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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳

@racheledini.bsky.social

2.3K followers 4.3K following 1.1K posts

Lurcher mum+newly redundant lecturer in US literature.Writes on waste, gender, housework, appliances, ads, politics of nostalgia. Looking for new collaborators Books: http://tinyurl.com/3rf4fr & http://tinyurl.com/3er6t3h9 Founder http://literarywaste.com

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · Jul 21

Please share!

con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · Jul 21

Actually, what the hell. Have a thread. I went to @ucu.org.uk for badly needed legal advice after being made redundant under truly dodgy circumstances. I was told I wasn’t entitled to support bc I’d only been a member for 3 months. This was news to me! I joined in Oct 2017!! 1/

Iucu.org.uk

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1h

And then after the War the push to return middle-class women to the home was aided by the narrative that housewifery was the most important job of all&appliances made it pleasurable: no need for a paid job & no need for servants.

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1h

Appliances to some extent helped turn the unaffordability of servants into a choice. Especially in France — I remember reading a fantastic article about this focused on Moulinex. In the US xenophobia&racism helped, too. An alternative to dirty foreign/backward Black girls doing your washing, etc.

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Joshua Eaton @joshuaeaton.bsky.social · 2h

Civil rights activists in the 1960s tried all sorts of things that didn’t work out!

We tend to think of the history-book moments — Montgomery, Birmingham, the March on Washington, Selma — as one uninterrupted march from strength to strength.

But it wasn’t like that!

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Joshua Eaton @joshuaeaton.bsky.social · 2h

Do people really think media wasn’t “corporate” in the 1960s? Or that the newspapers and broadcast outlets that covered the Civil Rights Movement were all, or even mostly, on board? Or that King et al never had trouble capturing public attention?

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 1h

I think people also forget that there were civil rights protests for *100 years.* activists protested and lobbied constantly from the end of reconstruction through the 50s and 60s. mostly they were just ignored, beaten, jailed. 1

Joshua Eaton @joshuaeaton.bsky.social · 2h

“From the first children’s march on May 2 [1963], The New York Times published more stories about race in the next two weeks than in the previous year.” — Taylor Branch, “The King Years”

I’m not an advocate and don’t have a dog in these fights, but these sort of ahistorical takes frustrate me.

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 4h

Turns out protest alone was never what changed things, it was protest *plus media coverage of protests*, which prompted officials to respond to protests, which increased public awareness of protests, etc.

If the protest happens & corporate media simply ignores it ... it's inert.

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1h

Oh yes, absolutely—definitely better than “let’s decorate their homes w/flammable cladding so the rich neighbours have a better view, then let them burn to death.”

con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1h

So it declined earlier due to the so-called servant problem — there were more jobs available to working-class women (factories, secretarial work, etc), so there were fewer going into service and this in turn made them more expensive.

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 2h

And blithe erasure of the history of class inequality or, indeed, private property 😂

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 2h

4/ The line “When carefully planned and sited, they [council blocks] can be as beautiful in their own way as were the best homes of the last, and with their extra space, sunlight, and fresh air, they can be even more convenient and pleasant to live in” is some WILD Le Corbusier-like propaganda 😂

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 2h

3/ .. leaving aside its inaccuracy, the statement is also contradicted by the accompanying picture. Clearly there ARE still large houses for SOME, who aren’t affected by overcrowding etc. It’s a case study in gaslighting. “This thing isn’t possible for X reason but also yes it is for the rich.”

con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 2h

2/ Flanking the statement abt the disappearance of large homes with a modern large home is another interesting choice. Leaving aside the inaccuracy of the statement (which implies that everyone used to live in big houses&have servants&don’t anymore simply bc of overcrowding)

con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 2h

Oh I have this!! I find the last pages kind of devastating in the wake of Grenfell, right-to-buy, housing crisis, etc: “more light, air,&convenience can be brought in2 people’s lives,&no longer is it necessary2have many rooms&many servants2live comfortably” is certainly *A* version of the story 😂

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Patrick Damp @synonymforwet.bsky.social · 12h

I remember growing up, my teenage years were the GWB Admin, and the refrain was, “well, you’d want to get a beer with him.”

