1122 lines
118 KiB
HTML
1122 lines
118 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
|
||
<html lang="" xml:lang="" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head>
|
||
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
|
||
<meta content="pandoc" name="generator"/>
|
||
<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" name="viewport"/>
|
||
<title>28 August, 2021</title>
|
||
<style type="text/css">
|
||
code{white-space: pre-wrap;}
|
||
span.smallcaps{font-variant: small-caps;}
|
||
span.underline{text-decoration: underline;}
|
||
div.column{display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; width: 50%;}
|
||
</style>
|
||
<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
|
||
<body>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
|
||
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Afghanistan, Again, Becomes a Cradle for Jihadism—and Al Qaeda</strong> - The terrorist group has outlasted the trillion-dollar U.S. investment in Afghanistan since 9/11. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/afghanistan-again-becomes-a-cradle-for-jihadism-and-al-qaeda">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Have You Already Had a Breakthrough COVID Infection?</strong> - The question of what “infection” means is just one of the riddles posed by the late-stage pandemic. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/have-you-already-had-a-breakthrough-covid-infection">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Meeting “the Other Side”: Conversations with Men Accused of Sexual Assault</strong> - In 2011, I helped launch a movement to aid survivors on college campuses. That meant I also had to think hard about the rights of those under scrutiny. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-activism/meeting-the-other-side-conversations-with-men-accused-of-%20sexual-assault">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>U.S. Retaliation for the Kabul Bombing Won’t Stop ISIS or End Terrorism</strong> - The central flaw in U.S. strategy is the belief that military force can eradicate extremist groups or radical ideologies. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/us-retaliation-for-the-kabul-bombing-wont-stop-isis-or-end-%20terrorism">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Mayoral Candidate with a Mouth That Roars</strong> - Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, expects his opponent to paint him as racist, sexist, and homophobic. But he’s ready to strike back. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/the-mayoral-candidate-with-a-mouth-that-roars">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The helplessness of being an Afghanistan War vet</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/thumbor/6fKNI2Jsf2dvMVrHJgT4tAPR36k=/0x0:2048x1536/1310x983/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69787328/IMG_0627_2.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Former Army Capt. Jackie Munn at Forward Operating Base Salerno, in Khost province, Afghanistan, in 2012. | Courtesy of Leigh Murchison
|
||
</figcaption></figure></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
I helped Afghan women seek maternal care. I worry what will become of these mothers and children.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Asubhk">
|
||
Inside a clinic in eastern Afghanistan, a nine-months-pregnant Afghan woman shivered on an old metal bed as an Afghan midwife examined her. It was 2012, and the war in Afghanistan had already been going on for 11 years. The woman had just traveled from an outlying village along the Pakistan border, seeking a safe place to deliver her third child. After repeated miscarriages, her family was determined to make their way to the Afghan government’s sponsored clinic at the district’s center,<strong> </strong>where they had heard news about better maternal outcomes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CCX1yS">
|
||
Part of my job, as a Cultural Support Team (CST) leader with special operations in the US military, was to inform families like theirs about the clinic. The midwives there could facilitate a safer delivery that might not have happened otherwise, like when the Taliban was in power during the 1990s. The pregnant patient would spend several days at the clinic, waiting out her delivery and returning to her village after recovering from labor.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KMv79j">
|
||
When the Taliban entered Kabul and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/15/22626082/kabul-capital-fall-
|
||
afghanistan-government-taliban-forces-explained">reclaimed control over Afghanistan</a> earlier this month, I was at a baseball game with my son. I frantically scoured through news reports while fans cheered and my kid devoured ice cream. I worried about the many Afghans I worked alongside, like that mother and her family whom I had the honor of meeting. What will become of pregnant women and their children? What about the midwives, the clinic, and the district? Or the Afghan police and soldiers I served with? I felt simultaneously helpless, unable to do anything in the moment, and guilty for being at a ballgame with fans singing along to “God Bless America” while this other country I cared about was falling apart.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3mr9Wl">
|
||
For 10 months in 2012, I was stationed near the Afghan-Pakistan border as a CST — a program created when the military realized that after nearly a decade at war, it was a problem that all-male combat units were unable to interact with the Afghan female population. Our team did a number of things, but one of our aims was to make it safer for women to travel to and from the clinic. We also went from village to village, informing everyone about the clinic’s capabilities — like how it could provide medicines, immunizations, prenatal care, and a safe place to deliver their babies and recuperate under the watchful eye of trained medical professions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iOAR8R">
|
||
Our CST was mostly<strong> </strong>met with curiosity, since almost none of the locals had ever seen an American woman before. Only when insurgents were nearby were the locals distant. As a tribal society, the Pashtuns prided themselves on their commitment to the Pashtunwali, an ethical code and way of life defined by laws, culture, and tradition, of which hospitality is deeply valued. When we met with midwives most weeks, we sat knee to knee on a red rug that covered the clinic’s cold tiles, discussing the stories of the pregnant patients over cups of chai.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4aHHmU">
|
||
Our CST’s relationship with the midwives was critical because they had daily interactions and access to the female population, and knew what type of support the women needed from the government. Together, we’d talk about villages they and the women avoided, or which villagers never came to the clinic because they were too fearful of reprisals from nearby insurgents, which helped us understand the threats facing the women in the district.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rdnv9W">
|
||
But now that the Taliban control the country, I worry about these women and what will become of these clinics. While the Taliban are saying that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/17/1028391403/afghanistan-women-taliban-
|
||
government">they’ll respect women’s rights (within the context of Islamic law</a>), their history of violence coupled with recent reports of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/afghans-tell-of-executions-forced-marriages-in-taliban-
|
||
held-areas-11628780820">women being forced into marriages with Taliban fighters</a> and being <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/world/taliban-attack-women-and-children-with-whips-as-they-desperately-try-to-reach-
|
||
kabul-airport-1156245">attacked for trying to flee the country at the airport</a> make me doubtful.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<aside id="3fNLA3">
|
||
<div>
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KYIxKv">
|
||
Like those of many citizens, veterans’ opinions about America’s involvement in Afghanistan vary. Many of my friends are upset about our rapid withdrawal and the lack of planning to evacuate those in need. Many of them have messaged me about how bleak and unreal the situation feels. Some feel utterly powerless. Their concerns echo my own frustrations and heartache. Since Biden announced the US was withdrawing from Afghanistan, I’ve been vested in helping our allies get out of the country. But once Kabul fell, I felt utterly dejected. I’ve found myself cycling through the various stages of grief: disbelief that the Taliban rose so quickly, anger in our nation’s lack of coordinated efforts to rescue and aid our Afghan allies, and depression at feeling like I’m too far away to actually effect change.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5lPHGC">
|
||
But I am choosing not to allow those feelings of hopelessness consume me. That evening, after holding back tears at the baseball game, I returned home, got on my laptop, and got back to work. For the past few weeks, I’ve partnered with an inspiring team of veterans and civilians to help our Afghan allies get evacuated. Together, we’ve filled out paperwork, applied for visas, and coordinated efforts to get people into Kabul airport and onto flights out of the country. There have been days I’ve broken down, crying at the sheer chaos of it all, like after hearing the news that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/afghanistan-kabul-airport-
|
||
explosion-11629976397">13 US service members and at least 90 Afghans were killed </a>in a suicide bombing orchestrated by ISIS-K. Other times, I’ve been inspired by the work. All I can do is hope that our efforts ripple, reaching those who need it the most.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aZgCY1">
|
||
<a href="https://twitter.com/munn_jackie"><em>Jackie Munn</em></a><em> is a West Point graduate and former Army captain who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. After her service, Jackie became a nurse practitioner and writer.</em>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OSSYet">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5Oj5DV">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KKZ10Z">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>ISIS-K, explained by an expert</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tzFmotRQ_-
|
||
HRq1B5p33peAraj3A=/333x0:3000x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69785689/GettyImages_1234889239_copy.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Relatives load into a car the coffin of a victim of the August 26 twin suicide bombs outside the Kabul airport. | Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
What to know about the Afghanistan offshoot of the group in Iraq and Syria that waged a deadly attack at the Kabul airport.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3Ks3Ah">
|
||
The United States issued a warning this week amid the crush and chaos at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-warns-of-islamic-state-threat-to-americans-in-afghanistan-11629648314">Avoid the area because of a possible ISIS terror attack</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eTSuBj">
|
||
On Thursday, the threat bore out. The full tragedy of the attack is still unclear, but <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/27/1031649747/kabul-airport-explosions-
|
||
afghanistan-dead-evacuations">at least 170 Afghans</a> and 13 US service members were killed in an<strong> </strong>explosion around Kabul airport, <a href="https://twitter.com/wesleysmorgan/status/1430972012504231940?s=20">the deadliest day for American combat troops in Afghanistan in a decade</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cAL7KP">
|
||
The <a href="https://www.csis.org/programs/transnational-threats-project/past-projects/terrorism-backgrounders/islamic-state-
|
||
khorasan">Islamic State in Khorasan Province,</a> or ISIS-K, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/isis-claims-
|
||
responsibility-explosions-kabuls-airport-agenda/story?id=79661533">claimed responsibility</a>. The organization is an offshoot of the original group<strong> </strong>in Iraq and Syria, and it emerged in 2015, <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/timeline-the-rise-spread-and-fall-the-islamic-state">not long after ISIS had consolidated territory in Iraq and Syria</a>. In Afghanistan, ISIS is building toward its goal of establishing a global caliphate.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="11tTtX">
|
||
Ex-Taliban filled ISIS-K’s ranks early on, and the two groups have morphed into enemies, fighting each other and trying to sell their competing ideologies to recruits. The United States-led coalition in Afghanistan also battered ISIS-K in recent years — occasionally even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/22/taliban-isis-drones-afghanistan/">ending up on the Taliban’s side of the battle against the ISIS offshoot</a>.<strong> </strong>Those efforts weakened the group but never dismantled it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="axiRaL">
|
||
Thursday’s attack was a reminder of that ongoing presence — and a reminder of ISIS’s ability to sow chaos and confusion, says Andrew Mines, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="Workers in the aftermath of the bombing of Kabul’s airport
|
||
wheel a gurney past a barricade." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xN8qTX-
|
||
uywUJW8lTbvNGqHIxAnM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22809888/GettyImages_1234881175_copy.jpg"/> <cite>Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
The full tragedy of the attack is still unclear, but at least 170 Afghans and 13 US service members were killed in the<strong> </strong>explosion.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HzJOGb">
|
||
ISIS-K is doing this right as the US is leaving because, Mines says, facilitating “an increased US and international footprint” aligns with their bigger goal of discrediting the Taliban.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vuar9k">
|
||
“If ISIS-K can force that [international presence], it makes the Taliban both look as collaborators with the West — which is really good for ISIS-K messaging — but also like failed collaborators, right? ‘You can’t even provide security, you’re incapable of ruling this nation, we [ISIS] are the viable alternative,’” says Mines, who is co-authoring a book on the Islamic State Khorasan with <a href="https://twitter.com/AmiraJadoon/status/1430617225635979264?s=20">Amira Jadoon</a>, an expert on the group. “It is almost certainly to discredit the Taliban and their ability to hold power and deliver security.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cHgXOT">
|
||
Vox spoke to Mines about that rivalry with the Taliban, plus ISIS-K’s origins, the possible motivations behind Thursday’s attack, and what America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan might mean for the terror group.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CaK4Ua">
|
||
Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="DtpR9y"/>
|
||
<h4 id="nhW33v">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TtVDhe">
|
||
Let’s start with the basics. Who, or what, is ISIS-K?
