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Call me small minded. Or nave. Or partisan. I lay claim to little bits of all three attributes. Any one of which may account for my railing against the local assaults on individual freedom while overlooking a larger threat to democracy. Not so much the Russian invasion of Ukraine, though, with good cause, President Biden has labeled it as such. Rather, the possibly bigger threat to democracy, also duly labeled by the President the scary orange dictator-in-waiting on the home front, former President Donald Trump.

Here I am claiming that burdensome taxation represents a threat to personal freedom. That the granting of massive property tax favors to hand-picked business interests by unelected bureaucratic agencies violates the democratic spirit. That the coercion (by an equally unelected State agency) of local schools to erase traditional sports team names represents an unwarranted usurpation of local decision making. That the self-assured presumption by city government to arbitrarily enroll homeowners with an electricity supplier of its choice (unless they take the step to opt-out) is a free-choice-skirting imposition of government authority.

I often write about these abrogations of freedom. Im concerned that many elected politicians and, even worse, unelected functionaries of the administrative state want to tell you and me what kind of car to drive or stove to buy. All for the greater good, of course. Or for your own good, as my parents often said. And they, these new parental figures, may well be right to think that they must look out for people such as you and me. Decent folks, for the most part, but certainly not to trusted with too much freedom of choice.

As if to prove the point, millions of deluded Americans, I admit to being among that number, fail to see the unmistakable similarities between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. Between the orange headed monster and that other monster who orchestrated the extermination of 6 million Jews. Between the far right MAGA mob that staged a several-hour assault on the Capitol and the Nazi brown shirts who destroyed 7,000 Jewish businesses during the two-day Kristallnacht and carried out the yearslong cleansing process of judenrein (free of Jews) across Germany and the occupied countries.

As Ive admitted, that I dont see something doesnt mean that its not real. And although the likes of Hillary Clinton and Robert DeNiro (Hes [Trump] a pig Id like to punch him in the mouth) appear to be well-fed, well-clothed, and well-feted in respectable circles despite their eight-year tour of sneering at our domestic Hitler, those appearances do not necessarily prove them wrong. Do not necessarily indicate that they do not feel at all threatened but might simply detest Donald Trump. Perhaps, to be fair, they and the multitude of journalists and pundits who have made a nice living drawing the Hitler or swine comparisons have courageously surmounted their fear of imminent suffering, privation, and imprisonment to sound a needed alarm.

A columnist in my favorite local newspaper recently was so bold as to take the historical comparison a step further in likening Trump to another Teutonic destroyer: Wilhelm II, the last Kaiser of Imperial Germany. With the Wilhelm/ Hitler/Trump continuum, we neatly cover two world wars (both kindled by the first pair of moral cretins), 100 million dead, and the even worse outcome likely if Trump were to win a second term as President. During which term, he will somehow, despite a powerful entrenched resistance to his every action, be able to wreak holy vengeance on immigrants, minorities, unfriendly journalists, EV owners, career civil servants, Knicks fans, anti-frackers, LGBTQs, and weekend golfers failing to sport a red MAGA cap.

Now, it is fair to observe that Donald Trump is a bit, or more, of the cad, the narcissist, the performer. Close in spirit to former President Bill Clinton in many ways. Another kinship is that both were impeached. In the words of the former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, Impeachment is forever.

Ms. Pelosi, of course, is a non-partisan guardian of democracy, well remembered for the stateswomanlike tearing up of her copy of President Trumps 2020 State of the Union address before assembled representatives, guests and a national television audience. According to some, especially those generally alarmed by Trumps breaches of decorum and norms, this was far from a threat to democracy, but rather a rip-roaring defense of it. Amazingly, Speaker Pelosi has gone on to lead a calm and prosperous life. But maybe Trump and the MAGA hordes are simply biding their time. Or maybe, as Im inching toward believing, the allegation that Trump and his supporters represent a dire threat to democracy is more an expression of self-interested partisanship than an honest assessment.

