Mediaboss Marketing

Kamala Harris recently dropped out of the presidential race after months of attacks from the left for her tough-on-crime record as San Franciscos district attorney and as Californias attorney general.

A few years ago, the idea that being tough on crime would be a liability not an asset was unthinkable for both Democrats and Republicans.

Bill Clinton, during the 1992 presidential race, interrupted his campaign so he could return to Arkansas to witness the execution of a mentally disabled man. During Harris 2014 reelection campaign for attorney general, she actively sought and won the endorsements of more than 50 law enforcement groups en route to a landslide victory.

But something has changed in recent years. Harris failure to gain traction as a presidential candidate has coincided with a growing number of progressive prosecutors.

In the past, I would have scoffed at the notion of a progressive prosecutor. It would have seemed like a ridiculous oxymoron.

But in one of the most stunning shifts in American politics in recent memory, a wave of elected prosecutors have bucked a decadeslong tough-on-crime approach adopted by both major parties. These prosecutors are refusing to send low-level, non-violent offenders to prison, diverting defendants into treatment programs, working to eradicate the death penalty and reversing wrongful convictions.

In 1968, when I was 8 years old, my father was sentenced to 22 to 55 years in the Ohio State Penitentiary for the possession and sale of marijuana. During the trial, the district attorney had repeatedly assured the jurors that he hadnt promised the states principal witness then serving a long sentence leniency in return for testifying against my father.

In truth, they had struck that very bargain. After studying the wardens own law books, my father appealed the conviction, representing himself. He was ultimately vindicated by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after proving that the district attorney had deliberately lied to the jury.

That was in 1974. I went on to become a lawyer and law professor. During the years I spent teaching and studying the relationship between race and the law, the prison population exploded, and my distrust toward government prosecutors only deepened. Too often, it seemed like they were bringing excessively punitive charges in order to force defendants into plea deals. Too often, their approach seemed to reflect a longing for retribution and revenge rather than rehabilitation.

In 2017, law professor John Pfaff was able to show that mass incarceration was due, first and foremost, to the nearly unchecked power of district attorneys.

With reported crimes and arrests steadily declining in the 1990s and 2000s, you might have expected incarceration rates to also fall. Instead, they soared. Pfaff traces this perplexing trend to one key statistic: Between 1994 and 2008, the probability that a district attorney would file a felony charge against someone whos been arrested roughly doubled, from about 1 in 3 to nearly 2 in 3.

More than stiff drug laws, punitive judges, overzealous cops or private prisons, prosecutors had been the main drivers of a prison population that had quadrupled since the mid-1980s.

Meanwhile, black Americans continued to be disproportionately incarcerated. In 2017, there were 1,549 black prisoners for every 100,000 black adults nearly six times the incarceration rate for whites and nearly double the rate for Hispanics.

This prosecutorial approach wasnt punished at the ballot box; instead, racking up convictions and plea deals seemed to bolster the political careers of district attorneys.

No longer.

Since 2013, roughly 30 reform-minded prosecutors have been elected. A few now preside over prosecutorial staffs in some of the nations biggest cities, like Philadelphias Larry Krasner and Bostons Rachael Rollins. But they also include chief prosecutors of smaller municipalities, like Satana Deberry, who was elected district attorney of Durham County, North Carolina, in 2018, and Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, the commonwealths attorney of Arlington County, Virginia, who won on a platform of ending mass incarceration in 2019.

These prosecutors are reinventing the role of the modern district attorney. Krasner, for example, campaigned on eliminating cash bail, reining in police misconduct and upending a system of mass incarceration that disproportionately imprisons people of color. He won with nearly 75% of the vote in the general election.

In 2018, before a packed lecture hall, Krasner told my law students that ending racialized mass incarceration is the most important civil rights issue of our time. He pointed out that the key difference between a traditional prosecutor and progressive one is that the latter is a prosecutor with compassion and a public defender with power.

This growing crop of prosecutors with compassion and public defenders with power has upended my own binary way of thinking about the role of the district attorney.

