we need captchas for black culture where you have to name curl patterns or 2002 nba draft fits before you access premium black content, b.e.t.+, holla
rip alex trebek, i hope they’re answering in the form of a question in heaven 🙏🏽
the real presidential election was all the enemies we made along the way
the year 2020 is how 7-11 hot dogs gotta feel all the time, just vibing…waiting for the end
fuck the electoral college, marry the popular vote, kill myself for using this joke format
niggas really out here not believing in covid but believing in santa
joe biden really out here only winning elections if a black person is present
rip quibi, turn your phone into landscape mode to read the same sentiment but differently
my man trump really doing a coup d’etat to slow motion by juvenile
abolish the infographic industrial complex: an infographic
shout out big homie quincy ledbetter on the release of his trailer for “alieu the dreamer,” will be first in line for the drop 🔥🔥🔥🔥 (EDIT: was LAST in line for the drop apparently and you can find this heat here!)
all my love to the homie/thespian/scammington bear laci mosley who was on mf conan o’brien just shinin, so proud 🔥🔥🔥🔥
shout out to my sister michelle thomas for the drop of her new series “a black girl walks at night” check it out here 🔥🔥🔥🔥
big large massive ups to my buddy poppy noor for her article 'i feel joy': how bisha k ali went from struggling standup to marvel maestro” about the big moves that the mcu is making with ms. marvel, shout out london 🔥🔥🔥🔥
big big ups to dani fernandez for cohosting the 1st inaugural critics choice super awards january 10th, be there 🔥🔥🔥🔥
shout out mars!!! her book is out and you jive turkeys better cop “girls can!: smash stereotypes, defy expectations, and make history!”
happy g days to ray, jacey, and matt, mad love for you ❤️
shout out “the weekly reset button” gang who comes through weekly and we talk through shit, i’d give a kidney to all of you
and many, many more. so many homies making moves and as their biological father, i plan on returning from the gas station and being courtside as they continue to hit corner threes and insert second sports reference here
also shout out me, just vibing, pretty ambivalent, working on some shows and films, pitching like a mf, and focusing on training as a peer mental health advocate with project lets! helth!
there are friends you look back with, forward with, and both. stick with ones you can do both with.
america is a money-laundering scheme for rich people, for warmongers, for anybody with a nuclear weapon. so was quibi.
while the idea of america is tantalizing, it is suffering multiple social pathologies and even with the diagnosis it refuses to get comprehensive treatment instead opting for band-aids for wounds that have been in this country since its inception.
americans are in love with the idea of america not what it actually is.
trump was the avatar of america’s ills and while we should sigh a sigh of relief post-election, don’t forget that admitting we have a problem is just the first step, reading ‘white fragility’ is barely the second step, and “going back to normal’ was never an option. forward, but forward together.
america as a country is a macro version of what we need to work on interpersonally: stop performing strength and “having it together” and learn true strength comes from accepting vulnerability and rejecting toxic power structures/mindsets, go the therapy, don’t backseat drive other people’s lives when yours is so basura, and be honest in your reflections because you can only live a lie (or in america’s case, a million) for so long.
“dark matters: on the surveillance of blackness” - simone browne
ugh. so good! such a good assessment of the surveillance aspect of navigating life in this nigga body all the time. browne touches on a lot of the different ways that black people are being tracked, looked at with suspicion, etc while our culture is mined and exploited in a way that was very accessible and gave me more concrete definitions of so many things that swirl in my mind but never concretize. i was raised by parents who always told me “they are watching” and i tried my entire life to carry myself with that thought resulting in social anxiety, watching exits, and my head consistently on a swivel everywhere. as an adult, i understood what they were trying to impart in me and how it was an attempt to keep me safe but this book opened up all the concrete ways in which i (part of we as a black collective) are always being watched, a phenomenon that i’m curious how many white people have to navigate or even think about.
“we will not cancel us (and other dreams of transformative)” - adrienne maree brown
just read it. it’s a short masterclass growing and changing, hearing and adapting, and the framing device for the rest of this newsletter (based on an essay i wrote this summer). it talks extensively about movement spaces but should be expanded to many spaces (creative especially) and is realistic in the way we frame “cancel culture” as the only way to justice when it’s a mask for schadenfreude, punitive accountability over restorative justice, while also understanding the reality of protecting survivors, adapting definitions of harm on a case by case basis, and the healing properties of mediation.
i consistently get advised not to drop things like this for free but i famously hate money and i think that putting analysis behind paywalls is bullshit. this is a long form piece i wrote (in a more pessimistic headspace) about cancel culture and the future of policing/prisons but I think in this new world, amidst the giant cultural divisions left in the wake of trump’s america we need to be realistic with moving forward while simultaneously supporting unity, strong organizing, and centering joy. this work must be genuine and not for optics and building a brand but how do you do genuine work without being performative.
