"We don't stop moving"
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No images? Click here  May 4, 2022 Darling Meteor readers, Recently I saw someone post, it’s getting really exhausting living through a historic event every six minutes. Never has that been more relatable than this week when an anonymous hero leaked a draft of the Supreme Court’s opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—the case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. I want to say that this has thrown us into a state of crisis but that would imply that we’ve not been enduring crises for the last few years. So I’ll call it what it is: another problem that no one wanted. I’m angry. You’re angry. Entire pockets of the country are angry. And outside of donating to abortion funds and primal screaming in the streets (yes to both), it feels like there is nothing we can do to stop SCOTUS from rolling us toward a dangerous and uncertain future for people who want to have control over their own bodies. So it was only suitable that for this newsletter, author and Meteor editor-at-large Rebecca Carroll asked journalist Rebecca Traister the question on everyone’s mind. Where do we go from here? We go forward. In quiet rage, Shannon Melero (P.S. We know what day it is. May the fourth be with you all. We’re gonna need it!)  WTF DR. AYANA ELIZABETH JOHNSON IN NEW YORK CITY (PHOTO BY GINNY SUSS)
AND OTHER THINGS GOING ON:
 ABORTION AT RISK“We Are Living In Minority Rule”Rebecca Traister on the future of abortion rights and what Democrats need to do now.BY REBECCA CARROLL  THANK GOD FOR ABORTION! (PHOTO BY GINNY SUSS) You mad? I am. So when Politico published the leaked draft opinion on Monday, indicating that the Supreme Court was primed to overturn Roe V. Wade, rather than beat my head against the wall, I reached out to political writer and author Rebecca Traister, whose concise and provocative columns have covered this terrain and predicted this outcome for decades. Her 2019 bestselling book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, documents the historical arc of women’s rage and since there’s never been a better time for that—we zoomed about it. Rebecca Carroll: When the news broke last night about the SCOTUS leak, you tweeted: “Intellectually I am unsurprised, mentally knew this was coming, have been writing about it for years, understand Roe has been insufficient for millions, etc etc. And yet: my teeth have been chattering uncontrollably for an hour. Bodies/minds are so weird.” I felt that too—can you say more? Rebecca Traister: I certainly understood that night that this was coming. But there have been all these distinct moments that I remember knocking the breath out of me, each and every one of them, but in which it was abundantly clear that this was what was going to happen. Like when I read the headline that Anthony Kennedy was retiring, the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, the night that Justice Ginsburg died, the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett. I was ready for the breath to be knocked out of me at the end of June [when the SCOTUS opinion is expected to be officially delivered]. I certainly was not ready for the text message I got Monday night at 8:40. My eldest daughter was like, "Mom, are you okay?" She tried to put a blanket over me. And it was a visceral, physiological reaction. I guess it was like a shock, a physical shock reaction. Part of the shock is that this is happening now. We won the 2020 election largely because of the women's vote and, specifically, women of color. And yet even with Democrats in power because of us, here we are. How do we reconcile that? Or do we reconcile that? Well, I don't think there's a neat reconciliation that's possible. I think we have to hold multiple things in our heads at one time. One is elections do matter, actually. And the other is that Democrats have to be better and fight far more forcefully. And this is a critique that I've had for a long time. I hear a lot of resistance to that: Like, this is not the Democrats’ fault, this is right-wing. And, absolutely, this is decades' worth of right-wing strategizing to exacerbate gendered, racial, and class inequalities. But this has been the right-wing for 40 years. And it's also about Democrats who have not effectively fought that party. Roe is about to be overturned. Voting rights were gutted in 2013. Labor protections have been gutted and environmental protections have been gutted and there's a lot more that's on the table coming up. So lots of these things can exist at the same time. It is absolutely crucial that we elect Democrats. Sure. Yes. It is also crucial that Democrats themselves get better at waging this battle.  IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS (PHOTO BY GINNY SUSS) I want to understand better for myself, for the folks around me, for all of us: What is a right? What is a human right if it can be so freely stripped? We are talking about everything [fought for] by early abolitionists and suffrage movements through emancipation, through labor movements often spearheaded by immigrants—to the 19th amendment, through the Voting Rights Act, through the Civil Rights Act, through Griswold and Loving. These rights have been pulled from the guts and marrow of this system that was designed to impede them. And here is where I see a failure over the past generation or two: to understand that once those rights were extracted, that didn't mean we just got to relax our grip on them. Politically, in terms of our leadership, there have always been people on the ground, at the grassroots who have been talking about how easily these things could be stripped from us, and those people have been called hysterics. That's something [U.S. Sen.] Ben Sasse said specifically about abortion during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. He said, I've seen these hearings and people are always yelling hysterically about how abortion's going to be overturned and it's never happened. It's all [accusations of] hysteria, but it's also the tacit message coming from Democrats who over my lifetime have fought for a big tent and said, We shouldn't have litmus tests on things like abortion and have repeatedly called those who talked about abortion as single-issue voters who were impeding a broader progressive project. The people who understood the intensity that this battle required even after having won were written off as radical, infantile, or overdramatic. Reproductive justice advocates have been pointing out over decades that [using] the language of “choice” never worked as morally compelling. It's the “choose your choice” feminism where any choice that a woman makes then becomes feminist, which is not the case. What reproductive justice advocates were correctly pointing out always is that the right to abortion goes hand in hand with the right to competent, accessible, affordable, and high-quality healthcare for all people— [and] as we know, Black maternal mortality rates are through the roof in this country and healthcare more broadly is unavailable. It goes hand in hand with affordable housing, quality education, safer gun laws, and things that better enable people, not just to be able to choose to end pregnancies but also to have children and to be able to raise them safely and with some economic stability. But I would also say that 70% of Americans don't think abortion should be illegal. The reason the right did its genius moves of taking over the judiciary is because they cannot win on this issue legislatively. The Electoral College overriding the will of the majority of voters has produced the majority of Supreme Court justices right now who are deciding against a majority of Americans. What we're living in right now is minority rule.  CROWDS IN NEW YORK SHOUTING THEIR SUPPORT OF ABORTION IN THE STREET (PHOTO BY GINNY SUSS) When we first got on the phone, you were listening to the clip of Elizabeth Warren fuming. Why is that video so important? Because there are a lot of ways that can also be dismissed. Sure. There are a million ways it can be dismissed. Fuck those ways. That clip shows blood, it shows feeling, and it shows urgency. I feel like the president and the leaders of this party need to get out of bed the night that it happens and tell people who need care that they can go get their appointments tomorrow. To explain it, to treat it with a big siren emoji, to get on TV, to get on the internet—do what you have to do, speak to the people you claim you want to lead into battle. At the end of the statement he released [Tuesday] morning was the idea that everybody can vote for us in November. Okay. Tell me why Joe? Tell me why. Because until that statement, he hadn't said the word abortion. He did include the word abortion in his statement this morning. Congratulations. It was like four paragraphs down. I'm glad. What I keep trying to wrap my head around is it's so clear to me why abortion matters—but how do we keep a new generation caring? What we have not done is successfully transmitted the stories of not just what life was like pre-Roe, but about the degree and difficulty of these fights. We tell very neat stories about how everything from the civil rights movement to the gay rights movement to the women's movement landed us with these sort of cheerful endpoints. And we don't linger on how long it took and we don't linger on how hard it was and we don't linger on how many people suffered and died during the course of these fights. And we do that because it's human to want to put that stuff behind us and to say, Look, we're moving forward. People might not feel hopeful right now. Why should they? It's hard to feel hopeful. I can't point to something that's being like, well, the great thing is X. Nope. No great things. Okay? None. Zero great things. However, I have to say that as tempting as it is to give into despair or hopelessness, it is crucial to remember, again, that this is why it's important that we learn more and better about the generations that came before us. Let me tell you, generations of people with far fewer resources and living in spaces of far greater systemic violence and injustice, found a way to fight for a better world. And if we can't because we're bummed out, which we are, then we have a major problem. So it's not a question of, is there a reason to feel hope? Damn fucking straight there is because if we don't, we stop moving. And if we stop moving, then we permit the harm, and that's not possible.  Rebecca Carroll is a writer, cultural critic, and podcast creator/host. Her writing has been published widely, and she is the author of several books, including her recent memoir, Surviving the White Gaze. Rebecca is Editor at Large for The Meteor.  ONE MORE THINGIf this week's SCOTUS draft left you wondering, what now, then make sure to register for The Meteor's virtual event on May 9th, 22 for '22: Visions For a Feminist Future, presented in partnership with Gucci's CHIME FOR CHANGE. You'll hear from Colombian human rights lawyer Paula Avilla-Guillen on the state of reproductive freedom and what comes next. You won't want to miss it! Click here and make sure to reserve the best seat on your couch for an emotional and inspiring evening.  FOLLOW THE METEOR    Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
It's all fun and games until Elon Musk buys Twitter