Ive realized that a district attorney can adopt a fundamentally different moral compass and conception of justice. While traditional law and order prosecutors possess a moral, legal and political compass that sharply distinguishes between victims and perpetrators, Id argue that truly progressive prosecutors recognize that hurt people hurt people and refuse to subordinate the values of restoration, rehabilitation and redemption to those of retribution, retaliation and revenge.

These two sets of values can collide. Many entrenched judges, prosecutors, police chiefs, police unions and legislators have loudly opposed or have actively resisted this shift to restoration and redemption.

Progressive prosecutors, according to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, are undercutting the police, letting criminals off the hook, and refusing to enforce the law. In a December rally, President Trump singled out Krasner, calling him the worst district attorney, one who lets killers out almost immediately.

The experience of Aramis Ayala, the state attorney for the 9th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, is a classic example of the obstacles these new prosecutors can face. After being elected in 2016, she announced that she would no longer seek the death penalty for any defendants tried by her office. Florida Gov. Rick Scott responded by reassigning 24 aggravated murder cases to another state attorney who was amenable to the death penalty.

Ayala sued to have the cases returned to her jurisdiction. She lost.

Nonetheless, progressive prosecutors would have never attained power in the first place if their views didnt resonate with voters.

Michelle Alexanders 2010 book, The New Jim Crow, deserves some credit for changing the way activists thought about crime and punishment. Alexander cast mass incarceration as a civil rights crisis by showing that people didnt simply end up in jail because they were bad people who made poor choices. Nor did prison populations explode simply because there were more crimes being committed. Instead, mass incarceration was closely intertwined with race, poverty and government policy.

Among civil rights activists, issues like affirmative action in higher education had been consuming a lot of time, energy and resources. Alexanders book helped redirect attention to racialized mass incarceration as a main battlefront in U.S. race relations.

Since its formation in 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement has made criminal justice reform a centerpiece of their activism. In Los Angeles, for example, the local chapter has led weekly demonstrations for over two years in front of the Hall of Justice. Theyre protesting Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey for failing to adequately address police misconduct.

Lacey, who is up for reelection, faces two opponents. Both of them former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascn and former public defender Rachel Rossi are running on progressive platforms.

In March, well see if the Los Angeles County District Attorneys office the nations largest county-wide prosecutorial agency will be the latest to join the progressive prosecutor movement.

[ Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversations newsletter. ]

Read the original:
How being 'tough on crime' became a political liability - The Conversation US

This article has been updated to include additional statements from University spokesperson Brian Coy and president of the Queer Student Union Blake Hesson.

A Beta Bridge mural that said, PROTECT BLACK TRANS WOMEN, was found painted over Saturday morning with statements including, 2A, GUNS, and an arrow through WOMEN. Although people repainted the initial message Saturday, 2A and GUNS were found repainted Sunday night and were covered again.

The initial mural had been painted by the secret SABLE Society Dec. 3 as part of a campaign across Grounds to raise awareness of the difficulties faced by Black transgender women, who are murdered at higher rates than other demographic groups.

It is yet unclear who wrote the 2A and GUNS messages, which appear to be in reference to the Second Amendments granting of the right to bear arms and the recent wave of counties and towns across the Commonwealth declaring themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries, which will not enforce any unconstitutional restrictions on gun rights, in anticipation of the entrance of a Democrat-controlled state legislature in January for the first time in years.

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors have not passed any resolutions declaring the county a Second Amendment sanctuary, although they have heard support from residents.

In a statement, University spokesperson Brian Coy said the University was aware of the changes repeatedly made to the initial message.

Beta Bridge is a long recognized public forum that may on occasion cause controversy or disagreement about the messages expressed or the intentions of individuals who choose to paint the bridge, Coy said. We hope that community members will continue to honor this long-standing tradition of public expression in a way that respects every member of this community and the viewpoints they bring to Grounds.

Coy said the University wants to ensure that community members impacted by the incident were aware of resources that could help, including Counseling and Psychological Services, the University Faculty Employee Assistance Program, the LGBTQ Center and the Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights Gender Diversity Resources.

The University of Virginia welcomes and values every member of this community regardless of their race, religion, sex, gender identity and expression, or other protected characteristics, Coy said. We recognize that people, particularly black trans women, feel demeaned or threatened by this message and the way it appeared on Beta Bridge. We also recognize that black trans women are among one of the most vulnerable populations in our country.

