Chris Thinnes, Ed.D.
banner
christhinnes.bsky.social
Chris Thinnes, Ed.D.
@christhinnes.bsky.social
[Formerly https://x.com/ChrisThinnes]

Veteran school leader, teacher, facilitator, consultant, and writer. Senior DEI Consultant @ Blink. Board co-chair @ EduColor. Board @ Progressive Education Network. LMU Ed.D., Education Leadership for Social Justice.
Pinned
The Equity Exchange is a week-long, intensive institute for experienced practitioners in public and private schools to heal, learn, practice, dream, and build together. Come join us in St. Louis this summer!

More info: www.theequityexchange.org/2026-institute
U! 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻
C! 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻
L! 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻
A! 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻

UCLA Fight Fight Fight! 💪🏻

dailybruin.com/2026/02/13/t...
Trump administration drops appeal of order blocking $1.2 billion UCLA settlement - Daily Bruin
This post was updated Feb. 13 at 10:00 p.m. The Trump administration dropped its appeal of a decision Friday that blocked it from demanding a $1.2 billion settlement from UCLA.
dailybruin.com
February 14, 2026 at 1:26 PM
How do ICE actions land with non-ICE law enforcement officers ?

Here's an interesting breakdown of responses by 2 focus groups -- Harris-voting & Trump-voting cops -- with Sarah Longwell & Tim Miller: youtu.be/RMqwOnfjedE
Law Enforcement Reckons With ICE Fallout
YouTube video by The Bulwark
youtu.be
February 13, 2026 at 11:03 PM
“One of the things that faith requires of you is the ability to believe that this current state that you are in is not the end. There is a possibility that something can be greater. And even though you cannot see it, you believe that it can happen.”

Trevor Noah ~ Bucar substack.com/home/post/p-...
What If Trevor Noah Is Right About the Left and Religion?
A month ago, I heard something I can’t shake.
substack.com
February 13, 2026 at 2:45 AM
May the memory of this righteous one be a blessing. 🙏🏻
February 11, 2026 at 2:24 PM
"And maybe the answer is simple: one song protects mythology. The other tells the truth. What a nation chooses to sing together is, eventually, what it chooses to become..."

Dr. Stacey Patton: open.substack.com/pub/drstacey...
The Black National Anthem Is Breaking MAGA’s Brain — And Here’s Why
Lift E'vry Voice and Sing isn’t divisive. It’s just honest and that’s the problem.
open.substack.com
February 10, 2026 at 10:56 PM
Be a part of the 2026 #TeachingInColor Summit!

Charlotte, NC — April 25, 2026

More via CREED-nc.org: mailchi.mp/creed-nc/reg...
February 9, 2026 at 4:57 PM
"American voter suppression has never introduced itself as suppression but as reform and protection. And what they are betting on, what they have always bet on, is historical amnesia."

Dr. Stacey Patton: substack.com/home/post/p-...
While Y'all Were Arguing About Monkeys and Halftime Shows, Trump and His Goons Were Figuring Out How to Control Your Vote
The greatest danger of distraction culture is that it trains the public to live emotionally instead of historically.
substack.com
February 9, 2026 at 4:25 PM
"Dance without fear."

"Speak without fear."

"America" was never greater than for ~13 minutes last night.
February 9, 2026 at 3:34 PM
"Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, & can often feel like the most indefensible & lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism."

Nick Cave (11'45"ff)
youtu.be/G8qmV6MYCF4
Nick Cave On Singing With Johnny Cash And The Joyful, Uplifting Vibe Of His New Album, ‘Wild God’
YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
youtube.com
February 8, 2026 at 4:44 PM
“The league officially absorbed his language—slogans like ‘Inspire Change’—while rejecting his message and himself. That co-optation is part of his legacy—activism rebranded as corporate messaging, stripped of disruption..."

Myers, in Kilgore: wapo.st/4km8MpZ
What do we make of Colin Kaepernick now?
The Super Bowl is being played in his former home stadium, at a societal moment that echoes the issues he forced football fans to confront. So why is he out of mind?
wapo.st
February 7, 2026 at 3:41 PM
When two law professors stroll into an argument so ill-prepared to argue, it almost makes me feel bad for them, but not quite since they don't see it.

wapo.st/3Zh3typ
Opinion | No, Billie Eilish, Americans are not thieves on stolen land
Civilization depends on secure property titles, not sincere apologies.
wapo.st
February 6, 2026 at 6:17 PM
"The woman who launched a thousand ships was never given a skin color by Homer. White supremacist beauty standards filled in the blanks centuries later...You can’t claim to care about historical accuracy while knowing absolutely nothing about the history."

