Skip to main content

Dispatches From the Culture Wars – October 8, 2024

Season of showdowns

WNBA players in action. Credit, Richard Brian Las Vegas Review-Journal @vegasphotograph
  1. Leaving MAGA for the Left
  2. Squaring Off Over Palestine
  3. “Immigrants” or “Migrants”?
  4. The Politics of Christian Nationalism
  5. Racist Abuse in the WNBA
  6. Liberating Our History: Reproductive Rights
  7. Reviving Asian American Solidarity
  8. Building a Leadership Pipeline in Rural North Carolina
  9. Activist Grief
  10. All-Purpose Flag

 

Leaving MAGA for the Left

By Rick Perlstein
The American Prospect

Matthew Sheffield, a former rising star in the conservative movement, turned away from what he finally realized was an extremist, anti-truth agenda.

Squaring Off Over Palestine

 • School Chiefs and Students Throw Down   By Shireen Akram-Boshar, Truthout 

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)

 • Civil Servants Resist   By Akbar Shahid Ahmed, HuffPost

 • Purging Anti-Zionists  By Shane Burley, In These Times
 

“Immigrants” or “Migrants”?

By Debbie Nathan
The Intercept

As Al Jazeera has commented, “migrant” has “evolved from its dictionary definitions into a tool that dehumanizes and distances, a blunt pejorative.” In recent years, voices have popped up to renounce the use of “migrant” — as Al Jazeera did in 2015 — or at least question its use. 

The Politics of Christian Nationalism

By Kiera Butler
Mother Jones

The New Apostolic Reformation is a charismatic evangelical Christian movement led by a loose network of self-appointed­ prophets and apostles, who claim that God speaks directly to them, often in dreams. They believe that Christians are called to wage a spiritual battle for control of the United States. 

Racist Abuse in the WNBA

By Tom Lutz
The Guardian

Caitlin Clark has become one of the most high-profile sports stars in the United States during her rookie season. That has led to a significant amount of racist, sexist and homophobic comments online from people purporting to defend Clark, who is white, in a league where the majority of players are Black and many are gay.

Liberating Our History: Reproductive Rights

By Alanna Vagianos
HuffPost

HuffPost spoke with Renee Bracey Sherman and Regina Mahone about the women of color who built the reproductive justice movement of today, why police and abortion can never coexist and how the criminalization of reproductive health is killing women.

Reviving Asian American Solidarity

By Roksana Mun and Cathy Dang
Yes!

The ecosystem for community organizing in working-class, pan-Asian communities has to grow and meet the needs of the demographic trends across the U.S. Otherwise, we are left responding to one crisis after another, and with weak infrastructure for leaderful and powerful movements. 

Building a Leadership Pipeline in Rural North Carolina

By Dreama Caldwell and James L. VanHise
Convergence

Down Home North Carolina was founded in 2017 with the goal of building community power among working-class people in small towns and rural parts of the state. The group is somewhat unusual in that it organizes exclusively in rural areas and prioritizes the development of leaderful members by offering them extensive training and opportunities to join the organization’s staff.

Activist Grief

By Kelly Hayes
Organizing My Thoughts

Sarah Jaffee and Eman Abdelhad discuss the role of grief in our movements, how leftists are treating each other right now, and how activists should navigate a daily barrage of painful news and information.

All-Purpose Flag

By Doreen St. Félix
The New Yorker

The iconography of this country is so ubiquitous as to be symbolically moot. It is too much symbol—of violence, of imperialism, of ingenuity, of segregation, of hope. It is the spiritual deadness that is conveyed, not the jingo pride, as the cooler kids take up the Stars and Stripes in 2024.