Student debt is a feminist issue
  February 28, 2023 Hope you’re having a good Tuesday, Meteor readers, According to my calendar, we are somehow two whole months into 2023. I guess it’s true: Time flies when you’re having a million different crises at once.  Meanwhile, it’s officially the last day before Black History Month ends (and Women’s History Month starts). To close it out, today’s newsletter contains a list of recommended reading and viewing curated by Ayesha Johnson. It’s a wealth of good options—for every month of the year. But first: the news. Flipping my calendar, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ON STUDENT DEBT BORROWERS CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN TO CANCEL STUDENT DEBT (PHOTO BY PAUL MORIGI/GETTY IMAGES) “Student debt cancellation is legal”: Today, the Supreme Court begins to hear arguments in two cases challenging President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program—the first: a lawsuit from six Republican-led states arguing the plan hurts loan providers; the second: a case put forward by two individual borrowers who did not qualify for full debt relief forgiveness, claiming the law is unfair. The central question behind this case: Does the Department of Education have the authority to forgive loans? A little background: The Department of Education first paused payments at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and extended this pause as the pandemic continued. When the payments were set to start back up in 2022, the Biden administration decided to offer up to $20,000 of relief to lower-income borrowers. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar cited the 2003 HEROES Act, which provides the Secretary of Education the right to help borrowers in a national emergency—which the COVID-19 pandemic certainly was. But the opposition claims this was an over-extension of executive powers that shouldn’t have been able to pass without Congress. The payment pause, which has been extended in light of this litigation, will last until 60 days after this case is resolved. But Biden’s policy, which would wipe out $400 billion in student debt, would be crucial for so many Americans who are facing rising costs of education but stagnant salary growth. And lest we need to say it again: Student debt is a feminist issue. Women hold nearly ⅔ of all student debt in the United States, with Black and Native women disproportionately affected. As Bernie Sanders said today outside the deliberations, “You should not have to face financial ruin because you want a damn education!” Abortion is for everyone: Jessa Duggar Seewald—of the Duggars, the infamous family of forced-childbirth advocates—posted a video on Friday recounting the story of her life-saving abortion. Of course, she didn’t call it that; she described it as a miscarriage, and the procedure used to remove the fetus—a dilation and curettage (D&C)—as a medical procedure. But D&Cs are used to remove uterine tissue in the case of non-viable, dangerous, or unwanted pregnancies—a process that does, in fact, constitute an abortion. Duggar Seewald was lucky to be able to access one; there are many documented instances of people who required the same procedure but were denied it due to their states’ abortion bans. To be clear: It’s a good thing that Duggar Seewald wasn’t forced to carry a nonviable pregnancy to term. But her family has been very vocally anti-abortion—and she herself has compared abortion to the Holocaust. This story is another reminder that any pregnant person, for any reason, may one day need an abortion—regardless of how much of a boogeyman they’ve made it out to be. AND:
  MY BLACK HISTORY MONTH LIST The Meteor’s Ayesha Johnson shares some of the TV shows, movies, and books that are, for her, an essential way to understand Black history. TV Shows/Movies
Books
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A Ukrainian reflects on her year of war
  February 23, 2023 Hidey-ho, Meteor readers, It’s been four full days since the BAFTAs and I still can’t stop singing, “AN-GE-LA BA-SSETT did the thing.” Ariana DeBose should host every awards show from now until forever. If she auctioned that pink jumpsuit, I would buy it for millions (that, to be clear, I do not have).  In today’s newsletter, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, my colleague Anya Kurkina shares her reflections as a Ukrainian in America. Plus, rapists get what’s been coming to them (or at least some of it). But first: the news. Doing the thing, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ONWhat will it take to believe women?: Today in Los Angeles, Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 additional years in prison. Back in December 2022, the jury had convicted Weinstein of three counts of rape and sexual assault against an anonymous victim. (The trial also addressed the claims of three other victims—including First Lady of California Jennifer Siebel Newsom—but the jurors were unable to produce a conviction.) This sentence comes in addition to the 23 years Weinstein received from his 2020 trial, where he was found guilty of one count of rape and one count of sexual assault against two women. Before we celebrate, it’s worth remembering what Siebel Newsom has called out as the misogyny on display in this trial. At one point, one of Weinstein’s lawyers accused her of being “another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood.” And it’s absolutely appalling that despite the bravery of over 100 women who dared to publicly disclose their trauma, Weinstein has been convicted of so little. Between two trials, he’s only been convicted of crimes against three of his victims—meaning there are still more than 90 women whose publicly shared stories have had no legal bearing. In a statement released Monday, Siebel Newsom applauded the bravery of all the victims, saying: “We must keep fighting to ensure that survivors are supported and that their voices are heard.” AND:
 ONE YEAR AFTER THE INVASION OF UKRAINE“Since That Day, Nothing Has Been the Same” The Meteor's Anya Kurkina reflects on the distress in her homeland.  THE UKRAINIAN FLAG FLIES OVER A DESTROYED BUILDING (IMAGE BY JARAMA VIA GETTY IMAGES) Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. One year of bombing, of refugees, and—as in so many other conflicts—of lives interrupted. (According to the UN, at least 8,000 civilians have died and 13,000 have been injured.) For The Meteor’s Anya Kurkina, who grew up in Ukraine and whose parents still live there, this story is personal. She shares a bit of it here. The Meteor: Thinking back to a year ago, February 24, 2022: What was that day like for you? Anya Kurkina: Like every single Ukrainian, I remember that day really well. The entire week before was spent in speculation: Will he or won’t he [invade]? People were divided into these camps, and I was on the side of “he won’t.” I still believed, for some reason, that he had some fear, that he was a smart politician. But I think what happened is that he figured it would be a blitzkrieg for him—an easy win. So I was sitting there perfectly comfortable…and at about 2 or 3 AM, I get a call from my mom [in Kiev], and she’s in tears, and