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 YOU 

The Real Story of Black Women in Pop

Author 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.

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!  

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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

• House of Mouse: The heir to the Disney empire, Charlee Corra, has come out as transgender. The news comes at an interesting time for the company—Disney employees have been protesting Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” laws (CEO Bob Chapek has refused to make any comment before the bills pass because statements “are often weaponized by one side or the other to further divide and inflame”). Corra’s announcement comes with a sizable donation to the Human Rights Campaign, which previously turned down a $5 million donation from Chapek. How wild is it to live in a country where a theme park holds the emotional welfare of LGBTQIA+ children in its hands?

• Colonial rule: More families in Puerto Rico are now eligible to apply for the Expanded Child Tax Credit under the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan. Previously, Puerto Ricans could only apply for the child tax credit if they had three or more qualifying children. Now that the credit is being offered to smaller families, the White House believes that 97% of families on the island are eligible for this crucial aid. So considerate of the government to treat its colony almost as well as it treats mainland citizens. 

• Bye, Bitch: The iconic media outlet is taking her final bow. On Tuesday, Bitch Media announced that as of June 2022, it would no longer be creating new content. Founded in 1996, Bitch laid the groundwork for decades of feminist journalism to come. Thumb through their best of to reacquaint yourself with their groundbreaking, intersectional coverage which brought us some of the best writing on race, sexuality, fat politics, and trans identity—long before most media outlets. And who could forget their 2000 interview with bell hooks? Thank you for all you did, Bitch. We’ll never forget you.

THIS WAS A GREAT ISSUE ON FRUIT (SCREENGRAB VIA BITCH.ORG)

AND:

• One Black mom-to-be explains why she won’t be giving birth in a hospital

• This week marked the start of the Etsy strike: sellers on the platform are shutting down their pages and asking customers to boycott over an increased transaction fee implemented by the company in February

• The cost of literally everything is too damn high

• Some encouraging news regarding the climate crisis 

• Long read: “Inside the Bitcoin Bust That Took Down the Web’s Biggest Child Abuse Site”

• And in closing, take a look at Leak NYC’s line of men’s lingerie. Because apparently, true equality is everyone having to wear uncomfortable thongs to get laid

BLACK MOTHERS MATTER

Are We Finally Acknowledging Black Maternal Mortality? 

Director Tonya Lewis Lee talks to us about the health care workers giving her hope

BY 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.

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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

SCOTUS 

The Case for Cautious Optimism

KBJ’s confirmation could have a ripple effect on the courts—here’s how

BY 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.

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.

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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

• Bodies on the ground:  Last weekend, satellite images of Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, showed dead bodies lying in the streets; the Russian Defense Ministry claimed they were a “hoax,” placed there after Russian troops had left the area. But a New York Times report reveals that those civilians had been there for over three weeks, coinciding with the Russian military’s occupation of the town.

• Abortion pills in the crosshairs: Currently, 19 states have made it illegal to send, receive, or prescribe abortion pills, and nine more are looking to do the same in an effort to remove medical abortion as a legal option for abortion seekers if Roe v. Wade is shot down later this spring. According to the Times, many of the new bills taking aim at abortion “layer criminal penalties on top of the existing prohibitions, on the assumption that women will procure the pills illegally.” But for now, abortion pills are still available and a safe option for abortion (in consultation with a doctor, of course). You can get a virtual consultation and request pills by mail here.

• When you’re wrong, you’re wrong: And Donald Trump sort of admitted he was wrong, telling a Zoom room full of political historians, “I didn’t win the election.”  No shit! The scene is laid out in full by historian Julian E. Zelizer who was in the Zoom where it happened. Trump also managed to pepper in some more conspiracy theories for good measure, claiming that the election was rigged and countries like South Korea, Iran, and China were the “happiest” that Biden was elected president. Sure, Jan.

• Mista’arvim: Undercover agents known as Mista’arvim have been infiltrating Palestinian protest groups for years, but now they’re becoming more violent, arresting and even beating protestors on the spot, one witness told The Guardian this week. Palestinian activists are turning to social media to identify these agents, who have been passing as Arab sympathizers, warning protestors to avoid them entirely or, in some cases, to confront them head-on.

AND:

• Mason. Jar. Abortions.

• Michelle Materre died this week after a battle with oral cancer. Materre was a leading figure in Black independent cinema and a driving force behind Daughters of the Dust, the first widely released feature film directed by a Black woman (Julie Dash).

• The police officer involved in the shooting of Amir Locke will not be facing criminal charges.

• What is Berghain, and why is it upsetting Elon Musk so much that he retail-therapied himself into a 9 percent ownership of Twitter?

• After about 100 years of being a hotbed of mistreatment, the NFL is getting one final warning from various state attorneys general about addressing the mounting workplace allegations from women and racial minorities at the company. I’m certain Goodell is quaking in his Louboutin sneakers right about now.

• What ever happened to the promise of an economic boom for Black communities in California after the legalization of marijuana?

• President Biden keeps flirting with the idea of canceling student loan debt by extending the payment pause, and I need him to just commit to this idea all the way. Say it with your chest, Joe!

—SM

JOURNALIST'S NOTEBOOK

Labor’s Vibe Shift

How a decade of organizing led to this week's wins at Amazon and Starbucks

BY 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.

I realized then that setbacks at Jimmy John’s and elsewhere weren’t signs of doom—we just weren’t there yet.

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.

Flagrant and unapologetic union-busting is still the go-to move for powerful companies.

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.

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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

• American politics are truly making me feel like that It’s Always Sunny meme. In the latest twist, the Congressional January 6 committee voted this week to hold certain Trump associates in contempt—the proceedings included a must-watch statement from Rep. Jamie Raskin about the urgency of protecting U.S. democracy.

• In the latest chapter of “Thank God these women are here,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Pramila Jayapal are leading the Congressional effort to instill ethics rules in SCOTUS and get Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from January 6 rulings before the Court, though some members of Congress including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, think he just needs to resign or be impeached outright. (He does!)

• Meanwhile, Congress will vote next week on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s appointment to the Supreme Court—and her place is all but guaranteed now that both Republican Susan Collins and quasi-Republican Joe Manchin have publicly confirmed they will vote for her. Of course, a litany of Republicans will not, but they are hypocrites and, to paraphrase Sen. Cory Booker, nobody is gonna take away this joy.

• I know we’re all “dramatically bored” with Oscars talk, but one story went slightly under the radar: a load of our favorite stars crossed a picket line outside the Chateau Marmont Sunday for Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s post-Academy Awards party. Workers are on strike because of what they say is a pervasive culture of racism and sexism. Multiple former employees have filed suits. To support striking Chateau Marmont workers, you can learn more and sign a boycott pledge here.

AND:

• Some Catholic officials and academics are pushing back on the “moral absolutism” and extremist rhetoric of anti-abortion laws being passed around the United States. “Those who claim to be pro-life are acting in ways that are violent and vicious and dehumanizing toward women,” one pastoral studies professor told the National Catholic Reporter.

• Relatedly, all I really have to say here is… what the actual fuck????