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h4 id="kzn9ok">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rA6dDh">
|
||
Islamic State’s Khorasan Province — ISIS-K, IS-KP, IS-K, it goes by a bunch of different acronyms. It’s the official affiliate of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan. It was the official affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in 2019, there was a split, and now it has distinct provinces for Afghanistan and Pakistan. So right now, ISIS-K is focused solely on Afghanistan. It’s been recognized by the Islamic State group leaders in Iraq and Syria and was officially founded in January 2015.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="U53cEl">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jY4oVB">
|
||
What was the impetus for starting an ISIS offshoot in Afghanistan?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="iz76x2">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DScMqV">
|
||
In 2014, there were all these background discussions going on across different local groups and emissaries on behalf of the core group in Iraq and Syria. They were traveling and reaching out to different groups that already existed in Afghanistan and Pakistan to see about exactly that — to see about establishing a local affiliate, an official beachhead for ISIS in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISIS looks at that as the crux of its broader jihad in Central and South Asia. It really sees it as a beachhead to launch attacks and pursue the vision of the global caliphate.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="atWeSk">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="22SJJm">
|
||
Does ISIS-K operate independently? Or do they report to — or have their activities coordinated by — ISIS in Iraq and Syria?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="aBgz4C">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U0YGgF">
|
||
It’s kind of a mixed bag. The leader of the group, the governor of the wilayat [the province, in this case Khorasan] is nominated by others in his organization and then approved and appointed by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/world/middleeast/al-baghdadi-dead.html">caliph</a> and his delegating committee in Iraq and Syria. That nomination process means the group in Iraq and Syria, in theory, has control over the group in Afghanistan. But when it comes to the operational components, they’re pretty displaced from the day-to-day. There are core operators in Afghanistan — previously in Pakistan, not just Afghanistan — that are trying to figure out how to launch attacks and all this stuff by themselves.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ydpgcb">
|
||
At the strategic level, ISIS-K aims to implement much of the same the group in Iraq and Syria does. It pursues sectarian attacks against groups like the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/6/27/afghanistan-who-are-the-hazaras">Hazaras</a> [a predominately Shia ethnic group in Afghanistan] and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-discrimination-islamic-state-group-
|
||
kabul-archive-b310aecece22454cc5918756e245810c">Sikhs</a>. It seeks to consolidate territorial control. In fact, that’s one of the qualifications that a group needs to hit to be acknowledged by the core group in Iraq and Syria — what it calls “territorial consolidation.” Once that happened, they were like, “Okay, check, you can be a province now.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
|
||
<aside id="p4EKc2">
|
||
<q>“ISIS-K has ambitions beyond this evacuation timeline. We need to treat them with the seriousness of their ambitions.”</q>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<h4 id="uf88U2">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ujqgsy">
|
||
You qualify, basically.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="5fMK1E">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="givrED">
|
||
You qualify, right? There are a few others on that list, but that’s one of the big ones.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ye6953">
|
||
The other biggest one is coming forward with a leader that can be appointed by the delegating committee. It looks different in Somalia, it looks different in Yemen, it looks different in Afghanistan, but whichever groups or sets of individuals are coming together need to nominate a leader that the core leadership can vet first and then appoint.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="lEGekL">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l3LUF2">
|
||
This is probably not the best example for a terrorist organization, but it almost sounds like franchising? You have an ISIS branch in Afghanistan and then you have the corporate headquarters in Iraq and Syria.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="kcVlX7">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="02nseJ">
|
||
I mean, that’s exactly it. One of my colleagues calls it the “<a href="https://www.hudson.org/research/16798-the-routinization-of-the-islamic-state-s-global-
|
||
enterprise">routinization</a>” of the Islamic State movement.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="vdqMU2">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kkzTuJ">
|
||
So who is in charge of ISIS-K right now?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="JoPssA">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YRvpIt">
|
||
There’s a great article by one of our colleagues, <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/who-new-leader-islamic-state-khorasan-province">Abdul Sayed, in Lawfare</a> that addresses this issue. Right now, it’s a man by the name of Shahab al-Muhajir. He’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/us/politics/isis-terrorism-afghanistan-taliban.html">believed to be</a> a former and experienced <a href="https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/haqqani_network.html">Haqqani network</a> [an Islamist militant group affiliated with the Taliban] operative. He has a lot of experience with the makings of a terrorist organization, when it goes from a low-level insurgency, and it’s trying to pursue re-expansion. He’s a bit of an urban warfare expert.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="juXeZI">
|
||
He’s also reportedly appointed as <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/who-new-
|
||
leader-islamic-state-khorasan-province">the first non-Afghan or non-Pakistani national to head the group</a>. That’s pretty significant, to be headed by a non-Afghan, or non-Pakistani, or non-Pashtun is a pretty big deal. He’s tasked with overseeing the group through this period of relative decline and relative uncertainty.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="yiddDm">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="w1q6rW">
|
||
What is Shahab al-Muhajir’s background?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="fZ9tI2">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4i49K9">
|
||
Other ISIS-K leaders were super well-known, and through ISIS’s own propaganda, they did these backgrounds on the first governor [<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/12/isis-leader-pakistan-afghanistan-hafiz-
|
||
saeed-khan-killed">Hafiz Saeed Khan</a>]. They did this whole interview in ISIS’s main magazine with him.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ICbTkl">
|
||
This newest governor [Shahab al-Muhajir] was shrouded in a little bit of uncertainty. It took him a while to issue his first statement. There was confusion about whether they were trying to hide his accent because he’s not Afghani, not Pakistani. So there’s a lot of mystery when he was first announced as governor.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="Iy0h3p">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D7LqmB">
|
||
And Shahab al-Muhajir has been governor since when?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="dLn7T3">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GlL842">
|
||
Since 2020.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="d4fmnP">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lHtAhF">
|
||
Okay, so he’s fairly new to the job then. But who exactly makes up ISIS-K’s ranks?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="rpjN57">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cLoRJm">
|
||
ISIS-K starts in 2015 — and, obviously, those discussions [about its formation] were going on in the background in 2014. This was a time when there’s a little bit of disgruntlement with the Taliban as a movement — especially once news got out that [Taliban founder and leader] <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-last-days-of-taliban-head-mullah-omar-11552226401">Mullah Omar was dead and had been dead for some time</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tOReI2">
|
||
ISIS, as an entity, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28082962">had just established the global caliphate</a>, and that was a huge messaging boost. The Taliban, as an entity, their aspiration is for a government focused only on Afghanistan, within the boundaries of Afghanistan. When these guys get in fights with each other and when they diss each other in their propaganda and their narrative messaging in how they recruit people, that’s how ISIS-K brands the Taliban. They brand them as “filthy nationalists.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="Ldp9Nj">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xp7Kj2">
|
||
It’s like ISIS was the cool, new, hip group in town. The Taliban has been around for a while; it’s kind of fusty, and so ISIS-K was trying to capitalize on their success in Iraq and Syria to recruit in Afghanistan.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="9baKhK">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Amu9qU">
|
||
Definitely. We’ve got founding members from the Pakistani Taliban. We’ve got founding members from the Afghan Taliban. We’ve got members from the <a href="https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/islamic-
|
||
movement-uzbekistan">Islamic movement of Uzbekistan</a>, and then over time, a bunch of other groups start to join them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z0DSGY">
|
||
But what kind of happens in these first few months and, then over time, is that the Taliban catch on to this really quickly, and they start to clamp down on all of their commanders and anybody who’s thinking about joining ISIS-K.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Le9HG6">
|
||
Really, 2015, was a pretty crazy year that saw, across Afghanistan, in different provinces, major Taliban commanders switching flags and joining ISIS-K. This is a huge pivotal moment because the Taliban realizes if the dominoes start to fall, ISIS-K becomes the preeminent jihadist organization in the country.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="AwkiAD">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s988oD">
|
||
I do want to talk more about the relationship with the Taliban, but when we talk about ISIS-K 2021, how big is it?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="hzR87r">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hiw2X9">
|
||
Starting in 2016 to 2018 is when the coalition really hammers down on ISIS-K. That piggybacks off the Taliban routing ISIS-K in different places. Sometimes they coincide. Sometimes it’s just the Taliban; sometimes it’s just the coalition.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UDYPAo">
|
||
In one sense or another, by 2019, the group is pretty decimated — <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-
|
||
pacific/over-1-400-daesh-affiliates-surrender-in-afghanistan/1666062">at the end of 2019, over 1,400 fighters and their families surrendered to government forces in northeast Afghanistan</a>. This is really where we start to see this messaging, especially by the Afghan government, that ISIS is defeated in the country, and that there’s no more ISIS here. That’s when we really see ISIS-K go back to this survival mode, like low-level insurgency.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bd3IJ0">
|
||
At that point, a lot of ISIS-K’s recruitment messaging is starting to localize. Historically, a lot of its rank-and-file members have come from across the border in Pakistan. More recently, there’s other good evidence <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2020/06/bourgeois-jihad-why-young-middle-class-afghans-join-islamic-state">of recruitment of young urban Afghans who have become disillusioned with the peace process</a> and just don’t think it’s going anywhere. So ISIS-K is really kind of a mix of the core hardened guys, who managed to survive the onslaught of coalition targeting, and then newer recruits, and then attack operation cells spread throughout different Afghan cities.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OkZil-4SfaCvCVrB3wE-
|
||
zFGkYxg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22810168/GettyImages_1234889373_copy.jpg"/> <cite>Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A Taliban fighter stands guard at the site of the August 26 twin suicide bombs.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<h4 id="Oy5fQj">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qt3Vro">
|
||
I do remember in 2017 when the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/asia/moab-mother-of-all-bombs-afghanistan.html">US dropped the “mother of all bombs”</a> on ISIS caves in Afghanistan, which stands out as the big example, in my mind, of that US-led campaign.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="1DxL93">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4czR9G">
|
||
It was a big bomb. The purpose of it was to clear <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/asia/moab-mother-of-all-bombs-afghanistan.html">this cave tunnel complex</a> to allow forces to get into a valley where they had been set up, basically, since their inception in 2015. But it’s also a messaging thing in its own right, which is, “this is what happens, and so be prepared, because we’re going to use this kind of ordnance on you guys.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="w9ht7v">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ceWiRG">
