Alyssa S.

@drsepinwall

Writer. Prof. Lover of Music and Film. 🇭🇹🇫🇷🎮🎬🗃️ . Current project: Antiracist writers & the House Un-American Activities Committee. Views expressed through this account represent my own opinions and not my employer's.

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Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 20d

Ok, now I've got the ages and marital status of the women who were arrested by the NYPD at the Haiti protest on 12/14/29 - once again, go ladies! (THAT's what I call a Jewish mother, amirite?)

List of people arrested by NYPD at Haiti protest 12/14/29, including Mrs. Ada Ginsberg, 28, of the Bronx

List of people arrested by NYPD at Haiti protest 12/14/29, including Mrs. Gussie Razinsky, 37, the Bronx

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 20d

Ok - back to the NY Times, which also reported on the police beating up demonstrators for Haiti on 12/24/29 - but with a more pro-police take. Still... go, ladies! 😆

clipping from NYT 15 Dec 1929, from Proquest, including women who were attacked by police and one who in turn "kicked a policeman in the groin"

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 20d

This is 12/13/1929 - the headline in the DW calls for Protesting the Imperialist (aka: *us*) Attack on #Haiti. It mentions there'll be 6 different protests (!) in NYC that day & names the speakers. I know nothing about Harriet Silverman or these others but love finding Jewish women activists!🗃️

Listing of 6 protests and all the speakers, from https://archive.org/details/per_daily-worker_daily-worker_1929-12-13_6_240/mode/2up

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 20d

I mean, look at this stuff! All in open access on archive.org - each issue of the Daily Worker, day by day. Front page: calling all workers in NYC to demonstrate in support of students & workers striking in Haiti against the US occupation!

Dec 14 Daily Worker, https://archive.org/details/per_daily-worker_daily-worker_1929-12-14_6_241/mode/2up, "Demonstrate Today against Attacks on USSR & Haiti"

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 20d

The Daily Worker is such a great source for a left history of the US - it's in open access at Archive.org! But of course, it's verboten cuz it's a CPUSA outlet... But look at this great daily coverage of student strikes in Haiti in 1929 - and then solidarity rallies in NY.

From: https://archive.org/details/per_daily-worker_daily-worker_1929-12-09_6_236/mode/2up, Haitian Masses in Revolt Against US Imperialism

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 20d

While in the archives in June, I knew I could request 4 folders to be digitized. I decided one should be a teeny diary from the 1920s, so I didn't harm it photographing it myself. Got it today: so cute! And ha - Author #4 married a well-known woman - & I guess their marriage was 🤐 at first!

Text: Feb 19: Papers full of the case. Our marriage leaks out into the press --

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 22d

This is a really great passage too in #SilencingThePast.

Silences enter the process of historical production at four crucial moments: the moment of fact creation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives); and the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance).

These moments are conceptual tools, second-level abstractions of processes that feed on each other. As such, they are not meant to provide a realistic description of the making of any individual Page 27 →narrative. Rather, they help us understand why not all silences are equal and why they cannot be addressed—or redressed—in the same manner. To put it differently, any historical narrative is a particular bundle of silences, the result of a unique process, and the operation required to deconstruct these silences will vary accordingly.

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 22d

Am going back to Trouillot while working on the concept of Archival Abundance as a counterpart to archival silences. There are so many 🔥 lines in #SilencingThePast that it's easy to overlook some real 💡s!

Text: historical facts are not created equal. They reflect differential control of the means of historical production at the very first engraving that transforms an event into a fact.11 Silences of this kind show the limits of strategies that imply a more accurate reconstitution of the past, and therefore the production of a “better” history, simply by an enlargement of the empirical base

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 23d

From her website: Again, *no shade to working mothers.* It's great for our kids to see us work *and* love them, & build relationships with other grownups who love them. But no, I don't need to pay a Parenting Grifter's AI when Al Gore's internet is free. Parenting doesn't make me lose my brain.

Image of questions you can "ask proxy", like 'what's something fun to do with my kid near here,' or have your 'ai assistant' 'pick out outfits.'

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 23d

I mean look at this shit.

That realization became her next mission: to normalize outsourcing at home, to teach others how to delegate well, and to build the one tool she wished existed: Proxy, a private AI-powered thinking partner for the mental load.
Now, through Peacock Parent and Proxy, Christine is helping families and professionals rethink what balance looks like, showing that asking for help isn’t indulgent; it’s intelligent.

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 23d

Super fun day at the SD 🏳️‍🌈 parade. It was very hot 🥵 but good vibes all around. Dr. Bronner’s had one of the best floats - people dancing in a soapy shower with their great soaps!

Parade float with pride messaging and people dancing in the shower for Dr. Bronner’s

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 24d

Getting ready to step off for San Diego 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈✊.