she just whispered to me: “It has started.” My dad had seen a rocket flare go by their window. And since that day, nothing has been the same—not for any Ukrainian there, or for any refugees. TM: How are you feeling on this anniversary? AK: The morning starts the same way for every single person from Ukraine right now: Wake up, look at Telegram (which is the equivalent of Messenger but protected), go through the WhatsApp groups to see the updates, and then you call your mom. And sometimes it’s rants about “the world is doomed,” and sometimes it’s, “I’m making tea, can you tell me how to cut a lemon?” On this day in particular, we're a little bit anxious because we don't know what this maniac is going to do. There's a big fear that he will escalate to…a different degree than ever seen before…All we have, unfortunately, is hope. [President Volodymyr] Zelensky would say we also need weapons alongside hope—that would be great. [Laughs.] But I do have hope. TM: What have been the most hopeful moments this year? AK: Every day is so rough, because there’s no guarantee of anything. You fear for your family, but also every region being hit—this week, Mariupol had to evacuate. For me, the [best part] has been to see how much people care. For one event [through Spilka, the arts collective and relief group Kurkina volunteers with], we raised 6K just by selling tee shirts and bowls of borscht. We can see how many people want to show support; in our volunteer group, we have people from Norway, Italy, Romania. It's great to feel united in this fight. And we were ecstatic that Biden went to Ukraine—and that he chose to come to Kiev as opposed to…a city closer to the border, which would have been much safer. It meant a lot. TM: What do you want Meteor readers to know on this anniversary? AK: You can donate, and you can just keep talking about it. I know it's not a good dinner-table conversation topic, but we're talking about something beautiful, and a way to [build] the world we want to see.  FOLLOW THE METEOR    Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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The most important election this year?
  February 21, 2023 Salutations, Meteor readers, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yesterday was President’s Day. And that’s fine (though personally, we have some notes). But today is National Pancake Day, which is a LOT more fun to celebrate. Why don’t we get today off work instead? Imagine the parties.  In today’s newsletter, we take a look at politics & politicians: Sen. John Fetterman’s openness with depression and what it means for the way we view elected officials, plus a super-important election in Wisconsin that could shape our democracy (and that I hope all our Cheesehead readers will be voting in.) But first: the news. Passing the syrup, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ON U.S. SENATOR JOHN FETTERMAN (PHOTO BY ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES) In praise of political honesty: On February 15, U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.) checked himself into the hospital to receive care for clinical depression. As his chief of staff Adam Jentleson said in a statement, “While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks.” Last year on the campaign trail, the official also suffered a near-fatal stroke, a medical event which has been shown to drastically increase depression. Fetterman’s courageous openness about his hospitalization signals a shift in the image elected officials are willing to show to the public. Traditionally, the tacit expectation has been for politicians to conceal their humanity and hide anything that could be perceived as a weakness. It wasn’t that long ago that Hilary Clinton was lambasted for having the audacity to have pneumonia. And mental health is a whole ‘nother story. For comparison, consider fellow PA senator Bob Casey’s prostate cancer diagnosis just last January. You probably didn’t even hear about it; it received far less media coverage than Fetterman. And on February 14—the day before Fetterman went into the hospital—Casey announced he had received treatment. No media hubbub, no thinkpieces. He had a medical issue and it was handled. By showing the type of vulnerability he isn’t supposed to, Fetterman rewrites the script for what it means to be a politician, what it means to be well, and what illnesses deserve to be taken seriously. He makes space for anyone struggling with depression who might be too afraid to get the help they need. And trust me, that’s a good thing—don’t you want the person flying your plane or transplanting your kidney to have their mental health cared for? This is a meaningful change, and it’s not an isolated one. Just in this last month, Jacinda Ardern and Nicola Sturgeon both stepped down from public office (New Zealand Prime Minister and Scottish First Minister, respectively) and were honest about the reason: burnout. Hopefully we see this shift towards openly acknowledging our own capacity continue and extend to all areas of our worker-first, human-second, capitalist hellscape culture. Because if the leaders of our country can ask for help with depression and burnout, guess what: So can we. Democracy on the ballot: Wisconsin has its primary election today. Among other things on the ballot: the seventh seat on the state’s Supreme Court—a seat which will be instrumental in determining not just the future of abortion rights in Wisconsin, but the future of the whole state for years to come. For the last 14 years, the Court’s conservative justices have held a 4-3 majority. And in that time, they’ve used their power on everything from union busting to voter restriction. But with the departure of conservative Justice Patience Roggensack, the incoming judge has a huge opportunity to change this trajectory. The Court is currently poised to hear a lawsuit against the state’s current abortion ban (written in 1849!). And though this is technically a nonpartisan race, the four options on Tuesday’s ballot—two conservative and two liberal—have made it clear which way they would rule. (Protasiewicz and Mitchell both listed Dobbs as the worst Supreme Court decision they’ve seen in the past 30 years; Dorow and Kelly have been endorsed by Wisconsin Right to Life.) The generally moderate battleground state has been held in a stranglehold by its conservative legislature, and that conservative legislature has been supported by the Court’s conservative majority. But with this election, that could all change. Several upcoming issues hang in the balance—not only abortion, but Republican gerrymandering, the certification of future presidential elections, and so much more. The top two candidates will be chosen today and move on to a final match-up in April. If you live in Wisconsin, please make sure you are registered to vote and show up to the polls. AND:
 HOSTS QWEEN JEAN AND GIA LOVE BANTER AT THE "TRANS DAY OF LOVE" EVENT (PHOTO BY ADRIAN CHILDRESS)  FOLLOW THE METEOR    Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ideas? Feedback? Requests? Tell us what you think at [email protected]
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What come after an uprising?