|
||
Let’s talk about this strategic rivalry. Why are ISIS-K and the Taliban enemies?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="d57rz3">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2Z5K28">
|
||
The biggest one is over the distinction between emirate and caliphate. This goes all the way back to 2015. There were actually talks between senior leadership in the Taliban and [ISIS leader Abu Bakr]<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/world/middleeast/al-baghdadi-dead.html"> al-Baghdadi</a> himself and his delegating committee. [The Taliban is] basically like, “why are you instructing these guys to do this? Call your guys off.” And Baghdadi is like, “Well, recognize me as caliph and then we’ll be good, right?” So that beef goes back a long time. But the crux of it is really about emirate or caliphate — global movement or national confines.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="QjPAO4">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hkfWRu">
|
||
The emirate is Taliban-style and caliphate is ISIS-style?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="f04GBm">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hTfNhI">
|
||
Yes, exactly.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="fVCsMy">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MO1xzr">
|
||
Okay, and during this past five-plus years, the United States was bombing ISIS-K targets, and the Taliban and ISIS-K were also fighting on the ground.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="uzEiuq">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E1j0Bg">
|
||
Yes, extensively.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="XYyG4B">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oAA9GN">
|
||
And what are the dynamics of that fighting between the Taliban and ISIS-K?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="lT9Bgf">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5KzMkG">
|
||
The dynamics of that took a bunch of forms. It was really a bit more positional fighting, so the Taliban attacked ISIS-K positions. That went all the way down to skirmishes in the outskirts of districts and in rural areas, to targeted attacks against individual units and individual fighters.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A3ppJj">
|
||
But the majority of ISIS-K attack campaigns, in late 2020 and throughout this year, have been focused on some of the same stuff that we saw in Iraq and Syria, which is called a <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/timeline-the-rise-spread-and-fall-the-islamic-state">harvesting campaign</a> — which is a horrible name — but that’s how they view it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AqmP1d">
|
||
ISIS-K goes after journalists, they go after aid workers, they go after intelligence and security personnel that they can identify. They go after government facilities and government targets and anything they can do to prove that the governing power is not able to provide security to anybody, and to sow confusion and chaos.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
|
||
<aside id="XjtsBS">
|
||
<q>“But the crux of it is really about emirate or caliphate — global movement or national confines”</q>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<h4 id="spVEwK">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="83ozoC">
|
||
The US and the Taliban both don’t want ISIS-K in Afghanistan. I’m wondering if there was any coordination or collaboration on ISIS targets during the war at all? Or do we just not know that information?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="5qg9sb">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ytA0PP">
|
||
It’s actually a really difficult question. Wesley Morgan is really the guy on this one. He wrote <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/22/taliban-isis-drones-afghanistan/">this piece in the Washington Post</a> about how there was unofficial coordination. It wasn’t cooperation, per se, but it’s basically, “we’re about to hit ISIS-K here, just so you know.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fJZPp8">
|
||
It falls very far short of strategic cooperation between the Afghan Taliban and the US armed forces and Afghan forces to root out ISIS. But it’s in both of their interests, and when made sense, it seems like there was kind of unofficial cooperation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="7bpUY5">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FvJwZm">
|
||
Now <a href="https://www.vox.com/22618215/afghanistan-news-taliban-advance">we just saw the Taliban go on this rout through Afghanistan</a>. What has ISIS-K been up to in the last few months as this was unfolding?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="y9lxkE">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0hmwFX">
|
||
If you look at ISIS-K attack numbers, in terms of their operational tempo, it was a lot lower than 2020 and early 2021. A lot of people interpret that as they’re either lying low to see what happens, or they’re pooling their resources and just biding their time for what we saw at the Kabul airport on Thursday.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="53x82S">
|
||
The question becomes: What is their interest in conducting <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/27/1031649747/kabul-airport-explosions-afghanistan-dead-evacuations">an attack like we saw Thursday</a>?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="qMK29D">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nvSglH">
|
||
And so what is their interest in conducting that attack we saw?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="lx0UPU">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uD3JqW">
|
||
The first is simply just do the same thing that’s coming out of the Iraq and Syria textbook, which is to sow chaos and confusion and create those conditions that insurgent groups like these try to fill.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3Ty1B0">
|
||
The second is to encourage and, in their view, hopefully facilitate an increased US and international footprint, which would be reneging on the withdrawal process.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9vkM4c">
|
||
If ISIS-K can force that, it makes the Taliban both look like collaborators with the West — which is really good for ISIS-K messaging — but also like failed collaborators, right? “You can’t even provide security, you’re incapable of ruling this nation, we [ISIS] are the viable alternative.” It is almost certainly to discredit the Taliban and their ability to hold power and deliver security.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="nSxStt">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FWP2QD">
|
||
What does the attack say about the relative power of ISIS-K? I’m trying to understand if this was its coming-out party to say, “we’re back!” Or is the group still relatively weakened by years of US bombings and Taliban fighting? Or do we just not really know the answer to that question at this point?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="WNaSEt">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="e3PPVI">
|
||
It’s certainly been weakened in 2019 and 2020. That’s why we see them really pursue these kinds of attack campaigns.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GM2nqU">
|
||
At the same time, some of the more credible estimates of the group’s force size show them gradually increasing; they are trying to continue recruiting, trying to reconsolidate some semblance of territory. Their attack cells are also carrying out these really vicious campaigns throughout last year and this year and so they maintain that capability.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="ZTkXz5">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wN2UqN">
|
||
President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/26/world/biden-afghanistan-kabul-airport-attack.html">said Thursday that the US would retaliate for the attacks</a>. But putting aside the US withdrawal for a moment, is ISIS-K a big threat to the Taliban and the Taliban’s ability to govern Afghanistan?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="DNFNSG">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4Hs1al">
|
||
Yes, yes. The short answer is yes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="XBc94t">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C13zsX">
|
||
Okay! How so?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="zlhUUT">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UiygnI">
|
||
We look at three things. The first is, again, that message, it has the playbook of the group from Iraq and Syria, which was effective. We saw that in 2011, and onwards.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="COzx90">
|
||
It has the personnel and the core membership necessary to stay relevant but also to expand and go through this period of, “okay, this is the low point.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nFprTO">
|
||
The third part is the conditions. It really is early days, and I’m not one to really speculate. But when<strong> </strong>Amira and I looked at the kind of fatalities, and then casualties occurring to ISIS-K, over time, the vast majority of them are coming from the US-led coalition, Afghan airpower, and ground operations. The Afghan Taliban is routing ISIS in areas, sometimes by itself, but when we look at how ISIS-K suffered over time, a lot of that’s been at the hand of US forces, alongside Afghan partners, and especially US airpower. Without that, I don’t know what that’s going to look like. Biden’s into an “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/05/17/997494815/the-u-s-looks-to-support-the-afghan-military-from-over-the-horizon">over the horizon</a>” posture. But it is just early days, so we don’t know what that’s going to look like yet.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="SbkYKy">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i0sefV">
|
||
As you’re saying this, I’m having flashbacks to Iraq a little bit. I know you don’t want to make predictions, but it does seem like there’s the possibility of history repeating itself?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="u210aT">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4WU3hd">
|
||
It’s sad, and you hate to see these kinds of things play out, and obviously, there are different dynamics — there’s no Taliban equivalent in Iraq, of course. But those predictions so far look like they’re on track.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2kiMqe">
|
||
Again, it’s early days, and we’ll see, and I know the US’s primary mission is getting people who have helped us and our people out of there. But ISIS-K has ambitions beyond this evacuation timeline. We need to treat them with the seriousness of their ambitions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<pre><code> <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-</code></pre>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">cdn.com/thumbor/NUQbXTp2SyemEGze7aFnCFBYlN0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22810180/AP21239344419672_copy.jpg" /> <cite>Wali Sabawoon/AP</cite></p>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A woman tries to identify a body at a hospital in Kabul on August 27.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<h4 id="djRrJt">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tl9udh">
|
||
Okay, so I know it’s early days, but what are you watching for in regards to ISIS-K?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="bQao91">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JXoAny">
|
||
That depends on what the US does next. It really does. But if we stick to where we’re at, and we don’t put too many more assets on the ground, more or less we’re out of there in a real meaningful sense, very, very rapidly, as in within the next week or two. My safe bet is that you just replace the Afghan government as a target with the Taliban as a target.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jA0Eae">
|
||
If the Taliban is now going to be the guarantor of security in the country, who does ISIS-K need to attack to make sure that they are seen as the viable alternative to some power that can’t provide security to the people? That’s going to be the Afghan Taliban.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eQPItn">
|
||
At the same time, they will still need to stick to their brand messaging, so: targeting minorities, check. Targeting government infrastructure and government personnel, and in this case, it will be Taliban-run and Taliban personnel, check. Targeting civilian spaces to create that panic and chaos and confusion to show that the Taliban can’t protect, check. That’ll be the playbook.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="1xePhe">
|
||
Jen Kirby
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NkwBuE">
|
||
So what does corporate headquarters think about all this? Where does Afghanistan fit in terms of ISIS’s larger dynamics?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="vzFfT6">
|
||
Andrew Mines
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UJpAks">
|
||
Afghanistan, from the start, was really important to this group — the greater region, Khorasan, has this huge lore in Middle East history, and I won’t bother you with the boring details of that.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TFYnQJ">
|
||
But it’s always had this lore for them. And the legacy of [al Qaeda’s No. 2, Abu Musab al-] <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/07/the-short-violent-life-of-abu-musab-al-
|
||
