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nina michiko tam

@ninamichikotam.bsky.social

civil-rights lawyer. writer.

118 Followers  |  361 Following  |  13 Posts  |  Joined: 04.01.2024  |  2.253

Latest posts by ninamichikotam.bsky.social on Bluesky

I’m a law prof & a YLS grad and anyone familiar w elite law schools knows it is beyond laughable to describe these places as radicalism hotbeds. Cruz knows this, as does JD Vance. But they assume that their marks are too unsophisticated to know it too. It’s condescending as hell.

22.11.2025 15:34 β€” πŸ‘ 1015    πŸ” 171    πŸ’¬ 34    πŸ“Œ 14
NOVEMBER 3, 2025
THE ART WORLD
RECONSTRUCTED
In "Monuments," the Confederacy surrenders to nineteen artists.
By Julian Lucas
6:00 AM

Picture is the statue described in img 2

NOVEMBER 3, 2025 THE ART WORLD RECONSTRUCTED In "Monuments," the Confederacy surrenders to nineteen artists. By Julian Lucas 6:00 AM Picture is the statue described in img 2

β€’he hirst thing you see is a horses
- ass, protruding, upside down, trom the thorax of a monster. A man's arm descends from the beast's stomach, his gloved hand clutching the blade of a fallen sabre. There's no sign of a rider's face, but a head of well-coiffed hair dangles from the creature's eyeless muzzle. Every part of the work comes from a statue of the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that was removed from Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2021. It was subsequently given to the artist Kara Walker, who carved it up in accordance with a butcher's diagram. The finished sculpture, "Unmanned Drone"β€”on view at the Brick, in Los Angeles, as part of a joint exhibition with MocA called
"Monuments" β€”is at once an act of carnivalesque retribution and a recognition of the Confederacy's zombie-like persistence. A rebellion defeated more than a hundred and sixty years ago refuses to stay dead; between the creature's legs, a horse head emerges from a gape in the bronze, like a new Jackson already foaling.

β€’he hirst thing you see is a horses - ass, protruding, upside down, trom the thorax of a monster. A man's arm descends from the beast's stomach, his gloved hand clutching the blade of a fallen sabre. There's no sign of a rider's face, but a head of well-coiffed hair dangles from the creature's eyeless muzzle. Every part of the work comes from a statue of the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that was removed from Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2021. It was subsequently given to the artist Kara Walker, who carved it up in accordance with a butcher's diagram. The finished sculpture, "Unmanned Drone"β€”on view at the Brick, in Los Angeles, as part of a joint exhibition with MocA called "Monuments" β€”is at once an act of carnivalesque retribution and a recognition of the Confederacy's zombie-like persistence. A rebellion defeated more than a hundred and sixty years ago refuses to stay dead; between the creature's legs, a horse head emerges from a gape in the bronze, like a new Jackson already foaling.

well this kicks ass www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

24.10.2025 13:15 β€” πŸ‘ 1713    πŸ” 313    πŸ’¬ 33    πŸ“Œ 25

Du Bois basically did a version of this in his bibliography in Black Reconstruction

14.10.2025 00:47 β€” πŸ‘ 1426    πŸ” 284    πŸ’¬ 19    πŸ“Œ 11

Well golly it sounds like you should let long-standing precedents stand until you rule on the merits, then. That is not what you’re doing!

12.10.2025 16:32 β€” πŸ‘ 1755    πŸ” 364    πŸ’¬ 48    πŸ“Œ 10

We will need Nuremberg-like trials

11.10.2025 17:34 β€” πŸ‘ 7451    πŸ” 2453    πŸ’¬ 171    πŸ“Œ 77

I note the ruling emphasizes at the outset the enormous factual record the court assembled, which in normal times would read as boilerplate, but in the present context feels like a preemptive rebuke of a SCOTUS increasingly disposed to hasty and conclusory interventions on Trump's behalf.

30.09.2025 18:59 β€” πŸ‘ 521    πŸ” 88    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 2
Preview
Trump’s Politicized Prosecutions May Hit a Roadblock When the president puts his political enemies on trial on pretextual grounds, jurors have the option of refusing to convict.

There is one tried and true way ordinary Americans can stop Trump’s political prosecutions: Jury Nullification. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

29.09.2025 12:20 β€” πŸ‘ 620    πŸ” 197    πŸ’¬ 15    πŸ“Œ 11
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Anyway, here's the lyrics of the Battle Hymn, which––to continue that theme––was written by abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe. Notably, unlike other suffragists, Howe refused to throw Black men's suffrage under the bus so that white women could gain the right to vote.

