The Monopoly Man is Showing Up for Workers
Strikes aren't working? Masked vigilantes are here for you.
ROCK PAPER RADIO is a dispatch for misfits & unlikely optimists by your favorite hapa haole, beet-pickling, public radio nerd. It’s a weekly email newsletter that shares three curiosities every Thursday - something to hold on to (that’s the ‘rock’), something to read (that’s the ‘paper‘), and something to listen to (you guessed it, that’s the ‘radio’). Themes include but are not limited to: rebel violinists, immortal jellyfish, revolution. Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word.
SOMETHING TO LISTEN TO
The world lost a trailblazer yesterday. Scholar and activist bell hooks has passed away at the age of 69. hooks was feminist, radical, and eschewing capitalization long before baby queers started spelling aiden with a lowercase a, and all of us—even the most self-identified apolitical among us—have benefitted from the critical thinking she has ushered into the world.
For me, discovering hooks as an undergrad was one thing, but it wasn’t until I became a teacher (first at a school where many of my tween students worked multiple jobs to help with family bills, then at a different public school just 30 minutes away where kids were frequently delivered to school by luxury SUVs) that hooks’ work really blew my brain right open. Teaching to Transgress is still my roadmap, even though I’m no longer in a classroom.
Shout out to public radio, because we don’t just have hooks’ written scholarship to continue to guide us, we will forever have her voice too. There’s a lot of great tributes coming out in honor of hooks right now, but I still love this 9-minute interview by WNYC’s The Takeaway from 2014, Is "Lean In" Faux Feminism?, where hooks gracefully but sharply takes down “leaning in” right when Sandberg’s book was being lauded as the answer to all of (white, white collar) women’s problems. Rest in power.
SOMETHING TO READ
The working masses have had enough, and in some cases they’re not just organizing, they’re calling in rebel forces. This deeply reported story by Alessio Perrone for Narratively has all the amazing details about how fed up employees are finding unexpected allies in Italy: The Masked Vigilantes Coming for Your Horrible Boss.
And how are these anonymous allies bringing down bosses who are taking advantage of workers who have been unpaid, screamed at, and fired without cause? Violence? Organized strikes? No. With stickers depicting the Monopoly Man and this succinct phrase: “padrone di merda”— which translates to shitty owner, or, master of shit.
Here’s to human-centered workplaces and more sticker-based, nonviolent revolutions in the new year.
SOMETHING TO HOLD ON TO
One of the best things about life with a casually spectacular teenager is that sometimes he pads into the kitchen at 7 AM and surprises me with an unexpected glimpse into the wild world of his brain.
Like yesterday morning, when he started our days by telling me delightedly that he had dreamed of aerogel. What’s aerogel? I had the same question. Which is why he showed me this video and now I want to eat a few chocolate bunnies and ponder the color of the sky.
MASK UP, STAY INTROVERTED
That’s a wrap for issue 63, friends. Thanks for listening, reading, holding on.
It’s cold outside and Covid is winning, so keep staying home and trying to convince your Goop superfan family members that essential oils pair really well with vaccines.
Stay safe and warm out there, all.
See you next Thursday.
K.