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"content": "\u003cp>If there is one emotion that hangs over our world these days—other than fear and anger, perhaps—it is grief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s the grief that comes from watching the death of George Floyd captured on a bystander’s video, pleading for his mother and his breath, while a police officer kneels with a knee on his neck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s grief over what that moment said about police and the policing of black people, along with grief over the protests and violence in some American cities as people demand answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there’s the grief of Coronavirus, as we mourn lives cut short, and shoulder the loss of jobs, business opportunities, weddings, vacations, graduations, senior proms …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this difficult time, television shows have emerged as a surprising resource, with important examples of how people process grief and handle journeys of loss. An increasing number of fictional dramas and comedy series center on characters struggling with grief in raw and emotional ways, which some experts say can actually help all of us learn how to process those feelings better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do think there’s a lot of power in the media starting to embrace grief as a conversation,” says Joanne Weingarten, the Senior Clinical Coordinator of adult programs at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ourhouse-grief.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Our House Grief Support Center \u003c/a>in Los Angeles. “The thing I find really powerful about these shows, is that they don’t solve grief in one episode. When you live in a culture that says after three days when someone you love dies, you should be back in the workforce, that can be really confusing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some have used the term “traumedies” to describe comedies about pain and loss. But there’s a wide range of shows mining the subject, featuring grief and grieving characters centrally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a way, it’s counterintuitive to typical TV development, which focuses on likable characters viewers want inside their homes—grieving characters can be unlikable and difficult to watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Holly Daniels, a former actress (\u003cem>House\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Castle)\u003c/em>, now has a doctorate in psychology and serves as Managing Director of Clinical Affairs for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.camft.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists\u003c/a> in Los Angeles. She says TV shows that treat grief as a momentary state often miss the mark, feeding into a culture that tells viewers major life problems can have simple solutions rooted in consumerism, like purchasing the right car or the right house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being in the rat race of our consumer culture, [the lockdowns sparked by the pandemic] forced us to kind of take a step back and figure out what is meaningful to us,” Daniels says. “Consumer culture disengages us. … We almost needed something this global to make us step back from that and look at our lives. … That’s what I see in these shows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It may sound odd to highlight fictional stories about grief at a time when so much of the real thing is around. But experts say there is also a catharsis in watching someone struggle with feelings you are having—it’s also one of the most powerful dynamics that binds us to television—and there is a lot about grief and grieving that today’s TV shows get right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s my list of the best TV shows that depict grief these days, along with a little analysis from the experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hbo.com/i-know-this-much-is-true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>I Know This Much Is True\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> (HBO)\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4KBGydqlVk\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this miniseries, based on a Wally Lamb novel, Mark Ruffalo gives anguished, emotional performances as two people; twin brothers, Dominick and Thomas. Though the first episode features Thomas committing a horrific act while struggling with mental illness, it is Dominick we see constantly suffering from grief—pushing away friends and family members after the loss of his mother, his baby, his marriage and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At times, Dominick seems the brother most in need of help, as his twin’s commitment to an institution sends him into a spiral of anger, self-loathing, guilt and anxiety that lasts years. In the miniseries, Dominick’s ex-wife, girlfriend, best friend and stepfather all step back in the wake of his blistering anger; for viewers, it makes watching the middle episodes of the miniseries a challenge as we plunge deeper into his dark world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Experts say:\u003c/strong> “Grief is really messy; it can be a lot of tangled emotions, positive and negative, over many months or many years,” says Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider, a physician who also was an executive producer of \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80210691\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>End Game\u003c/em>,\u003c/a> a Netflix documentary short about end of life issues. “Anxiety is the missing stage of grief that nobody talks about, but so many people are feeling right now. Giving ourselves permission to feel that can be really therapeutic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80998491\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>After Life \u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>(Netflix)\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIGGKSHMQOM\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ricky Gervais plays a more depressed and suicidal version of himself as Tony Johnson, features editor for a small community newspaper, who is drowning in grief after his beloved wife dies of breast cancer. At first, he plans to kill himself, then copes by doing whatever he wants—often lobbing insults at those around him, as only Gervais can—as a way of punishing the world. But when others try to help him, his attitude changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Experts say:\u003c/strong> “This show does a really good job of not sugarcoating his grief,” says Weingarten of the Our House Center. “It shows that he is angry, sad, and at moments wants to end his life. But, slowly, he tries to put one foot in front of the other, [though] there are setbacks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80219707\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>Dead to Me \u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>(Netflix)\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwYBw1raC2o\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one of the oddest buddy comedies on TV, Christina Applegate plays Jen Harding, a realtor struggling to handle grief after her husband is killed by a hit-and-run driver. Her life improves when she meets Judy Hale, played by Linda Cardellini, another widow at a grief support group who becomes a fast and close friend. But (spoiler alert!) when Jen learns that Judy isn’t exactly who she says she is, their relationship changes. In the second season, which debuted recently, Jen is still struggling to control her anger as their roles switch and she is forced to hide a terrible secret from Judy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Experts say:\u003c/strong> “You want to make sure you’re not putting pressure on yourself in the early stages of grief to see silver linings or find meaning or do work to make yourself a better person,” says Daniels, noting the pressure on Applegate’s character to improve during support group meetings. “If you’re in the angry phase or you’re in the ‘Everybody leave me alone, I need some space’ phase, that’s okay too. Just by showing us how these characters are feeling and letting us see that, without someone jumping in to fix it right away, is a huge help to a lot of people. … It really can be a comfort.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbc.com/this-is-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>This Is Us\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> (NBC)\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxORiOOrE8I\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NBC’s super-successful family drama centers on three grown siblings—two biological and one adopted—born on the same day. But the show depicts them at different times in their lives—as tweens, teens and adults—slowly revealing that much of the series’ storylines are centered on how the siblings have been affected across the breadth of their lives by the death of their father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Experts say:\u003c/strong> “That’s a show people at the [Our House Grief] Center talk about a lot … [because] we grieve not just for the current moment, we grieve for the future we planned with the person who died,” says Weingarten. “Every time there’s an event that you expected that person to [attend], there will be some grief involved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/sorryforyourloss/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>Sorry For Your Loss \u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>(Facebook Watch)\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajPHIp-ZgfA\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This under-the-radar series is probably the best original show Facebook has produced yet for its Watch platform. \u003cem>Avengers\u003c/em> franchise star Elizabeth Olsen plays Leigh Shaw, a young widow who left her job writing an advice column to move in with her mother and sister after her husband dies. As a widow, Leigh feels the most entitled to show her grief, but the series reveals that everyone in her family is struggling with the loss of her husband in different ways, including her husband’s brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Experts say:\u003c/strong> “When someone in our life dies … everyone else [in our life] is grieving the same person, but they have a different relationship with that person,” says Weingarten. “Even though we’re grieving the same individual, what we’re missing about that person might be radically different. So engaging in conversations with others and talking about what you miss about that person can be really powerful, because we can learn about the people we loved after they are gone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are many more great TV shows centered on this subject, from HBO’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.hbo.com/six-feet-under\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Six Feet Under\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and ABC’s \u003ca href=\"https://abc.com/shows/a-million-little-things\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>A Million Little Things\u003c/em>\u003c/a> to Amazon’s\u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Undone-Season-1/dp/B07SQB8LQ9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> \u003cem>Undone\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and Netflix’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80179190\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Never Have I Ever\u003c/em>. \u003c/a>Even classic good guys like Harry Potter, Batman and Superman were forged into heroes by the crucible of grief, rebounding from the deaths of their parents to become forces for justice. [aside postid='pop_105551']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daniels says such fictional work can provide lasting lessons, as trauma from the pandemic and world events remains with us all, even after the immediate crisis ends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re always going to carry this time with us,” she says. “But maybe struggling together can bring us closer to each other. Maybe we’ll find more connection. And TV shows which [depict] that arc of healing and reconnection … that’s a really important storyline for people to see.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Nina Gregory edited this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=If+You%27re+Grieving+Right+Now%2C+Here+Are+5+Shows+That+Get+It&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If there is one emotion that hangs over our world these days—other than fear and anger, perhaps—it is grief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s the grief that comes from watching the death of George Floyd captured on a bystander’s video, pleading for his mother and his breath, while a police officer kneels with a knee on his neck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s grief over what that moment said about police and the policing of black people, along with grief over the protests and violence in some American cities as people demand answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there’s the grief of Coronavirus, as we mourn lives cut short, and shoulder the loss of jobs, business opportunities, weddings, vacations, graduations, senior proms …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this difficult time, television shows have emerged as a surprising resource, with important examples of how people process grief and handle journeys of loss. An increasing number of fictional dramas and comedy series center on characters struggling with grief in raw and emotional ways, which some experts say can actually help all of us learn how to process those feelings better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do think there’s a lot of power in the media starting to embrace grief as a conversation,” says Joanne Weingarten, the Senior Clinical Coordinator of adult programs at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ourhouse-grief.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Our House Grief Support Center \u003c/a>in Los Angeles. “The thing I find really powerful about these shows, is that they don’t solve grief in one episode. When you live in a culture that says after three days when someone you love dies, you should be back in the workforce, that can be really confusing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some have used the term “traumedies” to describe comedies about pain and loss. But there’s a wide range of shows mining the subject, featuring grief and grieving characters centrally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a way, it’s counterintuitive to typical TV development, which focuses on likable characters viewers want inside their homes—grieving characters can be unlikable and difficult to watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Holly Daniels, a former actress (\u003cem>House\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Castle)\u003c/em>, now has a doctorate in psychology and serves as Managing Director of Clinical Affairs for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.camft.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists\u003c/a> in Los Angeles. She says TV shows that treat grief as a momentary state often miss the mark, feeding into a culture that tells viewers major life problems can have simple solutions rooted in consumerism, like purchasing the right car or the right house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being in the rat race of our consumer culture, [the lockdowns sparked by the pandemic] forced us to kind of take a step back and figure out what is meaningful to us,” Daniels says. “Consumer culture disengages us. … We almost needed something this global to make us step back from that and look at our lives. … That’s what I see in these shows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It may sound odd to highlight fictional stories about grief at a time when so much of the real thing is around. But experts say there is also a catharsis in watching someone struggle with feelings you are having—it’s also one of the most powerful dynamics that binds us to television—and there is a lot about grief and grieving that today’s TV shows get right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s my list of the best TV shows that depict grief these days, along with a little analysis from the experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hbo.com/i-know-this-much-is-true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>I Know This Much Is True\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> (HBO)\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/U4KBGydqlVk'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/U4KBGydqlVk'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>In this miniseries, based on a Wally Lamb novel, Mark Ruffalo gives anguished, emotional performances as two people; twin brothers, Dominick and Thomas. Though the first episode features Thomas committing a horrific act while struggling with mental illness, it is Dominick we see constantly suffering from grief—pushing away friends and family members after the loss of his mother, his baby, his marriage and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At times, Dominick seems the brother most in need of help, as his twin’s commitment to an institution sends him into a spiral of anger, self-loathing, guilt and anxiety that lasts years. In the miniseries, Dominick’s ex-wife, girlfriend, best friend and stepfather all step back in the wake of his blistering anger; for viewers, it makes watching the middle episodes of the miniseries a challenge as we plunge deeper into his dark world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Experts say:\u003c/strong> “Grief is really messy; it can be a lot of tangled emotions, positive and negative, over many months or many years,” says Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider, a physician who also was an executive producer of \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80210691\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>End Game\u003c/em>,\u003c/a> a Netflix documentary short about end of life issues. “Anxiety is the missing stage of grief that nobody talks about, but so many people are feeling right now. Giving ourselves permission to feel that can be really therapeutic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80998491\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>After Life \u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>(Netflix)\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/eIGGKSHMQOM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/eIGGKSHMQOM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Ricky Gervais plays a more depressed and suicidal version of himself as Tony Johnson, features editor for a small community newspaper, who is drowning in grief after his beloved wife dies of breast cancer. At first, he plans to kill himself, then copes by doing whatever he wants—often lobbing insults at those around him, as only Gervais can—as a way of punishing the world. But when others try to help him, his attitude changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Experts say:\u003c/strong> “This show does a really good job of not sugarcoating his grief,” says Weingarten of the Our House Center. “It shows that he is angry, sad, and at moments wants to end his life. But, slowly, he tries to put one foot in front of the other, [though] there are setbacks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80219707\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>Dead to Me \u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>(Netflix)\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/BwYBw1raC2o'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/BwYBw1raC2o'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>In one of the oddest buddy comedies on TV, Christina Applegate plays Jen Harding, a realtor struggling to handle grief after her husband is killed by a hit-and-run driver. Her life improves when she meets Judy Hale, played by Linda Cardellini, another widow at a grief support group who becomes a fast and close friend. But (spoiler alert!) when Jen learns that Judy isn’t exactly who she says she is, their relationship changes. In the second season, which debuted recently, Jen is still struggling to control her anger as their roles switch and she is forced to hide a terrible secret from Judy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Experts say:\u003c/strong> “You want to make sure you’re not putting pressure on yourself in the early stages of grief to see silver linings or find meaning or do work to make yourself a better person,” says Daniels, noting the pressure on Applegate’s character to improve during support group meetings. “If you’re in the angry phase or you’re in the ‘Everybody leave me alone, I need some space’ phase, that’s okay too. Just by showing us how these characters are feeling and letting us see that, without someone jumping in to fix it right away, is a huge help to a lot of people. … It really can be a comfort.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbc.com/this-is-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>This Is Us\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> (NBC)\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/RxORiOOrE8I'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/RxORiOOrE8I'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>NBC’s super-successful family drama centers on three grown siblings—two biological and one adopted—born on the same day. But the show depicts them at different times in their lives—as tweens, teens and adults—slowly revealing that much of the series’ storylines are centered on how the siblings have been affected across the breadth of their lives by the death of their father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Experts say:\u003c/strong> “That’s a show people at the [Our House Grief] Center talk about a lot … [because] we grieve not just for the current moment, we grieve for the future we planned with the person who died,” says Weingarten. “Every time there’s an event that you expected that person to [attend], there will be some grief involved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/sorryforyourloss/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>Sorry For Your Loss \u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>(Facebook Watch)\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/ajPHIp-ZgfA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/ajPHIp-ZgfA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>This under-the-radar series is probably the best original show Facebook has produced yet for its Watch platform. \u003cem>Avengers\u003c/em> franchise star Elizabeth Olsen plays Leigh Shaw, a young widow who left her job writing an advice column to move in with her mother and sister after her husband dies. As a widow, Leigh feels the most entitled to show her grief, but the series reveals that everyone in her family is struggling with the loss of her husband in different ways, including her husband’s brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Experts say:\u003c/strong> “When someone in our life dies … everyone else [in our life] is grieving the same person, but they have a different relationship with that person,” says Weingarten. “Even though we’re grieving the same individual, what we’re missing about that person might be radically different. So engaging in conversations with others and talking about what you miss about that person can be really powerful, because we can learn about the people we loved after they are gone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are many more great TV shows centered on this subject, from HBO’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.hbo.com/six-feet-under\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Six Feet Under\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and ABC’s \u003ca href=\"https://abc.com/shows/a-million-little-things\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>A Million Little Things\u003c/em>\u003c/a> to Amazon’s\u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Undone-Season-1/dp/B07SQB8LQ9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> \u003cem>Undone\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and Netflix’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80179190\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Never Have I Ever\u003c/em>. \u003c/a>Even classic good guys like Harry Potter, Batman and Superman were forged into heroes by the crucible of grief, rebounding from the deaths of their parents to become forces for justice. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daniels says such fictional work can provide lasting lessons, as trauma from the pandemic and world events remains with us all, even after the immediate crisis ends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re always going to carry this time with us,” she says. “But maybe struggling together can bring us closer to each other. Maybe we’ll find more connection. And TV shows which [depict] that arc of healing and reconnection … that’s a really important storyline for people to see.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Nina Gregory edited this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=If+You%27re+Grieving+Right+Now%2C+Here+Are+5+Shows+That+Get+It&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Long Summer Ahead: What Writers Are Reading As The Pandemic Goes On",
