When your existence is illegal
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No images? Click here  February 25, 2022 Hello Meteor readers—it perhaps goes without saying that it’s been a rough week in the world; as I write this, Russian troops have invaded Kyiv, and stories are pouring in about people fleeing Ukraine to Poland, having walked on foot for a full day. We’ve compiled a list of ways to help Ukrainians on our Instagram here. In today’s newsletter, we’ve got four transgender writers reflecting on how Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s hateful decree—and the transphobic legislation being passed across the country—affects their lives. After that, read Shannon Melero’s interview with Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, editor of a new book called The Black Agenda: Bold Solutions for a Broken System, which elevates Black expertise in areas where it’s rarely sought. There is some good news, thank goodness. President Biden has nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court; he kept his promise that he would nominate the first Black woman to SCOTUS, but what’s most exciting is that he’s nominated the most progressive judge among the candidates he was reportedly considering. (Lawyer and writer Dahlia Lithwick predicted her nomination in a recent edition of our newsletter.) More on that below. Hold the line, everybody. And drop us one, too: [email protected]. —Julianne Escobedo Shepherd  WHY IS IT ALWAYS TEXASOur Existence Is a Crime  TEXANS PROTESTING PROPOSED BANS OF TRANS ATHLETES IN TEXAS, 2021 (PHOTO TAMIR KALIFA VIA GETTY IMAGES) On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a decree that essentially criminalizes trans kids and their parents, demanding that the Department of Family and Protective Services investigate parents who support and affirm their kids' gender identity as child abuse. Abbott also ordered doctors and teachers—and deputized individual citizens—to report trans children receiving life-affirming care. This draconian, hateful step was the most recent measure in a right-wing war on trans people in multiple states, which includes 125 anti-trans bills currently on the table, according to the Human Rights Campaign. So what does the Texas news mean to the people most affected? The Meteor founding member Jennifer Finney Boylan asked four writers to answer that question here. Brynn Tannehill
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How equal-pay victories really happen
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No images? Click here  February 23, 2022 Hi, and welcome to our Wednesday edition. I’m still reeling from yesterday’s New York Times crossword (IT WAS A REBUS! BASED ON 2/22/22! Come ON) and freaked out by the fact that it’s 61 degrees in Brooklyn today. Empirically, I feel confident in saying that we are having a climate crisis. In today’s newsletter, we’ve got Shannon Melero fulfilling one of her life’s goals: writing about (and celebrating!) the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team settling their long-running equal pay suit against U.S. Soccer. Believe her when she says she’s been following this case closely for six years like Nancy Drew with a magnifying glass. She’s cautiously optimistic, but also asks the important questions, like: when are all the other women’s sports teams going to get paid equally, too? But first, the news! And if you’d like to email us about what’s on your mind, or just tell us what you’re up to today, we’d love to hear from you: [email protected] —Julianne Escobedo Shepherd  WHAT'S GOING ON
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—JES  THE BEAUTIFUL GAMEThe History of the U.S. Women’s National Team’s Fight for Equal PayI hope these women are drinking champagne out of a trophy this weekBY SHANNON MELERO  AN ASSEMBLY OF WINNERS (PHOTO BY BRUCE BENNETT VIA GETTY IMAGES) I cried when the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) won their fourth World Cup in 2019. They were tears of excitement, tears of joy, and tears of immense pride at seeing these women—some of whom I’d watched play on a college field in Piscataway, New Jersey, because their league team didn’t have a stadium—be recognized by hundreds of millions. But they were also tears of anger. In the same year that the USWNT won that historic victory, they had, as a team, filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) for unequal pay. Their claim argued that they were being paid less than the US Men’s National Team and were being given unequal resources—even though they had more World Cup wins than the men’s team, which to this day has won a total of *pulls out abacus* zero World Cups. On Tuesday, the USSF and USWNT finally reached a settlement in the lawsuit—to the tune of $24 million. This is an enormous achievement for the team. But as with everything that has to do with labor and money, it’s a little more complicated than that. For casual soccer fans, this case became news fodder on International Women’s Day 2019, when all 28 players on the USWNT filed that lawsuit. But this really all started in colonial America when the European settlers imposed their—just kidding! We don’t need to go back that far. (We could, but we won’t.) The struggle began in earnest in 1999 when the now-famous ’99ers won the Cup in a dramatic penalty kick-off against China. Don’t remember that match? I’ll bet you remember seeing a photo of Brandi Chastain, who scored the winning goal, kneeling on the grass, fists up in the air with nothing but her shorts and a sports bra. It’s the photo that launched a hundred sports bra campaigns.  THE ICON BRANDI CHASTAIN ON THE DAY SHE INVENTED THE CONCEPT OF ATHLEISURE AS FASHION (PHOTO BY RICH LIPSKI/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES) But it also marked a more critical turning point: Over 90,000 people showed up to the stadium for that game, and 40 million tuned in to ABC to watch from home. Women’s soccer—which at this point didn’t have an American professional league—was finally in the spotlight. The ’99ers capitalized on the moment to expose just how poorly America’s champions were being treated. They went on strike, refusing to appear in a scheduled tournament in Australia, to protest not just the pay gap between themselves and the men’s team but the complete lack of maternity leave. In an interview with a few of the ’99ers, the Washington Post described the USSF’s stance as “treating[ing] pregnancy as a “career-ending injury,” where players like gold medalist Kate Markgraf weren’t offered contract renewals because they’d given birth. Thanks to public pressure, and the desire to ensure the top players showed up at the 2000 Olympics (where they won silver), the ’99ers were able to get maternity language introduced into USWNT contracts. (The policy wasn’t great, but at least women could no longer be cut from the team because they’d had a child.) After 2000, women’s soccer struggled to translate into a profitable American league, and the pay discrepancy issue was silenced by the fact that the men’s league, Major League Soccer, was thriving. Out of sight, out of mind. And the National Team itself had its own internal strife over differing views on LGBTQ representation. This changed in 2012 when the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) was established, and talents like Ashlyn Harris, Christine Sinclair, Tobin Heath, and Alex Morgan brought back the excitement of soccer on a season to season basis. Then, in 2016, Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd, and Becky Sauerbrunn filed a wage discrimination action with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Their charge: Unequal pay and treatment between the men’s and women’s national teams, and even though the USWNT was doing superior work, the movement they began was called Equal Play, Equal Pay. (Just in case you forgot, the men’s team had not won a World Cup by this point, while the women’s team had three World Cup wins and four Olympic golds.) After that suit was filed, the team spent months carrying out their contractual obligations and negotiating a new contract behind the scenes—and according to a recent Instagram post from Hope Solo, the 2016 suit “still stands.” (It’s worth noting here that Solo does not see this settlement as a win, and is not entitled to the backpay included in the $22 million. She also does not believe the team will be able to successfully negotiate equal pay into their next contract.)
In 2017, the USWNT negotiated a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that addressed portions of the discrimination action. They were given increased per diems, better base salaries, and improved accommodation. It was a short-lived win. The women’s team had gotten a shred of parity, but it was in comparison to the old contract the men had. Once the men’s team got to the negotiation table with the USSF, there was another drastic change. The men were offered an entirely different (and lucrative) pay-per-play bonus structure which still saw them making more money per match than the women. As The Guardian calculated in 2019, the women’s team earned a $37,500 bonus (per player, with rookies expecting slightly less) for qualifying for a World Cup. On the other hand, top players on the men’s team would have been paid over $108,000 if they managed to qualify. The numbers become more staggering from there once you factor in brand sponsorships, appearance fees for post-match events, and base salaries. The women had to perform twice as well to get close to the income of a men’s team that couldn’t win their way out of a pie-eating contest against a toothless infant. (Not you, Tim Howard, you’re okay.) But now, six years, two medals, one documentary, and several hundred pages of legalese later—here we are.  ACCURATE SIGN IS ACCURATE. (PHOTO BY IRA L. BLACK VIA GETTY IMAGES) I cried when I saw the news Tuesday morning, not because I was joyful and overwhelmed. But because I was so shocked to read it that I literally dropped my phone on my face during my morning Twitter scroll. Like every fan and sportswriter who has followed this story through its nonsensical twists and turns, I am optimistic, but cautiously so. The 28 players who filed suit will have to agree on how to split $22 million in back pay, while an additional $2 million will be placed in a fund to support their post-career ambitions and charities (each player can apply for up to $500,000 from the fund). That money is contingent on the ratification of a new CBA, but that’s a necessary formality; they’ll get their cash. “Once a new CBA has been ratified, the district court will be able to schedule the final approval of this settlement,” The Athletic's Meg Linehan reported. But as any union member knows, the key to pay equity in the long term isn’t a one-time payout; it’s a solid contract that codifies equal pay as a basic standard, an outcome that Hope Solo does not believe is imminent. The plaintiffs in the 2019 case have said on numerous occasions that the fight is about more than just the back pay. It’s about ensuring the women who come after them will never have to go through all of this to get paid what they deserve. On that score, things look promising–but I’m too much of a cynic to call it certain. The Federation is pledging that under the new contract (the current one expires in March), they’ll work with the Player’s Union to establish equal pay between the national teams, and there’s reason to believe they’ll hold true to this promise. Cindy Parlow Cone, the current USSF president, has already made enormous strides in good faith, most notably in December, when the USSF agreed to equal working conditions for the teams. So yes, let’s all celebrate and anticipate a fair contract. But tomorrow, when the confetti is cleared and the hangover lifts, there are still equity battles to fight in the NWSL where Trinity Rodman signed a four year $1 million contract making her the highest-paid player in the league—which is $13 million less than what the 2021 MLS rookie of the year was given just to switch teams. Let’s also not forget the many fights still ahead at the WNBA, a league that has some of the best, most interesting athletes ever to touch a basketball but still gets asked to prove they deserve the financial and media investments the NBA takes for granted. There is still so much to do in the landscape of women’s sports, but what the US Women’s National Team has shown everyone is that it’s possible. It’s not easy, fast, or simple, but it can be done. So to borrow a line from Megan Rapinoe: “Let’s fucking go.”  Shannon Melero is a Bronx-born writer on a mission to establish borough supremacy. She covers pop culture, religion, and sports as one of feminism's final frontiers.  BEFORE YOU GO Do you ever wonder why the US doesn’t provide paid parental leave when some of our global neighbors have already proven it’s possible? Why does it feel like there is a news item about child-care nightmares with parents and teachers clamoring for help every other week? Do you wish someone could give you concrete steps to address these issues without going absolutely nuts? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you’re a) human, and b) officially invited to join us Monday night for a special briefing. With America’s care economy in crisis, it’s time to talk about what’s next in the movement for child care, family leave, and sustainable wages for care providers. Join us on February 28 to find out more. We’ll be joined by SuperMajority Executive Director Amanda Brown Lierman, Caring Across Generations chief of advocacy and campaigns Nicole Jorwic, Marshall Plan for Moms founder Reshma Saujani, and activist, writer, and filmmaker Paola Mendoza.  Thank you for being a friend. We'd love it if you threw a party and invited everyone you knew to read this newsletter. FOLLOW THE METEOR    Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
What book bans are doing to kids
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No images? Click here  February 19, 2022 Cheers to the BookTokers, book worms, book lovers, and even actual books–this newsletter is for you. The subject of book banning is everywhere right now—but for school librarians, it’s more than just a talking point. So in today’s issue, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd spoke to the president of the American Association of School Librarians, Jennisen Lucas, about what it’s like to be on the front lines of this “life-or-death” issue. We’ve also got Suzan Skaar, a rad librarian from Wyoming, with a personal account of what happened after members of the organization Moms for Liberty challenged books in her Cheyenne school district. “The whole country is divided,” she says, “and Wyoming is no exception.” Before we dive into all that, a small favor. We’re new here, and we’d love it if you sent this email to a friend, or three! Or pop it in the group chat. Consider it your good deed of the day. Call us, beep us, if you wanna reach us at [email protected]. —Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ON
