Writer's Block? + Drew & Kamala + Battery Park Blanket Humpers + Don Toliver's Chin + Gov Funded School Shooters + The Daily Bruin <3 + The Idea of You + Kendrick, Drake, and Rich Man Bickering
How does everyone do it? I’m not necessarily battling through writers’ block, or content creator block, It’s just, like, will I look insane talking about Challengers, or Taylor Swift, or Met Gala shoes, while the LAPD (and LASD, and CHP) try to kill a bunch of college students down the street?
Yes, right?
How do people report on the fluff, earnestly?
I don’t really consider myself a pop culture creator, my sometimes focus on celebrity and entertainment is just a byproduct of industry, proximity and career. Even then, there’s almost always some clear thread or discourse on hypocrisy, controversy, and influence. Media and entertainment is the focus point simply because for almost all of us, it’s the vessel in which we get our news. Its a controlled, corporatized starting point, but it’s up to us to digest, interpret, and reasonably react. I like to believe my content sometimes helps with the latter.
I think my online life is entering the same era of friendlessness that my real life did in 2020. How do some of y’all us report on Hollywood, but exclude the undercurrent tidal wave of blacklist happening at the moment? Is it that hard for niche creators, especially those who focus on celebrity, to connect a few extra dots between the actors and artists you love, their label and studio heads whose names adorn campus buildings and endowment checks, and the student protesters organizing and being attacked on those campuses? How do you call yourself a pop culture expert, but conveniently leave the number one trending topic of the last six months off your discussion list?
I might be the pot calling myself kettle here since I’ve been almost fully offline for the better part of the month. Mostly because when I’m not working, I’m drugging myself on allergy meds until #HoneyBaby’s new diet finally stops her endless shedding.
Anyway, it’s hard to believe that I’m still writing about Gaza, even though I said everything I needed to say last October. Moreover, I can’t believe that 212 days later, thousands more deaths later, I’m still writing and platforming. It feels like so little has changed, and at times like nothing will change. But also that everything has changed.
Same Same: Kamala Meets The Precise Archetype She’s Been Pandering To (and haaaaaaates it) (The Daily Beast)
Has Lovers and Friends Ever Actually Happened? (Billboard)
Battery Park Blanket Humpers Remain Unidentified (NYP)
…But, Jesse James Has A Whole Museum Dedicated To Him? (CNN)
Notice Media Isn’t Fueling A “There’s More To This Story” Narrative (NYT)
What Did Don Toliver Ever Do to Y’all (TikTok)
Another Boeing Whistleblower Bites The Dust (USA Today)
Mariah Goes To Universal Studios (TMZ)
“I ain’t reading all that. Free Palestine.”
Introducing … a generation that has spent their entire educational lives being prepared for this very moment.
They are shooting at students peacefully protesting a genocide, shooting with the support and coordination of UCLA leadership and the mayor of Los Angeles.
Shooting. at. students.
On campus.
Outside of their classrooms.
In front of their dorms.
I entered my first year of high school the semester following Columbine, which means I got to spend my elementary and middle school years daydreaming in class about boys and pop stardom, not rehearsing which window I’d jump out of, or if I could stack desks quickly enough to defend myself against an assault rifle and the terrorist holding it. My fire drill and lockdown training didn’t include barricade building or active shooters.
This generation was sitting in elementary school classrooms, learning numbers and colors, at the same time as the Sandy Hook shooting. Those kids should, could, be their current classmates. Their parents generation knew there was a list — “The Casualty of Policy Failure” list — but they, like most Americans, never thought that white 5 and 6 year olds would be on it.
Instead of changing policy to protect them, their parents generation, and the schoolboards they sat on, decided it was best for children to learn futile tactical defense skills against whatever armed adult decided they were next.
Futile is the key word there.
The performance of drills and situational planning is in itself an arm of American propaganda… the desk barricades and the bodies fallen in protective positions over their classmates make for a heartwarming story of bravery, and drizzle enough hopeful positivity to coat the truth, the fear, the horror, the limbs dismembered by large caliber bullets, and the unnecessary, preventable death of children. Something that still just isn’t a priority here, or abroad.
I was unlawfully arrested by the LAPD three years ago, kettled during a violent LAPD response to a peaceful protest.
So violent, people were hit so hard they were thrown out of their shoes, slammed to the sidewalk and concussed. The LAPD’s green tip “less lethals” were pointed at our heads, a place where their multi-million dollar training tells hem exactly not to point. I spent about five hours in custody, before, alongside over 100 other people, being never booked and never charged. Support for our release was mobilized by National Lawyers Guild and Jail Support, as well as a network of progressive organizers who found their footing in the 2020 uprisings. We looked out for eachother during the arrests, during transport, and during processing. When I was released, there was a crowd of support waiting with food and care, and a ride home. My wrists were swollen for days, and despite a mental trauma that reignited a repressed autoimmune condition (first made famous by my parent’s divorce), I kept talking. First to the LA Times, then NPR, then NBC.
The Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, who its operations suspiciously temporarily suspended last week, has been a bastion of pointed editorial focused not only on the students under siege, but the administration that failed them and allowed both armed police and non-enrolled counter-protesters on campus to attack them. Despite Friday’s on campus brutality, The Daily Bruin is back with more necessary op-eds than ever:
Pro-Palestine protesters showed steadfast bravery, resistance amid police violence
As a UCLA parent, I denounce Gene Block’s negligence toward our children’s safety
As a South African during apartheid, I admire pro-Palestine protesters’ tenacity
Honorable mention to Teen Vogue: Cops Don’t Belong At Campus Protests
… and students at Harvard University who began organizing almost immediately last October and were the first to be threatened with coordinated blacklisting by industry zionists, including Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman.
Elsewhere, a great American reminder coming up from the University of Mississippi.
Dear asteroid, make it swift…
This week marked 24 years since the Kent State Massacre
Netanyahu forces Al Jazeera’s Israel outpost to close
A 2021-2024 timeline of Israel’s attacks on Al Jazeera offices and crew
Kenya’s Nairobi river floods, killing over 200
Sigh, Haiti gets a new, US-approved PM
The FTC ends the Affordable Connectivity Program
World Central Kitchen resumes work in Gaza
The Idea of *Us * — “Okay, I'm gonna sell this book. Nothing's gonna keep me back. If I have to make two white characters, I'm going to make them two white characters, but I'm going to make them very personal and specific to me.”
Author Robinne Lee’s revelation that she switched her characters from Black to white in order to sell her book raises the question, “Is Black art allowed to imitate Black life?…even in fiction?” Why does a Black author, writing about Black characters, suddenly cause a spike in industry interest, shelf position, and price point. More on Refinery 29.
To be Black in America is to watch 100% of your words, your art, your music, your fashion, your food, your swag and your style be adopted and consumed, while you’re body is told to wait outside because the representation room is at max capacity.