"headTitle": "A Long Summer Ahead: What Writers Are Reading As The Pandemic Goes On | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>What are you reading during the pandemic? We’ve been asking that question to a range of writers and they’ve responded with suggestions for fantasy, poetry, new fiction, old fiction, web comics, fairy tales and more. You can find recommendations below from Ben Philippe, Jade Chang, Raina Telgemeier, Tess Taylor and Thomas Pierce—and we’ll add more as the summer goes on.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Ben Philippe Recommends The ‘Animorphs’ Series\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13882055\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 302px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13882055\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.01.40-PM.png\" alt=\"'The Invasion' by Katherine Applegate.\" width=\"302\" height=\"443\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.01.40-PM.png 302w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.01.40-PM-160x235.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 302px) 100vw, 302px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘The Invasion’ by Katherine Applegate.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>During the pandemic, Ben Phillipe, author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/01/21/687255684/field-guide-to-the-north-american-teenager-taps-into-the-raw-anxiety-of-adolesce\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Field Guide to the North American Teenager\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>,\u003c/em> has realized that all of his previous desert island lists (you know, the lists of books you’d take with you if you were stranded on a desert island) were “complete BS.” Turns out, he’s not rereading \u003cem>The Virgin Suicides\u003c/em> or Dostoevsky, but rather the children’s fantasy \u003cem>Animorphs\u003c/em> series by K. A. Applegate—in its entirety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The \u003cem>Animorphs\u003c/em> are actually an incredibly dark dystopia,” he explains. An alien invasion of Earth is underway, and five kids must fight for their doomed planet as best they can. “Underneath it all, there is such a looming sense of despair,” Phillipe says. “I don’t think I ever sort of latched onto that darkness when I was, you know, 14, 15. But now I’m like: Oh, God, this is so bad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phillipe finds the kids’ tenacity soothing right now. “Even though the world is so dark, these kids keep going on,” he says. “They still have crushes. They still go to dances. They have family gatherings. … They just have to keep pretending everything’s fine. … I think that that sort of element of pretending and going on is very appealing to me right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Tess Taylor Recommends The Poem ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Poetry critic Tess Taylor says she and her family are doing their best to keep busy and stay positive but “every so often, something will happen and one of us will burst into tears.” There’s a sense that the family is all in it together—but that they are fragile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I think is really important right now is to remember that poems and literature can give us a chance to reroute ourselves,” says Taylor. And at a time when most of our real-world journeys are canceled, we can still escape in our own minds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taylor has found that \u003ca href=\"https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43281/the-lake-isle-of-innisfree\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats\u003c/a> is “a very convincing imaginary journey.” Yeats describes a small cabin, honey bees and cricket song. “I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore,” he writes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I love about that poem is that we go with him,” Taylor explains. At the end, readers find he’s still standing on the gray pavement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He reminds us that he hasn’t actually gone anywhere,” she says. “But he’s just taken this beautiful imaginative journey, and he’s made this beautiful sound in language. And he’s calmed us down. He’s calmed himself down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the powerful roles of literature, she says, is to “let us have some space to imagine.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Jade Chang Recommends, ‘Minor Feelings,’ ‘New Waves’ and ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13882057\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 285px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13882057\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.06.59-PM.png\" alt=\"'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' by Betty Smith.\" width=\"285\" height=\"428\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.06.59-PM.png 285w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.06.59-PM-160x240.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 285px) 100vw, 285px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ by Betty Smith.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jade Chang, author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2016/10/05/496446345/the-wangs-is-sparkling-family-travelogue-with-teeth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Wangs vs. The World\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, \u003c/em>has found herself thinking a lot about authors trying to launch their books this spring and summer. “It’s so hard in any climate, but it’s especially hard right now,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chang is excited to dig into \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/02/27/802298200/in-minor-feelings-asian-american-racial-trauma-is-laid-bare\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning\u003c/em>\u003c/a> by Cathy Park Hong. “It’s part memoir, part cultural criticism,” Chang explains, “And at a time when we have a president who is introducing a term like ‘Chinese virus,’ it feels like really essential reading.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/03/10/814164937/new-waves-asks-how-can-we-form-true-friendships-in-an-online-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>New Waves\u003c/em>\u003c/a> by Kevin Nguyen is also on her nightstand. “It is kind of a heist story in the tech world, so I think it should be pretty fun,” Chang says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for an older story, she recommends one of her “true loves”—\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=138257002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>A Tree Grows in Brooklyn\u003c/em>\u003c/a> by Betty Smith. This is “a true comfort read that still won’t feel completely frivolous right now …” Chang says. “It really is about this girl kind of figuring out how to be a person in the world, how to make her way in the world, how to love the world. And … I think it’s important for us in any time, but especially in a time like this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Raina Telgemeier Recommends Julia Kaye Comics, ‘Hot Comb’ And ‘Almost American Girl’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Raina Telgemeier, author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/437620370/smile\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Smile,\u003c/em>\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/359420787/sisters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Sisters\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/753513015/guts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Guts, \u003c/em>\u003c/a>says the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t really changed her work habits—she’s used to working from home with her two cats—and it hasn’t really changed her reading habits much either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My work has always dealt with anxiety and sort of the inner condition of the mind,” she explains, “so I’ve always been drawn to realistic fiction and to memoir and to people’s kind of daily lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Telgemeier reads a lot of web comics, and she’s been enjoying the work of trans cartoonist Julia Kaye. Her Instagram handle is \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/upandoutcomic/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@upandoutcomic\u003c/a> and “her more recent comics are about having transitioned and just, you know, what comes next?” Telgemeier says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.instagram.com/p/B7q-tVbBYJh/\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the pandemic, Telgemeier says she’s found herself gravitating to “regular stories about regular people and the regular relationships they have with their regular families.” And there are two graphic novels that have really done that for her as of late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/777038341/hot-comb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Hot Comb\u003c/em> \u003c/a>by Ebony Flowers, is about black hair and “about the relationships that develop when women and girls sit down in a beauty shop to put in braids or to take them out,” Telgemeier says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And next, in \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/868723064/almost-american-girl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Almost American Girl\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, Robin Ha tells her story of moving from Seoul, Korea to Alabama in the 1990s. “It’s so, so hard to see Robin struggle with the culture clash and with feeling isolated, but then it’s wonderful to see her find her people,” Telgemeier says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Personal comics and memoirs allow readers to “really get to see what people’s lives looks like,” Telgemeier says—and that’s exactly what she needs during this time.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Thomas Pierce Recommends ‘The Fairy Tales Of Herman Hesse’\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13882058\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 302px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13882058\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.10.52-PM.png\" alt=\"'The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse' by Hermann Hesse.\" width=\"302\" height=\"466\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.10.52-PM.png 302w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.10.52-PM-160x247.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 302px) 100vw, 302px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse’ by Hermann Hesse.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Thomas Pierce, author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/01/11/575488659/the-afterlives-explores-what-well-do-for-another-glimpse-of-the-departed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Afterlives\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2015/01/07/374034287/confident-tales-of-small-mammals-funny-videos-and-childhood-ghosts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Hall of Small Mammals, \u003c/em>\u003c/a>is recommending a book of fairy tales, but says he’s tempted to call them anti-fairy tales instead. “They are lots of fragments and allegories, and they flow like dreams,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One story, about a quaint city called Faldum, is what brought Pierce back to the book after many years. A fair is happening in town, and a mysterious stranger appears and grants wishes to the townspeople. Two men—who had been up in an attic all day playing and listening to the violin—are the last two to make their wishes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The violinist wishes he could play so beautifully that no one would ever disturb him again—and he gets his wish … ” Pierce says. “He disappears into the heavens and he’s never heard from again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The man who had been listening to the violin music wishes to become a mountain—so that he can continue to hear the beautiful violinist play—and his wish is granted as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Time just lunges forward in this really interesting way,” Pierce says. “Generations just come and go in this city, and the mountain’s there throughout it all. … I find it to be very comforting. It’s about cycles of time, and the seasons, and the ebbs and flows, and the fact that we all exist within these cycles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This series is produced by Mallory Yu and edited by Justine Kenin. Beth Novey adapted it for the Web. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Long+Summer+Ahead%3A+What+Writers+Are+Reading+As+The+Pandemic+Goes+On&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>What are you reading during the pandemic? We’ve been asking that question to a range of writers and they’ve responded with suggestions for fantasy, poetry, new fiction, old fiction, web comics, fairy tales and more. You can find recommendations below from Ben Philippe, Jade Chang, Raina Telgemeier, Tess Taylor and Thomas Pierce—and we’ll add more as the summer goes on.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Ben Philippe Recommends The ‘Animorphs’ Series\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13882055\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 302px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13882055\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.01.40-PM.png\" alt=\"'The Invasion' by Katherine Applegate.\" width=\"302\" height=\"443\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.01.40-PM.png 302w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.01.40-PM-160x235.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 302px) 100vw, 302px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘The Invasion’ by Katherine Applegate.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>During the pandemic, Ben Phillipe, author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/01/21/687255684/field-guide-to-the-north-american-teenager-taps-into-the-raw-anxiety-of-adolesce\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Field Guide to the North American Teenager\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>,\u003c/em> has realized that all of his previous desert island lists (you know, the lists of books you’d take with you if you were stranded on a desert island) were “complete BS.” Turns out, he’s not rereading \u003cem>The Virgin Suicides\u003c/em> or Dostoevsky, but rather the children’s fantasy \u003cem>Animorphs\u003c/em> series by K. A. Applegate—in its entirety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The \u003cem>Animorphs\u003c/em> are actually an incredibly dark dystopia,” he explains. An alien invasion of Earth is underway, and five kids must fight for their doomed planet as best they can. “Underneath it all, there is such a looming sense of despair,” Phillipe says. “I don’t think I ever sort of latched onto that darkness when I was, you know, 14, 15. But now I’m like: Oh, God, this is so bad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phillipe finds the kids’ tenacity soothing right now. “Even though the world is so dark, these kids keep going on,” he says. “They still have crushes. They still go to dances. They have family gatherings. … They just have to keep pretending everything’s fine. … I think that that sort of element of pretending and going on is very appealing to me right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Tess Taylor Recommends The Poem ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Poetry critic Tess Taylor says she and her family are doing their best to keep busy and stay positive but “every so often, something will happen and one of us will burst into tears.” There’s a sense that the family is all in it together—but that they are fragile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I think is really important right now is to remember that poems and literature can give us a chance to reroute ourselves,” says Taylor. And at a time when most of our real-world journeys are canceled, we can still escape in our own minds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taylor has found that \u003ca href=\"https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43281/the-lake-isle-of-innisfree\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats\u003c/a> is “a very convincing imaginary journey.” Yeats describes a small cabin, honey bees and cricket song. “I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore,” he writes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I love about that poem is that we go with him,” Taylor explains. At the end, readers find he’s still standing on the gray pavement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He reminds us that he hasn’t actually gone anywhere,” she says. “But he’s just taken this beautiful imaginative journey, and he’s made this beautiful sound in language. And he’s calmed us down. He’s calmed himself down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the powerful roles of literature, she says, is to “let us have some space to imagine.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Jade Chang Recommends, ‘Minor Feelings,’ ‘New Waves’ and ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13882057\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 285px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13882057\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.06.59-PM.png\" alt=\"'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' by Betty Smith.\" width=\"285\" height=\"428\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.06.59-PM.png 285w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.06.59-PM-160x240.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 285px) 100vw, 285px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ by Betty Smith.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jade Chang, author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2016/10/05/496446345/the-wangs-is-sparkling-family-travelogue-with-teeth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Wangs vs. The World\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, \u003c/em>has found herself thinking a lot about authors trying to launch their books this spring and summer. “It’s so hard in any climate, but it’s especially hard right now,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chang is excited to dig into \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/02/27/802298200/in-minor-feelings-asian-american-racial-trauma-is-laid-bare\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning\u003c/em>\u003c/a> by Cathy Park Hong. “It’s part memoir, part cultural criticism,” Chang explains, “And at a time when we have a president who is introducing a term like ‘Chinese virus,’ it feels like really essential reading.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/03/10/814164937/new-waves-asks-how-can-we-form-true-friendships-in-an-online-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>New Waves\u003c/em>\u003c/a> by Kevin Nguyen is also on her nightstand. “It is kind of a heist story in the tech world, so I think it should be pretty fun,” Chang says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for an older story, she recommends one of her “true loves”—\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=138257002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>A Tree Grows in Brooklyn\u003c/em>\u003c/a> by Betty Smith. This is “a true comfort read that still won’t feel completely frivolous right now …” Chang says. “It really is about this girl kind of figuring out how to be a person in the world, how to make her way in the world, how to love the world. And … I think it’s important for us in any time, but especially in a time like this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Raina Telgemeier Recommends Julia Kaye Comics, ‘Hot Comb’ And ‘Almost American Girl’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Raina Telgemeier, author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/437620370/smile\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Smile,\u003c/em>\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/359420787/sisters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Sisters\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/753513015/guts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Guts, \u003c/em>\u003c/a>says the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t really changed her work habits—she’s used to working from home with her two cats—and it hasn’t really changed her reading habits much either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My work has always dealt with anxiety and sort of the inner condition of the mind,” she explains, “so I’ve always been drawn to realistic fiction and to memoir and to people’s kind of daily lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Telgemeier reads a lot of web comics, and she’s been enjoying the work of trans cartoonist Julia Kaye. Her Instagram handle is \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/upandoutcomic/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@upandoutcomic\u003c/a> and “her more recent comics are about having transitioned and just, you know, what comes next?” Telgemeier says.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>During the pandemic, Telgemeier says she’s found herself gravitating to “regular stories about regular people and the regular relationships they have with their regular families.” And there are two graphic novels that have really done that for her as of late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/777038341/hot-comb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Hot Comb\u003c/em> \u003c/a>by Ebony Flowers, is about black hair and “about the relationships that develop when women and girls sit down in a beauty shop to put in braids or to take them out,” Telgemeier says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And next, in \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/868723064/almost-american-girl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Almost American Girl\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, Robin Ha tells her story of moving from Seoul, Korea to Alabama in the 1990s. “It’s so, so hard to see Robin struggle with the culture clash and with feeling isolated, but then it’s wonderful to see her find her people,” Telgemeier says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Personal comics and memoirs allow readers to “really get to see what people’s lives looks like,” Telgemeier says—and that’s exactly what she needs during this time.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Thomas Pierce Recommends ‘The Fairy Tales Of Herman Hesse’\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13882058\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 302px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13882058\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.10.52-PM.png\" alt=\"'The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse' by Hermann Hesse.\" width=\"302\" height=\"466\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.10.52-PM.png 302w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-2.10.52-PM-160x247.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 302px) 100vw, 302px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse’ by Hermann Hesse.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Thomas Pierce, author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/01/11/575488659/the-afterlives-explores-what-well-do-for-another-glimpse-of-the-departed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Afterlives\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2015/01/07/374034287/confident-tales-of-small-mammals-funny-videos-and-childhood-ghosts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Hall of Small Mammals, \u003c/em>\u003c/a>is recommending a book of fairy tales, but says he’s tempted to call them anti-fairy tales instead. “They are lots of fragments and allegories, and they flow like dreams,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One story, about a quaint city called Faldum, is what brought Pierce back to the book after many years. A fair is happening in town, and a mysterious stranger appears and grants wishes to the townspeople. Two men—who had been up in an attic all day playing and listening to the violin—are the last two to make their wishes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The violinist wishes he could play so beautifully that no one would ever disturb him again—and he gets his wish … ” Pierce says. “He disappears into the heavens and he’s never heard from again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The man who had been listening to the violin music wishes to become a mountain—so that he can continue to hear the beautiful violinist play—and his wish is granted as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Time just lunges forward in this really interesting way,” Pierce says. “Generations just come and go in this city, and the mountain’s there throughout it all. … I find it to be very comforting. It’s about cycles of time, and the seasons, and the ebbs and flows, and the fact that we all exist within these cycles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This series is produced by Mallory Yu and edited by Justine Kenin. Beth Novey adapted it for the Web. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Long+Summer+Ahead%3A+What+Writers+Are+Reading+As+The+Pandemic+Goes+On&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "'The Art of Her Deal' Presents Melania Trump as an Influential Collaborator",