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—SM  LIBRARIANS AT WORKWhat Are Book Bans Doing to Kids?“It leads to ‘I’m all alone’ kind of thinking”BY JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD  SOME CLASSIC READS ARE BEING CHALLENGED BY MOMS FOR LIBERTY, A GROUP BENT ON LIMITING THE LIBERTIES OF KIDS WHO JUST WANT TO READ. (PHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES) The image above depicts just a few of the books that have been banned or challenged over the last few years, though today, some are considered cornerstones of American literature. And now in 2022, the censors are back at it, with legislators, school officials, and parents across the country engaged in a new, frenzied effort to ban certain book titles from school libraries. These ban attempts often cite “pornographic material” as their concern, but in reality, work to suppress certain points of view: The book Gender Queer, for instance, an illustrated memoir by nonbinary author Maia Kobabe, has been especially targeted in the last year, as have books like Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, which deals with police brutality, and George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue, about growing up queer and Black. And last month, a Tennessee school board banned Art Spiegelman’s Maus, a canonical graphic novel about the Holocaust, citing cursing and the apparently objectionable nudity of cartoon mice. Many of these challenges have been spearheaded by members of Moms for Liberty, a conservative organization championing “parental rights.” (There is, hearteningly, a counterinsurgency of suburban moms called Book Ban Busters.) And while bans have been most successful in conservative states like Florida and Texas, books have also been challenged in nearly every state in the country, turning typically sleepy school board meetings into hotbeds of right-wing grievance. I spoke with Jennisen Lucas, president of the American Association of School Librarians, an organization on the front lines. Book bans and challenges are happening across the country. What are your broad, bird’s-eye-view thoughts about what’s been going on? Jennisen Lucas: This is, to me, extremely concerning [because] it’s so widespread and so large. At the American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of School Librarians, we’re trying to figure out, “How do we work with this at this huge large scale?” We definitely stand against censorship; we stand for intellectual freedom and the idea that students have the right to decide what they’re reading. [But conservatives] have branded ALA as being a very liberal organization and not somebody that you want to listen to. So how do we motivate people to say that there are definitely a lot of people out there who don’t think that we should be banning books? We tend to go with the idea that parents should be talking to their children about what they’re reading and not whole-scale trying to remove things from them. And then the fact that [the bans are] very specifically targeted: they’re targeting LGBTQ, they are targeting race. So it’s a challenge to erase those voices. And that’s not something that is really good for our constitutional republic. Most of this seems to come from Moms for Liberty, which consists of parents and seems extremely well-funded. It’s definitely a very well-funded and well-organized movement. But they are approaching this as, let’s get people riled up so that they go and talk to their school boards themselves. [The ALA says], Well, you do have rights for your kid, and when a parent comes to a librarian and says, “Hey, I’m concerned that my child should not be reading this,” we back the parent up. That’s their prerogative as a parent. The issue gets much bigger when it’s like, “No. I need that removed because I don’t think any kids should have access to that.” And we’re also being hit with a lot of varying definitions because people are coming in with, “Oh, that’s pornographic.” For most of them, this is normal teenage activity and has been for generations.
When you think about the books that have been banned—books like Gender Queer or The Hate U Give—it seems like they’re not just targeting whatever they think might be salacious material. They’re targeting specific identities in children. What we’re seeing as a national trend is a conflation between “pornography” and LGBTQIA+. Even if there is not any sex at all in the book, [book banners are] still claiming pornography because that’s not what they approve of as a society. Part of [our] concern is that the conversation itself is harmful to our students that identify in any of those categories; that when they’re hearing people say, “Hey, this is pornographic, and this is not acceptable, and this is just disgusting”—and these are some of the words that are coming from parents—that is not good for the mental health of our students. Each of our students needs to be able to see themselves in books and have that representation. It’s extremely important, and personally, to me, this is a life-or-death situation for some of our kids. If they are completely turned off from and denied access to materials like that, it leads to “I’m all alone” kind of thinking, which is a precursor to severe depression and suicidal thoughts. I wanted to ask you about that—I feel like we’re having this national conversation about politics, but the actual students and how they feel are getting lost. I have talked to my students about this, and it’s interesting to watch them get heated up about it. Especially our high school kids, who are preparing for adulthood and are in that situation where today I’m 17 and a minor and tomorrow’s my birthday. You’re at that cusp of legally being able to do all of this stuff on your own. They almost feel micromanaged. But the number of students around the country who are forming banned book clubs who are standing up and speaking at school board meetings—it’s all [types of students, even if they don’t identify as LGBTQ or BIPOC]. Books with LGBTQ content, books talking about race, and the history of race are for all kids. Everybody needs to be able to see that perspective.  Julianne Escobedo Shepherd is a Wyoming-born Xicana journalist and editor who lives in New York. She is currently at work on a book for Penguin about her upbringing and the mythology of the American West.  CHEYENNE, WYOMINGReport from a Red State LibrarianA CONVERSATION WITH SUZAN SKAAR, BY JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD  LET THE TEENS READ! (PHOTO BY JOHN KEEBLE VIA GETTY IMAGES) So how does it feel to be a librarian in one of the schools Jennisen Lucas describes? Suzan Skaar, a librarian at South High School in Cheyenne, Wyoming, knows. Last December, books by two authors—Tiffany D. Jackson and Ellen Hopkins—were challenged in Cheyenne by local members of Moms for Liberty. Though the upset seems to have died down now, it alarmed members of the school district, including teachers and librarians. Skaar talked to us about what it was like to be a school librarian at the center of one of these challenges. The whole country is divided, and Wyoming is no exception. Right now, there are seven certified secondary librarians in Cheyenne—we’re a pretty tight group. [Before the local book challenges], we worked with our new superintendent, and we prepared some information to put on the district homepage about book selection and how you can challenge books, that kind of thing. We’re lucky enough to have a really good board policy around selection and collection development. So we kind of met it head-on, in a very subtle way. What they were specifically challenging was Ellen Hopkins; she writes about issues kids are influenced by or have to deal with in their lives. [Hopkins’ YA novel Traffick focuses on the lives of five teens who escaped sex trafficking.] And, and so for some reason, they picked on her—well, she’s always picked on, she’s probably one of the most likely authors to be challenged. Then they picked up on Tiffany D. Jackson, and I spent Christmas break reading all of her novels. She’s a Black American author who writes about social issues that are really close to more urban-area Black teens, but they’re things that my kids identify with. [They’re so popular that] I can’t keep them on the shelf; I had to actually go read the books from the state app because all of my books were checked out over Christmas.
[After the initial objections at the December board meeting], our superintendent asked us, “So how many of you have had a request for the form to start a challenge process?” And not one of us had received an official challenge from the community. That just makes you wonder: it’s a national trend, but is it just a lot of yelling, or is it really a concern? I don’t believe that in a democracy, this should even be an issue. In Wyoming, we’re a little bit of “live and let live,” you know. “My kids are gonna read what I want them to read, but you can’t influence what my kids read—we all get to do that for ourselves.” I want to tell you something that happened this morning. We had a pep assembly, and we had a bunch of kids that didn’t want to go, so I let them come in here. And one little girl was looking around, and I said, “Can I help you find something?” and she said she wanted to look for a specific mental health disorder. So we went to the catalog, and I showed her how to look for it… and took her to the section. And her eyes strayed from the Mental Health section and went straight to LGBTQ Nonfiction. She said, “Oh my god, do you have this book? Can you have this book in this state?” And I said, “Well, so far, we do. I purchased [it] for our students because there’s a high interest in that topic and a lot of questions.” And she grabbed it—I don’t know if you’ve heard of the book, This Book Is Gay—and she goes, “Forget about the mental health. I’m checking out this one.” I have trust and hope in the generation coming up. They’re more savvy about how to deal with all the information that’s thrown at them.  WE'VE GOT A QUESTION FOR YOUDid you read in school? Of course you did! What's a book you remember reading that might be banned now and what did you get out of reading it? Tell us at [email protected], and we'll feature a few of your responses in a future newsletter. FOLLOW THE METEOR    Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
Still Surviving the White Gaze
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No images? Click here  February 16, 2022 Hello and happy Give Zendaya an Emmy week! In today’s newsletter, a very personal take on race, adoption, and what it means to be let down by those you love. Rebecca Carroll contemplates the year she’s had since first publishing her memoir, Surviving the White Gaze, including the ways her parents reacted to it. If you know any of Rebecca’s work, I don’t need to tell you how moving this essay is; it feels like receiving a gift to be let so intimately into her world. And if you’d like to hear more from Rebecca after reading, she’ll be in conversation with the author Ijeoma Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race) on Twitter Spaces today, February 16, at 6 p.m. EST. Join them here. But first, the news. And as always, if you have questions, comments, or want to tell us how we’re doing, hit us up at [email protected]. —Julianne Escobedo Shepherd  WHAT'S GOING ON
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—JES  ON RACE AND FAMILYStill Surviving the White GazeWhat happened after my memoirBY REBECCA CARROLL  REBECCA CARROLL AND HER FATHER, 1974. (PHOTO COURTESY OF REBECCA CARROLL) A year ago, I published the work I am more proud of than anything I’ve ever written—Surviving the White Gaze, my memoir about growing up as a Black child adopted into a white family, and raised in an all-white, rural New Hampshire town. Every memoir writer knows that mining the truth can be a fraught and risky endeavor, and I certainly anticipated some fallout, hurt feelings, differences in remembrance. I could not have imagined, though, how keenly the response from my family would reflect not merely the truth in the book’s pages, but also the truth of America. My mom called it a gift, until my dad called it an injustice, and then she agreed with him that they should consider hiring a lawyer to sue me. Their accusation: defamation of character. Their issues were not with me writing about the racism I endured during my youth, which went almost entirely unacknowledged within my family, but rather, with how I wrote about them; their unconventional marriage, my father’s ego. (He was upset that I’d included the fact that earlier in my life, I had misguidedly suggested there had been some blurred lines between us; I was wrong and said so in the book, but he still felt it was damaging to his reputation.) I had invited my dad to read the book when it was still in manuscript form, when changes could still be made, but he had declined, which I can’t deny hurt my feelings deeply. We were very close when I was growing up—made countless mixtapes for each other, stayed up watching Late Night with David Letterman together, and shared a love for gallows humor, Swiss-German expressionist artist Paul Klee, the swoony crooning of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, romance languages, and romance in general. I absolutely worshiped him.  REBECCA CARROLL, 1973. (PHOTO COURTESY OF REBECCA CARROLL) When I left for college, we maintained a fiercely dedicated written correspondence, dad’s letters characteristically endless in page count, handwritten in his tiny, exquisite penmanship, detailing his findings in the local swamps and wetlands, his sanctuary, where he still spends hours finding and tracking painted and spotted turtles. But as I got older and grew more into myself as a Black woman, the more it became clear that I no longer fit within the narrative he had created for our relationship, and more broadly speaking, for our entire family. Like many white male artists with outsized egos, my dad created a microcosm with him, the infallible genius and hopeless romantic, at its center, buoyed by the near constant presence and adoration of women. It was a racially segregated space, into which I had been placed through careful, well-intentioned curation. But I didn’t want to be curated into whiteness, idyllic as it may have seemed to my parents and siblings. I wanted to be Black among Blackness. How was this never made available to me? I stopped worshiping and started questioning. And then I started to get angry. Why hadn’t my father tried to connect me with my community?
