“Emmett Till was the first George Floyd.” — Philonise Floyd
FOMO on Safety FOMO on Humanity
Union Square After The Verdict (Credit: Twitter)
This was... A WEEK. We exalted over 200 million shots in American arms. And, after a four year lapse, we fully participated in the Earth Day Climate Summit, which included the Zoomed participation of just about every head of state, from Merkel and Macron, to Xi Jinping and Putin.
While George Floyd’s killer was found guilty by a jury of his peers, any cold comfort was tempered by the news of the tragedy that teen-aged Ma’Khia Bishop was shot to death by Columbus police, just hours before. Yesterday, using The Washington Post’s database, The Ohio Alliance calculated the rate of black folks being killed in Ohio is 339% higher than that of white people. Malika Bishop (no relation) captured her thoughts on the Chauvin trial the morning before the verdict. Her essay reminded me of the Toni Morrison aphorism, “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.” Reader, I cried a lot that day. How could you not?
This week FOMO considers policing after Chauvin; celebrates the 100th episode of the Disability Visibility pod; discovers how racism is embedded in our tax code; tracks corporate wobbliness on voter suppression; and considers the implications of yesterday’s #MarchOnBroadway.
WHY COPS DON’T CHANGE
Kai Wright hosts The United States of Anxiety as a live broadcast every Sunday. Last week’s episode, Why Cops Don’t Change, included Elie Mystal elaborating on his Nation piece which described how in Graham vs. Conner, SCOTUS made the “reasonable” standard for use of force subject not to what civilians might consider acceptable, but what police might judge as right. Mystal bottomlines it: “We can no longer live in a country where “reasonable” is defined BY the police.” Marq Claxton leverages his direct experience as a twenty-year NYPD detective and now Director of Public Relations & Political Affairs of the Black Law Enforcement Alliance to explain the culture and behavior of policing. Of calls to “Defund the Police,” he does not mince words: “They’ve set themselves up for it. It’s reasonable to have this discussion.”
As Karen Bass seeks to build comity with Senator Tim Scott over a version of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act which would garner 60 votes, I have two thoughts: It MUST included qualified immunity; without it, Democrats should pursue the filibuster route. Not in the act itself, but: Until police departments reject the services of “Killology” enthusiast Dave Grossman, whose training techniques - and mindset - filters down to ever city, town, and precinct across America - policing won’t change. This is who he is.
Finally: DO watch the Oscar-nominated short Two Distant Strangers.
DISABILITY VISIBILITY
As we say, representation matters. Alice Wong is a first generation American, and while she was born with spinal muscular atrophy, she’s never let her disability silence her voice — despite being literally on a respirator. I was first introduced to Alice from her New York Times op-ed’s, but didn’t get a full sense of her wisdom and tenacity until an appearance on Ana Marie Cox’s With Friends Like These podcast. Alice herself has a podcast, Disability Visibility, which tackles every issue you can imagine from the lens of disability. The show recently celebrated its 100th episode, where Alice announced that she was stepping away from the mic — at least full-time — to concentrate on a raft of projects, which must include her forthcoming memoir, The Year of the Tiger. Just this week, the show shared out a PDF index to all 100 podcasts; it’s indispensable. (Alice was the force behind #HighRiskCA; she’s @SFDireWolf on Twitter.)
THE WHITENESS OF WEALTH
Last week I noted that racism is in our algorithmic code, and our penal code. It’s also in our tax code. In this week’s episode of Why Is This Happening? host Chris Hayes speaks with Dorothy A. Brown, a tax lawyer who originally chose her profession because she thought it would be insulated from all the daily strife of civil rights law. Instead, she was shocked to find how racism was written into tax law. In their discussion she goes over how various assumptions penalizes African-Americans, particular two-income families. In a sense her new book reminds me of Richard Rothstein’s masterpiece, The Color of Law, which traces how racism was embedded in our housing codes. Pick up her book here.
“CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE, TOO”
Mitt Romney once made this remark with respect to Citizens United — the seminal Supreme Court decision which has made our politics into a casino. Mitch McConnell didn’t say much this winter when dozens of corporations “paused” their donations to those who voted against certification of Biden’s presidency and had a hand in the insurrection of January 6th. That is, until Georgia - when corporations decided to stand up against voter suppression. Judd Legum, who writes the tremendous Popular Information newsletter (with Tesnim Zekeria) circled back to these corps and found that they had broken their promises and given to Republicans before the close of Q1. These include: PNC Bank, Pfizer, Oracle, Intel, Sanofi, and yes, Home Depot. Follow his thread here. Today, Legum wrote about how Governor Rick Scott — in his role as the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) — was explicitly threatening CEO’s not to speak out against pending voter suppression laws in Texas. Let’s hope he soon finds out that his corporate donors are HIS boss, not the reverse.
Related: Sludge’s Donny Shaw looked at the divided loyalties of some of our recently “woke corporations” including Microsoft, United Airlines, Deloitte, and Ford Motor Company. While they stood tall in support of voting rights two weeks ago, each holds a seat on the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce, which just put out a “key vote alert” to STOP H.R. 1, the For The People Act. Stay tuned.
GREEN SHOOTS APLENTY:
Reminder: Vox Media has trained its entire focus on climate change across its podcast network for the entire month of April. These include: Today, Explained; Vox Conversations; The Weeds; Unexplainable; Worldly; Future Perfect; and Recode Daily. Check it out: vox.com/earthmonth
ALL THE WORLD’S A (ZOOM) STAGE
Monster’s Ball
Theatrical powerhouse Scott Rudin was always seen as the next Harvey Weinstein. Finally, the damn broke. The community marched on Times Square yesterday. At the top of its demands included Actors’ Equity placing Rudin on a “Do Not Work” list. But it was also concerned with securing commitments for greater diversity, on and off stage. Here are its demands.
I want to highlight several upcoming events that embrace not only innovation, but inclusion, in terms of race and gender, as well as neuro-diversity:
•Manhattan Theater Club is re-staging some of its most acclaimed works. NEAT is a one-woman play by and starring Charlayne Woodard, a coming of age story which was first produced for the stage in 1997. It’s on-demand through this Sunday.
•Beginning next Tuesday at 8pm EST, The Civilians will stream live and then on-demand performances of Black Feminist Video Game, by Darrel Alejandro Holnes (Tix are $10!) Logline: “Jonas is a biracial teenager with autism who broadcasts all aspects of his life online, including a disastrous first date with his crush, Nicole. Desperate to regain her affections, he dusts off a long-ignored gift from his mother—a classic 2D “Black feminist video game.” The show is a hybrid of live action and videogame play, live on Twitch. The synopsis also included a description on how the theater company was making the production accessible to all. Have a look:
• Refraining from jarring or sudden audio and visual cues in an attempt to avoid sensory overload.
• Avoiding strobing effects in our design for audiences prone to seizures.
• Creating an Autistic friendly design when choosing the show’s color palette, use of background noise, and consistency of volume levels.
• Choosing a font that is friendly to Dyslexic audiences.
• Providing subtitles for Deaf and hard-of-hearing and audiences in recordings of our performance.
Change can happen.