[Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis

Sun Jun 7 11:00:03 PDT 2020

Hello fellow gardeners of Us and Them,

I have to agree with Michael, without meaning to put words in his mouth, but I feel his meaning is, getting into arguments about statistics, when it is well known there is injustice of profiling African American men and that there are too many being murdered by police for no reason, doesn't mean that murder of other colors is any less unsavory. Murder is murder, corruption is corruption, injustice is injustice.

Let's not get into suffering contests that go no where, "My suffering is worse than yours," or "their suffering is worse than ours". That really doesn't speak to the issue that clearly quacks like a duck. Or should we argue whether it is a duck or not?

Another problem I'm having in this reading to this discussion (not just on this list), is to debate about the cause. Clearly the issue of any sort of injustice doesn't have a neat and clean cause-and-effect rhythm. Oh, if only we can change the cause we can alter its effects. But when something happened (or didn't happen as the case may be) ~250+ years ago, it's hard to time travel and change the history. Yes, we should understand it.

Yet, when someone is bleeding from a gunshot wound, does it help at that moment to ask "Who pulled the trigger?"

I feel that this is a perhaps unintended reaction that has a consequence to prolong the lack of care our communities need. That is, to leisurely sit and debate about causes while the injured bleed to death.

Maybe it's not appropriate to get "academic" about this right now. Maybe there is an emotional bypass going on.

There's something very Cartesian about trying to solve a problem into parts as if doing so will provide clarity of cause. The worth of African American lives is not a mathematical proof. I feel this numbers talk dehumanizes people.

At the same time, I'm not attempting to censor anyone. We need to talk. It is good.

I suppose I'm trying to raise awareness that there is something difficult about all this when we have to revisit slavery as cause to what is happening now. Perhaps it is about appropriateness. I'm not sure.

Alica Garza appeared on Meet the Press today with appeals to defund the police. The Guardian quotes her as saying:

"When we talk about defunding the police, what we’re saying is invest in the resources that our communities need,” she said. “So much of policing right now is generated and directed towards quality of life issues ... But what we do need is increased funding for housing, we need increased funding for education, we need increased funding for the quality of life of communities who are over-policed and over-surveilled.

“... Black Lives Matter is not just a radical idea … everyone can agree that we don’t have the things that we need to live well, and that we are using policing and law enforcement in a way that far exceeds its utility.”

In all honesty, I don't like wrangling the name "Black Lives Matter" because I come from a place where all lives matter, including animals and trees, and the oceans and land, our entire planet. Until we see that "That is me" everywhere we look, we will always remain disconnected from others and our environment and continue to "otherfy" into us and them. I don't think Black Lives Matter is a radical idea, because I've always thought that they matter. So I presume the audience to whom this speaks to are those who don't think that they do.

If you do think they matter already then what should we be doing to better our society. What do you imagine is a solution? Cat got your tongue? What is an action to take?

What I like about Alicia's discourse is that she doesn't trip into the statistics rabbit hole. This is again that liberal notion that if one cites egregious statistics that's going to somehow get people riled up to act. It doesn't work. Alicia offers a pathway to a SOLUTION. She uses her speech to explain not what she IS AGAINST, but what she IS FOR.

It's about quality of life. Is it so hard to see this?

It very well may be that AA men are our canaries in the coalmine of our society, are they returning dead in the cage after being lowered down the shaft? That how the police are treating them is just a precursor of what lay ahead for us if we do nothing.

I'm on board with supporting anti-surveillance, and training for police to set in stone they are SERVING their communities not monitoring communities.

I also feel sad that in the way people who might want to express their disdain for looting end up falling into suffering contest trap. This caused an editor in Philadelphia to resign by equating buildings to AA lives in a headline "Buildings Matter too." or something to that effect. I don't think that that is what he meant by the headline, and I feel it's wrong to cancel people out like that. It's cringe-worthy as a headline but should a person's life be destroyed like that? If he intended to mean that, it would be different, but I can't believe that he meant to intimate that meaning, when the content of the article (as I understand)  had to do with leaving a hole in Philadelphia's body, and what would happen to the health of the city from this kind of destruction?

That is the trap of the naming of this movement and why I don't like it.

