Scott Ross, animate candy corn
lecturer, wustl | africanist anthro | humanitarianism, infrastructure, war, media, sound | gwu phd | hella left | he/him | arizonan in exile | wants to be your friend
- It strikes me that at least some of the asylum parolees ICE is targeting to detain in northern cities and shipping to Texas detention centers may themselves have been bussed out of Texas border facilities to DC, NYC, and other cities beginning in 2022. Just a horrific cycle of state trafficking.
- In solidarity with the statewide shutdown in Minnesota protesting ICE/CBP, I'm sharing some of the most insightful reads about the powerful, beautiful community response there - these pieces should inspire similar collective action everywhere. please link to others.
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View full threadReally great interview with Robin D.G. Kelley on state violence, popular resistance to it, the reformist distraction, and the abolitionist imperative, in @bostonreview.bsky.social : www.bostonreview.net/articles/ren...
- “You can only preach against ICE for so long before God calls you to get out of the pulpit and get to the streets.” Hundreds of clergy from across the country mobilized in Minneapolis—and will be taking lessons learned back with them: religionnews.com/2026/01/22/h...
- The community warning, defense, and mutual aid we're seeing in Minneapolis is the product of years of responding to state violence. Amazing essay from @nplusonemag.com : www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
- "ICE Watch works because it surrounds men seeking approval with people loudly expressing their disapproval. And the noise has the added benefit of drawing large crowds of bystanders who can quickly outnumber the ICE agents." www.ms.now/opinion/minn...
- The horrors of ICE/CBP violence are very real - but the scale, organizing, beauty, and bravery of community defense and resistance are too.
- Good question. It would be great if we could find some ways to rebuild some of those networks (while also avoiding what happened with Twitter in which it could all be destroyed with a change in ownership). Many anthros are on here...it's a matter of finding/creating ways to bring folks together.
- What would it take to make #AnthroSky what #AnthroTwitter was?
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View full threadThis is a great back and forth and gets at many of our tensions at SCA - not just about meeting people where they're at (e.g. tiktok, insta). Twitter had a sort of critical mass that then drew people in (many joined Twitter *to join* academic convos).
- How to replicate that and whether that is even desired by rising generation of anthros are two diff questions. The entire social media landscape is just so different now in terms of mood, what one does on it, kinds of engagement imo
- "How does it feel to learn through a genocide? How does one teach on the same campus where student protest is forcibly quelled?" Eager to dive into this experimental dialogue in @amanthro.bsky.social on pedagogy and praxis from the grounds of the Gaza encampments: doi.org/10.1111/aman...
- "As of December 19, the known death toll from 28 lethal U.S. strikes on civilian vessels [in the Caribbean] is 104." www.wola.org/analysis/fac...
- Horror of horrors, this is absolute evil.
- Powerful piece about WashU international student frustrations with the university's lack of support in a time of immense uncertainty and potential danger: www.studlife.com/news/2025/12...
- A new pattern has emerged out of the repression of pro-Palestinian protests: "the Zionist provocateur spoiling for a fight, the police gunning for pro-Palestine students, a protester taken to the ER, and the university adopting wholesale the narrative spun by pro-Israel actors."
- This article explores the violent and repressive environment at post-encampment UCLA, but a variation of this applies at many university campuses now: jewishcurrents.org/portrait-of-...
- For Black Studies, Critical University Studies folks: Our AFAS Dept is looking for a postdoc (1 yr, maybe 2) as part of a seminar on “Black Studies, Academic Freedom, and the Future of the American University.” Due Feb 1, details here: apply.interfolio.com/177073
- Some good news that shows faculty can still shape the university when they move and act together. This move would have consolidated AFAS, WGSS, Global Studies, American Studies, Jewish Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, and Education
- Student journalists and columnists have been relentless on this beat, glad they get to break this news: www.studlife.com/news/2025/10...
- new zine circulating campus just hours after the Chancellor stated that WashU is engaged in "dialogue" with Trump admin about future of higher ed
- The WashU Faculty Senate Council (elected representatives across the whole university) have issued a statement emphatically opposing the Compact after their meeting with the Provost and the Chancellor's statement yesterday:
- Two WashU professors are in @stltoday.com against the Compact: "This isn't really an offer — it's a bait and switch. The administration is asking WashU to make costly sacrifices in exchange for vapor." www.stltoday.com/opinion/colu...
