Gina Harris's Blog, page 5
July 17, 2025
All kinds of action: Means and motives
I was not impressed with people throwing soup on a painting.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c243v5m0r0lo
I admit that the future of the planet is more important than any individual work of art, but what is the purpose of this particular attack? Because they are oil paintings?
If you hate what the oil industry destroys, is destruction -- especially not specifically targeted at the oil industry -- the best way to object?
To be fair, the paintings weren't really damaged. Great, but did anyone look at that action and think, yes, we need to stop oil!
As much as I acknowledge that well-thought out and executed actions might be dismissed as tantrums by people who are against the cause, this still comes off more like a tantrum than anything else.
I also read about stink bombs and throwing pies... yes, I see the temptation to hurt the pride of destructive people, but it still seems not likely to be productive.
I admit to feeling some sympathy for Muntadhar Al-Zaidi, who threw shoes at George W. Bush. You know how King said "A riot is the language of the unheard"? The shoe throwing feels like that to me, that there was so much pent-up frustration with no outlet.
I still don't think it was productive. Bush was on his way out of office. You could make a reasonable case that he should have been brought up on war crimes, but this didn't do it. Saddam Hussein being horrible was probably helpful, though also the US has a tendency to not be held accountable, which has not been good for us.
There were people who were cheered by Al-Zaidi's action, and unity can be valuable. Still, the main result of it was him getting a beating and some imprisonment, then donations which he said he would use to do good, but I can't see any evidence that he did good.
(He was someone who believed both parties were the same, so there's a kind of fatalism in that which can make it hard to get things done.)
Maybe when all you know how to do is attack, desire to improve isn't enough.
That leads to one more thing I have been thinking for a few months now:
Luigi Mangione isn't a hero; Brian Thompson isn't a martyr.
It is not surprising that when health care becomes so expensive that it requires insurance, and those insurance companies are for profit, that they become evil. These days that seems almost inevitable.
It does sound like United Health Care was worse. That affected many people, including people of means who don't think problems like that are supposed to affect them.
Killing one person did not cause any reform. It caused some CEOs to feel fear, but that just led to more persecution of poor people mouthing off and increased security. He caused pain, but not productively. He allowed some really bad glee from people who are supposed to care about others.
That was destructive too.
And while it probably would have happened sooner or later anyway, Trump went from a moratorium on the death penalty under Biden to orders to pursue the death penalty whenever possible:
("Whenever possible" is not exactly how it is worded, but it seems to be the intent and it is not hard to imagine new legislation coming that takes advantage of it.)
Mangione wasn't trying to improve the system or help anyone; he just wanted to punish someone for his own pain. That's not proletarian heroics; that's a tantrum.
It's also about right from a white man who comes from money and went to an Ivy League school.
Yesterday I gave a formula for considering action:
What is my goal?What is my power?How can I use that power toward my goal?Those are practical considerations, but there are others that may seem more sentimental, but are actually just as practical:
Who is the target? Do they have the power to make decisions?Is this likely to have a good impact?Is there a potential bad impact? Can I do this with a good heart?You have to fight hate with love.
If you can't quite feel love for the haters, then focus on loving the people you want to help.
It's far too easy to become them.
July 16, 2025
Forms of direct action: What makes it direct?
I have been thinking about various things that are not showing up on the list, exactly, and yet they seem related.
Mainly that's for working against capitalism, but some of the things that come up when researching direct action -- strikes, tax resistance, counter-economics -- those seem like they could be anti-capitalist.
I had read something about Greenpeace sometimes using banners to draw awareness. That is less direct than taking a boat out and disrupting whaling, but it could still count.
I had initially thought it would be something where direct action is more in your face, but then there could be organizing that was more behind the scenes. So, perhaps the banner would be direct action but sharing posts on Facebook about the same issue would be... would you call it indirect action?
The Wikipedia article calls direct action "economic or political behavior in which participants use agency -- for example economic or physical power -- to achieve their goals."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_action
I like this definition because of my focus on goals anyway, but it also leaves the door open to a wide range of activities.
When I started this series, it was largely due to a frustration with protests. I felt like they weren't effective, but also that people were forgetting the many options there are.
