Dear John,

I hope you’re doing as well as possible—I’m hanging in there. This news digest barely skims the surface of this week’s news. I highly recommend the first few pieces shared by our sibling organization in Buffalo, NY. Let me know how you’re doing and send me what you’re reading.

Here’s what we’re reading, watching, and listening to this week:

1. Buffalo

Read this interview with India Walton, last year’s socialist mayoral candidate from Buffalo: The Buffalo Massacre is Rooted in Segregation and Divestment.

2. Buffalo II

Highly recommend these pieces shared by TakeAction’s sibling organization in Buffalo, NY: The Rise of the Radical Right in Western New York and Buffalo is Segregation City.

Note that Buffalo residents lost access to their grocery store. Support folks on the ground: African Heritage Food Coop, Open Buffalo (organizing and coordinating food and services on the ground in the immediate community) and Black Love Resists in the Rust (coordinating mental health and food support and long-term organizing).

3. Political Backlash

This Medium piece is a few months old but relevant. Read Anticipated Political Backlash: Lessons Learned from Neoliberal Antagonisms to Defund the Police Campaigns.

4. Viral Underclass

A million people in the U.S. have died of COVID. Long-COVID persists for thousands. Public health infrastructure has disappeared. This week, I’ve been reading about what Professor Steven Thrasher calls the ‘viral underclass,’ applying his intersectional analysis and research on the HIV crisis to COVID. Add to your podcast list: Prof. Steven Thrasher on the Criminalization of Disease and Poverty.

5. 2022 Primaries

The 2018 “just win, baby” strategy of democratic primaries isn’t flying this year. Electability Argument Falling Flat in 2022 is a sharp and accurate analysis.

6. Student Debt Relief

From the New York Times: The Government Gave Out Bad Loans. Students Deserve a Bailout.

7. Formula Shortage

While families struggle with a horrific shortage of baby formula, too many mothers have been asked, “Why not just breast-feed like in the days before there was formula?” In a viral post this week, a historian debunks how infants ate before formula. For a myriad of reasons, breastfeeding has not always been an option. 

8. Union Drip

Thank you, Teen Vogue, for covering union drip (‘organizing, but make it fashion’).

9. Pleasure Activism

Pleasure is the theme of Yes Magazine this month. Delve into adrienne maree brown’s delicious piece Power in Pleasure.

10. Old Enough!

 Have you watched the most wholesome show on television? Check out this New Yorker piece on the ‘gentle thrills’ of the hit Japanese show Old Enough! featuring toddlers running errands and watch the trailer.

That’s a wrap. Have a great weekend. Send me what you're reading.

- Kenza Hadj-Moussa