Lyle Solla-Yates, software platforms and technology lead in the School of Architecture, posted a photo of the defaced mural Saturday morning on Twitter.

I appreciate that there are people who firmly believe in the Second Amendment, but this looked like something that was supposed tomake people not inspired to protect the Second Amendment but be afraid, and I was upset, Solla-Yates said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily. I was a little reluctant to share it, because I dont like sharing hate messages, but I feel like people have to be cautious about people like this.

In a statement prior to the second defacement, the SABLE Society said the student body must stand united against hate that harms members of the community.

One of our guiding principles is to give voice to those that are often ignored and unheard, the society said. On Beta Bridge, we endeavored to shine a light on the heartbreaking tragedy of the persecution of Trans members of our Black community. We are shouting to the world that All Black Lives Matter, and we stand in solidarity with the Trans community. They are neither invisible nor disposable; they are our brothers and sisters.

Blake Hesson, president of the Queer Student Union and a fourth-year College student, said they believe the incident speaks to a wider problem where hateful messages are directed towards marginalized people around the University.

This speaks to something that's continued and probably will continue but I think this is where the University should come in and say what kind of things should be allowed, and how we should respect and respectfully disagree, even though I don't think you can really disagree with a human being and [how their identity informs how they live their lives], Hesson said.

Latrell Lee, a fourth-year Commerce student and community leader, said he was not surprised by the incident.

I was pissed to say the least, Lee said in an email. Especially given U.Va.s history and the way that Black people are looked at in general, let alone Black trans women.

Read more:
Pro-gun messages repeatedly written over PROTECT BLACK TRANS WOMEN painting on Beta Bridge - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

In a book released on the eve of the 2016 election called Asymmetric Politics, political scientists Matthew Grossmann and David Hopkins argued that Americas political parties dont just have different ideologies, but are really different kinds of organizations. Republicans are organized around broad symbolic principles, whereas Democrats are a coalition of social groups with particular policy concerns, the authors concluded.

I dont want to treat that book as gospel, but it speaks to a certain understanding that has existed throughout my 17 years covering national politics. Democrats have been considered the party of Asian, black, gay, Jewish and Latino people, along with atheists, teachers, union members, etc. in short, a coalition organized around a bunch of different identity groups. Meanwhile, Republicans have been thought of as the party of small government, low taxes, a strong national defense and traditional moral values in short, a coalition based around a few core ideological principles.

That has always been a fairly simplistic view of the parties. (And Grossmann and Hopkinss book is much more nuanced.) But as an easy rubric to understand the two parties it worked. It still does, to some extent. But less and less so.

The two big stories happening right now in American politics the 2020 Democratic primary and impeachment show both parties being reshaped in ways that break with that asymmetry: The GOP is becoming increasingly organized around identity groups, and Democrats are becoming increasingly ideological.

Let me start with the Republicans.

With Republicans on Capitol Hill strongly defending President Trump amid the Ukraine scandal, you might say that the GOP has simply abandoned many of its principles in deference to Trump. Maybe. But I think the more accurate story is that Republicans on Capitol Hill are standing firmly behind Trump because GOP voters and GOP activists and elites are demanding that they do so. There just isnt much room to break with the president of your party if close to 90 percent of voters in the party approve of him and many of those voters get their news from sources strongly supportive of that president.

Why are Republican voters and elites so strongly aligned with Trump? Theres not a simple answer, but I think identity rather than ideology is a big part of it. Trump is defending the identities of people who align themselves with the GOP, and this is a more powerful connection and reason to back him than pure ideological concerns. In defending Trump, conservative voters are really defending themselves.

No party ever governs strictly on ideology, but some of the breaks with conservative orthodoxy in the Trump era are notable.

If you think of the GOP as being broadly wary of government intervention into the economy, its been striking to watch the Trump administration try very hard to prop up the coal industry even as the rise of natural gas and other alternative fuel sources have reduced the need for coal. The administrations limits on travel from certain countries and cuts in the number of refugees who are entering the U.S. have affected Muslims most, suggesting that the GOPs long-championing of religious freedom is now really just about defending the values of Christian and Jewish people. On trade policy, Trump imposed tariffs on China and other nations, and after those nations retaliated by making it harder for U.S. farmers to sell their goods abroad, the administration gave direct financial aid to farmers.