Listen, I’m a working class suburban kid, the kind of people I go drinking with have zero business running anything, let alone the U.S. of A.

Give me the nerds back.

Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty @irhottakes.bsky.social · 1d

Basically, the situation is that smart Americans rigged the entire world to prevent dumb Americans from tasting the fruits of their own incompetence, but didn’t count on the masses voting to eat the turd apple.

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Convolver @convolver.bsky.social · 9d

Hard to believe a journalist who asserted that Stalin was genetically-engineering fake aliens as part of an underwear gnome-quality psyop in Roswell would do something like suggest a Predator is capable of ballistic missile interception, who ever would have seen that coming.

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Eric Reinhart @eric-reinhart.com · 1d

America’s paradigmatic “Black city” was chosen as the fascists’ preliminary battleground for a reason.

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1d

This.

Alice Bennett but scarier @aliceponderland.bsky.social · 1d

A thousand times this! I want it to put out the bins or do my washing up, so I can do fun stuff like art, or reading or writing.

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 1d

it’s said all the time but I think we should continue to hammer home how insane it is that we got dead-eyed bros trying to sell us robots that will free us from the supposedly cruel burden of “creative careers” instead of the actual cruel burden of “doing menial household chores”

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Natasha Devon @natashadevon.bsky.social · 1d

People surprised that some formerly sensible left-leaning or liberal women are now apparently full of admiration for white supremacists, rapists and genocide might note that their entry point for far right radicalisation was invariably a belief that transphobia is ‘feminist’. Just saying.

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t know about you, but this is what I’m reading tonight and boy am I excited.

May 1966 issue of True Story magazine featuring the following headlines:

MURDER IN THE MATERNITY WARD
Will my baby be next?

A WOMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE & MARRIAGE

I must find out!
IS THE MAN I WANT TO MARRY A PRIEST?

FOUR HOURS OF LOVE
IN AN ELEVATOR
1 was trapped with a stranger— the city blacked out and our building deserted

The Magic Bed:
For each of us who shared it the same miracle happened

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BladeoftheSun @bladeofthes.bsky.social · 1d

The rich don't integrate

They pay so their kids don't go to your schools.

They pay for Private Healthcare so you don't see them at the hospital.

They live in guarded estates, you are not allowed in.

The only place you MIGHT see them is at work, where they order you around.

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1d

Pithy.

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1d

It’s so awful. I can’t bear to think about the subpar education the remaining kids are going to get. And that dept isn’t going to last the decade. The number of dept closures atm is horrifying & only set to increase.

con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1d

Thread.

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 2d

They want to create the (false) perception that autism is preventable and curable, because that allows them to: 1) cut accommodations, services, and support for autistic kids and their families, and 2) blame mothers for autism in ways that make (1) seem justified.

bsky.app/profile/jess...

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 18d

Whether they're blaming vaccines and Tylenol, or selling dubious "remedies," what they're really doing is promoting the perception that families (and especially mothers) can prevent and treat Autism. And thus also the perception that people with Autism and their families don't need social support.

con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1d

Instead of appreciating that new knowledge and considering what we might learn from having a better understanding of neurodivergence and what it might add to our understanding of the social, we’re… looking to expunge it? Eugenics 101 right here.

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con questi nuovi ritmi americani (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏳 @racheledini.bsky.social · 1d

And also: consider that until recently most high-functioning autistic people (I don’t like the term but am using for shorthand) were undiagnosed & didn’t know they had it. This is simply fear of a thing that was always there but is now more visible bc we have better diagnostic tools&more awareness—>

Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 2d

I don’t exactly how to phrase this, but like… is autism that bad???? Like, why is it such a source of fear??? Of course there are challenges but you can be autistic and have a rich, fulfilling life! Many people do! I don’t understand the preoccupation.

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