• The New York Times’ Jaeah Lee reported on the way rap lyrics are often introduced as evidence in criminal trials and bail hearings—regardless of whether the judge, jury, or attorneys have the range to understand common tropes in rap music. She found that this practice fosters “what legal scholars sometimes call racialized character evidence.”

• On Thursday, a US federal court struck down portions of Florida’s Senate Bill 90, which the League of Women Voters described as containing “anti-voter measures that raised barriers to voting,” for students, the elderly, and voters of color.

• “The Feminist Face of Russian Protests”

• On being transmasculine in sex work: “We exist”

• Redemption for Charo, guitar virtuoso!

—JES

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Remember to Wish Your Friends a Blessed Ramadan This Year 

And 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.

Ramadan isn't supposed to deplete you...it's supposed to reinvigorate you.

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.”

People know who Muslims are. I just don’t think they’ve learned that we’re not monolithic.

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.

Seriously. Not even water. Don't bring it up.

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.

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.

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It’s hump day and what a week it’s been already. I know I’m not alone when I say I don’t think any of us will soon forget the incident at Sunday's Oscars. Obviously, I’m talking about the grand larceny that was Billie Eilish winning best original song over Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Dos Oruguitas.” It’s absolutely absurd! Other than that, it was a pretty boring show. (Just kidding, we’ll get to the other thing in a minute.)

In today’s newsletter, we’re talking about the Biden administration’s brand-spanking-new budget (weird how you can budget when you’ve got no money). This one is of particular interest as it omits the Hyde Amendment, opening the door to federal funding for abortions. It’s the second time President Biden has made this move—but with all of the anti-abortion legislation at the state level, what’s it really mean? Julianne Escobedo Shepherd will tell you!

But first, let’s get newsy with it.

—Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

• Democrats are asking Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from any and all upcoming cases linked to the January 6 insurrection. As we mentioned last Saturday, Judge Thomas’s wife, Virginia, sent some wild text messages to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, posing a huge conflict of interest for the justice. Honestly, it’s giving Bill from this season of Real Housewives of New Jersey. IYKYK.

• Speaking of drama, there’s more brewing in the Trump camp: A joint report from CBS and the Washington Post reveals there was a seven-hour gap in Trump’s White House phone logs on the day of the insurrection. The House select committee is now trying to suss out whether the missing hours are part of a cover-up or if Trump was using burners or his aides’ cell phones during that time.

• A hotel in South Dakota tried to enforce a policy banning Native Americans from the establishment after a young Native man was shot on the property a few weeks ago. The police have not determined what led to the shooting, but the hotel owner Connie Uhre has previously posted anti-Native sentiments, blaming the Native community for the shooting and “all the vandalism” around the hotel. Now, a non-profit organization representing the Sioux Nation has filed a federal class-action lawsuit. The tribe’s elders also served the Grand Gateway hotel with a trespassing order which claims the hotel is on Native land.

AND: 

• Facebook or Meta or whatever she goes by these days reportedly paid a right-wing advertising firm to malign TikTok. Sounds like a waste of money when they could have just hired a bunch of Boomers to post on Facebook how much they don’t get TikTok.

• March is over, which means I have to face my horrible bracket. How did yours turn out?

• Eric Adams is doing all he can to come off as a cool mayor to distract from the war he’s waging against unhoused people in New York City.

• How does one get invited to a DC orgy? Asking for a friend.

• Meet my new doctor, everyone.

—SM

YOUR TAX DOLLARS, YOUR BODY

Dems, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Federally funded abortion is in the 2023 budget, so let's make sure it stays that way

BY JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD

PRESIDENT AND OMB DIRECTOR SHALANDA YOUNG PASSING AROUND THIS YEAR'S BUDGET SPREADSHEET. (PHOTO BY ANNA MONEYMAKER VIA GETTY IMAGES) 

President Biden released his 2023 budget this week and in a bit of *good* news for humankind, it includes a provision that omits the Hyde Amendment and allows federal funds for anyone seeking an abortion. This is the second time since Biden took office that he’s included this directive, and while it got axed last year thanks to one single man (take a wild guess, his name rhymes with “overexpansion”), it’s an important statement about protecting the right to abortion in a year when states across the country are effectively banning the procedure, and will likely see the gutting of Roe v. Wade.

A quick history of the Hyde Amendment: First passed in 1976 after its introduction by the virulent anti-abortion Congressman Henry Hyde, it barred federal funds—that is, Medicaid and Medicare—from being allocated towards abortion. Its legality was challenged for several years, and so it didn’t take effect until 1980 when the all-male Supreme Court declared it constitutional by a 5-4 split—promptly leading to over four decades of struggle for people who need the procedure, but might not be able to afford it.

Unsurprisingly, Hyde impacts low-income women of color most of all. And that unfair economic burden is what Biden is taking aim at in his budget proposal, which touts “bold commitments to advance women’s economic security, gender-based violence prevention and response, and sexual and reproductive health and rights both at home and around the world.”

The proposal isn’t perfect. It provides $400 million to Title X family planning to “improve overall access to vital reproductive and preventive health services and advance gender and health equity” (great!), but the word “abortion” is nowhere to be seen (not great; it’s a simple medical procedure, people). And there are other, larger issues with the budget—an astronomical, 700% increase in funding for ICE, for instance, as well as giant bumps for police and military spending—all of which can make it feel like its basic support for women, LGBTQIA+ people, and families is all Oliver Twist begging with an empty bowl. (Please sir, may I have some childcare?) Besides,  Shmoe Shmansion is still on his warpath to sink any legislation that might actually help people—including this Title X allocation, where he’s likely to reintroduce Hyde yet again.

But still, it’s important. The move was praised by leaders like Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who called Hyde “racist and discriminatory” (it is), and Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson who, in a statement, called the budget “an essential opportunity to underscore the administration’s values.” Amid a countrywide crisis for reproductive rights, Biden’s stand against Hyde signals to those of us who believe in equal healthcare that we still have some ground in this fight. Not to be all “call your Congressional representative,” but—call your Congressional representative! And if anyone asks, Joe Manchin’s number is (202) 224-3954. Thank you!

ONE LAST TIME

Please Scrub This Year’s Oscars From My Brain

BY SHANNON MELERO

THE ONLY PERSON WHOSE OPINION TRULY MATTERS IN ALL OF THIS. (PHOTO BY MYUNG CHUNG VIA GETTY IMAGES) 

As you may have heard a few thousand times, on Sunday, 16 million people watched as Will Smith arose from his front-row seat at the Oscars, walked on stage, and slapped Chris Rock after Rock made an insensitive joke directed at Jada Pinkett Smith—who has been living with alopecia for four years. That brief exchange has stretched into three days’ worth of discourse, covering every nook and cranny of the moment. The slap has meant different things to different people—with some seeing it as an example of toxic masculinity, others seeing a deserved response to a bad joke, and some questioning why a joke so entrenched in misogynoir had to be made at all. Since Sunday, Smith has apologized, and Jada has posted a new Instagram tile about healing. It sounds like we’re all just about ready to move forward from this.

