Jonathan W. Gray
@elmcitytree.blacksky.app
Chair @cunyenglish.bsky.social I study books, Blackness & pop culture! Leftist & left handed 🇰🇳 🇵🇸 🏳️⚧️ One of many Jonathan Grays I maintain #Blackademics, the scholarly side of #Blacksky https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:w4xbfzo7kqfes5zb7 Personal account
As a reminder, in 2020, more than 60 people accused Warren Ellis of grooming and sexual impropriety, coming together to create the website somanyofus.com. In its most recent update, in 2023, the site posted: "To the best of our knowledge, Warren Ellis took none of the steps we hoped he would."
What could it be about Trump-backed candidate *Amir Hassan* that led GOP voters to elect *Tom Smith*, a primary rival who ran no ads and had suspended his campaign? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/u...
Trump-Backed Michigan Candidate Loses Primary to Rival Who Suspended His Campaign (Gift Article)
Without running a single ad or filing a campaign finance report, Tom Smith, who had suspended his bid, soundly defeated Amir Hassan, a Navy veteran backed by President Trump.
nytimes.com
The owner class in Detroit's convenience stores and gas stations, and now cannabis aren't Muslim -- they're Chaldeans, Iraqi Christians. Abdul El-Sayed's family is from Egypt. He's Muslim. Different country, different religion. Here's a relevant article. mellonurbanism.harvard.edu/ghetto-groce...
mellonurbanism.harvard.edu
I know there are more important things to worry about but I've been attending NY Comic Con for the last 15 years as an educator. The cost of my badge has gone from $0 to $20 to $40 to $60 to ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY DOLLARS this year. Like WTF? I'm there to attend panels & chat with creators! 🤬
The direct line between what happened to Mamie Till Mobley after Emmett was killed and what’s happening to this woman now is becoming a circle. A dot, actually.
Mississippi Free Press@mississippifreepress.org · 11h agoChristine Wells Wonsley, the mother of Nolan Wells, has learned that the Mississippi Board of Nursing opened a professional misconduct investigation against her following an anonymous complaint, the family’s lawyer said. www.mississippifreepress.org/nolan-wells-...
Somehow things that would have been a background gag in a Verhoeven movie are now just real
Money out of politics. Money in your pocket. Medicare for All. Michigan... We won. I am so proud to be your Democratic nominee for US Senate. Let's win in November.
Pretty sure when you win the election it's a big election night. Pretty sure when your party's leadership all endorses the loser, it means the leadership is out of touch with the electorate.
Politico@politico.com · 23h agoProgressives didn’t get the big election night they wanted
I’m telling you this as a political scientist. The person who is electable is the one who is elected. This can and does change over time. Any and all speculation about “electability” is either puffery or anxiety and is often both.
Julia Azari@juliaazari.bsky.social · yesterdayOne way to be safe is to never write an electability take
At the risk of ruining my mentions, I want to remind my centrist friends that “vote blue no matter who” also applies when Dems nominate a leftist. We need to be single focused on winning back the Senate. We cannot do that without Michigan.
👏👏👏 Appeals Court Says E.P.A. Cannot Block Billions in Climate Grants The funds have been frozen since early in President Trump’s second term. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/c...
Appeals Court Says E.P.A. Cannot Block Billions in Climate Grants
The funds have been frozen since early in President Trump’s second term.
nytimes.com
What gets me is that AIPAC is going to turn around & spend on the Republican in the MI Senate race while centrist Dems malign Abdul as a non-Democrat. But it’s fine & party line to support people funded in millions by donors entirely agnostic to their party & only concerned with a foreign country.
I spoke with 10 CNNers about David Ellison's essay in The NYT, in which he tried to convince the public he'll be a good steward of CNN. Suffice to say, no one at the network is buying what he's selling. “We all have eyes and ears and see what’s happening at CBS." www.status.news/p/david-elli...
The Ellison Credibility Crisis
The Paramount boss tried to convince the public he can be trusted with CNN. But staffers inside the network torched his Times essay in brutal comments to Status, pointing to his disastrous record at C...
status.news
Here are Detroit's election results. Looks like a lot of the vote's already counted. app.enhancedvoting.com/results/publ...
Election Results
app.enhancedvoting.com
For the past five months the only refugees the USA has accepted are white South Africans fleeing equality & safety meanwhile they are disappearing or strapping ankle monitors on any Haitian they can get ahold of. It needs to be understood how thoroughly connected these two things are.
An $11,000 golf cart. More than $7,000 on TV subscriptions. $1.5 million in office renovations. Those were among the expenses that one sheriff’s office billed to a settlement aimed at rooting out racial profiling in the department. (Published May)
This Sheriff’s Office Says Racial Profiling Reforms Are Too Costly. Auditors Found It Misused $163 Million.
Since 2013, Maricopa County officials have approved $226 million in sheriff’s office spending related to a settlement aimed at rooting out racial profiling. Auditors found that more than 70% of it was...
propublica.org
If you care about elections the Downballot is a good follow. Live results below.
The Downballot@the-downballot.com · yesterdayThanks to a kind member of The Downballot's Discord community, here are gift links to results: KS: www.nytimes.com/interactive/... MI: www.nytimes.com/interactive/... MO: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Today in least shocking news ever. Of course Griffin was never leaving NYC. www.curbed.com/article/ken-...
Thinking about the student who came to my office at the end of last semester and said "Thank you for making us use notebooks in this class. I'm so glad I discovered notebooks. Notebooks are powerful."
Jonathan W. Gray@elmcitytree.blacksky.app · 3d agoRequire students to take notes in a notebook unless they have a specific accommodation. Tell them that the notebook will be part of their final grade, that the 2nd to last day of class will be notebook review with students getting btwn 5-20 points added to their grade based on it.
This is the story of how a group of perfectly ordinary neighbors took on one of the worst landlords in New York. And won. Introducing, the Union of Pinnacle Tenants: the short film. Watch the full film: youtu.be/h5dvGKI26ZA
“This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong…With such a people, you can do whatever you want." -Hannah Arendt
A point economists & wannabe capitalists still miss: racism trumps making money in the USA. As this and many other nonsensical but deadly polices demonstrate.
Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social · 2d agoDon't miss this vile story: MAGA is raging at DHS chief Markwayne Mullin for admitting migrant farmworkers can beneft our economy. This means his devotion to ethnic cleansing is in doubt. He must be excommunicated! I wrote about the collapse of MAGA mythology here: newrepublic.com/article/2138...
Don't miss this vile story: MAGA is raging at DHS chief Markwayne Mullin for admitting migrant farmworkers can beneft our economy. This means his devotion to ethnic cleansing is in doubt. He must be excommunicated! I wrote about the collapse of MAGA mythology here: newrepublic.com/article/2138...
A watershed piece. America will have have a very hard time becoming less imperialist as long as combat service is sentimentalized and fetishized, when it actually tends to turn men into broken, hateful people, and helps make things like like Trumpism happen. www.newyorker.com/news/the-pol...
The Complications of Graham Platner’s Veteran Identity
How much of Graham Platner’s behavior should be read through the lens of what combat did to him, and how much of it is simply who he is, independent of war?
newyorker.com
We’re also funding death squads but what’s really offensive is that somewhere out there a poor person might be able to eat
USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 3d agoOpinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.
I HAVE BEEN SUBSIDIZING WALMART AND AMAZON STARVING THEIR EMPLOYEES FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE.
USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 3d agoOpinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.