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No images? Click here  April 30, 2022 Hey Meteor friends, Do you know what I love, specifically, about the last day of April? That I can finally post a million “It’s gonna be May” memes. This is one of my top 10 favorite parts of being online, hands down, and I have not a shred of shame for loving it. You know what isn’t making it into my Top 10? Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter a.k.a The Bad Place. While I’m personally not an avid Twitter gal, the news that Musk was spending the GDP of a small country to buy everyone’s bad takes incensed my timeline—and writer Shamira Ibrahim helps me understand why. She's blessed today’s newsletter with the ultimate explainer of the potential risks, not just for Twitter pros, but for everyone. Also, Tuesday is Eid al-Fitr—the post-Ramadan holiday and start of a new month on the Islamic calendar. The Meteor’s Ayesha Johnson and her sister are bidding farewell to Ramadan in this issue too. But before that, let’s check the news. In love and memes, Shannon (It’s Gonna be Me)lero  WHAT'S GOING ONShots for tots: On Thursday, Moderna put in a request to the FDA to approve a low-dose Covid vaccine for children under five years old; it’s the first of the Big Three U.S. vaccine providers (Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson) to do so. A study involving more than 6,000 children from six months to six years old found, “levels of antibodies equivalent to what has protected older children and adults,” NPR reports. Moderna’s chief medical officer told NPR, “You're going to reduce your chances of getting disease by about a half.” It’s time! NOklahoma: This week the governor of Oklahoma signed a bill banning non-binary gender markers on birth certificates. And last month, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit over an executive order from the governor prohibiting transgender Oklahomans from correcting the gender on their birth certificates. SOMEHOW IT MANAGES TO GET WORSE, THOUGH! On Friday, the legislature passed a 6-week abortion ban. Usually, I have something pithy to add but the disdain for bodily autonomy in that state warrants no pith. Why are you like this, Oklahoma? What in the men's rights: Johnny Depp has taken ex-wife Amber Heard to court for a 2018 Washington Post op-ed she wrote referencing her history of domestic violence. In an effort to restore his reputation, he is suing her for $50 million—alleging her account of abuse is “demonstrably false.” The proceedings have been gut-wrenching to watch, with prosecutors pouring over every nasty detail and expert testimony of Heard’s mental health. The details of this case paint a very complex picture of an abusive relationship—but the extent to which defending Depp has become a clarion call for men’s rights activists is also concerning. (“He could have killed you, he had every right,” said one TikTok reported by Vice.) Look, the guy sent texts saying he wished his wife's corpse was decomposing in a trunk. You're really going to stan Captain Jack Sparrow after that? AND:
 RATIOEDEven If You Don't Want It To, the Sale of Twitter Means SomethingElon Musk paid $45 billion for your bad tweets, but what’s he going to do with them?BY SHAMIRA IBRAHIM  TO TWEET OR NOT TO TWEET, THAT IS THE QUESTION (PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY RAFAEL HENRIQUE VIA GETTY IMAGES) Unless you were on one of Jeff Bezos’ field trips to the outer rim of space this week, by now you have likely heard of hair transplant enthusiast Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Depending on your level of activity within the bird app, it might be hard to understand why it really matters that Twitter will soon be under the stewardship of a South African Bond villain who seems to be creating an apartheid state of his own within at least one of his existing companies. Perhaps you are more of an Instagram or TikTok person or were driven off by Donald Trump’s reign as the trending topic of the day for 5 years. Maybe you found yourself in the crosshairs of stan Twitter one day, as I once did, pleading my case amongst the BTS Army, and lost interest after that. Or maybe you logged in, saw #couchguy trending, and realized you were entirely too old for frenetically-paced social media conversation.
But whoever you are, and however little you care, ownership of Twitter may have a direct impact on your life. First, due to years of inattention and unregulated deference to Silicon Valley, companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google have a disproportionate amount of influence and control over media, information, and data—both our consumption of it and our personal details. Second, despite Twitter being an important tool for raising awareness, there is tremendous potential for harm on the platform. Consider #endfathersday—a fake campaign created by Twitter trolls impersonating Black feminists, with the goal of making Black women the target of harassment. Black feminists responded with the hashtag #YourSlipIsShowing, but the damage was done. Or the misogynist hate campaign, #GamerGate, in 2014-2015 which used creative freedom as an excuse to viciously target women on multiple social media platforms, and which helped feed the rise of the online right. Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist” who defines free speech with elementary maxims like “someone you don’t like [is] allowed to say something you don’t like,” is probably not inclined to reconcile with any nuance how “free speech” could also lead to targeted harm of marginalized communities and genders.  THIS MAN IS REALLY IN CHARGE OF THINGS (SCREENSHOT VIA TWITTER) And the legal impetus isn’t there to hold these companies accountable, either. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have testified before Congress on the future of existing laws such as Section 230, which protects free speech and online platforms from the liability of user content. It’s a complicated relationship–the same “free speech” protections that ostensibly allowed dialogue on the internet to flourish are now allowing these platforms to function as proxy news providers but without the editorial standards. Ultimately, Section 230 shields large platforms from taking accountability for the harm caused by misinformation and abusive campaigns. It is a conversation that is more critical than ever, while the platform leaves many people open to harm, Twitter also empowers marginalized groups. In recent history alone, tweets in real-time prevented the plight of African immigrants in Ukraine from being pushed into obscurity in the nascent days of the ongoing conflict with Russia; mobilized national solidarity for ongoing unionization efforts for essential workers during the pandemic; and made visible the Black women working to eradicate the existing biases found in algorithms that make many social media platforms inherently anti-Black. Reverting Twitter back to a privately owned company leaves many uneasy about their sense of safety and community on the platform. Will “Black Twitter” be given the same free rein to mobilize, entertain, mourn, and advocate as in years prior? Will conversations there be weaponized against demographics seeking safety and camaraderie—bucketing the entire usage history of everyone who has used a particular hashtag into a data extraction point, free to be solicited by a nefarious third party?
There’s also the question of what lengths Musk will go to earn back his investment. The easiest way for Musk to shore up revenue will be by revving up advertising or increasingly licensing data out to brokers. Given that Musk himself has used his cult of personality to influence cryptocurrency markets via social media with Dogecoin, selling demographic information–even if short-sighted–may hold high appeal. With even less regulatory oversight and monitoring from shareholders, there’s never been so much incentive to engage in surveillance capitalism. This is the world we are facing: where billionaires can choose to control the flow of information by doubling down on a fabulist rendering of free speech. But on today’s internet—free speech always comes with a price.  Shamira Ibrahim is a Brooklyn-based culture writer by way of Harlem, Canada, and East Africa, who explores identity, technology, and cultural production as a critic, reporter, feature/profile writer, and essayist.  AN EARLY EID MUBARAK!A Farewell to the Month of RamadanBY AYESHA JOHNSON  (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) ANEESA AND AYESHA JOHNSON AT SHEIKH ZAYED GRAND MOSQUE, ABU DHABI (PHOTO COURTESY OF AYESHA JOHNSON) In just a few days, Ramadan will come to a close and nearly two billion Muslims worldwide will first chug several gallons of water, and then celebrate the holiday of Eid al-Fitr. At the start of this month, The Meteor’s Shannon Melero asked why this widely celebrated holiday is still so misunderstood—or even forgotten. And now, for the end of Ramadan, The Meteor’s Ayesha Johnson speaks with her sister Aneesa about community, work stress and the spiritual significance of the last 30 days. Ayesha: Hey Neesee, how are you feeling? How’s the month been for you? Aneesa: Even better than I expected. Ramadan is kind of bittersweet when it ends. The solidarity of all of us doing the same thing, together, for a shared purpose, it's very unique. Ayesha: It’s very powerful. We're all feeling these hunger pains, we're all tired. A part of Ramadan that we’ve never really chatted about is how much it’s about community. Iftar [the sunset meal to break fast] is meant to be not just with your family, but also your community. This Ramadan, I’ve been mostly breaking my fast alone. But it’s such a different experience when you’re with other people. I’m curious, how has your understanding of Ramadan changed over the years? Aneesa: When you're a child, you're doing it mostly because everyone around you is, and it feels like the adult thing to do. I think probably at some point in high school, I started to look into things. That was the first Ramadan that I started going to Taraweeh prayer [voluntary supplemental night prayers], and that's when my perception started to change. Yeah, I'm not eating all day, but what’s the other aspect of it? I am also paying attention to how I speak to people, my patience, my anger, and what I'm absorbing. This Ramadan, I’m asking myself what habits do I want to build, to carry me through the next one? [Ramadan] always reminds me of how much I actually have—to pause on wanting more if for only a month. Ayesha: I remember fasting at work for the first time—I was so scared that I was going to mess up my paralegal job or do something wrong because of fasting. I was terrified that I’d be a little loopy. Now, I’m more confident in my skills and I think I’m also just more comfortable with myself—if I do mess up and it’s because I’m fasting, it’s not the end of the world. Aneesa: The hunger is intense but there's also the humility. Yes, we're depriving ourselves of something, but for a lot of us, we know we have food in the fridge that we can use to break our fast at the end of the day. And there are so many people on this planet that don't have that…They don't have that security. Ayesha: That's a part that I've also always appreciated as well—an appreciation of [the fact that there’s] a whole lot to be grateful for in life. This was fun...I'll talk to you soon.  While you're sharing that it's gonna be May with your friends, remember to also share this newsletter! FOLLOW THE METEOR    Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
You're on your own, kid!