The Republican Party has traditionally favored few tariffs, limited government intervention in the economy and not giving government money directly to people in lieu of them earning it through work. Its recent actions seem out of character for a party organized around a particular ideology.

But if you think of the GOP as being organized around identity groups, these policies hang together quite well. The clear beneficiaries of the Trump administrations actions have been businesses and corporations whose leaders back the president (such as those in the coal industry), conservative Christians, farmers, gun rights enthusiasts, people wary of increases in the number of foreign-born Americans and Islam, people wary of movements like Black Lives Matter and MeToo, pro-Israel activists and residents of rural areas.

Of course, Im not the first person to notice any of this. The journalist Ron Brownstein refers to the GOP as the coalition of restoration, trying to fight against a coalition of transformation led by Democrats. Robert Jones, head of the Public Religion Research Institute, has described Trump as the defender of a white Christian America that sees itself in decline. In a recent speech, Attorney General Willam Barr praised the Judeo-Christian values that have made this country great and warned that irreligion and secular values are being forced on people of faith. All three of those formulations describe a complicated mix of identity and ideology.

Some values and preferences that were always there, like racial resentment, rural resentment, nationalism, are being amplified and others, like free markets, are being diminished, Hans Noel, a scholar on political parties who teaches at Georgetown University, told me.

Allegiance to Trump is becoming more important to what it means to be conservative, he added, But post-Trump, that change may persist, with a conservatism that is more populist and nationalist.

You might argue that this was always the Republican Party that the GOP of Ronald Reagan and the two Bush presidents was similarly organized around conservative identity groups and not ideology. Perhaps the Bushes downplayed that dynamic for electoral reasons and to be politically correct, and therefore presented themselves as, say, more liberal on racial issues than the partys base voters really wanted. Maybe Trump has simply stripped away the artifice. And you could certainly also argue that the Trump administration, particularly its aggressive push to reduce the number of people on Medicaid, is quite ideologically conservative on many issues.

Notably, Hopkins mostly disagrees with me, arguing that there have been some shifts in the Trump era but that the GOP has not fundamentally changed.

His racial appeals are more common, more central and more overt, and he is more likely than most Republicans to simply be misleading or dishonest about what his policies are, he told me. But his appeals to patriotism, nationalism and nostalgia for an idealized past are very much in line with traditional conservative rhetoric, and he increasingly speaks the language of small government and capitalism.

I think those arguments have merit. I dont think that the Republican Party has abandoned ideology in favor of identity completely. But it does seem like identity is playing a bigger and clearer role than it did a decade ago.

Lets move to the Democrats. Polling shows that a rising number of Democrats view themselves as liberal now half of the party, compared to less than a third in the early 2000s. Democratic voters are increasingly likely to support liberal positions such as allowing more immigrants into the country and the government playing a role in helping Americans pay for their health care.

But the shift among Democrats is even more evident among activists and elites. Groups like Black Lives Matter, Demand Justice, the Sunrise Movement, Planned Parenthood and the newly-revived Poor Peoples Campaign are pushing the Democratic Party in a more ideological direction. That ideology is perhaps best defined by a push for equality across a lot of realms and particularly around ethnicity and race, gender, income, sexual orientation and wealth.

I think this is why Kamala Harris struggled to win the support of young, liberal black Democratic activists in her presidential run. She often tried to connect with them on identity (as a woman of color), but many of them were more interested in Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who both made taking strong stands on racial and wealth inequality central to their candidacies.

What makes the Green New Deal notable is that its a solution to climate change on explicitly social-democratic grounds, said Daniel Schlozman, an expert on parties who teaches at Johns Hopkins University. He was referring to the fact that the Green New Deal is an environmental proposal but also includes liberal goals like guaranteeing all Americans a job and the ability to join a labor union.