  February 16, 2023 Hello, Meteor readers, I couldn’t help but notice that it’s been two days since Valentine’s Day and none of you have sent me my roses. Listen, I get it. The postal service can be slow. I’m sure your love is in the mail. Still, though…you couldn’t overnight it?  In today’s newsletter, Samhita Mukhopadhyay sits down with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, co-founder of the new Black-centric magazine Hammer & Hope, to discuss Black resistance, cross-cultural solidarity, and what happened (and didn’t) after 2020. But first: the news. Double-checking my mailbox, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ONA letter to the editor: On Wednesday, a collective of New York Times contributors published an open letter to Philip B. Corbett, the Times’ associate managing editor for standards. In it, they addressed the “editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people.” The letter cited multiple instances in which the Times amplified anti-trans rhetoric, such as one story describing a trans child as “patient zero.” (Following the letter’s example, we will not provide links to these stories.) And how did the Times respond to this civil, well-stated, and widely supported request? By publishing an op-ed this morning titled “In Defense of J.K. Rowling.” In case you’ve not been burdened with the curse of knowledge, I regret to inform you that the Harry Potter author’s transphobic views have been well-documented. In the op-ed, writer Pamela Paul (who last summer claimed that trans inclusivity threatened women’s rights as much as the far right does) compares the “dangerous” criticism Rowling faces to Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed multiple times last year. A key difference here—along with the fact that Rowling has not, and likely will not, be stabbed—is that Rushdie faced direct death threats from the former Supreme Leader of Iran; Rowling faces exasperated trans people who just want her to stop tweeting. But the op-ed is one thing; the timing of it is another. It could not be more disrespectful to the thoughtful signers of the letter. If you’d like to add your name to theirs, you can sign here. AND:
 A NEW SPACE FOR BLACK RESISTANCE“After the Uprising, What is To Be Done?” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on a magazine that starts to answer that question BY SAMHITA MUKHOPADHYAY  A BLM PROTESTOR RALLIES A CROWD (IMAGE BY TAYFUN COSKUN/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES) After 2020, scholar, author, and columnist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Jen Parker, editor and New York Times alum, saw a gap in how Black politics and resistance were being covered in the media. It was clear that people were angry and fired up—but where was the publication that could serve as a roadmap for a movement? So they came up with the idea for a new magazine focused on Black politics and culture. Launched on Wednesday, Hammer & Hope says it plans to serve as a place for people to hash out the most important ideas in movement building and beyond. This week, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down to talk to Keeanga about the new magazine and why we need it now. Samhita Mukhopadhyay: Talk about how this project came to be and why you decided you wanted to do it. I mean, you're so busy—a magazine?! Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: I met Jen in the fall of 2019 [as my editor at The New York Times], and when the events of 2020 happened, both of us felt the absence of a venue to really engage with some of the debates that were emerging over what the nature of police reform should be, can the police be reformed, and what activists and organizers should be doing. There were millions of people on the streets and uprisings in different cities, yet there was little organizational cohesion. And so the questions of “What needs to happen? What should happen next?” or “Where does all this energy go?” It just felt like those types of questions weren't being fully engaged. So we spent the last two years trying to make it happen—a publication that saw itself as part of these discussions, a space where people on the ground could come talk about these ideas, [ask] strategic and tactical questions, but also the political questions that arise out of those debates. SM: You've recently written about the attack on Black studies, and even your own work has been banned [from A.P. curriculum by the College Board]. Why is Black rebellion and resistance so important to our understanding of history, and where does this project fit within that? KYT: You've got the governors of states trying to ban any discussion about Black history. And that is because the Black movement, probably more than any other, really exposes the hypocrisy at the center of American history. Black people were brought here as slave labor, and then when slavery ended, you had another hundred years of legal subjugation. With those 400 years of conscripted, codified racism, discrimination, and subjugation, the entire idea that the United States is a unique democracy…falls apart and is a complete farce. And some of that is revealing, too, in terms of what it says about white people. Because as James Baldwin once said, “If we are not who you think we are, then who are you?” So if you've built the entire foundation of the country based on this idea of Black people being subordinate and inferior, and it's not true, then it's deeply destabilizing when they rise up. And then the second part of it is that if it's true that there are 400 years of legal oppression and exploitation, then maybe the claims of Black people are legitimate; then maybe the claims for redress, for reparations, for programmatic interventions from the state—that has legitimacy. And that is something that neither liberals nor conservatives really want to talk about. They don't want to pay the price tag—the trillion dollar price tag—that comes with not even the question of reparations, but what does it mean to invest in schools? What does it mean to repair housing? What does it mean to provide meaningful jobs for people? They don't want to deal with any of that. And you have to deal with that if you deal with Black history. And so that history remains marginalized and out of our discussions. And so, of course, we want to bring that to the surface, but we want to do it in a way that is not just about Black rebellion unto itself. We're interested in the politics of solidarity. Even if we say that Black people bear the brunt of racism, discrimination, and exploitation in the United States, we know that Black people aren't the only ones who experience that. We have to show what connects us and brings us together and organize a struggle and a fight around that. SM: Much of your work critically engages with identity politics and how it’s merged with a neoliberal sense of diversity. You get into that in your book Let's Get Free, and you have talked about that with Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, author of Elite Capture—who's also in the inaugural issue. But there is a very big interest in representation in pop culture. What do you think about the energy that goes into that? KYT: We have an interview in the magazine with myself, Durecka Purnell and Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, titled “After The Uprising, What is To Be Done?” We talk about how symbolic