- Gross.
- Great and immediate response from our local AAUP chapter, alongside those from across the country. sites.wustl.edu/aaup/ "The alleged offer is pure political interference in higher education, and it blatantly opposes the mission of the University."
- Great reporting by our student paper too: www.studlife.com/news/2025/10...
- "We now have armed soldiers from the state of Texas eagerly volunteered by their governor to impose the president’s will on the citizens of Illinois. I don’t want to be alarmist, but this is an emergency." www.thebulwark.com/p/emergency-...
- "There is no crisis in Chicago that requires the National Guard. To the extent that there is civil instability in Chicago it has been caused by Trump’s surge of federal agents into the city and their lawless assault on the citizens of Chicago." Some examples:
- This essay is a really succinct and important read. The manufactured crisis in Chicago is an attempt to use state violence to justify more state violence to oppress whole cities, breaking every norm about democracy. www.thebulwark.com/p/emergency-...
- Shit just comes coming
- More here: www.studlife.com/news/2025/10...
- "There is no doubt that the Trump administration has wielded Title VI with the goals of discrediting institutions of higher education, undermining academic freedom and institutional autonomy, and unmooring the Civil Rights Act from its foundational commitments to addressing structures...
- ...of discrimination that prevent or limit educational access. The Trump administration’s attempt to unmake the Civil Rights Act by hijacking the language of discrimination is nothing less than an attempt to rewrite the history of the nation."
- From @aaup.org's new report on Title VI and academic freedom: www.aaup.org/reports-publ...
- Another must-read response to Ezra Klein's "Charlie Kirk did politics the right way" argument, this from @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social in @bostonreview.bsky.social on political correctness, stigma, and shame as fundamental to living together.
- How Can We Live Together? www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...
- Oh nothing to see here, just a Missouri U.S. Senator spouting white and Christian nationalist rhetoric about how America is only for descendants of "Western" "European" "settlers" and non-white immigrants are not American: www.dailysignal.com/2025/09/02/s...
- As this column summarizes, Schmitt's speech is "full blood and soil" nationalism, refuting ideas about equality and opportunity and doubling down on white supremacy: missouriindependent.com/2025/09/15/m...
- "Over the past 23 months, Israeli forces have killed nearly 3,000 people attempting to get aid in the Gaza Strip and wounded almost 20,000 others." New @newhumanitarian report with open database and timeline of aid killings in Gaza: www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigatio...
- "Many of the facile defenses of Kirk and his legacy are predicated on the idea that it’s acceptable to spread hateful ideas advocating for the persecution of perceived enemies as long you dress them up in a posture of debate. This is just class privilege." www.thenation.com/article/poli...
- Israeli commander says that the IDF has killed more than 200,000 people in Gaza - 10% of its population - and has not been constrained by the law one time: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
- Charlie Kirk Was Not Practicing Politics the Right Way: www.404media.co/charlie-kirk...
- Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity: www.aaup.org/seven-theses...
- In addition to their redistricting attempt to gain a seat in Congress, Missouri Republicans are seeking to make citizen-led initiatives more difficult to pass. MO voters recently overruled the GOP statewide on abortion, minimum wage, marijuana, sick leave. missouriindependent.com/2025/09/04/a...
- Incredibly bleak how half this country is ready to gleefully cheer on state violence repeatedly, anytime, anywhere so long as it's against brown people or uppity activists they don't like. Every day this society sinks further into fascist hell.
- "A famine declaration is not an anticipatory warning; it means that a deadly trajectory has already taken hold." @jeremykonyndyk.bsky.social refutes the lies and bad faith misinformation being trotted out in defense of famine and genocide in Gaza: www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...
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- so glad this is how i found you on bsky
- this semester's first-years were born the year I started college you're welcome
- "even as a wide range of essential American institutions—universities like UChicago, but also hospitals and health insurers—increasingly sacrifice their duties to society on the altar of asset accumulation, they fail at accumulating assets." stanfordreview.org/uchicago-los...
- my AI policy might be a little agro 🤷♂️
- “What does a human slowly going insane look like to a corporation? It looks like an additional monthly user.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/t...
- Wesley Bell @wesleybell.bsky.social, fresh back from his AIPAC-funded field trip to Israel amid its ongoing genocide, got an earful last night from his constituents at his first townhall: www.stlpr.org/government-p...
