“You cannot thank Rosa Parks for sitting down, then tell Kaepernick to stand up.” -Anthony McPherson, If We Must Be Americans
FOMO ON BLACK HISTORY MONTH FOMO ON VACCINE EQUITY
(Publisher: Golden Legacy. Entire volume available here.)
How did you first experience Black History Month?
For me, it was the only month during the school year where civil rights moved from footnote to chapter head. I attended a pretty progressive public school in the Bronx growing up, but until I was gifted with a full set of the Golden Legacy comic books – all celebrating African-American heroes – I had no idea how much I was missing. The marketers of publisher Golden Legacy disdained being referred to as a comic book – today “graphic novel” is our upscaled euphemism -- but for me, they were a revelation. There were 16 volumes, each 32 illustrated pages, introducing me to such heroes as Crispus Attacks, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and yes, Martin Luther King, Jr. I devoured them. And I never stopped asking my history teachers from third grade on why they weren’t meeting the standard of even a comic book. Eventually, I’d have to take out a dog-eared copy from my backpack. Instead of sharing my enthusiasm for the stories, they all had one question for this white boy, “Where’d you get that?” As though I had crossed some invisible divide.
This week’s FOMO explores the origins of Black History Month, and how to celebrate it beyond February; shines a light on vaccine inequity; looks at how art is marking Covid loss; peeks at next week’s Second Impeachment; and considers America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia through the lens of Jamal Khashoggi.
❤️ & Listens,
Jerry
ORIGIN STORIES
In the time of #BlackLivesMatter, where the Biden Administration has promised to have a “whole of government” commitment to racial equity, how can we best celebrate Black History Month? The excellent United States of Anxiety, hosted by Kai Wright, sets the table in the first of three podcasts focused on the origins of Black History month. In episode one, the podcast’s producer Veralyn Williams infects us with her enthusiasm recounting her annual festivities of past Black History Months. Michigan State University’s Pero Dagbovie introduces us to Dr. Carter G. Woodson — often called the “Father of Black History” -- and how his lifelong vision to celebrate Black Achievement in 1926 became Black History Month nearly a hundred years on. The call-in show broadcasts LIVE Sunday evenings at 6pm ET on WNYC radio.
This New Yorker podcast resurrects a 2017 interview it did with the Rev. William Barber, on the occasion of his homily at the Biden inaugural prayer service. Magazine editor and host David Remnick suggests that in choosing the father of “Moral Mondays,” the Administration is signaling how it will work with the faith-based community as a partner in social justice. And wow, is this interview prescient. Barber’s call for a Third Reconstruction… is right on time. If you’re unfamiliar with Rev. Barber -- even if you’re an Atheist like me -- it’s a worthwhile listen. Next Monday, join Barber and his Poor People’s Campaign in support of the Fight for $15. Register here.
REPRESENTATION MATTERS. OWNERSHIP MATTERS.
It’s not only the Vice Presidency. Across the Fortune 100, in media, and even the non-profit world, people of color are finally ascending to the C-suite. In December, Channing Dungey became the Chairman of Warner Bros. Television Group, the #2 running Warner Group studio. Rashida Jones was recently appointed the head of MSNBC, making her the first Black woman to head a major television news network. And Deborah Archer, a clinical law professor at New York University, was just elected as the new president of the American Civil Liberties Union -- the first Black person to hold the position.
Actor and activist Wendell Piece is a fixture in New Orleans. This week he threw down a furious tweetstorm as a member of the Black Owned Media Coalition – demanding that the New Orleans City Council actively support Black-owned media. As an owner himself of Equity Media LLC (WBOK 1230AM radio) he asserted, “New Orleans is a 65% Black community! Currently, noneof your regulated and franchised entities Entergy, COX, Sewerage & Water Board, RTA, ATT, Verizon, and T-Mobile do any business with New Orleans’ Black and Latinx-owned media companies. Today we are announcing a plan that demands accountability from the business community that serves New Orleans.” Pierce further shared that as of March the coalition would begin to track which companies which are supportive of Black-owned media businesses and share this with the public. Let his demand echo throughout the country.
VACCINE GENTRIFICATION
“This disease is not an equal opportunity disease.” -- CDC epidemiologist Camara Jones
Yes, there are vaccine shortages. And yes, there are those who are declining to be vaccinated. But there is also a problem which can’t be ignored: affluent folks who aren’t O.J. are jumping the queue, ahead of not only Black and Brown communities, but those with chronic disabilities, as well as our elders.
•Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist and professor at Yale’s School of Public Health, writes that “The Vaccine Line is Illogical,” a personal and passionate essay in the Atlantic on how he was offered a vaccine shot ahead of his 86-year-old mother. (He declined.) Over the course of the piece he recounts his days as an HIV/AIDS activist and how access to the drug cocktail saved his life. Gonsalves further describes what an ethical approach to vaccine availability might look like on The Nation’s Start Making Sense podcast.