I suppose there is something here that has to do with a notion about property. And it is certainly foul to equate the worth of buildings with that of a demographic of people whose forebears were treated like property.

But what is the message that says, "Because police destroy black lives, I will destroy your property" isn't that also making that kind of equation about property? I'm not trying to insinuate anyone who is against looting is making these kinds of equations, but does it mean we should be FOR looting?

I saw as well that I did not quite explain my Gone With the Wind reference. Which was to say that in my teens the notion of looting was introduced to me when I read that novel, a fictional account of the Civil War. Being shot for looting was not something I could get my head around.

I'm considering the subtexts and implied equations, and I wonder if they are coherent at all?

It's a little crazy making.

Kind regards,

Annalisa

________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, June 7, 2020 6:38 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis

  [EXTERNAL]

Black men are 2.5 more likely to be killed by police than white men. What makes this much, much worse is that most Black men are taught from very early in life the dangers they face in dealing with police and have strategies set for de-escalation. The first point you can get with a few key strokes. The second point maybe you have to live in the U.S. for.

I do not believe the Loury McWhorter argument is based on any well founded social science.

What I find difficult about this is that XMCA, whose earlier versions was one of the earliest well-functioning communities is being use to proliferate this type of information, or I would say misinformation. The list has always run with minimalist moderation but I wonder if it is possible in this day and age.

These are observations. I have no desire to argue about this with anybody.

Michael

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of Bill Kerr
Sent: Sunday, June 7, 2020 3:59 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis

hi Anthony,

I watched both videos.

Coleman Hughes argues that the Black Lives Matter movement is based on a half truth. True that the police treat blacks worse. Not true that they murder disproportionately more blacks than whites. The problem with the police is corruption (not being independently investigated) not disproportionate murder of black people.

Glen Loury and John McWhorter teach me the real history of American race, that things have moved on, progress has been made since Lincoln and MLKing, and the importance of identifying the real reasons of black disadvantage, arising paradoxically from the 1960s, and not that racism is the American DNA. eg. the meme that school is a white persons domain arose in part from the bussing movement which gave many blacks a terrible school experience.

There are some parallels in Australia, eg. welfare dependency which is one of the biggest if not the biggest problem for aboriginals here arose from the chain events which followed from the 1967 referendum where they were recognised at citizens for the first time. This led to equal pay which led to aboriginal workers being sacked which led to welfare dependency which led to grog which led to more black on black violence etc. This history has been written, eg. by Peter Sutton, The Politics of Suffering, but is still not widely understood.

Thank you

On Sun, Jun 7, 2020 at 10:38 AM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com<mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com>> wrote:

I'm hearing people talk of cabin fever and itchy scratchy restlessness, and I think that is one unifying thing that almost everyone here can relate to!  What a year so far.

I promise, these two conversations are very interesting, for anyone potentially curious:

First, this one https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hWQmzgiKXQ__;!!Mih3wA!SFiJRLzfKK5elW7e23Jos5oHy4__B83R5JNAphNIIKUTTqwbaAtw4PLz3VKMuvhq_W29ew$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hWQmzgiKXQ__;!!Mih3wA!XgM3_X1riF_AYwqfZ7zTT0dslCVEzwkmg1Kw-a63ReNKrqh653kZrirxQ_TR4yBatxTfPw$> featuring Glenn Loury and John McWhorter -- piggybacking on the 1619 Project link that Martin shared earlier today (thanks for sharing that)

and in my honest opinion, this is the single most down-the-middle commentary on recent events in the US, via Coleman Hughes: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://youtu.be/8C-VrsK93GE__;!!Mih3wA!SFiJRLzfKK5elW7e23Jos5oHy4__B83R5JNAphNIIKUTTqwbaAtw4PLz3VKMuvgh7Qa_bg$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/youtu.be/8C-VrsK93GE__;!!Mih3wA!XgM3_X1riF_AYwqfZ7zTT0dslCVEzwkmg1Kw-a63ReNKrqh653kZrirxQ_TR4yB6mIcWCw$>  (as least as far as I've yet encountered).  Coleman shares his perspective as a protest attendee, and also much more than that.

Somewhat of a warning: there's a fair amount of pain expressed in these videos, but not exactly conventional, as these commentaries do cut against the headwinds a fair amount.

