By Claire Potter. During this year of police violence, and organizing against police violence, I have avoided blogging about the many issues raised by Ferguson, Staten Island and Baltimore. I am ambivalent about this decision, because it isn’t as though I do not have a lot to say, and that saying it in this space is not important. Many of these protests occurred in my own city: my students and I marched, and we talked. Urban uprisings have been the most consistent theme of the academic year.
Yet I have been overwhelmed by these events. More importantly, I have also been troubled by the role social media has played in the dynamics of these uprisings, and by the extent to which some academics posture as virtual, semi-professional, urban revolutionaries when they talk to the Internet. More...