With no regrets for the ones I have written about, I like that additional potential action that is almost unlimited.
Of course, there are limits. A strike can jeopardize your income. Tax resistance can result in fines and jail.
It is important to think about all of those things before doing them.
Maybe that definition is the part of the formula for figuring that out:
What is my goal?What is my power?How can I use that power toward my goal?Although some of the protests were specifically against ICE, I feel like the overall theme was "I hate Trump being president!" (I share that sentiment.)
None of those protests did anything to move him from office.
I think the best hope of getting him out of office is voter enfranchisement, especially in red states. As many terrible people as there are who celebrate Trump, they are the minority. With corporate support, they have nonetheless been very good at dis-enrollment, voter intimidation, gerrymandering, and probably at least a little tampering.
Georgia, in the South, turned blue from exactly that kind of work.
It won't be enough, because all of the offices matter. Improving the Supreme Court won't be easy. People who may not be hopeless but still voted for Trump or third-party candidates will need work.
There's a lot to do, and there are lots of ways to work toward it.
But I want to get back to those "pranks".
July 15, 2025
Forms of direct action: Pranks and hacks
When I was looking at the various forms of direct action, I was surprised to see pranks. Then I remembered the soup on the Van Gogh.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c243v5m0r0lo
That would send things off in a completely different direction, so I am going to get back to that another day.
Otherwise there were mentions of stink, critter, and paint bombs, plus pieing people in the face.
Those all seem pretty juvenile and possibly dangerous, so I wasn't finding that particularly inspirational.
Then, with hacktivism, that is so far outside my area of knowledge that I don't even feel qualified to comment on it, except that I know that a lot of doxxers are doing terrible things while feeling like they are great.
That all goes into looking at motives and means, which should be the focus of Thursday's post.
I'm not just going to skip it over, though, for two reasons.
One is a mention of The Yes Men, who have used some impersonation and web pages to do at least some things that seem like they might have helped.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men
Admittedly, acquiring a domain that is not currently in use does not require hacking, but it can be effective. Therefore, I suspect there might be hacking options that would lead to being more effective.
The other thing that is making me think again was something I read in Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation by Edward Humes.
In writing about the difficulties of improving traffic, where things like added lanes and more traffic cops regularly fail, he said France had put mimes at intersections who would mock those driving badly.
I know, mime implementation sounds so extreme, but it worked.
From the footage I have seen of French traffic, it's hard to believe anyone would even notice. I have to assume that the success is due largely to attention being drawn and maximizing the social scorn. If you cut one person off, they may be the only person to notice. Once the mime points it out, everyone there knows.
I'm not saying that would work here in the States. First of all, France would surely have a greater supply of mimes available; I am not jealous of that.
Also, if the issue is being called out for bad behavior and feeling some shame for that, our society may have lost some susceptibility for that over the past few years.
However, it reminds me that creativity can come up with surprising wins.
I don't have any suggestions in this category, and even if I had a great hacking idea I would not be able to carry it out.
That may not be true for you.
Do think about what you are doing, and why, and potential consequences to you and others. (A lot of pranks and hacks could carry legal penalties.)
Don't stop thinking.
July 11, 2025
Pride articles for June
As much pressure as I have felt in trying to stay on top of these various months (and I am not currently planning on anything for August), it has also been kind of affirming for me that I have been able to find material.
As I started July's Disability Pride Month, I thought I had my first duplicate with Harriet Tubman, whom I was sure that I had used for Black History Month.
Going back to check, I had used the Combahee River Raid, not Tubman herself.
Of course, then I had not marked the date on Laverne Cox's post and posted twice, so I ended up having to post an article on July 1st to feel like I was really being complete. I mean, I did have two people with the article on Ellen Corby and Will Geer, but June only has 30 days when some months have 31... I think it ended up being fine.
(I do appreciate that posting about Keith Haring gave me another chance to say something negative about AI. I think that is going to need a separate post.)
Anyway, the wonderful point there is that while Black History Month had men and women and Women's History Month had women of multiple races, and there was at least one queer and one disabled person in the Asian-American and Pacific Islander History Month articles, Pride Month is integrated as well!