I dont want to overstate this shift, which I think is largely about party activists and a certain bloc of the partys elected officials, including Sanders and Warren. You might argue both that Democrats have long been obsessed with equality and that the party still functions effectively as a bunch of different groups joined together. And its worth noting that about half of Democratic voters identify as moderate or conservative, not liberal. Another reason to be cautious about the idea that Democrats are more ideological than ever is that the leader in the national polls in the Democratic primary, Joe Biden, is running much more as a coalition-style candidate than an ideologically driven one. He seems to be trying to capture the nomination by combining the support of blacks, Catholics, liberals, moderates, Latinos, union members and whites, as opposed to running as an explicitly moderate or liberal candidate.

I think theres a ways yet to go before the trends we see add up to a fundamentally ideological Democratic Party, said Hopkins. But he added, Sanders and Warren are trying to redefine the party, and theres a chance they or their political descendants could succeed in the future.

Indeed, I think the party is changing, even if it has not fully changed. There has been a huge shift over the last five years by the Democratic Partys officials, activists and even its voters in terms of viewing racial inequality as being principally about societal problems like racism (rather than shortcomings in effort by black people). A greater focus on gender equality in the party has forced Democrats like Biden to cast aside support for limits on abortions that some of these pols had embraced in the past. Biden often criticizes the rising left wing in his party, but the former vice presidents actual campaign positions are solidly liberal hes against the death penalty, and supports allowing federal funding to be used for abortions, expanding Medicare to many more Americans, free community college, and decriminalizing marijuana. In many ways, Biden (and Pete Buttigieg) are essentially conceding to the rising power of the ideological left and simply offering a milder version of its ideas than Sanders and Warren.

Why do these party changes matter? First, they explain why fights between the elites and activists within both parties are so intense. Never-Trump Republicans such as Bill Kristol deeply believe they are defending the true Republican Party. Old-style Democrats such as Biden think they are defending the true Democratic Party. Secondly, these shifts explain why some seemingly-on-the rise politicians are struggling. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan was trying to find some middle course between the more ideologically conservative old-style GOP and the more identity-driven Trump version and just couldnt. I think Harris tried both to connect with the rising activists in her party and the more traditional folks and managed to excite neither group.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, these shifts matter because America is to some extent in a partisan civil war, and we essentially have three competing views on how to end it: A Biden/Bush/Kristol style approach that downplays divisions among Americas various identity groups and reaches for more compromises; a Sanders/Warren approach of resetting America along more equal lines; and a Trump/Barr vision that is decidedly Judeo-Christian and favors maintaining traditional norms over upsetting them to expand equality.

Read the rest here:
What Unites Republicans May Be Changing. Same With Democrats. - FiveThirtyEight

THE BOOKS, BY JOHN SELF

Fifty Shades of Grey trilogyBy EL James, 2012The dirty books about a sadomasochistic relationship that spawned a million monochrome imitators broke all the rules of publishing. They started out as Twilight fan fiction published online, then became self-published ebooks; the three books, once picked up by a mainstream publisher, appeared just weeks apart, and they were completely criticproof. If EL James seemed subsequently to be short of inspiration rewriting two of the books from the antagonists viewpoint her place in 21st-century pop culture, and the second-hand bookshops of Ireland, was already assured.

Solar BonesBy Mike McCormack, 2016Long-time fans of Mike McCormack (who once wrote a story about police arresting the only man in Ireland not to have written a memoir) were thrilled when his comeback novel proved a huge success, bagging the Goldsmiths Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. Its flowing one-sentence structure of a dead man reviewing his life showed that experimental fiction can be popular. It was a triumph of discovery and smart publishing by Tramp Press, showing how small, independent Irish houses can take on the big boys and win. It also seems to have been influential in the Man Booker Prize changing its rules to allow Irish publishers to enter.

Gangsta GrannyBy David Walliams, 2011David Walliams is a publishing phenomenon, having written 11 of the UKs 50 bestselling books of the decade. This was his breakthrough childrens novel, which capitalised on his Roald Dahl-inspired formula of gross humour, wicked adults and Queen Elizabeth. Walliams is a representative of the ever-popular category of authors who are better known for something else. But dont be downhearted, bookworms: your chosen medium retains such an air of aspiration that everyone, even the YouTuber and Instagram influencer, still wants to be a writer.

