i am at0m.

sources: unknown // unknown // maplepecanpastry on tumblr // ashmanathletics on tiktok // i saw the tv glow (2024) // pray for me by kendrick lamar // unknown // what are you waiting for? by derald cannon jr. // unknown // unknown // drunk drivers/killer whales by car seat headrest // polekingrasputin on instagram

me: we can reposition if this is uncomfortable, it's not a-

patient: no, no, you said it'd be faster this way, faster is better, i just- i just gotta stop thinking and asking questions about it so you can, like, actually do your job

me: okay

pt partner: okay like what- how can i help, what's the....

(i tune out, finish prepping my materials for splinting, start the process, and then something pings me back in to the conversation)

pt: like i don't even know where to *start* with it! i know Thrawn from Rebels but he's talking about a whole other thing about ROTS.

me: oh, like the no-longer-canon star wars legends stuff?

me: or like the now-canon that isn't tv/movies like the comics or the high republic books & stuff?

me: like i get wanting to clarify a canon and not be beholden to everything from 1977 onward, but also like...you can't say out with the old, in with the new! and then keep mining Legends for characters and plotlines and how i swear jjambles basically got high, put the jedi academy trilogy and dark empire comic series in a blender and made a pan of brownies out of it that's very variable on the scale of 'delicious' 'delicious but real weird flavors' 'somehow all the flavors and none of the flavors at the same time' 'burnt worse than vader's face' and 'too salty'?

patient's partner:

patient:

me:

me: sorry, i-

patient: no, no, wait, wait, do you know the old stuff? (other family member not present) is NUTS over it

pt partner: that doesn't even begin to describe it. they've already read or seen or whatevered all the new stuff and my brother gave them one of the old books and they have not. stopped. talking. about it.

patient: and they just keep asking questions and i know a decent amount of the stuff from like 2012 on but the old stuff, no

patient: so like, *anything* you can point us to, we can be *killing it* with (other family member) and we may actually steal Favoritist Uncle status

pt partner: oh no we're *gonna* steal it, full stop

me: can you...narrow it down, or something, because given an open ended question about books *especially* star wars books and i can and will ramble on until the heat death of the universe, so

patient and partner:

me: oh....dear.

me: um. fair warning? you are about to literally be a captive audience for the next 30ish minutes, and i can easily drop a disseration on Why Luke Skywalker Would, Actually or Cautionary Tales On Always Needing A Bigger Evil or Listen It Doesn't Suck It Was Written In 1994 (On Probably Everything But Cocaine) And It Shows in that time and i don't necessarily recommend it.

me: also just in general getting me started on books is dangerous territory so

patient's partner: (looks at patient)

patient: i want to hear about luke but also about the 90s drug book and i can't decide

me: they are somewhat related. okay, don't say i didn't warn you!

me:

which came to mind when seeing this circulate:

beyond DHS power consolidation, gotta consider the utility of mythologies/narratives of "shoplifting epidemic".

which blossomed from police/state realization (and fear?) of the scale of popular resistance during 2014 demonstrations and, especially, the 2020 George Floyd rebellions during which "retail theft" (prob entangled with millions losing income/jobs during quarantine) became pretext for increased overt policing and expansion of other "soft" policing already employed in gentrified districts (you nearly-universally now need a "code to the bathroom" to wash your fucking hands or take a piss, to say nothing about if you have disabilities, conditions, illnesses, etc. so the surveillance/intimidation of Black people, suppression of popular disobedience, and criminalization of homelessness/poverty are all entangled.)

the outlets/commentators describing the law (May 2026) seem to couch it mostly in criticism of DHS.

while kind of shying away from criticizing the concepts of "organized retail theft" or "shoplifting epidemic". which, really, ought to be confronted and not conceded.

lot of the coverage of this type (not just of CORCA but of policing shit generally) seems to implicitly suggest "retail theft is bad of course and we should hunt down shoplifters, but this law isn't actually about stopping retail theft!!!" which like ... when did you concede that "breaking the rules is wrong and it's naturally good to stop 'crime'"?

for example:

[Excerpt] Despite its title, CORCA [Combating Organized Retail Crime Act] isn’t about combating “organized retail theft.” Its sweepingly broad language actually grants the Department of Homeland Security far-reaching new authority to collect sensitive personal information [...] about Americans who are merely accused of engaging in retail theft. Worse still, citizens caught in the new dragnet don’t even need to be charged with a crime—retail outlets can now work directly with ICE to provide citizens’ personal data to the federal government. [...]. [End]

Pretty bad: [Excerpt] CORCA achieves that goal by creating a new “national intelligence hub” that reports directly to the Department of Homeland Security. The center’s director will be named by acting ICE Director [...] and will be empowered to work “directly with retailers” to collect data on any person a retailer accuses of engaging in “organized retail theft.” [End]

Something also interesting to me: [Excerpt] But retailers can always refuse to cooperate, right? [...] While the language in CORCA may suggest retailers and local law enforcement are voluntarily collaborating [...], the reality is far different. [...] DHS can “prioritize” directing federal grants to communities that cooperate [...] That leaves cash-strapped local governments facing a brutal choice: violate the civil liberties of their residents or face crushing budget shortfalls [...]. [End]

sad lovely friendly innocent so-cutes "local municipalities" might not perceive it as such a "brutal choice."

thinking of Phil Neel writing on Ferguson circa 2014 [from Neel's Hinterland: America's New Landscapes of Class and Conflict, 2018]:

[Excerpt] [T]he dwindling population, fleeing industry, and plummeting property values had created [in Ferguson and the St. Louis region] a budgetary crisis, forcing many of the area’s small municipalities to rely less on their shrinking tax base and more on extra-tax fees and fines [...]. In 2013 fines, court fees, and other such extortions accounted for some 20 percent of the city’s budget. These fines were disproportionately applied to the city’s black residents [...]. These funding systems are not unique to St Louis, but instead became a national trend [...]. [G]rowth in these massive, extra-tax extortions applied to the poor [...] who are more likely to live in small, cash-strapped municipalities (or counties) with a dwindling tax base and less access to federal aid. In most places, this takes the form of an expanding net of legal search, supervision, and harassment [...]. But rather than an unfortunate exception, Ferguson is a window into the future. [...] [End]

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anyway.

in eyeing DHS, can't let narrative of "shoplifting epidemic" off the hook.

returning to Dickinson's and Parker's 2025 article.

Abstract: US grocery retailers, drawing on faulty data and vague assertions, claim that shoplifting has become an epidemic since 2020 and have been organising to call for more policing. In retail trade publications, grocery industry representatives narrate shoplifting as a direct result of criminal justice reforms that threaten their businesses. In these moments, grocery retailer dependence on systems on policing come out into the open, troubling perceptions of grocery stores as benign or beneficial, as they are often represented in policy literature on food deserts. The history of grocery retailers’ broader entanglements with race, place, and policing helps us see grocery stores as contested spaces of enclosure that play a crucial role in maintaining a food system characterised by hunger amidst plenty. Seeing grocery stores as spaces of enclosure dependent on policing asks us to imagine something different [...].

They cite:

Gabbidon and Higgins, Shopping While Black: Consumer Racial Profiling in America (Routledge, 2020).

Reese and Sbicca, "Food and carcerality: From confinement to abolition," Food and Foodways 30, nos. 1/2 (2022): 1-15.

Reese, Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, DC (University of North Carolina Press, 2019).

Jones, "Dying to eat? Black food geographies of slow violence and resilience," ACME 18, no. 5 (2019): 1076-1099.

Wiggins, "'Order as well as decency': The development of order maintenance policing in Black Atlanta," Journal of Urban History 46, no. 4 (2020): 711-727.

Milkman, "Grocery unions under the gun in New York City and the nation," New Labor Forum 31, no. 2 (2022): 17-26.

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stuff i'd previously checked out from Naya Jones:

Naya Jones, "Corner Stores, Surveillance, and All Black Afterlives," Antipode Online, 17 July 2020. URL: antipodeonline . org /2020/07/17/ corner-stores-and-racializing-surveillance/