representation has been offered as an alternative to substantive change in the last several years. So we don't get meaningful police reform, but we get Juneteenth as a holiday. We don't get substantive reform regarding housing—where you have Black women who are the one demographic most likely to be evicted in the United States—but we get a Black woman on the Supreme Court or a Black woman as the vice president. And that is supposed to satisfy the needs of Black women somehow. There's certainly a problem with the kind of over-emphasis on representation…[which] has become easier to deliver than the substantive change that people want. [That’s] why the level of tension socially is escalating. The ability to simply pay people off with representational or token support versus actually transforming a situation…I think people, in many ways, are rejecting that. And you might be happy or satisfied with the individual, but the idea that that would supplant a particular program or funding or something with some substance to it is really less [acceptable] with every passing day. And we obviously think that issues concerning race and gender and sexuality and ability and nationality and where you come from, immigrant status and all of that, are important, and particular struggles exist around each of them. At the same time, we want to understand how solidarity can bring different struggles and movements together. And that's part of the point of this publication, to create a space where we really work that out. SM: And the magazine is free? You can't build a movement behind a paywall. And why on earth, if we've got Chase Strangio talking about the attacks on trans people and their relationship to the attacks on Black people—why are we charging anybody to read that?  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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This 21-year-old survived two school shootings
  February 14, 2023 Happy(?) Valentine's Day, Meteor readers, I wish I had better tidings for February 14, famously known as Anna Howard Shaw Day. But unfortunately, we must process the news of yet another tragic school shooting. In case you’re wondering, the last time we covered a mass shooting was…less than one month ago. Today we mourn the three lives lost, look into the shooter’s history, and explore the unprotected state of today’s transgender youth. I know, it’s a lot. I’ve been grabbing a feel-better snack about once every 28 seconds. My house is quickly running out of frozen Kit-Kats—which I highly recommend. Not exactly the Valentine's Day chocolates I was expecting, but I'll take it. Well, no putting it off any further. Let’s get into the news. Grabbing another pick-me-up, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ONThe shooting at Michigan State: On Monday night, the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Parkland massacre, a tragic shooting took place at Michigan State University. Three people have died, five more were critically wounded, and the suspect has been identified as a 43-year-old man unaffiliated with the university, who ultimately shot and killed himself. The identities of two victims have been released: Brian Fraser, a sophomore who was president of MSU’s Phi Delta Theta chapter, and Alexandria Verner, a junior who played basketball, softball, and volleyball through high school. The family of the third victim has requested not to be identified.  THE ROCK, A MONUMENT ON THE MSU CAMPUS, PAINTED TO MOURN THE VICTIMS (Image by Scott Olsen, Getty Images News) The gunman’s history had many of the usual danger signs: He had been arrested in 2019 for carrying a firearm without a permit, and was sentenced to 18 months of probation—during which time his father has said he repeatedly lied to him about possessing a gun. At the time of last night’s shooting, the gunman had a two-page note in his backpack that indicated an additional threat to two schools in Ewing, New Jersey. (He apparently had ties in the area.) All Ewing public schools have been closed as a precaution. We know this story all too well. According to the Gun Violence Archive, this is the 67th mass shooting in America this year—and it’s only February. Mass shootings are so commonplace that we’re starting to see people whose lives are touched by more than one. This 21-year-old student, now a survivor of both the MSU shooting and the Sandy Hook shooting, summed it up best on TikTok last night: “We can no longer just provide love and prayers. It needs to be legislation. It needs to be action.” In a statement made today commemorating the Parkland massacre, President Biden announced that $231 million will be allocated to the Justice Department to “reduce gun violence and save lives.” This money will fund crisis intervention projects such as “red flag” programs. But of course, as we’ve discussed before, “red flag” laws are not enough; they require civilians to fire reports to trigger the law. If you recall from last fall, the gunman at Colorado Springs’ Club Q had been arrested before the shooting—but because he was not charged, and no one who knew him filed a report, he was allowed to keep his firearm. What’s needed instead is a full overhaul of our gun laws—starting with an assault weapons ban. Call your representatives today and tell them to act now to end gun violence. Who’s protecting trans youth?: On Monday, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem signed HB 1080 into law, banning access to all gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors. As of July 1, South Dakota doctors will be unable to prescribe or administer puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), or any gender-affirming surgery to anyone under the age of 18. This makes South Dakota the second state to outlaw this medical care, following Utah’s ban in late January. And with more than 80 similar bills on their way, more states are sure to join. This news comes as the trans community mourns the loss of Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old trans teenager who was stabbed to death Saturday in a park in Warrington, England. (Two 15-year-olds have been arrested as suspects.) Police say they have not yet found evidence that this was a hate crime, but many of Ghey’s friends have come forward claiming she had faced transphobic bullying for years—with very little intervention or protection from the administration at her school. As a trans person who didn’t start HRT until I was late in my 20s, I have to wonder: Who do these anti-trans legislators think they’re protecting by blocking minors from accessing care? Because trans youth are not in any way protected right now. Anti-trans rhetoric makes them more vulnerable to attacks from their peers—not to mention the fact that trans youth who are blocked from gender-affirming care are far more likely to consider or attempt suicide. Legislators claim they’re just shielding young people from making irreversible changes to their bodies—but there’s no change more irreversible than death. As trans activist Lindsey Spero said while testifying before the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine on Friday, “Your denial of my need for this medication doesn’t make my existence as a trans person any less real.” As the Board considered a ban on puberty blockers and HRT, Spero used his allotted time to take a testosterone shot in front of them. He told the Board, “I could stand here and tell you about the times I attempted to end my life because I didn’t have access to gender-affirming care. But I know. I know you don’t care.” They still passed the ban, though. So I guess he was right. AND:
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The President's missed opportunity
  February 9, 2023 How’s it hanging, Meteor readers? Hope you’re all getting through the week and finding meaningful ways to relax. I took a two-hour bath yesterday and read Stephen King’s Misery. “But Bailey,” you might be thinking, “That’s not a very relaxing book.” And to that, dear reader, I say it is when you’ve had a week like mine.  Today we look at President Biden’s State of the Union address: the highlights, the heckles, and the hole where a meaningful mention of abortion should have been. Plus, Barbra Streisand, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Rihanna all have something exciting to announce! HUGE day for women and women-admirers. But first: the cockadoodie news. Keepin’ it easy, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ONThe state of our union: President Biden gave his second State of the Union address Tuesday night. Traditionally, the State of the Union is a speech given by one person, but I guess this one was a group performance? Republican hecklers were out in full force, including Marjorie Taylor Greene cosplaying as Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games. The odds were not in her favor, though: She yelled “liar!” at Biden for claiming some Republicans (“I’m not saying it’s a majority,” he specified) want to cut Medicare and Social Security; Biden took it in stride, responding he was glad to hear they’d changed their minds—considering many have indeed proposed to cut both. Remember when Rep. Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at President Obama (who also hadn’t) and it was treated like a big deal? That was fun. Makes you sort of nostalgic.  But all in all, Biden was able to face the stadium jeers and make several important points. He recounted the horror at Uvalde and called for Congress to “ban assault weapons now.” He honored the parents of Tyre Nichols, who were present, and stressed the importance of police reform. As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged on MSNBC, while advocates have said reform is not enough, POTUS has come a long way from just a year ago, when he was advocating more police funding. But we can’t help but acknowledge the elephant in the room (or perhaps, not in the room): abortion. As writer Jessica Valenti pointed out, the State of the Union “[had] four sentences on abortion. Four. By comparison, the speech [had] 19 sentences on ‘junk fees.’” He started by saying Congress needed to restore and codify Roe v. Wade. Well, okay. Yes. Ground-level stuff, but it’s worth saying. Then he claimed he’s doing everything he can, reassuring us, “If Congress passes a national abortion ban, I will veto it.” I mean…that’s great. But it’s not enough. Every day a new state is introducing or trying to introduce a new way to ban abortion. There is an imminent, very real threat to the abortion pill; the President could have brought awareness to it in a crucial week. He could have pointed out that denying abortions can kill pregnant people (especially considering that one of Dr. Jill Biden’s guests almost died as a result of Texas’ abortion ban). He could have given hope, given information, given a plan of action: anything. Half of America’s citizenry were stripped of their right to bodily autonomy overnight. Trans people have their bodily autonomy threatened more and more every day. Our bodies are under coordinated attack from state legislatures. And with the whole country watching, President Biden decided to offer four sentences of condolences and move on. Last fall’s election demonstrated how much we care about abortion; it’s not unreasonable that we ask our president to do the same. AND:
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Why rape is not a "one-off" crime
  February 2, 2023 Greetings, Meteor readers, Happy Black History Month! Last night, The Meteor welcomed an incredible group of performers to a packed house at New York City’s Joe’s Pub for Say The Word: A Night of Art and Action for Abortion. (If you were there, hi!) The show was jam-packed with brilliance: We heard from comedian Jaye McBride; Colombian human rights lawyer and abortion rights activist Paula Ávila-Guillén; and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Michael R. Jackson, who sang an original protest song. And then there was the glorious Dr. Kameelah Phillips, telling it like it is:  And as if that weren’t enough, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross reunited for the weirdest, most hilarious bit, all to raise money for the New York Abortion Access Fund. In today’s newsletter, the body-shaming of Sam Smith and the ridiculousness of the College board. Plus, Cindi Leive talks to writer V about what we get wrong about rape. But first, some news. LYLAS, Samhita Mukhopadhyay  WHAT'S GOING ONSam is thriving: The singer Sam Smith has a new video out for their single “I’m Not Here To Make Friends,” off the newly released album Gloria. In the video, Smith is serving looks—a giant fluffy pink dress and gloves, a feather get-up, and an amazing corset complete with nipple tassels. It’s queer, it’s flirty, it’s artistic; in other words, it’s a perfect music-video fit. But not everyone could get on board. Some boring people—in OpEds, on Twitter, on television—just had to criticize them for baring too much skin, claiming that the video was bad for children. Smith, however, told The Sunday Times that after years of feeling self-conscious about their body, they have learned to embrace themselves and “feel liberated, released from pressures I felt when I was young.” “I now have the opposite of body dysmorphia,” they said. “I look fabulous.” Your new mantra.  College Board catastrophe: The notoriously problematic College Board, which sets the curriculum for things like Advanced Placement classes and the SATs, has stripped down the curriculum of the African American Studies AP class, according to new reporting released yesterday. The New York Times reports that after vocal pressure from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the new curriculum removed discussion on critical race theory, intersectionality, queer identity, Black feminism, and Black Lives Matter—along with work by Kimberlé Crenshaw and Ta-Nehisi Coates—but added “Black conservatism” as a possible area of study. Education reporter Dana Goldstein dug into exactly what was removed from the curriculum; the organization, meanwhile, said in a statement that it had made the changes before DeSantis’ public announcement. Meanwhile: the original class sounds awesome! Book club, anyone? AND:
 REP. ILHAN OMAR (IMAGE BY KENT NISHIMURA/LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES)