However, this incident was precipitated by a cruel, ableist joke at the end of the day, which is an element worth highlighting. Alopecia is an autoimmune disorder that attacks a person’s hair follicles, resulting in hair loss, and it is, in fact, a disability—one that disproportionately affects Black women. So while the broadcast spent an evening celebrating one groundbreaking depiction of disability (the film CODA, about a Deaf white family), another was being mocked—and it's possible that everyone in that room (including Will Smith) would have laughed and moved on if it hadn't exploded into a spectacle.

Of all the voices that had something to say (and nearly everyone said something), let’s end it with the words of Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, another Black woman living with alopecia. “Our bodies are not public domain,” she wrote in a tweet Monday. “They are not a line in a joke—especially when the transformation is not of our choosing.”

Instead of sharing another slap meme, why not share this newsletter with your friends! 

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Hey Meteor readers! This week has been a living how it started/how it's going meme. It began with the historic confirmation hearings to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court—hearings in which the most qualified and brilliant nominee in years was made to rebuke a pasty melange of Republicans who used their time to racistly invoke spurious and dangerous lies about her record.

And the week ended with the revelation that sitting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's wife Ginni was (BIG GULP OF AIR) texting deranged QAnon conspiracy theories supporting overturning the 2020 election to Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, around the same time that Trump was hoping SCOTUS would help him… overturn the election.

We've got a lot more on all this in the news, and after that, Rebecca Carroll writes about Judge Jackson's exceptionality and whether her confirmation hearings may have woken white America up to the double standard Black women endure every day.

—Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

WHAT'S GOING ON

• Soooo, yeah. Ginni Thomas? The far-right activist married to the longest-serving SCOTUS Justice? Who notoriously left Anita Hill a voicemail 10 years ago demanding an apology for testifying in Congress about Clarence Thomas’s sexual harassment? Which she framed as “why you did what you did with my husband”? Yeah, so…she spent the days after the election texting Trump’s chief of staff Meadows a litany of conspiracy theories (like painting a normal democratic election as a left-wing “heist”) and demanding that Sidney Powell, the Q lawyer who briefly represented Trump, be the face of the “Stop the Steal” effort. The texts were reported by the Washington Post.

• This is significant because when SCOTUS went on to rule that Trump could not block the Jan. 6 committee from gathering White House records, Ginni Thomas’s husband did not recuse himself. In fact, he was the lone dissenter—ruling in the minority against a request for information that eventually exposed his wife’s texts to Meadows. Did he know this? We don’t know. Should he be questioned about it and potentially impeached and yeeted off SCOTUS? LOL yes. To paraphrase an old adage: shoulda believed Anita Hill.

• All of this unfortunately dovetailed with the fact that the most spurious of Republican claims during Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearings—the lie that she was soft on child sex offenders—was also rooted in QAnon conspiracy theories. The line of questioning isn’t just misleading; it’s actively dangerous. As NPR reported this week, these attacks have resulted in an uptick in chatter about Judge Jackson on fringe websites—and some of the posts have been violent.

• And then there’s the way Judge Jackson was treated—and expected to behave—in contrast to 2018 nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Elie Mystal’s piece for the Nation, “Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Long Pause,” teased this out perfectly: “Everybody knew that, in the same situation, Kavanaugh could and did sneer at his questioners, threaten the Senate with political retribution, and declare his undying love for beer, without hurting his chances at unaccountable lifetime power. Power he now holds.”

• Even after all that, though, there was joy—enough to carry us through the week. If Senator Cory Booker’s passionate exhortation on the last day of her hearings was the most moving bit of video, the most emblematic photo of this process was taken by Sarahbeth Maney, a 25-year-old Black woman photojournalist. “I noticed how proud her daughter was of her,” Maney told the Times, “and it gave me chills when I saw this look that her daughter gave her. It was just this look of such pride and admiration.”

  AND:

• A powerful, must-read Eleine Hseih Chou essay about the specific and violent ways Asian women are fetishized among white men

• A beautiful piece by the LA Times’s Jean Guerrero on what is lost when white assimilation demands the Anglicization of non-Anglo last names

• A sprawling investigation into why one Black community in Columbia, South Carolina has an astronomical rate of diabetes-related amputations.

• A nice profile about Lux Magazine, a Leftist feminist publication you should definitely read

• Fuck yeah, Precious Lee!

—JES

KETANJI BROWN JACKSON

On Being Twice as Good to Get Half as Much

Black women could have predicted what KBJ went through. So why are so many people surprised? 

BY REBECCA CARROLL

THE FACE OF A WOMAN WHO HAS HAD ENOUGH (PHOTO BY CHIP SOMODEVILLA VIA GETTY IMAGES) 

Last week, during the Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, after hours of watching the relentless, shameless and openly racist baiting by white male senators of the country’s first Black woman Supreme Court nominee, I posted a tweet:

The way that a Black woman in America can be as highly, hyper educated, intelligent, elegant, skilled, experienced and qualified as KBJ and still be treated like this by white men on national television. It’s not even symbolic. It’s a glaring body of evidence. 

I didn’t feel as though I was saying anything special or new. I’m a Black woman in America who has not only experienced this kind of racism and misogyny, but has made it my life’s work to call it out in everything I make and do. In fact, I have said or written some iteration of what’s in that tweet literally dozens of times, to varying levels of response.

I said it when I first started in magazine journalism, and my ideas were passed over for the less-developed ones of my white peers. I said it when Michelle Obama was in the White House, constantly tested and scrutinized by the media despite the fact that she showed up more graceful, poised, and magnanimous than it was perhaps reasonable to expect. I said it on my podcast Billie Was a Black Woman, for this reason exactly—because Billie Holiday, among the most influential jazz singers of all time, was a Black woman, and as such, was relentlessly targeted and pursued by the FBI all the way to her grave. This is the same historical double-burden of racism and sexism that Jackson, among the most qualified Supreme Court nominees in the history of this country, is experiencing today.

I’ve seen this. I know this. Not new.

But this time, for whatever reason, it struck a chord. Over the first 48 hours, the tweet was liked nearly 170,000 times and retweeted by over 30,000 people—including, I might add, white male political figures Robert Reich and Howard Dean.

All of which mystifies me. Why now? How can you say a thing a thousand times and not have it truly be heard until the thousandth time? Is it just an algorithm? Was it the collective witnessing of what Judge Jackson had gone through? Event television? And mostly, I wondered: Will this change anything for Black women?

We aren’t just forbidden from being “the best,” we are simply not allowed to have or hold the word and its meaning 

Some comments on the tweet, not surprisingly, were from fellow Black women who knew all too well what we were witnessing as we watched Senator Lindsey Graham bitterly interrogate Jackson, and callously speak over her answers, while palpably seething with resentment over her sheer presence. For many of those women, it evoked that famous scene from Scandal, when Papa Pope tells his already exceedingly successful grown Black daughter, Olivia, that she has to be “twice as good as them to get half what they have!”

One Black woman in the comments put it a bit differently, tweeting: “We have to be better than the best.” And in Judge Jackson’s case, “better than the best” isn’t an exaggeration. By definition and anyone’s standard — including the white one — she is the living, breathing embodiment of the best. Judge Jackson went to Harvard University (magna cum laude) and Harvard Law (cum laude), became a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals, a Supreme Court clerk, and a public defender. There’s no “best” for her to be “better” than.

