Sam Ladner
@sladner.bsky.social
2.1K followers 2.3K following 850 posts
Industry-based sociologist. UX Strategy and Research. Enterprise Software. Future of work. Foresight. Also photography. 🇨🇦 living SF Bay Area. Working on a book on strategic foresight to be published by Routledge. More: https://www.samladner.com/
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sladner.bsky.social
This feels like a good way to start the year.
A group of women grappling over a rugby ball with a much smaller woman trying to take hold of the ball while a tall woman runs forward with the ball in her hands
sladner.bsky.social
We forget about heroes like these. The Act Up! Activists faced certain death and they were so fearless.
rlmartstudio.bsky.social
This week in 1988: 1,000+ ACT UP demonstrators shut down the FDA headquarters, demanding (and eventually winning) action on developing HIV/AIDS treatments. ACT UP's militant and creative actions always included powerful visual artwork, and paved the way for movements in the decades to come.
A photograph from the 1988 ACT UP demonstration outside the FDA. Many people are participating in a die-in on the front steps, holding mock tombstones with messages like "RIP - killed by the FDA" and "Dead from lack of drugs." A line of police officers (some with classic 80s mustaches) wearing riot helmets stands between them and the building; one cop wearing white gloves is walking through the demonstrators. Affixed to the 2nd story windows of the building is a series of posters and a large blank banner reading Silence = Death.
sladner.bsky.social
This story is pretty heavy. Open your eyes and see the signs: stickers on “target” doors, maps indicating what kinds of people live where, neighbors shielding the targeted and hiding them for days. Remind you of any thing? 🇩🇪
Reposted by Sam Ladner
Reposted by Sam Ladner
hookcity.bsky.social
#kristinoem back at it again. These videos really just write themselves at this point.

#ReleaseTheEpsteinFiles
sladner.bsky.social
worth the read, here. I did not know about the Native American "Dred Scott" opinion Lone Wolf V Hitchcock.
mjsdc.bsky.social
Washington Supreme Court Justice Mungia has an extraordinary opinion condemning "the underlying racism and prejudices that are woven into the very fabric" of SCOTUS opinions about Native people.