My Brilliant FriendBy Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein, 2012The rise of literature in translation, from about 3 per cent of books sold in the UK and Ireland at the start of the decade to about 6 per cent now, is exemplified by Elena Ferrantes four-volume Neapolitan saga of female friendship, which started quietly in 2012 and has now sold 10 million copies worldwide. So popular have the books proved that when her first novel since completing the series was published, last month, British newspapers rushed to be the first to review it even though its published only in Italian at present.

The Handmaids TaleBy Margaret Atwood, 1985One of the most influential books of the decade was published almost 35 years ago. The Handmaids Tale, acclaimed in its day but never a bestseller, gained new life with the recent television adaptation and Margaret Atwoods 2019 Booker-winning sequel, The Testaments. But its popularity this decade also spoke of fears for an uncertain world where the political climate seems closer to Atwoods totalitarian state of Gilead than ever an impulse that also saw George Orwells 70-year-old novel Nineteen Eighty-Four become a bestseller in the month after Donald Trumps inauguration as US president.

LordeReleased in 2013 when she was 16, Lordes debut album, Pure Heroine, undercut the cheesiness of lyrics steeped in brand-laden braggadocio, with Royals. It was also probably the first album that could truly be viewed through a post-Body Talk lens. By the time of Melodrama, a collaboration with one of the producers of the decade, Jack Antonoff, her dominance was copper-fastened. It could be argued that not since the mid-20th century have teenagers been so central to sociopolitical and cultural discourse. Lorde represented a shift in what is cool: vulnerability, ennui, resistance, resilience, so-many-feelings, and the equity of the emotional labour of teendom relative to adult struggles.

Kanye WestPopulism, narcissism, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, egomania, mental illness, celebrity, reality television, delusions of grandeur, outbursts, controversy, red hats, zebra trainers, paparazzi, memes, power, Adidas, stage design, Yeezus, Twitter, SNL, the 2015 Brit Awards, fashion weeks, Glastonbury, Good, The Life of Pablo, Christianity, race, gender, Watch the Throne, Chicago, Calabasas, architecture, Coachella, Sunday Service, Taylor Swift, ye, slides, drill, Kids See Ghosts, opera, rage, insecurity, feuds, outbursts, gospel, Tidal, Vogue, manifestos, Cruel Summer, presidents, spiralling, cancel culture, forgiveness, deep dives, Obama, Grammys, Kardashians, CAPS LOCK, despair, hope, art, fear, fragility, genius.

BeyoncAlthough Beyonc is criminally under-recognised when it comes to many of the industrys big awards, particularly for her albums, she still dominated this decade. From her era-defining performances at Coachella, the Super Bowl and Glastonbury to evolving the very concept of concept albums with both Beyonc and Lemonade, it would be hard to know who to carve next to her on the Mount Rushmore of popular music, given how out on her own she is. With her astute, magpie-like approach to visual influences, her once-in-a-generation voice, her flawless moves, and her songwriting of incredible prowess and originality, she is everything.

StormzyStormzy stands on the shoulders of the grime godfathers and -mothers, but once he got up there he ascended to levels no UK rapper had reached before. This bonafide pop stars headline performance at Glastonbury this year was a baseline for English popular culture from which the next decade will be measured. Its telling that he also took that moment to shout out those who have come up before and alongside him. Britains strain of hip hop has boomeranged to influence the sounds emerging from North America, particularly Drake, and in Ireland, but his talent, humility, humour and sense of duty to community are all his own.

The Odd Future incubatorIn many ways the 2010s were the decade of the collective. As young artists picked through the fragments of a fractured music-industry infrastructure, new ways of organising, releasing, creating, promoting and merchandising were born. The Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All collective have not just raised some of the most intriguing artists of the decade Tyler, the Creator, Syd Tha Kyd, Frank Ocean, Earl Sweatshirt but also manifested a genie-out-of-the-bottle cultural moment. Their shows, music and online presence were hip hops contemporary punk moment, of which there will always be a before and after, and which the 2010s solidified.