"headTitle": "‘The Art of Her Deal’ Presents Melania Trump as an Influential Collaborator | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>From the outside, Melania Trump looks like a woman in over her tastefully balayaged head. At public events, she rarely speaks, but assumes the rictus smolder—like a model who has just spotted a lion over the photographer’s shoulder—that inspired a thousand #freemelania signs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new, scrupulously reported biography by \u003cem>Washington Post\u003c/em> reporter Mary Jordan counters this perception, arguing that the first lady is not a pawn but a player, an accessory in the second as much as the first sense, and a woman able to get what she wants from one of the most powerful and transparently vain men in the world. The book is called \u003cem>The Art of Her Deal. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13881974\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 303px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13881974\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-15-at-12.20.49-PM.png\" alt=\"'The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump,' by Mary Jordan.\" width=\"303\" height=\"477\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump,’ by Mary Jordan.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For this book, Jordan interviewed more than a hundred people, including Melania’s Slovenian childhood acquaintances, staff members at Donald Trump’s properties, players in the New York and Paris modeling world, and one-time Trump insiders like Chris Christie, Roger Stone and Anthony Scaramucci. She also spoke briefly to the first lady herself in the course of her reporting on the 2016 election. The result is a convincing case that those “who dismiss her as nothing more than an accessory do not understand her or her influence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Make no mistake: Beauty is the first line in the job description. As \u003cem>Women’s Wear Daily\u003c/em> reported, Melania was asked in 2005 whether she would be with Donald Trump if he were not rich. “If I weren’t beautiful,” she replied, “do you think he’d be with me?” That stinging, cynical answer seemed to capture the essence of their exchange: money for beauty, beauty for money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the years since, Melania has had to offer much more than her looks: She has endured a presidential campaign, the humiliations of Stormy Daniels and the Access Hollywood tape, and the daily demands of life in the White House.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout these trials, Jordan characterizes Melania as a canny operator who believed “she had more to gain by standing by her husband than walking away.” Jordan writes that after Trump was accused of infidelity and assault, Melania used the fact that he needed her public loyalty and presence in Washington to negotiate a better prenuptial agreement. Melania referred to this process as “taking care of Barron.” Jordan reports that she was worried that their son Barron would not be treated as well as Trump’s other children. (As Jordan points out, this was perhaps for good reason—Trump has at least once seemed to forget Barron was his, saying of Melania at a 2019 press briefing, “She’s got a son.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Melania has also influenced key policy decisions, mostly having to do with children: She pushed back against child separation at the border and advocated for harsher rules about marketing e-cigarettes to minors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the course of her reporting, Jordan finds that Donald Trump is not the only mythmaker in the family. She investigates, for instance, Melania’s suggestion that she speaks—in addition to English and Slovenian—French, Italian and German. Jordan concludes that, like Melania’s claim to have graduated from university in Slovenia, that section of her CV is likely fabricated or at least seriously exaggerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But \u003cem>The Art of Her Deal \u003c/em>offers few scoops in the conventional sense; its major contribution is merely the insistence that Melania is a real person with complicated motivations. This point should be obvious: Isn’t everybody, in and out of the White House, complex, striving, conflicted, out for something? The flattening effect of political discourse, the special insipidity of the first lady role, and Melania’s own particular remoteness have allowed us either to forget that she has an inner life, or to imagine her as an elegant prisoner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Women in public life, from Hillary Clinton to Princess Diana, have a way of crystallizing attitudes about women more broadly. Melania speaks rarely and haltingly, and her face expresses emotion only through the narrowing and widening of flame-blue eyes. When she speaks, the planes of her face remain utterly undisturbed. Because of this ruthless blankness, she is better suited than almost any other woman in public to be a projecting screen. Which makes it worth asking: What is it in us that prefers a captive to a collaborator?\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27The+Art+Of+Her+Deal%27+Aims+To+Show+Melania+Trump+As+An+Influential+Collaborator&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>From the outside, Melania Trump looks like a woman in over her tastefully balayaged head. At public events, she rarely speaks, but assumes the rictus smolder—like a model who has just spotted a lion over the photographer’s shoulder—that inspired a thousand #freemelania signs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new, scrupulously reported biography by \u003cem>Washington Post\u003c/em> reporter Mary Jordan counters this perception, arguing that the first lady is not a pawn but a player, an accessory in the second as much as the first sense, and a woman able to get what she wants from one of the most powerful and transparently vain men in the world. The book is called \u003cem>The Art of Her Deal. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13881974\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 303px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13881974\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-15-at-12.20.49-PM.png\" alt=\"'The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump,' by Mary Jordan.\" width=\"303\" height=\"477\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump,’ by Mary Jordan.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For this book, Jordan interviewed more than a hundred people, including Melania’s Slovenian childhood acquaintances, staff members at Donald Trump’s properties, players in the New York and Paris modeling world, and one-time Trump insiders like Chris Christie, Roger Stone and Anthony Scaramucci. She also spoke briefly to the first lady herself in the course of her reporting on the 2016 election. The result is a convincing case that those “who dismiss her as nothing more than an accessory do not understand her or her influence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Make no mistake: Beauty is the first line in the job description. As \u003cem>Women’s Wear Daily\u003c/em> reported, Melania was asked in 2005 whether she would be with Donald Trump if he were not rich. “If I weren’t beautiful,” she replied, “do you think he’d be with me?” That stinging, cynical answer seemed to capture the essence of their exchange: money for beauty, beauty for money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the years since, Melania has had to offer much more than her looks: She has endured a presidential campaign, the humiliations of Stormy Daniels and the Access Hollywood tape, and the daily demands of life in the White House.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout these trials, Jordan characterizes Melania as a canny operator who believed “she had more to gain by standing by her husband than walking away.” Jordan writes that after Trump was accused of infidelity and assault, Melania used the fact that he needed her public loyalty and presence in Washington to negotiate a better prenuptial agreement. Melania referred to this process as “taking care of Barron.” Jordan reports that she was worried that their son Barron would not be treated as well as Trump’s other children. (As Jordan points out, this was perhaps for good reason—Trump has at least once seemed to forget Barron was his, saying of Melania at a 2019 press briefing, “She’s got a son.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Melania has also influenced key policy decisions, mostly having to do with children: She pushed back against child separation at the border and advocated for harsher rules about marketing e-cigarettes to minors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the course of her reporting, Jordan finds that Donald Trump is not the only mythmaker in the family. She investigates, for instance, Melania’s suggestion that she speaks—in addition to English and Slovenian—French, Italian and German. Jordan concludes that, like Melania’s claim to have graduated from university in Slovenia, that section of her CV is likely fabricated or at least seriously exaggerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But \u003cem>The Art of Her Deal \u003c/em>offers few scoops in the conventional sense; its major contribution is merely the insistence that Melania is a real person with complicated motivations. This point should be obvious: Isn’t everybody, in and out of the White House, complex, striving, conflicted, out for something? The flattening effect of political discourse, the special insipidity of the first lady role, and Melania’s own particular remoteness have allowed us either to forget that she has an inner life, or to imagine her as an elegant prisoner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Women in public life, from Hillary Clinton to Princess Diana, have a way of crystallizing attitudes about women more broadly. Melania speaks rarely and haltingly, and her face expresses emotion only through the narrowing and widening of flame-blue eyes. When she speaks, the planes of her face remain utterly undisturbed. Because of this ruthless blankness, she is better suited than almost any other woman in public to be a projecting screen. Which makes it worth asking: What is it in us that prefers a captive to a collaborator?\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27The+Art+Of+Her+Deal%27+Aims+To+Show+Melania+Trump+As+An+Influential+Collaborator&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Dismantling 'The Bachelor's' Racist and Sexist Elements Has Only Just Begun",
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"content": "\u003cp>ABC may believe it has faced down some criticism by naming Matt James as the first black man to star in its dating “reality TV” franchise \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em>. But its challenge in dismantling the show’s racist and sexist elements has only begun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My longtime criticism of the \u003cem>Bachelor\u003c/em> franchise speaks to the heart of the show’s design. It is a princess fantasy, built around the idea of a woman finding fulfillment by landing the perfect man, filtered through an upper-middle class, predominantly white lens. [aside postid='pop_104953']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why this announcement, \u003ca href=\"https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/culture/story/bachelor-names-matt-james-franchises-1st-black-bachelor-71212543\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">delivered with fanfare\u003c/a> on ABC’s breakfast-time news show \u003cem>Good Morning America\u003c/em>, hit like a thunderclap at a crucial time for the franchise. \u003ca href=\"https://www.change.org/p/abc-a-campaign-for-anti-racism-in-the-bachelor-franchise\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A petition\u003c/a> on Change.org started last week—asking for a black bachelor, for 35 percent of the show’s contestants to be people of color, and for participants to be screened for past racist behavior, among other things—has more than 85,000 signatures and counting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rachel Lindsay, cast as \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em>‘s first black female lead back in 2017, has criticized the show for its lack of diversity and \u003ca href=\"https://www.rachellindsayofficial.com/post/honestly-rach-june-8-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote a column\u003c/a> with suggestions for making it better. Given how other highly criticized \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/10/873624536/cops-show-canceled-amid-worldwide-protests-against-police-violence\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shows like \u003cem>Cops\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and \u003cem>Live PD\u003c/em> were vaporized in the wake of current debates about police brutality and racism, it feels a bit convenient that ABC and \u003cem>Bachelor/Bachelorette\u003c/em> executive producer Mike Fleiss is taking this step now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest question hanging over this moment is simple: Why did it take so long?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em>, featuring a single man choosing a mate from about two dozen aspiring women, debuted in 2002. \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em>, a spin-off which puts a woman in the choosing position, debuted in 2003. But the show didn’t cast a non-white Bachelor until 2014; Juan Pablo Galavis, a soccer star of Venezuelan heritage who looked an awful lot like the well-scrubbed white guys often featured on the show and had been eliminated early as a choice on \u003cem>The Bachelorette \u003c/em>in 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Galavis was named just two years after two black men who had tried out for \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> and failed to make the cast sued the show for racial discrimination. Their contention was that the show deliberately excluded and diminished potential contestants of color; \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2012/10/16/162992776/a-judge-dismisses-the-bachelor-discrimination-lawsuit-but-not-its-concerns\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a judge ruled\u003c/a> that, even if they were right, the show had a First Amendment right to cast who they wanted. [aside postid='arts_13881748']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as the show faces renewed pressure to improve its diversity track record, it names as its new star, James—a 28-year-old real estate broker who was part of this season of \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em>, which paused production due to the coronavirus pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(I guess we know who isn’t winning this season of \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em>. Still, since the\u003cem> Bachelor/Bachelorette\u003c/em> franchise often recycles stars from contestants on previous shows, sometimes almost winning is better for someone’s reality TV career than actually getting picked as a mate.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know we have a responsibility to make sure the love stories we’re seeing onscreen are representative of the world we live in, and we are proudly in service to our audience,” said ABC entertainment president Karey Burke in a statement. “This is just the beginning, and we will continue to take action with regard to diversity issues on this franchise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the obvious stuff like “don’t stereotype the star as an angry black man” and “hire more non-white producers behind the scenes with power,” here are my recommendations to ABC and Fleiss on what still needs to happen for \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> to address its problems with race:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The show can’t be centered on white, upper-middle-class sensibilities anymore.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This goes beyond casting more non-white people on the show. Casting a wider diversity of people won’t make much difference if they’re expected to act just like the white people who have dominated the show for so many years. Dates set in opulent, lily-white environments like luxury resorts have got to end, along with the materialism that makes so many adventures on the show feel like a journey through the world of upper-middle class white folks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Racism and racists can’t be used as sources of attention-getting conflict.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One strategy used by reality TV producers with black contestants on white-centered shows, is to generate controversy with a racist castmember. In Rachel Lindsay’s season, that contestant was self-described “country boy” Lee Garrett, who was cast despite a trail of racist Twitter posts, resulting in a headline-generating confrontation over his racism during the season’s “Men Tell All” episode. This needs to end. The pain of non-white people confronting racism shouldn’t be reduced to reality TV entertainment when avoidable. I’m also steeling myself for a clunky scene where James has to confront a white woman who only wants to date him because of his race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>We need to see black love and interracial love treated fairly.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m convinced one reason we haven’t seen a black bachelor before now isn’t just because producers were afraid the show’s white audience wasn’t ready to see a black man who might choose a white woman as his bride. There may also be black viewers who aren’t ready for it, either. TV has always struggled to present authentic, healthy images of two black people in love. And black men who are romantically involved with white women have sometimes faced accusations of bowing to America’s elevation of white, female beauty. For James, threading that needle in the spotlight of a major network TV show with a terrible track record on race won’t be easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The show’s hypocritical stances on sex, stereotypes and physical beauty need to end.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Past seasons in which women seem pressured by the show to become physically intimate with bachelors to stay in contention have always bothered me. Likewise, with the show’s habit of quickly slotting contestants into easy-to-identify stereotypes, like “the overconfident one,” or “the unstable provocateur.” And every season’s bachelor is often built up as an idealized vision of masculinity—a big part of the show’s diversity problem isn’t just that it has downplayed people of color for so long, but that all the contestants fit a narrow range of physical types and definitions of beauty. Sometimes cast pictures look like everyone was recruited from the same Abercrombie & Fitch catalog photo shoot; time to shake up more than just the race of those who appear on the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a longtime critic of \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Bachelorette\u003c/em>, I remain skeptical the show will improve much. And given the way the pandemic has curtailed TV production, it’s tough to know exactly when this season will see daylight (ABC has said sometime in 2021). [aside postid='arts_13881907']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what I really hope is that producers of the show stop seeing criticisms as something to resist and pay attention. Because, just like in the debate about systemic racism in policing, people have been calling out \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em>‘s shortcomings for a very long while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a shame that it may have taken a seismic debate over racism in America to finally get the show’s attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Dismantling+%27The+Bachelor%27s%27+Racist+And+Sexist+Elements+Has+Only+Just+Begun&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>ABC may believe it has faced down some criticism by naming Matt James as the first black man to star in its dating “reality TV” franchise \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em>. But its challenge in dismantling the show’s racist and sexist elements has only begun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My longtime criticism of the \u003cem>Bachelor\u003c/em> franchise speaks to the heart of the show’s design. It is a princess fantasy, built around the idea of a woman finding fulfillment by landing the perfect man, filtered through an upper-middle class, predominantly white lens. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why this announcement, \u003ca href=\"https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/culture/story/bachelor-names-matt-james-franchises-1st-black-bachelor-71212543\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">delivered with fanfare\u003c/a> on ABC’s breakfast-time news show \u003cem>Good Morning America\u003c/em>, hit like a thunderclap at a crucial time for the franchise. \u003ca href=\"https://www.change.org/p/abc-a-campaign-for-anti-racism-in-the-bachelor-franchise\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A petition\u003c/a> on Change.org started last week—asking for a black bachelor, for 35 percent of the show’s contestants to be people of color, and for participants to be screened for past racist behavior, among other things—has more than 85,000 signatures and counting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rachel Lindsay, cast as \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em>‘s first black female lead back in 2017, has criticized the show for its lack of diversity and \u003ca href=\"https://www.rachellindsayofficial.com/post/honestly-rach-june-8-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote a column\u003c/a> with suggestions for making it better. Given how other highly criticized \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/10/873624536/cops-show-canceled-amid-worldwide-protests-against-police-violence\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shows like \u003cem>Cops\u003c/em>\u003c/a> and \u003cem>Live PD\u003c/em> were vaporized in the wake of current debates about police brutality and racism, it feels a bit convenient that ABC and \u003cem>Bachelor/Bachelorette\u003c/em> executive producer Mike Fleiss is taking this step now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest question hanging over this moment is simple: Why did it take so long?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em>, featuring a single man choosing a mate from about two dozen aspiring women, debuted in 2002. \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em>, a spin-off which puts a woman in the choosing position, debuted in 2003. But the show didn’t cast a non-white Bachelor until 2014; Juan Pablo Galavis, a soccer star of Venezuelan heritage who looked an awful lot like the well-scrubbed white guys often featured on the show and had been eliminated early as a choice on \u003cem>The Bachelorette \u003c/em>in 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Galavis was named just two years after two black men who had tried out for \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> and failed to make the cast sued the show for racial discrimination. Their contention was that the show deliberately excluded and diminished potential contestants of color; \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2012/10/16/162992776/a-judge-dismisses-the-bachelor-discrimination-lawsuit-but-not-its-concerns\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a judge ruled\u003c/a> that, even if they were right, the show had a First Amendment right to cast who they wanted. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as the show faces renewed pressure to improve its diversity track record, it names as its new star, James—a 28-year-old real estate broker who was part of this season of \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em>, which paused production due to the coronavirus pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(I guess we know who isn’t winning this season of \u003cem>The Bachelorette\u003c/em>. Still, since the\u003cem> Bachelor/Bachelorette\u003c/em> franchise often recycles stars from contestants on previous shows, sometimes almost winning is better for someone’s reality TV career than actually getting picked as a mate.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know we have a responsibility to make sure the love stories we’re seeing onscreen are representative of the world we live in, and we are proudly in service to our audience,” said ABC entertainment president Karey Burke in a statement. “This is just the beginning, and we will continue to take action with regard to diversity issues on this franchise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the obvious stuff like “don’t stereotype the star as an angry black man” and “hire more non-white producers behind the scenes with power,” here are my recommendations to ABC and Fleiss on what still needs to happen for \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> to address its problems with race:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The show can’t be centered on white, upper-middle-class sensibilities anymore.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This goes beyond casting more non-white people on the show. Casting a wider diversity of people won’t make much difference if they’re expected to act just like the white people who have dominated the show for so many years. Dates set in opulent, lily-white environments like luxury resorts have got to end, along with the materialism that makes so many adventures on the show feel like a journey through the world of upper-middle class white folks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Racism and racists can’t be used as sources of attention-getting conflict.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One strategy used by reality TV producers with black contestants on white-centered shows, is to generate controversy with a racist castmember. In Rachel Lindsay’s season, that contestant was self-described “country boy” Lee Garrett, who was cast despite a trail of racist Twitter posts, resulting in a headline-generating confrontation over his racism during the season’s “Men Tell All” episode. This needs to end. The pain of non-white people confronting racism shouldn’t be reduced to reality TV entertainment when avoidable. I’m also steeling myself for a clunky scene where James has to confront a white woman who only wants to date him because of his race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>We need to see black love and interracial love treated fairly.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m convinced one reason we haven’t seen a black bachelor before now isn’t just because producers were afraid the show’s white audience wasn’t ready to see a black man who might choose a white woman as his bride. There may also be black viewers who aren’t ready for it, either. TV has always struggled to present authentic, healthy images of two black people in love. And black men who are romantically involved with white women have sometimes faced accusations of bowing to America’s elevation of white, female beauty. For James, threading that needle in the spotlight of a major network TV show with a terrible track record on race won’t be easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The show’s hypocritical stances on sex, stereotypes and physical beauty need to end.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Past seasons in which women seem pressured by the show to become physically intimate with bachelors to stay in contention have always bothered me. Likewise, with the show’s habit of quickly slotting contestants into easy-to-identify stereotypes, like “the overconfident one,” or “the unstable provocateur.” And every season’s bachelor is often built up as an idealized vision of masculinity—a big part of the show’s diversity problem isn’t just that it has downplayed people of color for so long, but that all the contestants fit a narrow range of physical types and definitions of beauty. Sometimes cast pictures look like everyone was recruited from the same Abercrombie & Fitch catalog photo shoot; time to shake up more than just the race of those who appear on the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a longtime critic of \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Bachelorette\u003c/em>, I remain skeptical the show will improve much. And given the way the pandemic has curtailed TV production, it’s tough to know exactly when this season will see daylight (ABC has said sometime in 2021). \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what I really hope is that producers of the show stop seeing criticisms as something to resist and pay attention. Because, just like in the debate about systemic racism in policing, people have been calling out \u003cem>The Bachelor\u003c/em>‘s shortcomings for a very long while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a shame that it may have taken a seismic debate over racism in America to finally get the show’s attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Dismantling+%27The+Bachelor%27s%27+Racist+And+Sexist+Elements+Has+Only+Just+Begun&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"headTitle": "A New Library of Congress Project Commissions Music of the Pandemic | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic hit musicians hard, with concert halls and rehearsal spaces shuttered and silent. But a new music initiative from the Library of Congress embraces the constraints of COVID-19. The series is a collection of 10 videos of 10 different original compositions that will premiere online starting Monday, June 15. It’s called the \u003ca href=\"https://loc.gov/item/prn-20-038/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Boccaccio Project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Plylar is a senior music specialist at the Library of Congress and the person who spearheaded the project; it’s named after the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, who saw the Black Death devastate Europe during the 14th century. Boccaccio’s \u003cem>The Decameron \u003c/em>follows 10 people who flee the plague in Florence and tell each other stories in a remote refuge. Pylar says that story feels very modern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can take people out of what they know about society and they still have this compulsion to tell a story,” he says. “And I felt that Boccaccio exemplifies that. And while we are much more connected now than they were in his time, we are isolated and we still have this desire to reach out to each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luciano Chessa, one of the composers commissioned by the Library of Congress, meant to stay only a week in San Francisco. Chessa flew out from New York for a concert in March. From there he had events scheduled in Colorado, in Ohio and around the country. But then, like so many other musicians, the coronavirus pandemic changed his plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The world changed,” he says. “So I ended up staying in San Francisco for two months instead of just a week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He worried about his parents in Italy as that country felt the worst of COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the most vivid images were basically caskets in piles outside of hospitals or retirement homes,” Chessa says. “And my aunt died in March. We don’t know whether exactly [if] it was COVID-19 or not because at the time, there were no tests.