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No images? Click here  April 27, 2022 Dear Meteor readers, I hope last night was as good for you as it was for me. OMG, I don’t mean like that. Last night was incredible because the Meteor team gathered a small group of friends to attend the first installment of our global summit: 22 For ‘22: Visions for a Feminist Future. Hosted by The Moment Symone D. Sanders—we listened to brave, courageous stories from activists, journalists and artists: Filmmaker Janicza Bravo talked to #metoo leader Tarana Burke about the power of owning your own story; Amandla Stenberg chatted with Raquel Willis about making space for trans and non-binary voices in our movements; the great Dolores Huerta in conversation with Chris Smalls—a historic meeting between two generations of labor leaders—brought the crowd to their feet. I am still buzzing. We laughed. We wow’d. We cried. We hugged. You literally cannot miss this. Register ASAP for our May 9th event—where we’ll go live with these conversations and more! In today's newsletter journalist Rainesford Stauffer considers how the “best of luck to you” attitude of the new masking guidance might feel eerily familiar to many of us. But first, the news. Xoxo, Samhita Mukhopadhyay  WHAT'S GOING ON
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—SM  MASK ON MASK OFF“Toxic Individualism Is Just Classic Americana”The confusing and downright unclear mask mandates are a reminder of how little America cares for its most vulnerableBY RAINESFORD STAUFFER  STUDENTS IN NEVADA PROTESTING THEIR CAMPUS'S MASK POLICY (PHOTO BY TY O'NEIL VIA GETTY IMAGES) Last week, a video raced around social media feeds: Airline passengers, upon hearing that the mask mandate for planes and public transit had been lifted mid-flight, were seen waving their masks and cheering as if they were crossing a finish line. Those who had booked their flights under the impression that passengers and crew would be masked were trapped with no escape, the cheers drowning out the concerns of those who didn’t want to risk contracting COVID. It was a viral version of a common pandemic theme: You’re on your own, good luck! Un-American selfishness? Hardly. It’s “classic Americana,” says Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Vice President of Programs and Strategy at Insight Center for Community Economic Development. “The end of the mask mandate on public transportation is a perfect example of how toxic individualism has a stronghold on American society,” she said. There are examples of extreme individualism everywhere: Teachers are resorting to pooling their own leave to “donate” to colleagues who have been denied paid time off or run out of sick days; parents and caregivers exiting the paid workforce with little support at home to manage childcare and work; millennials and Gen Xers having to care for their children and their aging parents with little support; high costs of health care; and unbearable student debt. Young people are regularly told to go vote when they are upset about their lived conditions, even when that vote doesn’t necessarily make their material lives much better. Even before the mask mandate was lifted, the government was failing disabled, chronically ill, and immunocompromised people, systemically devaluing their lives and refusing to address accessibility and safety concerns. Kathryn, a disabled mother who works full-time from home and is the parent of a seven-year-old, doesn’t have faith in their daughter’s school’s ventilation–their daughter brought COVID home during her first week of in-person school. “Children can't decide for themselves not to go to school,” Kathryn said. “We can't say that a child's ‘personal choice’ had much to do with it.”  THIS SIGN MAY AS WELL BE A FOSSIL (PHOTO BY JUSTIN SULLIVAN VIA GETTY IMAGES) Most of Kathryn's concern has to do with their long history with Epstein–Barr virus, which, reactivated, could cause long COVID symptoms. Additional debilitating fatigue and brain fog would likely take them out of the workforce permanently. They see the lack of attention to COVID safety as just another example of not prioritizing disabled people–similar to the lack of seating in public places, a “strong signal that the community doesn't want me out in public,” they said. Kathryn has mobility challenges, but the “solutions,” like hauling their own chair, put the weight on personal choices and removes the impetus on systems to make changes. That’s the highly American tendency toward “individualizing responsibility,” says Justin Feldman, a social epidemiologist and Health and Human Rights Fellow at Harvard University. That’s the academic term for reframing a collective problem as an individual one to deflect blame from the state or corporations—similar to the way the disposable packaging industry proposed personal recycling as a solution to waste.
But the truth is, our government officials have acted as if masks are a burden—and issued contradictory guidance about them. For example, even the CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, called masks a “scarlet letter”; politicians have been unwilling to continue implementing mask mandates; the CDC reported that N95 and KN95 masks are best for avoiding infection, especially in indoor settings, then shortly after, announced it was safe for most Americans to go without masks in indoor settings (despite lack of mandates rendering those spaces inaccessible to wide swaths of people). Masking being framed as an individual choice–as opposed to a collective effort–disproportionately harms people who are most marginalized by a society rooted in systemic racism and ableism: disabled and immunocompromised people, working-class people of color who are more likely to be in “frontline” jobs that require in-person work and commuting, older people and families with children under five–for whom there is no vaccine. Some transit systems, including New York’s MTA and public transit and airports in Los Angeles County, are still requiring masks. As writer and public health researcher Abdullah Shihipar wrote for Slate, “one-way masking exists on a continuum of risk mitigation, with universal masking—using masks that filter well—being the best case.” Just as you can’t bootstrap your way out of a pandemic, you can’t wish it away in pursuit of personal freedom, either; the risks are still real. That’s what Bhattacharya asks us: “What if we framed masking as a way to eliminate a virus that then gives us all collective freedom to live our lives without threat? This kind of thinking is not available to us within the confines of toxic individualism.”  Rainesford Stauffer is a freelance writer who has written for Teen Vogue, the New York Times, InStyle, Vox, and Scalawag, among others. She's the author of An Ordinary Age, which came out in 2021 from Harper Perennial, and All the Gold Stars, forthcoming from Hachette Go.  JOIN US! Don't forget to register for what we're sure is going to be the most invigorating virtual event of Taurus season, 22 For '22: Visions for a Feminist Future presented by The Meteor and Gucci's CHIME FOR CHANGE!  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
The unsung heroes of the labor movement
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No images? Click here  April 22, 2022 G’day Meteor readers, Happy belated Earth Day! Or as environmentalists like to call it, the one day a year that everyone collectively considers their impact on the environment even though the Earth tells us she has had enough of our nonsense literally every day. Like everyone else worried about impeding climate doom, I dream of converting to a minimalist off-the-grid lifestyle every time Earth Day rolls around. But there’s a reason I’m a writer and not a survivalist tilling my own vegetable farm in the mountains like some of my relatives. Anywho! Thank heavens for these folks who are walking the walk and talking the talk for the planet. In today’s newsletter reporter Esther Wang talks to labor journalist and Teen Vogue columnist Kim Kelly about her new book, Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor. They cover the hope springing from the current labor movement—along with what we can learn from the labor leaders of yore, namely the Black, brown, and Indigenous women who did all the dirty work and never got the Norma Rae treatment. But first, let’s cruise through some news. —Shannon Melero  WHAT’S GOING ON
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 HISTORY LESSONThe Rest of the Story Behind America’s Labor MovementA new book looks to ensure women's place in union history is undisputedBY ESTHER WANG  KIM KELLY STUNTIN' ON THESE UNION HATING CORPORATIONS. (PHOTO BY ELIZABETH KRIETSCHMAN) Labor journalist Kim Kelly’s new book, Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor, comes at the perfect time, as enthusiasm for labor unions is at the highest point in decades, and workers from Amazon warehouses to Starbucks stores are demanding more—better pay, dignity on the job, and a say in their workplace. Her book goes beyond the simplified history we’re exposed to in textbooks (and that’s if we’re lucky) to tell a fuller, and therefore more true, story of the labor movement, as well as our country. Her message? “This is your history, too,” Kelly said. “And it’s also our future.” Esther Wang: You started off your book by acknowledging the enormous debt the labor movement owes to women—immigrant women from countries all over the world, Black women, and queer and trans women. Why did it feel necessary and important to tell those stories? Kim Kelly: I wanted to focus specifically on women just because we're so often left out of the equation when it comes to writing about labor and labor history and the idea of the working class and what a worker looks like in this country. There's this enduring avatar of the working class in this country that is the straight white guy and a hard hat. And he belongs here, he's done a lot of great work, too. My dad is that guy. But if you look at the actual composition of the labor movement, the most common face of a union member in this country is a Black woman who probably works in home health care or domestic work. It's not even a shift—it's kind of always been like that. You include the stories of labor activists like Dorothy Bolden, Rosa Flores, and Ella May Wiggins. What would it mean for all of us if we looked to those women as labor leaders from the past? I think it would reframe a lot of the perceptions of what organized labor and collective power look like. Dorothy Lee Bolden started working as a domestic worker when she was nine years