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Lars Åkerson @larsakerson.bsky.social · 7h

This essay is one attempt to ask, with @rwgilmoregirls.bsky.social and @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social, what broader, transformative solidarity might require and how to design worlds that reinforce our collective freedom rather than inscribe isolation and captivity to reactionary models of solidarity

Christian Century @christiancentury.bsky.social · 4d

“We cannot survive in isolation, let alone be free. The worlds we build should remind us of this fact.”

– @larsakerson.bsky.social

www.christiancentury.org/features/map...

Designing and zoning a new world

Walking the streets of Harrisonburg, Virginia, I map the moral geography of this small city in the Shenandoah Valley.

www.christiancentury.org

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Reposted by Lars Åkerson

Jared Holt @jaredlholt.bsky.social · 3d

Here’s an angle for a journalist looking for a fresh take on the White House “Antifa” roundtable — most of the people who participated are employed by or have a direct financial connection to Turning Point USA. I think that’s pretty telling, no?

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 5d

eventually politicians need to start advocating for criminal and civil penalties for people involved in fabricating stories to get citizens incarcerated.

or, put another way: a society that would like to keep functioning has to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities

Chicago Sun-Times @chicago.suntimes.com · 6d

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b-----' before shooting

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. A judge ordered Martinez and a co-defendant released pending trial.

trib.al

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Matt Cameron @mattcameron.bsky.social · 15d

Once we are at war with Venezuela the Alien Enemies Act leaves the courts powerless to stop ICE from throwing anyone they want to call a "Venezuelan" into camps and deporting those people end masse to anywhere in the world that will take them. Normalizing this state of exception means we're all next

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 16d

🚨NEW: For the first time in history, the single largest group of people arrested in the interior and sent to ICE detention is people with NO criminal record.

As of yesterday's data release, 40%(!) of those arrested in the interior and detained by ICE had no prior conviction or pending charges.

Chart shows Detention Population, Among Those Arrested by ICE in the Interior, by Criminal Record. The chart shows three lines; Prior conviction, pending criminal charges, and no criminal record. From 2019 through September 2025, the largest group is people with criminal convictions, with much further down people with pending charges. But starting in January, those without criminal records spikes dramatically. In July it crossed pending charges and in the latest data it jumps above criminal convictions.

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Lars Åkerson @larsakerson.bsky.social · 17d

As I wrote this, I found myself thinking alongside Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Willie Jennings, and @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social. I hadn’t seen the three of them gather in conversation before and I was curious where the path of thought might go if they were in this place, together with me

Lars Åkerson @larsakerson.bsky.social · 17d

The Shenandoah Valley has been a home to me for many years, so I was excited to share about it in the October issue of the @christiancentury.bsky.social

Christian Century @christiancentury.bsky.social · 18d

“If we’re willing to dream new dreams together, there are tools we can learn to use to refashion the places we live into places of shared thriving.”

– @larsakerson.bsky.social

www.christiancentury.org/features/map...

Lars Åkerson @larsakerson.bsky.social · 17d

How can we use what we have, where we are, to create conditions so all can thrive?

Read the essay at www.christiancentury.org/features/map...

Mapping my city’s moral geography

When I returned to Harrisonburg, I began to see how the built environment reflects and shapes our values and...

www.christiancentury.org

Lars Åkerson @larsakerson.bsky.social · 17d

As we make our way, I’m looking for clearings, places we can gather and discern together the creative possibilities of our common freedom. This ongoing labor of gathering, discerning together, and building with care is at the urgent heart of our unfinished reconstruction.

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Lars Åkerson @larsakerson.bsky.social · 17d

I follow water and contours of land to trace the governing power of three construction projects that shape freedom and captivity on the modern American landscape: the suburb, the interstate highway system, and the carceral archipelago. These projects reflect distorted creativity and racial design.

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Lars Åkerson @larsakerson.bsky.social · 17d

Who is that freedom for? Whose is the public good? What—and who—counts as property? What would change if we were willing to be honest about ourselves and see what’s already in plain sight?

I often think about this as I move about town. In this essay, I try to bring you along.

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Lars Åkerson @larsakerson.bsky.social · 17d

American infrastructure is a creative and moral project from the ground up. Our built environment is the material form of tradition. Its creative signature underwrites the conditions of our common freedom.

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Lars Åkerson @larsakerson.bsky.social · 17d

I wrote this essay about a year ago now, but it feels as timely a moment as ever to think and feel our way through the brambles of land, politics, Christianity, and the designs of white supremacy. What can we make of this place where we find ourselves?

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Lars Åkerson @larsakerson.bsky.social · 17d

The Shenandoah Valley has been a home to me for many years, so I was excited to share about it in the October issue of the @christiancentury.bsky.social

Christian Century @christiancentury.bsky.social · 18d

“If we’re willing to dream new dreams together, there are tools we can learn to use to refashion the places we live into places of shared thriving.”