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13881930\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 248px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13881930\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-12-at-12.03.52-PM.png\" alt=\"The composer Luciano Chessa.\" width=\"248\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-12-at-12.03.52-PM.png 248w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-12-at-12.03.52-PM-160x145.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 248px) 100vw, 248px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The composer Luciano Chessa. \u003ccite>(Melesio Núñez/Courtesy of the artist)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In April, he got a commission from the Library of Congress for the Boccaccio project. The instructions were simple: Write a work responding to the pandemic—just a couple minutes long—for a single performer to videotape at home. Chessa says the commission was more than welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After two months making fresh pasta and wearing the same shirt you probably kind of are ready for a change,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chessa wrote a piece called “1462 Willard Street,” named after the address where he spent the early months of the pandemic, uprooted and uncertain. The video opens on a length of twine looped around the lower strings of a viola. It scrapes the instrument and obscures a melody. The violist is Charlton Lee of the Del Sol Quartet, and as he plays he glides through the room. Eventually, the twine falls away and the melody becomes clearer\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I find it to be nostalgic,” Lee says. “Somehow there’s hope and sadness and joy all wrapped together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chessa says the video captures the feeling of composing while isolated during a pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The player is set free halfway through the piece,” he says. “In my opinion it was supposed to be a way of staging this process between constraint and freedom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Damien Sneed, another composer commissioned by the Boccaccio Project, wrote a piece called “Sequestered Thoughts.” Jeremy Jordan, who performed it, says that the limitations of the project forced composers to test their creativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Talented composers sometimes have the ability to create wonderful works with great creative restraints placed upon them,” he says. “You have to not only write a piece between one and three minutes, but then it has to be meaningful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan learned the piece in a day or two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In some ways it was kind of a pure experience because I just received the music and learned it and played it,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan’s attention to detail impressed the composer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was mesmerized and amazed by how he personally interpreted what was on the page and brought it to life,” Sneed says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic was a jolt for Sneed. He had just finished a 40-city tour when he began sheltering in place, alone. He means for his piece to evoke confinement, hope, the will to survive—and says all that resonates now with protests against police violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the end of ‘Sequestered Thoughts,’ it moves up the scale of the piano, so to speak,” he says. “And it ends up looking upward and that’s really the object of protest and reconciliation. Music allows us, these protests allow us, to hopefully get to a place where we are elevated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another piece comes from Flutronix—composed of flautists and composers Allison Loggins-Hull and Nathalie Joachim. In response to COVID-19, Loggins-Hull wrote “Have and Hold.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was really craving just the feeling of having companionship and being near people and just physical contact,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Loggins-Hull says her craving only intensified as news of police killings arrived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whenever these shootings happen, I still have that desire to hold people that I love, even to hold people that I don’t know who share this common experience we all share as black people in this country,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nathalie Joachim says that when she recorded the piece, it felt less like a performance and more like mourning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not these killings happening in abstraction, or all of these bodies that are having to take to the streets to fight for what we deserve, which is humanity,” she says. “I claim each of these people as my own family.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Plylar, at the Library of Congress, says composers and performers are reacting to this moment, and as listeners we need to grab on to what they’re saying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that these artists were already doing this and that this is just another outlet for them,” he says. “But it’s a way of documenting what is happening, taking an artistic stance and then trying to preserve that so that other people can benefit from it down the road.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Boccaccio Project premieres Monday on the Library of Congress’ \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://loc.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>website\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+New+Library+Of+Congress+Project+Commissions+Music+Of+The+Coronavirus+Pandemic&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic hit musicians hard, with concert halls and rehearsal spaces shuttered and silent. But a new music initiative from the Library of Congress embraces the constraints of COVID-19. The series is a collection of 10 videos of 10 different original compositions that will premiere online starting Monday, June 15. It’s called the \u003ca href=\"https://loc.gov/item/prn-20-038/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Boccaccio Project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Plylar is a senior music specialist at the Library of Congress and the person who spearheaded the project; it’s named after the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, who saw the Black Death devastate Europe during the 14th century. Boccaccio’s \u003cem>The Decameron \u003c/em>follows 10 people who flee the plague in Florence and tell each other stories in a remote refuge. Pylar says that story feels very modern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can take people out of what they know about society and they still have this compulsion to tell a story,” he says. “And I felt that Boccaccio exemplifies that. And while we are much more connected now than they were in his time, we are isolated and we still have this desire to reach out to each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luciano Chessa, one of the composers commissioned by the Library of Congress, meant to stay only a week in San Francisco. Chessa flew out from New York for a concert in March. From there he had events scheduled in Colorado, in Ohio and around the country. But then, like so many other musicians, the coronavirus pandemic changed his plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The world changed,” he says. “So I ended up staying in San Francisco for two months instead of just a week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He worried about his parents in Italy as that country felt the worst of COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the most vivid images were basically caskets in piles outside of hospitals or retirement homes,” Chessa says. “And my aunt died in March. We don’t know whether exactly [if] it was COVID-19 or not because at the time, there were no tests.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13881930\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 248px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13881930\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-12-at-12.03.52-PM.png\" alt=\"The composer Luciano Chessa.\" width=\"248\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-12-at-12.03.52-PM.png 248w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-12-at-12.03.52-PM-160x145.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 248px) 100vw, 248px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The composer Luciano Chessa. \u003ccite>(Melesio Núñez/Courtesy of the artist)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In April, he got a commission from the Library of Congress for the Boccaccio project. The instructions were simple: Write a work responding to the pandemic—just a couple minutes long—for a single performer to videotape at home. Chessa says the commission was more than welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After two months making fresh pasta and wearing the same shirt you probably kind of are ready for a change,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chessa wrote a piece called “1462 Willard Street,” named after the address where he spent the early months of the pandemic, uprooted and uncertain. The video opens on a length of twine looped around the lower strings of a viola. It scrapes the instrument and obscures a melody. The violist is Charlton Lee of the Del Sol Quartet, and as he plays he glides through the room. Eventually, the twine falls away and the melody becomes clearer\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I find it to be nostalgic,” Lee says. “Somehow there’s hope and sadness and joy all wrapped together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chessa says the video captures the feeling of composing while isolated during a pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The player is set free halfway through the piece,” he says. “In my opinion it was supposed to be a way of staging this process between constraint and freedom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Damien Sneed, another composer commissioned by the Boccaccio Project, wrote a piece called “Sequestered Thoughts.” Jeremy Jordan, who performed it, says that the limitations of the project forced composers to test their creativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Talented composers sometimes have the ability to create wonderful works with great creative restraints placed upon them,” he says. “You have to not only write a piece between one and three minutes, but then it has to be meaningful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan learned the piece in a day or two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In some ways it was kind of a pure experience because I just received the music and learned it and played it,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan’s attention to detail impressed the composer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was mesmerized and amazed by how he personally interpreted what was on the page and brought it to life,” Sneed says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic was a jolt for Sneed. He had just finished a 40-city tour when he began sheltering in place, alone. He means for his piece to evoke confinement, hope, the will to survive—and says all that resonates now with protests against police violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the end of ‘Sequestered Thoughts,’ it moves up the scale of the piano, so to speak,” he says. “And it ends up looking upward and that’s really the object of protest and reconciliation. Music allows us, these protests allow us, to hopefully get to a place where we are elevated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another piece comes from Flutronix—composed of flautists and composers Allison Loggins-Hull and Nathalie Joachim. In response to COVID-19, Loggins-Hull wrote “Have and Hold.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was really craving just the feeling of having companionship and being near people and just physical contact,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Loggins-Hull says her craving only intensified as news of police killings arrived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whenever these shootings happen, I still have that desire to hold people that I love, even to hold people that I don’t know who share this common experience we all share as black people in this country,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nathalie Joachim says that when she recorded the piece, it felt less like a performance and more like mourning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not these killings happening in abstraction, or all of these bodies that are having to take to the streets to fight for what we deserve, which is humanity,” she says. “I claim each of these people as my own family.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Plylar, at the Library of Congress, says composers and performers are reacting to this moment, and as listeners we need to grab on to what they’re saying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that these artists were already doing this and that this is just another outlet for them,” he says. “But it’s a way of documenting what is happening, taking an artistic stance and then trying to preserve that so that other people can benefit from it down the road.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Boccaccio Project premieres Monday on the Library of Congress’ \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://loc.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>website\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+New+Library+Of+Congress+Project+Commissions+Music+Of+The+Coronavirus+Pandemic&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Aibileen and Skeeter and Mookie and Sal: Love, Work and Watching 'The Help'",
"headTitle": "Aibileen and Skeeter and Mookie and Sal: Love, Work and Watching ‘The Help’ | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>shot up the Netflix charts over the last week after Netflix added it on June 1, and I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it ever since. What, I wondered, other than the most general aspiration to engage with the idea of racism, could make this the the time to watch \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>, a 2011 film (based on a 2009 novel) about a white journalist who gets her big break passing along stories told to her by black maids in 1963? A movie Viola Davis regrets appearing in, because the maids’ voices weren’t placed at the center of the story? Based on a book that \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/celebritology/post/the-help-lawsuit-against-kathryn-stockett-dismissed/2011/08/16/gIQAiCWqJJ_blog.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">got its author sued\u003c/a>? Sure, Netflix added it, Netflix promoted it—but an awful lot of people decided to watch it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But let’s put a pin in that for a minute, and let’s talk about Mookie and Sal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s been hard not to think about Spike Lee’s 1989 classic \u003cem>Do The Right Thing\u003c/em> over the last two weeks, let alone the last ten years. The images are stark: the police officer killing Radio Raheem with a chokehold as the kid’s feet twitch above the pavement, Mookie throwing a trash can through the window of Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, the searing heat that’s present in the images of a blisteringly hot day, and later in the crackle of a fire. That fire, those fire hoses, that police car speeding off with Radio Raheem’s body stuffed in the back. And, of course, a block full of people in grief and anger from whom the police flee, leaving behind a situation where they have no idea what’s about to happen, but what matters is that they won’t be there for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watching it again, though, I was struck by something else that seemed just as important: its ambivalence—really, its deep \u003cem>skepticism—\u003c/em>about the relationship between Mookie (Lee) and Sal (Danny Aiello), who runs the place where Mookie works delivering pizzas. Because it’s a skepticism that doesn’t start with a broken window.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mookie and Sal\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT2al2t2jnU\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is a kind of love Sal would likely say he has for Mookie—that he would say he has for the whole Bed-Stuy neighborhood where he’s been in business for 25 years. He sits down by his front window and gives a speech to his vocally bigoted son Pino (John Turturro) about why he will not relocate, despite Pino’s hatred of the clientele. In it, Sal speaks with convincing warmth, as the camera gently approaches the table and the window and the people outside, about how much it means to him that the black kids on the block have grown up eating his pizza. He will later tell Mookie that even after Pino and Vito take over the business, Mookie always have “a place” there, because he’s “like a son” to him. It’s not true: Mookie is nothing like a son to him. Sal’s fondness for Mookie, like his fondness for the rest of his customers may be real, but it’s also brittle, prone to shattering. His love for his sons, on the other hand, would survive anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether, and how, this affection is returned is just as complicated. Sal’s is an institution, enough that when Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) tries to organize a boycott of Sal’s over the lack of black faces on his Wall of Fame, there are initially no takers. The people in the neighborhood like Sal, they feel at home in his place, and they like the pizza. Buggin’ Out is treated like something of a radical even by his friends, who just aren’t up for a boycott on a miserably hot summer day. What’s boycotting Sal going to do for anyone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, Mookie receives Sal’s words with a sort of aggravated impatience. He’s working. They can share a laugh, but he’s working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To summarize the agonizing ending of the film: When four of those same neighborhood customers arrive just after closing that night, Sal has a reluctant Mookie, who just wants to go home, let them in for a slice. Buggin’ Out, now accompanied by Radio Raheem, comes in behind them. Earlier in the day, Radio Raheem and Sal had a confrontation over Sal’s insistence that there be no music in the pizzeria. Now, the music is back, blasting from the radio, even louder. The yelling starts. Sal picks up his bat and destroys the radio that’s both an expensive piece of personal property and a key to Raheem’s identity. So despite the broken window, the looting and the fire that so troubled some of the early commentators on the film, the first person who takes it upon himself to break someone else’s stuff out of anger is Sal. And he does it for no better reason than that two guys who grew up on his pizza won’t stop blasting, as he puts it, “jungle music.” [aside postid='arts_13881854']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Radio Raheem grabs Sal, pulls him across the counter, and gets the better of their physical fight. The police arrive, and they kill Radio Raheem with a chokehold as onlookers beg them to stop. The police grab Radio Raheem’s body and speed away. The block pulses with grief and frustration. Mookie walks across the street to a trashcan, takes off the lid, removes the bag, kicks the lid away, carries the trashcan across the street and puts it through the window. The place is looted and burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before all this, there’s a kind of love, a \u003cem>kind\u003c/em>, that connects Sal with these customers he thinks of as kids, like a spider web with only a few threads. It’s part of why they came for pizza after closing, and it’s part of why Sal let them in. But if you can call it love, it’s the companionable love that comes from a shared history, not the more durable love that can come from a shared fate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s possible to read \u003cem>Do The Right Thing\u003c/em> as a story in which everyone loses, where that’s the bedrock tragedy of racism: relationships are shattered, Sal sees his business burn, Radio Raheem dies. Bad for everyone, the end. This is the way Sal tries to tell the story to Mookie the next morning—it’s Buggin’ Out’s fault, because he started a fight when he didn’t have to, and now everyone suffered. Danny Aiello speaks from the chest as he points out that he built his business with his own hands—every light socket, he says, and every tile—and now it’s all gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, in fact, Sal and the customers in the neighborhood have never had the same things at stake. There are elements of back and forth: Sal can break Radio Raheem’s radio; Mookie can break Sal’s window. Radio Raheem and Sal can fight, scrap on the ground, scream at each other. Buggin’ Out throws slurs at Sal; Sal throws slurs at Radio Raheem, infuriating the four who came in for those closing-bell slices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, Sal and Mookie (like Sal and Radio Raheem) lack a fully shared fate. For Sal, this block is where people work for him and buy things from him. For Mookie, it’s where he lives, a largely black neighborhood where he works for a white-owned business. And also, of course, their odds are different in any confrontation because the police have an official monopoly on legal violence (to paraphrase Jill Leovy’s excellent book \u003cem>Ghettoside\u003c/em>, about murders that are and are not solved). “Can we all get along?”, after all, is a sentiment best remembered alongside the fact that the man who uttered it did so after his own beating. [aside postid='arts_13881731']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People have written for years about what makes \u003cem>Do The Right Thing “\u003c/em>provocative,” and in 1989, \u003ca href=\"https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/07/critics-reviews-do-the-right-thing/david-denby-do-the-right-thing-review\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">there were critics who seem to have been aghast\u003c/a> at their suspicion that Lee sympathized with the people burning down Sal’s pizzeria. (Some of the response was more appalling than this; Murray Kempton in the \u003cem>New York Review Of Books \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1989/09/28/the-pizza-is-burning/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">somewhat [in]famously wrote\u003c/a> that Sal was the protagonist of the piece, Mookie such an “inferior specimen of a great race” that he couldn’t even serve as a decent antagonist, and the film best understood as the story of Sal’s sad realization that he was a dreamer and his grotesquely racist son who peppered his speech with slurs was merely the “realist.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I wonder whether one thing that made the film feel radical—and unsettling—was revealing the limits of Sal’s relationship with Mookie. In fact, Sal’s line, “You’ve always been like a son to me,” is the last thing you hear before the four friends show up outside wanting their four slices and Sal lets them in—the first in the chain of events that leads to a young man’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Viewers have interpreted Mookie throwing the trashcan in a variety of ways; there are critical journal articles about it. Maybe he’s acting on impulse, maybe he’s acting out of longstanding anger, maybe he’s an avatar for Lee himself hurling a trashcan at established filmmaking, or maybe he’s encouraging the rage to be directed at the pizzeria rather than have people turn it against Sal and his sons, which saves their lives. But whatever else it does, throwing that trashcan is the end of any relationship in which Sal would ever say, “You’ve always been like a son to me.” Maybe it’s not just the trashcan itself that turns a segment of white viewers against Mookie and the crowd in the street; maybe it’s that he doesn’t appreciate what Sal considers to be genuine love that, to paraphrase Kempton, Mookie doesn’t even remotely deserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aibileen and Skeeter\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT9eWGjLv6s\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All the skepticism about love that’s present in \u003cem>Do The Right Thing \u003c/em>is absent from \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Admittedly, finding the parallels between these films is like finding the parallels between a wetsuit and a jumpsuit: You can kind of understand how they’d be in the same conversation, but you’d have to have both eyes closed to mistake one for the other. Nevertheless, when you see the quasi-familial parent-child bond that breaks apart in \u003cem>Do The Right Thing\u003c/em>, it draws out what \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> has elided that makes it a bizarre but predictable comfort watch for a lot of—and this is speculation, given the opacity of Netflix numbers, but I stand by it—white people who sent it flying up the charts. [aside postid='arts_13881748']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>is about race, yes; it even has a handful of superficial narrative parallels with \u003cem>Do The Right Thing\u003c/em>. (Again, jumpsuit/wetsuit. Maybe even spacesuit.) After all, \u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>also shows close personal relationships between black people and white people, growing out of employment, built over years, that end in cathartic responses that offend, or wound, or mortify white employers. A black maid in \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> literally feeds her own [excrement] to her hateful, bigoted boss. And contrary to the frustrated reminder Mookie issues Sal after the fire about the fact that he’ll be compensated for his losses, there is no insurance check to compensate for eating [excrement].