Abolitionist futures and the US sanctuary movement

Race & Class ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Naomi Paik

This article focuses on the histories, current challenges, and future directions of the sanctuary movement in the United States, which is becoming a central front of resistance to the administration of Donald Trump. The article is comprised of three main components. It discusses the history of the US sanctuary movement and situates it in the context of the rise of neoliberalism and its attendant escalating criminalisation, particularly since the 1980s, when the first iteration of the movement began. The article then discusses the limits of sanctuary, rooted in the movement’s liberal framework that risks reproducing the exclusions it has sought to dismantle. It nevertheless argues for the importance of sanctuary in opposing the Trump regime, while advocating that the movement adopt a more radical framework and solidarity-organising strategies inspired by the prison abolition movement.

Author(s):  
Kalamu Ya Salaam ◽  
Jerry W. Ward Jr.

Salaam: We might call this the Sankofa Dialogue because we are looking back in order to orient ourselves as we move forward. Approximately eight years ago, in 2008, there was a great brouhaha and hope because of the upcoming election for the US presidency. For the first time in the history of the United States, a Black man—and it’s befitting that he was truly an African American—was running for office. We don’t generally have such pivotal moments in history, either as individuals or as a people.Ward: But I would suggest that in the closing months of the second term of President Obama, we had a devastatingly pivotal moment. As we scrutinize the behavior of Donald Trump, we ought also to be concerned about what is driving people who, under other circumstances, might have hesitated to elect a clown. Those voters were so full of disgust, disappointment, and dismay that they saw Trump as the Great White Hope. Many of the voters wanted a president who might restore the bogus privileges of “white superiority.”Salaam: I concur, but I would broaden the dialog a bit. I think this historic moment, this turning point, comes at a critical moment in what defines what it means to be American. I don’t think there’s a post-Obama era as such. I think Obama was just part of this era where we are grappling with what it means to be an American now that it no longer means what it has meant from the beginning of the United States up until Obama. We’re still struggling with that. What we see right now is a repetition of what happened at the closing of, and in the immediate follow-up to, the Civil War in terms of the identity questions that were being raised.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 130-134

This section, updated regularly on the blog Palestine Square, covers popular conversations related to the Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict during the quarter 16 November 2017 to 15 February 2018: #JerusalemIstheCapitalofPalestine went viral after U.S. president Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced his intention to move the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. The arrest of Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi for slapping an Israeli soldier also prompted a viral campaign under the hashtag #FreeAhed. A smaller campaign protested the exclusion of Palestinian human rights from the agenda of the annual Creating Change conference organized by the US-based National LGBTQ Task Force in Washington. And, UNRWA publicized its emergency funding appeal, following the decision of the United States to slash funding to the organization, with the hashtag #DignityIsPriceless.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136248062110159
Author(s):  
Mugambi Jouet

Michel Foucault’s advocacy toward penal reform in France differed from his theories. Although Foucault is associated with the prison abolition movement, he also proposed more humane prisons. The article reframes Foucauldian theory through a dialectic with the theories of Marc Ancel, a prominent figure in the emergence of liberal sentencing norms in France. Ancel and Foucault were contemporaries whose legacies are intertwined. Ancel defended more benevolent prisons where experts would rehabilitate offenders. This evokes exactly what Discipline and Punish cast as an insidious strategy of social control. In reality, Foucault and Ancel converged in intriguing ways. The dialectic offers another perspective on Foucault, whose theories have fostered skepticism about the possibility of progress. While mass incarceration’s rise in the United States may evoke a Foucauldian dystopia, the relative development of human rights and dignity in European punishment reflects aspirations that Foucault embraced as an activist concerned about fatalistic interpretations of his theories.


2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-437
Author(s):  
Xiangfeng Yang

Abstract Ample evidence exists that China was caught off guard by the Trump administration's onslaught of punishing acts—the trade war being a prime, but far from the only, example. This article, in addition to contextualizing their earlier optimism about the relations with the United States under President Trump, examines why Chinese leaders and analysts were surprised by the turn of events. It argues that three main factors contributed to the lapse of judgment. First, Chinese officials and analysts grossly misunderstood Donald Trump the individual. By overemphasizing his pragmatism while downplaying his unpredictability, they ended up underprepared for the policies he unleashed. Second, some ingrained Chinese beliefs, manifested in the analogies of the pendulum swing and the ‘bickering couple’, as well as the narrative of the ‘ballast’, lulled officials and scholars into undue optimism about the stability of the broader relationship. Third, analytical and methodological problems as well as political considerations prevented them from fully grasping the strategic shift against China in the US.


