Dr. Donna Auston

Dr. Donna Auston

@tinymuslimah.bsky.social

Publicly intellectual. Race, gender, activism, and all things Black/Muslim. Anthropologist. Dr. Auston if you’re nasty.

4,244 Followers 124 Following 162 Posts Joined Jul 2023
2 days ago
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Artificial Intelligence The uncritical adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) poses a threat to academic professions through potential work intensification and job losses and through its implications for intellectual prope...

Take control of AI at your uni! @aaup.org now compiles guidance and tools for artificial intelligence, including working group reports, bargaining and union resources, auditing and public records request tools, and sample syllabus language. Please share widely: www.aaup.org/issues-highe...

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2 days ago

Please join us if you can, and share with doctoral students in your network!

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1 week ago

Our most recent seminar brought together a global cohort of scholars thinking through “Biocultural Anthropology for the 21st Century.” These meetings provide great opportunities for generating meaningful insights. There was even a cat! We’d love to receive your submission 🙂

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4 days ago

#anthrosky

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6 days ago
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The AFA is thrilled to announce that we are soliciting nominations for the following awards. afa.americananthro.org/grants-and-p...
- AFA Senior Book Prize (May 4)
- Dissertation Write-Up Grant (June 1)
- Sylvia Forman Prize for Graduate and Undergraduate Papers (June 1)

#AFA #femanth

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1 week ago

Our most recent seminar brought together a global cohort of scholars thinking through “Biocultural Anthropology for the 21st Century.” These meetings provide great opportunities for generating meaningful insights. There was even a cat! We’d love to receive your submission 🙂

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5 months ago

We would love to receive a proposal from you! Please get in touch if you have questions.

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1 year ago
“No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear: In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.” by Toni Morrison; excerpt reads: 

“Dictators and tyrants routinely begin their reigns and sustain their power with the deliberate and calculated destruction of art: the censorship and book-burning of unpoliced prose, the harassment and detention of painters, journalists, poets, playwrights, novelists, essayists. This is the first step of a despot whose instinctive acts of malevolence are not simply mindless or evil; they are also perceptive. Such despots know very well that their strategy of repression will allow the real tools of oppressive power to flourish. Their plan is simple:

1. Select a useful enemy—an “Other”—to convert rage into conflict, even war.

2. Limit or erase the imagination that art provides, as well as the critical thinking of scholars and journalists.

3. Distract with toys, dreams of loot, and themes of superior religion or defiant national pride that enshrine past hurts and humiliations.”

Toni Morrison:

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1 year ago
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Unmasking the spy cops: how women found the truth about men who tricked them into relationships Credit cards, passports and ingenuity led to the identities of undercover police who were loved under false pretences

A consistent truth, cops lie.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

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1 year ago

So you don’t know anything at all about the type of preparation (mental, logistical) that it takes in order to actually pull off long term action, do you? Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma didn’t just happen out of the blue. Getting people to the point of sustained collective action takes practice.

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1 year ago

True values come out in times of crisis. Some organizations are leaning in, others are leaning out.

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1 year ago
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Judge Blocks Trump Administration Policy Allowing ICE Raids in Certain Places of Worship Religious organizations are challenging a Trump administration policy that allows ICE to conduct operations in sensitive locations. The judge declined to pause the policy more broadly.

A group of mostly Quaker religious organizations succeeded in temporarily preventing federal immigration agents from operating around their places of worship across the U.S.

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1 year ago

Please feel free to get in touch if you have questions. We’d love to receive your proposal! #anthrosky

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1 year ago

Recent events have reminded me once again how ridiculous it sounds when I hear folks complaining that “Defund the police” is not a viable or realistic political message.

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1 year ago
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Transforming Anthropology, the flagship journal of the Association of Black Anthropologists, seeks to advance scholarship across the four fields of anthropology and beyond. www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/tra...