And, of course, it wasn’t just my dad. My mom sewed me a Black doll and found me a Black dance teacher. But still—my dance teacher was the first Black person I had ever seen in real life. I was six years old. I didn’t go to a Black hair salon until I was 12 years old. My first real Black friend wasn’t until college. My book grappled with those realities—it expressed my love for my parents, but also my anger. It expressed my reality, as lived and experienced by me. And they were outraged. It’s an outrage I’ve come to know too well. In December 2021, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments from state attorneys seeking to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. In her remarks, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, herself the white mother of two Black adopted children from Haiti, suggested that abortion isn’t really even necessary when adoption is right there. I found her remarks hideously cavalier, a callous trivialization of the complexities surrounding adoption, particularly transracial adoption, and the responsibility white parents take when they adopt Black children. I launched a thread on Twitter (as one does) saying so. The thread outlined the ways in which I believe transracial adoption can be seen as representative of the foundational dynamic between Black people and white people in America, which is inherently traumatic. It was retweeted thousands of times, but the backlash was swift.  THE AUTHOR AND HER CHILD. (PHOTO COURTESY OF REBECCA CARROLL) My comments were full of endless fury. One (based on her avi) white woman tweeted: “TRAUMA???? What would the trauma had been if you were still with your birth mother? How the fuck UNGRATEFUL can one person be. Disgusting.” A white guy whose Twitter bio includes “just a dude” wrote: “So the argument is... it’s better for black children to be aborted than adopted by white people? I’m not sure a lot of black children would agree, but, I’m no expert.” Perhaps the most egregious responses came from right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who tweeted: “If it’s ‘enduring trauma’ for you to be adopted by a white family, you might consider that 1. The black patents [sic] that gave birth to you didn’t want you 2. There were evidently no black couples that chose to adopt you. Aren’t you grateful someone did?” Twitter was making it clear: White parents get to decide how a family is made. It’s the very essence of America, where white parents, both figurative (the forefathers) and literal (adoptive parents), have set the standard of everything. And if you are a Black child who is lucky enough to be part of that construct—taken in either from foster care or, in my case, by a handshake agreement between your parents and the white teenage girl who was pregnant with you—well, you had better feel grateful. Imagine presenting what you consider to be your career-best work, an impassioned plea to be seen, only to have your parents condemn it because of bruised egos. Now try to think of one moment throughout history when this same dynamic hasn’t played out similarly, if not exactly, between Black and white America. My parents did not sue me—there were no grounds—but ironically, their threat made me feel more Black than I’d ever felt before. It felt like a reminder that in America, if you are white, you can arbitrarily decide what constitutes an injustice, while threatening to bring law and order down upon anyone who says otherwise—in this case, a Black woman who wrote her story into existence. If not for the support of the family I made and chose, generous reviews, and the overwhelmingly positive response from readers—of all different backgrounds, but in particular Black and biracial transracial adoptees, and other transracial adoptees of color—I might have thought it was all for naught. But they wrote me, in droves. “I feel a little taller, less broken, less angry and grateful to be in this black skin,” wrote one of the adoptee DMs and emails I received. “Thank you for this book...from the whole entireness of my heart. I have to go cry now.” Hard same.  ILLUSTRATION BY IRMGHARD GEHRENBECK Rebecca Carroll is a writer, cultural critic, and podcast creator/host. She is the author of several books, including her recent memoir, Surviving the White Gaze. Rebecca is Editor at Large for The Meteor.  BEFORE YOU GODon't forget to reserve the best seat on your couch for a Twitter Spaces conversation with Rebecca Carroll and Ijeoma Oluo happening today, February 16th, at 6 p.m. EST! We'll be waiting for you right here.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
The deadly act of telling the truth
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No images? Click here  February 11, 2022 This week, it was reported that the Taliban is currently detaining at least nine foreigners in Afghanistan, including two UK journalists who were in Kabul to report for the UN. But we’ve long known about the Taliban’s hostilities toward journalists, especially women journalists—and of course toward women in general. That’s why today’s newsletter feels so urgent. First, Mariane Pearl sits down with the incredible Afghan women behind Rukhshana Media, a news organization that reports on women in Afghanistan and the Taliban government from the ground, at great personal risk. After that, Shannon Melero writes about France’s shameful new ban on hijab in sport and her own experiences as a hijabi athlete. In a week of headlines questioning whether foreign policy can truly be feminist, this edition will convince you that it’s more important than ever. As ever, if you’ve got thoughts—on what you’re reading, or what you’d like to read—we’re all ears: [email protected]. —Julianne Escobedo Shepherd  THE COST OF AN UNTOLD STORYSix Months of the TalibanWhat life is like for women in Afghanistan now—from two journalists fighting to get their stories out BY MARIANE PEARL  A WOMAN AND HER CHILD ON THE ROAD IN KABUL, JANUARY 2022. (PHOTO BY SCOTT PETERSON VIA GETTY IMAGES) Six months ago next Tuesday, Kabul fell to the Taliban, plunging Afghanistan’s citizens, but especially girls and women, into panic and despair. Rukhshana Media is one of the very few woman-run media outlets in the country; its two founders, Zahra Joya and Zahra Nader, now live in exile, working 18 hours a day to ensure coverage of the systematic oppression of women at the hands of the Taliban. I spoke with these extraordinary journalists in late January over Zoom. MP: Rukhshana Media, the news agency you created, is named after a victim of Taliban oppression. Can you tell us about her, and why you started the agency? Zahra Joya: For nine years, prior to creating Rukhshana, I sat in newsrooms, most often the only female to be seen, and saw how much women and girls’ lives were ignored by the media. We had no space, no opportunities to show our worth. Men genuinely believed we couldn’t do the job. So, I founded Rukhshana in 2020 with my own savings to tell our stories, drive change and foster a national dialogue about and with all women in Afghanistan, regardless of ethnicity or religious beliefs. Rukhshana herself was a 19-year-old girl from central Afghanistan who, in 2015, tried to flee an arranged marriage to be with the boy she loved. The Taliban accused her of adultery, dug a hole in the ground, leaving her upper body out, and stoned her to death. I chose her name so that each time we pronounce it we honor her—and fight against the risk of oblivion. Zahra Nader: My biggest fear is that young women who are taught history in the future will say, “I can’t believe there were once female journalists in our country.” There are only 100 female journalists left in Afghanistan (out of 700 before last August). You have reporters working inside Afghanistan and rely on volunteers. Can you explain how people bring stories to you? And are they in danger? ZN: They are not quite volunteers because we insist on paying our collaborators. Women have lost their jobs [since the Taliban took over], so this is also a way of encouraging them to join us and speak out. Some of the women now working with us are not journalists; they were students or teachers, so we train them on the job. ZJ: Right now, we have four female journalists and two men inside Afghanistan. We are looking for someone to cover the Eastern region, but the situation there is beyond control. Despite the danger, our reporters are doing remarkable work. In February alone, they wrote about two abducted women’s rights activists, the ban on women’s voices and music, and how former security forces fear being hunted down when applying for passports, among other critical reporting. We are constantly tracking our collaborators, making sure they are okay, but we don’t want them to take risks. Journalists themselves need to decide. No story is worth a human life, but the cost of an untold story is also very high. ZN: If we need to contact Taliban officials for comment, we do it exclusively from abroad. One time, I made such a call, and the next day, two women contacted me, pretending they needed help; these calls came from the Taliban trying to measure my vulnerabilities.
