Month: August 2017

miguel’s pussy riot cover is a soulful must-watch

Miguel’s a big Pussy Riot fan, and he wants you to be as well. The R&B crooner took to Twitter last week to do a little pro bono PR for the Rusmiguelsian protest group, praising their 2016 anti-Trump anthem, “Make America Great Again.” Miguel’s cover is a little more soulful, by his own admission. “Shitty emo cover of ‘make america great again’ by @pussyrrriot,” the artist tweeted. “You gotta hear the actual song, it’s legit a jam, feel good even!” Two members of the collective, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, were famously jailed in 2012 for a protest staged inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. They were freed almost two years later, and the group has since recorded a number of protest songs aimed at oppressive figures like Donald Trump.

“Make America Great Again” was one of three tracks the group released in October of last year, all aimed at conservative politics around the world. The first — titled “Straight Outta Vagina” — was a brazen celebration of women’s sexuality and power. The second, “Organs,” was released the following day. The Russian-language song dealt with corruption and the oppression of female sexuality in Russia. We’re glad Miguel’s listening.

Richard Trumka: Why I Quit Trump’s Business Council

EYESOn Tuesday, President Trump stood in the lobby of his tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and again made excuses for bigotry and terrorism, effectively repudiating the remarks his staff wrote a day earlier in response to the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va. I stood in that same lobby in January, fresh off a meeting with the new president-elect. Although I had endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, I was hopeful we could work together to bring some of his pro-worker campaign promises to fruition. Unfortunately, with each passing day, it has become clear that President Trump has no intention of following through on his commitments to working people. More worrisome, his actions and rhetoric threaten to leave America worse off and more divided. It is for these reasons that I resigned yesterday from the president’s manufacturing council, which the president disbanded today after a string of resignations.

To be clear, the council never lived up to its potential for delivering policies that lift up working families. In fact, we were never called to a single official meeting, even though it comprised some of the world’s top business and labor leaders. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. joined to bring the voices of working people to the table and advocate the manufacturing initiatives our country desperately needs. But the only thing the council ever manufactured was letterhead. In the end, it was just another broken promise.

During my January meeting with President Trump, we identified a few important areas where compromise seemed possible. On manufacturing, infrastructure and especially trade, we were generally in agreement. Mr. Trump spoke of $1 trillion to rebuild our schools, roads and bridges. He challenged companies to keep jobs in the United States. He promoted “Buy America.” He promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Katherine Dunham, Pioneering Dancer and Activist, Inspires a Book

06GUIDE2-master768The choreographer, dancer and social activist Katherine Dunham made headlines in 1944, when, after reluctantly performing for a racially segregated audience in Louisville, Ky., she declared that if the theater wanted her to return, it would have to integrate. This scene introduces an in-depth, necessary new book on Dunham and her trailblazing career, “Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora” (Oxford University Press), by the dance historian Joanna Dee Das. Ms. Das, who grew up studying Dunham Technique, examines the relationships, both explicit and subtle, between Dunham’s art and activism, from her formative travels in Haiti to her support for the Black Arts Movement in East St. Louis, Ill. A multifaceted portrait emerges, of a woman who believed, as Ms. Das puts it, that “living in the space of diaspora, in between-ness, was the way to achieve wholeness.” Though Dunham is celebrated for her contributions to modern dance, her works are rarely restaged today. Ms. Das leaves us wondering: How can we see more?