zarqawi/304983/">Zarqawi</a> and the legacy of bin Laden is there. They try to seize that legacy. They try to seize that mantle. “We are the jihadist group; there’s no alternative. Al Qaeda, they failed; they are not the true inheritance of Zarqawi and Bin Laden’s legacy, we are.” And so Afghanistan has always been important to them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NnzPpe">
|
||
From ISIS’s perspective, it’s really about how you allocate resources. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/25/isis-linked-groups-open-up-new-fronts-across-sub-saharan-
|
||
africa">Especially as Africa has become just as huge</a>, the movement starts to dedicate a lot of resources. The same thing we saw with Afghanistan — share money a little bit, but also trainers, advisers. And so there’s a clear precedent and clear historical interest for them to send advisors, to send assets and money that they can get into Afghanistan to make sure that ISIS-K has what it needs to pursue this next chapter.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="haRRcw">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>Clint Smith III on confronting slavery’s legacy in America</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="An etching of slaves picking cotton in a plantation field." src="https://cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/thumbor/4fM9ur3r7bZ479eN-QiwUcQb6T0=/0x0:3320x2490/1310x983/cdn.vox-
|
||
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69784873/3112087.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The Atlantic<em> </em>writer joined Jamil Smith on Vox Conversations<em> </em>to discuss his bestselling book, How the Word Is Passed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="belXAJ">
|
||
I’d argue <a href="https://www.vox.com/21327742/bryan-stevenson-the-ezra-klein-show-america-slavery-healing-racism-george-floyd-
|
||
protests">truth and reconciliation</a> are the most essential issues in American life. The ongoing attempt to criminalize the teaching about past and present atrocities and inequities associated with racism in America provides a flashpoint to reenter a much older and more nuanced debate concerning how this nation heals from its original wounds.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l1NJyk">
|
||
I believe <a href="https://www.clintsmithiii.com/">Clint Smith III</a> has written an essential book to help us get closer to that necessary accountability. <a href="https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/clint-smith/how-
|
||
the-word-is-passed/9780316492935/"><em>How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America</em></a> is a bold and deeply reported look at how the story of American slavery lives on in the present day. Its arrival comes at a moment when those who exploit political power are now using <a href="https://www.vox.com/22443822/critical-race-theory-controversy">critical race theory</a> as a bogeyman to prevent any education about these topics, any true reckoning with their consequences — and, therefore, any real change.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1UQmHo">
|
||
A transcript, edited for length and clarity, follows. You can hear much more of our chat in this week’s episode of<em> </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vox-conversations/id1081584611"><em><strong>Vox Conversations</strong></em></a>, embedded below.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div id="VO0Ohp">
|
||
<div style="width: 100%; height:
|
||
232px;">
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wE6L7n">
|
||
Subscribe to <em>Vox Conversations</em> on <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vox-conversations/id1215557536"><strong>Apple Podcasts</strong></a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations"><strong>Google Podcasts</strong></a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP"><strong>Spotify</strong></a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations"><strong>Stitcher</strong></a>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="rJxrR5">
|
||
Jamil Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GovrTX">
|
||
There has been an ideological war going on over the history and remembrance of slavery in this country since, well, there was slavery. The villainy of the enterprise is unquestionable, but it must have been particularly evident to everyone who was seeking to lie about it. From the start, holding kidnapped Africans and their descendants was portrayed as something not only essential, but noble.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HMU71z">
|
||
The falsehoods about slavery and the confederacy that propagated it have been spread, not merely through violence and propaganda, but in our textbooks, by our monuments, and within our modern American politics. In his latest book, <em>How the Word Is Passed</em>, Atlantic Magazine staff writer Clinton Smith III writes, “For so many of them, history isn’t the story of what actually happened. It is just the story they want to believe. It is not a public story we all share, but an intimate one, passed down like an heirloom that shapes their sense of who they are. Confederate history is family history in which loyalty takes precedence over truth.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MtrcBS">
|
||
Clint’s book, which topped the <em>New York Times</em> Best Seller list for nonfiction upon its publication in June, is a journey through those willful misconstructions in present time. Starting in 2017, the start of the Trump era, he visited eight places in the United States, and one location abroad to, as he put it, “understand how each reckons with its relationship to the history of American slavery.” It’s an uncompromising piece of work, one that I hope everyone who listens to this conversation, and those who don’t, pick up and read.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VJZIKp">
|
||
Dr. Clint Smith III, my man, thanks for joining Vox Conversations.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="921TAN">
|
||
Clint Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D8UIpx">
|
||
It’s good to be here, Jamil.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="e4GOmB">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S1GZJB">
|
||
You know, you had to write this book. The world that we live in necessitates this kind of education. Let’s dive on into that.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h4 id="yLHSGU">
|
||
Clint Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3GWqbL">
|
||
Yeah. So as a little bit of background, the book itself is about how different historical sites across the country reckon with, or fail to reckon with, their relationship to the history of slavery. So I go to different places across the country and try to understand the extent to which they are being honest about their relationship to this history, and the extent to which they’re not.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZEP7GK">
|
||
And the origin of it is that, in my hometown, in New Orleans, in 2017, I was watching the statues of several Confederate monuments come down, so statues of P.G.T. Beauregard, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority Black city, in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslaved people.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pGN9QU">
|
||
And what does that mean? What does that mean that, in New Orleans, to get to school I went down Robert E. Lee Boulevard? To get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway? That my middle school was named after a leader of the Confederacy? That my parents live on a street named after somebody who owned 150 enslaved people?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b3cDqB">
|
||
And what does that mean? Because we know that symbols, and iconography, and names are not just symbols, they are reflective of the stories that people tell. And those stories shape the narratives that communities carry. And those narratives shape public policy. And public policy shapes the material conditions of people’s lives.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6AGJ2b">
|
||
Which isn’t to say that taking down a 60-foot statue of Robert E. Lee is gonna erase the racial wealth gap, of course not, but it is to say that all of these things are part of the same ecosystem of ideas and stories that help shape how we understand what has happened to certain communities, and how we understand what needs to be done for those communities in order to move forward.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gi6qrd">
|
||
And so when we think about tradition and what is passed down, the book is entitled <em>How the Word Is Passed</em> because it’s taken from a quote from a descendant of a Black enslaved family at Monticello, the plantation of Thomas Jefferson. And talking about the way that Black families, since they didn’t have so many of the documents that other people had in order to mark and document their history, Black people weren’t included in the census until 1870. The story of who our families were was passed down orally. It became, in and of itself, a sort of heirloom.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fgW65b">
|
||
These stories became heirlooms that were passed down through generations that helped give us a sense of who our families were, where they came from. And those things help us sort of situate ourselves in relationship to the history of this country. The book is exploring the way that those heirlooms are passed down, in the context of the descendants of enslaved families and the descendants of people who fought for the Confederacy and everything in between.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="hi12rA">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yc9Nus">
|
||
You know, I found most surprising, especially towards the end of the book, you did not merely go to the sites that one might expect to find this kind of iconography – you know, plantations, Angola Prison, which I guess was about two hours from where you grew up in Louisiana. But also here to New York City and to Galveston Island, which a lot of people are now more familiar with because Juneteenth is now a national holiday. Tell me a little bit about how you chose the particular sites that you did, because certainly you had, unfortunately, many choices of places to go.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="Z3ROdD">
|
||
Clint Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NVtD63">
|
||
The book is about eight different historical sites, nine if you include the prologue and New Orleans. And so while it’s about eight different places, like you said, I could have gone to a hundred thousand and eight. There’s no shortage of places across this country that have a relationship to the history of slavery, in which this history is sort of scarred onto the landscape.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dGfmpk">
|
||
But part of what I wanted to do was go to places that represented a sort of patchwork of memories, a patchwork of experiences, that served as a sort of literary quilt, if you will? To capture places that represented the different parts of the spectrum of how slavery is remembered or misremembered.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8EdEbg">
|
||
And so you have a place like the Whitney Plantation, which is one of the only plantations in the country that centers the lives of enslaved people, even though that should be what every plantation does. But it is surrounded by a constellation of plantations in Louisiana where people continue to hold weddings.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ypW4uD">
|
||
I talk to wedding planners where people use the former slave cabins as bridal suites, where people can celebrate one of the most joyous days of their lives on the site of what I can only understand as a place of intergenerational torture and exploitation. And the Whitney is a place that sort of fundamentally rejects that. And fundamentally rejects the idea that a plantation can and should be understood as anything other than a site of torture, while at the same time lifting up the humanity of those who were tortured and exploited on that land.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qqp5s2">
|
||
And so on one end of the spectrum, you have that. And then on the other end, you have a place like Angola Prison, which is only an hour or two away from the Whitney, but in terms of how it reckons with its own relationship to the history of slavery, is fundamentally different. It is the largest maximum-security [prison] in the country. And it is built on top of a form of plantation that shows little desire to engage and confront the fact that that is a deeply foundational part of its history, that shapes what the landscape of that place looks like today.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OL4UaD">
|
||
And so I wanted to capture the places on that end of the spectrum, on the other end of the spectrum, and then sort of in-between. And ultimately, I tried to find places that represented some of the themes that I might find in other locations. I wrote about Monticello and Thomas Jefferson, but I could have easily written a chapter about George Washington and Mount Vernon.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="bJIr9z">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MClUAQ">
|
||
Right.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="tmdZpi">
|
||
Clint Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GBiWCy">
|
||
Or James Madison and Montpelier. But my hope is that in going to one place, I am able to tease out some of the themes and ideas that one might find in other places. And ultimately, you know, I also didn’t want the book to be a sort of 800-page desk-weight. I know what it’s like to see a book that you really want to read, and then to look at it and be sort of intimidated by the size. I did not want that to be the case with my book. Also just logistically, I didn’t want the book to be a sort of overwhelming physical artifact. Maybe there’ll be a part two. Who knows.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="fMCUul">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="boRQ8f">
