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Ryan Abt (He/Him)

@ryanabt.bsky.social

1.6K followers 270 following 3.8K posts

History PhD in the intersection of Education (NYC & Texas), anti-racism, & Holocaust Memory. I also have opinions based on my evangelical upbringing and my anabaptist views. Protect immigrants, Protect LGBTQ+, Protect PoC, Protect everyone! Views my own

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Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 10m

Absolutely spot on by Mamdani.

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 11m

Mamdani this morning in the NYT on this very issue

“That exception is one that I believe we should not only take issue with because of what it means for Palestinians and Palestinian human rights,” he said. “But also, whenever you are at peace with the making of an exception, you make it easier to make another exception — wherever, whenever.”

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 1h

Best of luck to you and them. Stay safe.

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 1h

What the absolute?!?

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 13h

My dad, quite the arch-conservative economically and socially, was a staunch opponent of Limbaugh because of his vile approach.

My dad also always opened our house to people who needed a place to live for a while.

Ź🖤🥀 @lalaspeaks.bsky.social · 1d

What’s ONE green flag about your father?

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 13h

I hope you have fun while here!

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 14h

Sometimes. Yes.

But also, “no one ever talks about them” should be replaced with “there are massive academic discussions about these that, nevertheless, don’t discredit the particular form of transatlantic, racialized slavery.”

But my guess is you aren’t equipped to know this. Begone turd-divot.

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Reposted by Ryan Abt (He/Him)

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם) @bestonetx.bsky.social · 14h

Oops, link. You can read and sign the letter here. Thanks to @chadstanton.blacksky.app for managing this.

bit.ly/nodealtexas

Former Longhorns “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” Open Letter

On September 28th, The Washington Post reported that the Trump Administration is planning to offer what they have named a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” to nine universities in ...

bit.ly

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Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 14h

Interesting facts I didn’t know. I love how deeply authors think about their work.

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 14h

Oh wait. This nails it.

sarah ✪ @freckley.bsky.social · 1d

Leaflets showing portraits of Sacco and Vinzetti. Under both are the following caption in Italian: "Vittima della rerealione capitalistica"

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 14h

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Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 14h

Texas:

a man in a white tank top and hat is standing on a boat in the ocean .

Alt: An image of Forrest Gump waving from a boat with a large smile on his face.

media.tenor.com

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Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 14h

For any interested in why this has happened, check out Kristen Fermaglich’s “A Rosenberg by Any Other Name.”

bookshop.org/p/books/a-ro...

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Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 15h

Fatuous Pauper who is also Running About.

MisterJayEm @misterjayem.bsky.social · 16h

Tag yourself.
(I'm 'fifty-two years an imbecile')

Work, Work, Work

On about this date in 1801, Britain's first census was begun. In a subsequent survey conducted in 1881, residents were asked to furnish their "rank, profession, or occupation." Some of the more puzzling responses, as preserved by the London Genealogical Society, included:

Colourist of artificial fish

Knight of the Thimble

Disinfector of railways

Examiner of underclothing

Invisible net maker

Electric bath attendant

Proprietor of midgets

Fifty-two years an imbecile

Knocker-up of workpeople

Maker of sand views

Gymnast to house painter

Turnip shepherd

Emasculator

Sampler of drugs

Fatuous pauper

Drowner

Count as female

Fish-bender

Goldfish-catcher

Cow-banger

Running about

Grape-dryer

Beef twister

Random waller

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 15h

And also Leto sucks.

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 15h

Agree completely. Other stuff save I guess Paramount+ you don’t know when and where it will show up. Disney you do.

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 18h

That’s the “voguish trends” part

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 20h

This is also the exact thing that occurred as Reconstruction was dismantled.

Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 20h

"The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were expressly crafted to grant Black people equal rights as citizens in a democratic society. The Court is preparing to use those very Amendments to deny those rights instead."

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Reposted by Ryan Abt (He/Him)

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 23h

Again, it is worth keeping in mind when comparing the rate of discoveries that public funding for medicine and the sciences is orders of magnitude larger than for the humanities. We work slow in part because we work on a shoestring.

A pie-chart of federal research funding, using 2023 figures. The funding slices for the NIH (83%) and NSF (17%) are so large that the slices for the NEH and NEA round to 0%.

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Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 21h

Seems pretty clear that the author comes to an answer—recent scholarship that I don’t like is due to non-scholarly activity—and then creates the problem—we aren’t creating knowledge fast enough.

Reposted by Ryan Abt (He/Him)

Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 1d

The notion that those who took part in slavery or conquest were merely abiding by the moral standards of their time necessary excludes those they targeted and kidnapped from those standards; *they* were never confused about this. But other white people were frequently disgusted by this stuff too!

George Gantsoudes @pedsortho.bsky.social · 1d

Please remember that the disgust people have over Christopher Columbus is not based on some modern, 21st century “woke” ideology, but rather on contemporaneous accounts of atrocities that make many modern genocides appear quaint in comparison.

Below, are the accounts of Bartlomé de las Casas.

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had in-vested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.
The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died.
While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants.
Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides... they ceased to pro-create. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and fam-ished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desper-ation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fer-tile... was depopulated... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write....

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Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 1d

Remember when we saw these scenes during the Floyd protests?

And what did a democratic administration do after it to reform policing?

The parties are not the same but both have been instrumental in reinforcing the US as a police state.

Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 1d

The only violence I’ve been seeing in Portland is from the so-called Feds!!!

Keep sharing these videos; it’s evidence.

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Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 1d

Which is the best “Movie in a franchise that shouldn’t have happened”?

*Note that this does not include movies intended to be a series that just went bad [glares at TLJ and RoS]

Movie poster for “Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”.

The always welcome attempt to reboot a franchise by bringing in the estranged son of the hero. Unfortunately, when Indie isn’t fighting Nazis there is just less appeal.

Movie poster for “Rocky V”.

Can Rocky train a young fighter to become a champion? Nope, but this 50 year old can still win street fights vs. his protege.

Movie poster of “A Good Day to Die Hard”.

An attempt to add a young McClane to take the reigns from the father reminds us that we don’t want that because he is the worst pairing John has ever had.

The movie poster of “The Godfather III”. Will Michael Corleone save his legacy via the papal bank? Who cares, but nepotism leads to really awful casting.

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 1d

Exactly this. Genocide is a legal category. The Holocaust is a historical category regarding specific instances in the past.

The Holocaust is not the framework for understanding genocide.

Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 1d

“When we say that a genocide is taking place, we must examine not whether it is similar to the Holocaust, but whether it fits the UN definition of genocide.” english.elpais.com/internationa...

Genocide, the power of a word: A history of the crime of crimes

Coined to define the Nazi massacres, it has become the most discussed word of the year. Leading world experts reflect on its legal, political, and moral significance amid the Gaza war

english.elpais.com

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 1d

America, famously never having political issues related to race.

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 1d

I also agree that it’s not a religion. His point was that it also can’t be an ideology (ok fine but it is something coherent) and has no dogma (maybe not necessarily but to some it does).

The initial post was that some atheists are actually anti-deism.

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