old. She's visually impaired. She grew up in the forties and fifties in the South as a Black woman. So she had every possible disadvantage, but she managed to overcome those obstacles that were unfairly thrown her way. She made history in a way that was so incredible, the way that she organized and worked and advocated for domestic workers [as the founder of the National Domestic Workers Union of America]. At its height, it had about 10,000 members. They organized to win fair wages and to professionalize household work. They were people that were seen as unorganizable. And they're like, well, we'll just organize ourselves. Ella May Wiggins, who died on the picket line, who was this balladeer who was the heart and soul of a strike down in Gastonia, she's another Joe Hill. She's another Billy Bragg. Rosa Flores was this 18-year-old woman who ended up being the face of an entire massive strike for being this militant presence, for seeing what the world offered her as a young Chicana woman and was like, well, that's not good enough. That is the kind of energy that we need to be bringing to the labor movement. That's the kind of energy that it always had, but it's been buried under white patriarchal bullshit. You make it so clear and so apparent that labor issues, workers’ rights, and the fight for a union are intertwined with so many other issues—Black liberation, immigrant rights, feminist battles, disability rights. They’re not silos. One of the greatest truths that we have found to be evident over and over and over again throughout the history of labor and work in this country is that solidarity between workers is the greatest weapon that we have. And solidarity means obviously standing up for people that are on your side, but also people that maybe don't look like you or talk like you or come from the same background, but are also dealing with the ravages of capital, dealing with bad bosses, dealing with mistreatment. I think every story is a labor story because wherever you're coming from, wherever you're going, whoever you are, you've probably either had a job or you have a job now, or you're going to have a job. And that common ground really is a uniting force. There’s so much momentum and energy in labor right now, stemming from the successful Amazon unionization drive, the workers organizing Starbucks, the mining families on strike that you've been following for more than a year in Alabama at Warrior Met Coal. How are you thinking about what's happening? History is being made right now, from Amazon to Starbucks, to Appalachian coal mines, and in North Hollywood strip clubs. There's momentum. And I think it's just been very inspiring for folks that maybe for a long time thought there wasn't any hope, or maybe thought that there wasn't any room for them in the labor movement. To go back to Amazon and Starbucks, those movements have been led predominantly by Black workers and workers of color, young queer workers, a lot of women, nonbinary people—the exact workers that common wisdom or whatever has told us are not organizable. They are organizing, and they're winning.  Esther Wang is a New York City-based writer who covers social movements, immigrant communities, and the intersection of culture and politics.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
Meet the women blazing trails for cannabis
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No images? Click here  April 20, 2022 Dear Meteor readers, Welcome to the 4/20 issue! (Which you might be receiving at 4:20 PM, and yes, we do want a cookie for that.) Today we’re talking all things weed—or pot or reefer or cheeba or grass or ganja—whatever you call it. Specifically, we're talking to some of the women making the marijuana industry more accessible and raising awareness of how weed works in our bodies. Did you know estrogen levels can affect your reaction to THC? We didn’t. I guess you could say we are fans. But before we do that, today’s news… —Samhita Mukhopadhyay  WHAT'S GOING ON
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—Shannon  FREE THE TREEMarijuana Is For EveryoneOne woman's very personal fight to make cannabis more inclusive BY SAMHITA MUKHOPADHYAY  GORGEOUS GORGEOUS GIRLS LOVE WEED (PHOTO COURTESY OF MARY PRYOR) Cannabis has always played a part in American culture. But while some young people had the freedom to experiment with it, for Black and brown people it was demonized and regulated to the full extent of the law. That's continued despite the steady normalization of cannabis use; in a study from 2010 to 2018, the ACLU found that more than 6 million people were arrested for marijuana possession, with Black people arrested at higher rates than others, even in states where it is legalized. So it's worth asking: Who will benefit most from this burgeoning industry? There are already efforts underway to democratize the distribution of licenses; for example, in March, it was announced that in New York State, the first 100 retail licenses would go to people that had prior marijuana convictions. But the cannabis industry is still male-dominated, so I was excited to sit down with Mary Pryor, the founder of Cannaclusive, an organization aimed at holding cannabis businesses accountable for their diversity commitments. Samhita Mukhopadhyay: So, you have a very diverse career—you've worked in advertising, music, and tech. What got you interested in the cannabis industry? Mary Pryor: I grew up a caretaker. My mom had multiple sclerosis and lupus. My grandmother had really, really severe arthritis. Around 2012, I got hit with what I did not know at the time was my first Crohn's flare. I was in [and out of] the hospital, and people were like, "We don't understand what's going on. Is it blood cancer? Is it ovarian cancer?" Nobody had a clue. In February of 2013, I fell into a coma, and I was put into ICU. They figured out that I had Crohn's. I was miserable. I was on up to 20 medications a day. I was 119 pounds. For most of 2013, I didn't leave my house. I couldn't keep things down. A lot of medicines [for Crohn’s] are meant to either numb the pain of the issue, mask the issue, or stop your body from attacking itself, which may or may not solve the problem. Around 2014, and 2015, I started traveling out to Denver, Colorado, which was the second state [to make cannabis] legal. I’d had friends send me cannabis studies, focusing on people with ulcerative colitis, IBS, IBD, and Crohn’s. And in Colorado, I could get suppositories, and I could get sprays. And it allowed me to be able to get up and not be in pain, be able to eat, and be able to actually function. But you felt conflicted about cannabis… As a Black woman, the things I grew up with were seeing drug addiction, which took away my father, and seeing the war on drugs, which has beat the asses of Black and Brown people and is still winning. And the propaganda behind the war on drugs and the propaganda [against] the plant really was a targeted campaign against melanated people in the US. And I literally was like, I need this to survive because without it I'm fucked. So, I wanted to raise awareness of the medicinal benefits, the need for affordability (which is key for businesses to thrive) and relaying this information in a digestible way. So you founded Cannaclusive… I needed people to be in this industry that look like me. So, I started screaming like Chicken Little like, "Yo, if you want to own a business, this game is different than what you know. People need to get in here." And so Cannaclusive was co-founded by myself and Tonya Rapley and Charlese Antoinette Jones. We are now a team of 13. And as of last week, I am now one of [only 50] current license holders to grow cannabis in New York State. The predatory nature of this business mostly targets women. And as someone who has unfortunately been in that position—where I've had to learn hard mistakes from people that have taken advantage of me—[I want to create] successful ways to build while you climb. Melanated people need to work together. And, there are a lot of ways to utilize the benefits of cannabis outside of smoking weed or CBD. The reality is that this is a plant that has a feminized origin. Only feminized [marijuana] seeds give birth to anything, period. And the recognition of the wellness that it provides for our bodies does need to be first and foremost. What advice do you have for young women who are interested in the space? I'll say right now, ancillary businesses are a way less risky way to go about being in the space than growing cannabis. There is a value behind licensing, but it's a lot of hard work. Two: capital is a need—and if you're able to raise that, awesome. But if you're not able to, there are great resources out there (like Our Academy). Three, the self-investment piece is key. So if you need to go to conferences to figure out what's happening in the space, do it. Four, there's nothing wrong with wanting a job [in the industry] instead of being an entrepreneur. And five, understand the policies. Every state is different. And federally, cannabis is still illegal and placed as a schedule 1 drug. What’s allowable in one place may not be the same in other places, so make sure you understand all the regulations. Learn more about women and people of color in the growing cannabis industry here.  PHOTO BY HEATHER HAZZAN Samhita Mukhopadhyay is a writer, editor, and speaker. She is the former Executive Editor of Teen Vogue. She is the co-editor of Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance and Revolution in Trump's America, the author of Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life, and the forthcoming book, The Myth of Making It.  THE DOCTOR IS IN A Little Enlightenment Before You Next Light UpBY SHANNON MELERO Between CBD and THC, there are as many strands of cannabis as there are Kardashian offspring. So it’s no wonder that first-timers or even seasoned smokers can get a little confused when attempting to create a marijuana-as-medicine routine. At the height of the pandemic, I was smoking anything remotely green to keep my panic attacks at bay, and to no one’s surprise, it only worked half of the time. I was inconsistent, switching between different products, and didn’t bother consulting a doctor because YOLO, right? But now that more folks are puffing and states are passing laws to allow for recreational use, it’s time to be more of a Serious Weed Consumer. So I asked integrative cannabis physician and co-author of Cannabis for CBD and Health and Wellness Dr. June Chin for some guidance on getting started on the ganga as safely as possible. Here are the best hits (weed humor) from our conversation.