Rainbow flags and floats and people ready to march

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 25d

This first sentence here is something we now normally think of as a Trouillotian idea - but there has been a parallel archive discourse developing from Derrida's book, that completely ignored the publication of Trouillot's. Silencing was recuperated more later, as I've argued in/

Manoff, https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2004.0015 Derrida’s work has contributed to scholarly recognition of the contingent nature of
the archive—the way it is shaped by social, political, and technological forces. If the
archive cannot or does not accommodate a particular kind of information or mode of
scholarship, then it is effectively excluded from the historical record. Electronic archives
have very different implications for the historical record than do paper archives. Moreover, Derrida can help us to understand the scale of the effects we are witnessing as, for
example, certain publishers exert pressure on libraries to abandon the archiving of print
journals. By making it prohibitively expensive for libraries to maintain paper copies,

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 25d

It's *so* interesting to look in the genealogy of "archival abundance" & "archival turn" discourses... & to see that in the early 2000s, the 1995 book that got people talking about archives was Derrida, Archival Fever... NOT MR Trouillot, Silencing the Past!/. From Manoff: doi.org/10.1353/pla....

Derrida’s Archive Fever has influenced much of the archival discourse outside of library
and information science (LIS). This volume originated as a lecture delivered in 1994
and was first published in French in 1995 as Mal d’archive: une impression freudienne. It
was translated and published the same year in the American journal Diacritics and as a
separate English language monograph in 1996

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 27d

Went to a nonviolence training last night from a King Center trainer. The 6th principle is the hardest to believe right now. But I’m going to try to hold to it when I’m in situations that could turn ugly. learn.thekingcenterinstitute.org/storage/cour...

Six principles of Kingian nonviolence: KINGIAN NONVIOLENCE
NONVIOLENCE IS A WAY OF LIFE FOR
COURAGEOUS PEOPLE.
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NONVIOLENCE SEEKS TO WIN
FRIENDSHIP AND UNDERSTANDING.
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NONVIOLENCE SEEKS TO DEFEAT
INJUSTICE, OR EVIL, NOT PEOPLE.
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NONVIOLENCE HOLDS THAT
UNEARNED, VOLUNTARY SUFFERING
FOR A JUST CAUSE CAN EDUCATE AND
TRANSFORM PEOPLE AND SOCIETIES.
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NONVIOLENCE CHOOSES LOVE
INSTEAD OF HATE.
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NONVIOLENCE BELIEVES THAT THE
UNIVERSE IS ON THE SIDE OF JUSTICE.
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It is not a method for cowards; it does resist.
It is active nonviolent resistance to evil.
It is aggressive spiritually, mentally, and
emotionally.
The outcome of nonviolence is the creation of
the Beloved Community.
The end result of nonviolence is redemption
and reconciliation.
Nonviolence recognizes that evildoers are also
victims and are not evil people.
The nonviolent resister seeks to defeat evil not
persons victimized by evil.
Nonviolence is a willingness to accept suffering
without retaliation; to accept blows without
striking back.
Nonviolence is a willingness to accept violence if
necessary, but never inflict it.
Nonviolence holds that unearned suffering for
a cause is redemptive and has tremendous
educational and transforming possibilities.
Nonviolence resists violence of the spirit as well
as the body.
Nonviolent love is spontaneous, unselfish, and
creative.
The nonviolent resister has deep faith that
justice will eventually win.
Nonviolence believes that God is

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· 29d

There‘s some crazy shit on this platform. If this isn’t foreign disinfo it’s dumb & dangerous AF. Bernie is hardly my favorite, but both-sidesing this is a short fire way to protect Rump & kill democracy. If you are following this person, reflect on what kind of cancer you are helping to grow.

Skeet that claims that populism and authoritarianism are the same, and calls for opposing Bernie just as much as DJT.

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 12

EXCELLENT piece by @alexiscoe.bsky.social about the Greenidge article. Highly recommended. Do you know how often people say when asked about things they cite that we can't find: Oh, I don't remember? Oh, did I make a mistake? But it's NOT fireable!

Text: In most cases, the white woman historian can too. I once failed to locate material cited by a well-known white woman historian at a major New York university. When I asked her about it, she replied that the research had been done a long time ago and she could no longer answer the question. The archivist found that response especially strange because accessing the documents, as cited, would have required a court order. The experience stayed with me, not least because neither the archivist nor I could find any record that such an order had ever been issued. That historian now runs a well-funded institute at the university.

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 11

Sample paragraph from the review. It seems to say a lot more about the reviewer than about Greenidge!!!