\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> presents itself as warm, funny, “uplifting.” It is not, to say the least, “provocative.” Some of its trailers present it as half wacky comedy, half go-get-’em underdog movie, where it’s the good guys (the maids plus Emma Stone) versus the bad guys (the mean white employers in town, particularly the wicked Hilly, played by Bryce Dallas Howard). The trailer promises that the relationship between Skeeter (Stone) and Aibileen is “an unexpected friendship [that] will change everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In analytical terms: “Yyyyyyikes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps “unlikely” is right, but “friendship” is awfully curious. Because here’s how they meet: Skeeter gets a job writing a happy-homemaker column that she’s not qualified to write, so she asks Aibileen, her friend’s maid, to be her entirely unpaid ghostwriter. It’s while benefiting from this unpaid labor (that she herself is being paid to do!) that Skeeter decides she wants to write a book about maids. And she wants Aibileen to stick her neck way, way out by sharing her experiences working for white families. So, yes, I’ll say it’s “unlikely,” in that it’s a rare friendship that begins with the party of the first part persuading the party of the second part to risk life and limb by excavating her history of being traumatized for free. (Skeeter will eventually share the money for the book with the maids, but this is not negotiated, transforming it into a magnanimous and unexpected act by Skeeter rather than literally the least she could do for women placing themselves at such risk.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s probably overly nitpicky to add that given that this all takes place in 1963, an awful lot of people would doubtless be surprised to hear that it “changed everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Money Can’t Buy You Love\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skeeter, oh, Skeeter. One much-discussed element of \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>‘s racial politics is the role of the white savior. Take it away, \u003ca href=\"http://archive.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2011/08/10/race_class_and_hollywood_gloss_in_the_help/?page=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">critic Wesley Morris\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Skeeter’s exposé is meant to empower both the subjects and the author, but \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> joins everything from \u003cem>To Kill a Mockingbird\u003c/em> to \u003cem>The Blind Side\u003c/em> as another Hollywood movie that sees racial progress as the province of white do-gooderism. Skeeter enjoys all the self-discovery and all the credit. She cracks the mystery of her missing childhood maid (Cicely Tyson). She finds a career at a moment in which women rarely had them. And she changes the lives of a couple of dozen black women whose change is refracted primarily through her. Skeeter’s awakening is a seemingly risk-free reassurance, just as Hilly’s Hanna-Barbera villainy is a kind of delight. [Hilly is the monstrous, most overtly racist woman played by Bryce Dallas Howard.]\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>For sure, Skeeter is a classic film/television white savior. She couldn’t be more so if she had an S on her chest. But there’s something else that’s profoundly amiss at the center of \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>, and it’s the privileging of personal feelings and the utter failure to reckon with any of the realities of the power relationships between employees and employers—whether those employers are personally benevolent or not—that are so painfully evident in the relationship between Sal and Mookie. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>, the love between maids and the children they raised, and in some cases the love between maids and adults they work for, exists outside structural inequalities and is affected by little other than personal cruelty or kindness. Far from being made of those fragile threads between Sal and the Bed-Stuy customers, the love between those with less power and those with more is the film’s spine. Like Mookie, Aibileen can tell you exactly how much she makes in her economic exchange with her employer—she makes $182 a month; Mookie makes $250 a week—but for her, that’s separate from the love that has connected her to the 17 white children she’s raised. In fact, one of the things that marks Skeeter’s mother (Allison Janney) as a villain is that she tells Skeeter that the maids are just employees—”We were just a job to her. With them, it’s all about money.” Obviously, this is racist, the way she says “them,” and so forth. But what is so awful, in principle, about the idea that the heart of your relationship with someone you employ is economic? Why must Skeeter prove to her terrible mother that no, being a maid is about \u003cem>love\u003c/em>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Minny (Octavia Spencer) actually explains at one point that maids always love the kids they raise, until those kids grow up to be like their parents. And this is the betrayal we are led to believe hurts the most: the personal betrayal, not the systemic. Not the fact that Minny has to teach her \u003cem>own\u003c/em> daughter how to step carefully around racist employers (don’t let your hand touch theirs, don’t mingle your dishes with theirs), but the fracturing of the bond between maids and other people’s daughters. This conceptual muddle is evident when Minny starts talking about how difficult the job is and mentions not getting minimum wage or Social Security. Skeeter says maybe things can change. “What law’s gonna say you got to be nice to your maid?” Minny snaps. And of course, no law is going to regulate niceness. But I can think of some that might address whether you get minimum wage and Social Security. Paying minimum wage isn’t important because it’s \u003cem>nice;\u003c/em> it’s important because it’s \u003cem>just\u003c/em>. The film’s porous boundary between issues of economic justice and personal affection reappears over and over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skeeter has this fixation on love as well, particularly as regards the maid who raised her, Constantine. (Constantine is played by towering legend Cicely Tyson, making this as good a time as any to acknowledge that for all its narrative weaknesses, \u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>is full of brilliant actors.) Skeeter’s original framing of the issue of the maids, as she explains it to her putative editor (Mary Steenburgen), is that the situation with the maids needs to be talked about more, because, as she puts it: “We love them and they love us, but they can’t even use the toilets in our houses.” [aside postid='arts_13881229']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skeeter fails to consider the following explanation for this seeming contradiction: Maybe if they can’t use the toilets in your house, you don’t love them. And maybe some of the way they treat you is for money. \u003cem>Maybe they don’t love you.\u003c/em> If that’s the case, then maybe it’s not a matter of mistreating people you love; maybe it’s a matter of paying people for work, treating them miserably, and being so toweringly presumptuous as to assume the natural state of things is for them to love you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s be clear: This is not to say, by any means, that it’s unlikely, let alone impossible, for a person who works for someone to also love them, or to cast aspersions on the genuine love that maids and nannies and teachers and other people paid to care for children can feel for them. Far from it. But for love to be meaningful and aspirational, doesn’t it have to be given in circumstances allowing both dignity and agency? Otherwise, it is brittle. It shatters under pressure. In this version of 1963 Mississippi, when some maids are “inherited” such that the right to employ them is “owned” by one family, and when a maid can be ruined by an accusation of theft whether true or false, how can Skeeter assert of those maids, “We love them and they love us”? What kind of a fantasy, and whose fantasy, is that? And why does the film seemingly assert that \u003cem>as long as the employer is nice\u003c/em>, Skeeter is right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get this, if you’ve forgotten: After Skeeter has blown up a bunch of maids’ lives by publishing their stories, she gets a job offer in New York and tells Minny and Aibileen that she isn’t taking it, because she doesn’t feel like she can just create all this chaos and danger for them and then pop off to New York. (One of her few good instincts.) The maids, in perhaps the movie’s weirdest scene, assure her that she must go. She’s right to go. They have gone through so much, after all, and “If bad things happen, ain’t nothin’ you can do about it,” Aibileen says. “And now it’s for a reason we can be proud of.” This, after they’ve endured the assassination of Medgar Evers and worried that they’d be killed for telling their stories, is a reason for any “bad things” that they can be proud of: Skeeter’s career. So little change, so much love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where there’s anything remedied in \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> at all, it’s racism seen as an accumulation of intimate cruelties that can—that could—be remedied without white employers giving up anything except their viciousness. You can go through the movie and separate every white woman in it into one of two categories: “is mean” and “is nice.” And moving those women along that continuum (like Skeeter’s mother) or punishing them for where they lie along it (like Hilly) is the focus of the film’s emotional attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is particularly painful because the ability to have and sustain personal and intimate feelings of love—whether platonic, romantic or familial—has long been presented in popular culture as justice in miniature, such that equality is defined as a hug heard ’round the world. In fact, there’s an entire genre of film in which white people have the transformative experience of loving and being loved by Black people, and they are treated as movies that speak in some way to race. These stories arrive and arrive, and they have for decades. Some are better than others, but they are often (though not always) rewarded with audience enthusiasm, awards or both: \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>, \u003cem>The Green Mile\u003c/em>, \u003cem>The Blind Side\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Green Book\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?\u003c/em> They’ve resulted in awards for a goodly number of white directors and white writers, serving as a ticket to a kind of respectability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It calls to mind a tweet from Dan Hauge in 2017 that’s been shared a couple of times since by the writer and NPR \u003cem>Code Switch \u003c/em>host Gene Demby. Hauge \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/danhauge/status/897097773727797248\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">made the point\u003c/a> that white people often “imagine the endgame of anti-racism as harmonious relationships rather than equal power to shape society.” \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> has precisely this focus on emotional reconciliations—on combating injustice by letting people talk about their feelings and tell you what it’s like to be them, and then leaving it at that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It makes sense that in the world of camera phones, this phenomenon within studio filmmaking would have a mobile counterpart. And it does: the fixation, during any time in which discussions of systemic racism are prominent, on photos of individual black people and white people hugging or clasping hands, particularly if the white person is a police officer. Perhaps there is an audience for \u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>for the same reason there is an audience for multiracial police hugs: when that audience tries to envision uprooting systemic injustice, they begin (and often end) at the level of the personal relationship. They envision a one-by-one transformation in which they are, for more and more and more people, the white person who is the beloved friend and not the person who fully deserves the pie full of [excrement]. And after long enough, the changes in government or media or human rights follow naturally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the transition from more loving personal relationships to more just structural ones is uphill, not down. Focusing on your personal relationships to the exclusion of considering bigger issues can bend your perspective; it’s part of what the reviled cliché “some of my best friends are Black” is all about. It’s easy to dream of being a Skeeter and easy to emerge as a Sal: at your best, a companion. At your worst, a danger. [aside postid='arts_13880973']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no hug at the end of \u003cem>Do The Right Thing\u003c/em>. Mookie shows up to get his pay from Sal while Sal is sitting on the front step of his burned pizzeria. Mookie may have been like a son to Sal, but Mookie is not there to offer comfort; he wants his money. Sal doesn’t get any buy-in whatsoever from Mookie on his theory that a kid who just watched his friend choked to death should sympathize with his lost power outlets and burned tile. If anything, Sal and Mookie both are clear at the end of the movie on the fact that fondness, history and amiable companionship are ultimately unable to sustain individual personal connections in the absence of a shared fate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What should you aspire to if you are on the side of a system that gives you power and makes you the person more likely to be believed, less likely to be killed, more likely to own property and be the boss, less likely to bite your tongue over your low wages? Should you aspire to personal connection? Or should you aspire to a world in which your maid is free to love you or not? Maybe it’s not about justice for the person who raises you, raises your daughter, is like a son to you, or tells you you’re kind and smart and important. Maybe it’s about justice for the person you walk by, who walks by you, who can take or leave you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a society that’s fair, the right to move through the world on equal footing is not contingent on a network of personal bonds. It belongs to the extrovert, the introvert, the hugger, the stranger, and honestly, the complete jerk. Broader matters of justice are not addressed by the presence of kindness within broken systems. Obviously, kindness is always better than unkindness, and love better than no love, all other things being equal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s that last part that so many stories—including \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>—leave out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aibileen+And+Skeeter+And+Mookie+And+Sal%3A+Love%2C+Work+And+Watching+%27The+Help%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>shot up the Netflix charts over the last week after Netflix added it on June 1, and I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it ever since. What, I wondered, other than the most general aspiration to engage with the idea of racism, could make this the the time to watch \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>, a 2011 film (based on a 2009 novel) about a white journalist who gets her big break passing along stories told to her by black maids in 1963? A movie Viola Davis regrets appearing in, because the maids’ voices weren’t placed at the center of the story? Based on a book that \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/celebritology/post/the-help-lawsuit-against-kathryn-stockett-dismissed/2011/08/16/gIQAiCWqJJ_blog.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">got its author sued\u003c/a>? Sure, Netflix added it, Netflix promoted it—but an awful lot of people decided to watch it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But let’s put a pin in that for a minute, and let’s talk about Mookie and Sal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s been hard not to think about Spike Lee’s 1989 classic \u003cem>Do The Right Thing\u003c/em> over the last two weeks, let alone the last ten years. The images are stark: the police officer killing Radio Raheem with a chokehold as the kid’s feet twitch above the pavement, Mookie throwing a trash can through the window of Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, the searing heat that’s present in the images of a blisteringly hot day, and later in the crackle of a fire. That fire, those fire hoses, that police car speeding off with Radio Raheem’s body stuffed in the back. And, of course, a block full of people in grief and anger from whom the police flee, leaving behind a situation where they have no idea what’s about to happen, but what matters is that they won’t be there for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watching it again, though, I was struck by something else that seemed just as important: its ambivalence—really, its deep \u003cem>skepticism—\u003c/em>about the relationship between Mookie (Lee) and Sal (Danny Aiello), who runs the place where Mookie works delivering pizzas. Because it’s a skepticism that doesn’t start with a broken window.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mookie and Sal\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/BT2al2t2jnU'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/BT2al2t2jnU'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>There is a kind of love Sal would likely say he has for Mookie—that he would say he has for the whole Bed-Stuy neighborhood where he’s been in business for 25 years. He sits down by his front window and gives a speech to his vocally bigoted son Pino (John Turturro) about why he will not relocate, despite Pino’s hatred of the clientele. In it, Sal speaks with convincing warmth, as the camera gently approaches the table and the window and the people outside, about how much it means to him that the black kids on the block have grown up eating his pizza. He will later tell Mookie that even after Pino and Vito take over the business, Mookie always have “a place” there, because he’s “like a son” to him. It’s not true: Mookie is nothing like a son to him. Sal’s fondness for Mookie, like his fondness for the rest of his customers may be real, but it’s also brittle, prone to shattering. His love for his sons, on the other hand, would survive anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether, and how, this affection is returned is just as complicated. Sal’s is an institution, enough that when Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) tries to organize a boycott of Sal’s over the lack of black faces on his Wall of Fame, there are initially no takers. The people in the neighborhood like Sal, they feel at home in his place, and they like the pizza. Buggin’ Out is treated like something of a radical even by his friends, who just aren’t up for a boycott on a miserably hot summer day. What’s boycotting Sal going to do for anyone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, Mookie receives Sal’s words with a sort of aggravated impatience. He’s working. They can share a laugh, but he’s working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To summarize the agonizing ending of the film: When four of those same neighborhood customers arrive just after closing that night, Sal has a reluctant Mookie, who just wants to go home, let them in for a slice. Buggin’ Out, now accompanied by Radio Raheem, comes in behind them. Earlier in the day, Radio Raheem and Sal had a confrontation over Sal’s insistence that there be no music in the pizzeria. Now, the music is back, blasting from the radio, even louder. The yelling starts. Sal picks up his bat and destroys the radio that’s both an expensive piece of personal property and a key to Raheem’s identity. So despite the broken window, the looting and the fire that so troubled some of the early commentators on the film, the first person who takes it upon himself to break someone else’s stuff out of anger is Sal. And he does it for no better reason than that two guys who grew up on his pizza won’t stop blasting, as he puts it, “jungle music.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Radio Raheem grabs Sal, pulls him across the counter, and gets the better of their physical fight. The police arrive, and they kill Radio Raheem with a chokehold as onlookers beg them to stop. The police grab Radio Raheem’s body and speed away. The block pulses with grief and frustration. Mookie walks across the street to a trashcan, takes off the lid, removes the bag, kicks the lid away, carries the trashcan across the street and puts it through the window. The place is looted and burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before all this, there’s a kind of love, a \u003cem>kind\u003c/em>, that connects Sal with these customers he thinks of as kids, like a spider web with only a few threads. It’s part of why they came for pizza after closing, and it’s part of why Sal let them in. But if you can call it love, it’s the companionable love that comes from a shared history, not the more durable love that can come from a shared fate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s possible to read \u003cem>Do The Right Thing\u003c/em> as a story in which everyone loses, where that’s the bedrock tragedy of racism: relationships are shattered, Sal sees his business burn, Radio Raheem dies. Bad for everyone, the end. This is the way Sal tries to tell the story to Mookie the next morning—it’s Buggin’ Out’s fault, because he started a fight when he didn’t have to, and now everyone suffered. Danny Aiello speaks from the chest as he points out that he built his business with his own hands—every light socket, he says, and every tile—and now it’s all gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, in fact, Sal and the customers in the neighborhood have never had the same things at stake. There are elements of back and forth: Sal can break Radio Raheem’s radio; Mookie can break Sal’s window. Radio Raheem and Sal can fight, scrap on the ground, scream at each other. Buggin’ Out throws slurs at Sal; Sal throws slurs at Radio Raheem, infuriating the four who came in for those closing-bell slices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, Sal and Mookie (like Sal and Radio Raheem) lack a fully shared fate. For Sal, this block is where people work for him and buy things from him. For Mookie, it’s where he lives, a largely black neighborhood where he works for a white-owned business. And also, of course, their odds are different in any confrontation because the police have an official monopoly on legal violence (to paraphrase Jill Leovy’s excellent book \u003cem>Ghettoside\u003c/em>, about murders that are and are not solved). “Can we all get along?”, after all, is a sentiment best remembered alongside the fact that the man who uttered it did so after his own beating. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People have written for years about what makes \u003cem>Do The Right Thing “\u003c/em>provocative,” and in 1989, \u003ca href=\"https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/07/critics-reviews-do-the-right-thing/david-denby-do-the-right-thing-review\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">there were critics who seem to have been aghast\u003c/a> at their suspicion that Lee sympathized with the people burning down Sal’s pizzeria. (Some of the response was more appalling than this; Murray Kempton in the \u003cem>New York Review Of Books \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1989/09/28/the-pizza-is-burning/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">somewhat [in]famously wrote\u003c/a> that Sal was the protagonist of the piece, Mookie such an “inferior specimen of a great race” that he couldn’t even serve as a decent antagonist, and the film best understood as the story of Sal’s sad realization that he was a dreamer and his grotesquely racist son who peppered his speech with slurs was merely the “realist.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I wonder whether one thing that made the film feel radical—and unsettling—was revealing the limits of Sal’s relationship with Mookie. In fact, Sal’s line, “You’ve always been like a son to me,” is the last thing you hear before the four friends show up outside wanting their four slices and Sal lets them in—the first in the chain of events that leads to a young man’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Viewers have interpreted Mookie throwing the trashcan in a variety of ways; there are critical journal articles about it. Maybe he’s acting on impulse, maybe he’s acting out of longstanding anger, maybe he’s an avatar for Lee himself hurling a trashcan at established filmmaking, or maybe he’s encouraging the rage to be directed at the pizzeria rather than have people turn it against Sal and his sons, which saves their lives. But whatever else it does, throwing that trashcan is the end of any relationship in which Sal would ever say, “You’ve always been like a son to me.” Maybe it’s not just the trashcan itself that turns a segment of white viewers against Mookie and the crowd in the street; maybe it’s that he doesn’t appreciate what Sal considers to be genuine love that, to paraphrase Kempton, Mookie doesn’t even remotely deserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aibileen and Skeeter\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/aT9eWGjLv6s'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/aT9eWGjLv6s'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>All the skepticism about love that’s present in \u003cem>Do The Right Thing \u003c/em>is absent from \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Admittedly, finding the parallels between these films is like finding the parallels between a wetsuit and a jumpsuit: You can kind of understand how they’d be in the same conversation, but you’d have to have both eyes closed to mistake one for the other. Nevertheless, when you see the quasi-familial parent-child bond that breaks apart in \u003cem>Do The Right Thing\u003c/em>, it draws out what \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> has elided that makes it a bizarre but predictable comfort watch for a lot of—and this is speculation, given the opacity of Netflix numbers, but I stand by it—white people who sent it flying up the charts. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>is about race, yes; it even has a handful of superficial narrative parallels with \u003cem>Do The Right Thing\u003c/em>. (Again, jumpsuit/wetsuit. Maybe even spacesuit.) After all, \u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>also shows close personal relationships between black people and white people, growing out of employment, built over years, that end in cathartic responses that offend, or wound, or mortify white employers. A black maid in \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> literally feeds her own [excrement] to her hateful, bigoted boss. And contrary to the frustrated reminder Mookie issues Sal after the fire about the fact that he’ll be compensated for his losses, there is no insurance check to compensate for eating [excrement].\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> presents itself as warm, funny, “uplifting.” It is not, to say the least, “provocative.” Some of its trailers present it as half wacky comedy, half go-get-’em underdog movie, where it’s the good guys (the maids plus Emma Stone) versus the bad guys (the mean white employers in town, particularly the wicked Hilly, played by Bryce Dallas Howard). The trailer promises that the relationship between Skeeter (Stone) and Aibileen is “an unexpected friendship [that] will change everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In analytical terms: “Yyyyyyikes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps “unlikely” is right, but “friendship” is awfully curious. Because here’s how they meet: Skeeter gets a job writing a happy-homemaker column that she’s not qualified to write, so she asks Aibileen, her friend’s maid, to be her entirely unpaid ghostwriter. It’s while benefiting from this unpaid labor (that she herself is being paid to do!) that Skeeter decides she wants to write a book about maids. And she wants Aibileen to stick her neck way, way out by sharing her experiences working for white families. So, yes, I’ll say it’s “unlikely,” in that it’s a rare friendship that begins with the party of the first part persuading the party of the second part to risk life and limb by excavating her history of being traumatized for free. (Skeeter will eventually share the money for the book with the maids, but this is not negotiated, transforming it into a magnanimous and unexpected act by Skeeter rather than literally the least she could do for women placing themselves at such risk.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s probably overly nitpicky to add that given that this all takes place in 1963, an awful lot of people would doubtless be surprised to hear that it “changed everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Money Can’t Buy You Love\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skeeter, oh, Skeeter. One much-discussed element of \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>‘s racial politics is the role of the white savior. Take it away, \u003ca href=\"http://archive.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2011/08/10/race_class_and_hollywood_gloss_in_the_help/?page=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">critic Wesley Morris\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Skeeter’s exposé is meant to empower both the subjects and the author, but \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> joins everything from \u003cem>To Kill a Mockingbird\u003c/em> to \u003cem>The Blind Side\u003c/em> as another Hollywood movie that sees racial progress as the province of white do-gooderism. Skeeter enjoys all the self-discovery and all the credit. She cracks the mystery of her missing childhood maid (Cicely Tyson). She finds a career at a moment in which women rarely had them. And she changes the lives of a couple of dozen black women whose change is refracted primarily through her. Skeeter’s awakening is a seemingly risk-free reassurance, just as Hilly’s Hanna-Barbera villainy is a kind of delight. [Hilly is the monstrous, most overtly racist woman played by Bryce Dallas Howard.]\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>For sure, Skeeter is a classic film/television white savior. She couldn’t be more so if she had an S on her chest. But there’s something else that’s profoundly amiss at the center of \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>, and it’s the privileging of personal feelings and the utter failure to reckon with any of the realities of the power relationships between employees and employers—whether those employers are personally benevolent or not—that are so painfully evident in the relationship between Sal and Mookie. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>, the love between maids and the children they raised, and in some cases the love between maids and adults they work for, exists outside structural inequalities and is affected by little other than personal cruelty or kindness. Far from being made of those fragile threads between Sal and the Bed-Stuy customers, the love between those with less power and those with more is the film’s spine. Like Mookie, Aibileen can tell you exactly how much she makes in her economic exchange with her employer—she makes $182 a month; Mookie makes $250 a week—but for her, that’s separate from the love that has connected her to the 17 white children she’s raised. In fact, one of the things that marks Skeeter’s mother (Allison Janney) as a villain is that she tells Skeeter that the maids are just employees—”We were just a job to her. With them, it’s all about money.” Obviously, this is racist, the way she says “them,” and so forth. But what is so awful, in principle, about the idea that the heart of your relationship with someone you employ is economic? Why must Skeeter prove to her terrible mother that no, being a maid is about \u003cem>love\u003c/em>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Minny (Octavia Spencer) actually explains at one point that maids always love the kids they raise, until those kids grow up to be like their parents. And this is the betrayal we are led to believe hurts the most: the personal betrayal, not the systemic. Not the fact that Minny has to teach her \u003cem>own\u003c/em> daughter how to step carefully around racist employers (don’t let your hand touch theirs, don’t mingle your dishes with theirs), but the fracturing of the bond between maids and other people’s daughters. This conceptual muddle is evident when Minny starts talking about how difficult the job is and mentions not getting minimum wage or Social Security. Skeeter says maybe things can change. “What law’s gonna say you got to be nice to your maid?” Minny snaps. And of course, no law is going to regulate niceness. But I can think of some that might address whether you get minimum wage and Social Security. Paying minimum wage isn’t important because it’s \u003cem>nice;\u003c/em> it’s important because it’s \u003cem>just\u003c/em>. The film’s porous boundary between issues of economic justice and personal affection reappears over and over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skeeter has this fixation on love as well, particularly as regards the maid who raised her, Constantine. (Constantine is played by towering legend Cicely Tyson, making this as good a time as any to acknowledge that for all its narrative weaknesses, \u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>is full of brilliant actors.) Skeeter’s original framing of the issue of the maids, as she explains it to her putative editor (Mary Steenburgen), is that the situation with the maids needs to be talked about more, because, as she puts it: “We love them and they love us, but they can’t even use the toilets in our houses.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skeeter fails to consider the following explanation for this seeming contradiction: Maybe if they can’t use the toilets in your house, you don’t love them. And maybe some of the way they treat you is for money. \u003cem>Maybe they don’t love you.\u003c/em> If that’s the case, then maybe it’s not a matter of mistreating people you love; maybe it’s a matter of paying people for work, treating them miserably, and being so toweringly presumptuous as to assume the natural state of things is for them to love you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s be clear: This is not to say, by any means, that it’s unlikely, let alone impossible, for a person who works for someone to also love them, or to cast aspersions on the genuine love that maids and nannies and teachers and other people paid to care for children can feel for them. Far from it. But for love to be meaningful and aspirational, doesn’t it have to be given in circumstances allowing both dignity and agency? Otherwise, it is brittle. It shatters under pressure. In this version of 1963 Mississippi, when some maids are “inherited” such that the right to employ them is “owned” by one family, and when a maid can be ruined by an accusation of theft whether true or false, how can Skeeter assert of those maids, “We love them and they love us”? What kind of a fantasy, and whose fantasy, is that? And why does the film seemingly assert that \u003cem>as long as the employer is nice\u003c/em>, Skeeter is right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get this, if you’ve forgotten: After Skeeter has blown up a bunch of maids’ lives by publishing their stories, she gets a job offer in New York and tells Minny and Aibileen that she isn’t taking it, because she doesn’t feel like she can just create all this chaos and danger for them and then pop off to New York. (One of her few good instincts.) The maids, in perhaps the movie’s weirdest scene, assure her that she must go. She’s right to go. They have gone through so much, after all, and “If bad things happen, ain’t nothin’ you can do about it,” Aibileen says. “And now it’s for a reason we can be proud of.” This, after they’ve endured the assassination of Medgar Evers and worried that they’d be killed for telling their stories, is a reason for any “bad things” that they can be proud of: Skeeter’s career. So little change, so much love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where there’s anything remedied in \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> at all, it’s racism seen as an accumulation of intimate cruelties that can—that could—be remedied without white employers giving up anything except their viciousness. You can go through the movie and separate every white woman in it into one of two categories: “is mean” and “is nice.” And moving those women along that continuum (like Skeeter’s mother) or punishing them for where they lie along it (like Hilly) is the focus of the film’s emotional attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is particularly painful because the ability to have and sustain personal and intimate feelings of love—whether platonic, romantic or familial—has long been presented in popular culture as justice in miniature, such that equality is defined as a hug heard ’round the world. In fact, there’s an entire genre of film in which white people have the transformative experience of loving and being loved by Black people, and they are treated as movies that speak in some way to race. These stories arrive and arrive, and they have for decades. Some are better than others, but they are often (though not always) rewarded with audience enthusiasm, awards or both: \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>, \u003cem>The Green Mile\u003c/em>, \u003cem>The Blind Side\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Green Book\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?\u003c/em> They’ve resulted in awards for a goodly number of white directors and white writers, serving as a ticket to a kind of respectability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It calls to mind a tweet from Dan Hauge in 2017 that’s been shared a couple of times since by the writer and NPR \u003cem>Code Switch \u003c/em>host Gene Demby. Hauge \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/danhauge/status/897097773727797248\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">made the point\u003c/a> that white people often “imagine the endgame of anti-racism as harmonious relationships rather than equal power to shape society.” \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em> has precisely this focus on emotional reconciliations—on combating injustice by letting people talk about their feelings and tell you what it’s like to be them, and then leaving it at that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It makes sense that in the world of camera phones, this phenomenon within studio filmmaking would have a mobile counterpart. And it does: the fixation, during any time in which discussions of systemic racism are prominent, on photos of individual black people and white people hugging or clasping hands, particularly if the white person is a police officer. Perhaps there is an audience for \u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>for the same reason there is an audience for multiracial police hugs: when that audience tries to envision uprooting systemic injustice, they begin (and often end) at the level of the personal relationship. They envision a one-by-one transformation in which they are, for more and more and more people, the white person who is the beloved friend and not the person who fully deserves the pie full of [excrement]. And after long enough, the changes in government or media or human rights follow naturally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the transition from more loving personal relationships to more just structural ones is uphill, not down. Focusing on your personal relationships to the exclusion of considering bigger issues can bend your perspective; it’s part of what the reviled cliché “some of my best friends are Black” is all about. It’s easy to dream of being a Skeeter and easy to emerge as a Sal: at your best, a companion. At your worst, a danger. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no hug at the end of \u003cem>Do The Right Thing\u003c/em>. Mookie shows up to get his pay from Sal while Sal is sitting on the front step of his burned pizzeria. Mookie may have been like a son to Sal, but Mookie is not there to offer comfort; he wants his money. Sal doesn’t get any buy-in whatsoever from Mookie on his theory that a kid who just watched his friend choked to death should sympathize with his lost power outlets and burned tile. If anything, Sal and Mookie both are clear at the end of the movie on the fact that fondness, history and amiable companionship are ultimately unable to sustain individual personal connections in the absence of a shared fate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What should you aspire to if you are on the side of a system that gives you power and makes you the person more likely to be believed, less likely to be killed, more likely to own property and be the boss, less likely to bite your tongue over your low wages? Should you aspire to personal connection? Or should you aspire to a world in which your maid is free to love you or not? Maybe it’s not about justice for the person who raises you, raises your daughter, is like a son to you, or tells you you’re kind and smart and important. Maybe it’s about justice for the person you walk by, who walks by you, who can take or leave you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a society that’s fair, the right to move through the world on equal footing is not contingent on a network of personal bonds. It belongs to the extrovert, the introvert, the hugger, the stranger, and honestly, the complete jerk. Broader matters of justice are not addressed by the presence of kindness within broken systems. Obviously, kindness is always better than unkindness, and love better than no love, all other things being equal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s that last part that so many stories—including \u003cem>The Help\u003c/em>—leave out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Aibileen+And+Skeeter+And+Mookie+And+Sal%3A+Love%2C+Work+And+Watching+%27The+Help%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "'Da 5 Bloods' is a Platoon Picture, Heist Thriller and History Lesson",
"headTitle": "‘Da 5 Bloods’ is a Platoon Picture, Heist Thriller and History Lesson | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Spike Lee’s \u003cem>Da 5 Bloods\u003c/em> was supposed to open in select theaters, until the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced Netflix to change its plans. You could call that unfortunate timing, except that amid \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2020/05/31/866345845/photos-protests-in-response-to-the-death-of-george-floyd-shake-the-nation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">nationwide protests\u003c/a> against racism and police violence, the movie could hardly be timelier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lee has never been shy about confronting these subjects in films like \u003cem>Do the Right Thing\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Malcolm X\u003c/em> and the recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/08/09/636856957/spike-lee-checks-under-the-hood-in-the-blistering-blackkklansman\">\u003cem>BlacKkKlansman\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>His latest—even though it takes place in present-day Vietnam—is no exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Da 5 Bloods\u003c/em> follows a group of black war veterans who fought together in Vietnam in 1971. Now four of them have returned to that country decades later. Their reunion in Ho Chi Minh City begins on a funny, celebratory note. Clarke Peters plays Otis, the cool-headed planner behind their trip. Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Norm Lewis are Melvin and Eddie, on hand to provide warm vibes and comic relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then there’s Paul, played in a stand-out performance by Delroy Lindo, a fixture of Lee’s ’90s films like \u003cem>Crooklyn\u003c/em>. Paul’s post-war life has been full of loss and disappointment, and he emerges as the movie’s most complicated and emotionally ravaged character.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fifth Blood is their squad leader, affectionately known as “Stormin’ Norman,” who was killed in combat in ’71. His death still haunts all of them, especially Paul, who is consumed with guilt for not having saved his comrade’s life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stormin’ Norman is played by the charismatic \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/05/13/610826196/black-panther-star-chadwick-boseman-lauds-student-activism-in-howard-commencemen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chadwick Boseman\u003c/a> of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/02/12/585006605/black-panther-is-a-superhero-story-you-havent-seen-before-and-its-thrilling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Black Panther\u003c/em>\u003c/a> in several exciting, combat-heavy flashbacks. We see Norman and the other four Bloods being sent into the Vietnamese jungle to recover a stash of gold bars from a downed U.S. plane. The gold is meant to buy the allegiance of local fighters against the Viet Cong, but the Bloods, upon finding it, make other plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5RDTPfsLAI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The screenplay is credited to Lee, Kevin Willmott, Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, and it lays out the Bloods’ rationale with unsurprising bluntness, sometimes cutting away from the story to provide historical context, and sometimes injecting that context into the characters’ own dialogue. They talk about the horrors of slavery, the struggles of the civil rights movement and the grossly disproportionate number of black soldiers who were sent to fight and die in Vietnam. And so the Bloods, making their own case for reparations, decide to bury the gold and return for it at a later date, vowing to use it to benefit their communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lee loves his polemics, but he also loves classic Hollywood, and for all its urgency, \u003cem>Da 5 Bloods \u003c/em>plays like an old-fashioned action-adventure saga, complete with references to films like \u003cem>Apocalypse Now\u003c/em> and \u003cem>The Treasure of the Sierra Madre\u003c/em>. Personally, it reminded me of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2014/07/10/330291891/filmed-over-12-years-boyhood-follows-a-kids-coming-of-age\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Richard Linklater\u003c/a>‘s Vietnam-vet drama \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/11/02/560377446/in-last-flag-flying-the-horror-of-war-is-brought-home-literally\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Last Flag Flying\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, with a bit of \u003cem>Rambo-\u003c/em>esque carnage sprinkled in. It’s also a companion piece to Lee’s World War II drama \u003cem>Miracle at St. Anna\u003c/em>, another critique of the U.S.’ long, shameful history of devaluing its black soldiers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 2 hours and 35 minutes, \u003cem>Da 5 Bloods\u003c/em> is an unwieldy sprawl: It’s like a platoon picture, a heist thriller, a history lesson and a grumpy-old-men comedy rolled into one, spliced together with documentary footage and a Marvin Gaye-heavy soundtrack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a lot of supporting characters, too, including a Vietnamese businesswoman whom Otis knew during the war and three humanitarian workers who specialize in clearing old land mines. One key subplot involves Paul’s son, played by Jonathan Majors from last year’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/06/06/729778759/the-last-black-man-in-san-francisco-is-a-ravishing-achingly-heartfelt-elegy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Last Black Man in San Francisco\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. He tags along for the trip, and his strained relationship with his dad adds a dose of melodrama to a picture that’s already bursting at the seams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even at its most unwieldy, I found it easy to forgive \u003cem>Da 5 Bloods \u003c/em>its excesses, and to simply go along with these characters on their wildly unpredictable and ultimately devastating journey. You could accuse Spike Lee of trying to do and say too much, and you wouldn’t be the first one to do so: He can be a maddeningly undisciplined storyteller, but also a generous and thoughtful one. There’s something both moving and essential about his attempt to reclaim the Vietnam War film from a black perspective. He’s made a loving throwback to the Hollywood war movies of yesteryear that can’t help but make you think about all the stories those movies never got around to telling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 Fresh Air. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/\">Fresh Air\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Spike+Lee%27s+%27Da+5+Bloods%27+Is+A+Platoon+Picture%2C+Heist+Thriller+And+History+Lesson+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Spike Lee’s \u003cem>Da 5 Bloods\u003c/em> was supposed to open in select theaters, until the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced Netflix to change its plans. You could call that unfortunate timing, except that amid \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2020/05/31/866345845/photos-protests-in-response-to-the-death-of-george-floyd-shake-the-nation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">nationwide protests\u003c/a> against racism and police violence, the movie could hardly be timelier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lee has never been shy about confronting these subjects in films like \u003cem>Do the Right Thing\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Malcolm X\u003c/em> and the recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/08/09/636856957/spike-lee-checks-under-the-hood-in-the-blistering-blackkklansman\">\u003cem>BlacKkKlansman\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>His latest—even though it takes place in present-day Vietnam—is no exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Da 5 Bloods\u003c/em> follows a group of black war veterans who fought together in Vietnam in 1971. Now four of them have returned to that country decades later. Their reunion in Ho Chi Minh City begins on a funny, celebratory note. Clarke Peters plays Otis, the cool-headed planner behind their trip. Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Norm Lewis are Melvin and Eddie, on hand to provide warm vibes and comic relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then there’s Paul, played in a stand-out performance by Delroy Lindo, a fixture of Lee’s ’90s films like \u003cem>Crooklyn\u003c/em>. Paul’s post-war life has been full of loss and disappointment, and he emerges as the movie’s most complicated and emotionally ravaged character.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fifth Blood is their squad leader, affectionately known as “Stormin’ Norman,” who was killed in combat in ’71. His death still haunts all of them, especially Paul, who is consumed with guilt for not having saved his comrade’s life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stormin’ Norman is played by the charismatic \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/05/13/610826196/black-panther-star-chadwick-boseman-lauds-student-activism-in-howard-commencemen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chadwick Boseman\u003c/a> of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/02/12/585006605/black-panther-is-a-superhero-story-you-havent-seen-before-and-its-thrilling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Black Panther\u003c/em>\u003c/a> in several exciting, combat-heavy flashbacks. We see Norman and the other four Bloods being sent into the Vietnamese jungle to recover a stash of gold bars from a downed U.S. plane. The gold is meant to buy the allegiance of local fighters against the Viet Cong, but the Bloods, upon finding it, make other plans.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/D5RDTPfsLAI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/D5RDTPfsLAI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The screenplay is credited to Lee, Kevin Willmott, Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, and it lays out the Bloods’ rationale with unsurprising bluntness, sometimes cutting away from the story to provide historical context, and sometimes injecting that context into the characters’ own dialogue. They talk about the horrors of slavery, the struggles of the civil rights movement and the grossly disproportionate number of black soldiers who were sent to fight and die in Vietnam. And so the Bloods, making their own case for reparations, decide to bury the gold and return for it at a later date, vowing to use it to benefit their communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lee loves his polemics, but he also loves classic Hollywood, and for all its urgency, \u003cem>Da 5 Bloods \u003c/em>plays like an old-fashioned action-adventure saga, complete with references to films like \u003cem>Apocalypse Now\u003c/em> and \u003cem>The Treasure of the Sierra Madre\u003c/em>. Personally, it reminded me of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2014/07/10/330291891/filmed-over-12-years-boyhood-follows-a-kids-coming-of-age\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Richard Linklater\u003c/a>‘s Vietnam-vet drama \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/11/02/560377446/in-last-flag-flying-the-horror-of-war-is-brought-home-literally\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Last Flag Flying\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, with a bit of \u003cem>Rambo-\u003c/em>esque carnage sprinkled in. It’s also a companion piece to Lee’s World War II drama \u003cem>Miracle at St. Anna\u003c/em>, another critique of the U.S.’ long, shameful history of devaluing its black soldiers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 2 hours and 35 minutes, \u003cem>Da 5 Bloods\u003c/em> is an unwieldy sprawl: It’s like a platoon picture, a heist thriller, a history lesson and a grumpy-old-men comedy rolled into one, spliced together with documentary footage and a Marvin Gaye-heavy soundtrack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a lot of supporting characters, too, including a Vietnamese businesswoman whom Otis knew during the war and three humanitarian workers who specialize in clearing old land mines. One key subplot involves Paul’s son, played by Jonathan Majors from last year’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/06/06/729778759/the-last-black-man-in-san-francisco-is-a-ravishing-achingly-heartfelt-elegy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Last Black Man in San Francisco\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. He tags along for the trip, and his strained relationship with his dad adds a dose of melodrama to a picture that’s already bursting at the seams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even at its most unwieldy, I found it easy to forgive \u003cem>Da 5 Bloods \u003c/em>its excesses, and to simply go along with these characters on their wildly unpredictable and ultimately devastating journey. You could accuse Spike Lee of trying to do and say too much, and you wouldn’t be the first one to do so: He can be a maddeningly undisciplined storyteller, but also a generous and thoughtful one. There’s something both moving and essential about his attempt to reclaim the Vietnam War film from a black perspective. He’s made a loving throwback to the Hollywood war movies of yesteryear that can’t help but make you think about all the stories those movies never got around to telling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 Fresh Air. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/\">Fresh Air\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Spike+Lee%27s+%27Da+5+Bloods%27+Is+A+Platoon+Picture%2C+Heist+Thriller+And+History+Lesson+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "opinion-harry-potters-magic-fades-when-his-creator-tweets",