 Please consider puff puff passing this newsletter to a friend or two. FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
Name that tune
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No images? Click here  April 15, 2022 Hey Meteor friends, Happy Easter and Passover to those celebrating this weekend! Easter was a huge deal when I was a kid, and as a teen, I attended a church that took it so seriously, we cast a live snake as Satan in the Easter play one year. She was a real diva. But most of all, Easter reminds me of my mother. My mom's voice is exceptional, and the weeks leading up to Easter were always marked by sitting in my mom's show rehearsals listening to her belt out, harmonize, and perfect various gospel songs. Listening to her sing always made me feel like I was a part of something special. I'd almost forgotten that sensation until earlier this week when I listened to the most recent episode of UNDISTRACTED. Brittany Packnett Cunningham and her husband, Reginald, talk about their son, Baby M, who came into the world after only 24 weeks of gestation and spent the start of his life in the NICU. While they were unable to make physical contact with their newborn, Brittany found another way to connect—she sang to her baby. “I just wanted him to feel safe,” she said. “And I wanted him to know that he was held, and I wanted him to know that he is loved.” I was beside myself. Brittany's singing brought me back to all the times my mom's voice gave me a sense of certainty and even a sense of identity. Before I was anyone, I was lucky enough to be Cindy's daughter. And congratulations to the Packnett Cunninghams. We’re so happy Baby M is home safe and sound for his first Easter season. Today's newsletter is a musical lovefest: Culture writer Shamira Ibrahim talks to prolific music critic, journalist, and podcast host Danyel Smith about her latest book Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop. Sing on, Shannon Melero  IT'S MS. ROSS TO YOUThe Real Story of Black Women in PopAuthor Danyel Smith is on a mission to give these legends their roses BY SHAMIRA IBRAHIM  DANYEL SMITH (PHOTO BY DREW ALLYN) It’s impossible to discuss the last 25 years of Black popular music criticism without invoking the name Danyel Smith—the first woman to serve as Vibe magazine’s editor in chief. Between her career as a writer, helping capture and document the musical soundscapes that reflect different facets of Black life, to her personal journey, anchored by the ebbs and flows of Black popular culture—Smith’s frame of reference is deeply informed by an innate understanding of the transformative power of music history and its integral role in the definition of cultural identity and belonging. Now, with Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop, Smith expertly places herself in the canon of Black writers and de facto archivists such as Greg Tate, Cheryl Wall, and Saidiya Hartman. It’s part history, part memoir, and along the way, it also reclaims Black women’s rightful place in pop music. Shamira Ibrahim: One thing I've always liked about your writing is the way you make these intricate connections. You start with connecting “Queen of Disco” Donna Summer to the 18th-century poet Phyllis Wheatley. How have you honed the ability to draw these connections for people who may not immediately see the through-lines that go from antebellum slavery through generations of pop music? Danyel Smith: I appreciate the close attention to the text—that always matters to me very much. At this point in my career, it's just the way I think, and frankly, I decided to stop fighting it. I have training as a journalist – years of on-the-job training, some training from school, some me training myself, and a lot of that has to do with getting things right. Getting the dates right, getting the moments right, getting the details right. For me, a big part of my work is resisting summary; I feel like so often, Black women's lives are written about in summary. It is a privilege to have the time, honestly, to just actually think. I really do adore and admire and often engage with Phyllis Wheatley and her work; the same for Donna Summer. I don't know that I thought about them both being Boston girls until I was getting close to maybe the midpoint of this book. You’re just writing Boston a million times, and you're checking your spelling of Massachusetts a million times, and something shakes out; you hear the Boston inflection again in Donna Summers’ voice. It came to me because I had time to think and then had the confidence to stop fighting that negative voice in my head that says, “does that really matter?” Not only do you interrogate commonly held narratives in white contemporary thought around Black pop culture, you also work to reconcile narratives within Black cultural thought. Particularly, the section around Elvis, where you tease out that it might be a little bit more complicated than people realize; there were Black fans of Elvis. What prompted you to want to interrogate it in that way? I didn't think it was truthful of me to write a whole book about Black women in pop and not write about my mother's love for Elvis, my enjoyment of Elvis, and my great grandmother's enjoyment. And [of] Johnny Cash, who comes from the Black gospel tradition. How was I going to write a book about myself and Black women in pop without addressing that? [Or] the way that Elvis slipped into Blackness to save himself after falling upon hard professional times. But I'm on a constant mission to try to find a way to get Black women in music the credit that they are due. I think the Sweet Inspirations, led by Cissy Houston–Whitney Houston's mother–have had more impact on rock, pop, soul, and R&B than they're ever going to be given credit for. I really tried to back that up with example upon example, especially with “Brown Eyed Girl” [the Van Morrison track on which the Sweet Inspirations sang the famed chorus]. And I want Cissy and her cohorts to be known—I don't like it when Black women are called upon to save white men and not receive the credit for it. It had to be spoken upon, though, because it's not enough for me to just say, ‘I don't like it, I think it's a mess, Elvis is so racist, etc.’ I refuse to participate in making our work and our fanship, and our music simple. A question I have is about contemporary times—you make a cogent argument that “there's a laziness” in positing that crossover success is somehow devaluing Black work as cheesy or selling out. Now that we’re seeing more women in rap, there's been increased attention to the ability for women to crossover into pop success. Do you still see that judgment today? Do I think that people are saying that Black girls’ rap is less than good rap because it's popular amongst the whites? Well, that's convenient, isn't it? Pop is the people's choice. [In the 1980s and '90s] Pop became a bad word when Black artists like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, and Lionel Richie began to take it over. If we have people like Nicki Minaj and Cardi B winning and owning the top of the charts and then all of a sudden pop is again being referred to as less than, I would ask where that energy was when people like The Weeknd–who does beautiful work–was sitting at the top of the charts. Was there a lot of talk then? What about Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak? Is there talk there about how they’re selling out, or is it just that they're making great, popular, and critically acclaimed music? I don’t know why that same grace isn't extended to Nicki Minaj and Cardi B and their cohort. A section that stuck out was about Diana Ross and the rumors of her being a “diva,” in part because she asked to be called Ms. Ross. That also persisted with Lauryn Hill for a very long time when she broke out solo from the Fugees–“she must only be addressed by Ms. Hill.” Now it's part of [Ross’s] Instagram bio, and the idea of a diva is something that is embraced as part of the formation of a pop icon. It’s so difficult for people to just hold Black women in esteem. Black women are on a continuous journey of trying to make it clear – I am who I am, and I said what I said – and the naming thing is a big part of it. I hate to take everything back to slavery and reconstruction, but Black women were rarely, if ever, called by their true honorific. They were called whatever anybody felt like calling them. My grandmother's name is Lottie. A lot of times, people just called somebody Lottie, and they would call the next Black woman Lottie again. A lot of times, people just call people Auntie. White people just called every Black woman over a certain age Auntie. Hey, Auntie, bring me a lemonade. So pardon me If Diana Ross wants to be called Ms. Ross. Pardon me if Lauryn Hill wants to be called Ms. Hill. I understand why people are resistant to it. But it's time to stop. Hip-hop is problematic in a lot of ways, but it is wonderful in that it was a big huge renaming. I'm Dana Owens, but I am Queen Latifah. I am Nicki Minaj, I am Cardi B, I am Yo-Yo, I am J.J. Fad, I am Doja, I am whomever. I find it preposterous that people are offended by that, but I know what it is. It's because it's a Black woman claiming herself. Do you have any guidance for people who have a passion for music but want to also have a more studied perspective on it? Listen without fear, and listen widely. Don't try to listen to it with your whole intellect but with your body and soul. Ask your older relatives–because they have them, believe me–for their back issues of Vibe, Ebony, Essence. Get your fingers dirty and read. Read about what was said about the music in the time that the music was actually being listened to. In my early days of writing about rap, I literally would stop talking to people about it because I always felt like it was some kind of knowledge contest. I like to know obscure things; I think Shine Bright is a collection of obscure things. [But] I'm not into it for like the contest of I know that Gladys Knight's “Midnight Train to Georgia” came out in 1973 on Buddha records, and not, in fact, Motown like people think. I just want to talk about music, and I want to see other people talking about music. When you're with your friends at brunch or whatever, and you're talking about music, just treasure that. That, to me, is the thing that makes life wonderful.  Shamira Ibrahim is a Brooklyn-based culture writer by way of Harlem, Canada, and East Africa, who explores identity, technology, and cultural production as a critic, reporter, feature/profile writer, and essayist.  In the mood to jam? Well then check out this playlist curated by Danyel Smith and don't forget to pass along the good grooves (and this newsletter) to a friend! FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
The key to saving more Black mothers
