Author: hankkalet

Sep 4

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The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. used to describe three evils as he attempted to link the main issues facing the nation and its most oppressed people: racism, violence, and poverty. King’s argument was that the three were linked, that they operated as the three stools of a White Supremacist stool. His definitions of racism might have seemed obvious — as a civil rights leader, he obviously was demanding justice and equality for Black Americans, but he also saw racism playing out on the international stage, including in Vietnam and Africa where non-whites were being subjected to violent rule by colonial powers. Violence meant police violence and military violence (See “Beyond Vietnam”), and poverty was both economic and a form of racist control and violence. These three evils were connected.

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Sadly, we have never fully embraced King’s argument, and we now are dealing with additional evils — racism, violence, and poverty, to be sure, but also environmental decay and climate change, and widespread forced migration and internal displacement — that are intertwined and driving us to calamity.

That is the focus of my upcoming column for The Progressive Populist, which I include below for paying subscribers to this newsletter. My last column was “Save the Humanities.”

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Grassroots Preview: A Defining Moment

The Right Wants Control of Our Identities and Women’s Bodies
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Save the Humanities

This is an advance copy for paying subscribers of this newsletter of an upcoming Grassroots column for The Progressive Populist. My last column was “A Defining Moment.”
͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

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Save the Humanities

Aug 21

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This is an advance copy for paying subscribers of this newsletter of an upcoming Grassroots column for The Progressive Populist. My last column was “A Defining Moment.”

Fairleigh Dickinson University is closing its low-residency creative writing MFA. It no longer fits within the university’s mission, officials say, and it now joins a list of shuttered programs that deserved better.

I received my MFA in 2012.. It was an important part of my writing growth and planted the seeds for my shift into creative nonfiction (I’m still a poet). I’m a better writer and teacher because of the experience.

To many, creative writing programs might seem unnecessary, catering to navel-gazers and elites while doing little to improve job prospects. This is not only wrong — writers and artists in these programs come from various backgrounds and cut across racial, class, and gender lines — but misses the larger picture.

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Unlock this post for free, courtesy of Hank Kalet.

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Press Critique: More Word Choice Follies

Passing Opinion Off as Neutral Reporting is Bad Writing
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Press Critique: More Word Choice Follies

Passing Opinion Off as Neutral Reporting is Bad Writing

Aug 15

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Today’s lesson on word choice comes from The Washington Post, which published a story advancing a speech in which Vice President — and Democratic presidential nominee — Kamala Harris was set to unveil price controls designed to manage the cost of groceries.

The Post — like The New York Times — appears to be asking their reporters to become more creative in their writing. The upshot is not a more interesting approach to storytelling, but the kind of overwriting and overly broad — and cliched — categorizing that should raise questions of bias among readers.

This kind of journalistic writing drives me crazy. It pretends at objectivity but uses language that is not so subtly presents the writer’s point of view.

Adjectives and adverbs — and most other qualifiers — insert the writer into the story. They imply point of view.

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Unlock this post for free, courtesy of Hank Kalet.

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Grassroots Preview: A Defining Moment

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Grassroots Preview: A Defining Moment

The Right Wants Control of Our Identities and Women’s Bodies

Aug 13

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Imane Khelif of Algeria (red) and Angela Carini of Italy box during their second-round fight at the 2024 Summer Olympics. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
This is a preview of my upcoming column for the Progressive Populist, which will be dated Sept. 1. It is available to paid subscribers of this newsletter. I am offering half of the $50 annual subscription through the end of the summer.

The 2024 election is about control of one’s body and one’s identity, and it is clear that the Republican ticket poses a danger to both.

The attack includes the 2022 Dobbs ruling on abortion and the repeated rhetorical assaults on the trans community, but is much deeper and darker, part of an effort to erase much of the progress we have made as a culture since the end of World War II.

This may seem like hyperbole. It may sound extreme. But my language is a direct response to the actions, plans, and rhetoric being used by former President (and current nominee) Donald Trump, his running mate J.D. Vance, and elected members of the party, which attempts to frame their bigotry as protection, and masks the very real assault on freedom of identity and bodily autonomy.

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