(Only Women's History Month has an associated blog post at this time. There are drafts.)
There are men and women and transgender and Black and white and Asian-American, and that for all of these amazing people, I keep finding more.
The consistent message I am going to give is that people matter.
It doesn't even sound that radical, but look around.
My favorite post probably came when I was looking up Blackberri. His story had resonated with me back when I first reviewed him in 2021. I knew he was old, so it wasn't exactly a shock when he died (later that year, in fact), but I was the only person I knew who knew about him. It wasn't overpowering grief, but it was lonely. So then to see -- and I didn't expect to find anything, but I still looked -- a "Happy Heavenly Birthday" article that had just gone up, well, it mattered.
I was also glad to get a chance to spotlight Cleve Jones again, and know that he is still around, though not young. Looking him up after reading And the Band Played On where there was so much death, it seemed like a miracle that he was still alive, at that point 36 years after the book was published. Then it was Jones' book, When We Rise, that gave me the four lawmakers who had gained office before Harvey Milk, even if not as famously.
For the record, those are Elaine Noble, of Boston, first openly gay candidate elected to a state legislature; member of the Minnesota Senate Allen Spear, elected while closet but who came out and continued to serve shortly before Noble's election; Kathy Kozachenko, first openly gay candidate to successfully run for election, in this case to the Ann Arbor city council; and Nancy Wechsler, who along with Jerry DeGrieck was elected to the Ann Arbor city council while closeted, but they both came out while in office and before Kozachenko's win.
See, unless I missed it, Jones had not mentioned DeGrieck, but I planned on looking up the four, and then it turned out that Wechsler, Kozachenko, and DeGrieck were all UMich alumni from the article I found.
Some of the distinctions for the various "firsts" may seem minor, but often there is a progression being made, and steps are being taken all along.
Also, it kind of makes sense that a lot of those firsts are happening in a college town.
Anyway, for that one previous post this year where I listed articles, the title mentioned fighting erasure. In a year where USNS Harvey Milk is being renamed because this current administration can't stand anything short of complete fascist white supremacy, that fight is going to be ongoing.
Don't give up the ship.
June articles
6/1 Alan Turing: https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/magazines/cheshire/24329394.alan-turing-codebreakers-tragedy-triumphs/
6/2 Little Richard:https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/05/little-richard-anti-gay-died-queer-cultural-influence-overshadows-us/
6/3 Troy Perry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Perry
6/4 Anne Lister:https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/581234/gentleman-jack-anne-lister-facts
6/5 Louisa May Alcott:https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/05/little-women-author-louisa-may-alcott-transgender-man/
6/6 Bayard Rustin:https://www.history.com/articles/bayard-rustin-march-on-washington-openly-gay-mlk
6/7 Oscar Wilde:https://interestingliterature.com/2021/02/best-works-by-oscar-wilde-books-stories/
6/8 Blackberri:https://www.queerty.com/blackberri-profile-music-artists-activist-20250530/
6/9 Laverne Cox: https://www.them.us/story/laverne-cox-interview-career-hollywood
6/10 Posted Laverne Cox again :(
6/11 George Takei: https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/george-takei-recounts-his-coming-out-story-in-new-graphic-memoir-it-rhymes-with-takei-see-inside-exclusive/ar-AA1G5f91?ocid=BingNewsSerp
6/12 Paul Reubens: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/pee-wee-herman-creator-paul-reubens-documentary-coming-out
6/13 Ellen Corby and Will Geer: https://doyouremember.com/142128/grandma-grandpa-walton-gay
6/14 Harvey Milk:https://www.advocate.com/news/who-was-harvey-milk
6/15 Elaine Noble:https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/pride50-america-s-first-out-lawmaker-elaine-noble-n1010831
6/16 Allan Spear: https://www.advocate.com/news/2008/10/14/allan-spear-openly-gay-politician-dies-71
6/17 Kathy Kozachenko: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/meet-lesbian-who-made-political-history-years-harvey-milk-n1174941
6/18 Nancy Wechsler: https://alumni.umich.edu/michigan-alum/when-pride-prevailed/
6/20 Margarethe Cammermeyer: https://time.com/archive/6720598/i-just-dont-want-to-go-margarethe-cammermeyer/
