Political Commentary Corner

Every spring/summer, anxieties about Black youth in public spawn news stories around fights and fears about commerce and public safety. This episode will reveal how racialized tropes around Black youth are used to justify charging youth as adults and obscure white youth/adult public disorder. 

We continue our examination of northwest Baltimore, discussing the internal dynamics of the state central committee and examining how an understanding of the racialized social control logic within Zionist ideology reveals “moderate” democrats as replicating racialized overpolicing and denying sovereignty to oppressed communities both here and abroad. We conclude by comparing the colorblind politic...

A minority population faces oppression from a dominant group that exercises political and economic power over the region disproportionate to their numbers. Racialized tropes about the indigenous population being innately dangerous justified policing and application of force that violate existing rules, which, though limiting the power on paper, fail to change the material reality of oppression. Th...

Despite the focus on national political battles, local politics has been a critical battleground for conversations around Zionism. We look back at 2023 debates in the Baltimore City Council around two contrasting resolutions, one reflecting a Zionist frame, the other   a call for ceasefire and attempting to balance concerns over anti-Semitism with Islamophobia. Through attempts to equate antisemit...

In the face of persistent mass overdoses, some in Baltimore have begun to argue that policing is the only compassionate response to addiction. We argue this is false empathy and reinstates the war on drugs under the guise of care. We respond to the arguments that policing is a tool to connect folks to treatment. We conclude with a critique of public health driven harm reduction centered responses...

 In this episode we expose how the Anti-Defamation League trades on its historic reputation as a civil rights organization to attack critics of Israel as anti-jewish. We deconstruct news coverage of the suite, revealing much of the incidents of bullying are constitutionally protected critiques of Israel. We give a history of the phrase “from the river to the sea,” and address claims it is Anti-Sem...

Maryland passed the 2nd Look Act to give individuals with long jail sentences a chance at release. We look back at the floor debates on 2nd Look. While the advocates sought racial justice for the Black community, debates focused on defending why so many folks were ineligible for the 2nd Look, how hard it would be to get relief, and notions of forgiveness and contrition. We argue Democrat’s accepta...

We review reports on Maryland medical examiner David Fowler. We show the racist roots behind the concept of “excited delirium” he used to cover up police involved deaths, and show the role race plays in commentary downplaying findings of his wrongdoing. We also use an analysis of the legislative work on police accountability to demand the left go beyond calls to punishment of individual "bad...

Much was made of why the success of Baltimore's Gun Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) disproves Trump's claim that Baltimore needs National Guard occupation. But what if Baltimore's supposedly more human "public health" approach to policing reflects the same logic as Trump's occupation? We counter pro-National Guard propaganda with an analysis of how grassroots viole...

The shooting of Bilal Addullah rocked Baltimore, yet police used body cam footage to deem the shooting “justified”. This episode takes a nuanced look at the concept of the “bad guy with an illegal gun” used to justify Abdullah’s death, arguing the inability to see gun carrying as a rational response to conditions of Black life united center and left responses to the killing. We compare Abdullah’s...