Seemingly every statement regarding Donald Trump in recent weeks either explicitly or implicitly compares him to Hitler. It’s almost as though both social and mainstream media are trying to pay homage to Godwin’s Law, which humorously and tautologically states that any online discussion will eventually compare the subject to Nazi Germany. These comparisons highlight both the capacity and limitation of the American imagination. For these […]

In Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (Holt Paperbacks, 2007), Barbara Ehrenreich writes about the evolution of carnivals; from tribal societies masking and dancing to manufacture group solidarity (Intro, Ch. 1); to feudal festivals that challenged oppressive gender and class relations (Ch. 4). Writes Ehrenreich: Whatever social category you had been boxed into–male or female, rich […]

Perhaps Jane Jacobs’ most acclaimed contribution to urban studies in The Death and Life of Great American Cities is her “eyes on the street” theory. “[T]here must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street . . . to insure the safety of both residents and strangers” (1992, […]

Last December, here at Zeteo, I questioned the naturalistic theory that stress induces African-American parents to abuse their children at greater rates than do European-Americans (even when accounting for income disparity). Citing Jared Diamond‘s observation that communities residing in more dangerous environments tend to engage in harsher and more frequent physical punishment of children, I posed the rationalist theory that […]

In 2012, one of my best friends from college, Angel Perez, was illegally detained by members of the Chicago Police Department (CPD), taken to their ‘black site’ in Homan Square, and sexually assaulted with a pistol, at which point he agreed to help carry out a sting operation on a drug dealer. For years, Angel […]

I just finished watching the last episode of HBO’s The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, only to find out that Durst was arrested yesterday in connection with the 2000 murder of Susan Berman. Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, with the help of viral media, may have finally done what our nation’s government(s) have been unable to do for the past […]

(Towards Migrants and Migration Acts) Many liberals and human rights advocates supported president Obama’s executive action on immigration last week. Many others, however, are ambivalent about their take on this act. Should we protect families even if parents are undocumented? While the response is obvious to me (yes), I take this ambivalence as a healthy sign of thoughtfulness and change. […]

  “Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical,” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote in a famous Supreme Court dissent. “If you have no doubt of your premises or your power, and want a certain result with all your heart, you naturally express your wishes in law, and sweep away all opposition.” […]

(And you’ll see no other than crime) Last Monday, The Denver Post published an article criticizing courts’ inappropriate handling of children as criminals. The article stood out for its heart-breaking opening: He tried to hide the tears from his mother. But the bright orange handcuffs locked his wrists together, and eventually he gave up trying to tug his […]

  From Peter Irons, A People’s History of the Supreme Court: No country on earth grew faster than the United States during the last four decades of the nineteenth century. Between 1860 and 1900 the nation’s population swelled from 31 to 75 million, . . . The number of farms grew from two million to […]

Jennifer A. Reich’s Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System is best know for its robust and compassionate analysis of child protection as a system. Yet in many ways, her book is also about the (ever-changing) value of parenting, families, childhood and childrearing. In just a few lines Reich, introduces the possibility that children’s value, once […]