Tressie McMillan Cottom
@tressiemcphd.bsky.social
Professor. Sociologist. NYTimes Opinion Columnist. Books: THICK, LowerEd. Forthcoming: 1)Black Mothering & Daughtering and 2)Mama Bears.
Beliefs: C.R.E.A.M. + the internet ruined everything good + bring back shame.
“I’m just here so I don’t get fined.”
Beliefs: C.R.E.A.M. + the internet ruined everything good + bring back shame.
“I’m just here so I don’t get fined.”
Pinned
I woke up a year ago 100% certain that I had to make a documentary about the Winston Salem chapter of the Black Panther Party. So I did.
We aim to release it early next year. This weekend I’m at Blackstar, looking for inspiration. If you’re in town, DM to meetup.
We aim to release it early next year. This weekend I’m at Blackstar, looking for inspiration. If you’re in town, DM to meetup.
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Writing in the library today!
December 10, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Writing in the library today!
I said that I was going for a long drive next weekend to clear my mind. This guy sitting behind me snorted and started going off about how car culture is killing us.
Anyway, I just want to say I’m going for a long drive this weekend and I sincerely hope people get a life.
Anyway, I just want to say I’m going for a long drive this weekend and I sincerely hope people get a life.
December 10, 2025 at 2:28 PM
I said that I was going for a long drive next weekend to clear my mind. This guy sitting behind me snorted and started going off about how car culture is killing us.
Anyway, I just want to say I’m going for a long drive this weekend and I sincerely hope people get a life.
Anyway, I just want to say I’m going for a long drive this weekend and I sincerely hope people get a life.
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Amazon is making money off AI copies of books - and putting the onus on authors to prove they’ve been plagiarised.
Honestly, just stop buying books from Amazon. Get them from an actual bookshop or order them from a reputable book supplier like bookshop.org
www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Honestly, just stop buying books from Amazon. Get them from an actual bookshop or order them from a reputable book supplier like bookshop.org
www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Amazon Is the World's Biggest Online Book Marketplace. It's Filled With AI Knockoffs
Authors say Amazon's knockoff book problem is leaving them frustrated — and making the internet worse in the process.
www.rollingstone.com
December 10, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Amazon is making money off AI copies of books - and putting the onus on authors to prove they’ve been plagiarised.
Honestly, just stop buying books from Amazon. Get them from an actual bookshop or order them from a reputable book supplier like bookshop.org
www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Honestly, just stop buying books from Amazon. Get them from an actual bookshop or order them from a reputable book supplier like bookshop.org
www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Again, I have never once been invited to a professor house party
watching hedda, which I like, but boy is there a lot of effort culturally put into convincing us all that academia is a lot more exciting than it is.
December 10, 2025 at 3:52 AM
Again, I have never once been invited to a professor house party
This part. It sounds cool and hip. But it’s bad thinking and psyop politics.
People are dismissing network television like they did radio 20 years ago. If a bunch of liberal rich people invested in non-profit independent radio across the country twenty years ago we would live in a fundamentally different country
December 9, 2025 at 8:58 PM
This part. It sounds cool and hip. But it’s bad thinking and psyop politics.
I’ve cited this in two reports, written in conversation with it and recommend it to you for further reading.
December 9, 2025 at 8:56 PM
I’ve cited this in two reports, written in conversation with it and recommend it to you for further reading.
I would argue this point on its merits — does CBS “matter” — but the family is involved in owning more than network tv and that matters. YMMV.
i don’t
@cbsnews.com & @cnn.com haven’t been as weak & worthless as they are today since their very earliest days
buying big news orgs in 2025 thinking you can influence public views is like jumping into the blimp industry right before the Hindenburg
@cbsnews.com & @cnn.com haven’t been as weak & worthless as they are today since their very earliest days
buying big news orgs in 2025 thinking you can influence public views is like jumping into the blimp industry right before the Hindenburg
I think this is the fourth of the horsemen.
December 9, 2025 at 8:54 PM
I would argue this point on its merits — does CBS “matter” — but the family is involved in owning more than network tv and that matters. YMMV.
I think this is the fourth of the horsemen.
The Ellison family’s desire to take over Warner Bros should alarm anyone concerned with U.S. propaganda & media consolidation—
They would own Paramount, Warner Bros, CNN, CBS, HBO, TikTok & a host of major cable channels
They would own Paramount, Warner Bros, CNN, CBS, HBO, TikTok & a host of major cable channels
December 9, 2025 at 8:46 PM
I think this is the fourth of the horsemen.
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
reluctantly & bitterly confirming
exercise does solve a multitude
FFS
exercise does solve a multitude
FFS
December 8, 2025 at 8:45 PM
reluctantly & bitterly confirming
exercise does solve a multitude
FFS
exercise does solve a multitude
FFS
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Kind of day I'm having: three times so far I've gone downstairs to pick up the book I need to refer to to make these script changes. Three times when down there I have done something totally different, come back up to my office, sat down, and realised I'd left the book downstairs.
December 9, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Kind of day I'm having: three times so far I've gone downstairs to pick up the book I need to refer to to make these script changes. Three times when down there I have done something totally different, come back up to my office, sat down, and realised I'd left the book downstairs.