Which brings me back to my more local concerns. How is it that an unelected group of individuals, almost universally unknown to the voting taxpayers, can give a 10-year fixed assessment to the billionaire owners of a luxury resort on the northern shore of Canandaigua Lake? An assessment, no less, that sits at probably 15% of full market value. At the same time, those aforementioned taxpaying commoners are seeing the assessments on their property bumped up by anywhere from 30% to 80%. The questionable reason given for this beautifully democratic reassessment is that it ensures that everyone is paying property taxes on full market value.

Granted this apparent undemocratic skewing of the tax system doesnt rise to a Hitlerian level. It doesnt involve Trump or Biden (or does it?). In the big picture it may not even represent a threat to democracy. If I were larger of mind, Id likely ignore such a parochial issue and go on to the bigger threat. Come to think of it, I have.

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GUEST APPEARANCE: Threats to democracy both local, not-so-local - Finger Lakes Times

(May 31, 2024 / JNS)

The last eight months have shaken the faith of many American Jews in the future of their community. The surge in antisemitism, especially on college campuses, has shattered any illusions we might have had about ensuring that Jew-hatred would be confined to the fever swamps of the far right and left in U.S. society. But as grievous as that threat to their safety may beand the gravity of that peril cannot be overestimatedthe Jewish community should also be pondering just how secure they can be in an America whose democratic norms and the rule of law can no longer be relied upon.

The prosecution and now the conviction of former President Donald Trump in a New York City courtroom on dubious charges and via a judicial process that is, at best, questionable, forces us to ask that question.

Breaking norms and precedents

To broach this topic and consider the consequences of a partisan prosecution of both a former president and the choice of the Republican Party for the 2024 election, one neednt be an admirer of Trump or even be planning to vote for him in November. Trump is a singular figure in American political history and has broken all sorts of precedents with his behavior and speechbefore, during and after his presidency. But at this point, the same can be said of his opponents, who seem to believe that his allegedly unique awfulness not merely permits but obligates them to break rules and precedents in their efforts to stop him from governing while he was president, to prevent his re-election, and now, to thwart him from gaining a second term in 2024.

Any discussion of which side is worse in this debate can be attributed to the type of whataboutism that involves justifying things that shouldnt be justified. But suffice it to say that when he took office in 2017, he rejected the idea of having his administration pursue criminal charges against his opponents, in particular, his 2016 Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. In what for him was a relatively rare instance of rising above feuds, Trump rightly understood that following up on the irresponsible rhetoric about locking her up that was heard at his campaign rallies was the last thing the country needed, regardless of whether a partisan prosecutor could have resurrected charges about her violating the rules about the handling of classified information.

But his opponents, outraged at the thought of Trump sitting in the White House, did not reciprocate. They promoted the Russia collusion hoaxa conspiracy theory about Trump being a Russian agent for whom Moscow supposedly stole an electionfor years and then impeached him on a partisan charge of withholding foreign aid to Ukraine. Silicon Valley oligarchs that control the virtual public square and major media outlets then conspired to suppress stories about corruption charges against the family of his 2020 opponent.

All of this was done because of the conviction that Trump was an opponent of democracy, though there was no evidence of any efforts on his part to behave in this manner while president. But his reaction to the 2020 vote seemed at least in part to confirm the claims that he was not prepared to accept an election loss. While he can be blamed for the events that led to the disgraceful Capitol Riot on Jan. 6, 2021, it was no insurrection, and, though he behaved recklessly and without grace, he peacefully left office that month.

It is possible that the Republican Party might have been prepared to choose an alternative to Trump in 2024, but once Democrats began efforts to confiscate his income, throw him off the ballot and then jail him on a raft of charges that were not just flimsy but politically motivated, the chances of the GOP moving on from him were over. Convincedand not without reasonthat what was going on was a campaign of lawfare, akin to the sorts of bills of attainder (in which the British parliament and crown had historically legislated against specific individuals) specifically prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, his party rallied around him.