Game of Thrones2011-19Winter came and went. Some nasty things were done for love. Every method of murder, rape, torture, incest and resurrection was graphically explored. Lannisters sent their regards (and always paid their debts). Wights, white walkers, dragons, giants and a gazillion extras in leather and pelts got stuck with the pointy end. Hodor held the door. Jon Snow knew nothing and, almost 10 years later, comprehended less. Books were sidelined. Fans clashed. Starbucks entered the frame The show of the decade was a sordid and sprawling fantasy so big it felt as if we were living it. And now our watch is ended.

The Killing2007, 2011-12Although it premiered in 2007, Forbrydelsen didnt reach anglophone audiences until 2011 not that the -phone mattered much by then. Here began the concentration-sharpening joys of drama with subtitles. The epitome of Scandi crime drama ushering in The Bridge, Borgen, you name it The Killing introduced audiences to Sarah Lund, a complicated detective with an obsessional drive and a hardy knit sweater. Like The Wire, it wove its narrative through different spheres police, politicians, criminals, military but at a breakneck pace, encouraging other detective shows, such as Line of Duty and Happy Valley, to forge new moulds for its own deepening heroes and villains.

Fleabag2016-19As a rule, plays dont work well on television; the stories operate by different rules. Fleabag, on the other hand, a solo show that became a phenomenon, never cared much for rules. Lena Dunhams Girls might have been more attuned to the zeitgeist young, female, privileged, comically flawed but Phoebe Waller-Bridge found a way to make her own character more conspiratorial, more charming, more alarming, more intimate, more fun. Much of that involved her sly asides, but the characters, the cast, the rococo forbidden fantasies (Kneel! commands Andrew Scotts hot priest) and the sexual frankness were desire and guilt brokered by a wit that knew no bounds.

The Leftovers2014-17The showrunner Damon Lindelof began the decade with the disappointing fizzle of Lost. He ends it with the dazzling promise of Watchmen (which, like Legion, asks us to take comic-book-inspired work seriously). But in between came this gem of a series, which even in the reported golden era of scripted television brought the medium to whole new places. The Rapture or Departure has happened, spiriting away 2 per cent of the worlds population and leaving the unchosen to pick up the pieces. The show, though, kept shattering them, spinning them and making daring mosaics in its absorbing combination of uncanny events, deep emotion, wild comedy and twisting philosophy.

Love/Hate2010-14Is it really five years since Love/Hate ended, finally loosening its grip on the national conversation? If that seems unlikely it may say something about just how game-changing was Stuart Carolans heroically vivid drama of Irelands criminal underworld. A combination of budget and ambition gave us star performances (Aiden Gillen, Brian Gleeson), breakout performances (Robert Sheehan, Aoibhinn McGinnity, Charlie Murphy, Killian Scott, Peter Coonan) and, of course, indelible performances (Tom Vaughan-Lawlors extraordinary everycrook, Nidge). So what if it lost the spark of its earlier years, as though decline, even in depiction, were contagious? It remains the high-water mark for Irish television. Coolaboola.

Blue Is the Warmest ColourAbdellatif Kechiche, 2013There are lessons about our times in the strange history of Abdellatif Kechiches powerful, brilliantly acted lesbian love story. Loud were the cheers when, to no enormous surprise, it won the Palme dOr at Cannes and, for the first time, two actors La Seydoux and Adle Exarchopoulos received honorary Palmes. When accusations emerged of abusive behaviour on set the atmosphere around the film soured. Blue Is the Warmest Colour, conspicuous by its absence from ongoing best-of-decade lists, feels even less fashionable in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo fightback. Yet it remains the same passionate film that took the Palme six years ago. Posterity will decide.

The LobsterYorgos Lanthimos, 2015Throughout the decade, various Irish film companies moved towards high-end international coproduction. A year before securing four Oscar nominations with Lenny Abrahamsons Room, Element Pictures showed what was possible when it premiered Yorgos Lanthimoss first English-language feature to delirious acclaim at Cannes. Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz are set loose in a world where, if individuals fail to couple up, they are transformed into the animal of their choice. The Greek director denies his films contain any explicit message, but this grim, funny, surreal masterpiece does feel like an argument against conformity. The ideal film for a period of uncertainty.

