Thought Portal

sinead o'conner at the 1989 Grammys

The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) effectively struck down affirmative action last Thursday, June 29, therefore barring universities from considering an applicant’s racial background during college admissions. The decision didn’t come as a surprise to many across the nation, which had long foreseen the conservative-skewed court’s bias against policies meant to afford those of underrepresented and marginalized racial backgrounds equal opportunities and education.

Online through social media posts and in real life via in-person protests, countless artists, activists, students, scholars, and others expressed that their commitments to racial equity will not be thwarted in light of this disappointing news. But many noted that this will be an uphill battle. Last week, SCOTUS also ruled that the United States government has no obligation to assist the Navajo Nation with access to potable water; blocked President Biden’s campaign promise to forgive between $10,000–$20,000 of student loan debt; and determined that businesses may refuse “expressive services” to same-sex couples or LGBTQ+ identifying individuals based on a hypothetical situation, subsequently impacting the lives of millions of American residents for the worse.

Artist Dread Scott is using his platform to address the Court’s most recent and polarizing decisions through social media posts written in accessible, no-nonsense language. Getting to the root of these rulings, which prior decisions informed them, and how the decisions will impact others, Scott summarizes how our rights and liberties have been overturned in a single sentence.

“Today, June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that racism can be used in college admissions and encouraged universities to return to being segregated as they had been for most of history,” Scott wrote in a post about the end of affirmative action.

“Today, June 30, the US Supreme Court affirmed that discrimination is OK, as long as your bigotry is based on a firmly based religious belief,” he wrote in another post about the court’s decision to side with an anti-LGBTQ+ website designer.

RISE

Roger Peet

Destroy What Destroys You

French Protests

     “If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution.”    ―      Emma Goldman  

counter protest against hate

The recent news that the White House may ban the social media platform TikTok has people wondering, why? While Silicon Valley social giants, like Twitter and Facebook, have avoided similar threats, the question remains why TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company but has headquarters in the UK and the US, is causing so much condemnation.

I invite author, artist, and technologist An Xiao Mina to discuss her recent article “Bread and TikTok for the Mass,” and why the social platform continues to irk the powers that be. We also discuss the passing of poet Dinos Christianopoulos, whose line “They Tried to Bury Us, They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds” has become a staple of protests the world over.

Thanks to YutaY for providing the music to this week’s episode. His new track “Run” is available on Apple Music and Spotify, and you can follow him on Facebook.

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The billboard posters criticise the car industry for misleading adverts that have driven up demand for polluting vehicles and private car use – resulting in increased carbon emissions from road transport and worsening air pollution and congestion in towns and cities.

Brandalism is an international collective of artists that challenge corporate power, greed and corruption around the world. Intervening into ad spaces that usually celebrate consumption, Brandalism use ‘subvertising’ as a lens through which we can view the intersectional social & environmental justice issues that capitalism creates.

In 1978, Serote and Thamsanqa (Thami) Mnyele founded the Medu Art Ensemble, an art collective that advocated for an end to the South African apartheid government through creative expression — poetry, graphic design, photography, music, and theatre, or any genre of art their cause could attract. A sensory time capsule of their work and the community they built is currently on view in the Art Institute of Chicago’s exhibition The People Shall Govern!: Medu Art Ensemble and the Anti-Apartheid Poster.

Memes are the street art of the social web, and they are becoming more central to the political and cultural conversations we have. In her new book, Memes to Movements: How the World’s Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power, An Xiao Mina helps us understand how memesinfluenced the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, Black Lives Matter in the United States, and Women’s Marches around the world. She explores how memes can help people express public dissent in environments where that can be downright dangerous.

As one of Hyperallergic’s original contributors, An Xiao Mina is no stranger to Hyperallergic readers. In her latest project, she continues to challenge us to think critically about the online world and the role of art in the formation of this brave new social terrain. She also discusses her time working at Ai Weiwei’s studio, her internet research in Uganda, and her current job working in the Bay Area’s robust tech scene developing tools for journalists and other online citizens.

The music for this episode is “Grass-Mud Horse Cartoon and Rap (Cao Ni Ma),” which was one of the many versions of the Grass-Mud Horse song that emerged anonymously in China approximately a decade ago to protest internet censorship. This version, An Xiao Mina’s favorite, is featured in this episode. Also, a special thanks to Jason Li for allowing us to use his illustration for Memes to Movements as this week’s cover art.

This and more in the current episode of our weekly Art Movements podcast.

Three part series about the British Museum’s show about dissent thru history.