Thank you,

Anthony

On Sat, Jun 6, 2020 at 8:43 PM Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu<mailto:annalisa@unm.edu>> wrote:

To the wonderful garden of Us and Them,

I'm not sure why I wrote that, it just seemed to come out. Like the riot of expression that gobsmacked me as I saw this thread extending to 46, including mine, though I know the tapestry is still weaving us and them here and in the streets for a little while still.

To whoever said it, I don't think that it's that people don't like the color of Trump's hair, but his orange-ness, which makes it so strange for him to promote white supremacy. An black star enigma surrounded by a riddle small waving hands wrapped in a spray tan. It should be orange supremacy, shouldn't it?

I also wanted to offer, for those of us who organize peaceful protest, we must also have a bullet-proof strategy (pun intended) to counter violently-intentioned infiltrators. This strategy must have enough cheeky chutzpah to bend the myth that peaceful protesters are namby-pambies with flowers in their hair. Does this exist? Has it been designed?

I have seen people yell down a few no-nos running about by yelling in unison NO VIOLENCE! NO VIOLENCE! It worked.

NO Vi-Oh-LENCE!

Perhaps it has to do with spacing and cadence, something David might appreciate.

We learn violence, and then we must unlearn it. Violence is an act of desperation once enough people feel disrespected, if even the number is just one.

Of course my suggestion may not be the best possible, but I wonder if there is such an on-the-ground ad hoc strategy for aikido maneuvers by peaceful protesters to differentiate themselves from chaotic pretenders and the police who need them to be pretending chaotically, so they can rationalize their dear riot gear.

Now the antifa, on the other hand, have a wonderful moniker, sly and clever how it doesn't weave "fascism" into it fully, the way it is referential in function, like if I were to say, "Don't think of an elepha." They are like crouching tigers and hidden dragons, black ninjas who architect surprise. It's almost performance art. At the same time like watching a pincer move, in action with peaceful protesters, It's a beautiful think. Cornell West wrote recently in the Guardian that if the antifa were not present in Charlottesville he may have been killed. So I wondered about that coupling of forces. Is that what appears to be solidifying in the rhythms of the recent protests? What do other's think?

I can't speak to the looting, as I would never ever do it. I remember coming across the concept or looting when I was challenged by my friends in 7th grade to read all of Gone With the Wind. And that they shot and killed looters on the spot. I supposed that concept too has gone out the window. Not that I'd want to see that mind you, but it is punny.

There were curfews for a few days, but it's been lifted as of a few nights back. As I am writing this I am hearing helicopters circling. This morning I drove down a street with many business having their windows boarded up. There were no people rioting or anything like that. I think these folks are fearful of having their plate glass windows smashed in the night by a fictitious rioting hurricane, that will just not happen on that street. But then there is no way to see into those shops now. I thought maybe they are just duck-and-covering under all that plywood. Is anyone in there?

I also saw someone had spray painted the words in black drippy spray paint on a white sheet. "White Silence is Violence" and this was hanging in a gentrified neighborhood. It seemed the perfect place to hang it.

I also wanted to ask the list whether it is only racism that we are protesting?

There was a tech who came to install my internet today. He is African American. I asked him, "Did you hear about all the protests all over the world? When I heard about it I started crying." To which he said, "Yeah, well but what about the other two guys that were killed? I think all those people came out because being shut in they just have nothing better to do." I said, "Well I understand that's a cynical way to look at it, but maybe it's a sign that something is going to change." He said, "Yeah, maybe it will." And I said, "Let's remain hopeful."

I really appreciated that exchange. Together he and I made an interesting dyad of viewpoints about what is actually going on here.

My own consciousness about race is exposed here, but I thought the entire point of racism is to reduce people to a construct that is somehow built upon genetic features, like skin color, and then to layer that with this color is better than that one, and even to dehumanize one color from another, ir I should say to create a spectrum of dehumanization, light to heavy.

Then I thought also that the point is to Eracism, not to perpetuate more of it.

My next thought was about people with disabilities. They are likely far more oppressed than any other vulnerable group. I don't think we could ever fathom disabled folks rioting in the streets for being killed in many ways the the disabled are, or who have their lives reduced by being institutionalized because of the bodies in which they were born.