LINDSEY GRAHAM, A DISGRACE TO LINDSEYS EVERYWHERE (PHOTO BY SCOTT APPLEWHITE VIA GETTY IMAGES)

And that’s it right there.

The hearings weren’t just about the way that white America continues to move the goalposts for success when it comes to Black women (and all people of color); it’s about the way it unrepentantly steals words and lynches language in actual plain sight. We aren’t just forbidden from being “the best,” we are simply not allowed to have or hold the word and its meaning. And if we try, especially in public, white America will snatch it right out of our exhaustively achieved grasp.

This week made that reality visible. Because it wasn’t just Black women and other Black folks and people of color who responded to my tweet — white people, lots of them, tweeted comments like, “Those Senators make me ashamed to be a white man.” Some responses felt genuine, others performative. Either way, clearly some (most?) white people are just starting to understand the kind of racism we endure all the time—because they were seeing the evidence. They, and all of us, were watching it right in front of our eyes. I’m still not sure Why Now, but I’m also not that interested in speculating about why white people do what they do; I’m more interested in us and in finding our harbingers of hope.

And the reactions did give me a glimmer of hope. Two years into our so-called “racial reckoning”—more a phrase than an actual change—it felt to me this week as if people might actually be reckoning. But there’s no real victory in the simple acknowledgment that racism exists.

I will feel victorious when Judge Jackson is.

ONE MORE THING

Nicole Chung on Having “The Talk”

The racism talk, not the sex talk

BY SHANNON MELERO

Few things terrify me more than the thought of parenting. I watch all of the parents in my life, and I am astounded and filled with equal amounts awe and fear. How does anyone stay sane while navigating the boss-level Mario Kart map that is being a parent? Particularly parents of color, who have the added responsibility of explaining complex concepts like structural racism, respectability politics, and police procedure to children under 10, because to delay such a conversation is a life-altering risk?

On this week’s episode of UNDISTRACTED, author Nicole Chung shared her story of being a transracial adoptee and parenting her own daughter, now 14, amid a surge in anti-Asian hate crimes. “I think we were always going to have these conversations” about violence against Asian women, Chung said on the episode. “Not just because she’s old enough to get news alerts on her phone, but because we’ve always had these conversations… I still feel that parental urge to want to protect her or to just like, keep her safe at home where nothing could happen.”

It made me think back to my own teen years and whether or not my mother and I ever had such a talk or how we would have even started it. My family covers a wide racial spectrum, from our Afro-Latino elders to my one cousin on my grandfather’s side, who is full Irish. When you’re a kid seeing this assortment at family functions, it’s as if racism has been magically solved. So my mom had to take a very different approach. Sparing you the details (gotta save something for the memoir), there were many things we never talked about because we had lived through them, and really when life Stone Cold stuns you in the face with a hard lesson, what’s the point in conversation?

But I’ll never forget the conversation we had when she was dropping me off at college for my freshman year—the first time we would ever be so far apart from each other. “These white girls are going to be different than what you’re used to,” she said. I attended a predominantly white institution and had already met my new white roommate via Facebook. “They’re raised different. I don’t want you picking up their habits. And remember, you already have three strikes against you. You’re Latina, you’re a woman, and you believe in God. So you need to be careful.”

And as much as I hate to admit it, my mother was right. The women I met and lived with were different, and I struggled. When assimilation failed me, I leaned into the unspoken segregation on my campus. I joined the Latino Student Union, Black Student Union, Caribbean Student Association, and even the Asian Student Association—just to fill up the week with people who understood to some degree what I was going through. My weekends were devoted to hockey games and parties with my white friends because, despite our differences, I didn’t want to totally cut them out. It also helped that with a few strokes of a flatiron I could blend in with any white crowd (just not during the summer).

And maybe that’s part of why my mother was able to skip some of these conversations: I easily pass, and I was born a people pleaser. But eventually, my turn will come to have a small human, and if I remember seventh-grade genetics correctly, they’ll look like my husband and won’t pass as I do. And even though I’m nowhere near parenthood, I’m already trying to figure out how to have a useful talk with my future kid about race. I reckon that once the big moment comes, I’ll feel much like Chung, who told host Brittany Packnett Cunningham, “The adult you, with the adult perspective… You look back on these moments you experienced, many of them before you had the tools or the vocabulary or the support or the community or whatever it is you needed to kind of deal with it…and it really messes you up a little bit.”

One thing I am certain of is that I will be repeating Chung’s advice to her own child published in the Atlantic: “If there are those who do not consider your life precious, I hope that you can always feel assured of your own immense worth and your absolute right to be safe. You deserve to be safe. We all deserve to be safe.”

For more of Nicole and Brittany’s conversation, listen here.  

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Hello, howdy, and hey there Meteor readers. Welcome back to your favorite part of Wednesday. It’s been an inexplicably long week and I have yet to manifest all of the intentions I set forth during my Spring Equinox full moon ritual. Is the moon ignoring my calls?

In today’s newsletter, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd contemplates the absolute clown show that has been the confirmation hearings of The Honorable Ketanji Brown Jackson. These hearings are historic, not just because of the woman in the hot seat but because it may very well be the first time a grown man asked someone if a baby was racist. I wish I was joking.

Also today, a reminder that the water crisis of your youth is still ongoing and, as with so many other things, getting worse. But first, the news!

—Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

• Small forest fires have broken out in the area surrounding Chernobyl, which is currently under the control of the Russian military. Ukraine’s parliament reported spotting at least seven fires in the area via satellite. The report also claims that Ukrainian firefighters have not been able to manage the outbreaks because of the presence of the Russian military. The situation is “particularly dangerous” and still developing.

• The Taliban has walked back their promise to re-open girls’ high schools in Afghanistan, claiming that officials are trying to “draw up a plan for them to reopen in accordance with Islamic law.” Schools were initially supposed to reopen to all students on Wednesday for the Spring semester—and several girls’ schools did open in the morning but were immediately closed once the announcement was made. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Education attributed this move to a lack of proper uniforms for girls above grade six and a lack of female teachers. All of this has less to do with Islamic law and more to do with sex-based segregation, which begins after girls and boys pass puberty which (ostensibly) happens around the time they enter high school. In some parts of the country, girls under Grade 6 have reportedly returned to school.

• Officials and wealthy elites in Syria are creating a “maze of shell companies” to skirt international sanctions and continue funneling money into Bashar al-Assad’s government. Why should you care? Without new economic sanctions, the Syrian regime will have all the assets necessary to continue carrying out human rights violations against its citizens, which have gone largely unchecked in recent years.

• The US has reportedly run out of money to buy the next round of (vaccine) shots for everyone. That defense budget looking real plump, though, isn’t it Joseph Robinette.

AND: 

• Madeleine Albright, the first woman Secretary of State, has died at 84.

• The U.S. has officially classified the acts carried out over the last five years against the Rohingya population by Myanmar as genocide.

• TERF and author JK Rowling spent her Monday spreading misinformation about detransitioning, hormone replacement therapy, and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)—all topics she appears to know nothing about. On principle, I won’t link to anything she wrote because it’s utter codswallop. So instead, here’s some informative writing on PCOS in the LGTBQ+ community.  