Afghanistan has one of the youngest populations on earth, with 63% of its people under the age of 25, meaning most Afghans don’t remember what life was like under the Taliban, which held power over roughly three-quarters of the country from 1996 to 2001. Do you have any memories of life under Taliban rule? ZJ: I was nine when the Taliban left. In order to go to school, I had been dressing up as a boy and called myself Mohammad. The ’90s were particularly harrowing for women. Now at least we have platforms, social media, and networks. They didn’t have any of that then. My mother told me there was no bread on the table. They didn’t even know that there were doctors and clinics that could save their lives. ZN: When the Taliban came the first time around, I moved to Iran, where I wasn’t allowed to go to school [because I was a refugee]. The concept of home became a very big deal. The day my parents told me we were going back was the best of my life. I went to school and held my head high. To me, school meant change—the Taliban were in history books, a mere nightmare from the past. We were a generation that was going to change this country for the best. Where were you last August, when the Taliban took Kabul? ZJ: That first day, I went to the office as usual, but my colleagues told me to leave immediately, so I went back home. The only thing I was able to grab was my diary. I was evacuated to London three days after the takeover. I lost everything. ZN: I was working on a story about women’s reactions to the Taliban. Suddenly on television, I saw one entering the presidential palace in Kabul. I knew they were coming, but that image brought it home. I didn’t think it would happen so fast. I sat there just crying. It wasn’t only the fall of a country I was witnessing; it was the death of the hopes of my generation. The Hazara community to which you both belong is being specifically persecuted by the Taliban. What do we know about Hazara women and what is happening to them? ZJ: We have always been discriminated against. Many Afghans believe that we don’t belong there as we are mostly Shia Muslims, and the majority [of Afghans are] from the Sunni sect of Islam. And if you are a Hazara woman, you are buried under several more layers of discrimination between your ethnicity and your gender. Yet, as journalists, we are very conscious about not letting labels and nationalism prevent us from representing all women.  RUKHSHANA CO-FOUNDER ZAHRA JOYA. (PHOTO COURTESY OF ZAHRA JOYA) The Taliban promised to respect women’s rights “according to Islam.” But “according to Islam” is a vague, and in this case threatening, formulation, as the interpretation of the Quran is complex and varies widely depending on the individual. ZN: In May 2021, I asked the Taliban to define what they considered women’s rights. Every Muslim country has its own interpretation of how women should live. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran—they are all different. The Taliban never answered the question or defined anything. But they are slowly pursuing their agenda and imposing a very narrow interpretation of Islam. The word “misogyny” lacks the power to represent their ideology towards women. One of the first Taliban decrees stated that “women are human beings.” They actually had to wonder about that. How at-risk are the women who were most visible during the last 20 years? Journalists, of course, but also women working in the armed forces, as lawyers or activists? ZN: Rukhshana is doing everything we can to answer that question. We hear about so many stories of women being killed but often we can’t run them because we can’t reach anybody to confirm the facts. When we can talk to the family, friends or relatives, we reach out to the Taliban and they simply deny responsibility: They say these women have died because of family feuds. How is it possible that so many public, visible women are suddenly all dying from family feuds? It’s so easy for Talibans to find and execute these targeted women. All the public data, fingerprints, census and personal information are in their hands now.
In January 2022, a delegation of Taliban was hosted in Oslo to speak with world representatives. Officially, the meeting was to address the economic crisis, but activists see that meeting as a first step towards legitimizing the Taliban government. What do you think? ZN: When we challenge the fact that the Taliban should not be invited to the world table, we are told that Afghanistan has too many problems. That we should resolve the economic crisis first, then we can talk about women. But how do you resolve starvation if half of the country is under house arrest? I was saddened by the lack of protests from the Norwegian people, who ultimately paid for the expenses of that meeting. How can the international community help Afghan women? ZJ: The best way is to put pressure on your governments, to tell the world that you disagree with what is happening. Ultimately, this is about all women and the way we can be treated when men are at their worst. Show what you stand for, challenge inertia. Another way is to support Afghan women who are now outside the country. You can help them help us.  PHOTO BY JUAN LEMUS Mariane Pearl is an award-winning journalist and writer who works in English, French, and Spanish. She is the author of the books A Mighty Heart and In Search of Hope.  WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON
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—JES  HATERS GONNA HATEThe French government makes another move in its battle against hijab BY SHANNON MELERO  FRENCH WOMEN'S SOCCER TEAM, LES HIJABEUSES, PROTESTING THE HIJAB BAN AT JARDIN DU LUXEMBOURG (SCREEN GRAB VIA LE PARISIEN) “How are you going to do all of that with that,” a doctor once asked me during a visit. The that she was referring to was my hijab, and the all of that was a Spartan race I was participating in that fall. In my short life as a hijabi, it was the first time I had considered whether my choice would hinder my athletic pursuits. I shrugged and said, “I think they have sports hijabs online.” It seemed like a simple enough solution, and my appointment carried on as usual, with my doctor telling me to bring my medal to our next visit. As I soon discovered, the intersection of hijab and activewear was a hotbed of debate—not just from consumers who found fault in nearly every product but from entire governments who sought to legislate against hijab in sport, all in the name of women’s liberation. It turned out that it wouldn’t be my hijab hindering me, but global ignorance, manifesting itself in an obsession with a small piece of fabric that some women choose to place or not place over their hair. That ignorance has steadily grown since my days of obstacle course racing. Just three weeks ago, the French government voted to ban hijab wearing in sports competitions to assert “neutrality” on the field. Technically, “all conspicuous religious symbols” like yarmulkes or turbans would fall under this ban, but given France’s history of hostility toward Muslims, the rule was clearly targeted. Just last year, the government limited the religious freedoms of over 5 million Muslim and immigrant citizens by placing strict regulations on homeschooling, the finances of religious organizations, and strengthening France’s “neutrality principle,” which “prohibits civil servants from wearing religious symbols like the Muslim hijab and voicing political views.”  THE AUTHOR, IN HER PRIME, TWO SECONDS BEFORE SHE FELL INTO A MUD PUDDLE. (IMAGE COURTESY OF SHANNON MELERO) This latest affront to hijab in sport is particularly unsettling considering the political climate of the Olympics. This year, an Uyghur athlete, Dinigeer Yilamujiang, lit the Olympic flame in Beijing, despite the Chinese government being accused of carrying out human rights violations against the Uyghur Muslim population, equivalent to “a campaign of genocide.” The 2024 Summer Olympics, to be held in Paris, will have its own issues, as sporting authorities decide how the country’s ban will affect international competitors. But even without an Olympics looming, the ban is symptomatic of the lingering mistrust of Islam in predominantly Judeo-Christian nations that believe themselves too superior to fall into the trap of theocracy. It’s all infuriating. The choice to do anything in hijab–go to work, play a sport, draw breath–opens the wearer up to an endless stream of vitriol. Hardened athletes like English boxer Safiyyah Syeed and Olympic bronze medalist Ibtihaj Muhammad manage to soldier on with fearlessness and hijabs that don’t slip. (How!?) But when I think of these laws, I think of the millions of women who will have to consider leaving their club or school teams—women who just want to play the game. I never bought that sport hijab. Partly for personal reasons pertaining to where I was with my faith at the time and because I was experiencing some hearing loss. The sport hijabs available at the time would have covered my ears, making it harder to be aware of any fellow racers trying to pass me on uneven terrain. I finished that Spartan race in what my friends jokingly called hijab-lite–everything covered but my hair. By the end of it, I felt like I had climbed a mountain (I had) and didn’t give a second thought to what wasn’t on my head. As for the hijabis I met up with later in the week, they didn’t care either; they wanted to see the medal.  A previous version of this newsletter stated the Taliban held power in Afghanistan from 1986-2001. In fact, it was 1996-2001. We regret the error.
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The Great Unionization
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No images? Click here  February 9, 2022 Is it hot in your inbox or are you just happy to see us? Today we’re bringing fire-emoji-worthy content from Esther Wang, who interviews Association of Flight Attendants president Sara Nelson about the shifting tides in the labor movement, plus the joy of saying the word “strike.” Then, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd talks to journalist Dahlia Lithwick about the recent SCOTUS vote on Alabama’s congressional map, and what that means for the future of the Voting Rights Act. I’ll give you a spoiler since we’re all friends here: it’s not good! But on the bright side, Lithwick also predicts a great new justice. If you want to tell us how we’re doing, how you’re doing, or even what shows you’re watching, drop us a line at [email protected]. —Shannon Melero  ON LABORThe Great UnionizationWhy Flight Attendants Union President Sara Nelson is the labor leader we needBY ESTHER WANG  THE GREAT SARA NELSON. (PHOTO BY TOM WILLIAMS VIA GETTY IMAGES) Sara Nelson, the charismatic head of the nation’s largest flight attendants’ union, loves the word “strike.” During our 50-minute conversation recently, Nelson, who’s often described as America’s “most prominent labor leader,” used the term no less than a dozen times. It’s fitting, as it was her invocation of a general strike, uttered in January 2019 during a speech that subsequently went viral, that helped to end Donald Trump’s government shutdown. “Strike, strike, strike, strike, strike, strike, strike. Say it—it feels good,” she once proclaimed in the New York Times. A strike is a reminder of the ultimate power that workers possess—the power to withhold their labor and their time. In embracing it, Nelson is a bit of a throwback, and maybe also a figurehead that the U.S. labor movement needs in this particular moment. Her industry needs her too. Flight attendants have been on the frontlines of the pandemic, and subject to shocking levels of abuse and at times physical violence from irate passengers. Last year saw a 500 percent increase in the number of violent incidents on airplanes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. In May 2021, to cite just one example, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant was punched by a woman after she asked her to put on her mask and follow other safety procedures. And airline executives have only made the lives of flight attendants more miserable, furloughing and laying off staff disproportionately, and pushing to reinstitute alcohol sales on planes. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA began a union drive at Delta shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, but it picked up steam in December 2021 after the airline publicly pushed the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to reduce its recommended quarantine period for people with breakthrough infections—a move that Nelson described as “brazenly choosing the economy over workers’ lives.” She and the AFA-CWA immediately went on a media blitz. “This wasn’t just about being critical of the CDC and Delta,” which had pressed the CDC for the change, Nelson said. “This was about being as loud as we could” to “spread the word to workers everywhere and get it into everyone’s consciousness—do not force people to come back to work.” As for Delta, the company eventually budged, amending its original policy in response to the union’s criticism. “They didn’t give us credit for that, but they changed their policy,” Nelson said, more than a hint of satisfaction in her voice.  NELSON AND MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS FIGHTING FOR COVID RELIEF PACKAGES IN 2020. (PHOTO BY BILL CLARK VIA GETTY IMAGES) Flight attendants aren’t alone in their demands for the safer workplaces and fairer pay that they—and all of us—deserve. Workers across industries are increasingly fed up, fueled by the indignity of being pandered to as “essential workers” even as they were being thrown to the wolves. During the pandemic, “what we saw was a consistent view of workers being disposable,” Nelson said. “And so now workers are like, listen, it’s not just that there’s all this inequality,” she said. “You don’t even give a damn about our lives. You don't care if we live or die.” To Nelson, there is “a recognition that nothing is going to change if we don't change it collectively.” This, she says, explains why support for unions is at its highest point in decades, and the flurry of unionization drives at Starbucks stores and Amazon warehouses. “Workers are saying, ‘Wow, the only way to take on someone who could be a trillionaire—and who leaves the rest of us with a burning Earth as he shoots off to Mars—is to organize in our workplace,’” Nelson said. That’s the hope, at least. What has been dubbed the “Great Resignation”—a turn of phrase that neatly captures the mood of millions of Americans—is less a mass movement than a whole lot of individuals fed up and finding better jobs. But while workers may have a little more negotiating power now, that can change quickly. (Better pay and benefits, as anyone who has been sexually harassed on the job knows, are not the only markers of a decent workplace.) “The only way these gains are lasting is if we organize in the millions,” Nelson told me.