"title": "Opinion: Harry Potter's Magic Fades When His Creator Tweets",
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"content": "\u003cp>This past weekend, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling brought a lot of criticism on herself with a series of tweets that many read as transphobic. She seemed to have been set off by an article on access to menstrual hygiene supplies during a global pandemic that referenced “people who menstruate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People who menstruate,” she \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweeted\u003c/a> alongside a \u003ca href=\"https://www.devex.com/news/sponsored/opinion-creating-a-more-equal-post-covid-19-world-for-people-who-menstruate-97312#.XtwLnv0aEeR.twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">link to the article\u003c/a>, “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She followed up \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269389298664701952?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a few minutes later\u003c/a>: “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269406094595588096\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let me get this out of the way: It feels odd for me to be writing this essay right now. Not only are we in the middle of a global pandemic that has killed more than 100,000 people in the United States alone, disproportionately affecting black and brown communities, but black people in the United States—and all over the world—are protesting for basic equality in the face of police brutality after the killing of George Floyd. But here we are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here I am, a person who once revered Rowling, a person who is also in the community that she invalidated with a few careless tweets. I’m nonbinary, meaning that my gender identity doesn’t categorize neatly as man or woman. Trans men also don’t fit into the woman category. We are, quite literally, people who menstruate, and it’s more than a little disappointing that the woman who created a wizarding world that meant everything to me doesn’t care to include me or my community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m of the generation that grew up with Harry Potter and his friends. I can chart my adolescence through the series—I was 8 when I read \u003cem>Sorcerer’s Stone\u003c/em>, 17 and a fresh high school graduate when \u003cem>Deathly Hallows \u003c/em>published. My friends and I dressed up to attend midnight release parties at our local bookstores, midnight premieres at the movie theater. At my loneliest, Hogwarts was my refuge. I identified with Harry’s unease in the Muggle world, identified with the idea of needing to wear Muggle clothes in order to blend in, identified with Harry’s relief at finally finding his people. Maybe the reason I don’t fit in anywhere is that I’m a wizard, I’d think at night. Maybe I just haven’t discovered my magic yet, but when I do, I’ll find \u003cem>my\u003c/em> people. [aside postid='arts_13858877']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turns out, there was something I hadn’t discovered back then: My queer self. I was unable or unwilling to examine that queer self, the way Muggles either couldn’t or didn’t want to see Diagon Alley, hidden in plain sight. Once I had the language to describe myself, it was as if a new world revealed itself to me. Discovering the queer community and queer culture felt, to me, a lot like Harry felt walking into Diagon Alley for the first time: A riot of color and noise and wonder. Finally, a place I belonged. Finally, magic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So you’ll excuse me if it hurts personally, maybe a little too personally, that Rowling so casually mocks language that seeks to include me and other trans people. But I’m not shocked. This isn’t the first time that Rowling has expressed views like this. As recently as December of 2019, she was tweeting support for Maya Forstater, \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/18/judge-rules-against-charity-worker-who-lost-job-over-transgender-tweets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a researcher who lost her job\u003c/a> over “offensive and exclusionary” \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MForstater/status/1209914794347835392\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweets in which she repeatedly misgendered a genderfluid person\u003c/a> as “a part-time cross dresser” and stated that “men cannot change into women.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dress however you please,” \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1207646162813100033\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rowling tweeted\u003c/a>, “but force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya” This view, that biological sex—simply the way your body is built—makes you immutably one thing or the other and, therefore, trans women aren’t “real” women, is a basic tenet of trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or TERFs. As trans people and issues have gained more visibility in recent years, so has the backlash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same series of tweets, Rowling \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269407862234775552?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote\u003c/a>, “I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If. This tiny, two-letter word has stuck in my brain. If. [aside postid='arts_13845330']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studies have shown that LGBTQ people face \u003ca href=\"http://avp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/NCAVP-HV-IPV-2017-report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">disproportionately high rates\u003c/a> of intimate partner and sexual violence; the Human Rights Campaign has tracked at least 12 violent deaths of a transgender or gender nonconforming individual in 2020 alone. In addition, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality, \u003ca href=\"https://transequality.org/issues/housing-homelessness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more than 1 in 10 transgender people\u003c/a> have been evicted because of their gender identity. The group’s \u003ca href=\"https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS)\u003c/a> found that in the year prior to completing the survey, 30% of respondents who had a job reported being fired or experiencing some other form of discrimination because of their gender identity or expression. Only \u003ca href=\"https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/housing_discrimination_and_persons_identifying_lgbtq#_State%20and%20Local%20Laws\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">20 states and the District of Columbia\u003c/a> have laws that prohibit housing discrimination specifically on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity; in recent years, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/us/north-carolina-transgender-bathrooms.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bathroom bills\u003c/a> that sought to limit access to public restrooms on the basis of sex have been proposed and debated in some states. And in Rowling’s U.K., British newspapers run \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2020/mar/02/women-must-have-the-right-to-organise-we-will-not-be-silenced\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">editorials\u003c/a> warning of the menace of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/03/a-system-of-gender-self-identification-would-put-women-at-risk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gender ideology\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s less a question of if a trans person has been discriminated against, and more a question of how, especially for black trans people. Living the way that feels authentic and comfortable for any trans or gender-nonconforming person has historically been, and continues to be, dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Making room for trans women or nonbinary people doesn’t crowd women out. My gender identity should have no bearing on another person’s. Rowling is right that saying or examining the ways her “life has been shaped by being female” isn’t hateful on its own. What \u003cem>is \u003c/em>hateful and unwelcome, however, is her assertion that “sex is real” and that someone’s gender identity can—and should—be boiled down to their sexual organs. What is hateful is the erasure of trans and nonbinary relationships. What is hateful is the insistence upon acknowledging “the lived reality of women globally” as if it’s a zero-sum game, and all women have the same reality and the same understanding of their womanhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter himself, \u003ca href=\"https://www.thetrevorproject.org/2020/06/08/daniel-radcliffe-responds-to-j-k-rowlings-tweets-on-gender-identity/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">released a response\u003c/a> to Rowling’s tweets through the Trevor Project, an organization that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth. In it, he asserts trans women’s womanhood, points to trans-centric educational resources and writes: “To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you.” [aside postid='arts_13879063']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I valued in these stories was what a lot of fans valued: The depictions of fierce loyalty among friends, the idea that love is stronger (and more mysterious) than any magic, that strength comes not just from inside yourself but from the people beside you, that evil isn’t limited to genocide but also to prejudice and oppression. Voldemort wasn’t the only villain Harry faced; The Ministry of Magic, which upheld and refused to change a system rooted on prejudice, was an enemy too. I valued the idea that a person isn’t defined by the circumstances of their lives—Lupin isn’t just a werewolf to Harry, and Hagrid isn’t just a half-giant, despite how badly others might perceive them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ll end with one of my favorite exchanges in the series, which takes place in \u003cem>Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets\u003c/em>. Harry emerges from his second battle with Voldemort worried over the similarities he seems to share with the evil wizard. Professor Dumbledore tells him: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” It’s unfortunate what Rowling’s choices have revealed about her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Mallory Yu is an associate producer for \u003c/em>All Things Considered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Opinion%3A+Harry+Potter%27s+Magic+Fades+When+His+Creator+Tweets&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Author J.K. Rowling has been criticized after a series of transphobic tweets. What that means for fans moving forward.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>This past weekend, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling brought a lot of criticism on herself with a series of tweets that many read as transphobic. She seemed to have been set off by an article on access to menstrual hygiene supplies during a global pandemic that referenced “people who menstruate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People who menstruate,” she \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweeted\u003c/a> alongside a \u003ca href=\"https://www.devex.com/news/sponsored/opinion-creating-a-more-equal-post-covid-19-world-for-people-who-menstruate-97312#.XtwLnv0aEeR.twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">link to the article\u003c/a>, “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She followed up \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269389298664701952?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a few minutes later\u003c/a>: “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Let me get this out of the way: It feels odd for me to be writing this essay right now. Not only are we in the middle of a global pandemic that has killed more than 100,000 people in the United States alone, disproportionately affecting black and brown communities, but black people in the United States—and all over the world—are protesting for basic equality in the face of police brutality after the killing of George Floyd. But here we are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here I am, a person who once revered Rowling, a person who is also in the community that she invalidated with a few careless tweets. I’m nonbinary, meaning that my gender identity doesn’t categorize neatly as man or woman. Trans men also don’t fit into the woman category. We are, quite literally, people who menstruate, and it’s more than a little disappointing that the woman who created a wizarding world that meant everything to me doesn’t care to include me or my community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m of the generation that grew up with Harry Potter and his friends. I can chart my adolescence through the series—I was 8 when I read \u003cem>Sorcerer’s Stone\u003c/em>, 17 and a fresh high school graduate when \u003cem>Deathly Hallows \u003c/em>published. My friends and I dressed up to attend midnight release parties at our local bookstores, midnight premieres at the movie theater. At my loneliest, Hogwarts was my refuge. I identified with Harry’s unease in the Muggle world, identified with the idea of needing to wear Muggle clothes in order to blend in, identified with Harry’s relief at finally finding his people. Maybe the reason I don’t fit in anywhere is that I’m a wizard, I’d think at night. Maybe I just haven’t discovered my magic yet, but when I do, I’ll find \u003cem>my\u003c/em> people. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turns out, there was something I hadn’t discovered back then: My queer self. I was unable or unwilling to examine that queer self, the way Muggles either couldn’t or didn’t want to see Diagon Alley, hidden in plain sight. Once I had the language to describe myself, it was as if a new world revealed itself to me. Discovering the queer community and queer culture felt, to me, a lot like Harry felt walking into Diagon Alley for the first time: A riot of color and noise and wonder. Finally, a place I belonged. Finally, magic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So you’ll excuse me if it hurts personally, maybe a little too personally, that Rowling so casually mocks language that seeks to include me and other trans people. But I’m not shocked. This isn’t the first time that Rowling has expressed views like this. As recently as December of 2019, she was tweeting support for Maya Forstater, \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/18/judge-rules-against-charity-worker-who-lost-job-over-transgender-tweets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a researcher who lost her job\u003c/a> over “offensive and exclusionary” \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MForstater/status/1209914794347835392\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweets in which she repeatedly misgendered a genderfluid person\u003c/a> as “a part-time cross dresser” and stated that “men cannot change into women.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dress however you please,” \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1207646162813100033\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rowling tweeted\u003c/a>, “but force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya” This view, that biological sex—simply the way your body is built—makes you immutably one thing or the other and, therefore, trans women aren’t “real” women, is a basic tenet of trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or TERFs. As trans people and issues have gained more visibility in recent years, so has the backlash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same series of tweets, Rowling \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269407862234775552?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote\u003c/a>, “I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If. This tiny, two-letter word has stuck in my brain. If. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studies have shown that LGBTQ people face \u003ca href=\"http://avp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/NCAVP-HV-IPV-2017-report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">disproportionately high rates\u003c/a> of intimate partner and sexual violence; the Human Rights Campaign has tracked at least 12 violent deaths of a transgender or gender nonconforming individual in 2020 alone. In addition, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality, \u003ca href=\"https://transequality.org/issues/housing-homelessness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more than 1 in 10 transgender people\u003c/a> have been evicted because of their gender identity. The group’s \u003ca href=\"https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS)\u003c/a> found that in the year prior to completing the survey, 30% of respondents who had a job reported being fired or experiencing some other form of discrimination because of their gender identity or expression. Only \u003ca href=\"https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/housing_discrimination_and_persons_identifying_lgbtq#_State%20and%20Local%20Laws\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">20 states and the District of Columbia\u003c/a> have laws that prohibit housing discrimination specifically on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity; in recent years, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/us/north-carolina-transgender-bathrooms.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bathroom bills\u003c/a> that sought to limit access to public restrooms on the basis of sex have been proposed and debated in some states. And in Rowling’s U.K., British newspapers run \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2020/mar/02/women-must-have-the-right-to-organise-we-will-not-be-silenced\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">editorials\u003c/a> warning of the menace of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/03/a-system-of-gender-self-identification-would-put-women-at-risk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gender ideology\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s less a question of if a trans person has been discriminated against, and more a question of how, especially for black trans people. Living the way that feels authentic and comfortable for any trans or gender-nonconforming person has historically been, and continues to be, dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Making room for trans women or nonbinary people doesn’t crowd women out. My gender identity should have no bearing on another person’s. Rowling is right that saying or examining the ways her “life has been shaped by being female” isn’t hateful on its own. What \u003cem>is \u003c/em>hateful and unwelcome, however, is her assertion that “sex is real” and that someone’s gender identity can—and should—be boiled down to their sexual organs. What is hateful is the erasure of trans and nonbinary relationships. What is hateful is the insistence upon acknowledging “the lived reality of women globally” as if it’s a zero-sum game, and all women have the same reality and the same understanding of their womanhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter himself, \u003ca href=\"https://www.thetrevorproject.org/2020/06/08/daniel-radcliffe-responds-to-j-k-rowlings-tweets-on-gender-identity/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">released a response\u003c/a> to Rowling’s tweets through the Trevor Project, an organization that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth. In it, he asserts trans women’s womanhood, points to trans-centric educational resources and writes: “To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I valued in these stories was what a lot of fans valued: The depictions of fierce loyalty among friends, the idea that love is stronger (and more mysterious) than any magic, that strength comes not just from inside yourself but from the people beside you, that evil isn’t limited to genocide but also to prejudice and oppression. Voldemort wasn’t the only villain Harry faced; The Ministry of Magic, which upheld and refused to change a system rooted on prejudice, was an enemy too. I valued the idea that a person isn’t defined by the circumstances of their lives—Lupin isn’t just a werewolf to Harry, and Hagrid isn’t just a half-giant, despite how badly others might perceive them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ll end with one of my favorite exchanges in the series, which takes place in \u003cem>Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets\u003c/em>. Harry emerges from his second battle with Voldemort worried over the similarities he seems to share with the evil wizard. Professor Dumbledore tells him: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” It’s unfortunate what Rowling’s choices have revealed about her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Mallory Yu is an associate producer for \u003c/em>All Things Considered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Opinion%3A+Harry+Potter%27s+Magic+Fades+When+His+Creator+Tweets&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Across the country, music venues remain closed due to the pandemic—and according to a new survey, 90 percent of independent venue owners, promoters and bookers say that they will have to close permanently within the next few months, if they can’t get an infusion of targeted government funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e91157c96fe495a4baf48f2/t/5edef4ab8d0d2c0d8e9fb8cb/1591669933173/NIVA-+Policy+and+Fact+Sheet.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">survey\u003c/a> of nearly 2,000 music professionals was conducted by the National Independent Venue Association (\u003ca href=\"https://www.nivassoc.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NIVA\u003c/a>), a recently established advocacy group for music venue owners and promoters. Its members include The Bowery Ballroom in New York City, Troubador in Los Angeles, 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. and Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NIVA members were asked seven weeks ago if their businesses could remain open for six months without governmental assistance that went beyond the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/05/28/863387203/why-the-small-business-rescue-program-has-slowed-way-down\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Payment Protection Program\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The association points out that at this point, most musicians make the bulk of their income through live performances and touring—which they can’t do for the foreseeable future. The entertainment business is scheduled to be among the very last industries to reopen across the country, and many experts and industry leaders are now assuming that they won’t be able to reopen before \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/24/arts/reopening-dance-music-theater-virus.