|
||
Well, I was going to say there’s plenty to teach. As we know, your PhD is in education from Harvard. And honestly, just as an aside, man, I don’t know how you did this at the same time you were doing a dissertation. I did the math when I read the prologue.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="57jk02">
|
||
Clint Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8I3mZz">
|
||
Uh, I wouldn’t recommend it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="L9HEa7">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xNwbBh">
|
||
But what you said there about Monticello reminds me of what your tour guide, David, said, and that fundamental difference that he notes there is really what your book strikes at the heart of. And the fact that you were able to do that while the Trump era was essentially being born and that this kind of nostalgia was being even more politicized – I thought that was very fortunate timing, in a way, for the book and for the lessons that you had to teach.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="MyN1ro">
|
||
Clint Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6welu1">
|
||
Yeah. I mean, the book begins in Monticello. And Monticello was the first place that I went when I started conceiving of this book. I wanted to go there because I think Monticello, in and of itself, and Jefferson specifically, the patron of Monticello, so to speak – Jefferson I think embodies and personifies so many of the contradictions, and so much of the hypocrisy, and so much of the cognitive dissonance of America, in a sense that America is a place that has provided unparalleled, unimaginable, unfathomable opportunities to millions of people across generations to achieve upward mobility and accumulate wealth in ways that their ancestors could have never imagined. But it has done so at the direct expense of millions and millions of other people who have been intergenerationally subjugated and oppressed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7HxEsj">
|
||
And both of those things, both of those realities, are the story of America. And Jefferson, similarly, is somebody who carries that dissonance within himself. He wrote one of the most important documents in the history of the Western world, and also enslaved over 600 people over the course of his lifetime, including four of his own children. He is someone who wrote in one document that all men are created equal, and wrote in another document that Black people are inferior to whites in both endowments of body and mind.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5HCzdW">
|
||
And so when David, the tour guide at Monticello, who’s this sort of remarkable character … part of what I love about narrative nonfiction is that sometimes you find these people on your reporting trips who are better than any character you could come up with if you were attempting to write a novel. Their personalities are so rich and their backgrounds are so complex, and dynamic, and three-dimensional. And David was just such an incredible person to find, and had these quotes that I think really captured what Monticello is now attempting to do, and in many ways attempting to make up for what it failed to do for so long.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="noyuYf">
|
||
Which is to say that Thomas Jefferson is central to our understanding of the founding of this country. He is central to our understanding of how the American project and the American experiment was imagined and conceived. And he is also someone who, knowingly, did things that ran counter to the ethos and spirit that he purported to endorse in this American experiment that they were attempting to build.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uovmN5">
|
||
And so you have to hold all of those at once. And you can’t pretend like this slave-owning part of Jefferson was not central to his identity, is not central to how we should remember him. When the only reason he was able to do so many of the things that he did, the only reason he was able to write the letters and engage with the philosophy, and do the science, and travel to these places, was because of the hundreds of enslaved people on his plantation who were engaged in the labor that made his life possible.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JyKlSk">
|
||
It’s not even a “put one over there and put one thing over here.” It’s “I do have to hold all of this together.” And part of what David is saying is, so much of how we remember Jefferson, so much of how we remember this country, so much of how we understand ourselves is often based in a sort of nostalgic conception of those things, which is not an honest conception of those things. And we have to be honest, if we are going to fully understand how America’s past has shaped its present.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="WNlQlL">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YlTQZh">
|
||
With regard to the narrative non-fiction approach, there’s lots of ways to tell this story, of course; why do you feel like that was the way to go? And why do you feel like it’s particularly effective?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="9m8u7j">
|
||
Clint Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jTZmJG">
|
||
It’s interesting, ‘cause it didn’t originally begin that way.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7lpzIV">
|
||
So as you know, my sort of training as a writer is originally as a poet. And so I came to writing as a poet. My first book is a collection of poems. I came of age in the DC poetry scene. When I started thinking about these questions, when I started thinking about the Confederacy, and thinking about slavery, and thinking about memory, thinking of how we understand and misunderstand this history, at first, as I was watching these statutes come down in New Orleans, I was thinking, “Okay, well, my second collection of poems will be about different monuments in New Orleans. And the conceit will be each poem is about a different monument, and I’ll sort of, you know, do it like that.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MAADkH">
|
||
But I think I quickly learned that I wanted my exploration to one, move beyond New Orleans, and two, move beyond the Confederacy and monument, specifically. You know, poetry is the creation of art, but it is also the mechanism by which I do my best thinking. So when I was writing these early poems, thinking about this history, it helped me realize that I needed a little bit more room to breathe. I need a little bit more space than a poem might afford.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wSkpcb">
|
||
And so then I started writing these sort of longer essays about different places and I was like, “Hmm, this isn’t really getting me where I need to go.” And then when I went to Monticello, on that tour with David that we mentioned, I met these two women, Donna and Grace. And I went up to them after the tour with David. In the book, I talk about how David, in the span of an hour, had provided a more honest, complex, and truthful depiction of Jefferson than I had ever encountered in my own education. And I was on this tour with about a dozen people, and these two white women were clearly unsettled by so much of what they were hearing. And I went up to them after and I was like, “Hi. My name’s Clint, I’d love to hear what that experience was like for you, what you think about what David said,” and they were like, “Man, he really took the shine off the guy. I had no idea Jefferson owned slaves. I had no idea that Monticello was a plantation.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X8zUWU">
|
||
And mind you these are folks who, you know, bought plane tickets. They rented cars, they got hotel rooms, they came to this place as a sort of pilgrimage to see the home of one of our founding fathers and the third president of the United States, and had no conception of this place being a plantation. They had no idea that this person was an enslaver.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oTf6pL">
|
||
And for me that moment was really important and clarifying because it told me that this shouldn’t just be extended personal reflections or meditations on my own visits to these places, but that my reflections and experiences had to be in conversation with the experiences of other people. I had to add the reporting to it. I had to add the interviews to it because it made the story much more rich, and if I’m actually trying to get a sense of how different places across the country think about our relationship to the history of slavery, what better way is there to sort of magnify and amplify than by talking to people who are at these sites, whose conception and ideas of American history might be very different than my own.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="O9Oo1k">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RGep5v">
|
||
Yeah, I found those moments to be some of the most clarifying of the entire book, because you’re offering the reader this lens that you have. You read books in libraries for hours and hours and hours, you know the history. You’re coming to it, and yet you’re still enlightened, but they’re enlightened from a different perspective entirely and you’re getting that in real-time for the book. I thought that was particularly poignant, and it’s sometimes striking.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="eJgKPx">
|
||
Clint Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iOC3L1">
|
||
Yeah, and it was for me too.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dsAYFq">
|
||
This goes back to your original question about the narrative nonfiction choice. I’d done a lot of research and reading about the history of slavery before beginning this book; that research is in many ways what led to this book. Part of the book writing process itself was because I wanted to learn more about this thing that I realize I didn’t understand, in ways that were actually commensurate with the impact that it had on this country.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Mb9KRj">
|
||
This book is not written by someone who began this book as an expert on the history of slavery. The book itself is a sort of journey of my own learning. It is a journey through which I am going to these different places and reading these different books and meeting these different people that are all more deeply informing my own understanding of this history, my own understanding of this country, and have provided me, four years later, with this really remarkable clarity that I think is emancipatory.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RHPpb6">
|
||
It’s sort of liberating, because the more you learn about the history of this country, the less this country is able to lie to you about why it is the way that it is. The more you can look around and truly recognize that the reason one community looks one way and another community looks another way is not because of the people in those communities, but it’s because of what has been done to those communities, generation after generation after generation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2SxRgR">
|
||
Part of why I made the narrative nonfiction choice is that I wanted the reader to feel like they were on this journey with me, that they were on this trip with me to these different sites. And I also didn’t want to write a book that felt preachy or didactic, or like it was trying to hit you over the head with a hammer, but instead was saying like, “I’m out here trying to learn more about the history of this country, and I hope you will come along with me on that journey.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="ElwyaA">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kDxgWq">
|
||
Tell me if you think this is weird, but I was reading it and I was reminded of the first time I ever went to the Grand Canyon, which was just a few months ago. And I had seen pictures of it. I’d seen documentaries about it. You’ve seen a film that uses it as a metaphor, but actually being there … like there’s just no way that anyone can adequately describe that. I can’t even right now. And so I’m thinking about these sites that you’ve been to, and me as a boy growing up in the northern Midwest. This stuff was not readily available. This stuff is not something I went to on a field trip.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s8FLWe">
|
||
And I still have a lot of exploration to do myself. I just said to myself, “Well, I’m valuing what Clint is saying here and what Clint is observing here but dammit, I need to get on the road and see these things for myself.” Is that one of the things that you hope readers would take away from this?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="igXqwi">
|
||
Clint Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0gQ32C">
|
||
Oh, absolutely. I think that they should visit all the different places that I’ve visited, but even more than that, I kind of hope this book prompts people to look around their own communities and their own cities and their own states and to realize that there are all sorts of places like this all around them. Again, the scars of enslavement are just etched into the topography of this land, of this country, in so many ways that could never be captured by any single text, and so I do hope that this serves as a catalyst of interest for people to go to these places, and to walk across the land, to stand in the buildings, to be in the spaces where this history happened. Because nothing can compare to that, right?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LaMQkn">
|
||
