in exactly the same way that My Ántonia is a celebration of pioneering.

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Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 2d

ICE/Border Patrol held a weapon on a guy who was demanding they show him their face in Rogers Park today

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 2d

based on my sense of how you approach history I think you'd find that one the most interesting. it's an intellectual detective story among other things!

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Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · 2d

sure but Eric is not a child!

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