by liberal japonicus
This Guardian article touches on a point that I think is interesting, why so many Latinos are involved on the enforcement side of ICE. The final graf is
The lesson is that we should stop treating Latino support for anti-immigration politics as a paradox. To the contrary, this is a part of a long history, a much longer story. Understanding that history does not require exclusion. But it does require acknowledging it.
There are a couple of points that are missed, I think. First of all, what is defined as Latina remains vague. When you start to think about the various countries and groups within those countries that are encompassed by the term Latina, it is a little less surprising. I suppose that the shared language imagines a unity that isn’t really there.
On the other hand, Asians do not figure prominently, though there are exceptions. Tou Thao, a Hmong American, prevented bystanders from intervening when Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. The Peter Liang case in 2014 is another one.
The second point is that numbers matter. 1/5 of the US population is Latina, so it is surprising only because people as a general rule, don’t process stats very well. Furthermore, multiracial Latinos are estimated to be almost half of that.
This isn’t because Asians are less prejudiced. I hate to say this, but the insularity of Asian communities often has them/us imbibe the worst stereotypes. And perhaps it is just a question of demographics, not having as many Asian Americans means fewer incidents.
Anyway, a quasi open thread to talk about stuff.
lucky for Jones’ victims, his $1.25B fine from CT is still in effect. TX can suck it.
Removing the far-right majority on SCOTUS will be a necessary step towards undoing the worst horrors of the Trump years. It seems to me that the simplest way to do it would be to impose a 20-year term limit, with the sitting president being free to renominate the same Justice. (In practice they never would, but so what.)
The immediate effect would be that Thomas, Roberts, and Alito get replaced. Perhaps better not to tell the Rs about this plan, lest Trump think of doing it himself.
Since this is a “quasi-open thread”, I wondered if any here would be interested in this piece in the NYT about the teaching (or non-teaching) of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in American schools today. I have wondered over the years about this, particularly when the novel James by Percival Everett (which I haven’t read) came out in 2024, so I found this piece very interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/magazine/huckleberry-finn-teachers-students-schools.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8VA._rL-.IEM4vsD1mrzb&smid=url-share
I liked this:
The Twain scholar and Stanford professor Shelley Fisher Fishkin compares “Huck Finn” to fugu, a Japanese delicacy so poisonous that a chef must be specially licensed to serve it. “If it’s prepared right, it’s phenomenal,” she says. “If it’s taught wrong, it can be toxic.” What might it mean for the book to be “prepared right”?
Anybody else have thoughts?
HF was a tricky topic when i was in high school in the late 80s. it wasn’t assigned, but i read it anyway and could see why it wasn’t assigned.
if i was a high school it teacher, i would stay as far away from it as possible. there’s just too much nonsense in society today and i wouldn’t want to invite any of it on myself or the students.
it’s a good book, a classic, a fascinating look back at the times and place. but so is Moby Dick, Tom Sawyer, the Little House books, the Great Brain books, etc..
on the other hand, it’s not like kids don’t know the word. rap certainly hasn’t grown bored with it.
I’m sure I read it in school, or at least on my own during my school years.
In a sane world we would be able to say that “that word” was commonly used to refer to black people at the time the book was written, but it’s (correctly) rude to do so now, most certainly for people who aren’t black.
We don’t live in a sane world right now.
It’s been over 50 years since I was in school, so I wouldn’t even try to make suggestions for how teachers should broach the topic now. The book is a significant part of our literary heritage, as the context in which “that word” could be spoken casually is a significant part of our history.
I find it sad and depressing that neither can be discussed with candor.
“Mark Twain’s classic text has been a lightning rod for controversy since its first publication, and has consistently been one of the most banned books in schools and libraries across the United States. This bold new edition makes Twain’s timeless work accessible to a whole new generation… without being bogged down by what he wanted to say about racism. Give the gift of censorship to someone you love.”
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [Robotic Edition]
I read Huckleberry Finn in my American Lit class in HS in the early 80s in rural Wisconsin with not a single person of color in the class. That’s pretty much the ideal environment for taking the approach that russell mentions. I imagine the conversations they were having in HS classrooms in North Milwaukee were a bit more difficult to handle as a teacher even at that time.
Today, I think I would leave the teaching of it as a required text to the college level. I think the discussions of race and class and historical context are important, but could be equally served by other texts that would require less heavy lifting to get to a productive conversation about those topics.
Same thoughts apply for me for teaching it in a survey of American Lit class in college. Its value over replacement text (VORT, to moneyball it a bit) is not as high as other books on an already severely truncated list for such a class. As an adjunct instructor, I’d avoid the hell out of it in most cases because that low VORT really isn’t worth the risk of becoming the subject of a viral video if a student got outraged.
But it’s an influential novel that I’d absolutely teach if I were a 19th C. American scholar with a syllabus and reading list where it made sense in the overall context of the class. I don’t want it banned, and I’m not disparaging it, I just don’t think it earns a spot as an automatic choice in this day and age.
It’s so long since I read it that I was particularly interested (and happy) to read about the subtle, gradual moral development of Huck. But I certainly see how very important it is to teach it in a way that shows that, which means of course that students need to have a certain maturity, and know already about the terrible history of slavery. So almost impossible in the Age of Trump I guess. I think I read it too young for all the nuance, but luckily came from a family which believed and had shown that apartheid was the greatest evil in the world at that time, so I probably had enough moral preparation.