sarah jaffe
Sarah Jaffe is a Type Media Center fellow and an independent journalist covering labor, economic justice, social movements, politics, gender, and pop culture.
Jaffe is the author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, which Robin D.G. Kelley called “The most compelling social and political portrait of our age.” Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Nation, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and many others. She is the co-host, with Michelle Chen, of Dissent magazine’s Belabored podcast, as well as a columnist at the New Republic and New Labor Forum. Her next book, Labor of Love (forthcoming from Bold Type Books in 2020), tells the story of how we all came to love our jobs—or at least pretend to—and why we shouldn’t.
Jaffe was formerly a staff writer at In These Times and the labor editor at AlterNet. She was a contributing editor on The 99%: How the Occupy Wall Street Movement is Changing America, from AlterNet books, as well as a contributor to the anthologies At the Tea Party and Tales of Two Cities, both from OR Books. She was also the web director at GRITtv with Laura Flanders.
Jaffe was one of the first reporters to cover Occupy Wall Street and the Fight for $15, and she has appeared on numerous radio and television programs to discuss topics ranging from electoral politics to Superstorm Sandy, and punk rock to public-sector unions.
She has a master’s degree in journalism from Temple University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Loyola University New Orleans. Sarah was born and raised in Massachusetts and has also lived in South Carolina, Louisiana, Colorado, and Pennsylvania—but currently calls New York home.
Recent Work
The Real Trouble with Ilhan Omar
While others on the left waffle on questions of imperial power and foreign relations, the freshman Democrat takes on American hegemony.
By Sarah Jaffe in the Progressive.
The People Power Behind Sanders’s Debt Cancellation Plan
The call has made its way from the streets to Congress, from pipe dream to policy proposal.
By Sarah Jaffe in the Washington Post.
The Road Not Taken
The shuttering of the GM works in Lordstown will also bury a lost chapter in the fight for workers’ control.
By Sarah Jaffe in the
Sara Nelson Is Not Afraid to Strike Back
For the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, radical politics starts in the workplace.
By Sarah Jaffe in the Nation.
Power Plays in the Anti-Semitic Blame Game
As capitalism starts to crumble, hate finds a familiar foothold.
By Sarah Jaffe in the New Republic.
‘This Model of Education Is Not Sustainable’
Yes, raises are important, but LA’s teachers are striking so their students have a fair shot at an education.
By Sarah Jaffe in The Nation.
The Exhilaration of Revolt
Teachers who have taken their fight to the streets have drawn our attention in the past years, but many others are rising up, too.
By Sarah Jaffe in the New York Times.
Writing the Unions’ ‘Fight-or-Die Survival Chapter’
The growing labor militancy making headlines has its roots in slow, grinding efforts by workers all over the country. By Sarah Jaffe in the New York Times.
The Unexpected Afterlife of American Communism
The Communist, in the American imagination, has always been the ultimate outside agitator. By Sarah Jaffe in the New York Times
Activists in Ferguson Broaden Scope, Unveil ‘Power Behind the Police’
The St. Louis-area campaign highlights the networks of powerful individuals who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. By Sarah Jaffe in Rolling Stone.
Necessary Trouble
Necessary Trouble is the definitive book on the movements that are poised to permanently remake American politics. We are witnessing a moment of unprecedented political turmoil and social activism. Over the last few years, we’ve seen the growth of the Tea Party, a twenty-first-century black freedom struggle with BlackLivesMatter, Occupy Wall Street, and the grassroots networks supporting presidential candidates in defiance of the traditional party elites.
Sarah Jaffe leads readers into the heart of these movements, explaining what has made ordinary Americans become activists. As Jaffe argues, the financial crisis in 2008 was the spark, the moment that crystallized that something was wrong. For years, Jaffe crisscrossed the country, asking people what they were angry about, and what they were doing to take power back. She attended a people’s assembly in a church gymnasium in Ferguson, Missouri; walked a picket line at an Atlanta Burger King; rode a bus from New York to Ohio with student organizers; and went door-to-door in Queens days after Hurricane Sandy.
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