Like it’s one thing to read about a slave cabin, and it’s another thing to stand inside of one. It’s another thing to walk inside of that cabin and hear the wood moan under feet, to see the way that sunlight sort of slides in through cracks in the wood planks on the side of this small home, and to recognize how susceptible to the elements the people inside of it would have been. It’s one thing to read about Monticello, and it’s another thing to be on that mountain top, and to walk across those paths that are the same paths that were built by enslaved hands, to see Jefferson’s home and recognize that it was built by enslaved labor. To be at Angola … I’ve worked in prisons and jails for the past several years as a teacher, but I had never experienced anything like Angola prison. I had never seen Black men working in the fields of what was once a plantation while someone watches them on horseback with a gun over their shoulder, in a place where they work for virtually no pay, pennies on the hour.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yRA56k">
|
||
It is difficult to put into words what that feels like, like what this really feels like in your body, and I tried my best to do that in this book, and tried my best to bring both depictions of how seeing these things and feeling these things, watching these things standing inside of these places made me feel, and also just create a sort of sensory experience for the reader. Like, what do these places look like? What do they smell like? What does the air taste like? What are the voices of the people who were responsible for telling the stories of this land sound like? What are their backgrounds? I really wanted it to be a sort of cinematic experience almost, where the reader feels sort of surrounded by the sights and sounds and sensory details and texture that make these places what they are.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="xxkFg1">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KRDgbP">
|
||
What you’re saying now is reminding me of something I saw at the Whitney just this past week. There’s an exhibit there by a Black photographer named Dawoud Bey, and one of the artworks that’s on display is this collection called Night Coming Tenderly, Black after the Langston Hughes Dream Variations. And what it is, is this landscape photography that’s essentially just done like you were seeing it at night. You know, if you’re an escaped runaway enslaved person coming upon property in Ohio along the Underground Railroad, you come along Lake Erie, you come along a house that you don’t know is friendly or not.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="da8TcC">
|
||
That kind of fear gets put into you and there’s a way that we can sort of just really experience it through the artwork. And like you’re saying, there’s a way that you can just really experience it by being there, and it’s a necessary thing I think we have to do in order to help bridge the empathy gap, folks who don’t understand or just through no fault of their own frankly were not made fluent in Blackness, the way that we are forced to be fluent in Whiteness. That kind of thing, it reaches people. And that’s why I’m really so thankful for this work that you’ve put out, because it’s something that will reach people, in ways that they may not even realize until much later.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="UuhDPO">
|
||
Clint Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lUdQHk">
|
||
I appreciate you saying that. And yeah, people that ask me about the audience, “Who is this book for, who do you hope reads it?” As an author, you hope many people read your book and you hope as many people read your book as possible but –
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="YRDp2W">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4qRtof">
|
||
I hope everybody reads this.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="lEbZau">
|
||
Clint Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aZ2VZc">
|
||
You and me both, but it was written first and foremost, as I kind of alluded, to a before me, right? Like, this was a learning journey for myself, and I wanted to write this sort of book that high school Clint really could have used in his classroom. And that high school English teacher Clint really could have used, as a text to teach in his classroom. But I also recognized that there are many people, to your point, who just don’t know, and who don’t even know that they don’t know.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x3K4KF">
|
||
And I think there’s a balance to be struck, right? Like, we should recognize the ways in which the infrastructure of our educational system across this country has profoundly failed so many people across generations, in ways that teach them or have failed to teach them about the legacy of slavery, of Jim Crow and the like. And all of the hundreds of years, the centuries of state-sanctioned oppression that have created the conditions, the contemporary conditions of inequality that we see today.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PY3gpJ">
|
||
And it’s not to say that presenting people with that information will in and of itself change them. That’s not in our control. It’s not in my control, it’s not in any writer or artist or media person or scholar’s control, but I think we should take seriously what it means to attempt to provide people with information that helps provide clarity about why our society looks the way that it does, ‘cause I know what it’s done for me. I know what learning this information has done for me, I know how much clarity it has given me. I know how freeing it has been for me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UtKXy9">
|
||
I know how it has sort of released me from a sort of paralysis that I felt as a kid. So much of my childhood was shaped by being inundated with these messages about all the things that were wrong with Black people from society, and not having the language or the framework or the toolkit with which to push back against it, not to have the language to push back against it, not to have the history to push back against it. And I feel like I have so much of that now.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kQD8zx">
|
||
I can’t adequately describe how important it has been for me. And I hope that in different ways, depending on somebody’s background and sensibility and what they’re bringing to this work, that this work can similarly be freeing in some way for them. Because, again, the more you learn about this history, the more you realize that so much of the inequality we see around us? It makes sense. It is the logical conclusion of so much of what we have done, and in many ways, continue to do.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="TYX1Fa">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P5PGna">
|
||
For those who might think that this is a book just about slavery, I remember your section on New York City, where you came here and engaged in the history of the slave trade, through the banks like JPMorgan Chase and whatnot, but you also went to places like Seneca Village, where there is a buried Black neighborhood in Central Park. Can you tell us why you felt that it was necessary to be here, at a site that people don’t really know as much about, with regards to its connection to slavery?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="QsKdqh">
|
||
Clint Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tbn6zJ">
|
||
I wanted to come to New York City generally, because one, I wanted to make sure that people understood, if somebody’s reading this book and it is their entry point into the history of slavery in America, I didn’t want to create a piece of work that by excluding northern cities made it seem as if the South was the only area engaged in this practice. Certainly it was concentrated and centralized in many ways in the South, because the South’s sort of social and economic foundations relied heavily upon the institution of slavery.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RBb6l3">
|
||
But it was not singularly a Southern institution, and people don’t realize always that New York City was the second-largest slave market in the country after Charleston, South Carolina, for an extended period of time. They don’t realize that on the eve of the Civil War Fernando Wood, the mayor of New York City, suggested that New York City secede from the Union alongside the Confederacy because New York’s economic and social infrastructure was so deeply entangled in the slavocracy of the South. Or that the Statue of Liberty was originally conceived of as a gift to the United States celebrating the abolition of slavery, and then over time had its meaning shifted and changed. Because this was right after the Civil War and you had millions of people who were not necessarily supportive of something that was celebrating, if you’re on the losing side of it, that is lifting up and celebrating a war or the cause of a war that you just lost.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U5HGs6">
|
||
And so they moved the shackles. There were broken shackles that were originally in Lady Liberty’s hands, and they took them out and switched it for the torch and the book, and then moved the shackles to her feet, or just under her robe. But you can only see these broken shackles if you’re looking from an aerial view.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eJrzFP">
|
||
So, if you’re on Liberty Island, you can’t actually see the broken chains that are meant to symbolize abolition. And when we think of a metaphor that really captures how so much of the history of slavery is sort of hidden in plain sight, I think the Statue of Liberty embodies that in a really remarkable way, because it’s right there. It’s right there in front of us, but you can’t see it, because it has purposefully been hidden and obfuscated in an attempt to minimize the nature of what that symbol’s relationship to slavery was.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="upOIwT">
|
||
Jamil Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QYy3sJ">
|
||
Obviously we have a lot of folks right now who are trying to do the same kind of obfuscation, trying to criminalize not only the teaching and learning about this kind of history, but really anti- racism in and of itself. With your book being published in this climate of false outrage and propaganda, what are your thoughts? You know, I definitely believe in works always being unfinished. Is there something maybe you wish you could add to the book in light of what’s going on right now?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="XlkgpZ">
|
||
Clint Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HMKyyR">
|
||
Man, you know, it’s one of those things where for me, it’s hard to end a book, ‘cause it could just keep going. There are so many other places that I would have loved to depict. But for COVID, I would have loved to have gone out West. I think there’s a lot to be said about slavery in California, in Washington, in Oregon, which is not part of our public discourse or not part of our public consciousness around how we understand and remember slavery in this country.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gwd7qp">
|
||
I remember I finished the last reporting that I did for the book in February of 2020. It was two or three weeks before everything shut down. And so I felt really grateful that a book that relied heavily on traveling to places and reporting, that I had finished doing so before COVID and could do the writing and editing process over the course of the next year.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uzrqCb">
|
||
But for the pandemic, there are other places that I might have gone. But at the same time, you know, maybe that’s the universe telling me the book was what it was supposed to be, and if there’s another project that will include some other places, then we’ll see. Maybe part two is how the word keeps passing on. Who knows? But I’ve worked on this book for four years. I gave it everything I had.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lVLWnA">
|
||
And the interesting thing about writing a book over the course of an extended period of time is that you also change as you are writing the book, right? So, you know, I became a father. I have two young children. I moved cities. This was also written over the course of the Trump era. And so my sensibilities were shifting, my politics were shifting, my life was shifting. The person who finished the book is, I think, necessarily different than the person who began the book. And if I were to start this book again today, it might look a little bit different than it would have when I started it originally in 2017.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OVBbYB">
|
||
So all that’s to say, I’m proud of what it is, and I hope that there will be other opportunities to keep building on it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="niJOih">
|
||
Jamil Smith <strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZSIUpI">
|
||
Not having that lens myself, how did becoming a dad change your viewpoint on all of this?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="CYdxPI">
|
||
Clint Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KclfBW">
|
||
Yeah. It definitely animates the way that I make sense of the world, the way I understand who I am in the world, and that understandably, and I think necessarily, informs how I make sense of the places I go and the people that I meet. We talked about Donna and Grace. When I was talking to them, I was showing them pictures of my then, I think, four- or five-month-old son. And when I’m at the Whitney Plantation and I’m standing in the what’s called the Field of Angels, which is an exhibit that documents the thousands of enslaved children who died in infancy or as children during slavery in Louisiana in the 19th century, the emotional impact of a space that is different.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qQTnVw">
|
||
Because I can’t help but think about my own children. There’s a statue in the middle of that exhibit of an angel holding the body of a child who’s passed away. And I wasn’t emotionally prepared for how that would hit me as someone who, at that point when I was doing the reporting, had an almost two-year-old, and my wife was a few weeks away from giving birth to my daughter. So it made the experience of so many of these places more visceral. It made the stakes feel higher. And I think, too, for some reason, so much of the way that we understand slavery in our public consciousness is centered on the spectacle of physical abuse. Which is understandable, right?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="EBL04x">
