Discussing student protests, killing of protesters, and deployment of the National Guard - Naeem Mohaiemen and I discuss his latest film, 'Through a Mirror, Darkly'. The archival footage concerns the killing of students in May 1970 at Kent State, and Jackson Mississippi, while the U.S pursues the Vietnam War whose dead are barely memorialised in the West. We consider resonances of this violence with the present moment, and what political conjunctures enable the emergence of new meanings from past events; and reflect on the imminent election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of NYC.