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No images? Click here  April 13, 2022 Dear Meteor readers, Yesterday morning, while I was sitting by my window trying to get some work done, I suddenly heard the sounds of police cars and helicopters. News alerts came in along with text messages: “Are you ok?” Just on the other side of Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, there had been a smoke bomb set off and a mass shooting in a subway station. As of Wednesday morning, 26 people were injured, 10 of whom had been shot. The details of the case are still coming together, and a suspect has been arrested. I looked up to the helicopters hovering all over Brooklyn, felt my blood pressure rising, and logged on to a Zoom meeting. There was a live-action manhunt in front of me, but the day had to go on. I don’t share this to add to the cacophony of media outlets trying to get their unique angle to you before we've even identified the victims. And I’m not trying to suggest that we’ve all grown numb. All of those analyses have been made and we know it’s more complicated than that. I am sharing because perhaps, much like you, I thought, what is there to say? What is there to even say? This type of daily violence and trauma—whether it’s the latest in what is starting to feel like a never-ending war, an ongoing pandemic, or the unstoppable regularity of gun violence—has largely grown normalized. But it’s not normal. We’re sending love from the Meteor family to anyone affected by yesterday’s tragic events and to the city we love. And wherever you are, take time to reflect, breathe, log off. It’s all been a lot. This week we are marking Black Maternal Health Week with a fantastic interview from our own Rebecca Carroll with director Tonya Lewis Lee about the shocking disparities Black mothers face when they give birth. This conversation is a good reminder that there are so many people working to make things not just normal, but better. With love, Samhita  WHAT'S GOING ON
 THIS WAS A GREAT ISSUE ON FRUIT (SCREENGRAB VIA BITCH.ORG) AND:
 BLACK MOTHERS MATTERAre We Finally Acknowledging Black Maternal Mortality?Director Tonya Lewis Lee talks to us about the health care workers giving her hopeBY REBECCA CARROLL  PROTESTERS WITH THE UK'S MARCH WITH MIDWIVES GROUP (PHOTO BY BELINDA JIAO VIA GETTY IMAGES) Black women in America are three times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than white women. Three times as likely: What the entire hell's bells is that? That question is the starting point of the highly anticipated new documentary Aftershock from Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt, forthcoming from Hulu this summer. The situation the film investigates is ghastly yet—I need to understand, we all need to understand how and why this is the reality for so many Black mothers giving birth. So in honor of Black Maternal Health Week, I sat down with Tonya Lewis Lee to discuss just that. Rebecca Carroll: Let’s just get right into it. I mean, that CDC statistic… Tonya Lewis Lee: Yes, and I would add to that, it is regardless of economic or educational status. I mean, not that that should matter, but regardless. Right, we’re not talking about privilege here. So what are we talking about? Race. We’re talking about race. You and I know this because this is the work we do—constantly finding new ways to frame an experience and reality that most white people in power don’t want to hear. So how do we build out a narrative that goes beyond just saying, “You all are not paying attention to this because it’s about Black women”? Right. Well, I often say even if you don’t care about Black women, you should pay attention to what happens to them, because we’re the canaries in the coal mine. You may think you’re doing well, but you’re not. Because Black women die at three to four times the rate of white women, but if white women compare themselves to other white women in other countries, they’re not doing that well either. And so obviously, if you help those that are the most vulnerable or who are dealing with the most, then you help us all—that’s where I try to go. But I also think it’s important to peel back and understand what the system is, and how we got here. This is not, I mean, in some cases it is about racist individuals, but it’s also about a system that is set up to operate in a racist way. And if we start having the conversation, then maybe we can really start looking at what’s happening and try to fix it, because I believe this issue is fixable. You do? Oh, I am optimistic. And I am hopeful because I hear people in the healthcare system say, “Okay, we know there’s a problem,” because they believe in data, data doesn’t lie. And you cannot continue to just blame Black women. That has been the narrative. It’s our fault, right? We are dying at higher rates because we don’t take care of ourselves. We don’t get prenatal care. We’re obese. We have this issue and that issue, but that’s not the problem. What is the problem? It is about not being seen and heard when Black women tell health care providers they have a problem. When Black women go to the doctor for prenatal care—and they do—they are often dismissed and ignored when they complain of pain. This issue is not about access to care, it is not about the “quality” of care. Black women often with the best care [still] die. This is an issue of how health care systems view Black women and their perception of our pain. It is also about the dehumanization of Black women. And…it is about the over-medicalization of birthing. Birthing women are not sick, they do not have a health care problem that needs to be managed. They are healthy women mostly who need the proper support to let their bodies do what they are meant to do. Do you think that the healthcare industry is looking at it in a broader systemic way, as opposed to a micro, one hospital or case at a time, kind of way? I don’t think the entire healthcare system is having this conversation. Let me be clear. I remain optimistic because there are a few good people out there who are engaging, who are like, ‘We are messing up and we need to do better.” So there are hospitals, for example, that are saying, “Okay, maybe we've traditionally said we don't like midwives, but maybe we need to think about how that works.” I think those conversations are happening in some places, and that some systems are looking at it in that way. Why do you think it is so hard to get folks to care about Black women? Wow, that’s quite a question. Look, Black women have traditionally been the mule, I mean certainly in America and it seems across the globe, but certainly, in America, we have been the ones who have had to take it all, right? We are the ones who are birthing the workforce. We are the ones who had to deal with being raped [during slavery]. And yet, we are still here and we still thrive. And so, I think that there’s a lot of power, quite frankly, in being a Black woman that scares a lot of people. I think sometimes the perceived power and strength of a Black woman is scary to a lot of people and they don’t even understand who we really are. So…our power is what’s getting us killed? Yes, yes. The point is to take the power away from her: “You don’t know your own body, you don’t know your pain. You’re telling me you’re in pain. You’re not in pain.” And again, it’s not about privilege—all you have to do is look at Serena Williams and her pregnancy experience. She had to beg doctors to listen to her. Beg and demand. And if Serena has to do that, what’s the hope for the rest of us? Right. As I was researching for this interview, I watched some video footage of you and [your husband] Spike [Lee] arriving at the Cannes Film Festival, and all the paparazzi were snapping and the photographers were like, “Over here, look over here!” And I wondered, do you ever get the urge to just turn around and look straight into one of those photographer’s lenses, and say, “Hi, Black women are dying at three times the rate of white women. Have a nice day.” Well, I got the urge and made a film. To me, that's what it was about. How do I figure out how to tell this story, to get people to pay attention and listen. And what do you hope happens next? Well, my best hope is that in the United States, we start to integrate midwifery into women’s healthcare. We’re the only country of industrialized nations that do not have midwifery integrated into women's healthcare. My hope is that we have a cultural shift in the way that we think about birthing. And the ultimate measure is that we have better birth outcomes in this country and that Black women are not dying at three times the rate of white women. And that we all have an opportunity to have a safe, dignified birth.  Rebecca Carroll is a writer, cultural critic, and podcast creator/host. Her writing has been published widely, and she is the author of several books, including her memoir, Surviving the White Gaze. Rebecca is editor at large at The Meteor.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
It only took 233 years
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No images? Click here  April 8, 2022 Dear Meteor readers! Where were you? Where were you the moment Congress made history and confirmed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court of the United States? I was in my apartment in South Brooklyn, taking a break from my phone, the anxiety of the wait weighing on me. It is hard to quantify the joy and relief I felt to come back to the string of alerts sharing the historic news. With unanimous support from Democratic Senators and three Republicans: Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney—Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the Supreme Court. As I wiped away tears, I logged on to witness the celebration. The joy was palpable. Voting rights advocate and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams wrote, “Anchored by intellectual rigor, compassion, and fortitude, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joins the U.S. Supreme Court and the annals of history. We are grateful for service that brought her here and the work yet to come. Congratulations, America!” Professor and writer Dr. Brittney Cooper wrote, “My prayer for KBJ is that her term on SCOTUS will be marked not by limits or symbols but by impact. May she herald a new era on this court, that because of her faithfulness and fealty to what is right, good, lawful, new possibilities for justice for all will emerge. Amen.”  