|
||
Jamil Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6jhbDY">
|
||
Yeah.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="VFrzIL">
|
||
Clint Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zHCc9b">
|
||
… the beatings, it’s the whippings –
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="BTfO6E">
|
||
Jamil Smith
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WcB8Jd">
|
||
The keloids.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="Px0zD8">
|
||
Clint Smith<strong><br/>
|
||
</strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QsSd02">
|
||
Yeah, that is what is depicted in so much of the cinema and the film and the television, and I understand why, because it is abhorrent, it is gruesome, and it captures so much of the nature … it embodies and almost is a metaphor for the immorality of this institution.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="lECVuV">
|
||
Jamil Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3WtEVb">
|
||
Right. And it’s also something we don’t see anymore. And that’s the thing. It’s like, people think that racism was that. Racism looks like that. And when we see, you know, Denzel shedding a tear when he’s getting whipped, and when we see “12 Years a Slave,” it’s important that we see that and understand those stories as having happened.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1XzUD1">
|
||
But there’s also a danger in that, in thinking that that is all racism actually looks like when it manifests itself, and that it doesn’t manifest itself in negative health outcomes, and in poor education, and in various other ways, climate discrepancies with regards to neighborhoods. This is the kind of thing we need to relate the stuff you’re talking about in this book to what’s happening in present day, and I think you do that very well in the book.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="FpX8Nz">
|
||
Clint Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SASyVW">
|
||
I appreciate that. And I absolutely agree that I think it can distort our understanding of what racism was or is, and also distort our understanding of what slavery was. Right? Like, slavery was certainly defined by that, but the point I was making about the kids is that I never fully, for some reason, grappled with the nature of family separation and slavery. And I obviously knew that it happened, but I never really sat with it, and I never really sat with what that meant.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QxVlGj">
|
||
And I think having two young children who are now four and two, sometimes as I was writing this book, I would try to do these sort of empathy exercises. I remember sitting after hearing David talk about families being separated at Monticello, I kind of sat for a moment on the bench under one of the mulberry trees there, and I just closed my eyes and imagined if I were in my home and I woke up the next day, and my children were gone. Just had been disappeared, and I had no idea where they were, and I didn’t know if I would ever see them again.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cqu1pQ">
|
||
I mean, I can’t even … the fear. I can’t even sit with the thought for too long because it is so profoundly jarring to consider. But the reality is that millions and millions of enslaved people lived under the omnipresent threat that that could happen to them or members of their family or their friends or members of their community at any moment. Right? Like, at any moment, you could be separated from your husband or your wife or your parents or your children or the people in your communities, people you love.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fLxq9m">
|
||
And I think having kids really brought that home in a different sort of way, ‘cause I just can’t … it’s just so hard to even wrap my head around the idea that that could happen, that it obviously happened, and it was central. It was really central to the institution. Not only that it happened, but that the threat of it happening was used as a mechanism of psychological terror, to push enslaved people to continue to do the work that they did, for fear that if they did not, they might be separated from their families or their loved ones.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="nLE55p">
|
||
Jamil Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VGdHhT">
|
||
Yeah, I have to sit with that for a minute myself, and I don’t even have kids. It brings to mind, honestly, the thought about you starting your graduate education right when Michael Brown was shot. How did the events in Ferguson, Trayvon Martin before that, how did police brutality and the disproportionate effect that it has on Black communities, how did that inform your graduate work?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="zqOqhh">
|
||
Clint Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AIprYi">
|
||
In enormous ways. Mike Brown was killed the same week I started graduate school, so I can’t disentangle the six years I spent getting my PhD from the experience of watching what was happening in Ferguson while I was going through my doctoral orientation. And I think what it did was, it made clear what the stakes were. And that this was not just going to be an intellectual exercise. This could not and should not simply remain an abstraction, that the things that I was learning or trying to learn in this setting was an attempt to gain a toolkit and assemble a toolkit with which to more effectively name, identify, and work on behalf of the communities that I care about.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ktclLv">
|
||
And so, one of the first things that I did was I started teaching at a prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts, in part because, you know, I was sitting around doing what graduate students do. I was sitting around reading Foucault and thinking about theory. And that’s not to downplay theory. Theory is helpful and really generative.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lFkKjL">
|
||
But I could not sit around reading books about incarceration without engaging with incarcerated people. For me, I know how I learn best, and I know how I move best and most thoughtfully and most empathically and most urgently through the world, and it is when I am regularly engaging with and encountering people who are experiencing the things that I’m researching or studying, to remind myself that, again, it is not just an intellectual exercise, it is not just a paper, and I’m not just doing this to sort of stretch the muscles of my own brain. That I’m trying to learn these things and better understand these systems and institutions and histories, in order to make sense of the very real conditions people are living through today.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VozGEt">
|
||
And so working in prison as we were having this sort of larger national conversation about the carceral state and the extensions of the carceral state, and the tentacles of policing and the criminal legal system, was a really profound reminder for me of what prison does to people, because now these folks weren’t abstractions. They weren’t nameless. They weren’t faceless. These were people who I knew, whose stories I knew, who I laughed alongside, who I cried alongside, who I learned alongside.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hpXxDC">
|
||
It was also just a reminder that the vast, vast, vast majority of people who end up entangled in the criminal legal system are people who are born into a set of social circumstances that would be incredibly difficult for any of us to escape from, or to make a life for ourselves in the way that we have been fortunate enough to make a life for ourselves today. And so it’s also this reminder of how the arbitrary nature of birth and circumstance shapes the life outcomes and trajectories of people in really profound ways.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4GL37S">
|
||
I think being reminded of that, and being reminded that, but for the arbitrary nature of birth and circumstance, I very easily could have been on the other side of those bars instead of being a teacher coming in and out of them, was really important for me. Right? Because there’s nothing inherent to me or anything inherent to what I’ve done that makes me worthy of having gone to graduate school, or working for The Atlantic, or writing a book, and that if I had been born into a different set of circumstances, my life might have looked very different.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9yDZqP">
|
||
And that’s not to say people don’t have agency, but it is to say that we have to understand how people’s agency manifests itself in the social and historical and political contexts from which it is emerging.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="jIc7BW">
|
||
Jamil Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZbxBII">
|
||
You know, that’s true of us both. We were both born in cities where, if not for the guidance and a few fortunate turns, our lives would be very different. And one thing I’m curious about, you were born and raised in the most carceral state there is in this union. How did the circumstances of your birth and your adolescence shape you?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="w8GTtt">
|
||
Clint Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LGZd7S">
|
||
I think I was very lucky, and grew up in a home with two college-educated parents, and grew up in a home where I always felt very loved, and I felt very safe. I felt very affirmed. And I am deeply, deeply grateful for that, and would not be who I am, would not be where I am without that. A Black kid growing up in New Orleans, and I grew up in a very mixed-income neighborhood. I went to a very sort of mixed-income set of public schools.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WV6axe">
|
||
And so I’m regularly encountering people whose life circumstances are different than mine, and being reminded of how proximate, despite having these college-educated parents, and in some ways ostensibly being shielded from the difficulties of so much of what was plaguing New Orleans, that I wasn’t actually shielded from it, that I was deeply proximate to it, and that as we know from the deep sociological literature, having well-educated parents in and of itself is not enough to protect a Black child from the tentacles of the carceral state.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NFXWzy">
|
||
I was thinking about that, the tentacles of the carceral state. I was thinking about that and I was just thinking about, again, I grew up in this city in which, people are always like, “New Orleans is the murder capital of the nation.” It incarcerates more people per capita than China, Iran, and Russia. Comparing us to these authoritarian regimes, talking about how the culture of the projects was so backwards, and people were shooting each other and killing each other. And this sort of implicit immorality that was entangled in these communities.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UBV0eE">
|
||
And I remember being inundated with these messages. And knowing that they were wrong and knowing that they were misguided and knowing that they were racist, but again, not having the language to push back against it. And my experience as a kid was in some ways being told that I was the exception to the rule. And feeling a sort of paralysis because it felt like people were trying to give me a compliment, but I was like, “That’s not a compliment because what you’re suggesting …”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AvTJ0A">
|
||
I was often pointed to as, “Oh, well, you’re a Black boy in New Orleans accomplishing X, Y, Z.” And that being used as a way to sort of blame people who were not accomplishing or doing the same things. I can look back now and talk, and understand how that is the way that systems of oppression operate. They use exceptions to the rule in order to legitimate the rule, in order to legitimate the otherwise deep web of oppression that keeps lots of people down.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="khndZK">
|
||
But I didn’t know how to say that when I was a kid. And so I think I felt confused, I think I felt frustrated. I was like, “I know what these people are saying is wrong, but I don’t know how to say it’s wrong.” And so much of my scholarship and so much of my work as an adult is animated by attempting to gain the language and toolkit with which to more effectively make sense of what I was seeing and hearing around me as a young person in New Orleans. And to make clear that the reason certain communities in New Orleans look the way that they do is not because of anybody in those communities, it is very clearly and directly about what has been done to those communities generation after generation after generation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NcP91F">
|
||
And even though the world attempts to make people seem as if it is their fault that they live in the conditions that they do, it’s far from it. I think all the time about this essay James Baldwin wrote, based on a speech he gave in 1963. It’s called “A Talk to Teachers.” And it’s based on a speech he gave to a group of New York City educators. And in it he says that, “The role of the teacher is to help the Black child understand that even though the world tells them over and over again that they are criminal, that it is in fact the society that created the conditions that that child is forced to grow up in. It is the history that created the social circumstances that child is forced to grow up in that is actually the criminal.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pzPx6Z">