Burning down democracy to save it

Undaunted by the idea that they were essentially burning down democracy to supposedly save it, Democratic prosecutors, cheered on by their party base, moved ahead. The most dubious of those charges was the case brought against him in a New York state court. In this instance, a prosecutor who had gained election by promising to jail Trump conjured up an unprecedented indictment involving not only murky legal theories but also a state trial on federal election law. It did involve a disgraceful (though not necessarily illegal) hush money payment by Trump to a former porn star. While designed to humiliate the ex-president, it was also conducted in such a blatantly unfair manner that it did nothing to undermine support for him. The pre-ordained guilty verdict is unlikely to be sustained in the appellate courts but, like the trial, it constitutes a form of election interference that both parties would denounce as the stuff of banana republics or President Vladimir Putins Russian regime if it were happening elsewhere.

None of this represents a reason to vote for Trump or President Joe Biden. Still, the effort to imprison an American political leader, no matter how controversial, in this manner is a crossing of the Rubicon that could have devastating consequences going forward. At this point, it no longer matters who did what to whom first. The only thing to be considered is that Democrats are trying to imprison the leader of the GOP and that it is unlikely that Republicans will refrain from playing the same game in the future, especially if, as the polls currently indicate, they return to power in January 2025.

What does this have to do with the fate of American Jewry?

Like all Americans, Jews have a stake in the preservation of their countrys democratic form of government. What made the United States a haven in the history of the Diaspora was its particular brand of constitutional democracy based on the ideal of equal justice under the law. That allowed Jews to ascend to leadership positions in virtually every sector of American society, secure in the belief that there were no religious tests to constrain them and that the rule of law protected them in a way it had never consistently done elsewhere. America wasnt a Jewish utopia, but it did provide an opportunity for freedom without requiring Jews to give up their identity, faith or interests.

On the surface, the Trump drama and the backlash it is causing may not seem to have anything to do with the Jews. But if the United States is, as it might be, on the verge of no longer being a place where we can count on the rule of law as well as one with a political culture in which the major parties will seek to jail each others leaders, then even a cursory knowledge of Jewish history, would teach us that Jews will no longer be safe from persecution.

A surge in antisemitism

The post-Oct. 7 surge in antisemitism has already shaken confidence in the Jewish future. A form of left-wing Jew-hatredrooted in toxic ideas like critical race theory and intersectionalityhas created a new orthodoxy in academia by which Jews and Israel could be smeared and delegitimized as white oppressors and undeserving of rights. The willingness of mainstream corporate media outlets to normalize this new antisemitism remains deeply troubling. Their willingness to treat prejudicial canards about Zionism being a form of racisma blatant lie that has its roots in Marxist and Soviet propaganda of the pastas something that decent people should agree to disagree about has resulted in Jews being marginalized, shunned and endangered.

If you add this factor of newly fashionable antisemitism to a toxic brew of political instability caused by the anti-Trump lawfare campaign, its possible to imagine a scenario where the sort of Jew-hatred on college campuses spreads with unimaginable consequences. The strife at academic institutions, which is part of a broader battle over the future of America and the West, again illustrates that the Jews are always the canaries in the coal mine. We cant know where all this will end, but in an atmosphere of this sort of political strife, it isnt unreasonable to wonder about scenarios in which American Jews will be targeted in ways that seemed unimaginable not that long ago.

The only reason I can give for optimism is that Im reasonably sure that the vast majority of Americans dont want any of this. They may be bifurcated in their politics and distrust people on the other side of the political aisle. But if there is anything that Ive learned in my travels around the country in the last eight years, it is that most Americans dont want their politicians to be at each others throats and oppose extremism of all kinds. The talk of civil war, which was given full expression in a recent dystopian film of the same name, seems easy to imagine among the chattering and governing classes yet abhorrent to the overwhelming majority of people they hope to influence and rule.

The conviction of Trump on the most unreasonable and openly partisan charges against him may mean that there is no turning back. In spite of that, reasonable people must urge their political leaders to step back from the abyss. The surge in antisemitism is a warning to Jews and non-Jews alike that ideas essentially at war with American exceptionalism pose an immediate danger to our society. If we are now to add a new political norm whereby those who lose elections must fear prosecution, regardless of their actions, then it is entirely possible that the era when Jews could regard America as a safe place could well be over.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNSJewish News Syndicate. Follow him @jonathans_tobin.

