In 2021, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work seems more cancerous than ever: a remaking of the American myth as an excuse to elide the bloodshed upon which it was founded. Midway through the second act of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda sings, “In the eye of a hurricane, there is quiet.” While Miranda’s voice is hilariously off-key and his...
Author: Jude Casimir (Jude Casimir)
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A Pearl Cast Before Swine: How US Imperialism and Jovenel Moïse Have Strangled Haiti
For Jovenel Moïse, the wanton brutality of police crackdowns isn’t even a necessary evil, but a display of his commitment to the programs he promises will serve the best interest of the Haitian populace. When Jovenel Moïse, the current president of Haiti, was elected in November 2016, no one could pretend as though the United...
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Blue Imperialism: Biden’s Plan to Continue the Assault on Venezuela
Biden’s administration still supports the corrupt Guaido as the president of Venezuela, because “democracy abroad” is nothing more than a unity-building exercise in imperialism. On January 23, 2019, Juan Guaido, a little-known political figure on the global stage, proclaimed himself the acting president of Venezuela against Nicolas Maduro, the nation’s democratically-elected leader. Guaido, who had...
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Celebrating Haitian Independence is a Bittersweet Affair
Heartbreakingly, the spirit of Haitian independence has been replaced by a menage of new ways that white powers attempt to reassert their grip on my homeland. When I was younger, the new year always began with a trip to my grandmother’s. My mother’s family would gather in the living room and celebrate with each other,...
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Gene Editing Cannot Be Separated From The Violent History of Eugenics and Medical Racism
For all the promises of gene editing, its study cannot be divorced from eugenics and a larger racist history that has inspired many of its endeavors. By Jude Casimir Henrietta Lacks visited John Hopkins Hospital in 1951, complaining of vaginal bleeding. A mother of five children, Lacks was diagnosed by gynecologist Howard Jones with cervical...
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Examining the Grief Industrial Complex
When everything can become a product, nothing can ever be seen as sacred. That’s the truth that lies at the heart of the grief industrial complex. In February 2018, Joaquin Oliver was one of 17 people shot and killed in Parkland, Florida. That same year, his parents, Patricia and Manuel Oliver went on to start...
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Slavery in Life, Slavery in Death: Reckoning with the Zombification of Blackness
Like the zombies of Haitian mythology, Breonna Taylor has been resurrected and trivialized, her death turned into an opportunity for glib commodification. By the time I learned about the existence of the New York Times’ documentary The Killing of Breonna Taylor, a few days before it was released, I was already tired. Breonna Taylor had...
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Dawning Climate Catastrophe and the Paradox of Green Capitalism
Even in the face of planetary destruction, it is capitalism and capitalistic interests that dictate the response to our current climate catastrophe. Flashback to September 2018: former California Governor Jerry Brown has a plan to save the world. He explains: “Plastic has helped advance innovation in our society, but our infatuation with single-use convenience has...
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Oppress Me, Please: Outright Lies, Tall Tales, and the Self-Centering of White Women
White women have not so much shoved themselves into the spotlight as strived to take over the role of the light technician and the bulb itself. On September 3, 2020, author and professor Jessica A. Krug—who had frequently gone by the name Jessica La Bombalera—published a post on the website Medium admitting that she had...
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Inspiration, Mourning, and Ableism: How Do We Properly Honor Chadwick Boseman?
Chadwick Boseman did not yield. But he deserved a world that would’ve let him yield. He deserved a world that would’ve loved him if he did. “I never yielded! And as you can see: I am not dead.“ Chadwick Boseman died on the evening of August 28th but never yielded. It crushed so many that...