6/21 The Laramie Project: https://playbill.com/article/an-oral-history-of-the-laramie-project-25-years-after-matthew-shepards-murder
6/22 Cleve Jones:https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/the-city/cleve-jones-says-he-fears-activism-legacy-could-be-reversed/article_99656955-2340-4884-9942-c8898fbb1f01.html
6/23 AIDs quilt: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/aids-memorial-quilt-now-online-180975370/
6/24 Freddie Mercury:https://www.intomore.com/culture/freddie-mercury-and-the-erasure-of-queerness-in-bohemian-rhapsody/
6/25 Emily Dickinson: https://montecristomagazine.com/arts/secret-daring-queer-poet-emily-dickinson
6/26 Alvin Ailey:https://www.istd.org/discover/news/queering-history-the-revelations-of-alvin-ailey/
6/27 James Baldwin: https://www.vice.com/en/article/james-baldwins-queerness-was-inseparable-from-his-blackness/
6/28 Sappho: https://www.thecollector.com/who-was-sappho-of-lesbos/
6/29 Audre Lorde: https://indepthnh.org/2024/11/19/audre-lorde-the-warrior-poet-of-justice-and-equity/
6/30 Adrienne Rich: https://english-studies.net/diving-into-the-wreck-by-adrienne-rich-a-critical-analysis/
7/1 Keith Haring: https://digestfromexperts.com/6395/keith-haring-unfinished-painting/
https://mymodernmet.com/artificial-intelligence-finishes-keith-harings-unfinished-painting/
July 10, 2025
Forms of direct action: The darker side
When you are looking up direct action options, it includes property destruction and vandalism.
Those things have been done, so it would be dishonest not to talk about them. There are some pretty important caveats to get into.
First of all, people are more important than plate glass. If windows get broken and it was associated with acts of violence and injustice against real human beings, the violence and the injustice are more important.
Focusing on the property damage is a way of siding with the property owners who are generally higher up in the power structure. If the structure is corrupt and built on oppression, that corruption and oppression needs to be called out clearly and consistently.
That being said, I can't think of a time when breaking windows has helped.
There have been times when groups have tried to sabotage the lumber industry and its bad practices, not by putting people in trees, but by hiding spikes there in order to damage the equipment. I am not necessarily against that, but it also has a good chance of injuring people.
I am pretty against that.
The people injured are probably not going to be the ones who make the decisions about clear-cutting and other destructive policies either; they are probably just people trying to make a living.
As they try and make their living in a way that is environmentally destructive, they may pick up some pretty terrible attitudes and be really unpleasant, but that is still not a reason to hurt them.
(And yet, the Unabomber did target people higher up the corporate ladder and I think he was wrong too.)
One important thing to remember is that once you set something in motion, you no longer have control over it. Even if you think you planned things really well, something that was only meant to cause a delay could cause maiming or death.
That doesn't change all of the previous points about considering whom will be affected and how the message will come out and if the action makes sense, but I hope it adds some perspective. You don't know if someone is going to get trampled or shot. Sometimes just being at a peaceful protest or working to help it stay peaceful may still get you shot, because there are people who disagree so much with that peaceful protest and its cause and they love their guns. June Knightly's murderer did get life in prison, but Kyle Rittenhouse is still out there and still has supporters.
If we want to do good things, we have to have a sense of responsibility, knowing not just that the end may not justify the means, but that the wrong means are likely to backfire in achieving that end.
Nelson Mandela's organization MK had plans to bomb power plants, communication lines, and military installations. They included protecting human life in those plans, and they only went to those plans after trying many other things.
Right now, where we have conservatives selling merch for a new concentration camp, the most noticeable thing becomes the delight in depraved cruelty. It's easy to be confident that you are not like that.
However, I promise you that on their way there was a lot of not caring about issues that were not as egregious but were still wrong.
We need to keep caring, even for pretty awful people, even as it can take some work figuring out what that looks like.
