Steve Kantrowitz
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skantrow.bsky.social
Steve Kantrowitz
@skantrow.bsky.social
Historian: Citizens of a Stolen Land; More Than Freedom; Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy. Midlife dog convert. Inyalowda.
Being name-checked in a review of the great Eric Foner’s latest would be nicer if, you know, the reviewer didn’t wildly mischaracterize my view of Reconstruction.
A Foremost Scholar of Slavery Wonders if America Can Ever Atone
www.nytimes.com
September 27, 2025 at 3:56 PM
It is just too absolutely freaking on the nose that the newly elected member of the Harvard Corporation is a partner at (drumroll) Paul Weiss.
May 30, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Breaking: NYU revokes Olmert's diploma.
May 24, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by Steve Kantrowitz
Whatever hype you are reading now about powerful people will almost certainly turn out to be bullshit
In 2010, Mark Zuckberberg became Time's "Person of The Year". The article is surreal reading today.

Here are just two quotes:

"As for money, his indifference to it is almost pathological"

"Facebook wants to...tame the howling mob...The Internet, and the whole world, will feel more like a family"
May 24, 2025 at 9:32 AM
A ray of light on the "kids these days" front: the students in my undergraduate course on slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction liked the long, scholarly readings the best - Foner's short(est) Reconstruction, Taylor's Embattled Freedom.
May 16, 2025 at 2:07 PM
"Science Fiction is for people who can't face reality."
If kidnapped, what would you post that would alarm your followers without the kidnappers knowing you're asking for help?

"no no, don't get the chicken thighs, what you want is skinless chicken breast"
If kidnapped, what would you post that would alarm your followers without the kidnappers knowing you're asking for help?

“Hey, who wants to discuss favorite Ayn Rand books and go see a Marvel movie?”
May 10, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Dept. of Joy: If you have the slightest fondness for Sharon Van Etten (or PJ Harvey or St Vincent or Patti herself) do yourself a favor and catch Sharon and her band on tour. My kid’s Xmas present to me and what a gift it was.
May 9, 2025 at 4:12 AM
Reposted by Steve Kantrowitz
This is a shockingly mistaken understanding of due process by Stephen Miller. It is likely this misunderstanding that is informing the President’s misunderstanding.
May 5, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Can they not even hear themselves over the "both sides"?
May 6, 2025 at 7:27 PM
"The Constitution, all of the sudden, out of nowhere, has words."
Trump: "The courts have all of the sudden, out of nowhere, they said, 'maybe you have to have trials.' Trials. We're gonna have 5 million trials? It doesn't work."
May 6, 2025 at 7:01 PM
See also Yarvin, Curtis.
A reminder that debating Stephen Miller — who is not a lawyer and is not making legal arguments, he is spouting propaganda — is a win for him.
May 6, 2025 at 2:27 PM
If by "holding power to account" you mean "killing the Pulitzer Prize-winner's cartoon because it criticized the paper's owner," sure.
May 6, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Article II, Section 3: the president "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

Oath of office: I "will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
WELKER: Your secretary of state says everyone who's here, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Do you agree?

TRUMP: I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I don't know.

WELKER: Don't you need to uphold the Constitution?

TRUMP: I don't know
May 4, 2025 at 5:02 PM
This is exactly what my syllabus warning on LLMs says, quoting Frankfurt.
I love that there is peer reviewed research calling ChatGPT bullshit so much 😭
May 1, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Steve Kantrowitz
Happy 80th anniversary of Hitler killing himself in his bunker to all who celebrate, which, as I now understand it, is not everybody
April 30, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Steve Kantrowitz
“And I’m like, what do you mean, you ‘do your own research’? You running a double-blind study in your living room, dawg?”
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic
April 30, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Reposted by Steve Kantrowitz
So just to recap, the Transportation Secretary is scared shitless of public transport. The Education Secretary is being sued for enabling child sex abuse. The Health Secretary is bringing back measles. And the Defense Secretary is texting classified war plans to the editor in chief of the Atlantic
That would be Secretary of Education Linda McMahon who's being sued for aiding and abetting systemic child molestation, just to be clear
Amended complaint has been filed in the ring boys sexual abuse lawsuit against WWE, TKO, Vince McMahon, and Linda McMahon. Three new plaintiffs have joined the original five, one of which accuses Pat Patterson of also participating in the abuse.

PDF link: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
April 29, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Steve Kantrowitz
UVA being number 1 on this "campus free speech" list, when you had a former board member successfully lobby to suspend campus tours that addresses UVA's history w slavery, is evidence of how idiosyncratic and right-wing-coded the cosponsoring organizations' definition of "free speech" really is.
This month's bonus episode is about how anti-woke pundits are responding to the crackdown on wokeness.
www.patreon.com/posts/free-s...
April 28, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Steve Kantrowitz
Two Naval Academy faculty members have resigned, and 18 more have taken early retirement. One was offered a place of honor at the annual dedication parade. He declined, telling the academy’s superintendent:
April 26, 2025 at 8:55 PM
"I am hereby reinstating" but it's Michael Scott yelling "bankruptcy!"
Well, you’ll be happy to know, Christopher is going to make a major comeback
April 27, 2025 at 7:40 PM
"They don't know how the economy works, and they won't obey the law."
April 24, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Ezra's opening started in on illiberalism and I thought "yeah fine, but maybe he should have Steve Hahn on to talk about this" so apologies to the dogwalkers terrified by my sudden cackle when he introduced his guest.
“Trump is not the first to name a domestic enemy, decide that their rights are no longer valid and turn the machinery of the state against them,” Ezra Klein says in this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” featuring the historian Steven Hahn.
Opinion | The Very American Roots of Trumpism
The historian Steven Hahn puts Trumpism in the context of America’s long history of illiberalism.
www.nytimes.com
April 23, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Courage is contagious. Markey's not running for president, and he's not going to face a primary. This is because Van Hollen, Frost, et al. set a good example.
I filmed this yesterday on my way to Lousiana where my constituent Rümeysa Öztürk is being wrongfully held by ICE. I’m there now demanding her release. More to come.
April 23, 2025 at 11:34 AM