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Subverting democracy and the fate of the Jews - JNS.org - JNS.org

Trump in court yesterday (Jabin Botsford-Pool/Getty Images)

Whatever you think of Donald Trump and I for one think very little of him his conviction as a felon for what would ordinarily be a minor misdemeanour by a biased jury is a grim day for democracy in America. Yesterdays decision, the culmination of a vindictive prosecution, was less dramatic than the ransacking of the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob after the 2020 election but the long-term ramifications are likely to be far more serious.

Trump, of course, is no angel. In 2020, he attempted to suborn vice-president Mike Pence into delaying the congressional ratification of the election results, and pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, into finding enough votes to change the electoral college outcome in his favour in Georgia. In seven other states, Trumps henchmen also plotted to use fake electors to swing the results. To their credit, Pence, Raffensperger and other senior Republicans stood up to Trumps bullying. The rule of law in the United States was put to the test by Donald Trump and it passed the test.

But now, anti-Trump Democrats have put the rule of law in America to the test again and this time it has been bent to the point of breaking. In February, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of civil fraud in a case involving alleged overstatements of real estate values. And yesterday, following the prosecution of Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg, another Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of alleged violations in a case involving the reporting of hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels. It was the first time a sitting or former US president has been convicted of a crime. It was also the first time that the allies of a president of one party have successfully weaponised the American judicial system in an attempt to destroy the presidential candidate of another.

In both of these cases, the partisan motives of the Democratic prosecutors and judges were evident. Campaigning as a Democrat for the office of Attorney General in New York State in 2018, Letitia James promised that she would selectively prosecute Trump, and find some excuse, any excuse, to do so: I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president, she said. I will be shining a bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings and every dealing. The civil fraud case brought against Trump by James was presided over by Judge Arthur Engoron, an elected judge and a Democrat who was elected to the First Judicial District of New York in 2015 without any Republican opponent, so rare are Republicans in New York.

The partisanship of the Democratic officials in the hush-money case has been just as blatant. Charges like those brought against Trump in the hush money case were rejected as too weak by Cyrus Vance, the previous Manhattan district Attorney, and they were also rejected as too flimsy by Vances successor, Manhattans current DA, Alvin Bragg. Bragg only changed his mind and brought charges against Trump after two things happened. The first was the publication of a book People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account by Mark Pomerantz, a member of Braggs team who resigned in protest in 2022, claiming that Bragg was not doing enough to prosecute Trump. The second was the fact that, by 2023, it was becoming clear that Trump would be the Republican nominee for the presidency.

The partisanship of the Democratic officials in the hush-money case has been just as blatant.

In the hush money case, Bragg turned what would ordinarily be a minor misdemeanour involving falsifying records into a felony, by claiming that it was somehow part of a nefarious scheme to interfere in the 2016 election. Yet even eminent legal experts find it hard to explain exactly why Trump was charged: last year, even the Left-wing website Vox described the cases legal theory as dubious.

In these two New York cases and a third case in January, in which Trump was fined an exorbitant $83 million for allegedly defaming E. Jean Carroll after another jury in Democratic Manhattan had found him guilty of sexual abuse, but not rape the legal theories may have been questionable, but the motivations of the prosecution were obvious. It is difficult not to believe that the purpose of the extraordinarily high fines in the civil fraud case and the defamation case has been to cripple Trumps presidential campaign against Biden. And the manifest purpose of the conversion of a minor misdemeanour into a felony seems just as clear to allow Biden and other Democrats to brand Trump as a convicted felon between now and the November election, and, if possible, to remove Trump from the campaign trail by jailing him.