Sometimes when I am reading about medicine, I am amazed at the potential impact of some things that would seem very small. Concussions and being knocked unconscious are no joke and getting shot can't get shrugged off that easily, even by tough guys. (So, movies and television are lying to you.)
I also get amazed by the body's ability to heal, but life can be very fragile, and we need to remember that.
It is even more important that we remember that life is precious. Life is valuable. People matter.
That's something we can't afford to forget.
July 9, 2025
Forms of direct action: Occupation
I am using occupation as an umbrella term for many other types of action. The common thread is that it involves taking over a space to disrupt business as usual. That can range from street blockades to tree-sitting.
The most important thing to consider before planning this type of action is that it is almost certainly going to include trespassing and getting in the way of people making money. That means the risk of arrest and injury goes way up.
I recently learned more about tunneling and was kind of stunned that it's a thing:
https://edgeeffects.net/tunneling-activism/
As I pointed out yesterday, there are things that can definitely be worth arrest, injury, and even death, but it shouldn't be done lightly.
That forethought should include not just what price you are personally willing to pay, but also what you want to accomplish, whether this is an action that is likely to be helpful for that goal, or whether it can be effective but requires additional action.
Consider the most famous example of tree-sitting, Julia "Butterfly" Hill's occupation of 1000-year old redwood tree Luna for just over two years.
First of all, there is a big personal cost there, in isolation, physical danger, and deprivation. Not everyone would be willing to do that, even without knowing how long it would take.
Was it likely to work? That can be hard to know. You can question whether it was really about the one tree or the surrounding trees, as the final resolution included the trees in a 200-foot buffer zone. That is still a limited enough area that it is something the lumber company could reasonably agree to. I am sure that helped, even if it still took two years.
Something else that might have helped was a landslide caused by clear-cutting that had destroyed eight homes in the area. There was a level of public concern about the problem that could be built on.
Part of the planning very much involved the public. In addition to the bare basics, like how Hill would eat and sleep and maintain health in the tree, they had to figure out interviews and publicity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Butterfly_Hill
Any public protest should be designed to get attention and clearly communicate the message and demands.
Speaking of publicity, I recently watched a documentary about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Footage of Mark Ruffalo really clarified for me the value of celebrity participants. When you have brutality like water cannons and concussion grenades, having someone there who will bring cameras and attention is invaluable. Publicity matters and it needs to be considered. So sheer numbers can be helpful, but can you get any names? It's not a deal breaker either way, but it can make a difference.
I wrote a year ago about a protest for Palestine at the airport, occupying the access road. That was kind of a march, but with elements similar to a street blockade.
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/06/i-protest.html
I considered it ineffective because it was not making things harder for decision makers. It could be something that raised awareness, but if your goal is raising awareness annoying people may not be your best option. That is also why disrupting the Christmas tree lighting was a bad idea.
There have been protests at Intel because of their Israeli locations and investment. Is that making the pain more direct to someone in power? Yes, though probably not enough pain to cause change.
Does that mean it's not worth doing? Maybe not, but if there is something more worth doing, I want to put my energy there.
These are just things to think about and questions to ask.
One final thought: as I think about body blocks, linking arms, lock-ons, and all of the other things previously mentioned, I can't help picturing people chaining themselves to the doors of city hall or some other target, which would totally be disruptive except that big bolt-cutters can be so effective.
It is not great publicity to become a joke. Put in the effort organizing so that you are doing something that has a positive impact.
Disrupting for the sake of disruption is a techbro thing; that won't help anyone.
July 8, 2025
Forms of direct action: Marching
Picking up from last week, maybe the Eugene City Hall windows would not have been kicked in if there were some sort of coherent plan.
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/07/forms-of-direct-action-rallies.html
I should also point out that because of the March comics and Selma, I can't write about marching without missing John Lewis. If I write about running for office, I will feel worse that he did not end up finishing the Run series.
Perhaps because of that it makes sense to start with the Selma to Montgomery marches.
The poll taxes and literacy tests that prevented most Black people in Alabama from even registering to vote had been on the books for several years. One thing we see in the movie Selma is Annie Lee Cooper failing the literacy test because the clerk administering it keeps adding harder questions until he finds that she has not in fact memorized the names of every person serving in one certain capacity.