|
||
And for many of us that’s intuitive, but I think we can underestimate how many young people aren’t given that framework to understand that you didn’t do anything to deserve this. This country did this to you. But we can also make a different set of choices about what our life looks like moving forward.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="WRENvi">
|
||
Jamil Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="urO6V5">
|
||
Indeed, and that’s why I think that, maybe, the term was a little bit harsh. But I believe that you know what you’re doing in this book, and a lot of folks, other writers, are trying to do right now is really in effect remedial education for this country. And like you said before, it’s not their fault that they don’t know this. I mean, I didn’t read Baldwin till after college. There’s a lot of things that aren’t taught to us that should be.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rkmcED">
|
||
But right now, of course we have people trying to criminalize the teaching of these kinds of things. And we end up having the same conversations about conversations, in lieu of action when it’s becoming most urgent. I’m just curious what you think of that, in light of having experience in the classroom that a lot of us don’t?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h4 id="FezeW3">
|
||
Clint Smith<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h4>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P0ckh5">
|
||
Yeah, it’s an interesting time because I think that we’re in this moment where, on the one hand, you have Juneteenth that is made a federal holiday, the first new federal holiday in 40 years. And it is a holiday celebrating the end of slavery. And we know that the end of slavery did not come on a single day, it was “a violent and uneven process.” But it is a holiday that now symbolizes the end of this institution. And it’s a holiday that we should have had 156 years ago when the Civil War ended. And it’s pretty abhorrent that we have not had a holiday to celebrate the end of one of the worst things we have ever done until this moment.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eTiK5M">
|
||
And at the same time, you have state legislatures across the country that are engaged in a state-sanctioned effort to prevent teachers from teaching the very context from which this holiday emerges. And so I think, as Black Americans, it’s this sort of marathon of cognitive dissonance that is so emblematic of our experience in this country.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YzLKWI">
|
||
Like Juneteenth, it is a good thing that Juneteenth is a holiday because it is the result of the work of generations of Black activists, specifically Black Texans who have been advocating for this for a long time. And to not take that seriously would be to do a disservice to the work and advocacy that they’ve been engaged in for years and for decades.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BvYtNX">
|
||
At the same time, very clearly, Juneteenth being a national holiday is in and of itself not enough. And there is more work to be done in order to make sure that we are accounting for and making amends for what the history of slavery has done to Black people in this country. And I think the feeling of seeing Juneteenth become a national holiday. While also seeing states attempt to prevent Black people from having access to the ballot. While also seeing states attempt to prevent teachers from teaching the history of slavery and racism. While also navigating a world in which the systems and structures of racism, and as the scholar, Theodore Hartman says, “The afterlife of slavery informs our political, social, and economic infrastructure.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BN0BJF">
|
||
And then being told that it doesn’t and experiencing this sort of gaslighting, that’s exhausting. And it’s difficult, and to kind of go back to the beginning of our conversation, it’s in the same way that we have to hold a lot of complicated things and complex realities and oftentimes contradictory realities, it feels like, of somebody like Jefferson. That’s our country. Our country is just a web of contradictions, a web of hypocrisy, a web of cognitive dissonance. And that is who it has always been.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9DnZIb">
|
||
And part of our work is to, I think, ensure that we ourselves, first and foremost, have a clear-eyed understanding of that. And that more and more people develop a clear-eyed understanding of that, so that we do not misunderstand why our country looks the way that it does today. That we don’t use notions like the idea of meritocracy or the idea that if you just work hard, everything will work out for you, or good things will happen for you. That we don’t allow those sort of socially constructed mythologies to overly romanticize our country to the point where we can’t see it for what it actually is.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZaYesS">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Eng vs Ind third Test | England thrashes India by an innings and 76 runs</strong> - With this win, England levelled the five-match series 1-1.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Your accomplishments inspired the entire nation: PM on Bhavina’s historic feat</strong> - Bhavina Patel scripted history when she became the first table tennis player from the country to reach the final of the Paralympics</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tokyo Paralympics | Rakesh sails into pre-quarters, Shyam Sundar exits</strong> - Rakesh Kumar continued his impressive run of form to storm into pre-quarterfinals while his teammate Shyam Sundar Swami made a second round exit as I</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>3 more Indians in finals of Asian youth boxing; country set for big medal haul</strong> - Lashu Yadav (70 kg) in the women’s draw and Deepak (75 kg) signed off with bronze medals after semifinal losses.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I don’t consider myself as disabled: Bhavina Patel after securing medal at Tokyo Paralympics</strong> - After becoming the first Indian to enter the final of a table tennis event in the Paralympics, Bhavina Patel will take on world number one Chinese paddler Ying Zhou for the gold medal on Sunday.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sitharaman inaugurates menstrual hygiene project, flags off mobile ATM van in Tripura</strong> - Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who was in Tripura on a two-day visit, flagged off a mobile ATM in the State on August 28 and inaugurated</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rubber plantations hit by sapling shortage</strong> - Farmers say lockdown and labour shortage affected the replanting season last year</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Baghel returns to massive welcome in Raipur</strong> - Chattisgarh CM’s camp declares victory in power tussle with Health Minister T.S. Singh Deo</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rein in Forest Department: Gadgil</strong> - ‘The best way to conserve wildlife is through regulated harvest’</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ahead of UP polls, ex-minister Ambika Chaudhary and ex-MLA Sibghatullah Ansari join SP</strong> - Welcoming the leaders to the Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav said that the joinings will send a message among the people that SP will form government in the state after the polls.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Austrian ex-far-right leader Strache guilty of corruption</strong> - The verdict comes two years after a video sting ended Heinz-Christian Strache’s political career.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>French presidency: Michel Barnier joins race ‘to change France’</strong> - The former EU Brexit negotiator says he will take on Emmanuel Macron in the elections next spring.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Afghans in Calais prepare to risk lives again to reach UK</strong> - Aid agencies on the French coast are preparing for a new influx of migrants trying to get to the UK.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Greenland island is world’s northernmost island - scientists</strong> - They say a tiny island off Greenland’s coast was discovered by luck during a recent expedition.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cristiano Ronaldo: How Man Utd pulled off shock transfer</strong> - BBC Sport’s Simon Stone details the journey of Cristiano Ronaldo’s shock return to Manchester United.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Vaccine mandates work, especially when they’re done right</strong> - Requirements always have to be achievable and equitable. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1790329">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Samurai-themed sci-fi flick It’s A Summer Film! expertly slices expectations</strong> - Stream this samurai-loving genre mashup when you can. Speaking of: ATTENTION US DISTRIBUTORS. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1789926">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Samsung seemingly caught swapping components in its 970 Evo Plus SSDs</strong> - The Phoenix controller in Samsung’s own product images isn’t present on newer drives. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1790357">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>“Worst cloud vulnerability you can imagine” discovered in Microsoft Azure</strong> - 30% of Cosmos DB customers were notified—more are likely impacted. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1790331">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Amazon urges FCC to reject SpaceX proposals for next-generation Starlink</strong> - Amazon: Starlink’s plan to have two plans should be dismissed. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1790325">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>Religion is like a penis.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
It’s fine to have one. It’s fine to be proud of it. But please don’t whip it out in public and start waving it around.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Public-Fail4505"> /u/Public-Fail4505 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/pd35yh/religion_is_like_a_penis/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/pd35yh/religion_is_like_a_penis/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>An Indian has a seat between two Pakistani’s on board an airplane.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
It’s quite obvious to each of the three men know where they are from. The Indian asks, “Pardon me gentleman, you wouldn’t mind me sitting between you to do you? This is my seat after all.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The Pakistani’s look at each other, and then look back at him. One of them smiles and says, “Not at all! After all, Pakistani’s and Indians are brothers! Are we not?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The Indian is delighted at how warm and friendly they are and he takes his seat. Shortly the plane takes off and the three guys are just chilling until the Indian says, “You know its going to be a long ride and I am getting thirsty. Brothers, can I get any of you like a drink?” Then one of them says, “Yes brother, I would like a coke!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The Indian slips off his shoes and walks barefoot to were the stewardess is at, and when the Indian is out of view, one of the Pakistani’s spits into his shoe. The Indian comes back and gives him a coke.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Then the other Pakistani says, “you know what brother? I would also like a coke too!” The Indian happily obliges, and as soon as he is out of view, he also spits in his shoe before the Indian gives him a coke.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Finally, the Indian slips on his shoes and suddenly realizes how wet they are. He shakes his head and says, “Brothers! Why must we do this to each other, spitting in each others shoes and peeing in each others cokes?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Kreastricon"> /u/Kreastricon </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/pd1zzi/an_indian_has_a_seat_between_two_pakistanis_on/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/pd1zzi/an_indian_has_a_seat_between_two_pakistanis_on/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>What do you call a man with a small penis?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Justin
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/canuckaudio"> /u/canuckaudio </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/pd11ky/what_do_you_call_a_man_with_a_small_penis/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/pd11ky/what_do_you_call_a_man_with_a_small_penis/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>I just bought a racehorse.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
I called it My Face and now I’m watching all the women in the crowd, who had a bet on it, as they scream “Come on my face”.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/thenez68"> /u/thenez68 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/pczs2y/i_just_bought_a_racehorse/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/pczs2y/i_just_bought_a_racehorse/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>A Roman walks into a bar</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
A Roman walks into a bar and holds up 2 fingers and says, “Five beers please.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Arl107"> /u/Arl107 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/pcnfzl/a_roman_walks_into_a_bar/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/pcnfzl/a_roman_walks_into_a_bar/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<script>AOS.init();</script></body></html> |