Orwell's 1984 may provide us with a vocabulary for critiquing the Trump administration. "Double speak," "thought police": these and other turns of phrase explain the peculiar and insidious ways in which Trump is gaslighting America. (This is a phenomenon that Lauren Duca has explained, incisively, in Teen Vogue.) And while we need 1984's lexicon of authoritarianism, it's not... Continue Reading →
Pizza Delivery, iPhone Recovery; or, Race & Privilege in America
Yesterday was a personal object lesson in racism and white privilege in America. In the early afternoon, I ordered a pizza for delivery; I would be tutoring a student that evening and my wife would be getting home late from a conference in DC, so I thought we would both appreciate the leftovers. Upon his arrival, the deliveryman called up,... Continue Reading →
More Rage Against Gun Violence
This isn't going to be a long post. But I'm emerging from the shadowy frontiers of dissertation- and novel-writing to say this: there should be universal outrage over the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where gunman Omar Mateen murdered at least 50 people and injured another 50. News broadcasts from NBC, the... Continue Reading →
Emoter-in-Chief: Presidential Tears as Argument for Gun Control
I had intended to re-start the blog this year by writing about my 2015 in reading, complete with the pie charts and graphs you would expect from a former political science major. But let's be honest: Roxane Gay's list is far more interesting than what I would've written. So let's turn to something more current:... Continue Reading →
On Freedom and Patriotism
I've recently been binge watching Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and yesterday—in one of those inexplicable accidents of perfect timing—I watched the episodes in which Oliver takes on predator drones and interviews Edward Snowden. The segment on Snowden, which also covered the dangers of renewing the PATRIOT Act, reveals in stark detail just how... Continue Reading →
Patrick Thomas Henry 