I asked Nelson what she would tell someone who wanted to bring that Norma Rae spirit to her own job—a working mom, for example—but was unsure where to begin. “Join unions, run unions. It’s that simple,” she said. If your workplace isn’t unionized? “Figure out how to organize one.” Easier said than done, but Nelson, who began her career as a flight attendant in 1996 before becoming the president of her union in 2014, is keenly aware of how unions can transform the lives of women. She recalled going to the White House in 2012 for a forum on women and the economy, where much of the discussion centered on closing the gender wage gap. At one point, she raised her hand to speak. “And I said, ‘You know, we’ve talked about the wage gap all morning. But why have we not talked about the one thing that would immediately close the wage gap and give women power in their workplace and give women power to actually collectively bargain, and bargain for their worth together? Why have we not talked about making it easier for women to join unions?’” According to Nelson, silence ensued. “And the moderator waited a minute, and then just called on someone else. And that was it.” A lot has changed in the decade since. Fast-food workers are organizing for a union not just to raise their wages, but to combat pervasive sexual harassment. In June, Nelson may challenge current AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler for the federation’s top job. (“That's something that feels like a real calling and a duty,” she told me when I asked, declining to give a definitive answer.) And in the meantime, she says she loves the work. “I just have to share with you that my day started off right today, because the first thing that I got was a picture of Delta flight attendants over at the Starbucks in Atlanta, where they’re organizing,” Nelson told me, her voice cracking with emotion. The name one of the flight attendants gave the barista for her order? “Solidarity.”  Esther Wang is a New York City-based writer who covers social movements, immigrant communities, and the intersection of culture and politics.  WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON
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 PACK THE COURTS IS THE NEW UNICORNA Few Important SCOTUS Questions For Dahlia LithwickThat Merrill ruling, your next justice, and moreBY JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD  SAY CHEESE, WE'RE DISMANTLING DEMOCRACY! (PHOTO BY ERIN SCHAFF VIA GETTY IMAGES) Dahlia Lithwick is a brilliant lawyer and writer best known for her columns and podcast at Slate, which analyze the state of the law in the United States and Canada. She is an extreme genius, to me, in that she makes often-boring legalese legible, and that is a crucial skill right now, especially with a right-wing supermajority and a brewing war over who President Biden might choose to replace Justice Stephen Breyer. (For more on that, read Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern on the double standard applied to the presumptive Black women nominees.) On Monday, SCOTUS issued a stay in Merrill v. Milligan, a decision which seemed to greenlight racist gerrymandering of Congressional voting districts, in Alabama and beyond. I had questions for Lithwick; she made me 100% more informed if 85% more depressed. JES: Does the Merrill order set the stage for the decimation of the remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act countrywide? DL: In one sense it’s hard to know what the Merrill order does or does not do to what remains of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), because there is no actual order or reasoning offered. We quite literally have a stay—meaning that the District Court’s ruling [which would have put a stop to the gerrymandered maps] is halted, and a decision to hear the case.... someday. But there’s no new law. That is different from saying there are no legal consequences. The voters are stuck with the gerrymandered map. Now there’s a weird concurrence signed only by Justices Kavanaugh and Alito explaining, in a shadow docket order, why there is nothing wrong with shadow docket orders. Then Kavanaugh really does make some new law by insisting it’s too close to the next election to draw new maps…But it’s not all that close to the election. Which at least seems to suggest that from now on, it will always be too close to the next election to challenge a map…and it will be impossible to bring VRA cases if there’s an election even a year away. The entirety of my Twitter timeline seems to think the solution to SCOTUS’s hyper-conservative majority, is to pack the courts—for Biden to expand SCOTUS from 9 to 13 justices. What do you think, and is packing the courts really that easy to do? Um, yeah. Pack the Courts is the new Unicorn. If folks really wanted to press this issue the time to do it was a year ago, when Biden set up a commission to examine (but not make recommendations on) the issue. Nobody did. The commission finally issued a report that didn’t push court reform. For Biden’s purposes, the issue is resolved. It would require massive organizing and messaging and work to do structural court reform, and we can’t even reauthorize the VRA. I agree that court reform is likely the only solution, but it almost ended FDR’s presidency and other than a handful of Senators and Congressmen who have started to push for it in earnest, I think we missed the moment. I say none of this with satisfaction. It’s just a huge, huge lift that needed to happen a year ago. Who do you think is Biden’s most likely nominee to replace Justice Breyer? My money is still on D.C. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson because she only just got confirmed last year and garnered three GOP votes. I think that is the easiest path to get something akin to bipartisan support in this Senate, and I think that will be appealing this close to the midterms. She’s a terrific nominee, as are most of the women on the various shortlists. It’s thrilling to see. Listen to Lithwick’s podcast, Amicus, here.  THE METEOR RECOMMENDS Before you go, here’s a movie rec from Ayesha Johnson, director of operations at The Meteor. When she’s not busy directing all of the operations, she’s watching The Fallout on HBO Max. Take it away, Ayesha!  JENNA ORTEGA DELIVERS A HEARTWRENCHING PERFORMANCE IN THE FALLOUT. (PHOTO COURTESY OF WARNER MEDIA/HBO MAX) Opening with high schooler Vada Cavell (played by Jenna Ortega) brushing her teeth half-asleep and drooling with toothpaste as her younger sister busts through the bathroom door, The Fallout captivated me with its nuance, as it depicts a journey of loss and healing after a school shooting. This is Megan Park’s screenwriting and directorial debut, and I think she’s especially good at exploring relationships—with yourself, among friends, between parent and child, and between sisters. Park’s thoughtfulness enriches each character. The music, composed by Billie Eilish’s go-to producer (and brother) FINNEAS, adapts with the film’s tone, so slight in its shifts that it’s reminiscent of Labrinth’s score for Euphoria's first season. I won’t give away too much of what happens, but I’m sure you’re going to sit with this film, long after its end. —Ayesha Johnson  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Wednesdays and Saturdays. |
NOT just like that
NEWSLETTER
Greetings and salutations, my newsletter comrades. We’ve made it to the end of the first week of Figureskatuary—the proper name for a February where there’s a Winter Olympics—and time is flying faster than Nathan Chen’s mid-quad lutz.
The big story today is all about the cultural event that was And Just Like That…, which our resident expert Julianne Escobedo Shepherd took to task for its accurate and awkward portrayal of white liberal women trying to be cool. (Desus Nice, if you’re reading this, we challenge you to a battle of the SATC superfans at dusk.) Also on the docket today, an uplifting story about a boat, a divorced couple, and how women and men choose to spend their money.
If you want to let us know how we’re doing, or simply share your feelings about how Steve from And Just Like That deserves better, send us an email at [email protected]. (All anti-Steve opinions will be immediately marked as spam.) -Shannon Melero
WHAT'S GOING ON
- On Thursday the Biden administration took an unwarranted victory lap in announcing the death of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of ISIS, along with 13 Syrian civilians, including children. The deaths were caused by an explosion, triggered by al-Qurayshi, shortly after U.S troops began the raid. The administration is framing this as a win in the war on terror, yet this exact scenario played out in 2019 with former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, and still, ISIS continues. “The conditions which gave rise to ISIS … in the region are far from gone, as Syrian grievances are not only unaddressed but continue to increase,” explained Jomana Qaddour, a member of the Syrian Constitutional Committee under the United Nations. “The group’s ideological teachings remain accessible among the population.” Perhaps it’s time to employ less medieval tactics.
- Four people have been arrested in connection with the death of actor Michael K. Williams, who died of a drug overdose last year. (One of the suspects is accused of selling Williams fentanyl-laced heroin; the other three were arrested on conspiracy charges related to the sale of the drugs.) The problem the arrests take aim at is real: In 2020, New York City saw over 1500 deaths as a direct result of fentanyl lacing in party drugs and prescription pills. The frustration is that the city continues to prioritize its war-on-drugs stance over harm-reduction programs like distributing free test strips or clean syringes—which research shows have largely benefitted Latinx people, who have been disproportionately affected by overdose deaths.
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- Pope Francis gave a rousing speech encouraging nuns to “fight when, in some cases, they are treated unfairly, even within the Church.” If only there were some sort of leader of the entire Catholic world who could help prevent the mistreatment of nuns.
THE POPE PRAYING THAT SOMEONE, ANYONE, SOLVES THE SEXISM PROBLEM IN THE CHURCH. (PHOTO BY POOL VIA GETTY IMAGES)
- South Dakota has blocked a bill that would have banned nearly all abortions in the state. But Pennsylvania is still considering a constitutional amendment that removes the right to abortion even in cases of rape and incest.
- Rudy Giuliani was on the Masked Singer??? Two of the show’s judges, Ken Jeong and He Who Shall Not Be Named, walked off the set in protest.
- Nancy Pelosi went full Neo, dodging bullets after a reporter asked if she supported White House staffers looking to unionize. Nance, do you like unions? Check yes or check no.
- This resistance song from María José Monitjo is on repeat until further notice.
CRITICAL EYES
Who Was And Just Like That… For?
The uneasy resurrection of Sex and the City in a more inclusive television landscape
BY JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD
Sex and the City first aired in 1998, in the middle of feminism’s third wave. A comedy about four white women navigating the New York dating world as well as their successful careers, its depiction of their sexual agency was a cherry on top of a decade that sought in part to free women from the archaic vagaries of slut-shaming and double standards. It was, of course, a massive, culture-defining hit, with the sex themes almost secondary to the exploration of the characters’ friendships with each other. But any gestures at feminism it made were decidedly pop: its sexual liberation sometimes veered into the shallow, and its characters’ seemingly endless access to wealth was not only fantastical (Carrie’s questionable salary remains a topic of contention 20 years later) but often grotesque. In other words: it presaged the rise of the girlbosses, maybe even set the stage for them.
But one of the biggest other criticisms about Sex and the City during its six-year run was that it portrayed one of the most racially and ethnically diverse cities in the world as flat and white, casting only two nonwhite recurring characters through the series—played by star actors Blair Underwood and Sônia Braga—and writing them as cardboard stereotypes. This mattered, especially at the time, because it reflected the state of roles offered to actors of color on popular shows—or at least, shows that received bigger budgets than, say, Girlfriends—even though surely one of television’s boldest and most lauded series could have used its setting to portray a broader range. (Wealthy people of color exist!) When creators Darren Starr and Michael Patrick King tried to remedy this with the films, it somehow got even worse: Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson was cast as Carrie’s assistant in the first go-round, and the sequel… well, setting most of it in Abu Dhabi gave King the opportunity to throw in a whole bunch of racist stereotypes we’re better off not rehashing.
“Sex and the City presaged the rise of girlbosses, maybe even set the stage for them.”
