Ruha Benjamin

WE STAND WITH YOU, EMAN!

Ice is kidnapping black citizens in Chicago in the middle of the night.

This is who @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social is. Brilliant. Fearless. I fucking hate typing this shit out: Free Eman.

Amplify amplify amplify please.

Thankuu so much for reading &
sharing, Lauren!

globalsumudflotilla.org/tracker/

24/7 LIVESTREAM OF GLOBAL SUMUD FLOTILLA YouTube video by Global Sumud Flotilla

All eyes on the Global Sumud Flotilla—livestream:

www.youtube.com/live/uEN2bWF...

YouTube video by Merriam-Webster LLM

Yall please go watch @merriam-webster.com’s new AI ad😅

youtu.be/RvQnl3O0D3c?...

Judge issues blistering opinion against Trump policy to deport pro-Palestinian students Judge rules non-citizens have the same free speech rights as US citizens under the first amendment

“This trial exposed their true aim: to intimidate and silence anyone who dares oppose them,” he added. “If we fail to fight back, Trump’s thought police won’t stop at pro-Palestinian voices – they will come for anyone who speaks out.”

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

Young’s opinion, which rules that the Trump admin illegally targeted pro-Palestinian students for deportation, is absolutely scathing.

“In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police…ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone who works in it.”

Keep me posted!

AAUP: “…the admin’s action against Prof Cheyfitz has occurred in the context of external political pressure n escalated demands nationwide that higher ed institutions restrict what can be said or expressed on campus, especially in relation to the war in Gaza.”

*incl. calling it a f*#%n genocide

Find a Chapter A list of AAUP chapters, both unionized and nonunionized. (You can also see a list of just union chapters.)

So, at the very least, we all need to be joining or starting an AAUP chapter:

www.aaup.org/chapters/fin...

As someone currently on probation at Princeton, what also stands out here is the sham faculty governance on display:

Faculty panel reviews all the evidence n decides there is no grounds for suspension.

Admin overrules their decision n Provost Kavita Bala calls for significant disciplinary action.

Early last semester, Droubi said, students began approaching Cheyfitz with complaints that a graduate student in the “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance” class appeared to be recording them, possibly to “gather their names and comments” and intimidate them. “We believe that a student came to the course for the sole reason of surveilling and potentially harming students in the class,” Droubi said. “That ended up proving itself to be true because multiple students came forward and shared their concerns with Professor Cheyfitz.” Cheyfitz said one Palestinian student quit the class after telling him she felt upset and frightened. Current Issue Cover of October 2025 Issue October 2025 Issue According to Cheyfitz, the graduate student often steered conversations away from the assigned readings—which at that point mostly focused on definitions of genocide and international law on Indigenous rights—to defend Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza and argue with others in the class. “He clearly had not done the readings,” Cheyfitz said. “It was disruptive.” Cheyfitz said he met with the graduate student in late January and spoke to him about concerns from his classmates. During the conversation, he asked the graduate student to drop the course, and by the next class, he did, Cheyfitz said. The graduate student, Oren Renard, a PhD candidate in computer science whose identity was confirmed by other students in the class, previously served in Israel’s elite military surveillance agency, Unit 8200, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Cornell is cancelling a distinguished professor's classes on Gaza and suspending him because of the complaints of a student who previously served in Israel's military surveillance agency and was literally recording the comments of other students in class and deliberately derailing discussion.

hey, i'm gonna say more tomorrow, but i'm starting a reading group for "AI skeptics" - it's called "AI Skeptics Reading Group"

i am not great at names; please suggest alternatives if you're creative.

i'll be sending an email tomorrow, but here are a few things to get you started

*a riff off Lucille Clifton’s poem “why some people be mad at me sometimes”—

they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and I keep on remembering
mine

Ruha’s hand pointing to pink graffiti that reads “Fuck ICE”

Ruha standing in front of Trump tower in Chicago with these words of Octavia E. Butler overlaying the image: “Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery"

Ruha standing in front of tall historic building in Chicago with these words overlaying the image. they ask me to imagine but they want me to imagine their futures and i keep imagining mine.

they ask me to imagine
but they want me to imagine
their futures
and i keep imagining
mine.