Perhaps most breathtaking was her real time reaction. If you’re not crying, are you made of stone? The confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is cause for celebration—not only is she the first Black woman, but she is also the first public defender to be serving on SCOTUS and will bring a much-needed balance to the existing court. But there is reason for our optimism to be tempered—the court will still have a Republican supermajority. So now we have questions. What will her nomination mean for the courts? How soon will she make her mark on upcoming cases? And what will her experience be as the only Black woman on the court—especially given how she was treated during the hearings? For answers, we knew exactly who we wanted to talk to: Madiba K. Dennie—counsel for the Democracy Program at the incredible Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. She is a professor and a prolific writer who most recently wrote about how to hold justices accountable, reported out the misogynoir Jackson faced in the hearings, and considered the potential impact Jackson could have on the Supreme Court. Check out our exclusive interview—and her expert insights—below. See ya next week! —Samhita Mukhopadhyay  SCOTUSThe Case for Cautious OptimismKBJ’s confirmation could have a ripple effect on the courts—here’s howBY SAMHITA MUKHOPADHYAY  HOW WE SHOULD ALL BE SMILING THIS WEEKEND (PHOTO BY CHIP SOMODEVILLA VIA GETTY IMAGES) Samhita Mukhopadhyay: How is the nomination and confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson significant to you personally and professionally? Madiba K. Dennie: I was surprised, honestly, by how much her nomination has meant to me. I know that a single person is not a quick fix to the deep systemic issues that plague our judiciary, specifically, and democracy more generally. But at the same time, Black women have been deliberately excluded from the halls of power for so long. And as a Black woman, a former public defender, and more, Judge Jackson will bring perspectives to the Court that have literally never been there before. This demonstrably impacts—and improves—judicial decision-making. And yet, a narrow, homogenous group of wealthy white men has maintained a virtual monopoly on power for this country’s entire history. There’s no legitimate justification for this. Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination exemplifies the possibility of broadening the political community. So, I find both the ability to shape jurisprudence and also the declaration that we deserve to shape jurisprudence personally and professionally profound. But will she have an impact? At the end of the day, the Supreme Court is still currently dominated by a radical conservative supermajority. It is possible, though, that Jackson’s judicial methodology, presence, and perspective could serve as a mitigating influence and rein in some of the Court’s more absurd behavior. Today’s dissenting opinions can also become tomorrow’s majority opinions. Judge Jackson’s addition to the bench may help chart a path to better future decisions by a better future Court. But she can’t fix it all by herself, nor should she have to. The rest of government should step up and implement substantive court reforms. Will she play any role in the cases expected to be handed down this summer, like Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization or any other cases you might have your eye on? What could her confirmation mean for Roe v Wade? Justice Breyer has indicated that he intends his retirement to take effect when the Court goes on its summer recess, so I don’t suspect she’ll have a role in those cases. She’ll be too late for the decisions and just in time for the consequences. That does mean, though, that she can have a say in determining what those rulings actually mean and how those principles should be interpreted. The ‘undue burden’ standard used in abortion cases, for example, doesn’t appear at all in Roe v. Wade. That came in a later Supreme Court decision applying Roe v. Wade. Similarly, the new ‘guideposts’ for determining certain Voting Rights Act violations don’t appear in any previous case interpreting the Voting Rights Act nor the text of the law itself. They’re just a murky standard Justice Alito invented one day last year. So there are two unknowns at this point: what the damage will be from this summer’s blockbuster cases and how next term’s cases will apply those rulings and either constrain or expand the harm. What will her working experience be like as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court? I’m a little bit nervous. My pride and hope about elevating the first Black woman to the Supreme Court has been somewhat tempered by my fear that we’re sending her into a hostile work environment. Judge Jackson was subjected to offensive treatment by Senators during her confirmation hearing, which should remove any lingering doubt as to whether excellence can protect you from misogyny and racism. And that was the public job interview with Congress. I don’t know what her private experience will be in chambers. But I know it’s not easy being “the only” under the best of circumstances, much less when you have to debate with your colleagues whether people who look like you should have rights, for example. For now, I hope she and her support network continue to stay strong, but for the future, I hope Black women don’t have to be so strong. Is there anything readers can do to support her from afar? There are many organizations out there like the Leadership Conference that are excellent resources for action. I also always recommend that people tune into what’s happening at their local level. The overwhelming majority of cases don’t reach the Supreme Court, and it matters who is serving on state courts and lower federal courts too.  PHOTO BY HEATHER HAZZAN Samhita Mukhopadhyay is a writer, editor, and speaker. She is the former Executive Editor of Teen Vogue. She is the co-editor of Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance and Revolution in Trump's America, the author of Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life, and the forthcoming book, The Myth of Making It.  Smells Like Teen Spirit While we were dancin’ round the kitchen in judge costumes celebrating the historic confirmation of a new Supreme Court justice, the Alabama State Legislature voted to ban gender-affirming medical care for trans youth. That is just one of the many setbacks we’ve seen to the rights of trans youth. In fact, there is a country-wide campaign to deny the right for trans youth to define themselves on their own terms, to live freely and in their authenticity. In the face of such violent rhetoric and policy, you would think young people have lost hope. But you would be wrong. In this week’s UNDISTRACTED host Brittany Packnett Cunningham spoke with Willow Luna Edgerton, a 13-year old trans girl, and her father Owen, on starting a Gender and Sexuality Alliance club in her school in the face of anti-trans decrees and legislation in her home state of Texas. “Trust me when I say your child will be a million times happier. If you support them, if you respect them as a person and help them out, they will,” Willow tells us. The kids are more than all right. Bask in Willow’s light here. FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
A winning week for workers
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No images? Click here  April 6, 2022 Greetings, Meteor readers! I wish I had something quippy and hilarious to share at this moment, but as I mentioned last Saturday, I am fasting for Ramadan, and the brain fog has fully set in. On the bright side, I’ve had so much extra time—time I normally spend preparing and reheating one cup of coffee—I finally finished knitting a top for Spring (if she ever decides to show up). Today we have a cautiously optimistic look at the recent history and future of the labor movement in the U.S. from author Nona Willis Aronowitz. She predicts the aftermath of last week’s big wins at Starbucks and Amazon and what that could mean for workers’ rights across the board. Talk about your David versus Goliath matchups. Who was it that won in the end again? But before we load our slingshots, let’s take a look at the news. —Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ON
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—SM  JOURNALIST'S NOTEBOOKLabor’s Vibe ShiftHow a decade of organizing led to this week's wins at Amazon and StarbucksBY NONA WILLIS ARONOWITZ  PRO UNION PROTESTS OUTSIDE OF AN AMAZON HEADQUARTERS IN ALABAMA (PHOTO BY AL SEIB VIA GETTY IMAGES) It’s been a major week for the labor movement in America. After workers at more than 100 Starbucks locations nationwide petitioned for union recognition, the coffee chain’s flagship store in New York voted to unionize 46-36. At Condé Nast, a smaller but highly influential company, workers announced that they’re organizing 500 employees with the NewsGuild—a major milestone for the ever growing number of media companies forming unions. And in a move that shocked even the most optimistic labor activists, two young men of color who worked in Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse managed to organize the site’s 8,000 workers. It’s a heartening, electric moment for anyone invested in holding powerful corporations accountable for the well-being of workers. The Amazon vote in particular, which was meticulously tracked on Twitter and accompanied by videos of employees joyously celebrating, feels like an exciting but unexpected vibe shift. But as a journalist who has long covered labor and the lived economy, I was reminded that these wins build slowly over time. Allow me to bring you back to 2012; when organizing Amazon was unthinkable, Gawker’s union contract (which started a wave of media organizing) was years away, and the only group trying to organize Starbucks was a radical, grassroots labor union called the Wobblies. America’s labor movement was the weakest it’d been in many decades, the media declaring it all but dead; private-sector union membership was the lowest it’d been in decades, hovering at just over 10 percent, down from 13.5% in the early 2000s. At the same time, though, there was a national class consciousness brewing: The devastation of the Great Recession was still palpable. Occupy Wall Street made such a splash that President Obama expressed tentative support for the movement, and major unions jumped on the bandwagon. Mitt Romney, a vivid symbol of capitalist greed, lost the election after he was caught on tape disparaging the 47 percent of Americans who are “dependent upon government” for handouts.
Still, it was hard for me at the time to get my hopes up about the labor movement truly coming back to life. In stories I wrote at the time, I took pains to point out that most workers still felt too vulnerable to join the nascent Fight For $15 movement to raise the minimum wage happening at retail stores like Walmart and fast-food restaurants like Burger King. I covered a failed union campaign at a handful of Minnesota Jimmy John’s, reporting that high turnover, emotional exhaustion, and extreme precarity might have doomed the effort from the start. Workers with kids, chronic health problems, and elderly parents mostly sat out the Jimmy John’s fight, which was spearheaded by white college students. And the idea of being in a media union myself hadn’t even occurred to me; it was only years later, after Gawker unionized, when it started to seem feasible. But then, while I was moderating a panel in 2013 at the liberal economic think tank Roosevelt Institute, organizer and scholar Dorian Warren said something I’ll never forget: If this new class-conscious era is our civil rights movement, we’re only at the Montgomery bus boycott—almost a full decade before the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I realized then that setbacks at Jimmy John’s and elsewhere weren’t signs of doom—we just weren’t there yet.