A lot has happened in the 12 years since Sex and the City 2—three Presidential elections, Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter, #OscarsSoWhite. And so for And Just Like That…, King tried to meet the demands of the moment. To support this effort, AJLT employed a more diverse writers room and actors—including standouts Sarita Choudhury, Nicole Ari Parker, Bobby Lee, Karen Pittman, Hari Nef, and, yes, Sara “Che Diaz” Ramirez—to portray the main cast’s expanding network of friends and colleagues. This shift resulted in a slightly more inclusive depiction of Carrie and the gang’s orbit, from one-percenters to dirtbag podcasters alike, that’s been widely viewed as the height of cringe, full of tokenism, tonal misguidance, and implausible scenarios. (Most of the people in my life describe this show as a “hate-watch.”) The way Carrie and the gang relate to these characters is realistically awkward: they behave the way a lot of older liberal white women do while trying to grapple with their workplace DEI initiatives. But did we really want the person who gave us three hours’ worth of a masterclass in Orientalism attempting to flesh out characters of color? The prospect of this endeavor was awkward from the jump.
That tension—its stab at realism versus its sensibility to keep things out of reach—is partly what made And Just Like That… so ridiculous, but also such a wellspring of conversation. Ten episodes in, I personally will tell anyone who will listen about my beef with one plotline: Would Pittman’s Dr. Nya Wallace really befriend Miranda after she racistly microaggressed her in front of everyone on the first day of class? Unlikely. But if so, would she really be confiding in Miranda about her struggles with IVF? I mean, that is her student!
“Seeing the Light,” the finale which aired Thursday, wraps up the season’s two main plotlines: How Carrie might carry on after Mr. Big croaked on a Peloton, and whether Miranda and her nonbinary partner Che would actually continue their relationship, despite Che clearly being a player. These are tropes of vintage SATC (love, amirite!) but they hone in on the show’s most salient point: how lives evolve with age, how loss and grief affect the show’s central characters now that they’re in their 50s. The show ended on a typically absurd note—with the protagonist dumping her late husband’s ashes off the Pont des Arts bridge while wearing Aquazurra stilettos after a hip surgery. But it was also sweet, a sign that life will go on however it does.
Sex and the City’s perspective on cultural and sexual freedom took on higher stakes because of the era in which it aired. But today we can choose from a wider selection of feminist-minded shows depicting fully developed characters of color, including I May Destroy You, Gentefied, Never Have I Ever and the ebullient Insecure. The stakes for And Just Like That… were lower; in the streaming era, it isn’t the only game in town. So it begs the question: with its uneasy approach to progressivism and token friends of color who was this show even for?
Well, girl, me, I guess, because I watched every single episode, despite it all.
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd is a Wyoming-born Xicana journalist and editor who lives in New York. She is currently at work on a book for Penguin about her upbringing and the mythology of the American West.
WIN SOME
If You’re Rich, Consider Being a MacKenzie Scott
And even if you’re not!
BY JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD
This week, while supervillain Jeff Bezos was making the city of Rotterdam consider dismantling a 95-year-old bridge so he can drive his too-tall, $500 million overcompensation yacht through the River Nieuwe Maas, his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott was busy being the benevolent donor she’s established herself to be. Yes, just as working-class Dutch people were organizing an egg-throwing protest of Bezos’s display of wealth, the nonprofit Communities in School (CIS) announced that Scott had endowed them with $133.5 million—their biggest donation in history—to help further their mission of supporting and educating at-risk students in 2900 schools across the country.
Per usual, Scott did not announce the gift herself—she is mostly quiet about her donations, which have totaled $8 billion, and have gone to HBCUs and tribal colleges, food bank and cash card programs in Puerto Rico, and COVID relief across the country. Instead, the news came from CIS itself. “This unrestricted gift allows us to combat the inequities in public education and reimagine the way schools operate and show up for all students,” CIS president Rey Saldaña said in a press release. This work includes one-on-one relationships, food, housing, and access to remote education—crucial in the pandemic, considering the wide learning gap in online school for low-income students. “This call came out of nowhere,” Saldaña, who himself attended a CIS program, said on CBS Mornings.
Meanwhile, this ex-couple seems to be in line with current data about giving: women are more likely to donate to charity than men, particularly as their income rises, according to a 2015 study by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute. Bezos, who’s earned his billions by exploiting labor, monopolizing the book industry, and, you know, helping to destroy the planet—has only donated about one percent of his wealth, whereas Scott has donated 16% of hers (and counting).
In Scott’s own words: “Each unique expression of generosity will have value far beyond what we can imagine or live to see.”
Who gets to be glorious?
NEWSLETTER
Hello and hope you’re doing great on this palindromic date. Numerology is not really my bag, but something about 2.2.22 feels fortuitous, like making a wish on an eyelash. Plus, it’s the second day of Black History Month, honoring Black Health and Wellness; and Sen. Cory Booker has brought Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s African American History Act, which would invest monetarily in African American history programs, to the Senate floor.
Today in the newsletter: on the eve of the Winter Olympics in Beijing—figure skaaaaatingggg, yesss—we’ve got author and former Olympian Casey Legler writing about why the rules and conversations around trans athletes must change (and are riddled with, what’s the word, bullshit). Also in this edition: Shannon Melero on her new favorite TV show, Abbott Elementary!
As ever, if you’d like to chat (or disagree) with us, drop us a line at [email protected]. —Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
DOUBLE STANDARDS
“Who Gets to Be Glorious?”
As a former Olympian, I’m not buying the “level playing field” arguments against trans athletes.
BY CASEY LEGLER
Last week, when asked about the University of Pennsylvania’s phenom trans swimmer Lia Thomas, the equally legendary swimmer Michael Phelps inputted, very unhelpfully, that in an effort to strive to make sports “a level playing field” the NCAA should intervene—and it did. The organization announced a major change to its transgender participation policy, which effectively forces trans athletes to prove they don’t have an unfair advantage, and makes it increasingly prohibitive for them to compete.
If the consequences weren’t so immediate and dire, I’d still be laughing at the irony of this statement coming from the mouth of the most decorated Olympian of all time—a comment displaying an extraordinary lack of insight into his own career. There was absolutely nothing “level” about the playing field when Phelps first began medaling on the Olympic pool deck in 2008, and that is exactly what made him fun to watch: he dominated. His extraordinary physicality and accomplishments were a gift to swimming. But how we talk about athletes, and who is “allowed” to be exceptional and who isn’t, is a real problem in sports—with real-life consequences on the ground.
The challenges to women and girl athletes who defy “normative” protocol—which is to say, hetero, cis, and white—are endless. In 1998, when ice figure skater Surya Bonaly became the first and only Olympian to perform a backflip landing on one blade, the judges penalized her for an illegal jump. While Shaquille O’Neal was celebrated for being a domineering player on the basketball court, Brittney Griner, as a young 22-year-old in the WNBA, was scrutinized, bullied, and genuinely asked to explain herself for exhibiting a similar physical playing style. In my own experience as an Olympic swimmer in the 1990s, my fellow showy sprinter Gary Hall Jr. was labeled an intuitive and intelligent competitor, albeit eccentric—whereas I was marked as irreverent, difficult, and unpredictable.
Phelps himself has benefited from an “unfair advantage” over his competitors: a naturally occurring ability to generate half the lactic acid normally produced at effort. Lactic acid is the chemical that impedes recovery, and Phelps’s lower levels have enabled his awesome ability to swim multiple races in one day and break records in all of them. He wasn’t questioned for that genetic anomaly; he was celebrated for it. But South African gold medalist Caster Semenya met a different reception to her own naturally occurring genetic advantages, including literal policing from the IOC about which races she could and could not run and a requirement that she take medication to lower her testosterone to, you guessed it, even the playing field.
These double standards have devastating consequences—not just for athletes like Semenya or Thomas, but for the kid down the street who just wants to play sports. These rules at the elite level inform club-level rules, or school policies; when we’re legislating against an individual like Lia Thomas, we’re also legislating who’s allowed to play on the Tiny Tots baseball team. That’s the antithesis of what sport has to offer.
And if you’re wondering how exactly these double standards persist—well, look at who runs our top teams. The head coaches of the current U.S. swim team are two women and seven men—and that leads to a general acceptance of inequities. When this is the make-up of the coaching staff, after all, it’s no surprise that procedures like skinfold tests (an athletically irrelevant test to measure fat, mostly on the bodies of women and girls) have been allowed to continue for decades. Other countries have moved to make their governing bodies more representative: In fact, this year, after an inquiry initiated by complaints from female athletes, Swim Australia mandated a required quota for female coaches; USA Swimming has no such equivalent. (It took until 2015 for the organization to mandate 20% representation of athletes on its board of directors—so much for “Nothing about us without us.”)
That regulation without representation means that in general, the heavy burden of advocating for their physical and mental health falls on the shoulders of athletes themselves—especially women, girls, trans and nonbinary competitors. But that’s in keeping with the general trend in sports, in which the adults leave the room, and change tends to come only through outside pressure, often by athletes who are young adults or children. It took Oregon basketball star Sedona Prince’s viral video of the measly weight rack at the 2021 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament to extract a promise to rectify the disparity. And in a more extreme example, it took Rachael Denhollander, a former gymnast who was abused by Larry Nassar, to become a lawyer, and then bring a case against him, for that prolific abuser to finally meet his deserved demise.
The red herring of “controversies” around athletes like Lia Thomas distract us from the real problems the sports world needs to fix.
The solutions, if you ask me and other former athletes, are clear: Governing bodies should mandate equity between coaches across genders, in addition to installing an athlete on each team whose sole responsibility is to oversee the advocacy of the athletes (many of whom are still minors). And we shouldn’t let the red herring of “controversies” around athletes like Lia Thomas distract us from these very real problems the sports world needs to fix.
As for those athletes? Let them be special. Most of us will just never be part of the 0.01% of athletes who make up professional sports, and the reason we enjoy watching them is because they allow us to be transported, inspired, and entertained by their anomalous talent and rigor.
Talking about a “level playing field” when you’re talking about elite athletes misses the point. Elite competitors have always dazzled us with their exceptionalism and their wild feats of physicality, and we shouldn’t get to pick and choose who’s allowed to be that glorious.
Casey Legler is a reformed bad-boy, Olympian, New York Times-featured author, activist, and ground-breaking nonbinary model. Legler is the author of the best-selling memoir Godspeed.
WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING
- Whoopi Goldberg has been suspended for two weeks for saying that the Holocaust wasn’t about “race” but instead about “man’s inhumanity to man.” While her comments displayed her ignorance about the racialized way the Nazis regarded Jews and Roma (Hitler was notoriously influenced by indigenous genocide and slavery in the U.S.), she tried to explain on Colbert that she didn’t make them maliciously—and went on to acknowledge that yes, “it is indeed about race.” But there’s an obvious double standard here, since Meghan McCain was allowed to make absurd, racist statements with no discipline. Whoopi is better educated now. Is Meghan?
