History professor at Northern Virginia Community College. Author, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE, by Kansas Press. https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700629961/ Currently writing a book on the history of the three-fifths clause. Opinions solely my own.
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Bouie ends the “real or a show?” debate by explaining that it’s both at once. It’s real, a show, and their vision for the future, one that isn’t in place though possibly could be if it keeps going. Don’t fall for the show and take the reality seriously, resisting the vision. All simultaneously.
Quite telling that that's the bar. I intend to raise it.
Thank you for putting this on my radar screen. I'll be interested to read what he has to say about the 3/5 clause
Full study is here, quote is on p. 19 arxiv.org/pdf/2506.08872
A paragraph from this MIT study, which I read with my own two eyes, and you should, too.
You turned university into a conveyor belt to coding jobs by killing everything else it did and then you automated coding and it's the university's fault your kids learned to code, do I have that right
Try to imagine being so detested by millions upon millions of people that they look forward to your death with more yearning than any holiday.
one of the great conservative moves over the past decade has been to make themselves so unpleasant that their own family members are forced to cut them off, and then use that fact to argue that *liberals* are too uncivil
I have done that, too. Thank you for doing so!
Also wish my retirement plan included pleasant strolls in a pasture.
Same. Joni Ernst is an awful person and no one loves her.
I assume they mean "even more compromised than the Secretary of Defense."
I feel very fortunate to have leaders at @apsva.us who are willing to stand up for trans students in our community. Far too few leaders are. No matter what these awful, pathetic people threaten you with, do not give in. Do not compromise. Do not budge. Trans students are not expendable.
I would remind @apsva.us of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s point about obeying just laws and disobeying unjust ones. Do not obey unjust laws! Protect trans students, no matter what.
I worry that that may not be the case in the near future. @apsva.us need to stand by their convictions, no matter what SCOTUS does, because protecting trans students is the right thing to do.
I am proud of @apsva.us for standing by its policies and no capitulating to Trump's attempts at bullying and extortion. APS has said its current policies are consistent with VA law, with Title IX, and with current SCOTUS rulings. However...
Donald Trump and his fucking anti-trans misogynist shitweasels at the Department of Education have designated Arlington Public Schools "high-risk" because of its policies protecting trans students and is freezing millions of dollars that APS relies on. Fuck Donald Trump and the Dept. of Ed.
Either Trump's presidency is legitimate, or the Constitution is legitimate. Both cannot be true. We must choose, and the future of this country pivots on the choice we all make.
Convinced that if such a movement is to succeed, it has to begin with the basic premise that this administration's actions have been in flagrant violation of the Constitution, and are thus illegitimate. Those actions have to be voided, and people who broke the law brought to justice.
Kevin: those Onion writers have to feed their families, and you just...skeeted it out. Come on, man.
Ruin a book by adding Tom Clancy's to the title All Quiet on Tom Clancy's Western Front
The mantra for this era is "fuck you, make me."
The cankles are a nice touch
"There was a free black man...who, for asking a gentleman that he worked for for the money he had earned, was put into gaol; and afterwards...was sent from Georgia, with false accusations, of an intention to set the gentleman's house on fire, and run away with his slaves."-Olaudah Equiano
It’s official. September 6th. From all across this nation. We march in D.C. Join us.
I've gone so far as to encourage students to take hand-written notes by letting them use them on their in-person, hand-written essay Midterm and Final. Hand-written notes, only. Nothing typed.
i'm actually a big believer in drafting by hand. i think it helps you think in a different way then typing on a screen
Always read @moiradonegan.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
I wrote about the re-arrest of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Congratulations to @jamellebouie.net on a well-deserved award!
Baby fever?? No. BABY BEAVER! 🥺 #bluesky
[Andy Rooney voice]: Back in my day, when you BOUGHT something, you OWNED it.
We are living through an era where so many new things objectively suck worse than their predecessors. What we have was fine, even good. The "new" thing was something nobody asked for, nobody needs, and is shittier than the status quo, foisted on us by rich racist dweebs who think they know shit.
I'm kind of joking, but kind of not
Every generation thinks that things were better when they were younger. Every generation is wrong, except mine. We had cable, none of this streaming BS. When you bought a movie or an album, you owned it, forever. There were physical buttons in our cars and thermostats. What a time to be alive.
Baffling to me that this piece mentions the Naturalization Act of 1790 ("good character"), but doesn't mention that that Act also made "being a free white person" an explicit requirement for citizenship, too. It even links to this article discussing this! scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcont...
Join us Sept 17 for a timely webinar on Birthright Citizenship and learn from the experts @unlawfulentries.bsky.social @skantrow.bsky.social @cnacken1.bsky.social William Jones and Cecilia Marquez. Register z.umn.edu/BirthrightCitizen @umn-amst.bsky.social @umnlawschool.bsky.social
Here's the full story: blackhistory.harpweek.com/7Illustratio...