The same might be said about the seriously mentally ill. As a mental exercise take any oppressed group and fill that space.

I was following the bead of this comparison in my mind to think about how would inclusivity of the disabled in protest be provided in a time like now? (Give we are making room for kids to protest?) Or are the disabled even left behind while everyone else has the privilege to protest?

The only thing I feel might be a conclusion is that we fight for human rights and for non-violence, but also for inclusivity and our innate right to love one another.

That everyone every single one of us matters. When every single one of us matters, there is no need to distinguish favorites, up or down, left or right.

That day is not here yet because only some of us matters, and some of us doesn't.

I'm not big on Biden, but he is one of the first mainstreamers to vocalize that we have an open wound that needs dressing.

Then I thought how Biden has the privilege of saying that outright where Obama was not. My memory might be incorrect, however, it was only until Fergusen that Obama came out to speak but only in a very circumspect tone, if only that he could not be bridled as an angry black man.

I wondered if anyone might present an imagination of what positive change might develop out of all of this, if you are able to shush the cynic-within.

Or is my cable internet guy right? The protests are just a holiday, a way to get out of the house because too many of us have cabin fever.

Thank you all in advance for your contributions.

Kind regards,

Annalisa

________________________________

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu<mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>>
Sent: Saturday, June 6, 2020 4:35 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis

  [EXTERNAL]

Peg-

N95 masks are available in various parts of the country.

If you have an address we could round up some and send them xpress.

Give us stuck at homes something to do.

mike

On Sat, Jun 6, 2020 at 3:14 PM Peg Griffin, Ph.D. <Peg.Griffin@att.net<mailto:Peg.Griffin@att.net>> wrote:

Right, David, we have always known our homemade masks are NOT good in that direction. I am glad you all have government provided via pharmacy and ration ones that are good in both directions. Our home made ones are not good the wearer’s  personal health, just useful for public health.

So far, we have nothing for personal health except for after-the-fact of infection and that only if we are lucky to get the manifestations that we can medicate at home or that we can get to a hospital with the resources we need for whatever Covid puts on our plate.

AOC is an amazing woman.  She has control of the facts on the ground and the differences among masks too. She knows the ones medical people need are two-way and better but she also recognizes the need for making and wearing and increasing the quality and quantity of our home-made ones. I put it down to her bartender training but others put it down to a super government policy education and dedication.

I just got off the streets of Saturday protests in DC.  Media still having trouble figuring out how come there are so many different marches that at the same time are all one.  Lots of people have given themselves sun up to sun down time frames and a side job of visiting as many different marches as they can. Some incredibly snooty DC restaurants started to “bring out:”  They make their fancy food and bring it out – more or less forcing it for free on whoever is passing by! I think some protesters modified their plans to pass by that restaurant.

A bunch of us just wore out a little after 5, but, there seemed to be a new and better shift coming on.  Worst violence during the day so far was to our hearts when we couldn’t hug and kiss toddlers and pre-schoolers we knew and they just didn’t like it at all that we could be so rotten to their sweet selves.

Peg

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
Sent: Saturday, June 6, 2020 5:18 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis

Thanks, Peg. N.B., though, the WHO now defunded by the USA but fortunately refunded by the PRC, has just said that masks ARE for healthy people. You remember that at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a "Western" view of transmission (doctors in the US and Europe) and an Eastern view (here in Korea and China) The "Western" view was all about droplets, which adhered to surfaces and then were transmitted to eyes, nose, and mouth by unwashed hands and face touching. The "Eastern" view was all about aerosols, which hang in the air and doesn't adhere to a surface at all. As Michael Osterholm--another Minnesotan!--explained, an aerosol is what you see in a sunbeam and also what you smell when you stand two aisles away from the perfume department. Now the science is in--it's an aerosol, and a good N-94 (we call them K-95s) will protect you, not just from the people you are talking to but from folks who are two aisles away. It will even protect your lungs and nose from the tear gas if it's tight enough, though you will still need eye protection. I use one with an elastic band that bypasses my ears and a clip that holds the elastic behind my head.  Trump says: "Take it!" (hydroxychloroquine, which has zero prophylactic vaue but will exascerbate your heart condition). Ocasio-Cortez says, "Wear it!" (Hey, I wonder who's right...?)