28.09.2025 19:31 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Both provide such a counterpoint to current punditry, or political wins, because they believe that the stakes are deeper than this moment. The stakes are on the moral plane. And if you believe that, then there is no reason to concede rights, or to throw others under the bus.

28.09.2025 19:31 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

As a practicing civil-rights lawyer, this reminds me of one text that I've been returning back to frequently since November: "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." To me, TNC echoes that ethos here.

28.09.2025 19:31 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

God I love worker owned news

28.09.2025 18:59 β€” πŸ‘ 220    πŸ” 28    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 1

I can’t tell you how much good could be done right now by average citizens socially cold-shouldering anyone tangentially working for ICE.

28.09.2025 00:00 β€” πŸ‘ 9625    πŸ” 2245    πŸ’¬ 145    πŸ“Œ 110
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Anyway, again thinking about the opening of "Violence and the Word" for no real reason:

11.09.2025 23:10 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Contrary to all the quote tweets, I hate this. This woman was pulled over for some dirt stuck to her license plate, and as a result of this dog sniff she faces a loss of her liberty. It's a fortuitous joke--but is this issue a joke?

11.09.2025 23:10 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
The bold spirit of Sister Corita Kent Known as the β€˜Rebel Nun’ in the 1960s, she produced colorful serigraphs that blended Pop art, spirituality, and activism. Decades later, her work con (...)

I really think we're ripe for a revival of appreciation for Sister Mary Corita Kent's art these days:
www.artbasel.com/stories/sist...

02.08.2025 13:38 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1

So important to remember. The deepest red or blue states are, what, 65/35? That’s millions of people.

06.07.2025 15:51 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Instead of blaming children for their own deaths at the hands of a natural disaster, you could put that energy towards supporting a voting rights organization given that too many people in the south definitely do not have the power you seem to think they do

05.07.2025 22:23 β€” πŸ‘ 1085    πŸ” 232    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0

Also, when you do this red state/blue state thing, you sound like MAGAs who whine about places like California. 42% of Texans voted for Harris/Walz; millions of progressives live in red states and we fight like hell to make them better.

05.07.2025 14:41 β€” πŸ‘ 169    πŸ” 33    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0

I am also here in Wisconsin with my fiancΓ©'s family (in Sheboygan) and it was extremely subdued and far less folks than usual. Mood was somber instead of the usual summer-drunk-party energy in this town, which is fascinating to me.

05.07.2025 12:56 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

America is beautiful, contradictory, unfinished. I am proud of our country even as we constantly strive to make it better, to protect and deepen our democracy, to fulfill its promise for each and every person who calls it home.

Happy Independence Day. No Kings in America.

04.07.2025 16:14 β€” πŸ‘ 58801    πŸ” 9952    πŸ’¬ 989    πŸ“Œ 428

A few folks have DM’d me abt the Frederick Douglass passage I excerpted at the rally. Here it is:

β€œThose who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; 1/

28.06.2025 04:17 β€” πŸ‘ 872    πŸ” 268    πŸ’¬ 11    πŸ“Œ 17

As one does when one is simply impartially applying the law in the obvious constitutional way with no underlying agenda

27.06.2025 20:23 β€” πŸ‘ 2558    πŸ” 494    πŸ’¬ 33    πŸ“Œ 7
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ICE is now changing tactics and arresting people who have been granted asylum hearings.
Β 
This is both a violation of US & international law that demands immediate attention from all New York elected officials & underscores the urgent need for legal service providers to be at all of these cases.

27.06.2025 17:02 β€” πŸ‘ 11827    πŸ” 4090    πŸ’¬ 243    πŸ“Œ 147
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Before I moved to New York I thought the thing about the bagels being better there was kind of bullshit. Ten years later I can safely say that this bagel I got in Minneapolis is terrible.

26.06.2025 15:21 β€” πŸ‘ 328    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 29    πŸ“Œ 33

Which is another reason why the Confessore article is so infuriating as an attorney who has done this work. The movement didn't abandon the slow methodical approach that won Bostock, they were forced to respond to an existential blitz on trans rights framed in far right terms.

21.06.2025 04:17 β€” πŸ‘ 423    πŸ” 46    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

look how they massacred my boy

22.04.2025 00:50 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

these terminations are good evidence that this is just wanton destruction by deranged ideologues. there is no rhyme or reason other than whatever makes sense to a bunch of zoomer nazis and their bosses and enablers

28.02.2025 12:32 β€” πŸ‘ 11350    πŸ” 2862    πŸ’¬ 226    πŸ“Œ 81

@ninamichikotam is following 20 prominent accounts