“Trying to Break Us Won’t Work”

June 10, 2025

Greetings, Meteor readers,

It was a long weekend, especially for these two. Let’s jump right in.

In today’s newsletter, The Meteor’s Angie Jaime writes to us from the West Coast to share what the last few days (and months) have been like in Los Angeles. Plus, the return of our better-news series, Tell Me Somethin’ Good.

xoxo,

Shannon Melero

WHAT’S GOING ON

Dispatch from Los Angeles: To hear national news tell it, the protests resisting immigration raids in L.A. are the product of ICE’s recent violent overreach, but the truth for those of us who live here is much more complex: The block has been hot, so to speak, for months. ICE has been roving the streets of Los Angeles actively since at least February, just weeks after historic wildfires had devastated the city, effectively kicking the community while we were already down. In my own Highland Park on the eastern side of town, ICE began appearing in my neighborhood about six weeks after the fires that forced us to evacuate; the agents began installing street blockades near schools and doing random door-to-door investigations, setting the community on edge. Then, last weekend, ICE activity roiled to a boil, when agents conducted raids at multiple Los Angeles-area locations Friday, arresting upwards of 200 people per day, sparking protests that drew thousands to the streets.

But it isn’t the protests that are sending my city into disarray. My neighbors and I are distressed because of the terrorizing actions of ICE and local police, made worse by Trump’s decision to send in the National Guard and now the Marines over our own state’s objections. A cynical—and, let’s be real, accurate—assessment would be that this is occurring by design, that the military presence is an attempt by the Trump administration to break a wounded city into factions that would turn on its most vulnerable. But that’s clearly a strategy of someone with a grudge against California, who does not know or understand Los Angeles in all her complexity, massive and minuscule.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A GOOD(VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Trying to break us won’t work. In the face of both ICE and its unasked-for armed backup, community members have risen up to resist on behalf of those targeted. Protesters of all intersecting identities, young and old, of all genders and races, from across the county, have put their bodies on the line for their fellow citizens, for their families, for people they may never meet., Many community organizers who had previously mobilized around wildfire recovery, Palestinian free speech in the entertainment industry, and other urgent causes have quickly pivoted to protests against ICE—showing that in a time of need, Angelenos have one another’s backs.

And by the way, L.A. is not a war zone. In Highland Park this weekend, the cookouts continued apace, the park where I took my six-month-old was teeming with laughing children, and the neighborhood shops were as filled as they are on any other Sunday. The fear, the horror, the agitation do not come from whatever actions protesters might take in expressing themselves. The fear looms because my neighbors may be snatched from their homes at any moment, because the government continues to escalate force against its own people in the pursuit of white supremacy, because regardless of status, being Brown means that nothing precludes you from having your family torn apart by ICE.

And yet, Los Angeles is my home and will remain so, in no small part because of the people who make up its foundations. As a philosopher-poet once said, “It wouldn’t be L.A. without Mexicans/It’s Black love, Brown pride in the sets again.”

—Angie Jaime

So how can you help? Volunteering with legal aid services, sharing resources, and financially supporting local aid funds all work (and, of course, urge your members of Congress to raise their voices—this is not normal).⁠

AND:

You may have willed yourself to forget about it, but the legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni rages on—and Lively just won a meaningful round. On Monday, a judge dismissed Baldoni’s defamation and extortion countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, their publicist, and The New York Times. In a social media post, Lively called the suit “retaliatory” and said she was “more resolved than ever to continue to stand for every woman’s right to have a voice in protecting themselves.” Given the prevalence with which men use defamation suits to strike back against accusers—to quote Mother Jones, “She Said, He Sued”—this decision could actually have an impact. In any event, the two will see each other in court next March.
The Madleen, a ship carrying humanitarian activists (including Greta Thunberg) and aid for Gaza, was intercepted by Israeli forces over the weekend. Those on board were taken to Israel and held in a detention facility before being deported to their respective countries. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which organized the journey, claims that the ship was “unlawfully boarded” and the supplies meant for Gazans confiscated. Rima Hassan, a Palestinian member of the French parliament, is among those still in detention. Thunberg, who was seen exiting an airport in Paris, described the ordeal as “being kidnapped in international waters…but that is not the real story here”—it’s that “there is a genocide going on in Gaza.”
ICYMI: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is a group of people whose job is to craft medically sound vaccine policies for the CDC. The reasoning? RFK, Jr., who has undermined public confidence in vaccines for years, said, “A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science.” The outcry from public-health officials has been swift; as the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics said, “Families and children will be the ones to pay the price for this decision.” Wondering where you can go for accurate vaccine information if the U.S. government isn’t doing its job? Bookmark this and this.
You may have read that the political gender gap is widening among young people, with young men swinging increasingly to the right. Now, a new Gallup poll has found that there’s a 20-point difference in how women and men view abortion: 61 percent of women consider themselves pro-choice, while only 41 percent of men do—the widest margin since Gallup started tracking public opinion on abortion two decades ago. Talk to your men!!
There was a massive ChatGPT outage today, which was probably very stressful for all of the people who have developed “intense obsessions” with the bot. This is exactly how Her ended, just saying.

TELL ME SOMETHIN’ GOOD 🎶

Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print, a documentary about the iconic magazine, is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival tonight, as you read this! (Transparency: The Meteor’s Cindi Leive is an executive producer.) If you’re looking for something to do later this week, there are still a few tickets left to see the film before it heads to HBO next month.
Amanda Montei and Tracy Clark Flory (who coined the useful term “hetero-exceptionalism”) have teamed up for a new podcast, Dire Straights, a “feminist critique of heterosexual love, sex, politics, and culture.” Finally, someone’s going to help the heteros heal themselves. Good luck, ladies!
Incredible news for the K-pop girlies: BTS is getting back together this month! After taking a break to complete their military service, the last three members of the group (Jimin, Jung Kook, and Suga) are set to be discharged soon and already have plans to reunite with their veteran bandmates.