•Disability activist Alice Wong often wields social media to mobilize her community into action. In this case the hashtag #HighRiskCA is meant to spotlight how California Governor Newsom keeps botching the Covid roll-out – simply ignoring that his schedules for access puts folks like her LAST.
•On Farai Chideya’s most recent installment of Our Body Politic she has programmed an incredibly dense – while still entertaining – episode including Dr. Grace Lee, who sits on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice; and Ashley Nealy AKA “Vaccine Vixen” who documents and demystifies her participation in clinical trials on TikTok to an audience of millions. The highlight of the pod for me is playwright Ana Deveare Smith (a former teacher of mine) discussing her new “Pipeline Project” (as in the school-to-prison pipeline) and how her documentary process has changed to accommodate the new work -– getting to know teen Black girls through performance workshops.
IMPEACHMENT DEJA VU
In just a handful of days, are attention will again return to all things Trump. Marc Elias – who swatted away 60 spurious Trump lawsuits against our free and fair elections – has since pivoted to the future and is publishing his Democracy Docket. Here he pithily answers questions on what Impeachment #2 might look like. Think of it as your playbill to next Tuesday.
I’m not sure of Impeachment Manager Jamie Raskin’s run of show, but he has room for 2 minutes and 8 seconds, I have a clip to recommend.
Just Security recently posted a close read of the propaganda video which was introduced by Trump at the Ellipse Park rally on January 6th, ahead of the Capitol melee. Jason Stanley – a scholar of fascist propaganda -- and his colleagues at Just Security parse the short frame by frame. Trump is framed as a benevolent father, complete with an older woman crying in recognition of his calming presence. There are shots of him and the Missus framed by the Lincoln Memorial. There are the tiles of F-E-A-R spelled out on a Scrabble letter rack. Soaring images of prosperity and power to be associated with Trump; juxtaposed with clips of the iconic Hollywood sign and treacherous Democratic leaders timed to a Trump voiceover saying how they have protected themselves, not Americans. It is NOT SUBTLE. Included within is a 1-2 second flash of Women for Trump –the financial sponsor of the rally, we learned, which is directly connected to Donald, Jr. and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle. I hope that they become the center of attention that they so ache to be.
KINDGOM OF KHASHOGGI
Yesterday, the Biden Administration announced an end to U.S. support of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen, acknowledging that it had “created a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.” That message came as an extraordinary coda to America’s decades of toxic and transactional support of Saudi Arabia dating back to Reagan. I took this news as an invitation to screen the documentary, Kingdom of Silence (exclusive to Showtime) which attempts to make sense of the senseless killing of Jamal Khashoggi – a journalist and proud self-exile. We hear from colleagues and critics; everyone from Lawrence Wright – author of The Looming Tower, the definitive book on the rise of Al Qaeda; former CIA Director John O. Brennan; Andrew R. Maloney – lawyer to 9/11 families; as well as David Rundell, former Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, who possesses one of the more unsentimental dispositions you are likely to come across.
We get a portrait of a flawed man one who slowly evolved from close friend to Osama Bin Laden -- united in support of the mujahideen in their quest to repel Russia from Afghanistan in 1979 -– to renouncing Bin Ladin after the 9/11 attacks. Khashoggi was not an outlier in his belief that the Saudi royal family was on the path of reform. He was even able to launch Al-Arab – a news channel free of government censorship -- only to see it shuttered after 24 hours. While the film clearly lays blame at the feet of the King’s son Mohammad bin Salman (“Mr. Bone Saw”) for his role in silencing Khashoggi, it also condemns the Trump Administration for giving the Kingdom a wide enough berth that it thought it could assassinate an American national with impunity. Me? I want to see those WhatsApp texts between MBS and Jared Kushner. After watching the documentary, I was drawn back to Khashoggi’s Washington Post columns – which the paper has posthumously curated as a final act of memory and solidarity.
OUR SHARED LOSS
On the 19th of January, many of us participated in a collective grieving over Covid loss for the first time. That evening before the Biden inauguration saw candlelight vigils on the National Mall in tribute to the (then) 400,000 lives lost over the last year. In NYC there is a current exhibition, “Travels Far,” anchored by a commissioned poem of the same name by the U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. The memorial features portraits of the 100+ MTA workers who’ve died from COVID, scrolling across the screens ordinarily featuring transit maps and service updates. Composed as a nine-minute video, it will appear three times a day, at 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m., and 8:30 p.m. The tribute appears across 107 subway stations across the five boroughs -- and online – through this weekend.
If you know of a ceremony, art exhibit, gathering – please share them with me and I’ll amplify over social media.