This man made his way to Union lines, "for deliverance from his tormentor," the article says. "Of course he found the deliverance which he sought, and the instrument of torment is preserved by us as a mournful example of the deep degradation to which the soul, tainted by secession, may descend."
Also, this horrific thing used by an enslaver in Missouri during the Civil War www.slaveryimages.org/database/ima...
"Cotton Machine Used for Punishing Runaways, South Carolina, 1830s," from Moses Roper, A narrative of the adventures and escape of Moses Roper from American slavery (London, 1837), p. 51. #slaveryarchive www.slaveryimages.org/database/ima...
That line is, itself, something enslavers would say in a variety of contexts. During the MO crisis, enslavers even used that line about the enslaved being "family" to deny that moving enslaved people West was "commerce," and thus couldn't be regulated by Congress.
White supremacists have always been whiny, pathetic, emotional sad-sacks who talk tough about being strong and smart and rational, but are actually slaves to their worst impulses. It's all emotion. Always has been.
Also, you know who also talked a lot about their feelings? Enslavers. The "feeling" that slavery was a "right". The "feeling" that whites were superior, and that the law had to reinforce that. The "feeling" that they were justified in using threats and violence to get their way.
I saw that suggestion by someone else who replied to your thread, and FWIW I agree!
Whenever @swilua.bsky.social writes her memoir, this has got to be the opening. Not just the apology for assigning a book that included mention (picture?) of a dildo, but also having to explain to the boss what a dildo even *is*.
Do I have any academic friends who work specifically on American slavery who'd like to co-write a piece on this, fast and angrily?
"Can't we say *anything* nice about slavery" sounds stupid and racist because it is. But it circulates because of this belief that being "objective" or "civil" means we have to say something nice about everyone, including people who thought they should be allowed to own other people.
Trump is obviously a racist shitheap, but what gives the whole "how bad slavery was" line oxygen is the both-sidesism that pervades our media and educational spaces.
"Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future." The Smithsonian Museum of African American History featured an exceptional exhibit on Afro-Futurism, which this dipshit would know if he actually went there and paid the fuck attention.
If you have not read PUNISH TREASON, REWARD LOYALTY by Mark Graber on this point, I highly recommend it! kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700635030/
And the thing is, when he brings in a group of actual serious leaders, he proudly shows of his collection of dumbass hats and his horrifically gaudy Oval Office with all the chintzy gold crap, and thinks "They're gonna be so impressed with how classy I am." He really does. Such an embarrassment.
DC area educators: Sign up for Social Justice Curriculum Fair, next Saturday. Workshops on: -- Model Gary Convention for students -- SNCC's approach to organizing, co-led by SNCC vet (with free toolkit) -- how D.C. activists challenged interstate highway -- more Uplifting camaraderie. Free books.
When I first saw this I thought I might craft and assignment where I have my U.S. history students fact-check her, using primary sources, but she's all over the place, and shifts from slavery to trans athletes in sports. Borderline incoherent.
Historian of the 3/5 clause here. No. Just no. So much no.
I had a great time chatting with the fabulous reporters for ARLnow.
Podcast: Free e-bike money, the county fair and housing policy with Jane Green www.arlnow.com/2025/08/15/p...
*screams in historian*
My boys, playing at the National Building Museum in D.C. this last weekend.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 wasn’t popular and was very controversial. It only passed by 2 votes, and if not for the 3/5 compromise giving slave states extra congressional representation, it wouldnt have passed at all. Coincidentally, I’m working on a podcast about it! bsky.app/profile/nath...
my latest is on the president’s abuse of emergency powers and his psychological and practical interest in crisis government. gift link. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/o...
the thing everyone is going to have to accept is that the post-trump period, whenever it comes, will not and cannot be a project of national unity, it must be a project of partisan project of renewal, in the same way that reconstruction and the new deal were partisan projects of renewal.
Look at your syllabus. Take off that assignment that you hate grading. And take off at least one of those new readings you added, because November you is going to be mad at you.
You can't teach U.S. history without "divisive" narratives. Slavery wasn't "unifying." The Japanese incarceration wasn't "unifying." The anti-immigrant Operation Wetback (real name) wasn't "unifying." It's history's job to tell the truth, not cover up past racism to pave the way for future racism.
One thing I recently learned for college teaching: link to assigned articles through your library’s website instead of uploading a PDF to Canvas. It helps the library track their usage metrics.
BTW the new "The Running Man" trailer looks like the upcoming movie will be much more faithful to the novella than the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie was
"Quote this with a book you read way too young that explains why you are the way you are." I went through a whole Stephen King phase in upper elementary, middle-school age: Misery Rage The Running Man The Long Walk Pet Sematary Eyes of the Dragon (Parts of) It and The Stand
But I was told AI will replace historians
All this is to say, @thetattooedprof.bsky.social is right, and I think faculty's in-person classes are the best way to do the kind of outreach he's talking about. So do what you can to keep those in-person classes, and fight for them!