That is probably a big part of the march happening then. Cooper had been living in Pennsylvania but had returned to Alabama in 1962, and was denied voter registration twice. As she became involved with local activists, her perspective may have helped show this was an area for action.
Selma was the seat of Dallas County, so important for local government and voting. Montgomery was the state capital, so a reasonable place for an appeal. Also the two were 54 miles apart along a highway. That meant that cars could be used for ferrying supplies and relieving some walkers.
That might seem like too far to walk, but distance varies a lot. The United Farm Workers march from Delano to Sacramento (a state capital again) was around three hundred miles. The Constitution Express, a movement for Aboriginal rights in Canada, went from Vancouver BC to Ottawa, around 2700 miles.
For the March on Washington, we think of the people filling the National Mall, not marching so much, but people had come from all over. Many of them had chosen significant locations for their start, like boarding buses in Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, just four months after state troopers attacked protesters there with dogs and fire hoses.
That's one thing to get clear, a march can involve cars, buses, trains and even planes. It's all going to depend on whom is affected and will participate, where it makes sense to start and where it makes sense to finish.
In the case of the Constitution Express, the Canadian government under Trudeau was going to set up a new constitution that still made guarantees for the rights of the French, but looked only at the English and French settlers, eliminating all protections and considerations of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit.
As something that would affect such a wide range of people, it made sense that it was a trans-Canadian journey that would end in the national capital. With that in mind... well, it didn't necessarily make planning easy, but the parameters were clear.
Having clear goals helps. One reasonable criticism of the March on Washington was that it had too many goals, including legislation related to (and enforcement of) voting rights, job training and a minimum wage increase, along with extension of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and also an end to school segregation, which had been ruled against nine years earlier but was somehow still ongoing.
I know I harp on clear goals, but I have a lot of sympathy for this one. The more you realize the issues with racism, the more you see economic effects. The more you look at the economy and worker issues, the more you notice how bigotry enforces it.
Moreover, uphill battles remain after the successes. The Civil Rights Act did get passed after the March on Washington and the Voting Rights Act got passed after the Selma to Montgomery Marches, and there have been constant challenges and continued attempts to suppress.
The forces of dominator culture fight hard, which means that those fighting against it need to be persistent. To prevent exhaustion, good planning can help.
If you think a march is the answer -- and it can be a good way to bring attention to an issue, especially if there are clear decision makers you can approach as part of it -- think about the route. Think about visibility. Think about what success would look like.
The best plans may still require flexibility. The Selma to Montgomery March had two attempts before its final completion. One resulted in a lot of injuries; John Lewis could tell you.
The first two attempts were not useless. They brought attention to the cause and more participation, until on that final attempt it was a movement that could not be stopped.
Part of that momentum included the murders of Jimmie Lee Jackson and James Reeb. Part of that momentum included inspiring Viola Liuzzo to participate, and she was murdered while helping drive people back.
Those are things to think about too, but there are things that are worth suffering for, and even dying for.
The odds of injury and death sure seem to go up if you are fighting racism in the South.
Just things to think about.
Related posts:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/12/comics-review-march-and-montgomery-story.html
July 4, 2025
The Originals: Songs for Black Music Month
As I have been working my way backward through the hit songs, I would come across a lot of songs that I knew by white artists but they were originally recorded by Black artists. Sometimes I knew about the remake, but sometimes I didn't.
The most surprising one was definitely that Otis Redding sang "Hard to Handle".
With June being Black Music Month, I wanted to spend some time on that.
There were a few that came to mind immediately. I started off with songs from Big Mama Thornton and Erma Franklin that I had found all the way back in 2015. I could not think of enough on my own to fill out thirty days, though, so I started looking things up.
I learned more. I knew about "Twist and Shout", but I did not know that the Beatles had an album, Please, Please Me, that was almost all covers of Black artists. I also had no idea that "Baby It's You" did not start with Smith, though I probably would have gotten there eventually.