Lady BirdGreta Gerwig, 2017The first best-director Oscar of the decade went to a woman, Kathryn Bigelow, for The Hurt Locker. Yet only one woman has even been nominated in the succeeding years. The better news is that that honour was for Greta Gerwigs delightful, resonant Lady Bird. Saoirse Ronan is incandescent as a teenager who should be infuriating a bit pretentious, very stroppy but who emerges as a hero to compare with Huck Finn or Scout Finch. The wonder is the way the film acknowledges the traumas of adolescence while still admitting the excitement and promise of that condition. The interplay between Ronan and, as her mom, Laurie Metcalfe is flawless.

Get OutJordan Peele, 2017In previous decades Hollywood tended to form its debates on race into pious lectures that were less fun than double geography homework. Jordan Peeles genius was to work cutting criticism of complacent white values into the most compelling of horror yarns. By the way, I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could, Bradley Whitford says to his daughters black boyfriend. There was some grumbling when the film was entered as a comedy at the Golden Globes, but it really is darkly hilarious throughout. That darkness is heightened by a closing adjacency to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Marriage StoryNoah Baumbach, 2019This was the decade when the means of delivery again became a topic of discourse. Noah Baumbachs terrific break-up movie deserves mention for its old-fashioned cinematic values. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are terrific as a Bohemian couple breaking up traumatically at either ends of the United States. Robbie Ryans cinematography finds yawning gaps in the smallest spaces. On a more prosaic level, Marriage Story offered confirmation that Netflix, which produced the film, now sits where the old studios used to sit. It played in cinemas. A few short weeks later, the picture was generating online debate as it arrived on the streaming service. Welcome to the 2020s.

See the original post:
Fifty Shades, Kanye, Love/Hate: The films, TV, books and music that defined the decade - The Irish Times

A Sacramento-area school district is responding to questions from the American Civil Liberties Union after an elementary school teacher allegedly threw away student posters about the Black Lives Matter movement.

The teacher assigned a project in September related to causes that students at San Juan Unified School District care about and changes they want to see in school.

But when four students created art projects in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, NBC News affiliate KCRA reported that the teacher allegedly decided to throw those posters away and made students do the assignment over again.

The lesson plan came from a parent volunteer for the class, who titled the project Art can manifest in activism can manifest in our communities and school, according to a letter from the ACLU Foundation of Northern California to the San Juan Unified School District.

Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.

The class teacher, who allegedly found the Black Lives Matter posters were overtly political and inappropriate, ultimately threw away those projects and banned the volunteer from returning to the class, the ACLU letter said.

The volunteer said the teacher asked "her whether students were getting shot at the school and demanded answers regarding why a presentation on Black Lives Matter was relevant to Del Paso Manor Elementary," according to the ACLU letter.

"(The teacher) pressed our parent to say why she felt that Black Lives Matter was an appropriate topic to be discussed at school, and also to explain how Black Lives Matter was something they should be talking about when there's no shootings that happened at the school," wrote Abre Conner, a staff attorney with ACLU Foundation of Northern California.

The ACLU claims that the teacher's actions amounted to an attempt to censor the parent volunteer's free speech. It also noted that under California's Education Code, student freedom of speech is protected.

By censoring and punishing the students, the school violated their constitutional free speech rights, and sent the damaging message that supporting Black lives is not welcome in their classrooms, Conner said in the statement.

The school district maintains the assignment was for students to produce artwork related to changes they wanted to see within the school, not larger social issues. Those who engaged in larger commentary were asked to redo the assignment, the district said.

"It is inconsistent with our values and never our intent or desire for any student to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome to discuss issues that are important to them," the district said in a statement. "We sincerely apologize if this experience made any student feel such discomfort. Censoring a student's assigned work because of its content would not be acceptable."

The ACLU is asking the district to provide a public apology, allow the parent to return to her role as a classroom volunteer, hang student Black Lives Matter posters during a spring art display, provide curriculum and events that include Black Lives Matter and create cultural and sensitivity training for staff as well as parent engagement training.

Phil McCausland is an NBC News reporter focused on the rural-urban divide.

Go here to read the rest:
A California teacher threw away student art on Black Lives Matter, the ACLU says - NBC News