March 7

 Equality as an audit culture

Do the opposite of what intended, or perhaps the storytelling dog-pony show is what was intended

Cuomo example:

Sexual Harassment yes, and also a pattern of other bullying/coercion

LU 25 years ago asking Black alums "what should we do to increase Black student"

"Hire a black president, not head of recruiting, etc"

LU just hired a black woman president. Yay!

Examining audit culture:  

Data is the "bible" of reality

Can't validate without data

passive aggressive pushback from boss, like dealing with a split personality

WM who doesn't like the shit I'm asked to do, and yet doesn't want me to succeed in 

Not being genuine, with regards 

Contrasting episode of The Crown with King of Zamunda (Coming 2 America)

Two sovereigns who decide either to enforce "the law" versus change the law

"Managing from the bottom rather than from the top" (Obama quote) identify/groom/cultivate those not white men into positions of power

to help spawn another generation of leaders

will be able to bring other folks

Culture of exclusion versus inclusion which spawns policies/laws that take into consideration all those who have historically been excluded due to laws designed for that purpose

US Constitution, document intended for anybody to have some liberty and freedom (until you read the conditions that define those who can exercise full liberty, owning property (not women), being a citizen (not Black, Indigenous)

Rewrite the constitution

Give land back to Indigenous Sovereignty

Transform a culture of xenophobia, hate, fear to

[These are quotations from Joe Green, one of my writing partners, in response to our weekly discussion about these blog posts, mixed in with my responses to his responses--trying to figure out the citational politics of this one, wanting to share that I'm not thinking these thinks in isolation.  Kelly Dallmann is also a writing partner who has been helping me think my thinks the past several months, too.  All our books are making progress!]

Inclusivity, 

Lay no claim to land, to people

Redefine political borders, treaties, 

American Corporations/public sentiment are not ready

Artists tell this new story

Silent growing majority of young people who will not subscribe to identity politics because of multiple overlapping subjectivities--"I'm all of these things.  I care about all of these people."

[also reading about "Bespoke Feminism" a kind of White feminism which is like a suit custom tailored for the feminist, ie allows for a Karening, a type of feminism which translates to "I support feminist ideas until they impact my kids' access to their 'inherited privileges'.  Also playing with the idea that bespoke feminism is the opposite of intersectional feminism, but names it as such to name the power structures--so meta! (read Kimberle Crenshaw for the original usage of intersectional feminism; one quick summary is here: https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/)

here's link to Mona Eltahawy's Bespoke Feminism article: https://www.feministgiant.com/p/the-bespoke-feminism-of-senator-sinema]

Rewriting the constitution--people who fear it (people wed to Whiteness, Superiority, Imperialism, Corporate supremacy) will resist.  Probs with climate change, external pressures, demographic changes,

will force a transformation in how we govern ourselves.  Changing status of who is governable

Who is governable?  TFG if he had had some compassion, but (drugs?  his ego being pumped by his people?  he just got worse in the last three months, and much worse aft Nov 6), he could have won the election.  It was sort of just dumb luck that he didn't overturn the will of the majority of voters. (not sure how this answers the question of who is governable--government by consent, this fucked up electoral college situation meant to restrict whose voices participate in the selection, how to be governed by a numerical 'minority' who considers itself entitled to paternalistically decide for others.)

Wyppo don't talk about it perhaps because so much of rural America has yet to experience "the revolution".  People who have lived in urban areas (MKE, Madison, Chicago, Detroit) had some sort of experience of protests, some awareness of political unrest due to injustice--whether it was protesting the US's participation of the Vietnam war, or the racial unrest due to murders of prominent leaders peacefully working to improve lives.  Small-town America, the smaller towns of America, may have sailed through to this present moment without EVER having to reckon with injustices.  The Mayberry (Andy Griffith Show reference) towns where everyone is White and the worst thing the law enforcement has to deal with is some bucktoothed freckled redheaded kid lost a dog or something--that's the world some of these folks experienced (or thought they experienced) and what they long to return to or mourn the loss of.

Beaver Dam/Appleton: exception of Madision/MKE, never went through the 60s, the civil rights issues, Viet nam protests--didn't come through the same type of revolutionary issues.  Evolution of change which challenged how they practiced their everyday life.

How to bring the revolution to Waukesha county?  Probably involves storytelling and making art and drawing attention to my connection to and alienation from my first home.

Joe also asked me, what should be done about Cuomo?  Yeah.  Well, my answer so far is something like, yes, look at the patterns of gender-based harassment.  And also, look for other patterns which are evidence of bullying, coercion and manipulation of employees.  What that composite produces is information about the culture of that organization.  Look for repeated instances of paternalism, sense of entitlement, sense of impunity, sense that for some reason this one person cannot be questioned, that it is more important to keep the machinery of the organization churning along than to question the behavior/motives/outcomes/language of one person.  That it is more important to manage the "Brand" of that person/metonymically the organization than to have any substance behind the story of the brand. (Read my earlier work on how a brand is a story which stands in the place of a relationship, such as the branding of "local" food which is not in fact based on local food producers but the idea of being in relation with local food producers while participating in the anonymizing/orphaning commodity food model)

The sense that the ONE PERSON makes the organization, that (he) is not replaceable. I can sorta make connections to my writing about cults, what is a cult, what is not a cult, how do I know I've been in a cult, how do I know I escaped from a cult.  How do I join new cults (consciously) as I've been thinking lately.  (I'm consciously joining what I think is sorta culty, my daily deep listening practice.  "I can quit any time, really".  Ooh, I guess I might need to think through some ideas about addiction wrt to cults too)

Part of Cuomo answer:  Universal Basic Income.  If everyone is getting say $500/month, it makes it easier to walk away from shitty jobs.  If a person is working three part-time jobs, like I am, they could let go of the shittiest among them.  Therefore, shitty employers with awful manipulative cultures get sieved out.  No one wants to work for them, so they either perish as an employer or change.  Shape up or ship out.  Get their shit together.