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The Roundup Top Ten for August 5, 2022

The Coming Pregnancy Surveillance State Will Bring "Homeland Security" to Women's Bodies

by Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz

The Dobbs ruling puts longstanding racist and nationalist beliefs that white women's reproductive labor is the price of their citizenship, and punitive controls on women of color, on collision course with the modern capacity of digital surveillance, threatening the criminalization of any miscarried pregnancy. 

Reproductive Rights, Slavery, and the Post-Dobbs World

by Jennifer L. Morgan

Black women's history with reproductive freedom from slavery to today shows that racial and gendered oppression depend on the denial, embraced by Clarence Thomas, of a constitutional protection for bodily autonomy. 

The Power 5 Conferences Should Split Revenues with College Football Players

by Victoria Jackson

Another college football season means another chance to demand that universities and the NCAA recognize a fundamental fact about the dangerous and isolating work performed by players: they are not student-athletes, but employees of the football team. 

Is There a Biblical Solution to the Modern Problem of Debt?

by Eva von Dassow

Many are inspired by Old Testament rules for debt jubilees, but, while the practice has a historical basis, that history shows debt forgiveness was part of an unequal society in which forgiving old debts simply enabled the masses to take on new ones. 

Working 9 to 5: The Activism of Women Office Workers

by Ellen Cassedy

The author of a new firsthand history of a pioneering organization of women office workers discusses the history behind the movement for "Raises and Roses." 

"Freedom Dreams" at 20: Robin D.G. Kelley on the Ongoing Work of Imagining Liberation

by Robin D.G. Kelley

"The “Black Spring” rebellion of 2020 sparked a renewed interest in Freedom Dreams. But the book was never intended as a roadmap.... Instead, it humbly offered a different take on histories of a handful of social movements by centering their visions of a better future for all."

The Eugenic, Anti-Black History of the "Brazilian Butt Lift"

by Daniel F. Silva

Brazilian doctors developed the procedure in the wake of a eugenics movement that assimilated some stereotyped attributes of Black women's bodies into a new set of beauty standards that marginalized Afro-Brazilians. A similar dynamic occurs today on worldwide social media.

Fed Up with Emails from Democratic Pols? You're Not Alone

by Lara Putnam and Micah Sifry

The Democratic Party's strategy of electronic communications to raise fear and money is backfiring, as voters see little change despite their contributions. The party must reach people at their doorsteps, not through their inboxes. 

Teaching the History of Campus Police

by Yalile Suriel

The FBI's Law Enforcement Bulletin offers an insight into how law enforcement in the 1970s increased its presence on college campuses and redefined the function and goals of campus police forces. Here's how one professor has used this source in class. 

Bill Russell's Greatness Was Unfathomable

by Jack Hamilton

"Bill Russell wasn’t just everything we should want out of people who play sports; he was everything we should want out of public figures, an absurdly gifted human being who understood there was a world outside those gifts and who set himself to help change it."