  THE METEOR INTERVIEW27 Years After the Vagina MonologuesThe writer V—formerly Eve Ensler—on what’s changed for her and the world. BY CINDI LEIVE  V (FORMERLY EVE ENSLER) (IMAGE BY BRYAN BEDDER VIA GETTY IMAGES) It’s been a quarter century since the performer Eve Ensler—who now goes by V—created the culture-changing play The Vagina Monologues and, shortly thereafter, the anti-violence organization V-Day. Times have changed—we now have more inclusive definitions of gender—but V’s gift as a writer has not. Her new book, Reckoning, touches on many topics but cuts deepest when it chronicles her decades-long recovery from childhood abuse. Actually, let me restate because, after talking to V, I'm disinclined to use clichés: her decades-long recovery from her father raping her and her mother protecting him. And as you’ll hear, that specificity matters. Cindi Leive: You've been writing about violence for four decades. How are you feeling about these issues in 2023? V: We’ve had amazing victories. We’ve broken taboos. We’ve opened safe houses, we’ve changed laws, we’ve activated young people. A lot of wonderful things happened. But the essential problem is we still have patriarchy. We can have one-off wins, but we’re still in that system where very, very, very few people, usually men, have all the wealth, all the power, all the ability to determine who is valuable, who is worthy, who gets to live, who gets to die, who has money, who doesn’t, and that all the rest need to be controlled or gotten rid of. Are we going to stay like that? Or are we going to say—finally, at last—we don’t accept this way of operating? Because otherwise, we will be in this struggle for eternity. CL: One of the things that has always affected me about your writing—going back to when I first saw The Vagina Monologues in the mid-90s—is how specific you always are in your language. You write in Reckoning that “violence against women” has become too abstract and broad a term. What do you mean by that? V: I've always been despondent over the terms that we keep using for violence against women. They just seem to get more and more distant, more and more abstract, as the violence seems to get more and more amplified and horrific. And I don’t think that’s accidental. When we talk about “gender-based violence,” who’s doing the violence? What is exactly being done, and who's it being done to? The confusion of that takes the responsibility off the perpetrator. It really should be “men committing violence against women.” I mean, not all violence against women is by men, but a great deal of it is. And when you say “rape,” it's very different than when you say “gender-based violence.” One you have an image of and can see. With “gender-based violence,” I have no vision of what that is. In writing The Apology [V’s 2019 book in which she imagines her father apologizing to her], it was very clear to me that there is no apology without a rendering of the specific details of what you have done. Because in that specificity, both you—the victim—and the perpetrator know you were present at the same event. If you say, “I’m sorry I abused you,” that’s not an indication that you were there. But if you say, “I'm sorry I walked into your room that had the gingham sheets and the pink bedspread...” then you both know you were in the same room, and you’re accountable to the same moment. CL: In the book, speaking of your own experience, you write, “this abuse altered the constitutional makeup of my entire being. It filled my cells and blood and body with terror, worry, guilt, and dread—that would in my teenage years and on until my sixties develop into all-encompassing self-hatred and anxiety.” That's a really devastating sentence. But it also made me a little bit hopeful because you say “until my sixties,” which implies that you have perhaps found some peace. V: One of the things about the kind of violence that happens to women is that no one really wants to think about long-term consequences. We talk about it as if it's a one-off event when in fact, it radically alters a woman's life forever, right? I don't know any woman who was abused sexually as a child or a young woman who has not had huge intimacy issues, particularly if they were incested by a family member. Nobody talks about what it does to your memory or your ability to think or your willingness and ability to be a leader because then you’re seen, and then you become a target, and then you could be raped again. I’ve had to do a lot of work to escape, and by no means am I fully out of it. There are things that can trigger me and put me back into it. But since I wrote The Apology, I will say I’m in a very different place. I felt I was forever in my father’s story, and that has changed. Yes, I got very damaged and broken early on…but it’s not the sum of me, it’s not the total of me. And that's amazing. I never thought that I would ever see that.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ideas? Feedback? Requests? Tell us what you think at [email protected]
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Why it doesn't matter when cops are Black
  January 31, 2023 Dear Meteor readers, Hey there! Samhita here–filling in for Shannon. (She thanks you for the love many of you sent her way as she left for her maternity leave). Though January can feel endless thanks to post-holiday letdown, I broke mine up by heading to the Sundance Film Festival to check out the feminist film offerings (and catch a glimpse of Jason Momoa, nothing un-feminist about that, right?).  This year's festival boasted many explicitly feminist films—several of which I got to see, including Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson (which won the Sundance award for Best Documentary) about the life of the great Black, lesbian poet Nikki Giovanni; and Invisible Beauty, a touching and personal portrait of one of the first Black supermodels, Bethann Hardison, directed by Frédéric Tcheng and Hardison herself. (At the screening for that one, there was a standing ovation and not a dry eye in the house as Hardison addressed the crowd.) Significantly, I also got a chance to see two major political docs. Tracy Droz Tragos’ Plan C is a painful-to-watch deep dive into the networks of women getting pregnant people access to the abortion pill in this changing, dangerous legal landscape. And Nancy Schwartzman’s newest documentary, Victim/Suspect, showcases women who were sexually assaulted but had police question their stories or manipulate them into recanting—only then to arrest and charge them with filing false reports. (She’s a pro at this tough material: Last fall, we talked to her about her documentary and book regarding the Steubenville rape.) Amid all of that, I moderated two panels: One, where I talked to filmmakers Justin Chon, Liz Sargent, and Sing J. Lee about what an AAPI story looks like in 2023; and another, in conversation with actress Anaita Wali Zada, who plays an Afghani refugee in the surreal and heartbreaking film Fremont. (Zada herself had to flee Afghanistan, targeted by the Taliban for her work as a journalist.) In other words: There are a lot of excellent and important stories out there; may they all find buyers and make their way to your screens. In today's newsletter, we look at why it didn't matter that the police who killed Tyre Nichols are Black, new allegations against Marilyn Manson, and the wonderful little development of emergency contraception vending machines on college campuses. Xo, Samhita Mukhopadhyay