It did solve one problem; I remembered an episode of Married with Children where Al is obsessing over a song that turns out to be "Anna (Go To Him)" by Arthur Alexander. It did chart in 1962 but it did not make the top 100. I looked it up after I had already done songs from 1962. Because of this theme, I got to use it anyway.
I also had to rethink things. "You Can't Hurry Love" came up in the articles, but I wasn't going to use that because surely everyone knew that was a cover. Then a friend of a friend mentioned lots of people thinking "Love Rollercoaster" was originally by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Maybe it wasn't so obvious.
Maybe sometimes you only know because of which records your parents had.
As it was, I knew that Soft Cell was covering "Where Did Our Love Go" but I thought "Tainted Love" was their own.
I hate that anyone thinks that "I Shot the Sheriff" belongs to Eric Clapton, but they do.
I should point out that a lot of these covers were not thefts. The Trashmen (accurately named) were the most egregious in giving interviews about how they "wrote" the songs they stole from the Rivingtons, but there were artists who were respectful and tried to promote the original singers. There were others who did not try so hard or care so much. There are a lot of stories.
I do like some of the covers better, maybe from habit or maybe from some changes to them.
Also, the artists here are not always the writers of the songs; music writing and music performing were often seen as different jobs back then.
Despite that, I know that racism is a real thing, with real economic effects. I know that is also true of erasure.
Taking time to know and remember is important.
Here's the list. It could have included a lot more country if I'd wanted, but I didn't. Besides, I kind of covered that last June (and they still invented a whole new Grammy category because white people can't handle it).
6/1 “Hound Dog” by Big Mama Thornton
6/2 “Piece of My Heart” by Erma Franklin
6/3 “Hard to Handle” by Otis Redding
6/4 “Oh Girl” by The Chi-Lites
6/5 “Unchained Melody” by Roy Hamilton
6/6 “Louie Louie” by Richard Berry
6/7 “Love Rollercoaster” by Ohio Players
6/8 “That’s All Right Mama” by Arthur Crudup
6/9 “Anna (Go To Him)” by Arthur Alexander
6/10 “Chains” by the Cookies
6/11 “Boys” by The Shirelles
6/12 “Baby It’s You” by The Shirelles
6/13 “A Taste of Honey” by Lenny Welch
6/14 “Twist and Shout” by The Isley Brothers
6/15 “Mercy Mercy” by Don Covay
6/16 “Mystery Train” by Junior Parker
6/17 “The Bird’s The Word” by The Rivingtons
6/18 “You Need Love” by Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon
6/19 “Good Lovin’” by The Olympics
6/20 “Good Rockin Tonight” by Wynonie Harris
6/21 “I Shot the Sheriff” by Bob Marley
6/22 “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Prince
6/23 “Tainted Love” by Gloria Jones
6/24 “You Can’t Hurry Love” by The Supremes
6/25 “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” by Cherelle
6/26 “I Get Lifted” by George McRae
6/27 “Armageddon Time” by Willie Williams
6/28 “Police & Thieves” by Junior Murvin
6/29 “Cherry Oh Baby” by Eric Donaldson
6/30 “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” by Harold & The BlueNotes feat. Teddy Pendergrass
Related links:
https://www.salon.com/2014/05/17/elvis_wasnt_the_first/
https://werehistory.org/the-beatles/
Related posts:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/07/musical-black-girls.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/06/black-music-month-daily-songs-for-june.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/07/black-country-black-music-month-2024.html
July 3, 2025
Forms of direct action: Rallies
I was originally going to write about marches. I still will, but the march problem I was thinking about was actually a rally problem.
I was at University of Oregon when the police officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted. That was April 29th, 1992.
What happened in Eugene was nothing compared to what happened in Los Angeles, but it was still a big deal for us. It was also sadly pointless.
There was a rally in the student center courtyard that turned into a March on city hall. I was at the rally; I did not go on the march. Therefore, I was not there when they rushed the building and kicked in the front windows.
I say "windows", but really they were big glass panels, like you see on a lot of public buildings built in the 60s.
Honestly, I am amazed that there weren't a lot of injuries reported. Big breaking glass can be dangerous, but also the footage on the news of this mass of humanity moving up against the building looked like people could have been easily crushed.