Text: Her monograph’s shortcomings are apparent when Greenidge discusses Sarah and Angelina Grimké. She excoriates the sisters for what she considers “benevolent racism” and complicity in the institution of slavery (pp. xxvixxvii). Repeatedly this historian accuses the sisters of embracing abolitionism primarily to assuage their guilt over their family’s “sin” of enslaving people of color. Seeking “white redemption,” the Grimkés, argues Greenidge, viewed enslaved people as “mere objects within the constellation of sin” and never recognized them as “political beings and actors in their own right” (pp. 21, 10).

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 10

Still working on the talk I'll give next month to the other Beinecke fellows (it's still easier to talk *about* the book than to Write The Book). But my title is 🔥, amirite? #ArchivalTurn #AmWriting

Archival scene, with text about archival abundance & archival silencing.

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 10

Took a writing break & searched for John Garfield letters in other people’s papers. LoC sent me a reproduction ASAP, because they only had 2 documents of his. Yay! Except… one was the funeral program, from when he had a heart attack from the FBI hounding him. 😭 Beautiful man who didn’t rat! 💔

John Garfield in a suit, black-and-white photo, looking very handsome

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 9

As for Robeson - he was definitely friends with lots of CPUSA members - but his wikipedia entry suggests he was never officially a member of the party. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politic... Again, it seems to me people have shied away from studying *real* Communists in favor of those "witch-hunted."

Text: In 1946, Robeson was questioned by the Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities in California, informally known as the Tenney Committee. When he was asked whether he was a member of the Communist Party, Robeson replied that he might as well have been asked whether he was a registered Democrat or Republican—in the United States the Communist Party was equally legal. But, he added, he was not a Communist.[9][10] There is no clear evidence that Robeson ever was a member of the Communist Party. According to records released under the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI believed that Robeson might have joined the Party under the name "John Thomas" but "his Communist Party membership book number is not known". Robeson's biographer, Martin Duberman, concludes that "he was never a member of CPUSA, never a functionary, never a participant in its daily bureaucratic operations".[11] Paul Robeson, Jr. has also stated on numerous times that his father was never a member of the CPUSA.

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 9

People answering Charlie Chaplin, for my query on the most famous blacklistee, seems to fit my meme below! I'm not a Chaplin expert, but he wasn't a party member & didn't hang out with the folks I'm studying in the Hollywood CPUSA chapter. This is from www.historyhit.com/culture/why-...

Text: Chaplin’s social commentary
Politically, it seems fairly clear that Chaplin sympathised with the Left, and much of his social commentary in public and private tackled things like rampant unemployment, poverty and the rise of the radical Right in America and around the world. His iconic character, The Tramp, symbolised the struggles of a downtrodden man in a capitalist society, reflecting his compassion for the working-class – a defining feature of his most famous silent films.

These views raised suspicion from the FBI, particularly due to Chaplin’s statements expressing admiration for the Communists’ rigid anti-fascist stance, exemplified in the Spanish Civil War or on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. Despite not identifying as a Communist, his views on Communism were most directly outlined when he said in December 1942, “I am not a Communist, but I am proud to say that I feel pretty pro-Communist” – sentiments further heightening the scrutiny he faced from authorities.

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 8

San Diegans! Let’s show up for TPS for Haitians tomorrow! SD rally is the first in 5 across the country tomorrow. 🇭🇹👊

Flyer for TPS rally for Haitians, SD 7/9 11 am, 880 front street

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 8

Yes! And every precious letter that I find from him along those lines is golden. Meanwhile, since I'm playing SHOP instead of WRITE, here's what's going next in my cart:

John Garfield: The Illustrated Career in Films & on Stage

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 7

Actually this'd be hilarious if it wasn't ☠️. The author - a classicist who works on early Christian identity & whose bio calls her "an internationally respected historian who's also an Orthodox believer" - is mocking US historians for "straying" from their lane to comment about... events in the US!

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 7

Oh look! Did AI write this profound statement? We historians thought history was totally consistent, and morally clear! Thank god TNR is here to tell us about the past! (I mean, they thought this was so clever they blew it up into a heading....)

History is neither a teacher who rewards the best students nor a sweeping morality play. It is inconsistent, morally ambiguous, and often not especially helpful.

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 6

Oh hey look - I found one! (post is from today) This guy looks nice, amirite?

poster saying at 3:44 pm PT on 7/6: "Platner is clearly the best choice."

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 6

Also, Mr. "Why Capitalism Rocks!" is an honors graduate of Harvard Law... so make of that what you will about our Most Celebrated Institutions of higher learning....

Text: Mr. Whalen received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Illinois in 1975, receiving the distinction of Bronze Tablet Scholar, and his law degree from Harvard Law School with honors in 1978.

Alyssa S.@drsepinwall· Jul 4

I know I exulted last week that NYC is the greatest city in the world… but summer in San Diego is hard to beat! 😎