enjoy this piece, even in its rough form. still musing over this topic, things will change, and i will grow with new information; it’s as much directed to me as it is to the rest of the world. it’s called “kill the cop in your head.”
i don't think that anyone wants to be better, i think that people just want to look better. i’m situationally optimistic and intellectually pessimistic so if this seems bleak it’s because until i see action, it will be bleak.
as pendulums swing towards apathy, my fear is that nobody wants to actually do the work to become an ally, but it is valuable to look like you are an ally as a tool of social capital. within allyship, there is a badge of honor that puts you firmly on one side; good, moral, superior, “woke.” and everyone else on the other side, bad, inhuman.
in an industry built on shifting sand, flimsy allegiances, paramount protection of reputation, and the pursuit of individualistic capitalism, there is no way that you can find community if you come first. unfortunately within an arts industry, there is a possessive and accepted investment in the self. not necessarily narcissism which is defined by an almost pathological obsession with the self, but an individualism that is mired in primal capitalistic urges; “me and mine” supersedes the health of the community and if the community is sick, we go after each cell individually as opposed to a holistic assay of the whole organism. while it is dangerous to apply the macro to the micro, it is fruitless to only go after the micro, especially when the macro is a spectrum of behaviors (all at scaled levels of harm) and doesn't simply exist on a binary of extremes, good on one side, bad on the other.
how do we choose who is good and bad? well, it's not as simple as this person is good and this person is bad, it's actually who “we” is and if you've been paying attention to human recorded history, “we” is either poorly defined (changing the goalposts of who is in the in-group and who is in the out at a moment's notice), defined by the moment (changing who is in the group and who is out of the group based on the moment) or defined by amorphous whiteness (or the group that is in the most hegemonic power in the space).
we bandy about words like “community” because there is strength in togetherness but it's only a word unless we build that togetherness. it's hard to think about community in a white hegemonic cis heteropatriarchal world when i look around and see people who refuse to contend with their own biases, won’t get their hands dirty to figure out the truth when things don't feel like they're right (expecting other people to do that for them), and refusing to do the bare minimum to keep others safe. look no further than people refusing to wear a mask to keep not only themselves safe but others instead choosing to die on a hill of individualism and perceived persecution of “freedoms.”
in every space that people navigate, there’s a matrix of intersecting oppressions and the person with the most oppressions often gets the least attention while the person with the least oppressions gets the most attention or the most community forgiveness. it's not as simple as navigating white spaces; it's navigating male spaces, navigating straight spaces, navigating rich spaces, and navigating a subjective space, especially when it comes to art.
so who are “we?” well, who gets the most attention if they have the least oppression? cis, straight, white people with power or money (however you define it). if these people in our spaces have the most power, the most attention, and the most resources, learned or not, they are in positions where they hold the cultural attention of the space, whether it be by job givers, grant givers, or adoring fans (which has gamified and quantified not only popularity, but “group validation”). but while these people are the ones that will most likely have the most power in our spaces, the mindsets of power are not relegated to their bodies but to anyone primed to used the white supremacist, capitalistic, cis-heteropatriarchal society, which is an abuse of power, no matter who comes from.
this complicates things. this means that anyone, and everyone can be complicit in misusing any power; this especially falls through the cracks when a person who is abusing said power are of a religious, racial, gender, or otherwise queer group that has been historically disenfranchised or hasn't had access to any sort of structural power. power is difficult to quantify because those who are accused of having it don't believe they truly have it and those who don't have it are hyper-aware of how powerless that they are and often these two overlap in the same person; being empowered and powerless at the same time which often makes them volatile.
it is my firm belief that communities need regulation. however, who is regulating it is important to parse out and how qualified that person is is also important to label. the recent fad of everybody calling out everybody while being turned around to be called out themselves has created an environment of mistrust, justified paranoia, and vague fear. in a world where people want to say they’re doing the work without actually doing it and politeness is a smokescreen for non-confrontation, care needs to be taken to clarify and investigate situations individually and not shortcut them by applying a macro to a micro, using vague language, or escalating.
this call-out/cancel culture as it’s become colloquially known is a response, conscious or unconscious, to a failed justice system; one that’s failed men, failed women, failed queer folks, trans people, victims of sexual violence, victims of racialized violence, one that failed, period. but if we can’t use a state-sanctioned justice system, who becomes the police? who becomes the correctional facility? who dictates what constitutes what consequence? how long does “accountability” last?