“…trailing JEEP” is the most damning comparison
Consumer Reports ranks Teslas as the least reliable used cars. "The best of the worst [ten] was Chevrolet at a score of 40. But Tesla makes that failing grade seem respectable with its absolute rock bottom rating of 31, trailing Jeep by just one point.” futurism.com/advanced-tra...
Old Teslas Are Falling Apart
On Consumer Reports' latest ranking of used car reliability, Tesla came in dead last with a rating not even half of the top placed brand.
futurism.com
December 9, 2025 at 8:23 PM
“…trailing JEEP” is the most damning comparison
I’ve not been feeling my best. Still gotta slang this hash and love my people and all that jazz. Today I solved for X by walking directly to a Szechuan restaurant that reliably cleared my sinuses like a traffic cop. Even the salad was spicy! So grateful.
December 9, 2025 at 8:20 PM
I’ve not been feeling my best. Still gotta slang this hash and love my people and all that jazz. Today I solved for X by walking directly to a Szechuan restaurant that reliably cleared my sinuses like a traffic cop. Even the salad was spicy! So grateful.
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
omg. Kat Abughazaleh just posted that if she's elected, she'll swear in on a copy of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower.
If you were elected to public office (never mind whether you'd ever actually run), what book would you swear in on?
If you were elected to public office (never mind whether you'd ever actually run), what book would you swear in on?
December 9, 2025 at 5:37 PM
omg. Kat Abughazaleh just posted that if she's elected, she'll swear in on a copy of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower.
If you were elected to public office (never mind whether you'd ever actually run), what book would you swear in on?
If you were elected to public office (never mind whether you'd ever actually run), what book would you swear in on?
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Some of the RFPs I get are like….why not just hire somebody???
December 9, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Some of the RFPs I get are like….why not just hire somebody???
My god in heaven thank you.
I don't know who needs to know this but there is a new season of Midsomer Murders starting on the Acorn streaming service today.
December 9, 2025 at 7:11 PM
My god in heaven thank you.
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
If I ever write a memoir I’m gonna call it, “The trauma of putting up with the rest of you.”
December 8, 2025 at 7:05 PM
If I ever write a memoir I’m gonna call it, “The trauma of putting up with the rest of you.”
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
This comes just a day after the @askamanager.org update where the letter writer’s (thankfully former) company laid off nearly the entire staff and then immediately tried to hire them back as contractors
www.askamanager.org/2025/12/upda...
www.askamanager.org/2025/12/upda...
I had a long talk with someone yesterday about how all prior logic and norms about the labor market have been called off because capital is in the final push to finally casualize white collar workers the way they’ve long wanted to do. From AI to non-competes to this. They smell blood in the water.
"Last month marked the third time since 2008 that layoffs in November exceeded 70,000, with the other two times being in 2008 and 2022."
@paigemcglauflin.bsky.social reports.
www.hr-brew.com/stories/2025...
@paigemcglauflin.bsky.social reports.
www.hr-brew.com/stories/2025...
December 9, 2025 at 6:13 PM
This comes just a day after the @askamanager.org update where the letter writer’s (thankfully former) company laid off nearly the entire staff and then immediately tried to hire them back as contractors
www.askamanager.org/2025/12/upda...
www.askamanager.org/2025/12/upda...
I just saw a billboard in the airport for “Vanderbilt! New York’s SEC team”. I don’t know what anything means anymore.
December 9, 2025 at 5:29 PM
I just saw a billboard in the airport for “Vanderbilt! New York’s SEC team”. I don’t know what anything means anymore.
Reposted by Tressie McMillan Cottom
I work, for now, in higher education marketing, and can recall the MBA concentrations for blockchain and fintech and big data analytics which all wound up withering on the vine.
December 9, 2025 at 4:57 PM
I work, for now, in higher education marketing, and can recall the MBA concentrations for blockchain and fintech and big data analytics which all wound up withering on the vine.
Ding ding ding. (Maybe you’ll believe someone not me.)
December 9, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Ding ding ding. (Maybe you’ll believe someone not me.)
As I was just saying.
They will scale up random “schools” based on market speculation and then close them down when demand wanes. Thats the plan.
They will scale up random “schools” based on market speculation and then close them down when demand wanes. Thats the plan.
Yes we all agree that this is the reason colleges are in trouble
December 9, 2025 at 4:47 PM
As I was just saying.
They will scale up random “schools” based on market speculation and then close them down when demand wanes. Thats the plan.
They will scale up random “schools” based on market speculation and then close them down when demand wanes. Thats the plan.
Again, you’re arguing with me without disagreeing with me.
Sadly, I can't reply to her reply. But, it's more than possible that a lot of professional people see unionization as defensive or protective and possibly empowering. If MDs are being proletarianized, unionization makes sense as a strategy. They have to know it's only partially helped nursing...
December 9, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Again, you’re arguing with me without disagreeing with me.
Well, Alan, it would seem that I’m not talking about you, I guess.
Faculty at my university unionized not to save the profession but for collective bargaining rights, formal grievance procedures, specific tenure standards, etc. No one thought the union would save the academy from decades of outside attacks and administrative brutality. What's TMC talking about?
I just read an op Ed — maybe in WaPo? — about why professional guilds are so bad for innovation. A lot of people think professional enclosure will save them. They’re wrong. But they believe it.
December 9, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Well, Alan, it would seem that I’m not talking about you, I guess.