Kahlil Greene substack.com/@kahlilgreen...
Elon Musk Got 25,000 Likes Attacking Lupita Nyong'o's Casting. The Ancient Greeks Would Have Found Him Ridiculous.
The woman who launched a thousand ships was never given a skin color by Homer. White supremacist beauty standards filled in the blanks centuries later.*
substack.com
February 5, 2026 at 11:51 PM
"To accept one’s past—one’s history—is not the same thing as drowning in it: it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used: it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought..."

- Baldwin via @esglaude:

open.substack.com/pub/esglaude...
On the 63rd Anniversary of The Fire Next Time
I have been teaching The Fire Next Time for close to thirty years.
open.substack.com
February 4, 2026 at 12:16 AM
"Miles was able to make something that was wrong into something that was right—with the power of the choice of notes he played, and the feeling he had."

At ~2min, Herbie Hancock tells a story about Miles Davis that's one of my favorite stories about facilitation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6fV...
Playing wrong Notes in Jazz - Herbie Hancock on Miles Davis, a fantastic Story about mistakes.
YouTube video by Mike del Ferro - Music
www.youtube.com
February 3, 2026 at 11:03 PM
Reposted by Chris Thinnes, Ed.D.
Today I saw ICE gas little white kids in the streets of Portland with chemical weapons. Imagine what they're doing to brown and black kids in the detention camps
February 1, 2026 at 2:08 AM
"Part I: Decline, the first installment of a three-part report, Charter School Reckoning, presents sobering findings on the stagnation, retrenchment, and accelerating closures plaguing the charter school sector as it enters its fourth decade..."

- @nccsa.bsky.social ~ @network4pubed.bsky.social
February 2, 2026 at 9:06 PM
If that BHM assembly you led, or stunt class you taught, or announcement you made at your school this morning stank, even AI knows why. Do you?

via www.google.com/search?q=why...
February 2, 2026 at 7:28 PM
"So when a law written in response to mass racial slaughter is used to prosecute Black journalists documenting racial injustice, this is not technical misapplication. This is moral category collapse..."

Dr. Stacey Patton: open.substack.com/pub/drstacey... #FF @drstaceypatton.bsky.social
A Law Written to Stop White Men from Lynching Black People Is Now Being Used Against Black Journalists. Sit With That!
There is something grotesquely elegant about watching a government reach back into the legal graveyard, pull out a law written to stop white men in hoods from terrorizing Black folks, dust it off, and...
open.substack.com
February 2, 2026 at 7:08 PM
"At this point, I’m no longer interested in 'listening and learning.' That era is over. Listening without integration is extraction. Learning without implementation is just another way to delay change while appearing virtuous."

Black Modern Mystic: open.substack.com/pub/blackmod...
All My White Friends Are Crashing Out & I Don’t Know How To Feel
All my white friends are crashing out, and I don’t know how to feel.
open.substack.com
February 2, 2026 at 6:14 PM
Sorry to hear you think the academic excellence of your child's school is undermined by its attention to identity, equity, and justice. Fortunately for all involved, your child's deepest learning actually depends on that work, as well as the culture of engagement & belonging it helps to cultivate. 🤷‍♂️
February 2, 2026 at 4:35 PM
This is a quote from Ammon Bundy. Yes, THAT Ammon Bundy. 😶

“It’s sickening to me, just to see the parallels of history repeating itself... When it comes to the more humanitarian side of it, I think the left has it much more correct than the nationalist right.”

www.rawstory.com/ammon-bundy-...
'Sickening': Ammon Bundy slams ICE as major schism tears apart right-wing militants
Ammon Bundy was the most famous right-wing militant in America not long ago, after he led two armed standoffs against federal agents at his family's Nevada ranch and an Oregon bird sanctuary, but his ...
www.rawstory.com
February 2, 2026 at 2:54 PM
"The far right is making clear that their opposition was never to authoritarian violence or state terror, but instead to being subjected to that violence and terror themselves."

Sam Biddle: theintercept.com/2026/02/02/t...
Welcome to the Jade Helm Presidency
Conservatives once panicked about a supposed federal plot to invade their communities and quash dissent. Now they’re cheering it.
theintercept.com
February 2, 2026 at 2:45 PM
Thank you to Alison Park & Cheryl Adenekan for the opportunity to co-lead "DEI as Bedrock" at the CAIS Trustee/School Heads Conference in SF yesterday. 🙏🏻
February 1, 2026 at 5:04 PM
"He has sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People."

- Decl. of Indep. (h/t Judge Biery)
Judge Biery's 3-page order in Arias et al. vs Noem et al. is extraordinary: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
February 1, 2026 at 4:48 PM
"Above all else, I think we have an obligation to keep our students safe. So what can that look like?"

Chris Lehmann: practicaltheory.org/blog/2026/01... @clehmann.bsky.social
Keep the Kids Safe
I don’t think there is a simple right answer to how to teach in this moment. The context that people are teaching in varies wildly school to school, and certainly teachers are under incredibl…
practicaltheory.org
February 1, 2026 at 4:39 PM