Even more disturbing than these kangaroo court trials in one-party Democratic New York is the Espionage Act case against Trump, currently being prosecuted in Florida by Special Counsel Jack Smith. In 2016, all Democratic justices voted with the Republicans on the Supreme Court to overturn Smiths earlier prosecution of Republican governor Robert McDonnell in a corruption case involving gifts; the unanimous court warned of the broader legal implications of the Governments boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute. In spite of or perhaps because of his overzealousness as a prosecutor, Smith was appointed by Bidens Attorney General Merrick Garland, who just happened to have been blocked from a seat on the Supreme Court by the Republican Senate majority in 2016 after then-president Obama nominated him. A minor dispute over the possession of classified documents between ex-president Trump and the bureaucrats of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) gave Garland a chance to exact personal revenge. In August 2022, Garland authorised an unprecedented raid by FBI agents who, in Trumps absence, ransacked the Florida home of the ex-president.

Like Trump, Joe Biden kept boxes of classified documents in his home following his term as Barack Obamas vice-president. And like Trump, Biden was investigated by a special counsel appointed by Merrick Garland, Robert Hur. But Hur refused to press charges under the Espionage Act against Biden on the grounds that he is an elderly man with a poor memory. In stark and disturbing contrast, Smith issued a 37-count indictment against Trump, with most of the charges being based on the Espionage Act of 1917.

From the very beginning, the Espionage Act a vague, sinister law passed by Congress in a fit of hysteria during the First World War has been abused by presidents against opposition politicians and journalists. President Woodrow Wilsons Democratic administration used it to give his Socialist presidential rival, Eugene Debs, a 10-year prison term in 1919. In the same year, Victor Berger, a Socialist member of the House of Representatives, was also convicted under the legislation. In spite of winning an election, Berger was denied his seat in Congress and disqualified from public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, an irrelevant clause designed to prevent ex-Confederate insurrectionists from regaining power after the Civil War. Ironically, this is the same archaic provision that was weaponised recently by Democratic officials in Colorado, Maine and Illinois, who sought to disqualify Trump from appearing on Republican primary ballots in those states, before a unanimous Supreme Court in 2024 ruled against such efforts.

Having run for President in 1920 from behind bars, Eugene Debs was pardoned by Republican president Warren G. Harding in 1921, while Bergers conviction was also overturned in the same year. In a similar vein, we can hope that enlightened state or federal courts will overturn the unjust convictions of Trump. But whether or not that happens, the damage to Americas democracy has largely been done.

In the short run, the corruption of the American legal system by Democrats out to get Trump has shattered the reputation of New York state as a safe place to live and do business. Yet far worse is the damage to Americas global reputation. Thanks to these Soviet-style show trials, the US can no longer plausibly claim to be a global example of the nonpartisan rule of law and constitutional government. That reputation was already damaged by Trumps clumsy attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Today, however, thanks to his enemies willingness to turn the courts into tools of election interference, that perception that the US is now the worlds largest banana republic has been cemented.

For in the future, by weaponising state law to try to destroy federal candidates and officeholders of the rival party, Democrats have opened a Pandoras box. It is probably only a matter of time before Republican attorney generals or former Democratic politicians on their own trumped-up charges. And why not? The use of lawfare against Trump has put a target on the back of Democratic politicians. Already some Republicans are calling for prosecutions of James and Bragg under an obscure federal statute against electoral interference. After all, such prosecutions, ruinous as they would be, are more plausible than the cases that those prosecutors have brought against Trump.

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Trump's conviction is an assault on democracy - UnHerd

A Hong Kong court on Thursday found 14 pro-democracy activists guilty of conspiracy to subvert state power while acquitting two others, in a landmark national security case that legal experts say has eroded the credibility of the citys judicial system.

Dozens of Hong Kongs most prominent activists will now face lengthy prison sentences for their participation in an unofficial, nonviolent primary election in 2020. That vote was organized as a way to pick opposition candidates for a legislative election that was ultimately postponed. A total of 47 were charged, and most have been held in pretrial detention for more than three years.

Verdicts were handed down Thursday morning local time. Sentencing will come at a later date, according to lawyers. The remaining 31 defendants did not contest the charges. After the verdict, Hong Kongs Department of Justice told the judges it intended to appeal the two acquittals.