• The Jamaican government has started the parliamentary process of becoming a republic, which means they’ll eventually be removing Queen Elizabeth II as head of state.

• The National College Players Association filed a civil rights complaint against 350 Division I schools, claiming Black students’ rights have been violated by a “collusive athlete compensation prohibition.” Bet you didn’t have that in your March Madness bracket.

• No survivors have been found in the wreckage of a plane that crashed into a mountain in China on Monday. There were 132 people on board.

• The number of trans youth on the brink of losing gender-affirming care is staggering.

• Ashley Barty is now Ashley Retiree at the tender age of 25.

—SM

SCOTUS WATCH 

6 Takeaways from the Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Hearings

What surprised me (and didn't) over the last 48 hours

BY JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD

KETANJI BROWN JACKSON ILLUSTRATES HOW MUCH PATIENCE SHE HAS LEFT FOR TED CRUZ. (PHOTO BY CHEN MENGTONG/CHINA NEWS SERVICE VIA GETTY IMAGES) 

In the last 48 hours, I have watched approximately 324 hours of confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Please don’t challenge my math—I’ve seen Mr. Robot and claim my right to employ the same logic as Sen. John Cornyn, who told Judge Jackson that he is “not an attorney—I watch Law and Order from time to time.”)

Some of the proceedings have gone just as I’d anticipated. I expected the racist and sexist aggression that white Republicans are volleying at Judge Jackson, and I expected her response to be professional and controlled—skills she certainly was expected to triply perfect as a Black woman working in law. I expected the condescension, the gotcha questions, the abuse, and I expected her to meet them with thoughtful measure. But what actually hit me was how absurd the Republican line of questioning was, and how beautifully Judge Jackson has responded. In honor of Her Honor, my takeaways so far.

1. The racist nonsense before she even publicly spoke with Congress.

Last week, Sen. Josh Hawley introduced the lie that Judge Jackson has been soft on sentencing for child pornographers, a dog-whistle meant for the ears of the “government pedophilia conspiracy” QAnon cult. (This will continue tomorrow when Republicans introduce testimony from a lawyer for the extreme fringe group Operation Underground Railroad.) During the hearings, Hawley doubled down on these accusations despite major outlets like the Washington Post disproving them as “scurrilous”—and the reasoning was repeated in questioning from many of his worst Republican peers, including Sens. Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Marsha Blackburn. The latter also spent a considerable amount of time trying to paint Judge Jackson as having been mean to anti-abortion protesters, as well as goading her to define the word “woman” in a long transphobic tirade.

2. But she’s so much smarter than these jokers.

In response to these allegations, Judge Jackson explained the circumstances in the pornography cases she ruled on, pointing out that judges are constrained by Congress’s laws and effectively showing that she knows the inner workings of Congress better than some of the people working there. All this while Senators' questions forced her repeatedly to relive the clearly painful experience of having to see, in her capacity as a judge, the “heinous” evidence in child pornography cases.

Cruz, who was one of Jackson’s peers at Harvard Law and is definitely still seething that he’s a lesser mind, also invoked the bogeyman of Critical Race Theory, an academic school of thought that most people don’t encounter until law school (if even then), and which Cruz seems to think is being taught to babies. After his barrage, Jackson paused and let out a deep sigh. It was a moment indicative of the circumstances: that a woman of her great intellect and patient temperament had to spend hour upon hour answering disingenuous and deeply uneducated questions.

WHAT SOLID PROOF DO WE HAVE THAT TED CRUZ KNOWS HOW TO READ? (PHOTO BY WIN MCNAMEE VIA GETTY IMAGES)

3. Despite all this, the hearings have been a breath of fresh air. 

Judge Jackson met even the most ridiculous questions with a level of gravity her questioners didn’t earn. She did not, like Brett Kavanaugh, whine or cry or yell at Senators—something she knows that she, as a Black woman, would end her nomination in a way it didn’t end Kavanaugh’s.

Her race and gender were a clear factor in the way a litany of white Republican Senators addressed her (note to Sen. Kennedy: Do not call a Black woman “articulate”) and even still she responded with patience. Her display of fairness and skill was exhilarating, a refreshing palate cleanser for those of us still reeling from the Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett proceedings. (For a really nice example of this, watch her exchange with Sen. Mazie Hirono, who skillfully dunked on the spurious accusations of her Republican colleagues.)

4. Judge Jackson will be an addition to the court who “thinks like America.”

Yesterday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal addressed why he thinks the Judge’s position on SCOTUS is significant. “You will make the court look and feel more like America, but also think more like America,” he said. He also asked her to address the importance of her experience as a public defender, a job he too once had. “Zealous defense council… ensures the government is protecting these rights and that people are getting due process in the criminal justice system,” she said. “That’s to all of our benefits. That helps everyone in America when we ensure that liberty cannot be denied due process.”

As Republicans repeatedly tried to paint Judge Jackson as soft on crime, this is an important point to remember. After all, as the lawyer and podcaster Josie Duffy Rice told Brittany Packnett Cunningham on a recent episode of UNDISTRACTED: “[Public defender]... is a job that should really resonate with conservatives in this country that are worried about Big Government. These are the same people that should be cheering her. Here’s someone who repeatedly stood up and tried to protect regular people from the tyranny of government.”

5. She understands the difficulties of working motherhood.

In a conversation with Senator Cory Booker, KBJ addressed her position as a working mom with visible emotion. “It’s a lot of early mornings and late nights, and what that means is there will be hearings during your daughters’ recitals. There’ll be emergencies on birthdays that you have to handle,” she said. “And I know so many young women in this country, especially who have small kids who have these momentous events, and have to make a choice. I didn’t always get the balance right.” (Her kids, though, seem to think she did all right, as evidenced by a beautiful sign on her daughter Leila’s seat: “You Got This!”)

6. Finally, nobody is tamping down the joy of this moment (dammit). 

Nothing the Republicans attempt to do can take away from this historic nomination, and I have been moved by how meaningful the moment has been—and for the sight of unadulterated hope in government at a time when there’s not a lot to feel great about. “Judge Jackson’s explanations are so clear, she is talking to the Senators but also is teaching,” tweeted National Women’s Law Center President Fatima Goss Graves. Maya Wiley noted that it is “a joyous day unto the world.” And in a profile of some of the Black women rallying in D.C. in support of KBJ, Washington Post reporter Anne Branigin writes:

“We need a little joy in this moment,” said Glynda Carr, a political strategist and co-founder of Higher Heights, a group that helps elect and support Black women in politics.

“If that little joy comes in the fact that this woman looks like us — looks like me, from my hair to my glasses to the hue of my skin — it gives you the possibilities that exist, in that we can always reach higher..”

CLIMATE CHANGE

The Water Crisis Is Getting Worse

BY SHANNON MELERO

BANGLADESHI PEOPLE TRAVELING TO GATHER WATER AMIDST AN EXTREME WATER CRISIS IN RANGAMATI. (PHOTO BY MOHAMMAD SHAJAHAN/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES) 

Yesterday, March 22, was World Water Day, a day of observance started by the United Nations in 1993 to highlight the importance of access to fresh water sources in the global community. Unfortunately, about 2 billion people are living without access to clean water, and in 2019, 1.2 million people died from drinking unsafe water.

