Quentin's Weeknotes 4/6/19-4/12/19

This week:

• I read about surging interest in Democratic Socialism in my home state. As with DSA activism in other places, it’s mostly young people, and people with debt, who are flocking to the DSA. Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was that they were really focused on local issues and local politics, with a great deal of antipathy to all of the furious pre-Primary fever that is currently gripping the state.
• I listened to Chris Hayes' interview with the astonishing Mariame Kaba, who is perhaps one of the most original thinkers and activists in America. I first got to know her on twitter as @prisonculture, and her fierce and uncompromising work at the complete abolition of prisons and policing. This podcast is a good summary of her provacative but deeply human and ethical argument.
• I attended the Museum Association of New York Conference, in Cooperstown. What was so great to see was so many museums working to actively engage diverse communities around issues of contemporary relevance, no matter what stuff or content they were curating and exhibiting. I was amazed and inspired by presentations from folks at the Dyckman house in New York City (making this 18th century house Museum a welcoming place for their mostly Dominican neighbors), the Seward House in Auburn (confronting the vitriol and controversy over confederate monuments head-on), and the Long Island Children’s Museum (making itself a central place of refuge and learning for recent immigrants).
• I finished reading The Hike by Drew Magary. Not particularly deep, but fun, funny, and imaginative, like a video game in prose form, and not in the lame way.