Author(s):  
Carter Malkasian

The American War in Afghanistan is a full history of the war in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2020. It covers political, cultural, strategic, and tactical aspects of the war and details the actions and decision-making of the United States, Afghan government, and Taliban. The work follows a narrative format to go through the 2001 US invasion, the state-building of 2002–2005, the Taliban offensive of 2006, the US surge of 2009–2011, the subsequent drawdown, and the peace talks of 2019–2020. The focus is on the overarching questions of the war: Why did the United States fail? What opportunities existed to reach a better outcome? Why did the United States not withdraw from the war?


Author(s):  
N. Gegelashvili ◽  
◽  
I. Modnikova ◽  

The article analyzes the US policy towards Ukraine dating back from the time before the reunification of Crimea with Russia and up to Donald Trump coming to power. The spectrum of Washington’s interests towards this country being of particular strategic interest to the United States are disclosed. It should be noted that since the disintegration of the Soviet Union Washington’s interest in this country on the whole has not been very much different from its stand on all post-Soviet states whose significance was defined by the U,S depending on their location on the world map as well as on the value of their natural resources. However, after the reunification of Crimea with Russia Washington’s stand on this country underwent significant changes, causing a radical transformation of the U,S attitude in their Ukrainian policy. During the presidency of Barack Obama the American policy towards Ukraine was carried out rather sluggishly being basically declarative in its nature. When President D. Trump took his office Washington’s policy towards Ukraine became increasingly more offensive and was characterized by a rather proactive stance not only because Ukraine became the principal arena of confrontation between the United States and the Russian Federation, but also because it became a part of the US domestic political context. Therefore, an outcome of the “battle” for Ukraine is currently very important for the United States in order to prove to the world its role of the main helmsman in the context of a diminishing US capability of maintaining their global superiority.


2021 ◽  
Vol VI (III) ◽  
pp. 59-71
Author(s):  
Muhammad Nadeem Mirza ◽  
Lubna Abid Ali ◽  
Irfan Hasnain Qaisrani

This study intends to explore the rise of Donald Trump to the White House. Why was Donald Trump considered a populist leader, and how did his populist rhetoric and actions impact the contours of American domestic and foreign policies? The study adopted qualitative exploratory and explanatory research techniques. Specific methods utilised to conduct the study remained political personality profiling. It finds that the populist leaders construct the binaries in the society by dividing the nation into two groups: �us� the people, against �them� the corrupt elite or other groups presented as a threat to the lives and livelihood of the nation. Though populism as a unique brand of politics remained active through most of the US history, yet these were only two occasions that populists were successful in winning the American presidential elections � Andrew Jackson in 1828 and Donald Trump in 2016. Structural and historical reasons became the biggest cause behind the election of Donald Trump, who successfully brought a revolution in American domestic and foreign policies. And if structural issues in the United States are not addressed, there is a clear chance that Trump � who is not withering away � will come back to contest and challenge any competitors in the 2024 presidential elections.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Matthew Dotzler

The conflict between Turkey and the Kurds is once again reaching a boiling point. Following the defeat of ISIL in northern Iraq and Syria, Turkey is now concerned that the returning Kurdish militias pose a threat to its national security. The United States, as an ally to both parties, finds itself in a unique position to push for diplomatic solutions and to mediate the conflict before it grows out of control once again. This paper will examine the history of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, the actors involved, and how US foreign policy can be used to try and deter yet another war in the region.


Author(s):  
Emily Abrams Ansari

The introduction provides an overview of the history of musical Americanism, from the 1920s to the 1970s, in tandem with an assessment of changing attitudes toward American identity in the United States. It introduces scholarly debates surrounding the Cold War politicization of serialism and tonality and describes the various opportunities for work with government exploited by American composers during the 1950s and 1960s. These opportunities included serving as advisers to the State Department, the US Information Agency, and organizations funded by the CIA, as well as touring overseas as government-funded cultural ambassadors. These contexts establish the basis for the book’s argument that the Cold War presented both challenges and opportunities for Americanist composers that would ultimately result in a rebranding of their style.


Slavic Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (S1) ◽  
pp. S57-S65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Oates

The Russian and American media spheres converged to an unprecedented degree during the 2016 US presidential elections when reports of a possible dossier on Donald Trump emerged. This article considers the degree to which the media tactic of kompromat, which is the Russian abbreviation for “compromising material,” can infiltrate the US media ecology.


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