Fourteen Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were found guilty of conspiracy to subvert state power and two were acquitted on May 30 in a landmark subversion tria (Video: Reuters)

Beijing in 2020 imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong which was supposed to enjoy a level of autonomy under the one country, two systems framework after months-long pro-democracy protests across the city throughout 2019.

The trial, the largest national security case in the former British colony, has been closely watched as a barometer of how far the Beijing-imposed law would be used to punish opposition voices. Judges ruled that those found guilty were planning to undermine the authority of the Hong Kong government and that their defense was not valid.

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The ruling makes clear that the government will no longer tolerate any meaningful opposition, said Alvin Cheung, assistant professor at Queens University in Canada and a former barrister in Hong Kong. If the lawful use of legislative powers amounts to subversion, one has to wonder whether there remains any scope for dissent in the legislature.

Together, the defendants represented the full gamut of Hong Kongs once-thriving pro-democracy opposition from students to lawyers, veteran activists and relative newcomers, their views ranging from moderate to more radical. Their possible sentences range from three years to life in prison.

The trial has been overseen by three judges handpicked by the government to try national security cases, departing from the tradition under Hong Kongs common law system of trial by jury. The judges cited the involvement of foreign elements as grounds to waive a jury trial.

Among those who pleaded not guilty was Gwyneth Ho, a former journalist who rose to prominence during the 2019 protests, and Leung Kwok-hung, a 68-year-old veteran political and social activist better known as Long Hair. The defendants who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit subversion include 27-year-old activist Joshua Wong and legal scholar Benny Tai, as well as other politicians, former lawmakers and unionists.

The national security law, drafted by Beijing and passed without any consultation in Hong Kong, criminalizes broadly worded crimes such as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. It has transformed Hong Kong and its institutions including schools, the media, the legislature and the courts and has chipped away at the territorys promised autonomy, which was meant to be preserved until 2047.

Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said after the verdicts that Beijing firmly supports the law enforcement and judicial authorities of Hong Kong to punish all kinds of acts that jeopardize national security.

The unofficial primary election in 2020 was planned and organized before the introduction of the national security law that year. Tai the legal scholar and activist who also helped launch protests in 2014 that spiraled into a 79-day occupation of city streets and the others decided to go ahead with the vote after the Beijing-imposed law was put in place. They hoped to secure a majority in the legislature for pro-democracy candidates.

More than 600,000 voters took part in the 2020 citywide primary, but the executive then decided to delay the legislative election, citing issues related to the coronavirus pandemic. Critics have argued that the prosecutions case is based largely on hypotheticals, as the defendants did not have a chance to run in the legislative election, let alone take office and then subvert the system, as alleged.

Some worry, too, that the ruling could have implications beyond those defendants. Small shops, for example, allowed their spaces to be used as venues for the unofficial primary and could find themselves implicated.

The authorities could use the case as jurisprudence to accuse people who [rented] their shops to become makeshift polling stations and volunteers who [ran] the stations as co-conspirators, said Michael Mo, a former district councilor in Hong Kong who now lives in exile in the United Kingdom. Amid the increasingly tight environment for dissent in Hong Kong, presumption of innocence is no longer there, Mo said.

In March, Hong Kongs legislature, scrubbed of opposition, unanimously passed a new package of domestically focused national security laws, known as Article 23, that further squeezed what little space remained for criticism and civil liberties.

Ahead of Thursdays verdict, one of the two acquitted defendants, Lee Yue-shun, wrote in a Facebook post that the ruling would do little to change the reality of life in Hong Kong.

Regardless of the outcome, the preservation of the legitimacy of the Hong Kong peoples way of life has already been faced with the most difficult challenges on a daily basis, he wrote.

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Hong Kong finds 14 pro-democracy activists guilty of subversion - The Washington Post

Tomashi Jacksons midcareer survey Across the Universe at the ICA Philadelphia probes the histories of culturally resonant people and places as they relate to sociopolitical issues surrounding matters of race and the state of democracy in the United States. Jacksons multilayered surfaces feature materials like quarry marble dust and Colorado sand,as well as screen prints from film stills and photographs, which highlight notable historical moments. Her workHere at the Western World (Professor Windhams Early 1970s Classroom & the 1972 Second Baptist Church Choir), 2023, pictured aboveis one such piece that will be on view in the exhibition through June 2.

