Akim Reinhardt is a professor of History at Towson University in Baltimore. Born and raised in the Bronx, he has also lived in Michigan, Nebraska, and Arizona. He is the author of several books with more in the hopper. Email: yankeeslim [at] gmail.com
Website: https://ThePublicProfessor.com
by Akim Reinhardt I was about 10 miles up the road in Long Beach visiting my sister’s family when word came of last week’s massive oil spill in Huntington Beach, Orange Co., California. We were actually headed over to that very beach when my brother in law checked the conditions. Uh oh. Ten or twenty…
by Akim Reinhardt There’s a lot we can learn about today’s America by observing the Mormon Church. Last month the Church of Latter Day Saints, as its officially known, issued a strong, positive directive to its 16.5 million members. Vaccines had been proven safe and effective, it reminded them. And please wear a mask in…
by Akim Reinhardt As an undergraduate History major, I reluctantly dug up a halfway natural science class to fulfill my college’s general education requirement. It was called Psychology as a Natural Science. However, the massive textbook assigned to us turned out to be chock full of interesting tidbits ranging from optical illusions to odd tales.…
The succinct, topical, and obvious choice is Review: Tom Lutz’s Aimlessness. It works just fine. But I am not taken with it. I shall come back to this. * by Akim Reinhardt * I don’t know how well Abbas knows me. Of course one can never really know how well someone else knows them. It’s…
by Akim Reinhardt, Executive Chef (Marilyn Reinhardt, Megan Golden, Sous Chefs) Truly, Thou Art Damned Like an Ill-Roasted Egg: Breakfast All the World’s a Cage Free Omelet 10.99 Get Thee to a Buttery Croissant 8.99 Brevity is the Soul of Grits 5.99 If Muesli Be the Food of Love, Play On 5.99 What a Piece…
by Akim Reinhardt 3QD editor Abbas was desperate. After more than a year of pandemic life, much of it spent in a state of semi-lockdown, he and his partner had run out of shows to watch. So he did what any abject and forlorn person in his situation would do: he solicited recommendations via social…
by Akim Reinhardt I say carve. You imagine a chisel flaking or chipping or gouging wood or stone. I say line. Now you see the chisel slicing and curving redoubled trenches through the surface. I say straight. You stir uneasily in your chair, or readjust your stance if you’re standing, perhaps mildly shrugging one shoulder.…
by Akim Reinhardt ^ Royalty Aristocracy Church Officials The Merchant Class Skilled Crafts Workers The Goddamned Peasants The Unbelieving Under Class Criminals to Be Caged & Tortured Those Whom We Will Publicly Execute ^ WASPS White Catholics White-Skinned Jews Model Minority Asians White-Skinned, Anglo-Latinx American Indians as they are Imagined Dark-Skinned Hispanic Latinos and Latinas…
by Akim Reinhardt Two profound horrors have plagued the world in recent times: the Covid-19 pandemic and the Trump presidency. And after years of dread, their recent decline has brought me a brief respite of peace. Not that my peace was ever disturbed as much as many others’. One reason is that unlike the ICU…
by Akim Reinhardt White Americans get a lot of things wrong about race. And not just the relatively small number of blatant white supremacists, or the many millions (mostly over 50, conservative, and/or Republican) bitter about the supposedly undue attention, sympathy, and “breaks” that minorities receive; who insist actual racism was a problem only in…
by Akim Reinhardt Every Democrat, and many independent voters, breathed an enormous sigh of relief when Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the November election. Now they are all nervously counting down the days (16) until the last of Trump’s frivolous lawsuits is dismissed, his minions’ stones bounce of the machinery of our electoral system,…
by Akim Reinhardt My Jewish maternal grandparents came to America just ahead of WWII. Nearly all of my grandmother’s extended family were wiped out in the Holocaust. Much of my grandfather’s extended family had previously emigrated to Palestine. My maternal family history illustrates why many modern American Jews continue to view Israel as their ultimate…
by Akim Reinhardt People are basically good. God, what a tiresome trope. It is a desperate and naive sentiment, often advanced by those who can’t bear the truth. I say this as a historian who has studied genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery, vast, violent, exploitative colonial systems, and more mundane expressions of racism, sexism, homophobia, and…
by Akim Reinhardt Is there anything more clichéd than some spoiled, petulant celebrity publicly threatening to move to Canada if the candidate they most despise wins an election? These tantrums have at least four problems: 1. As if Canada wants you. Please. 2. Mexico has way better weather and food than Canada. Why didn’t you…
by Akim Reinhardt There is a minor American myth about shame and regret. It goes like this. In the years following Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation amid scandal and disgrace, polls found that fewer Americans admitted to having voted for him than actually did. Apparently many former Nixon voters now realized the error of their ways…
by Akim Reinhardt During the 1990s, the impossibility of a black president was so ingrained in American culture that some people, including many African Americans, jokingly referred to President Bill Clinton as the first “black president.” The threshold Clinton had passed to achieve this honorary moniker? He seemed comfortable around black people. That’s all it…
by Akim Reinhardt In the Age of Trump, the banality of evil can perhaps best be defined as unfettered self-interest. Banal because everyone has self-interest, and because American culture expects and even celebrates its most gratuitous pursuits and expressions. Evil because, when unchecked, self-interest leads not only to intolerable disparities in wealth and power, but…
by Akim Reinhardt Two months ago, a college student in my Native American history class was perturbed. How it could be that during her K-12 education she never learned about the 1890 massacre of nearly 200 Native people at Wounded Knee? She was incensed and incredulous, and understandably so. It’s an important question, a frustrating…
by Akim Reinhardt I’ve taught shittily these last two months. That’s nothing a teacher ever wants to admit and normally has no excuse for, but these are not normal times. I work at a public university in Maryland. There are multiple layers of bureaucracy, not all of it always terribly efficient. Maryland is a border…
by Akim Reinhardt Violence : War :: Lies : Mythology This analogy holds. Violence is central to war, and lies are central to mythology. At the same time, violence and lies often stem from one or a few people, whereas war and mythology exist and function on a social level. One person can be violent…