 WHAT'S GOING ON A PHOTO OF TYRE NICHOLS FROM A PRESS CONFERENCE ON JAN. 27. (IMAGE BY SCOTT OLSON VIA GETTY IMAGES) What we know about another horrific police killing: Last week, video was released of the five Memphis police officers who severely beat Tyre Nichols during a traffic stop on Jan. 7; he died three days later. In the body cam footage of the attack, you can hear, among other things, Nichols call for his mother, who was only 100 yards away. He was reportedly a shy young man who loved skateboarding and photographing sunsets, as well as a father to a 4-year-old son. As you may have read, the officers involved in the beating of Nichols were part of a unit known as SCORPION—a "special" unit that targets neighborhoods deemed particularly high in crime by the Memphis Police Department. (The unit has now been disbanded). Five of the officers involved in the beating—all of whom were Black—were subsequently arrested and charged with second-degree murder. Another white officer, who was also on the scene and allegedly tased Nichols, was discharged from the force. So naturally, one of the topics of much discussion since the murder has been how much, and whether, it matters that the murderers were Black. Nichols' mother told the Washington Post that that fact makes the news of her son's untimely death "even harder to swallow...[T]hey are Black and they know what we have to go through," she said.  ROWVAUGHN WELLS, MOTHER OF TYRE NICHOLS AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON JAN. 27. (IMAGE BY SCOTT OLSON VIA GETTY IMAGES) But for many observers, the race of the perpetrators was not surprising at all. While police departments often tout hiring more Black officers as a strategy to solve police violence, journalist Wesley Lowery has studied police aggression and found that the race of the cop doesn't really make a difference in whether an encounter with a suspect gets violent. As he wrote on Twitter, "this also applies to the narrative focus on 'white' officers in cases like Ferguson, Walter Scott, etc etc. What this implies—often unintentionally—is that the issue here is personal (or personal prejudice) and not systemic (something any officer could get caught up in)." And systemic reforms need to go further, argues abolition scholar Derecka Purnell. She pointed out in The Guardian that many of the reforms touted to decrease police violence were in place in the Nichols case: Not only were the officers Black (as is 58% of MPD’s 2000-person police force), but they also had body cameras. She notes that the MPD claims to have met all the criteria in Campaign Zero’s #8CantWait—a campaign to decrease the use of excessive force by police—and also has a Black woman as the police chief. Her conclusion? Not that change is impossible—but that you can only achieve it by steps to decarceration that “reduce the role and power of policing, rather than simply changing the colors of the people committing the harm.” AND:
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What Does the Brett Kavanaugh Documentary Do For Us?
  January 26, 2023 Buona sera Meteor readers, This send is somewhat bittersweet. Sweet because it’s, as usual, chock full of interesting stories you may or may not have heard about, like the new slate of anti-LGBTQ bills in Indiana, the latest on Brittney Griner, and a look at the Brett Kavanaugh documentary Justice which premiered at Sundance last week. But it’s bitter because it is also the last newsletter I’ll be writing for quite some time—because I am having a baby 🐣. It’s been an absolute joy and privilege to be a part of all 105 Meteor newsletters so far (who’s counting, me, I’m counting). We’ve written through fun times and through absolute horror, and with each send our community has grown, and so have I. But, alas, it’s time for me to prep for my biggest project of all: parenthood. My firstborn is due to arrive soon and while I’d love to hang out here with all of you, my fingers have swollen to the size of stuffed Vienna sausages, and it’s time to hand the keyboard over to someone else for a bit. So I really hope you enjoy this one. My daughter and I will see you all on the other side.  Marie Kondo-ing my baby’s drawers, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ON“Slate of hate”: Indiana is imitating Florida with a new batch of bills aimed at making the lives of school-aged LGBTQ children absolutely miserable. In total, there are three bills, including one in the Indiana House and one in its Senate, which both move to outlaw the mention of “gender fluidity; gender roles; gender stereotypes; gender identity; gender expression; or sexual orientation,” in grades K-12 in the classroom, among other things. And while these bills are frightening and intrusive—and would, by the way, keep all children from learning about gender—the third bill manages to one-up them both: LGBTQ news outlet them reports that SB 354 would “require schools to notify parents if a student ‘has conflicted feelings’ about gender identity, or if they change their name, attire, or pronoun ‘in a manner that is inconsistent with the student’s biological sex at birth’.” Let’s call this what it is: mandatory outing. Indiana lawmakers think it’s a good idea for teachers to start outing kids to their parents—without any knowledge of how those parents will react. And to what end, other than to put students at risk? I’m seriously asking. Class is canceled: Yesterday, students walked out of John Comaroff’s class at Harvard due to the school’s handling of Comaroff’s alleged sexual misconduct. (He had been accused of groping and harassing three graduate students last year.) One student read from a statement that said, in part, “We don’t want to be taught by someone who has still not been held accountable for or made amends for their sexual misconduct. If you agree, please join us in walking out of this classroom.” (At least 100 people did.) According to the Harvard Crimson, Comaroff was placed on leave last year after violating the university’s sexual harassment policy. (An internal investigation found that the accusations made against him were plausible, but no criminal charges were brought, and he is still tenured at Harvard.) For Harvard alum and our Meteor colleague Tara Abrahams, this was simply history repeating itself. Exactly 25 years ago this spring, Abrahams, then a junior at the school, wrote in Harvard Magazine about a similar situation in which “Harvard had not explicitly condemned sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct through real action, but had privately admonished a guilty faculty member.” After seeing all of those students take a stand against Comaroff and the institution’s decision to allow him to keep teaching, Abrahams told me, “I wish that the bravery of the students I spoke to more than 20 years ago had counted for more, that their speaking out would have meant that these young people would be able to experience a different Harvard today…And maybe I even feel a tiny glimmer of hope—that because of these kids standing up, one day, enough really will be enough.” AND:
