We are not angry enough about Praireland. Every time I read about it, I feel my heart break.
Tess Wise
@tesswise.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Politics Wake Forest -- Racial Political Economy -- Everton FC fan -- she/they
On my way to #MPSA2026! Check out the mini-conference on Credit, Debt, and Inequality on Saturday from 7:30am -1:10 pm in the LaSalle Room on the 7th floor. I’m presenting on the racialized political economy of asset management at 9:50.
based on my observations of the undergrads I teach, I think sunburn is fashionable right now. Not just tan, but sunburn…? Am I the only one seeing this?
#OpenAccess from @journalrep.bsky.social - Critical Race Theories and the Political Economy of Systemic Racism - https://cup.org/4sqEXHI - @tesswise.bsky.social #FirstView
Alrighty fellow Intro to American professors. What are we adding to the syllabus this semester?
Tressie McMillan Cottom nails it: "There was not a college degree or a political donor among them, and yet, somehow, actual poor people figured out how to handle racist iconography without scapegoating minorities or making excuses for a white man’s mistakes." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/o...
Opinion | A Nazi Tattoo Exposes Democrats’ Greatest Weakness
nytimes.com
This is the best article I've read about the Amsterdam parakeets, which captured my wonder when I saw them during @sasemeeting.bsky.social's Amsterdam conference in 2022! www.sapiens.org/culture/amst...
Living With Parakeets and Other Migrants
Amsterdam hosts growing populations of non-native parakeets. What do shifting attitudes toward these birds reveal about humans?
sapiens.org
Many of my students from my Politics of Consumer Finance class opted to do podcasts for their final projects. I cannot express how fun it is to hear my students have interesting, informed, thoughtful conversations about what they learned in our class! Highly recommend!
Lower than usual enrollment for my Harvard Summer School course "Race and U.S. Politics." Current enrollment is also predominantly grad students (vs. high school & college). I wonder if students are worried about having a class about race on their transcript...
Levitsky on how American democracy dies www.npr.org/2025/04/22/n...
Harvard professor offers a grim assessment of American democracy under Trump
Steven Levitsky studies how healthy democracies can slip into authoritarianism. He says the Trump administration has already done grave damage: "We are no longer living in a democratic regime."
npr.org
A US citizen with a learning disability who has just suffered a medical emergency asks a CBP officer for directions outside the emergency room. He ends up detained in an icebox for ten days and has the assistant secretary of DHS lying about him to the public at large. popular.info/p/us-citizen...
![In an interview with Popular Information, his first with any media outlet, Hermosillo said DHS'.
's account was false.
According to Hermosillo, he was visiting his girlfriend's family in Tucson from his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Several hours before his arrest, Hermosillo was transported to a hospital in Tucson by ambulance after suffering from a seizure. He has a New Mexico state ID, but did not take it with him during the medical emergency.
After being released from the hospital following treatment, Hermosillo did not know how to return to where he was staying.
He approached the Border Patrol officer because he was looking for someone to help him. "I saw a car, and I askled] him for help," Hermosillo said. He told the officer that he was staying in Tucson.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:on5oeywiqx32fh2zau473wz6/bafkreie3gc6fndj7mtotijddm4eg264zgsqxpn4nbekb3xq5ubdmskvr6u)
!["You"
re not from here. Do you have your
papers?" the officer said, according to Hermosillo. When the officer asked where he was from, Hermosillo said he told the officer,
"New Mexico." The officer then accused Hermosillo of lying. "Don't make me lout] like [I'm] stupid," the officer said. "I know you're from Mexico." After that, Hermosillo said, he was arrested.
Hermosillo said that he never told the officer that he was born in Mexico, was a citizen of Mexico, or entered the country illegally. And he would not have said those things because they are not true. He signed the transcript released by DHS because the officer ordered him to "sign everything." But Hermosillo did not read it, because he cannot read.
According to Hermosillo's girlfriend, Grace Hernandez, Hermosillo has learning disabilities and can only write his name.
Hermosillo said he did not graduate from high school and dropped out after the 10th grade.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:on5oeywiqx32fh2zau473wz6/bafkreiensu64iobo4ftuqeaighf2p5k745uzdnmhcecugsi4ec74dnqse4)
I'd be annoyed if it were my car, but I am definitely rooting for the woodpecker! www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/u...
A Coastal New England Town’s ‘Ornery’ Vandal: A Woodpecker
More than 20 vehicles in a town on Cape Ann, Mass., have been damaged by a woodpecker in mating season. “You still see him out here,” one resident said. “Peck, peck, peck, peck.”
nytimes.com
Feeling proud of my alma mater today www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Professors Applaud Harvard’s Refusal To Comply With Trump | News | The Harvard Crimson
Some of Harvard’s most prominent faculty applauded University President Alan M. Garber ’76 for his refusal on Monday to comply with the Trump administration’s demands to keep its federal funding.
thecrimson.com
Enos & Levitsky: “If Columbia or another university confronts the administration on its own, it will lose. If America’s nearly 6,000 universities and colleges launch a campaign in defense of higher education, odds are that Trump will lose.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
First They Came for Columbia | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson
We must learn from the past. We cannot remain silent in the face of authoritarian attacks on our peers, even if they have not yet come for us.
thecrimson.com
Super cool that there is an article about East campus dorm rush activities at MIT! This was one of my favorite parts of living at EC. It also contains an interview with absolute legend Mark Feldmeier! www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/23/1...
Building adventure
At East Campus, ambitious construction projects draw first-year students to the dorm each fall.
technologyreview.com
First day of classes in the books! 🎉 This semester, I’m teaching Politics of Consumer Finance and Race in America. I use live syllabi, so I’d love your input—are there any standout pieces you’ve read on these topics that my undergrads and I should explore this semester?
I don’t know how to create a quantitative measure of this but it basically happens all the time now, a geographically efficient legislature (usually elected by a minority of state electorate) takes power away from an incoming governor (by definition elected by a majority of state electorate)
Mark Joseph Stern@mjsdc.bsky.social · 2y agoThe North Carolina General Assembly’s GOP supermajority just approved a hugely corrupt power grab, seizing authority from the governor and the courts to prevent any meaningful check on legislative abuses. Authoritarian stuff. A very dark day for democracy in NC. amp.newsobserver.com/news/politic...
www.wsj.com/us-news/fdic... hmmm better regulation might also require better regulators…
Strip Clubs, Lewd Photos and a Boozy Hotel: The Toxic Atmosphere at Bank Regulator FDIC
Employees say sexual harassment, misogyny pervade federal agency tasked with ensuring stability of nation’s banks, driving women to leave
wsj.com
Chief lobbyist for Independent Community Bankers of America, saying banks should “litigate public policy” because regulators asking for race and location data for loans is an “extraordinary” demand makes me pretty sure that data would show that the banks are racist AF…https://shorturl.at/dhwPW
Republicans in North Carolina approved a heavily gerrymandered congressional map on Wednesday that is likely to knock out about half of the Democrats representing the state in the House of Representatives, ensuring GOP dominance in a closely divided state.
North Carolina Republicans Approve House Map That Flips at Least Three Seats
The gerrymandered congressional map, made possible by a new G.O.P. majority on the state Supreme Court, ensures Republican dominance in a closely divided state.
nytimes.com
The year is 2323. In the 267th Congress (the 50th Congress of the New Union of American Republics), the neo-Republican Party dutifully chooses and then executes its nominee for Speaker of the House. This ritual has been held each October for a 100 years to mark the beginning of a new session.