Did you have a chance to catch Ken Burns’s horrific but important documentary on The Central Park Five last night? Were you enraged by the actions of Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer, who forced false confessions out of 5 innocent teenagers and put them behind bars for years? She has never apologized and today not only does she still work in the District Attorney’s office, she teaches at Columbia Law School.
This is a disgrace. No individual who is responsible for locking up innocent boys for years should ever step foot in a classroom to teach students. Ever.
One City: Henry Fernandez for New Haven.
Friends, my old boss Henry Fernandez is running for Mayor of my hometown - New Haven. What kinds of values and experiences will help shape him for this job? Just take a look at the infographic below. One City. Let’s get it! Sign up and donate today at FernandezForMayor.com.
Branding Terry McAuliffe.
Recently, we launched a new brand, website and series of infographics for Terry McAuliffe’s campaign for governor of Virginia. Since the 2012 campaign, we’ve set two goals: help political campaigns 1) embrace data visualization and 2) see the digital space as the origin of campaign creative. Terry’s embrace of this approach has proven he’s the type of forward-thinking, outside-the-box manager who can break the mold.
Here are some highlights from the campaign: Tablet-friendly websites. Compelling infographics to explain ideas. Animated brands. We believe that’s the future of political messaging.
For the rest of the infographics, go to Terry’s issues page - they are embedded into each issue.
Donate to Terry here. Remember who he’s running against.
The Washington Post, Upworthy, Business Insider, US News & World Report and others cover our infographic about why the GOP is caving on immigration reform. It’s quite simple: the writing’s on the (no longer white picket) fence.
Many thanks for all of the work on this go to my colleague Will Donahoe at Chi/Donahoe+Cole/Duffey, Chris Olson at 59 Liberty, Chris Cassidy at Hustle Labs and Robin Richards at Ripetungi.
The Oxon Hill (MD) High School Choir singing at the White House Black History Month tour. Simply divine.
Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together. (1)
__________________________________________________________________________If God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” (2)
(1) Barack Obama, January 21, 2013.
(2) Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865.
Today was full of unforgettable moments. Hearing the President say the words half-slave & half-free, Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall. Hearing him denounce obstructionism, and making a clarion call for confronting climate change, stopping gun violence and advancing immigrant rights. Hearing the name Alex Haley come out of Lamar Alexander’s mouth was hilarious in of itself. But to me, I almost lost it listening to Myrlie Evers. 50 years ago she held her bloodied husband in their Mississippi driveway, dying from the bullet that pierced his chest and was found later in their kitchen, shot in cold blood by a Klansman who thought he could get away with murder, and almost did. Seeing Myrlie address the nation on this stage, talking about everything from Emancipation to I Have a Dream. There are moments that make you believe. That was one of them.
Our history lesson for today, as Elizabeth Warren officially becomes a U.S. Senator. Elizabeth, we’ve got your back.
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. It is so official.
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter is the North’s Long-Awaited Response to The Birth of a Nation
Left: a white actor in blackface portraying a maniacal black soldier out to rape white women in The Birth of a Nation. Right: a Confederate vampire attacking Union troops in Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. Vampireface?
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The national conversation about race, slavery and our collective Civil War memory has been at fever pitch. With the releases of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, movie critics talk about the two almost like a box set. See them together. Get the serious, political take on how we rid our country of a heinous institution, and then see the cruelties of that institution in full force (plus a little revenge). I’ve followed that advice and I’ve appreciated the ongoing dialogue, but I believe we’re missing a crucial piece from this year.
At the urging of my friends, I didn’t see Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter when it came out in theaters. A review called it “the worst thing to happen to Lincoln in a theatre since he was last in one.” When I finally watched it, I saw that everyone was right.
It’s outrageous. Almost as outrageous as The Birth of a Nation. And in my opinion, almost as important. Let me explain.
In the movie, Abe Lincoln since he was young trained as an ax-wielding vampire killer and tried to rid the North of all vampires and keep them where they lived - in the South. Vampires feasted on slaves and constantly tried to move into new territories and establish their own country. When the war came and Lincoln became President, vampires fought in the Confederate Army against him. (You can replace vampires here with another word and it would actually make sense.)
But here’s the #realtalk in this movie:
“We have to decide whether we’re a country of men or a country of monsters.”
It goes without saying that Southerners were not vampires. And no, slavery wasn’t sucking blood from human beings. But were Southern slaveowners monsters? Was slavery not just as bad as sucking blood from people? Anyone want to argue about that?
Yes, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter is a ridiculous Northern-biased fairytale meant to vilify the South. But is it any different from the portrayals of black men as sex-crazed sub-human brutes out to pillage the South in The Birth of a Nation? Is saying that the South was run by vampires any different from saying the Ku Klux Klan was formed to protect white people from black people?
Southern romanticism of the Civil War dominated our national memory for 100 years. From Thomas Dixon’s books to films like The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind, we were ingrained with the belief that we didn’t fight the war over slavery and that the institution of slavery was kind to slaves. It’s that kind of perversion of the truth that led to support of policies that kept much of black America under Jim Crow laws. It took the Civil Rights Movement to change the tide on this kind of thinking, but 50 years later still 2/3 of white Americans in the Old South believe the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery.
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter is simply a mirror. A mirror held up to the Old South to say: the rest of the country can tell outrageous stories too, and this is how it feels.
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Quentino Tarantino talks to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and The Root about Django Unchained.
Tarantino on his use of the N-word in the movie: “No, I don’t want it to be easy to digest. I want it to be a big, gigantic boulder, a jagged pill and you have no water.”
Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is a remarkable historical rendering, offering a deft, knowledgeable depiction of Lincoln as well as a shrewd handling of the politics of the Civil War and emancipation. But the film’s larger importance lies elsewhere. For a century and more, American culture has been polluted by outrageous and pernicious portrayals of the war that apologize for the Confederacy and, by extension, for slavery. A few exceptionally popular books and movies have played a large part in sustaining, sometimes decades after they first appeared, what American historians know as the myth of the Lost Cause, vaunting the slaveholding South.
Demographics alone are not destiny. There is nothing in this year’s election returns that guarantees Democrats a permanent majority in the years to come. President Obama and the Democratic Party earned the support of key groups - young people, single women, Latinos, African Americans, auto workers in the Rust Belt and millions of other middle-class Americans - because of our ideas.
Thank you to all of our clients who made this election so special for us. Whether it was helping brand a progressive icon, winning and making history for marriage equality, or sending middle class champions back to the House and Senate, we are glad to be a part of history with you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
We’ve revamped our website to tell our story in 2012. Check it out: ProjectsByCD2.com
Scenes from the night that Elizabeth Warren became a United States senator.
Always believe, always.
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