Anthony's right to warn against American-centrism: it is examples like Korea that show the world that the pandemic doesn't have to go the American way. We had NO lockdown, and our schools are up and running again (sort of--one of our Vygotsky group just had her school closed because a NEIGHBORING school had a kid test positive and the teachers are worried that kids from the two schools play and study together after hours). We just test and trace--and trust, too, because you really have to trust your neighbors and your government to do the kind of tracking we do over here. It's also worth remembering what Korea had to do to get here--for a whole year in 2017-2018, there were weekly street demos to remove the previous malignancy (a hard-right government that had seized power through a massive disinformation campaign in a very tightly contested election). That president didn't golf or tweet, but she did watch the sinking of a ferry with more than three hundred high school kids below decks on the TV while having her hair done....

Henry--I don't think I ever used the phrase "the brutality of the Chinese regime". Actually, the Chinese regime was and is neither more nor less brutal than any other. The whole point I was trying to make, actually, was the the legitimate Chinese regime under Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili had to be removed by a military coup in order crush the demonstrations, and even the legitimate military authorities had to be bypassed in order to open fire on ordinary people. Unless we understand that, we get a kind of Chinese exceptionalism when we compare Beijing 1989 with what happened later that year in Romania, and the following year in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union generally.The troops didn't open fire there, but in Beijing they did. Why? Well, I suppose that it was because the PLA has been and to some extent still is an army based on sympathetic warlords and local bandits. That seems a trivial reason, but combined with the mistaken attempts by student leaders to eliminate the particpation of the working class in the national movement, it was decisive.

I don't mean to sucker-punch this thread, but for those like Henry who are considering the social democratic alternative, I would like to draw attention to the link below, a critique of a recent book using social democracy as a model for understanding, among other things, progressive education and Vygotskyan theory. It's also worth considering the abject failure of precisely those governments run by the social democrats to cope with Covid-19: Spain and Sweden. Even in Italy, the UK, and Brazil you have far-right governments which are resting on a health system built up by social democracy and you see very similar failures. Social democracy rests on the economic "successes" of capitalism (specifically: imperalism, where capital is exported for profits that can be used to buy off the working class). Social democracy then tries to tinker with the crises, trying to attentuate it with Adam Smith's triumvirate of wages, rents, and interests.

There are, of course, limits to any analogy, but if you think of a health crisis as a developmental crisis writ large, you can see why the Chinese model was so much better. Imagine a child who is undergoing a crisis at three or at thirteen. You don't treat the crisis at three by injecting the child with ritalin (although, you know, there WAS a US drug company that wanted to market anti-depressants to children using Eeyore and drugs for ADHD using Tigger!). You shouldn't try to treat the crisis at thirteen by fiddling with the child's new hormone balance. Mutatis mutandis, that would be like taking hydroxychloroquine instead of wearing a mask.

(More discussion and even more farfetched analogies in the article linked below!)

David Kellogg

Sangmyung University

Book Review: 'Fees, Beets, and Music: A critical perusal of Critical Pedagogy and Marx, Vygotsky and Freire: Phenomenal forms and  educational action research

in Mind Culture and Activity

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847__;!!Mih3wA!SFiJRLzfKK5elW7e23Jos5oHy4__B83R5JNAphNIIKUTTqwbaAtw4PLz3VKMuvivXl_zoQ$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847__;!!Mih3wA!Vw3X4zA8KPUUBNGynYlMCNQcwZnTt6OiOBJZ8qXREer7VAs4eCUOBOokaQpiRInS53PItg$>

Some free e-prints available at:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBBGIZNKAHPMM4ZVCWVX/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1745847__;Lw!!Mih3wA!SFiJRLzfKK5elW7e23Jos5oHy4__B83R5JNAphNIIKUTTqwbaAtw4PLz3VKMuvhL_Xt2YA$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBBGIZNKAHPMM4ZVCWVX/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1745847__;Lw!!Mih3wA!Vw3X4zA8KPUUBNGynYlMCNQcwZnTt6OiOBJZ8qXREer7VAs4eCUOBOokaQpiRInD1yINdQ$>

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"