the cancel culture conversation grows tiring because of how watered down, nonspecific, and almost stalemate-esque it is in nature. day after day people have completely different definitions of what being “cancelled” means; everything from honest critique to freudian slips to private relationships and goings-on made public finds one side being the “canceller” and the other side being the “canceled,” one side inherently good with the moral high ground, one side demonstrably bad, mired in defensiveness over miseducation (and in some cases intentional ignorance), moral lapses in judgment, and subjectively irredeemable behavior; everybody has become the arbiter of someone else's success, demise, or growth. but can anyone be truly safe if we create our own individual police states? our own personal “if you're not with me you're against me” spaces? can anybody be truly held accountable without the power of the state and corrupt justice system? short answers: no. long answer: we need to talk about what accountability really means and what people actually mean when they say “accountability.”
it isn't “cancel culture,” it isn't “call out culture,” its “accountability culture” however there is a good and a bad side within that (not to rely on another binary). the two types of accountability that we deal with now are punitive accountability and restorative accountability. with punitive accountability we are trying to hold the other person accountable using a penal system and punishment-based framework; the only one we’ve known in our last 5-6 generations responsible for police and prisons. places and spaces that have self-appointed regulators of the community is analogous to a neighborhood watch, but when not vetted, actively antiracist, and specifically trained in restorative practices, they are closer to vigilantes; the only response to a failing justice system is “taking matters into their own hands.” the other side is restorative accountability, divesting from disposability politics, focusing on healing for both the conflicted parties, and ultimately, community health. are there consequences? yes. is there space for individuals, both harmer and harmed, to grow and change? yes. is the possibility for redemption? yes.
the difficulty? punitive accountability focuses on the transgression, restorative accountability on the healing and resolution to the transgression, something that is difficult in a society that is immersed in the individual, a good/bad binary, and a “one size fits all” justice system. punitive justice is a shortcut, restorative justice requires work. punitive justice comes from fear and anger, like the pic, and means disposability and restorative justice comes from love and healing, meaning growth and rehabilitation from trauma.
trauma is both comfortable and uncomfortable. uncomfortable to live in, uncomfortable that it even happened, and when unhealed, you learn to live in it, to live in survival mode. and in a world where we’re all traumatized in different ways, some stories rise to the top, specifically the traumas of those in historical power; cis white heterosexual people (and those in proximity to or “in their protection”) take center stage and decentering those experiences is unnecessarily made out to “difficult.” within that trauma, especially in a bourgeois class, is validation of that pain and hurt which is a double-edged sword; a good feeling of being seen and heard and a simultaneous feedback loop of affirmation of said pain with no plan to escape it laid out. that comfortable validation masks and distracts from the discomfort of remaining in the unpleasant replaying of conflict, harm, or abuse. and in an arts culture where the self is central and trauma is an endless wellspring of relatable content, there are multiple reasons why it’s difficult to leave the pain behind and keep moving forward, especially when the cause of your pain is constantly in physical or psychological proximity. we’re all traumavores in some regard.
so we have traumatized people telling traumatized people that they’re traumatized and trying to exercise power over people who traumatized them who in turn may or may not be traumatized themselves. that's it, right? well, no. this theoretical world is in an entirely objective space where nobody has an agenda, anything to gain, anything to lose, and is free from a normalized capitalist mindset. the reality is that objective reality does not exist. the reality is that the world that we would like to live in cannot exist if we do not reject these urges and impulses to punish and we accept that accountability does not have to be punitive but actually restorative for the good of the group. it requires a rejection of a good/bad binary. it requires an investment in changing the mindset of blind groupthink, applying the macro to the micro, and treating everything on a case-by-case basis, rejecting the notion that situations are irredeemable, people are unchangeable, and creating spaces for healing and mediation, with the goal of a community that cares for each other.
all of this is a product of the politic of police and prison abolition as whole systemic structures. however, if we get rid of the structures, who's to say that those systems won’t transform like with slavecatchers and white supremacists turning into the police forces and the 13th amendment “freeing” slaves but allowing prison labor aka slave labor? who's to say that it won't come back if we do not take the abolition politic on a personal level; if we do not kill the cop in our head, if we do not make the world that we live in into a prison, if we do not reject a surveillance state, if we do not decenter cisheteropatriarchy and recenter black femme and trans-inclusive activism, if we do not reject the individualism of capitalism? are we doomed repeat violent policing practices within ourselves because of unspoken implicit biases we project onto each other? if the amy coopers, karens, and bbq beckys of the world are any indication, some are comfortable being cops because they always have been, without needing to have the gun or badge.
all of this needs to change and it's not going to simply change by posting the same infographic, reading books, throwing shows that just simply raise money for organizations. if the personal is political, then while we tear down these archaic, diseased political structures we must make sure that we are doing the same to the ingrained implicit bias structures extended from the political into the personal.
until then, nobody wants to do better. they just want to look better.