"We must clearly, loudly, and unequivocally state that was wrong.”
www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf...
MUNGIA, J. (concurring)—I concur with the majority’s opinion.1
 And yet I
dissent. Not from the majority’s opinion, but I dissent from the racism embedded in the
federal case law that applies to this dispute.
FEDERAL INDIAN LAW IS A PRODUCT OF THE RACIST BELIEFS ENDEMIC IN OUR SOCIETY
AND OUR LEGAL SYSTEM
While it is certainly necessary to follow federal case law on issues involving
Native American tribes and their members, at the same time it is important to call out that
the very foundations of those opinions were based on racism and white supremacy. By
doing this, readers of our opinions will have no doubt that the current court disavows, and
condemns, those racist sentiments, beliefs, and statements. Since the founding of our country, the federal government has characterized
Native Americans as “savages”: They were “uncivilized.” They had little claim to the
land upon which they lived. At times, the federal government attempted to eradicate
Native Americans through genocidal policies. At other times, the federal government
employed ethnic cleansing by forcibly removing children from their parents’ homes to
strip them from their culture, their language, and their beings.2
Federal Indian case law arises from those racist underpinnings.
The majority correctly cites to Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 8
L. Ed. 25 (1831), which is one of the foundational cases involving tribal sovereignty.
That opinion is rife with racist attitudes toward Native Americans. Chief Justice John
Marshall, writing for the majority, describes a tribe’s relationship to the federal
government as one of “ward to his guardian.” Id. at 17. In effect, the opinion presents
tribal members as children, and the federal government as the adult. That theme would
follow in later opinions by the United States Supreme Court—as would the theme of
white supremacy.
Cherokee Nation began with the premise that Native American tribes, once strong
and powerful, were no match for the white race and so found themselves “gradually
sinking beneath our superior policy, our arts and our arms.” Id. at 15. The white man
was considered the teacher, the Native Americans the pupils: Meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United
States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.
Id. at 17.
This characterization of superior to inferior, teacher to student, guardian to ward,
was repeated in later United States Supreme Court opinions.
In Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 23 S. Ct. 216, 47 L. Ed. 299 (1903),
often characterized as the “American Indian Dred Scott,”
3
the Court used that rationale to
justify ruling that the United States could break its treaties with Native American tribes.
These Indian tribes are the wards of the nation. They are communities
dependent on the United States. Dependent largely for their daily food.
Dependent for their political rights. . . . From their very weakness and
helplessness . . . there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power.
Id. at 567 (quoting United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 383-84, 6 S. Ct. 1109, 30 L.
Ed. 228 (1886)).
Our court also carries the shame of denigrating Native Americans by using that
same characterization: “The Indian was a child, and a dangerous child, of nature, to be
both protected and restrained.” State v. Towessnute, 89 Wash. 478, 482, 154 P. 805
(1916), judgment vacated and opinion repudiated by 197 Wn.2d 574, 486 P.3d 111
(2020).
3 See A Returning to Cherokee Nation, Justice William Johnson’s separate opinion was
less tempered in how he considered the various Native American tribes:
I cannot but think that there are strong reasons for doubting the
applicability of the epithet state, to a people so low in the grade of
organized society as our Indian tribes most generally are.
Cherokee Nation, 30 U.S. at 21. Native Americans were not to be treated as “equals to
equals” but, instead, the United States was the conqueror and Native Americans the
conquered. Id. at 23.
In discussing Native Americans, Justice Johnson employed another racist trope
used by judges both before and after him: Native Americans were uncivilized savages.
[W]e have extended to them the means and inducement to become
agricultural and civilized. . . . Independently of the general influence of
humanity, these people were restless, warlike, and signally cruel.
. . . .
But I think it very clear that the constitution neither speaks of them as states
or foreign states, but as just what they were, Indian tribes . . . which the law
of nations would regard as nothing more than wandering hordes, held
together only by ties of blood and habit, and having neither laws or
government, beyond what is required in a savage state.
Id. at 23, 27-28.
This same characterization was used by Justice Stanley Matthews in Ex parte KanGi-Shun-Ca (otherwise known as Crow Dog), 109 U.S. 556, 3 S. Ct. 396, 27 L. Ed. 1030
(1883). Justice Matthews described Native Americans as leading a savage life.
sladner.bsky.social
Attention applied researchers: my friend @steveportigal.bsky.social and I have released our limited edition podcast, focusing on the research career. Off the Path with Sam and Steve starts with Ep 1: The Good Enough Career: open.spotify.com/episode/7pY4...
Episode 1: The Good Enough Career
open.spotify.com
sladner.bsky.social
Today is the day!
steveportigal.bsky.social
Today is the day we launch! It's "Off the Path with Sam and Steve" (and that's @sladner.bsky.social in case you don't know). In this limited series, we talk about what a research career looks like, even when it goes "off the path." The first three episodes are live, and links follow.
sladner.bsky.social
I cannot imagine asking something like this. The mortification upon receiving such an answer! Good lord.
sladner.bsky.social
When you aim at the King, you best not miss
junoryleejournalism.com
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.
sladner.bsky.social
I didn't have him as a fan of Latour and Woolgar but maybe I'm wrong.
atrupar.com
RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."
sladner.bsky.social
Words to live by.
qjurecic.bsky.social
he's going to come after you either way, so you might as well act with integrity
sladner.bsky.social
Oh yes, the old "passive usage data" attempt. Not new, I'm afraid. This is from 2008
sladner.bsky.social
Please enjoy this thoughtful analysis that reveals the Trump administration is much weaker than you may think. When they demand obedience in advance, it means they're not getting it. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/o...
Opinion | Where Trump Is Vulnerable and How to Act on It
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Sam Ladner
fakegreekgrill.bsky.social
I think goofiness is a really good protest strategy against these goons. Aesthetics are so important to them, and battling a blow up unicorn is not their preferred look.
courtneyvaughn.bsky.social
Streets are still closed off in front of the Portland ICE facility at 8:30pm. Protesters have gathered on a side street. Dance party in progress.
sladner.bsky.social
Chicago Pastor Sues Trump Admin After **Allegedly** Being Shot by ICE Agents

www.newsweek.com/chicago-past...
Reposted by Sam Ladner
muellershewrote.com
THIS is the energy we’ve been waiting for. Credit where credit is due.
charlotteclymer.bsky.social
"So, Democrats have three words for this: no fucking way. It's literally life or death. We will not let Republicans blow up our health care system."

This is, hands down, the best comms work Chuck Schumer has done in YEARS. Surprisingly good.
Reposted by Sam Ladner
sladner.bsky.social
Dude knows what’s up
sladner.bsky.social
Weirdly specific example of something that AKSHULLY happens more like she dies in the parking lot bc of all the pro life medical care available.
atrupar.com
Mike Johnson: "If you're a young, pregnant American citizen women who shows up in an ER and you get treated and they pay the hospital less for treating you than some illegal rabble rouser who came in from some South American country to do us harm, that is wrong."
sladner.bsky.social
Wow wow o wow.
brendannyhan.bsky.social
Happening right now. To us. In America.
sladner.bsky.social
Look, you either believe there was a genocide on Ghorman or you don't.