– @larsakerson.bsky.social

www.christiancentury.org/features/map...

Mapping my city’s moral geography

When I returned to Harrisonburg, I began to see how the built environment reflects and shapes our values and...

www.christiancentury.org

1 1

Reposted by Lars Åkerson

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · Jul 7

NEW: the Trump admin has moved to terminate TPS for Honduras and Nicaragua, covering over 50,000 people

Both of these designations date back to 1999, meaning Trump wants to strip legal status from people here legally who have had a background check every 18 months for the last 26 years.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Notices
Temporary Protected Status:
Designation of Honduras; Termination
Filed on: 07/07/2025 at 8:45 am
Scheduled Pub. Date: 07/08/2025
FR Document: 2025-12621
PDF 11 Pages (120 KB)
Permalink
Termination of the Designation of Nicaragua
Filed on: 07/07/2025 at 8:45 am
Scheduled Pub. Date: 07/08/2025
FR Document: 2025-12688
PDE 10 Pages (114 KB)
Permalink

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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · Jul 7

An astonishing figure in this piece:

Last year, the U.S. budgeted $12.8B for new affordable housing.

This country is now poised to spend $45B on immigrant detention centers.

That's nearly *four times* as much on cages as on homes—in the middle of a devastating housing and homelessness crisis.

Are We About to Have Labor Camps in the United States of America?

If you think that’s far-fetched, then you really haven’t been paying attention to what the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have been up to lately.

newrepublic.com

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · Jul 3

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

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Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones.bsky.social · Jun 27

I've covered race for two decades. I knew the 2nd Trump Admin would be dangerous for civil rights. Yet the collapse of the federal civil rights architecture and national will to address racial inequality and work on integration is stunning. Here's my latest. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/m...

How Trump Upended 60 Years of Civil Rights in Two Months

www.nytimes.com

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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · Jun 26

“Someone with a 1-hr car commute needs to earn 40% more to be as happy as someone with a short walk to work. On the other hand, if someone shifts from a long commute to a walk, their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love.” #CityMakingMath

50 reasons to want more walkable cities.

50 Reasons Why Everyone Should Want More Walkable Streets

From making you live longer to making cities more resilient: If you want a reason to make your city more walkable, it's in here.

www.fastcompany.com

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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · Jun 19

"Enslaved people received, took, filed, fled, reclaimed, and sued for their freedom," writes Daina Ramey Berry. "What we acknowledge this Juneteenth must be about more than what was given. It must be about what had already been claimed."

The Truth About Black Freedom

This year’s Juneteenth commemorations must take a deeper look at the history of Black self-liberation to understand what emancipation really means—and how far the country still has to go.

bit.ly

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · Jun 17

just saying, this is a campaign slogan I could get behind

bsky.app/profile/broo...

Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social · Jun 17

Brad has been released and the crowd breaks into a chant of “Free them all.”

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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · May 27

SCOOP: ICE, HSI, and DHS are getting side-door access to the nationwide system of Flock license plate cameras by asking local police to perform lookups for them, new public records show.

ICE does *not* have a contract to use this surveillance tool itself.

www.404media.co/ice-taps-int...

ICE Taps into Nationwide AI-Enabled Camera Network, Data Shows

Flock's automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are in more than 5,000 communities around the U.S. Local police are doing lookups in the nationwide system for ICE.

www.404media.co

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the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · May 11

thinking about her on mother’s day.

Lyric Rivera | NeuroDivergent Rebel @neurodivergentrebel.substack.com · Apr 29

A Venezuelan family is calling for a kidnapped 2-year-old to be returned to her mother after the U.S. authorities trafficked the child’s mother to Venezuela on Friday (without the child). The father was sent to a concentration cap in El Salvador in March.

A Mother and Father Were Deported. What Happened to Their Toddler?
The Trump administration sent the mother of a 2-year-old to Venezuela and the father to a Salvadoran prison. Their daughter remains somewhere in the United States.

Yorely Bernal with her daughter, Antonella.Credit...Raida Inciarte

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Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · May 10

In largely programmatic talk, Leo doesn’t waste time, states “complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council,” which “Pope Francis masterfully and concretely set forth in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.”

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Peter Norton @norton.bsky.social · Apr 20

Meet Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · Apr 12

They’ll do it in a few high profile cases to set examples. People will say, “No way this holds up in court.” Maybe. But we now know the plan: they’ll do it first, then dare the courts to stop them. And this too will be very difficult for courts to undo. This is end of democracy stuff.

Team Trump Is Gaming Out How to Ship U.S. Citizens to El Salvador

Donald Trump’s administration is talking internally about denaturalizing American citizens — and potentially sending some to El Salvador.

www.rollingstone.com

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