You have a rigorous research-based art practice. How did that begin?

The earliest works in the show begin in 2014 when I was a student, with explorations into employing research-based methodology. Ive always been asking questions and trying to visualize language and relationships. At the time, I was experimenting with researching histories of American school desegregation. In particular, I was focused on the cases that led to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954. As a student at Yale, I had access to the law library. I spent a lot of time trying to understand the many cases of this landmark legislation. Anyone who uses interstate travel, public education, or public broadcasting is a direct beneficiary of this legislative package.

I found myself with lots of questions about public-school transportation and a long legacy of devaluing the lives of children of color and public space, as well as defunding and depriving public schools of resources after the Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools. I had faith that if I focus on an area of research or a particular question that something is going to come of it. I didnt know what the work was going to look like. I didnt know what the solution was going to be. But I just started reading the cases.

How did you become interested in public spaces and resources?

Im from Southern California. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I was very impacted by the prominence of murals and narratives painted in public spaces. Theres this part of me that I cant really shake: a desire to inquire about issues of public concern and embed them into a process by which new material is produced. The first works start there.

I was exploring the perception of color and its impact on the value of life in public space. As an adult, I was able to again study Josef Alberss Interaction of Color, which I had first learned in elementary school. This work gave me an opportunity to start exploring color relationships chromatically and societally. I realized that the impact of color perception and optical illusions initiated by interactions of particular colors which make us see things that arent really there. I saw an echo in the case law that I was reading.

Subsequent bodies of work follow this methodology, with site-specific research on such topics as the relationship between public transportation and voting referenda in Atlanta, for example, as well as a comparison between the contemporary use of third-party transfer programs seizing paid properties and the historic property dispossession of people of color in New York. Lets talk about some of your latest works, which were produced during an artist residency in Boulder, Colorado.

There are three new pieces in the show that use marble dust from the nearby Yule Mountain Quarry, which produced the marble for the Lincoln Memorial and mostif not allof the great monuments in Washington D.C.

Not unlike your earlier works, you employ a rigorous material process that alludes to the history of abolition and democracy in America. How do you create these multi-layered surfaces?

Before I know what the image is going to be, Im building a surface with material that is symbolic to me of a place in some way. The material used for Here at the Western World, for instance, is made of a quilting liner. I spent a lot of time in southern Colorado, outside Denver in the San Luis Valley, and I made friends with people who gave me such textiles. I attached the quilt liner to a piece of raw canvas. I used paper bags, which I separate from the handles. Over many days, I soaked the paper and unfolded it carefully, before laminating it into the surfaces of the work. The pieces become kind of like animal hides that are stretched onto the wall and cured in anticipation of stretching them onto awning style frames. The surface of the piece was then encrusted with sand from southern Colorado and marble dust from the Yule quarry.

There are additional layers and images constructed on top of that surface as well.

The halftone line image thats projected on the surface in yellow hues is an image of a particular classroom from This Is Not Who We Are (2002), a documentary film about Black communal experiences in Boulder from the 1800s to more recent years. The catalyst of the film, which questions Boulders standing as what some have called the happiest place to live in the U.S., is a controversy over excessive police force used against a Black student at Naropa University in 2019. I included an image from the film of Professor Wyndhams classroom.

Printed on the pink vinyl is a still that I created of a very quick moment from 1972 home video footage of the choir from the Second Baptist churchthe only black congregation in Boulder for many yearssinging, which resonated with my own experiences going to church growing up in Los Angeles. These places historically in the United States and other colonized countries are where people of color gather for respite and liberation. There are these moments that happen where people are trying to get closer to freedom by gathering together for release and for mutual exaltation.

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Tomashi Jackson Probes American Democracy in Her Multilayered Work - ARTnews