- A series of bomb threats affected at least 17 HBCUs on the first day of Black History Month, resulting in schools across the country shutting down for investigations. Though no explosives have been found, the threats impinge upon the mental health of students, and drain college resources—which, of course, is part of the point. As Saigan Boyd, a 19-year-old Spelman student, told CNN, “I’m just tired of being terrorized like how my grandparents were.” If you’d like to donate to HBCU scholarship funds, you can do so at the HBCU Foundation or the UNCF.
AND:
- Robin Herman, who was hired in 1973 as The New York Times’s first woman sports reporter and was the first woman journalist allowed to report from a pro men’s locker room, has died. Of the backlash she received for simply doing her job, she once wrote: “I found myself forced to muster Supreme Court-worthy arguments for an inane, essentially logistical problem that could easily have been solved by a few big towels.”
- The Linda Lindas, the teen punk band which went viral for their great song “Racist Sexist Boy,” is releasing their first album, and with it comes a delightful new video for a new jam called “Growing Up.” It features lots of cats.
WHAT WE'RE WATCHING
I Wish I Attended Abbott Elementary
BY SHANNON MELERO
So! You’re all caught up on Succession and that third rewatch of Girlfriends just isn’t hitting the way it used to (call me crazy but I would not want to be friends with Miss Joan Clayton, Esq.). Well, as one pop culture icon said many, many years ago, I bring tidings of great joy. The top comedy of the winter isn’t premiering on yet another streaming service–it’s on network television.
Abbott Elementary—created by Quinta Brunson, who basically invented Internet comedy and who you might know from A Black Lady Sketch Show—is a delightful series that follows a group of teachers at a public school in Philadelphia. Filmed in a style similar to The Office, Brunson stars as Janine Teagues, a young, slightly naive, second-grade teacher working against a crumbling school system and an unqualified, apathetic principal. That may not sound funny considering the state of education these days, but I assure you there are laughs to be had and tender moments to enjoy. Not to get into spoiler territory, but one such moment came when one of the kindergarten students who’d had trouble reading successfully got through the pages of Michelle Obama’s Becoming. It reminded me of my own brief time in kindergarten where an astute teacher spotted my vigor for reading and skipped me to the first grade. When I told my mom this had happened she didn’t believe me, but that’s another story for another day (call me Quinta, let’s talk about it).
The show also has an interesting and absolutely precious bit of backstory. Brunson named the titular school after her sixth-grade teacher, Ms. Abbott, who is now retiring after 30 years as an educator. Now, Ms. A has something to watch on vacation. Abbott Elementary is a breath of fresh air cutting through the usual TV diet of nostalgic revivals and the most boring season of The Bachelor in recorded history. I dare you—yes you, holding your electronic device right now—to watch the first few episodes and not laugh a full belly laugh. I triple-dog-dare you. —Shannon Melero
Who is Black History Month actually for?
NEWSLETTER
Cheers to the (first) freakin’ weekend edition of this newsletter. January is coming to a close and with it, the end of all conversation surrounding Dry January or Veganuary, depending on which version of the month your respective social media influencers are paid to celebrate.
In a few short days, corporations will realize it’s February and start rolling out their Black History Month celebrations in an effort to turn a profit by quite literally commercializing a history that certain government officials don’t want taught in grade schools. In anticipation of this onslaught of questionable allyship, Meteor editor-at-large Rebecca Carroll spoke with author and historian Imani Perry about the origins of Black History Month and its current role in American culture. We’ve also got a quick hit on the latest episode of Brittany Packnett Cunningham’s UNDISTRACTED, featuring extremely fashionable guest Elaine Welteroth.
Also, we’re new here and would love to hear from you, so drop us a line over at [email protected] and let us know what you’re absolutely dying to read. – Shannon Melero
WRITING OURSELVES INTO HISTORY
“This Changes Everything”
What Imani Perry taught me about Black History Month
BY REBECCA CARROLL
Years ago, when I was working at a mainstream media corporation, I was called into a marketing meeting for my ideas on how to best package Black History Month in ways that would boost ad sales and sponsorship on the site. I suggested, in all seriousness, because I genuinely believed what I was saying: “What if we didn’t package Black History Month at all? What if we took a break from selling this idea that Black History is something we should only think about for a month every February?” Well, you can imagine. The marketing folks were shooketh, and I was promptly dismissed from the meeting.
The thing is, I was coming from a place of profound (and uneducated) cynicism, based on the belief that Black History Month was created by white folks. And I know I’m not alone in thinking this. Thank heavens for historian and author Imani Perry, whose new book, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, was published this week, and who went ahead and set the record straight for me—because honestly, I simply did not know.
RC: Given that I was adopted into a white family, raised in a white town, and then went on to spend the bulk of my career in white media spaces, Black History Month has always seemed exploitative and commercialized to me—but I was so curious to learn from you that Black History Month actually has its origins in Black culture. Can you explain?
IP: Black History Month was an outgrowth of Negro History Week. In the early 20th century, Black history programs and curricula were organized in segregated Southern Schools. They happened in February because that was the month of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and Frederick Douglass’s chosen birthday (he didn’t know his exact birthdate, having been born in slavery). In 1926, historian and organizer Carter G. Woodson formalized these practices and established Negro History Week.
Negro History Week was an extension of a very deliberate effort that began immediately post-emancipation to document Black history, both domestically and internationally, and resist the false claim that people of African descent had contributed nothing meaningful to human history or civilization. Negro History Week, which became Black History Month in the early 1970s, was focused on young people…and became a robust tradition. There were Negro History Week curricula—books on Black U.S., Caribbean, and African histories and historic figures; essays, documents, plays, pageants, and academic exercises along with the ritual singing of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Often these school-based programs invited the entire community to participate and so these were collective celebrations, as well as opportunities for people to learn.
It wasn’t really until the late 1970s that white Americans even began to have any significant awareness of Black History Month, and much of that came through consumer culture. So, like Kwanzaa, a ritual that was developed primarily within Black communities made its way to the larger public through advertising strategies intended to compel Black buyers rather than substantive political transformation. So we get fast food companies celebrating Black History Month in ways that mean close to nothing or at times are even offensive. But despite that, there continue to be institutions in which Black History Month is rooted in a tradition of Black people writing themselves into history in ways that reject the logic of white supremacy and give a more expansive reach to the story of Black life both in this country and globally.
And so what does Black History Month mean to you, both personally and professionally?
IP: Personally, Black History Month is one of those traditions, like Emancipation Day or Juneteenth or Watch Night, that I cherish because it anchors me in tradition and ritual. Professionally…because I’m very invested in ensuring that my students know the history of Black institutional life, I teach the ritual as an outgrowth of one of the most important periods of intellectual development in African American history.
“Black History Month is rooted in a tradition of Black people writing themselves into history in ways that reject the logic of white supremacy.”
Traditionally, historians describe the Jim Crow era as the “nadir” of American race relations, the phrase used by historian Rayford Logan. And by that, he meant the lowest point, that horrifying period when the promises of Reconstruction had been completely denied. What is remarkable about that time is that Black people got to work despite the devastation. There was exceptional growth in African American civic life in this period. People were building organizations and networks, writing books and developing social theory, building schools, and churches at every turn. And so, even when society shut the door to opportunity and treated Black people with horrible brutality, they kept dreaming, doing, and creating. For me, that is not just a key point for understanding African American history but it is an incredible daily inspiration for my own work.
Do you think it’s ever more necessary in this current cultural climate to uphold BHM, and if so, to what end?
IP: I don’t think of Black History Month as more or less important based upon the political moment. I guess I would say it will be important indefinitely because we live in a white supremacist country and world, and counter-narratives that value freedom and dignity and resilience will always be necessary as long as stratifying people on the basis of identity is the norm.
Surely you’ve had experiences where (almost always white) people will say something that is just all kinds of wrong regarding BHM (I’m sorry to say I have had several)—or there is this unspoken sense of “We’re giving you this whole month, can you just be grateful?” Can you recall such an experience, and how you responded/flipped the script for your own sense of sanity?
IP: Thank goodness I’ve never had a white person say to me that they’ve given Black people Black History Month. It would frankly be something that I’d laugh at, for a long time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Black people created it for Black people, and particularly for Black young people, and have been gracious enough to invite others to participate. They should feel fortunate.
Rebecca Carroll is a writer, cultural critic, and podcast creator/host. She is the author of several books, including her recent memoir Surviving the White Gaze. Rebecca is editor at large for The Meteor.
WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING
- The move to ban “controversial” books from schools and libraries is quickly gaining steam. This week a school board in Tennessee banned the use of the graphic novel Maus, supposedly because it included profanity and nudity. The nudity in question, which is a lot tamer than what kids are watching on Euphoria, is a cartoon rendering of naked mice meant to illustrate the indignities forced upon Jewish people during the Holocaust.
- Speaking of oversized rodents, Florida governor Ron DeSantis is pushing a so-called “parents’ rights” agenda, which includes fast-tracking a bill that will bar discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in grade schools. Slate reporter Christina Carterucci highlights the intentional vagueness of the bill’s language and points out that it’s part of a larger legislative effort to minimize the existence of LGBTQ+ people, which is being referred to in Republican circles as the “Don’t Say Gay” laws.
AND:
- The UCLA gymnastics team responsible for viral routines such as this one and this one is now facing internal rifts stemming from (what else?) racism.
- Jeopardy! champ Amy Schneider’s watch has ended after winning 40 games straight. Make her a guest host, cowards!
- The IRS is considering requiring facial scanning for anyone who wants to access their tax documents. Good thing no one ever wants to access their tax documents.
- Andersonia West, a swathe of redwood forest in California, is being returned to its original guardians, the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, a group comprised of 10 conservation-focused Indigenous tribes.
UNDISTRACTED
Why So Many Women of Color Are Leaving Their Jobs
BY JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD
This week, The New York Times published an article about the so-called Great Resignation, the phenomenon in which workers appear to be resigning from their jobs in droves. It identified “turnover contagion,” the idea that if one person leaves, their coworkers will be inclined to reassess their positions as well, and some of the reasons that make workers want to leave, including low pay and lack of work-life balance. (To quote the title of Sarah Jaffe’s excellent book about labor exploitation, “Work won’t love you back.” Say it louder!)
But the Times piece did not directly address one of the more prevailing cultural reasons people are leaving their jobs, and one that’s probably top of mind for a whole lot of us, especially since the summer of 2020: the fact that a lot of work environments are toxic for people of color, women and other marginalized genders, and LGBTQIA+ folks.
