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Author: Rafia Zakaria

Columns

De-Muslimization
February 27, 2017
In Trump’s America, that “terrorist” label is cast in indelible ink. The previous precautions would not suffice, I realized. It was not just what was visible, but everything that was searchable that was now at play. A reversal had taken place. If before my possessions ...

Daily Bafflements
February 24, 2017
• Perhaps considering how they’ll fill their time if they join the group of outlets excluded from White House press briefings, the Washington Post has compiled a neat little pie chart tracking Trump’s hours since taking office. That includes thirteen hours ...

Battles We Have Fought Before
February 24, 2017
I see someone like Elizabeth Warren, I see someone like Zephyr Teachout, I see someone like Kshama Sawant, I see candidates that can speak out forcefully and directly and link economic interests and racial interests and class interests and get people to stand together. There are ...

The Horror of North America
February 24, 2017
Jordan Peele’s Get Out, which premieres nationwide this Friday, is one of the few black horror films not about Africa to feature both possessed black people and the deep wilderness. This cinematic tradition can be traced back to the early twentieth century. In 1940’s ...

Outcast No More
February 23, 2017
If his speech managed to enrage—or, to quote him quoting campus jargon, “trigger”—a room riddled with skeptics, it didn’t show. On a day when angry constituents were confronting their congresspeople at town halls across the country, the mood in this small lecture hall ...

When the Meek Inherit the Movement
February 23, 2017
Don’t worry—this is not where I insist I am not a feminist because I am afraid of being mistaken for one of those hairy-legged, angry, man-hating feminists who are drawn up like bogeymen by men and women alike. Nor will I now reassure you of my approachability, my reasonable ...

Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes
February 22, 2017
We are unable to make a difference in politicians’ deals but we live here, we make money here, and we spend money here. So we are going to spread the message for the community and be ready in the best way possible. We are not going to go out and make noises for nothing. No, ...

The Accidental Elitist
February 22, 2017
The left’s battles often involve conditioning popular discourse to unfamiliar material, while the right has been exceptionally good at “framing” popular discourse so that people will support things that are bad for them.

Not Just Band-Aids
February 21, 2017
As the Trump administration continues its campaign to repeal Obamacare and Republican legislators dodge constituents in fear of losing their coverage, headlines paint the health care debate as a simple tennis match between the two major parties. During Obama’s ...

The Slow Confiscation of Everything
February 17, 2017
There will be no definite moment can say that yes, today we are fucked, and yesterday we were unfucked. Instead the fuckery increases incrementally year on year, until this is the way the world ends: not with a bang, not with a bonfire, but with the slow and savage confiscation ...

Daily Bafflements
February 17, 2017
• Did you know that today is the Day of Facts? Museums and libraries around the country are tweeting furiously in support of their favorite commodity, knowledge. • Today in plutocrats: It’s not their fault, says science. Rich people just think differently. ...

New Praetorianism
February 17, 2017
There is a fundamental synergy between Democratic chauvinist exceptionalism, GOP clash-of-civilizations dogma, and Trump’s grotesque strongman antics. The Democrats may prefer a reboot of Cold War apocalypticism; Trump, for his part, looks eager to tear up global treaties, ...