I don't think anyone planned on that happening. When you start with anger, concentrate it and give it some exercise, it can build momentum.
I was angry about what happened to Rodney King and how many people justified it. I don't think that the Eugene city government made sense as a target.
I do remember that there was an incident of a Black man who was coming on a campus visit getting harassed at the Eugene airport. I don't remember now whether that was by police or airport employees, but there might have been an area for action there. If we wanted to organize against police brutality, we could have investigated the Eugene police department's history and petitioned the city for oversight or something like that. That long ago, we might even have been optimistic about police reform.
We could have marched to city hall to deliver a petition; that happens in a lot of marches. (I'll get there. Probably Tuesday.)
Rallies are good for creating energy, which is great if you have a way to harness that energy. Maybe you do it before canvassing a neighborhood or doing a park cleanup or something that is a lot of work so needs some excitement to carry it through.
The way this post doesn't work with the others is that I am trying to suggest things other than protests that people can do. I am leery enough about rallies that I don't see myself recommending one in the foreseeable future.
It's still important to write about for a few reasons.
Since rallies can serve a purpose, the information should at least be out there..Sometimes we might not be planning on a rally specifically, but there are elements there where you could develop that same energy, which you don't want to do without consideration. Partly, we just need to be more informed.Rallies are very popular on the right. They don't harness that energy in productive ways so it then walks around as aggrieved racism. That is a dangerous situation.Finally, for no reason whatsoever, I just want to mention that the most visible figure in the footage as the windows gave way was a confident white man who would spout off a lot, sometimes doing okay things but also saying some messed up things and feeling pretty good about himself. Then the news coverage varied between making him seem more dangerous than he actually was or doing wordplay with his last name.
I don't know why that seems pertinent.
July 2, 2025
Forms of direct action: Teach-ins
What's a teach-in? A sit-in with speakers!
Obviously that's an oversimplification, but there is some overlap.
First of all, one thing to remember with organizing any type of direct action is that it requires planning. If you are there peacefully and the police declare a riot, that's highly hypothetical but what do you do?
If "The Man" is not directly interfering, so you have time, what do you do to keep people focused and interested?
Ideally, those answers will all work toward the initial goal.
Perhaps not surprisingly, teach-ins developed through professor action. Faculty at Ann Arbor were planning to strike to oppose the war in Vietnam and there was opposition to the strike.
Isn't there always?
Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins was thinking about alternatives. I love this quote regarding his though process:
"They say we're neglecting our responsibilities as teachers. Let's show them how responsible we feel. Instead of teaching out, we'll teach in—all night."
I think that particular idea was especially appropriate for the times. For your white middle class and upwardly mobile working class -- so the people most likely to be sending their children to the University of Michigan -- I believe there was this sense of homogeneity, where we are all kind of thinking and believing the same way.
I specify race and class because if you were actually poor, or you were not white and especially if you were Black or Indigenous, there were things that you couldn't ignore that didn't get seen on Leave it to Beaver.
That is a show for which my family has a lot of affection, but we are also aware of its limitations. It ran from 1957 to 1963. For context, the murder of Emmett Till and the start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott are 1953. The Feminine Mystique came out in 1963, which was also the year of the 16th Street Street Baptist Church bombing.
There were cracks appearing, but there had been a long period where the underlying problems were easy to ignore. Beyond that, without context it would be more comfortable to continue ignoring those problems.
They should just be patient. It's always been that way.
Teaching can provide that context. Understanding why colonialism put us on the side that we took in Vietnam, and why Black people were not being allowed to vote even though they'd had the vote during Reconstruction, and all of those things that led to white supremacy and patriarchy and about the Military-industrial complex -- a term first used in 1961, but increasingly relevant -- were all things that teaching could help with.
So it made sense that the first teach-ins were anti-war, but it also makes sense to have teach-ins about civil rights and white supremacy and capitalism. Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and environmental groups have all found uses for them. There are so many things that are poorly understood and important that teach-ins can fill a genuine need.
Of course, you will notice that those topics count as "woke", so there will be people against the concept. However, they would also be against run-of-the-mill protests; here there is more of an option for learning.
That can be worth something.