In fact, “in the last year, more people died from lack of access to water than from war-related violence,” Mustafa Mabruk tells me. Mabruk and his business partner Murad Noful are the cofounders of Wear the Peace, a slow fashion brand working to educate people and raise money for some of the world’s largest ongoing crises; their latest initiative is in partnership with Charity: Water, to build long term sustainable water safety in the areas most affected by the crisis. Like many of us, Mabruk and Noful are searching for the answer to what feels like an existential question: what can I, a regular person, do to solve an enormous global problem?

The first step is understanding that the problem is ours to fix. For as long as I’ve been alive, there’s been a water crisis, and for years it’s been framed as a problem other people have and not the concern of Europe or the United States. And yet, in 2014, in supposedly the most powerful nation in the world, Flint, Michigan, did not have a drop of clean water. (A crisis that is still ongoing.) The water crisis is everyday life for millions of people who will spend nearly half of their lives just walking to gather clean water. Countries that do not have entire populations actively gathering water are beginning to grapple with a lack of sustainable water sources and a future where water privatization may be the new normal.

“If there’s a time to start pushing toward a solution, it’s yesterday.”

“Climate change is the biggest cause of the current water shortage, but there’s also increased human consumption in general and overuse of water,” Nofal explains. Solving the water crisis is no longer just about building wells and providing tankards of water; now it’s intertwined with more frequent weather events, climate-based immigration, and thousands of people migrating to flee war violence. . So the big picture answers are sustainability in water gathering, better management of water resources—and understanding that war and climate change are interconnected issues. “At the end of the day, allowing a crisis to continue—allowing hundreds of years of violence and war—it’s all a choice. [Solving this crisis] comes down to political choices. All of it is doable, especially now,” Nofal says. He’s skeptically hopeful.

And while we need huge sweeping policy changes to really tackle this problem, there are steps that those of us who aren’t scientists, researchers, politicians, or Water Protectors can take to make sure this World Water Day isn’t just a blip on the calendar: Manage your water use at home, safe, clean water is finite and needs to be treated as such. Divest from fast fashion. Understand where your water comes from and how it's treated. Donate to organizations like Charity: Water. Vote for officials in local elections who back “green” legislation at the city and state levels.“If there’s a time to start pushing toward a solution,” Nofal emphasizes, “it’s yesterday.”

What's way less stressful than watching a confirmation hearing? Sharing this newsletter with your friends. Give it a try!

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Hello and happy Saturday to you. In today’s newsletter, Julissa Arce writes about the ways white supremacy works in Mexico to denigrate Indigenous and Black Mexicans—and how her experience with white supremacy in the U.S. worked in tandem with that. It’s an excerpt from her forthcoming book You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation (out March 22), and believe me when I say I felt that when I read it. There’s still a misperception among U.S. Anglos—and some Latinxs—that racism and colorism does not exist among Latinxs (and it’s a perception that some Latin Americans are happy to perpetuate). But of course, one look at the mostly pale palette of Univision and Telemundo hosts shows how wrong that is. I’m so glad Arce wrote about this important topic, and how we should resist the insidious ways colonialism affects the world.

Before that, though, some news!

—Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

WHAT'S GOING ON 

• Russia bombed the Donestk Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine, where over 1300 civilians were sheltering. Around 130 people have been rescued but the majority are still trapped beneath the rubble. Before the bombing, Ukrainians had painted the Russian word for “children” in two visible places around the theater to warn troops, according to Reuters.

• Brittany Griner, the WNBA star who was detained at a Russian airport for allegedly carrying cannabis oil in her suitcase, will be held there at least until May 15 as Russian authorities conduct an investigation. While she has an attorney and the U.S. State Department is “doing everything we can” to support her, the outlook is grim considering Russia’s track history with imprisoning foreign nationals, plus the diplomatic fallout from the war on Ukraine. And while some have noted that Griner’s situation hasn’t garnered enough media coverage, there’s a reason for this: the State Department, WNBA, and her family have deliberately withheld details from the public in the interest of negotiating her release. “Everyone’s getting the strategy of ‘say less and push more privately behind the scenes,’ ” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told the AP.

• Here's a beautiful Instagram post (and caption) from Cherokee playwright and lawyer Mary Katherine Nagle: “Today the United States restored tribal jurisdiction and sovereignty over non-Indian perpetrated crimes of child abuse, trafficking, stranger sexual assault, and much more. And Indian Country was there to witness the United States wake up to history!” Which is to say: The Violence Against Women Act has been updated to (finally) include indigenous women, giving Tribal Courts the ability to arrest, try, and sentence non-Natives who perpetrate violence against tribal members. It's a true win, and a step towards justice for the astronomical amounts of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the U.S. Native women are victims of domestic violence and physical assault at a rate of 50% more than any other group, and murder is the third leading cause of death for Native women, with the majority of perpetrators non-Native, and until now there has been little recourse.

• Lia Thomas, the U Penn swimmer who is enraging transphobes for being good at her job, has won the NCAA Division I national championship. This makes her the first known trans athlete to win that title in any sport. Hell yeah, Lia! Detractors should take some advice from one of her competitors, Lexi Cuomo, a champion swimmer at the University of Virginia: “Any hate is unnecessary,” she told ESPN. “We’re focused on ourselves and our team. Our first and foremost goal is to win a national title.”

• Angelina Jolie, who is just like all of us in that she has a day job for money so she can spend the rest of her time doing things she actually cares about, recently visited Yemen to raise awareness of the refugee crisis there—an important effort at any time, but especially prudent at a moment when the world seems to be waking up to the disparate treatment of refugees who are not white Europeans. As part of a UN Refugee Agency's effort to raise $4.3 billion in humanitarian aid, Jolie met with locals, including children, suffering from food scarcity and other instabilities after seven years of war, and addressed a panel of humanitarians and aid workers. “The lack of solutions to conflict and insecurity globally is causing unmanageable levels of human displacement and need,” she told the panel. "You have an opportunity as governments to address this desperate human emergency and to seek an urgent end to the conflict.” If you’d like to donate to this important cause, you can do so here.

AND:

• The Black women lining up to defend Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

• Loving this conversation with the queer ranchera artist San Cha (And bumping “Oveja Negra”)

• “The feminist campaigner telling the stories of murdered women” in the UK

• The CROWN Act, which would ban race-based hair discrimination in the U.S., has passed the House. Onto the Senate!

• Now playing: Rosalía’s new album MOTOMAMI. “I just want to hear something I haven’t heard before. That’s the intention always,” the inventive Catalan singer told the New York Times this week. (And, cough, if you’d like to read my review, it’s here.)