It feels like today we might be at a tipping point, closer to 1964 than we are to 1955. This cluster of wins for the labor movement makes clear the increased attention being paid to workers’ rights which have shifted during a demoralizing pandemic, where both essential and white-collar workers have been pushed to the point of burnout. Chris Smalls, the Amazon employee who kicked off the successful union effort, is now in his early thirties, which means he was in his formative years back in 2012 when his generation became painfully aware of class inequality. Now, Chris Smalls’ generation makes up the largest group in the workforce. We have a long way to go for a true sea change: Even though 50 warehouses have reached out to the Amazon Labor Union, their victory won’t be easily replicated, and contract negotiations will be a challenge. Flagrant and unapologetic union-busting is still the go-to move for powerful companies. There’s also work to be done in terms of integrating the labor movement into other social justice efforts. Many of the workers spearheading these efforts are women; women are more likely to work in retail and Amazon warehouses, and women have been more likely to quit their jobs during the pandemic. Yet worker’s rights often take a backseat in mainstream feminist conversations. And these particular victories may very well feel short-lived—so we should prepare ourselves for setbacks. I clearly remember the acute depression many people felt when Occupy fizzled out or when other Amazon votes came up short. But these ebbs and flows are a natural part of building any movement. It’ll behoove us to remember that this week’s successes did not happen overnight—and neither will future wins. But against the backdrop of a culture ripe for change, they will come.  PHOTO BY EMILY SHECHTMAN Nona Willis Aronowitz is an author and journalist who’s written about the economy, generational politics, and sexuality for the New York Times, The Cut, Elle, VICE, the Washington Post, and many others. Her book Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution will be published by Plume in August 2022.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
Muslims are not a monolith
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No images? Click here  April 1, 2022 Hi Meteor readers! Spring housekeeping: you won’t see my name as much around these parts for a while, as I’m shifting my focus exclusively to a book I’m writing about my upbringing in Wyoming and the myth of the American West. (Short version: the hypermasculine white narrative of Western Expansion has always been a lie.) I’ll miss you all, but don’t worry—I’ll be back. More importantly, and FORTUNATELY FOR YOU: you will start seeing the name of the great Samhita Mukhopadhyay, who’s joining Shannon Melero on this newsletter ship and is simply one of the best humans around. In today’s newsletter, Shannon writes about the start of Ramadan and asks why non-Muslims still know so little about a holiday observed by two billion people. And after that, we’ve got a wonderful comic strip from Huda Fahmy with tips on how to be mindful of your Muslim co-workers this year. Check it all out, right after the news. And call if you’re in Wyoming! —Julianne Escobedo Shepherd  WHAT'S GOING ON
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—JES  HAPPY HOLIDAYSRemember to Wish Your Friends a Blessed Ramadan This YearAnd please, while we’re celebrating, take some time to educate yourself on what it is BY SHANNON MELERO  A SHOP SELLING RAMADAN DECORATIONS IN GAZA (PHOTO BY MAJDI FATHI VIA GETTY IMAGES) I converted to Islam sometime in 2014, secretly, in a bathroom. I’d love to tell you that “bathroom” is some sort of metaphor, but I took my Shahadah (declaration of faith) in a literal bathroom by myself and told very few people what I had done for almost a year. Why the cloak and dagger? I was a church youth leader. On weekends I would teach teens about their Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. And while Jesus is a beloved homie in Islam, I didn’t fully believe a lot of what I was teaching. But I cared for those youngsters and the thought of leaving them in the hands of other adults who wouldn’t understand them felt like a betrayal. So I hid my faith and continued working at the church, where my mother was associate pastor, until I was asked to leave (but that’s another very dramatic story for another time). Not too long after my conversion—my first Ramadan was upon me. It was horrific. I didn’t make it through the first two weeks of fasting. In the years since, there have been plenty more “failed” Ramadans for me, which have all met their end in a similar fashion—a hunger-induced brain fog where I start asking myself: Why are we doing this? Why am I doing this? Why is it so long? Why couldn’t I be drawn to Catholicism? That seems like it’s not too hard. Before you know it, I’m face down in a bag of spicy sweet chili Doritos like a raccoon on speed.
I wasn’t alone in this line of questioning (although I was absolutely alone on the Doritos binge). Canadian journalist, podcaster, and fellow Muslimah Shireen Ahmed tells me that she also stared down difficult questions, like: “What am I actually doing? And why am I doing it? Is it because I want to please Allah or do I want to be able to flex that I’m fasting?” Ramadan is a beautiful time full of reflection, elaborate community meals, a focus on charity, finishing the Quran and an obscene amount of dates (the fruit!). But fasting seems to be the thing we all get stuck on, both inside and outside of the Muslim community. “What kind of parent would let their kid starve all day,” I’ve heard non-Muslims say. (You know who you are and I will not let that go.) But when I was in Catholic school and it was time to choose what we were giving up for Lent, no one lobbed the same judgment. When I took up the Daniel Fast during my teen years with my family, that was normal. What many non-Muslims choose to remain ignorant about is that fasting is scalable, and it’s also not the only way to participate in Ramadan. Not everyone fasts: There are those who simply cannot fast, because they’re pregnant, suffer from eating disorders, or are on medication. There are also those who simply don’t want to, which is as valid a reason as any other. “Ramadan isn’t supposed to deplete you to a point where you can’t function,” Ahmed says. “It’s supposed to reinvigorate you.”
Ahmed was born into the Muslim faith and understands as well as anyone the struggle that comes with the fast, but also the fun there is to be had within the community. “In the summertime, after Taraweeh, the Tim Horton’s is like nuts,” she says. For those who don’t know, “Taraweeh” is a special night prayer that takes place after we break fast and is often a huge community gathering. Taraweeh is a lot longer than the length of the five prayers Muslims are obligated to do every day and if you attend a poppin’ mosque, it can go on until sunrise. So why do we celebrate Ramadan? Were you to ask five Muslims that question, you’d have five completely different answers. Some will say it’s a way to ensure a place in heaven. Others do it to understand suffering, or to develop humility. Some seek to develop community. Some make goals to memorize Quran. And the list goes on and on. But an answer you rarely hear from our leaders is “introspection,” something a lot of us end up doing anyway. Sure, we’re asked to reflect on our sins and seek forgiveness, but we never talk about extending that forgiveness to ourselves. “When we think about worship, we think about submission...but there’s also an internal spiritual self that needs taking care of,” Ahmed explains. Yet our focus is pulled in so many different directions over the course of 30 days. Decorating, planning iftars (the fast-breaking meal), memorizing Quran, attending Taraweeh, and on top of that, maintaining our normal work or school schedules. It’s a grueling marathon made all the more difficult by having to move in a world that looks at Muslims sideways simply for existing.
I’d love to blame non-Muslims for all of this but really, Ramadan has always had a bit of a branding problem. We don’t have a mascot like all of the other holidays; there is nothing to put a smiling face on 30 days of Hunger Games. (No disrespect to Rafiq the Ramadan date palm tree, who is a mascot for the under-five group.) Without some sort of hyper-commercialized gloss over it, non-Muslims can only understand Ramadan through the portrayals already in front of them, and it’s not like the nuances of faith made it into any episodes of Homeland. (If you are looking for a show about Muslims that isn’t about terrorism, I recommend We Are Lady Parts. And as far as Ramadan goes, Ahmed points out there's an entire “micro-economy” around this holiday dominated mostly by women of color who sell dates, decorations, Eid outfits, and even Ramadan trees!) But instead of helping us string up some cute Ramadan lights, folks want to scuritinize religious fasting anew despite being able to mind their own when former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was doing it as a wellness habit. “I had a teammate who told me once what I was doing was unhealthy and it's like please, no one asked you," Ahmed recalls. Particularly as we prepare for the fast, Muslims are inundated with outside opinions on our entire belief system and all of its flaws. “The world is not where it was 30 years ago, but we should be further along,” Ahmed explains. “People know what Ramadan is. People know who Muslims are. I just don’t think they’ve learned that we’re not monolithic.” While I’d love to argue with and educate every person who clings to the monolith, I try to follow my mother’s advice: God doesn’t need you to play defense. (But find me on the wrong day, and you will catch these holy hands, I promise you that.) “We are not new to this. We know ourselves, and I know myself well enough at 45 to handle it. Do I get tired? Yes. But I get tired anyway. Like, the point is just because you’re uninformed doesn’t mean that we are,” Ahmed says. I’m sure this year, I’ll ask myself once again why I’m doing any of this—and because I’m hangry, I won’t have an answer. But in my current satiated and clear-headed state, the answer seems painfully obvious: because it’s what I believe.  Shannon Melero is a Bronx-born writer on a mission to establish borough supremacy. She covers pop culture, religion, and sports as one of feminism's final frontiers.  BEFORE YOU GO Know better, do better. Artist and author Huda Fahmy writes some of the funniest comic strips about the Muslim experience. She also put together a handy How-To on making workplaces more accommodating for Muslim employees.  Copyright © 2022 by Huda Fahmy. All rights reserved.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