 THE METEOR AT SUNDANCEDoes Justice Serve Justice? BOSS BABY BIG MAD! (IMAGE BY WIN McNAMEE VIA GETTY IMAGES) This past weekend, at the Sundance film festival, I caught the surprise feature Justice—a documentary about the allegations which surfaced against Brett Kavanaugh before his Supreme Court confirmation. The movie picks up where the botched FBI investigation ended—you know, the one that reportedly generated 4500 tips that the Trump White House ignored. The film doesn’t reveal anything particularly new—but it will absolutely resurface your rage. Justice does add context to what we already know, especially through a rigorous deep dive into fellow Yale student Deborah Ramirez’s allegations that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party while they were undergraduates. According to the documentary, the FBI talked to Ramirez when they re-opened the investigation after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, but allegedly failed to follow up with any of the witnesses Ramirez’s team provided. Instead, they turned her testimony over to the Senate Judiciary Committee but Ramirez was never called to testify. The most damning bit of the movie is audio of Max Stier, one of Kavanaugh’s classmates at Yale and now the CEO of the nonpartisan DC group Partnership for Public Service. In the recording, which Stier allegedly submitted to the FBI in the days after Dr. Ford’s testimony as well, he both corroborates Ramirez’s account of what happened and describes another incident he witnessed. In the audio, Stier says that he was in a room where Kavanaugh was drunk and had his pants down, with a group of fellow students trying to force a young woman to touch his penis. As journalists Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly reported in their 2019 book, The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation, the FBI did not follow up on Stier’s allegations. Kavanaugh was confirmed without the public hearing them. But hearing them out loud now is gutting. Stier himself did not speak to the filmmakers, and similarly, the movie is haunted by the absence of Dr. Ford, who is seen briefly at the beginning, and in clips throughout. (Director Doug Liman says it’s because she’s given enough to the country already; no argument there. As she told the Meteor in 2021, the months and years since the hearings have been brutal.) The movie is a stark portrait of one of the darkest moments in the history of American democracy, and it’s hard not to walk out retriggered, especially with the four years we’ve experienced since Dr. Ford’s gutting testimony. But in 2023, anger doesn’t feel like enough. Justice doesn’t get us much closer to accountability for the survivors—or change the reality that a sitting Supreme Court justice most likely perjured himself. Hopefully, this documentary is the beginning of a process—not just of rage but of actual, what’s the word, justice. But that’s unlikely. -Samhita Mukhopdhyay  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ideas? Feedback? Requests? Tell us what you think at [email protected]
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Is This Normal?
  January 24, 2023 Good evening Meteor readers, Last night, along with a million other folks across the country, I settled into the couch for three hours of appointment television. Yes, I’m talking about the 30th anniversary of Monday Night RAW, the longest-running weekly episodic television show in American history. Oh, were you watching something else? The evening was a celebration of not just the longevity of the show itself—which, for the uninitiated, is the premiere weekly wrestling program in the U.S —but of its iconic characters, some inexplicably still active in the wrestling world: Triple H, the Undertaker, Sean Michaels, etc. (I’d love to tack a woman onto that list, but alas, it seems that some invites got lost in the mail. Honorable mention to Alundra Blayze who was on screen for 15 seconds.)  TRISH STRATUS WATCHING THE SHOW FROM HOME AND SEEING NOT A SINGLE LEGENDARY WOMAN IN ATTENDANCE. As a lifelong on-and-off wrestling fan (the early-Divas era was hard for some of us), all that nostalgia made me reflect on how much and how little can change in 30 years. Since its inception, RAW has gone from a kitschy, wildly sexist male-driven soap opera to a multi-million dollar enterprise that can sometimes recognize its own sexism and even address it. Meanwhile, some institutions seem to make no progress at all. And as the headlines reminded us this weekend, over the last 30 years, America has managed, slowly but surely, to normalize the occurrence of mass shootings. A different day, a different set of victims, and the same response: thoughts, prayers, “never agains,” empty political gestures. Rinse, repeat. Without a breather. In today’s newsletter, we attempt to make sense of another tragedy and search for a few bright spots in the world. Surreptitiously convincing you to watch wrestling, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONA weekend of mass shootings: There have been 39 mass shootings in the month of January, and the one that took place in California yesterday afternoon is the second the state has seen in three days. Before that shooting in Half Moon Bay, where seven were killed and one left in critical condition, there was the shooting in Monterey Park, which claimed 11 lives. And then, on Monday night, there was another shooting in Oakland, with one killed and seven injured. As one assemblyman in California told the Washington Post, “Before we’ve even had a chance to mourn them, there is yet another mass shooting.” The weight of that statement is bone-crushing. Police still have not determined a motive for either the Monterey Park or Half Moon Bay shootings, the former of which took place while the local community was celebrating the Lunar New Year. The suspected Monterey gunman reportedly died from a self-inflicted gunshot shortly after the incident. Meanwhile, the Half Moon Bay shooter was taken into police custody after he was found parked outside a precinct. No one has been apprehended in connection to the Oakland shooting. In response to this horrific string of events, President Biden called on Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban, which you may recall expired in 2004. But we’ve seen this song and dance before, and the legislative process required to end (or even put a dent in) gun violence would require massive changes, like Republicans unclasping the death grasp they have on the second amendment. Ironically this brings to mind part of a motivational speech from Peloton instructor Jess Sims where she notes that people sometimes confuse the word hard with the word impossible. Solving gun violence is not impossible; it’s just extremely fucking hard. But hard things get accomplished all the time. *Looks at every other country on the globe that doesn’t have this problem* If you or someone you know has been impacted by gun violence and is looking for help, please start here. If you are a member of the AAPI community and are looking for mental health resources, try here. And if you’d like to take part in ending gun violence, here are some suggestions from the Prevention Institute. “Nothing to celebrate”: Renee Chelian was 15 years old when she found out she was pregnant. Although it was illegal at the time—1966—her parents asked her if she wanted to have an abortion. She said yes. Chelian is now an abortion provider in her home state of Michigan, and because of that initial traumatic experience, she has helped thousands of patients receive safe abortion care. On what should have been the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Chelian felt there was “nothing to celebrate.” But we celebrate her and the heroes, known and unknown, who work against all odds to provide necessary healthcare to pregnant people.  AND:
 METEOR IRLHave you gotten your tickets for our live event yet? No? It's next week!! Click the image below to get the goods.   FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ideas? Feedback? Requests? Tell us what you think at [email protected]
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