—JES

MUST-READ 

Julissa Arce On How Latinx Communities Have Been “Tricked Into Yearning for Whiteness”  

JULISSA ARCE, MATCHING HER LOOK TO HER BOOK. (PHOTO BY ARAYA DOHENY/GETTY IMAGES FOR PODERISTAS)

I was in middle school the first time someone told me, “You talk white.” It was an off-hand comment from a peer who wasn’t aware of all the implications behind that phrase, but I thought about it for a long time. I went through all of high school codeswitching between the jargon and cadence my friends used—peppering words like “brick,” “deadass,” and all types of Spanish slang into every other sentence—and the educated verbiage my mother expected of someone she was sending to private school. It wasn’t until college, surrounded by actual white people, that I realized my well-practiced, NPR-esque accent wasn’t fooling anyone. I was still “talking white” and yet it didn’t bring me any closer to my white classmates—one of whom would go on to write racial slurs on the door of my dorm room. 

In her new memoir, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation, author and activist Julissa Arce shares her own experience of trying to squeeze herself into the box of whiteness, a box formed both by white supremacy in American culture and anti-Indigenous sentiments in Mexican culture. 

The book is a moving, infuriating, and at times funny overview of the ways Arce, like many Latinxs, was taught to see whiteness as aspirational; an idea that was reinforced by her time working at Goldman Sachs as an undocumented immigrant. But it wasn’t just the talks about Aspen and summer homes that made Arce second-guess herself, it was also the colonizer mentality of those closest to her, the ones who praised her European features and ignored her Indigenous heritage. (You know the ones, the “pelo malo, pelo bueno” tías.) 

Below is an excerpt from Arce’s book—just the tip of the iceberg in her touching and well-argued case for rejecting assimilation, no matter how alluring it might seem.

—Shannon Melero

IMAGE COURTESY OF FLATIRON BOOKS 

My nephew, a junior in high school in Mexico, was visiting me in Los Angeles a couple of years ago when I asked him if he knew that Vicente Guerrero, the second president of Mexico, was Black. “Are you serious?” he said. “In all the pictures he looks ‘bien blanquito.’” Because of his stature, he could not be ignored or erased from history, but his standing didn’t stop him from being whitewashed. Even when negating the history and importance of Indigenous and Black people simply can’t be done, we are not allowed to claim power alongside our Indigenous or Black identities—the identity must then be erased. This strategy is deployed from Mexico to the Dominican Republic to Europe.

Vicente Guerrero was the son of a Black father and an Indigenous mother. Inspired by the Haitian Revolution, Guerrero fought to end African slavery in Mexico some thirty years before it was abolished in the United States. Schools all over Mexico bear his name. It’s tragic to think that our people in Mexico died to gain independence, freedom, and equality for the Indigenous worker and for the enslaved African, but many haven’t been able to shake the colonizer in our heads. A document of twenty-three principles for the future of a free Mexico, called the Sentimientos de la Nación written by José María Morelos Pérez y Pavón in 1813, included the prohibition of slavery “forever,” as well as the abandoning of the caste system, and only “vice and virtue” making people different from one another. When John Quincy Adams was secretary of state, he wrote a letter to his brother in 1818 in which he described America’s independence as “a War of freemen, for political Independence,” and Mexico’s as “a War of Slaves against their masters.” Adams was right that Mexico’s independence—as well as the independence of other Latin American and Caribbean countries—was different. The independence of the United States was one where elites sought liberty only for themselves and for the protection of their land and property, which included African people. Mexicans won our independence from Spain to free the most oppressed, even if it hasn’t played out that way.

We’ve been so beaten down by white supremacy that we have yet to be truly free. Whiteness infiltrates Mexican institutions and life just as it does those of its neighbor to the north. It is a problem that plagues much of Latin America. In Bolivia, for example, the first and only Indigenous president came to power in 2006, 181 years after the county’s independence. Colombians have taken to the streets to protest racist police, because Black people are killed more often there, too. From Brazil to Mexico, Indigenous and Black people remain oppressed.

We’ve been so beaten down by white supremacy that we have yet to be truly free

When I go back to Mexico now, I am deeply saddened to hear the same everyday racist talk I heard when I was a kid. I often wonder if I had stayed in Mexico, would I see clearly how we’ve been tricked to yearn for whiteness so that we don’t strive for justice?

I often think of a brilliant line by author Domingo Martinez when I grapple with our own people becoming the oppressor when they’ve known the scourge of whiteness: “There is nothing more potentially hostile than the indigenous ego interpreting the laws of his conqueror upon his own people.” We become vicious to our own bodies, to our own souls. In our own home countries, we learn to view white as superior, as something we should aspire to. Then when we immigrate to the United States, we bring those sentiments packed in our suitcases. Those ideas are hardened on our hearts like a wax seal the minute we cross into the United States.

Mexico introduced me to the lies of whiteness, but it was the United States that taught me just how corrosive white supremacy truly is. Seeking whiteness is a matter of survival here: white skin in the United States means you exist. It means you matter. Some of us flatter ourselves white by virtue of our education, our job, or our bank account—despite the nopal on our faces, we introduce ourselves as “Spanish” at work. In the United States, whiteness didn’t just render me less than—it rendered me invisible. Here a Brown Mexican seems to have no past, no future, and no identity. I was further ostracized because I was undocumented. It was the ultimate layer of being alien. But here, in my new home, is also where I learned to fight it.

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Special announcement for you on this lovely Wednesday: the weather is nice! Or at least it is where I live. Yesterday was also quite nice—I went roller skating and I could feel the snakeskin of seasonal depression slipping off my body. I hope the sun is shining just as bright in your corner of the world.

In alignment with the mood-boosting weather, today Paola Mendoza reports from her native Colombia on last weekend’s presidential primary and the shifting tides in Latin America. I can’t remember the last time I was so pumped about a presidential candidate, but Mendoza’s hope for the future of Colombia and their potential next vice president gave me chills–and I know it’s not from the cold because as I cannot say enough, the weather is good.

Also on the agenda today: a better way for your boss to celebrate Equal Pay Day. Do you feel fairly paid or is your job just sucking your life force and paying you in Starbucks gift cards? Let us know at [email protected]!

But first, let’s check in on the rest of the world.

 —Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

• On Wednesday morning, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky virtually addressed the US Congress and requested the country’s help to stop Russian attacks. Some specific asks were a no-fly zone over Ukraine, increased military and humanitarian aid, and a new “union of responsible countries” tasked with stopping these kinds of conflicts immediately. Zelenskyy also called on President Joe Biden to be a “leader of peace.”

• Peace, whatever that will look like, is allegedly close at hand. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that a “compromise” was in sight between Ukraine and Russia, which could see Kyiv deemed a neutral zone. President Zelensky says that the compromises being discussed in peace talks are becoming more realistic, but he still cautions patience.

• One year ago today, eight people were killed during a shooting at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, Georgia. In the last year, hate crimes against Asian people have increased over 300% partly due to misinformation over the coronavirus. If you’re in New York City tonight,  Wednesday, consider joining Governor Kathy Hochul, author Min Jin Lee, Asian American Federation founder Jo-Ann Yoo, and many others at the Justice for Asian Women rally in Times Square. It starts at 5 p.m. If you can't make it in person, consider sending a donation to the AAF’s Hope Against Hate project here.