 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!SFiJRLzfKK5elW7e23Jos5oHy4__B83R5JNAphNIIKUTTqwbaAtw4PLz3VKMuvi78sE8mQ$ 
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Vw3X4zA8KPUUBNGynYlMCNQcwZnTt6OiOBJZ8qXREer7VAs4eCUOBOokaQpiRIkcgpwAhg$>

On Sat, Jun 6, 2020 at 11:35 PM Peg Griffin, Ph.D. <Peg.Griffin@att.net<mailto:Peg.Griffin@att.net>> wrote:

Sorry, but I seem to have misled you about masks here, David.  Wouldn’t want people to think it’s a good idea to pour bleach on cloth and wear it!  (Apparently some people, in this country at least, are using bleach on their skin or on their food;  wouldn’t like to suggest such dangerous practices.)

Our homemade masks are mostly three layers of cotton, some with pouches for filters if someone has or wants one.  They are intended to be worn by those of us who may unknowingly be asymptomatic and undiagnosed but still infected with SARS-CoV-2 and able to spread it easily to those we are chanting and walking and kneeling and standing with.  We have a continuing very poor diagnostic testing program in most places in this country. The masks are to lessen the danger an individual MIGHT BE to public health rather than a personal health measure way to protect an individual from getting the virus.  Every night, we soak and wash whatever masks we have custody of that have been used – soak in detergent and bleach and rinse well, but some odor of bleach remains, and leave it for a few days before recycling it.  Those who wear masks like the N-94 are people who need to be protected by the mask the wearer from getting the virus as they go into spaces recognized as having infected people likely to spread the infection.

Of course, as for many things, we do not have a well-functioning public health system so the N-94 type masks are expensive and in short supply in many places.

On the other hand, though, sometimes  rising to the concrete of homemade masks (needed, yes, but liked because they are so damned whimsical) and the making of them seem to yield confidence, camaraderie, apprenticeships for public engagement and purpose.  It’s a bonus that what the virus pandemic has demanded now often plays a part in people learning and using anti-fascist tools against police violence and government misdirection.

BTW, what particularly struck me about the DC mayor’s apparent acceptance of BLM in the street art and new street name, is the immediate challenge from DC BLM and, as immediately, the mayor acknowledging that the symbols do not mask the gap in actions that BLM demands!   Could this be a dialectic or what?

There are about a dozen well sponsored and organized protests in DC today – reduces worries by some of us about severe dangers to the big number of us that could be used for target practice in one place.

BTW:  I appreciate getting news updates I learn from (recently off the top of my head) from Carol MacDonald, David Preiss, David Kellog …). It is different than published material and fills a different function for me.

Peg

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
Sent: Friday, June 5, 2020 5:11 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis

(Is this thread American-centric? If so, 'twere a grievous fault. But grievously hath Haydi answered it--I don't think anybody can consider his dense, encyclopaedic blocks of text--the polar opposite of Anthony's American-centric orthography as well as Anthony's style and content--in any way American-centric....)

Perhaps American-centrism and American-exceptionalism is in the way we read events rather than in the events themselves, Anthony. To me, the situation in and around Washington DC looks very much like the situation in and around Beijing in May1989. As in DC, Beijing had laws preventing the entry of the armed forces other than those of the Beijing Military Region into the city (the exclusion laws were actually written into the Chinese constitution by Mao, who was always afraid of powerful military opponents like Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao). The Beijing Military Region, however, was loyal to the people of Beijing and to the General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, and they opposed to a coup. So, as in DC, the "martial law" forces were called to the city perimeter where they halted for several weeks. As in DC, the provenance of the "martial law" forces were quite mysterious--they didn't carry insignia and it later turned out that these were forces personally loyal to two PLA warlords, the brothers Yang Baibing and Yang Shangkun. As in DC, there were different waves of demonstrators inside the city: someone put up artworks in the square (as the mayor did in DC this morning) and others told people to go home and organize and not stay to be massacred. And then, almost exactly thirty-one years ago, the unmarked shock troops went in shooting, and at least a thousand people died.  I hope that part is NOT like DC, but so far the "American exceptionalists" have been proved wrong on every single detail.