The result: a lot of online courses are actually *more* writing-intensive than in-person classes. There is nobody there to prod the student to turn in their work. The work is especially prone to cheating, *and* it's virtually impossible to foster any meaningful sense of community among students.
Students have also learned that online classes are often actually *harder* than their in-person equivalent. This is usually not intentional. But what would be basic interaction in an in-person course (group discussion, for instance) now becomes a written assignment meant to "simulate" discussion
College leadership, IMHO, should prioritize in-person classes as a way of fostering exactly this kind of community, *and* as a way of maximizing the learning that can take place. We know that even students who learn by taking an online class would learn *more* if they took it in-person.
Learning can occur in online classes. But colleges promote them as a convenient alternative to in-person classes, which in turn leads to lower enrollment in in-person classes. That, in turn, makes it harder to cultivate the kind of campus community college leaders say they value.
An added challenge is how heavily so many institutions (like community colleges) promote online, asynchronous classes over in-person classes. I teach both, and I can tell you that even the "best" online courses are a pale shadow of in-person classes.
Am I reading this right? That SCOTUS justices "care" so much about historian-written amicus briefs that "It's created jobs"? Did I miss the ads for all these jobs on H-NET?
It is absolutely possible to criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic. It is wrong to kill innocent civilians, and Israel should stop doing it. See? Not anti-Semitic.
I am not Jewish. But I find it deeply troubling that anything but unquestioned support for a state amounts to a hateful attack on the members of a world religion.
Evergreen post (sadly)
"It was not merely that Ghislaine was a product of an elite unburdened by principle, who often reduce their daughters to mere ornaments. It is that an ornament, it seems, is all that Ghislaine Maxwell ever aspired to be." Brilliantly captures what is sad and what is terrible about her story.
Pro tip: If a dude with six fingers on his right hand shows up wanting the sword, tell him to eff off but be ready to fight. And if you lose, make sure you have a son that will dedicate his life to avenging you.
Parkinson also has a great discussion of the way Jefferson's declaration builds to a "crescendo" with the "merciless Indian savages" line and the (deleted) paragraph about slavery. You can find it in THIRTEEN CLOCKS, which is a very readable, condensed version of THE COMMON CAUSE
You might consider Robert Parkinson, "Friends and Enemies in the Declaration of Independence," in @jbf1755.bsky.social and Johann Neem, eds., JEFFERSONIANS IN POWER.
This is like Veep dialogue: the sheer, relentless awfulness of it, deployed mercilessly with expert precision at target's most vulnerable insecurities, with the sole intention of maximizing irreparable harm to the soul. There is such a perverse craftsmanship to it. Staggering.
To the extent that's true, it's rife with inaccuracies. 1) Many human college students are not noisy drunks 2) Even noisy drunks deserve housing! 3) Restricting housing actually drives up housing costs, it doesn't reduce them.
Crucial framing here. AI is so often marketed as a way of eliminating "unimportant tasks." Which means people who admit to using it are telling us what they think is "unimportant."
I grew up in Fort Madison, Iowa, a town with no college/university, few apartments, few opportunities (and fewer now than when I lived there). When I moved to Cedar Falls (where UNI is), I absolutely loved it. Will never understand hostility toward colleges by people who live in college towns
bsky.app/profile/jane...
Yikes.
My in-laws live in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It's very conservative, and also deeply economically dependent on tourism. I wonder what kind of impact Trump's xenophobia will have on tourism-related businesses in conservative areas
Democracies are built on trust. We shouldn't trust Trump. But we also shouldn't adopt his stance that nothing can be trusted.
Remember: the essence of Trump's political project is to undermine democracy by destroying democratic institutions and to salt the earth so they can't be cultivated after he's gone. That means destroying not only the institutions but the public trust needed for them to function.
There is a difference between credulous acceptance of authority (bad!) and the kind of trust that any democratic system needs to function (good!). Mistakes happen. It's important that we not take a mistake as evidence of something nefarious without evidence clearly indicating the connection.
...3. The number of folks who (like me) thought the worst tells us much about how much distrust and fear already exist in our political culture right now, but also 4. Why it's important not to give into reflexive cynicism or suspicion of wrongdoing until we have the facts
FWIW: 1. I believe the LOC when they say this was a technical error, not intentional or rooted in coercion from Trump 2. I was concerned about it @ first, given the specific parts of the Constitution that were missing, as were many ...
But there are historians who liked the AHA statement. (I corresponded with one yesterday). The same folks who endorsed that study likely also liked the AHA statement.
I'm not convinced there's a contradiction here, as your OP suggested. If there are specific people who endorsed the use of AI on ancient inscriptions *and* also criticized the AHA statement, that's a more compelling argument.