  AND:

• Congress is getting rid of Daylight Savings and I’m trying to think of a more useless thing that they could have done to avoid their actual jobs. Doesn’t anyone want to work!?

• Mass graves have been located in Syria, which may provide evidence of war crimes carried out by Bashar al-Assad’s government.

• Jane Campion done fucked up. But she’s sorry.

• Anyone else thinking of student loans again, now that we’re two months away from turning them back on? 

• Con-woman Anna Sorokin does not have time for deportation.

THERE'S STILL HOPE IN POLITICS

I Believe in Francia

How it felt voting for Colombia’s most progressive political candidate in years 

BY PAOLA MENDOZA

FRANCIA MÁRQUEZ CELEBRATING A HISTORIC NIGHT WITH GUSTAVO PETRO (PHOTO BY DARWIN TORRES) 

Last week, I boarded a plane and flew 2,486 miles from my home in New York City to Bogotá, Colombia, the city where I was born. I went there to vote in the Presidential primary elections—not just for any candidate, but for Francia Márquez.

Voting for Francia means voting for a Colombia that centers the most vulnerable, the most in need, those who have suffered at the hands of corrupt politicians, the 52-year civil war, and generational poverty. On election night, she looked into the cameras that surrounded her and spoke to the Colombian people. “I acknowledge the nobodies,” she said, “the nobodies of Colombia, those from the mountains, plains and neighborhoods of this country who accompanied us.”

Francia is one of those “nobodies” she was talking to on election night. She is an Afro-Colombian woman who was born in Yolombó—a small village where she grew up working in artisanal gold mining. Her activism began at 14, when she organized her community against the construction of a dam that would have dramatically altered the way of life for her people. Francia lost that battle but she refused to stop fighting for her community and her land. In 2014, she led a group of at least 80 women in a 350-kilometer march to the capitol to protest illegal gold mining. In 2018 she won the “Nobel Prize of environmentalism”—the Goldman Prize—for her work. Her activism has come at great personal cost. Colombia is one of the deadliest places on earth to be an environmental activist and in 2019 Francia survived an assassination attempt. 

Two years later, she launched her presidential campaign. Initially, the political establishment, the wealthy, and even some of her own community wrote her off—they said she was just an activist, she’d never held public office, she didn’t have experience. She’s also young (now 40), became a single mom as a teenager, and is the first Afro-Colombian woman to run for President. Everyone thought these qualities were a detriment; Francia believed they were exactly why she should be President. Last year I interviewed Francia for The Meteor and asked her what she would say to people who criticized her lack of experience. “The experience white men have has not allowed my family to live in dignity,” she told me. “Or my people. Or this country. So what experience are they talking about?... The experience that allows these powerful men to use violence against their own people and kill them?... Well, that experience I don’t want to learn.”

This was the reason I flew to my homeland to vote for Francia. I left Colombia when I was just three years old, but I have always had a strong connection to it—my mom would send me back to live with my grandmother for the summers so she could work in the United States. When I was 14, I came back to live in Colombia for three years—three years that saved my life, that allowed me to connect with my people and my history, that provided me safety and security when I was at my most vulnerable. I owe such a debt of gratitude to this country. The least I can do is participate in building a better future for all Colombians—and so I always return to vote.

“The experience white men have has not allowed my family to live in dignity”

Election day was warm and sunny in Bogotá. There were streams and streams of people walking into the convention center on the Sunday my cousin and I went to vote. I showed security my cedula (Colombian ID), and off I went to find table 99. The beautiful thing about voting in Colombia is that you don’t have to be registered to vote, which is what should happen here in the U.S.—if you’re 18, the legal voting age, you can vote. And unlike the U.S., there are pictures of all the candidates, and you simply mark an X over the person’s face. It was thrilling to put my X over Francia’s picture—a historic moment for her, and for the whole country.

When the votes were tabulated that night, the leading candidate in Francia’s party, Gustavo Petro, got over four million votes, and she received 781,865, which is a lot in Colombia. It is an extraordinary feat that Francia Márquez came in third place behind Petro and Federico Gutiérrez, a right-wing candidate; she had more votes than three-time presidential candidate and former mayor of Medellín, Sergio Fajardo, and beat a handful of other well-known men from the political establishment. The headline of the night was that Francia dominated—and a new political force was born in Colombia. If she is selected as Gustavo Petro’s vice presidential candidate and if they win in May, she would be the first Black woman VP in our country’s history. And regardless, I believe Francia is on her way to one day being La Presidenta of Colombia.

ELECTION DAY IN COLOMBIA. WHO DO YOU THINK SHE VOTED FOR? (PHOTO BY DARWIN TORRES)

That’s the celebration for me: that Francia continues to show the power of the Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities in a country that excludes and abuses them; the strength of feminism; and the audacity of being unabashedly progressive, pro-choice, and pro-environment in everything she fights for. She is a political candidate for the future of this country.

Isn’t this what’s needed everywhere? Our world feels like it’s collapsing—we’re still in the throes of a pandemic, we’re on the verge of a massive war, it’s scary and it’s exhausting. I don’t want the same leadership. I want something different. I want women’s leadership—progressive women’s leadership. And it is Latin America that is showing the world how this is done.

In the U.S., rights are being taken away from so many people, and the rise of the white conservative woman is aiding and abetting that. But in Latin America, Honduras just elected its first female president, Xiomara Castro, who’s a socialist; Chile recently elected its youngest President, Gabriel Boric, who ran on a feminist socialist platform; and feminist values are sweeping Latin America with the Green Wave movement for reproductive rights. So often in the U.S., we don’t look to others—we think we know more than everyone else in the world. But right now, we need to look to the south for a roadmap.

I look to Francia.

WERK

Does Your Job Deserve You?

Before you go... let's chat Equal Pay Day

This week marked Equal Pay Day, the day when women (on average) famously have to work each year to make what men made the year before. For Black women specifically, the day doesn’t roll around till September 21; for Latinx women, it’s practically a whole year later, on December freaking 8! Years ago, I worked for a wonderful feminist boss who christened that day National Go Ask For a Raise Day (I did), and that’s always a good way to spend the holiday, but… what if we didn’t have to spend so much time advocating for and improving ourselves at work?

Last week I went to a book event for Reshma Saujani, author of the new book Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work, and Daisy Auger-Dominguez, author of Inclusion Revolution. And the thing that got the most applause in the room was when they both told the audience to just stop trying to be better. “I don’t want to hear another word about mentoring, or how to get over imposter syndrome, or how to work ‘harder faster,’” said Reshma. “We’re already showing up overqualified. They need to deserve us.”

I’ve got nothing against work advice for women; I’ve given it, taken it, and do office hours on Sunday afternoons with folks interested in media (DM me). But as Reshma noted, half the time women already have more skills and qualifications than the job requires; what’s missing is a workplace that’s worthy of us—with paid leave and child care to accommodate our lives. (The pay gap increases sharply, especially for women of color, when you have a child or take on other caregiving responsibilities.)

All this is no surprise—it’s part of what’s fueling the Great Resignation. But in a week where billionaires told us to pull up our bootstraps, it’s a good reminder. Maybe your boss (and your Senator) should take that leadership course instead.

—Cindi Leive

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