Clorox on cloth? Gadzooks, Peg. Don't Americans have real N-94s yet? At the very height of the Daegu outbreak people had to resort to cloth masks (I don't think anybody used Clorox, though). Then the government brought in a rationing system so that health care workers could get PPE, and the extras are still rationed according to the numbers on registration cards: we go to the pharmacy twice a week to pick up our ration of three masks. No one is allowed onto a bus, a subway, or into a public building without one. Yesterday I went hiking for two hours and whenever I saw someone coming towards me they hastily put on a mask and bowed.

(Do you know, the largest factory for PPE in the USA, and possibly the world until recently, is 3M in Minneapolis? There's a solid transitional demand for a general strike--Masks for all! Occupy 3M!)

David Kellogg

Sangmyung University

New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.

Outlines, Spring 2020

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!SFiJRLzfKK5elW7e23Jos5oHy4__B83R5JNAphNIIKUTTqwbaAtw4PLz3VKMuvi13G8VIw$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!Xp_sgr0_UzNqr7vRI1XOMts503dCWTEnbJj5gRjnZG4dhhNbDC9HkM8UT-m4O5QGCUaqfQ$>

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"

 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!SFiJRLzfKK5elW7e23Jos5oHy4__B83R5JNAphNIIKUTTqwbaAtw4PLz3VKMuvi78sE8mQ$ 
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Xp_sgr0_UzNqr7vRI1XOMts503dCWTEnbJj5gRjnZG4dhhNbDC9HkM8UT-m4O5QTbNA7-g$>

On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 6:30 PM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com<mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com>> wrote:

Thank you, I'll take a look. Sounds similar to dialectics, little I know of both.

On Thursday, June 4, 2020, Richard Beach <rbeach@umn.edu<mailto:rbeach@umn.edu>> wrote:

Anthony, the concept of “expansive learning” posits that objects/motive in activity are ideally always open to change/transformation—that they are never fixed given that as participants encounter new contradictions/challenges, they “learn to”/formulate new objects/motives. This requires learners to be open to exploring optional actions/tools/norms as they redefine/revise their ever expanding objects/motives.

Coping with decades-long racist practices in Minneapolis, requires “expansive learning” to continually experiment with new objects/motives given that some of the tools/practices attempted in the past haven’t necessarily worked, although attempts were made to do so, only to be blocked by a timid political leadership<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.startribune.com/in-2008-we-had-a-reform-plan-for-the-mpd-it-got-derailed-by-politics/570998162/__;!!Mih3wA!SLGpQj8PmApHqKlEeH3z-ohB8R76qeqnpglVMrj9N2HOiJRn_QxL9FXpHMmS9eXEdK2Cgg$>.

For more on expansive learning theory, see attached reports:

Engeström,Y., & Sannino, A. (2010). Studies of expansive learning: Foundations, findings and future challenges. Educational Research Review, 5, 1–24.

Sannino, A., Engeström, Y., & Lemos, M. (2016). Formative interventions for expansivelearning and transformative agency. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 25(4), 599-633.

--

Crush human humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit, according to its kind.  C.Dickens.

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Cultural Praxis Website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!SFiJRLzfKK5elW7e23Jos5oHy4__B83R5JNAphNIIKUTTqwbaAtw4PLz3VKMuviHHJ-pfQ$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!SxOjUkmd40jJ5CvgxAFdTDychdI779Uz7hasLIC8bpNOTogIA0OZJRxnFTje58Cgj7KDhA$>

Re-generating CHAT Website: re-generatingchat.com<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/re-generatingchat.com__;!!Mih3wA!SxOjUkmd40jJ5CvgxAFdTDychdI779Uz7hasLIC8bpNOTogIA0OZJRxnFTje58B-tmrhYw$>

Archival resources website: lchc.ucsd.edu<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lchc.ucsd.edu__;!!KGKeukY!gETg81S3lTYgO0UWsyQ5AwWfMQB8GY2fRFaYeYM3OC_lZvvPG_WDjYshCuN1i-ntc6LVUic6$>.

Narrative history of LCHC:  lchcautobio.ucsd.edu<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lchcautobio.ucsd.edu__;!!KGKeukY!gETg81S3lTYgO0UWsyQ5AwWfMQB8GY2fRFaYeYM3OC_lZvvPG_WDjYshCuN1i-ntc57mSM28$>.

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