“The mindset has shifted to, I’m not fighting to sit at your table anymore.”
Elaine Welteroth identified this factor in the latest edition of Brittany Packnett Cunningham’s UNDISTRACTED podcast. “In the end, if corporations were not really ready to practice what they preach in their press releases or on social media, Black folks and people of color and folks who really were about that change and that progress decided to seek opportunities elsewhere,” said the award-winning journalist, author, TV host and former editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue. “I think that for so long the mantra has been fighting for your seat at the table, and I think that mindset has shifted to, I’m not fighting to sit at your table anymore.“
Of course, not everybody is just up and “resigning.” Packnett Cunningham pointed out the fact that many women, particularly women of color, have been “pushed out of the workforce involuntarily, due to childcare and other duties, as well as “refusing to put up with the total bullshit of hostile, racist work environments.” In December, the Center for Public Integrity reported that 181,000 Black women left the workplace between September and December 2021 alone, partly because daycare centers were disproportionately likely to close in Black and Latinx neighborhoods. But the research also suggests that Black women are “refusing to return to certain low-paying jobs, which put them and their families at risk of contracting COVID-19, while not offering any paid sick days or health insurance.” (Time to unionize!)
Bottom line: As Welteroth says, public-facing DEI efforts are simply not enough when women of color and other marginalized folks are being regarded as disposable behind the scenes—even in environments where one would expect better treatment, such as women’s publications and nonprofits. What many employees are responding to is the fact that no matter how many “diverse candidates” a company employs and trots out for clout, the likelihood that white management is treating those workers with the respect they deserve—let alone offering them opportunities for advancement—is criminally slim. No wonder so many workers are simply saying, “I’m out.”
Anyway, it’s a great interview. And she also talks about André Leon Talley, may he rest in fabulousness. Listen to this week’s edition of UNDISTRACTED here.
UNDISTRACTED
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The start of something new
NEWSLETTER
When I think of my inbox—an abundant wasteland of algorithm-generated ads I didn’t sign up for and celebrity gossip alerts I definitely did—it stresses me out. This is, apparently, a feeling endemic to email at this point—there are studies—and if you imagine your inbox in Second Life terms, it’s like inviting your best friends, your boss, maybe your landlord, advertisers, rando spam dudes, and utility companies (I already paid my gas bill, National Grid!), all to the same 24-7 party, which happens to be inside your brain. I don’t know about you but I’m not really trying to do that!
So with The Meteor newsletter, we are hoping to edify and surprise you and your inbox with engaging, urgent writing that illuminates something about the state of the world and all its dreadful and delightful vagaries.
You can read more about that in our debut essay below, in which Jennifer Finney Boylan writes beautifully about transformation, birth, and rebirth. And after that, Shannon Melero‘s interview with the activist and Columbia student Deja Foxx, who helped organize a dance protest on the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Also, a few of the things we’re thinking about and need to share with the group chat. Settle in, we brought snacks. —Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Editor at Large
YOU NEED TO SEE THIS
Something New Is Waiting to Be Born
BY JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN
Wake up, I said to my wife. You have to see this.
It was the middle of the night, but she hauled her giant, nine-months pregnant self out of bed and followed me to the front porch.
There in the skies was Comet Hyakutake, with a tail as big as a kite.
It was a frozen night in Maine. Icicles hung down from the gutters; our breath came out in clouds.
Nine years earlier, I had courted Deedie in Washington D.C., where she worked for the Studio Theatre. I was passing my days then as the dumbest professor ever on the faculty of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and that, my friends, is saying a lot. During the drive down the Gladys Noon Spellman parkway, from my city to hers, I sometimes listened to a then-popular song called “Crazy Fingers.” It contained the line, “Something new is waiting to be born.”
She had been orphaned two years earlier and my own dad had died the year after that. There we were, in our mid-twenties, bearing all this grief. I had an additional and private sorrow, too, the burden of being trans and having no language to describe the thing I felt. It was a hard time.
There are times, even, when I cannot wait for my generation to die off so the young people can finally take over.
But during the year that we found each other, and (eventually) married, our lives were transformed. In a very short span of time, we had gone from two broken souls to what we were now: a couple standing on a porch on a cold, silent night, watching a comet illuminate the skies.
When our son was born—just a few days later—we heard the cries fill the operating room. Deedie, light radiating from her face, tears streaming down her cheeks, looked at me and said, That’s amazing!
Later that night, home again, I walked alone beneath that starry sky and looked up at the comet. From the woods came the clear sound of water rushing over rocks beneath snow.
You hold in your hands (or, more likely, behold in pixels) the debut issue of The Meteor’s newsletter, spearheaded by editors Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Shannon Melero and sustained by The Meteor, a group of feminist-minded writers, artists, and activists. For the last year, we have been gathering together in hopes of creating something new.
We believe in something as impossible as the power of love to heal grieving souls, or—who knows?—as glorious as the sight of a wild comet in a cold sky. We believe, in short, in the power of words, images, and stories to advance gender and racial justice and equity to transform the world.
We are inspired by the idea of the meteor, of its force and impact. And by Audre Lorde, who wrote, “I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my nose holes—everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!”
It was a meteor, of course, that killed the dinosaurs. We know that the writers and artists we admire are killing a few dinosaurs, too: the dinosaur of racism. The dinosaur of homophobia. The dinosaur of injustice. The dinosaur of transphobia.
There are times I think of myself as a dinosaur, too: since I came out as trans 20 years ago, the discourse around trans lives has become more nuanced and complex and inclusive, just as the discourse around feminism itself has changed and matured since I first started calling myself one in the 1970s. All of that change is good. Transforming what has come before is exactly what each new generation is supposed to do. There are times, even, when I cannot wait for my generation to die off so the young people can finally take over.
In the meantime, something new is waiting to be born.
There we were, my loved one and me, on a cold night, watching Comet Hyakutake. I stood behind her, my arms resting on her giant belly. Something—someone, in fact—stirred within. I felt that. A few days later, I looked into his eyes for the first time. I said, Hello, Sean.
I hope you’ll enjoy The Meteor Newsletter, and that you’ll find in these pages signs of hope, signs that the hard days we are all living through are not without their joys. I am hoping we can all write fire together and find a way of living in this new world with love.
Wake up. You have to see this.
Jennifer Finney Boylan is the Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence and Professor of English at Barnard College. She is a Trustee of PEN America and a Contributing Opinion Writer for the New York Times.
WIN SOME
Ain’t No Party Like an Act for Abortion Party
BY SHANNON MELERO
On January 22, a group of activists, dancers, and abortion providers convened on the steps of the Supreme Court to commemorate the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. What might have been a mournful gathering over the current state of abortion access was actually… a great, if very cold, party. “There are doom headlines almost every day, so the energy that we brought was singing, dancing, prayer, and sermon,” says organizer Deja Foxx, a 21-year-old activist, content creator, Columbia student, and founder of Gen Z Girl Gang.
This week, I spoke with Foxx about The Act for Abortion protest and her dedication to the abortion movement. I also tried my best not to say “back in my day,” but as a geriatric millennial, it was almost impossible to avoid.
SM: Something I’ve seen with the current movement is that there is an urgency to use the word abortion versus “pro-choice,” whereas–and not to date myself, but I’m a little older than you–when I was first getting involved, we called it “shmashmortion” because “abortion” was just one of those words you didn’t use so freely. Why do you think it matters so much to call it what it is?
DF: Some of that progress has come because of bold storytelling. People have found and built community around their experiences and used that to create change. I think we’ve come to a point where there is no sidestepping the issue because the other side isn’t sidestepping; they’re going directly at it. So some of this is a direct response to the pressure being put on this movement and on abortion in particular.
SM: The next evolution of the abortion movement will be dictated by young people like yourself. What’s the next step?
DF: We are at an inflection point. As we sit here today, it seems likely that Roe will be overturned, and I think in this moment, a lot of young people have come to be, rightfully so, distrustful of institutions—whether that be the government or news—and we’re striving to find alternatives. When our government, our elected officials, let us down, when they don’t show up for us, when they target us, when they restrict us, it is on us to be there for one another. Some of the action steps that we can take today are donating to abortion funds, supporting indie clinics, sharing information about the abortion pill, or calling our elected officials and holding them to account, especially around the Women’s Health Protection Act.
SM: How do you think people can overcome the fear that comes with discussing the topic? Because I know some fully grown adults who will not even think the word abortion in front of their family members.
DF: My advice to any storyteller is to do what is uncomfortable but not what is unsafe. There is a difference. But share what is uncomfortable. See what you can excavate from yourself because having those uncomfortable conversations is important. I think if you’re having it with the right person, someone who cares about you, or someone powerful who can create change, that’s really the one-to-one work that makes a difference. Know that abortion is normal, birth control is normal, sex is normal—and if you bring your personal story, you are an expert in it. You are an expert in your experience and you don’t need to do a ton of research or have a fancy degree—your experience is enough.
SM: I would imagine that in the years you’ve been doing this, people have told you that you’re too young to speak with authority on these issues. How do you respond to that?
DF: I have gotten that many times. I question then if I’m too young, what makes someone else not too male or too white or too rich or too privileged or too distant, right? I refuse to be told that I’m not qualified when I’ve lived my experiences. A lot of the work that I do is about shifting the culture around what we mean when we say people are “qualified” or “experienced.” That means inviting young people.
WHAT'S GOING ON
- With Roe coming up at SCOTUS, and the voting rights bill having been defeated (for now?), this excellent piece in the Boston Review seeks to “foreground” the arguments made in Angela Davis’s 1981 essay “Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights” (readable here), in which she wrote that the illusion of “choice” left out women of color and poor women—points that remain unfortunately salient.
- “Cash aid to poor mothers increases brain activity in babies.” Yet another reason to expand federal aid!
- In other SCOTUS news, we can all stop tweeting for Justice Breyer to retire now. Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, has some suggestions for Breyer’s replacement, including D.C. Circuit Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, CA Supreme Court Judge Leondra Kruger, and SC District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs, whom Biden just appointed in December.
AND:
- Xintian Wang on the culture war in China being waged against so-called “sissy” men and boys
- “Remember that time, girl, at the baaahr in Belgium?” If you missed it: Gabrielle Union and Kaavia James are simply delightful
- Over in our corner, The Meteor has released a series of videos in which seven people share their abortion stories, making the ever-relevant point that abortion is a) NOT a scary ritual performed by ogres in the dead of night as antis would have you believe, but instead b) a routine medical procedure that betters the lives of those who choose it—patients *and* their families—in ways not commonly reported. As Sriya Sarkar says in her video, “I’m really grateful for that boring-as-hell abortion I got.” Watch them all here.