Tressie McMillan Cottom

I don’t know if we have coined something like auto obsession syndrome but I assure you that loud noises, strangers, and startling existed before car dependency.

Oh my.

When a presumably well-to-do white woman isn’t automatically the sympathetic figure, I take notice! Something has changed.

That might be the new social more.

If all of the rest of this weren’t going on, I’d investigate it more.

Oh yeah absolute no innocents in a Whole Foods aisle or parking lot. All equally inept. That just made this more interesting!

Yeah the car rolled straight forward. He was directly on her driver window. I couldn’t tell if he wanted her to move or just specifically wanted *her* attention. But he was almost over the car like guys used to do when they were flirting with you?? That lean over

I wondered if it was my upper class hippie context. A lot of these people have the situational awareness of a drunk St. Bernard.

now I’m wondering if we hit a tipping point where the automobile is so inherently immoral that any act taken on its occupant is proper. So no one even asked about that!

After work traffic. Slows even the most committed anti-car reply guy down.

I wouldn’t have thought it was! Feels like a tipping point.

Hi. We were all waiting for you.

I was the one wondering if the woman was alright. That was unexpected. Now I guess I see why.

Man was the rapper. Woman was the car-holder.

Appeared to be strangers.

Rapped loudly. I could hear it. Car engaged. Two people rush forward…both in defense of him. I found that contrary to my expectations. So I wondered.

So for some disclosure: I intentionally left out ten context. Too easy to shade it with racism and classism.

So, a Whole Foods parking lot. Meaning everyone was similarly socially located. Unlike say cities where people would imagine minority youth doing this to white drivers.

This is fascinating to me. I really would not have reasoned this way but I will say based on what I witnessed, a lot of people see it this way.

Kinda tangential but we are close to the point where doing anything to someone in a car is okay because the car is wrong for existing.

I have something of an emerging ethics question.

If you’re sitting alone in your parked car when someone — usually a stranger but maybe not — raps loudly on your window…

If you slam the car into gear and floor the gas in panic or fear…are you responsible for running over their foot?

Yes!

This was a good, fast read. At the intersection of elite capture and predatory technocapitalism. Nice.

catalystjournal.org/index.php/ca...

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. This kid wants to get out of detention in time for his school spelling bee. What the fuck are we doing.

Whoever did this is a patriot.

ICE agents reveal daily arrest quotas and surveillance app in rare court testimony Under oath, officers said they were told to make eight arrests a day and given special tech to help choose ‘targets’

When a federal judge (finally) put ICE officers under oath, they admitted that they are given daily detention quotas and rely heavily on a Palantir-supplied AI tool to select targets, without warrants and without enough evidence to obtain one. They simply go into neighborhoods and round people up.

Real stand up guys, these folks.

I’m homeless and hormonally-challenged and people keep picking on me. I’m running on fumes and pure, uncut rage.

Yes I skipped a part. I also hired two young men to come haul the trash they were supposed to do today. Sent a picture of them working with a screenshot of the bill.

I have 9000 ways to skin your cat and most of them time I don’t use them because decency.

Never because stupidity.

Decency.

Another video:

“I think I got the right one. Gonna go ahead and take the long black thing out of the box!”

You won’t believe this but they’ve now decided to come work on Saturday!

Such nice guys.

Let me tell you what I did.

The contractors were conspicuously missing today. I’m pissed, obviously.

Text: “no one is here? I’m so sad.”

Five minutes later I sent a video:

“I will help us stay on track. Gonna use these tools you left. Which one is the drill??”

Opinion | Me, Myself and My A.I. Sloppelgänger

Grammarly's AI-fueled edits -- using my name - suggested making up sources and writing vague insinuations.

In my latest for @nytopinion.nytimes.com (gift link) I describe Grammarly's terrible edits in my name -- and call for a federal right of publicity.

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/o...

They’ve been beyond accountability for so long that you can *hear* the smarm at the audacity of a reporter asking an elected a question.

I hope this and the fifa thing all just evaporate. They don’t deserve these things.