Assata Shakur, political activist and ex-Black Liberation Army member, has died Assata Shakur “died in Havana, Cuba, as a result of health conditions and her advanced age,” according to Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

www.whatimreading.net/p/assata-sha...

Photo of Assata Shakur seated. She appears to be speaking with her hands extended in the air. Her words overlays the photo: “At this point, I think that it is important to make one thing very clear. I have advocated and I still advocate revolutionary changes in the structure and in the principles that govern the United States. I advocate self-determination for my people and for all oppressed inside the United States. I advocate an end to capitalist exploitation, the abolition of racist policies, the eradication of sexism, and the elimination of political repression. If that is a crime, then I am totally guilty.”

Assata taught me that “Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.” May her spirit fly free!🤲🏾

Assata Shakur, political activist and ex-Black Liberation Army member, has died Assata Shakur “died in Havana, Cuba, as a result of health conditions and her advanced age,” according to Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Assata Shakur has "died in Havana, Cuba, as a result of health conditions and her advanced age."

She was 78.

On institutional “neutrality” and “restraint” in the face of slavery, civil rights movement, South African apartheid, and now the Palestinian genocide:

“Princeton will take the lead when there is no longer a lead to take.” —Massie

*stay tuned for a talk recording

Event Co-sponsors:

African American Studies
Africa World Initiative
Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab
Not In Our Town Princeton
Princeton Alumni for Palestine
Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest
Seminarians for Peace and Justice
Students for Justice in Palestine
Sunrise Princeton

“Divestment and the Boundaries of Conscience” Tuesday, Sept 23, 2025, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Location: 010 East Pyne, open to the public. Robert K. Massie is Senior Research Scholar and Co-Director of SIRI Pathways to Consensus Presentation, Columbia University Robert Massie's talk aims to bring together a lifetime's work on divestment, with particular reference to the anti-apartheid struggle, by discussing divestment as an instrument of social justice and moral change. What challenges do activists face when invoking divestment? What can divestment accomplish? What are its limits? Where can it work, and where not? Massie is the author of “Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa During the Apartheid Years” (1998). He is a Princeton graduate, and an architect and chronicler of the struggle for divestment at Princeton and throughout the country. He's currently Senior Research Scholar and Co-Director of SIRI Pathways to Consensus at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Event Co-sponsors African American Studied Princeton Alumni for Palestine Africa World Initiative Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest Seminarians for Peace and Justice Students for Justice in Palestine Not In Our Town Princeton

Princeton area friends, join us for “Divestment & the Boundaries of Conscience” on 9/23 @ 630pm w/ Robert K. Massie ‘78:

What challenges do activists face when invoking divestment? What can divestment accomplish? What are its limits? Where can it work & where not? aas.princeton.edu/events/2025/...

“When black parents petitioned for desegregated schools during the summer of 1955, for instance, his council published the names and publicly called for the petitioners to be placed on an employers' blacklist.”

Sound familiar?

A Council leader from Alabama put it bluntly. "We intend to make it difficult, if not impossible for a Negro who advocates desegregation to find a job, get credit or renew a mortgage."

“The Councils presented themselves as serious and sober-minded citizens who just happened to be white supremacists. While some correctly called them out as just the "white collar Klan," many media outlets decided to treat them as something decidedly different, platforming their complaints...”

The White Civility Council As the nation reckons with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, there has been a notable trend from mainstream pundits and press outlets. They have tended to downplay or outright i...

“(T)he way someone makes the argument – how nice they look, how erudite they sound, how polite they seem – has long taken precedent over the actual argument itself… as long as the tone is cheerful, there's no need to examine the ugliness of the words.” campaign-trails.ghost.io/the-white-ci...

Feed Your Head Even now, especially now, your curiosity is powerful.

NEW WRITING:

"What will you stay curious about, even when authoritarians try to shape your reality by telling you not to think, not to read, not to ask questions, not to dare consider the possibility that there’s more to life than this?" 🧪

Other Tech Worlds Are Possible. Comics project funded by the University of Toronto and SSHRC. The volume 1 was co-created with the Homeless Workers’ Movement in Brazil. The online launch will be available next week in Portuguese, English, and Spanish.

Join us!