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1 year ago
"In California, “all” still means all. While the Trump Education Department announced that they will no longer protect all students from discrimination, California law is unaffected by recent changes to federal policy and continues to provide safeguards against discrimination and harassment based on gender, gender expression, gender identity, and sexual orientation. While federal guidance devolves, our commitment to safeguarding the rights of all students persists. To any students, families, and educators who may be fearful today: in California, schools are still a safe place to learn and play.” -State Superintendent Tony Thurmond

More of this please: CA State Superintendent saying, “Not today, Satan.”

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1 year ago
sreenshot from the new york times reporting that Stanford University’s provost is talking about how the loss of funding from national institutes of health funding will cost the university $160 million. that’s not the way to get this changed — the people think “stanford is rich; no big deal.” leaders need to talk about what this will cost the public

for pity’s sake, I am BEGGING university leaders to stop framing this issue in terms of what this will cost the university. people dont care!

EXPLAIN WHAT THIS WILL COST THE PUBLIC: closed hospitals and clinics, skipped treatments, loss of access to experimental drugs, unemployment, recession

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1 year ago
Assistant Professor - Philosophy and Religion (Religion) The Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina Wilmington invites applicants for an Assistant Professor in Religion position in the area of American Religions, Race, Soc...

JOB: The Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina Wilmington invites applicants for an Assistant Professor in Religion position in the area of American Religions, Race, Social Justice, or Africana Studies.

Deadline: 2/27

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1 year ago

There was a mailman they busted in Jersey a couple years ago. Slinging on the job 😭

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1 year ago
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a group of men are dancing together on a dance floor in a room . Alt: a group of men are holding hands and dancing dabke in a line/circle

I need to find a dabke class. They be getting it!

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1 year ago
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Elon Musk’s DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cuts Department of Government Efficiency workers embedded in the Education Department have been processing sensitive agency data using artificial intelligence.

I spoke to @washingtonpost.com about reports that AI tools are being used with federal data noting that this is occurring without transparency, consent, or attention to privacy and security concerns, and heightening the American public's mistrust of AI www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

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1 year ago
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Palestinians have a right to their land, a right to return, a right to self-determination, and a right to liberation.

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1 year ago

Somebody had to say it. This is at the heart of why it’s so difficult for so many people to get enthusiastic about supporting the Democratic Party. They simply don’t do enough when push comes to shove to distinguish themselves from the folks they (rightly) demonize.

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1 year ago
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The Other Toni Morrison - Boston Review A timely new documentary celebrates Morrison’s novels but downplays the enduring power of her work as an editor and essayist.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, before she was known as an author, Toni Morrison was a Random House trade editor who almost singlehandedly introduced black radical activists to mainstream American readers.

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1 year ago
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40% OFF Haymarket Books on the Struggle for Black Liberation Black History Month is not only a celebration of the rich history of Black life, politics, culture, and struggle. It is also a reminder to engage every day with that history as we ...

Y’all, @haymarketbooks.org is offering 40% off their Black Liberation books—including my new book, “Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education” and the book I coedited “Balck Lives Matter at School.”

www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/65-40-...

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1 year ago

When it comes to these executive orders, I need more states with Democratic governors and majorities saying, simply, “That shit is illegal. We ain’t doing that. Sue us,” and go on with business as usual.

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1 year ago

You can order dates from here year round, and they ship! And the product is top notch.

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1 year ago

Everyone can organize.

Everyone can contribute to social movements.

Everyone can do something, from somewhere.

None of this is about "professionalism" or policy"expertise. That is counterinsurgency, demobilizing logic.

Everyone can organize and has something to offer.

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1 year ago
Sam Cobb Date Products We are the home of farm-fresh-dates! We grow what we sell! Medjool, Black Gold, Barhi and Safari dates and more.

It’s that time of the year again! #Ramadan is coming up quickly (I can’t believe it either!) and many of us are looking for ethical dates. I love this Black-owned California date farm: www.samcobbfarms.com/PRODUCT.html

Pesticide-free, and you can’t get his Black Gold dates anywhere else.

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