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Sarah J. Jackson

@sjjphd.bsky.social

87K followers 1.3K following 16K posts

Prof and researcher. I study race, media, activism, feminism, tech and politics but not always in that order. Co-Director @miccenter.bsky.social Opinions definitely my own

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 26d

I know there is a lot going on but this went online last night and I am very proud it’s real. If you might be excited to find out how at every turn this nation could have prevented our current political moment by listening to Black people you can even preorder it before we get to designing the cover

A Second Sight

Since the nation’s founding, Black Americans have had a unique perspective on the U.S. experience—a “second sight”—that reveals the truth about the nation t...

www.harpercollins.com

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 9h

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Lisa Fazio @lkfazio.bsky.social · 19h

New from me and @brendannyhan.bsky.social

Why Trump's "Compact for Academic Excellence" is a devil's bargain and should be rejected in all forms

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Trump sent a 'compact' to our universities. They should reject this devil's bargain.

Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would forever be subservient to the whims of the government.

www.msnbc.com

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Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · 8h

Incredible (via www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...)

A group of apparent armed agents assemble at the end of a street, as seen from the perspective of a person in inflatable frog costume, their frog’s eyes dominating the foreground. The Ice facility in downtown Portland on Monday. Photograph: Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/AFP/Getty Images

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

that said: I think the "it's not fascism unless they're good at it" brand of analysis probably isn't the move

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 8h

Anyway it got really quiet. It was bleak. Then we started talking about organizing so there is that? Hey please join @aaup.org folks.

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 8h

Discussing this phenomenon w/ a group of profs. Someone morbidly joked, “& northern profs are fleeing the country.” The next person said…”even if we were all willing & able to abandon this place there are not enough jobs for us globally and the U.S. employs a huge # of international scholars too.”

‘Fear and hopelessness’: study finds one in four professors consider leaving US south

Survey by American Association of Professors shows nearly quarter of respondents are switching due to states’s politics

www.theguardian.com

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 9h

Man…man.

www.texastribune.org/2025/10/07/t...

“Why Sergio?”: Deportation ends 36-year dream for celebrated Waco chef

Sergio Garcia built a wide following for his regional Mexican cuisine over the decades, becoming a favorite of the White House press corps visiting Waco during the Bush presidency. Then in March, ICE ...

www.texastribune.org

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Reposted by Sarah J. Jackson

A.J. Bauer @ajbauer.bsky.social · 11h

Check out my latest, this time for Time magazine’s Made By History series:

time.com/7318570/cbs-...

CBS Has Been in Conservative Sights for Decades

It was once deemed the "Communist Broadcasting System" by conservative activists.

time.com

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Jeff Chang @zentronix.bsky.social · 1d

It’s Banned Book Week. A time to call out the real enemies of freedom.

Our fight is not just to stop the banning of books. It is not just to preserve our right to speak.

Our fight is to secure democracy and ensure the freedom of all of us to live.

Join us now.

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 10h

Great work Rudy, thank you to you and the blacksky team for carrying so much labor on all this

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Rudy wants revolution. @rude1.blacksky.team · 10h

I hear and see your concerns. Over the weekend, a couple users hosted on Blacksky's PDS were banned from the Bluesky app and thus the Bluesky API servers. This was a weakness of our system I've been aware of and hoped we had more time to address before any kind of public incident. 1/11

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Matthew Guariglia @mguariglia.bsky.social · 11d

I spent the week at the police surveillance convention and let me tell you my biggest observation: The name of the game now is consolidating as much information as humanely possible from surveillance devices, the internet, other governmental data, and literally a million other places. 🧵

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The Media and Democracy Project @mediaanddemocracy.bsky.social · 20h

We need updated reporting on POTUS’s own *rare* acknowledgement he might not be getting accurate info.

His Portland unreality is being fabricated by Fox-Murdochs, Portland GOP + who controls his Pres. Daily Briefing.

h/t @robertmackey.bsky.social
@froomkin.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/robe...

Press Watch
An intervention for political journalism
Trump's Second Term
Trump: 'Am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening?'

Dan Froomkin. https://presswatchers.org/2025/09/trump-am-i-watching-things-on-television-that-are-different-from-whats-happening/

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

An aside: there is an interesting absolutionism happening w/ some folks saying they won’t see it b/c of these critiques. Your choice. I engage w/ deeply flawed art and media all the time b/c it’s part of the Zeitgeist and I find it useful to understand how these forms attempt to engage politics.

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

The idea that a Black woman revolutionary of a cell that radical would sell her people and herself out that quickly to avoid jail time is not it. I get that part of the supposed critique is that the state infiltrates & turns folks witness on each other but in that context, timeline, character? No.

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

Whoaaa how profoundly disappointing and also predictable

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

Another—I am not an outlier among Black women reviewers of this film :)

Paula Read @paularead.bsky.social · 1d

You are definitely not the only one. I saw the trailer and was like, ruh-roh. But it's always easier for us white folk to turn our attention outwards rather than inwards when it comes to racism. Actually, it's sort of our whole thing.

www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

Jezebels, race kink and Cardi B: in One Battle After Another, Black women are still stereotypes

With its hyper-sexualised Black female revolutionary and fetishised depiction of interracial relationships, Paul Thomas Anderson’s much-lauded latest raises questions about how white male directors de...

www.theguardian.com

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

I hadn’t seen this review from @brookeobie.bsky.social until it was just dropped in the replies but I’m moving it up because I think it’s worth reading how someone who is a Black women critic is responding to this film

Jalee @thehotmamac.bsky.social · 1d

blackgirlwatching.substack.com/p/one-battle...

One Fetish After Another: PTA Exploits Black Women and Averts Revolution

Paul Thomas Anderson's action flick leaves much to be desired.

blackgirlwatching.substack.com

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

Oh Brooke is great. I hadn’t seen this review but a lot of what she says here is how I felt too.

Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

And it felt like the line of satirizing and shaming the weird racialized sexual politics of fascists by representing Black women characters in the exact way they image us is uh…a little too fine.

Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah this looks like a convo that gets to it. Ultimately, the target audience for this film is not me. I’m a biracial Black woman; so for people like me to be central to the plot but feel completely off was unsettling. The Black women were props for the white male characters to develop around.

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

I think folks who know Black revolutionary history and are bothered by age old pernicious stereotyping of Black women will find it hard not to notice. It felt especially hard for me in the wake of Assata crossing over.

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

Also, and again, maybe just me. But the more I thought about it the more I felt the film Children of Men (2006) did it better.

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

Well…

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 1d

I am not a film critic. I am an expert on race, gender and media. I thought it totally missed the mark on those things. I understand it feels profoundly relevant to the political moment. I understand why parts feel cathartic. I was distracted by feeling like the gender/race politics were from 1970.

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