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2021\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if venues were allowed to reopen sooner, public health restrictions like severely limited audience capacity would make their businesses economically unviable, the venue owners and promoters say. As a result, NIVA is looking to Congress to pass specific relief funding that would address their members’ needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In early April, the concert industry trade publication \u003ca href=\"https://www.pollstar.com/article/pollstar-projects-2020-total-box-office-would-have-hit-122-billion-144197\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pollstar\u003c/a> estimated nearly $9 billion in industry losses due to coronavirus cancellations for 2020; on Monday, the advocacy group Americans for the Arts released its most recent impact findings, saying that \u003ca href=\"https://www.americansforthearts.org/node/103614\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">62 percent\u003c/a> of American artists (across all disciplines) are now unemployed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whenever people eventually do go back out to hear live music, smaller clubs, festivals and niche artists may already be gone. Within the music community, performers and industry advocates have been expressing fear that the remaining music venues will be those owned and controlled by massive entities like Live Nation and AEG Presents. (On Monday, AEG Presents \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-06-08/aeg-layoffs-coronavirus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced\u003c/a> that it was taking significant steps to cut costs, including layoffs, furloughs and salary reductions.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A number of prominent musicians are publicly supporting the association’s quest for federal relief, including Billy Joel, Lady Gaga, Kacey Musgraves and Willie Nelson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=America%27s+Independent+Music+Venues+Could+Close+Soon+Due+To+Coronavirus&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Across the country, music venues remain closed due to the pandemic—and according to a new survey, 90 percent of independent venue owners, promoters and bookers say that they will have to close permanently within the next few months, if they can’t get an infusion of targeted government funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e91157c96fe495a4baf48f2/t/5edef4ab8d0d2c0d8e9fb8cb/1591669933173/NIVA-+Policy+and+Fact+Sheet.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">survey\u003c/a> of nearly 2,000 music professionals was conducted by the National Independent Venue Association (\u003ca href=\"https://www.nivassoc.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NIVA\u003c/a>), a recently established advocacy group for music venue owners and promoters. Its members include The Bowery Ballroom in New York City, Troubador in Los Angeles, 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. and Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NIVA members were asked seven weeks ago if their businesses could remain open for six months without governmental assistance that went beyond the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/05/28/863387203/why-the-small-business-rescue-program-has-slowed-way-down\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Payment Protection Program\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The association points out that at this point, most musicians make the bulk of their income through live performances and touring—which they can’t do for the foreseeable future. The entertainment business is scheduled to be among the very last industries to reopen across the country, and many experts and industry leaders are now assuming that they won’t be able to reopen before \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/24/arts/reopening-dance-music-theater-virus.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2021\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if venues were allowed to reopen sooner, public health restrictions like severely limited audience capacity would make their businesses economically unviable, the venue owners and promoters say. As a result, NIVA is looking to Congress to pass specific relief funding that would address their members’ needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In early April, the concert industry trade publication \u003ca href=\"https://www.pollstar.com/article/pollstar-projects-2020-total-box-office-would-have-hit-122-billion-144197\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pollstar\u003c/a> estimated nearly $9 billion in industry losses due to coronavirus cancellations for 2020; on Monday, the advocacy group Americans for the Arts released its most recent impact findings, saying that \u003ca href=\"https://www.americansforthearts.org/node/103614\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">62 percent\u003c/a> of American artists (across all disciplines) are now unemployed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whenever people eventually do go back out to hear live music, smaller clubs, festivals and niche artists may already be gone. Within the music community, performers and industry advocates have been expressing fear that the remaining music venues will be those owned and controlled by massive entities like Live Nation and AEG Presents. (On Monday, AEG Presents \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-06-08/aeg-layoffs-coronavirus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced\u003c/a> that it was taking significant steps to cut costs, including layoffs, furloughs and salary reductions.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A number of prominent musicians are publicly supporting the association’s quest for federal relief, including Billy Joel, Lady Gaga, Kacey Musgraves and Willie Nelson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=America%27s+Independent+Music+Venues+Could+Close+Soon+Due+To+Coronavirus&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization took time at its daily press conference to address another pressing issue: the wave of protests against police violence and racial injustice. The demonstrations began in the U.S. when George Floyd died on May 25 after a police officer had pressed a knee into his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds while detaining him in Minneapolis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The protests are now spreading around the world to Europe, Africa and other regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“WHO fully supports equality and the global movement against racism. We reject discrimination of all kinds,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1270013794366812160\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 8\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The demonstrations have prompted fear that the close contact of thousands of marchers could lead to a spike in case counts—which hit a new high on Sunday, with 136,000 cases reported that day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1269786159032397824\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Modelers say\u003c/a> it’s difficult to assess how the protests will influence COVID-19 infections. Because COVID-19 generally has an incubation time of up to two weeks, public health officials think it will take a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/01/867200259/protests-over-racism-versus-risk-of-covid-i-wouldn-t-weigh-these-crises-separate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">couple of weeks\u003c/a> before they see the impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s clear that a key ingredient for transmission is present at many of these rallies: close contact. The images of protesters standing shoulder to shoulder—some wearing face masks, others not—raise concerns, especially in cities with higher rates of infection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To that end, Tedros recommends that protesters follow the guidance of local health officials and take precautions to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus. “We encourage all those protesting around the world to do so safely,” he said, “Clean your hands, cover your cough and wear a mask if you attend a protest.” He also advised people to maintain a safe distance from others—and to stay home if they are sick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The riskiest situation to be in is to be in close proximity to a case, particularly a symptomatic case, of COVID-19,” said Michael Ryan, director of WHO’s health emergencies program at the \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1270013794366812160\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Monday\u003c/a> press conference, so healthy people protesting next to one another may not meet the definition of coming in contact with the disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, it’s become clear to researchers that the new coronavirus \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/13/831883560/can-a-coronavirus-patient-who-isnt-showing-symptoms-infect-others\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">can be spread\u003c/a> by people who aren’t showing symptoms of it. “Local public health official[s], on the basis of abundance of caution, could advise people either to quarantine or to get tested [after attending a mass gathering],” Ryan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local officials have expressed similar worries about the interplay of the protests and the pandemic. Last week Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser said she was concerned about what mass gatherings in the streets “could mean for spikes in our coronavirus cases later.” She urged protesters to consider their exposure and consider being tested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced free tests for demonstrators. Officials in Atlanta and New York have suggested testing as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Testing everyone that participated in demonstrations would be useful in communities where many new cases are being reported every day. These new cases indicate that transmission is occurring at a high rate in the communities,” said Bill Miller, an epidemiologist and physician at Ohio State University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said an alternative to testing everyone would be active contact tracing. “With new cases, the tracers could ask about demonstration participation, including days and times,” Miller said. Then, if cases are linked to a demonstration, a call could go out to get everyone who participated in that event to be tested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being outdoors seems to reduce the risk of exposure because the virus can’t survive long in sunlight and there’s better air circulation, but it’s no guarantee against infection. Health experts warn that some activities linked with the protests—such as riding public transportation to attend rallies or getting arrested and jailed indoors with others—could increase a person’s risk of getting exposed to the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, protests are expected to continue in the days ahead. George Floyd’s burial service will take place on Tuesday at a private service in Houston.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Even+In+A+Pandemic%2C+WHO+Believes+That+Public+Protests+Are+Important&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization took time at its daily press conference to address another pressing issue: the wave of protests against police violence and racial injustice. The demonstrations began in the U.S. when George Floyd died on May 25 after a police officer had pressed a knee into his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds while detaining him in Minneapolis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The protests are now spreading around the world to Europe, Africa and other regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“WHO fully supports equality and the global movement against racism. We reject discrimination of all kinds,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1270013794366812160\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 8\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The demonstrations have prompted fear that the close contact of thousands of marchers could lead to a spike in case counts—which hit a new high on Sunday, with 136,000 cases reported that day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1269786159032397824\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Modelers say\u003c/a> it’s difficult to assess how the protests will influence COVID-19 infections. Because COVID-19 generally has an incubation time of up to two weeks, public health officials think it will take a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/01/867200259/protests-over-racism-versus-risk-of-covid-i-wouldn-t-weigh-these-crises-separate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">couple of weeks\u003c/a> before they see the impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s clear that a key ingredient for transmission is present at many of these rallies: close contact. The images of protesters standing shoulder to shoulder—some wearing face masks, others not—raise concerns, especially in cities with higher rates of infection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To that end, Tedros recommends that protesters follow the guidance of local health officials and take precautions to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus. “We encourage all those protesting around the world to do so safely,” he said, “Clean your hands, cover your cough and wear a mask if you attend a protest.” He also advised people to maintain a safe distance from others—and to stay home if they are sick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The riskiest situation to be in is to be in close proximity to a case, particularly a symptomatic case, of COVID-19,” said Michael Ryan, director of WHO’s health emergencies program at the \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1270013794366812160\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Monday\u003c/a> press conference, so healthy people protesting next to one another may not meet the definition of coming in contact with the disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, it’s become clear to researchers that the new coronavirus \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/13/831883560/can-a-coronavirus-patient-who-isnt-showing-symptoms-infect-others\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">can be spread\u003c/a> by people who aren’t showing symptoms of it. “Local public health official[s], on the basis of abundance of caution, could advise people either to quarantine or to get tested [after attending a mass gathering],” Ryan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local officials have expressed similar worries about the interplay of the protests and the pandemic. Last week Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser said she was concerned about what mass gatherings in the streets “could mean for spikes in our coronavirus cases later.” She urged protesters to consider their exposure and consider being tested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced free tests for demonstrators. Officials in Atlanta and New York have suggested testing as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Testing everyone that participated in demonstrations would be useful in communities where many new cases are being reported every day. These new cases indicate that transmission is occurring at a high rate in the communities,” said Bill Miller, an epidemiologist and physician at Ohio State University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said an alternative to testing everyone would be active contact tracing. “With new cases, the tracers could ask about demonstration participation, including days and times,” Miller said. Then, if cases are linked to a demonstration, a call could go out to get everyone who participated in that event to be tested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being outdoors seems to reduce the risk of exposure because the virus can’t survive long in sunlight and there’s better air circulation, but it’s no guarantee against infection. Health experts warn that some activities linked with the protests—such as riding public transportation to attend rallies or getting arrested and jailed indoors with others—could increase a person’s risk of getting exposed to the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, protests are expected to continue in the days ahead. George Floyd’s burial service will take place on Tuesday at a private service in Houston.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Even+In+A+Pandemic%2C+WHO+Believes+That+Public+Protests+Are+Important&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "This List of Books, Films and Podcasts About Racism is a Start, Not a Panacea",
"headTitle": "This List of Books, Films and Podcasts About Racism is a Start, Not a Panacea | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>As of Friday, 15 of the top 20 bestselling books on Amazon were about race or racism. Earlier this week, \u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> was number one on Apple Podcasts—which, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GeeDee215/status/1268000245214035974\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as host Gene Demby said\u003c/a>, is “dope,” but unfortunately occurred under “soul-crushing circumstances.” And \u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>is trending on Netflix (ahem, a film that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2011/08/18/139755308/the-help-draws-audiences-and-ire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">drew immediate ire\u003c/a> upon release).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re in the middle of one of those awfully predictable news cycles—a video of police killing a black person goes viral, protests ensue and broader America suddenly realizes \u003cem>we need to talk about race. \u003c/em>Of course, while \u003ca href=\"https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/this-week-has-happened-before.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this week has happened before,\u003c/a> it’s also happening on a much larger scale than ever before, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2020/06/03/map-protests-wake-george-floyds-death/5310149002/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">demonstrations in all 50 states.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help people be better allies, lists of antiracist books, films and podcasts are being published in droves. There’s never a bad time to learn, but such a list can become erroneously prescriptive, a balm to centuries-old lacerations that cut deeper than the individual reader. \u003ca href=\"https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/anti-racist-reading-lists-what-are-they-for.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">As Lauren Michele Jackson wrote for \u003cem>Vulture,\u003c/em> \u003c/a>“The word [anti-racism] and its nominal equivalent, “anti-racist,” suggests something of a vanity project, where the goal is no longer to learn more about race, power, and capital, but to spring closer to the enlightened order of the antiracist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, with that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of books, films and podcasts about systemic racism, acknowledging that they are just books, films and podcasts. You’ll find research on how racism permeates everything from the criminal justice system to health care. We hope you spend some time with these resources (and that you listen to \u003cem>Code Switch—\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/03/26/820991385/the-very-best-of-code-switch-in-8-episodes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here’s a list of episodes\u003c/a> to get you started). Information is power—you decide what you do with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Books\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/10/10/why-are-all-the-black-kids-sitting-together-in-the-cafeteria\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Beverly Daniel Tatum\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This classic text on the psychology of racism was re-released with new content in 2017, 20 years after its original publication. By providing straight talk on self-segregation and inequality in schools, Tatum shows the importance—and possibility—of cross-racial dialogues starting young.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://uncpress.org/book/9781469653662/race-for-profit/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History, \u003cem>Race for Profit \u003c/em>chronicles how the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 failed to stop racist, exploitative mortgage lending practices. Since the policy was supposed to be a balm to the 1960s uprisings—much like the ones we’re seeing now—it serves as a reminder to remain vigilant when policymakers promise change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/07/27/745925045/book-a-terrible-thing-to-waste\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and its Assault on the American Mind\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Harriet A. Washington\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From lead poisoning to toxic waste, Americans of color are disproportionately harmed by environmental hazards. This is detrimental to physical health—air pollution is linked with higher COVID-19 death rates, \u003ca href=\"https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/air-pollution-linked-with-higher-covid-19-death-rates/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to Harvard researchers.\u003c/a> But Washington also argues that environmental racism is causing cognitive decline in communities of color. A deconstruction of IQ and an indictment of EPA rollbacks, \u003cem>A Terrible Thing To Waste\u003c/em> is a stirring read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674979826\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Elizabeth Hinton\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The origins of mass incarceration—which disproportionately puts black people behind bars—are often pinned on Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. But Hinton argues the carceral state was erected “by a consensus of liberals and conservatives who privileged punitive responses to urban problems as a reaction to the civil rights movement.” The 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act, part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society plan, led to today’s police militarization. This account of history poses relevant questions for today’s land of the free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/586392678/automating-inequality-how-high-tech-tools-profile-police-and-punish-the-poor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Virginia Eubanks\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Algorithms are made by humans, so they are susceptible to human biases. From deciding which neighborhoods get policed to who gets welfare benefits, discrimination has gone digital. By scrutinizing statistical models and telling personal stories, Eubanks shows that machines do not correct racist systems—they only shift blame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/868390203/the-end-of-policing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>The End of Policing\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Alex S. Vitale\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the wake of high-profile cases of police brutality, the same ideas for reform are trotted out—implicit bias training, body cameras, police-community dialogues. But Vitale argues that this fails to get to the root of the problem—policing itself. While calls to abolish the police are often met with skepticism, academics and activists have long-discussed alternatives to addressing homelessness, domestic disputes and substance abuse. \u003ca href=\"https://www.versobooks.com/books/2817\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A free ebook\u003c/a> of \u003cem>The End of Policing\u003c/em> is available now. (And you can read \u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> editor extraordinaire Leah Donnella’s conversation with Vitale \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/06/03/457251670/how-much-do-we-need-the-police\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here.\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nyrb.com/products/blackballed?variant=1094927969\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Blackballed: The Black Vote and U.S. Democracy\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Darryl Pinckney\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As young Americans take to the streets to say black lives matter, they’re often told to vote. While voting is important, it’s also important to remember how black political representation has been chipped away by voter ID laws, gerrymandering and felon disenfranchisement. \u003cem>Blackballed \u003c/em>addresses the struggle for voting rights and for racial equality more broadly, drawing on Pinckney’s own experiences and writings of civil rights leaders to create a complicated picture of black political identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/358318685/dog-whistle-politics-how-coded-racial-appeals-have-reinvented-racism-and-wrecked\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Ian Haney López\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Entitlement mentality.” “Quotas.” “Welfare queens.” From Barry Goldwater to Bill Clinton to the Tea Party, politicians have relied on racially coded language to win over white voters and decimate social programs. \u003cem>Dog Whistle Politics \u003c/em>makes the case that not only does this strategy endanger people of color, but it also hinders economic mobility for all Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ugapress.org/book/9780820354750/medical-bondage/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Deirdre Cooper Owens\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The foundational knowledge of American gynecology relied on the exploitation of enslaved black women’s bodies. In \u003cem>Medical Bondage,\u003c/em> Cooper Owens centers the stories of black women that have been overshadowed by the “discoveries” of white male doctors who experimented on them. Baseless theories about black inferiority and higher pain tolerance \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/content/113/16/4296\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">still permeate medical schools today\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/body-and-soul\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Alondra Nelson\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Black Panther Party is most remembered for its militant action, but health care was also a major pillar of its activism. The People’s Free Medical Clinics tested for hypertension and assisted with housing and employment. Its outreach also brought attention to rampant discrimination within mainstream medicine. Nelson writes that the Black Panther Party understood health as a human right, echoing today’s fight for universal health care. You can \u003ca href=\"https://manifold.umn.edu/read/body-and-soul/section/afa172a4-8eaa-4413-a403-ec76794217e6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">read \u003cem>Body and Soul\u003c/em> online for free.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Films\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>13th\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. imprisons more people than any other country in the world, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/30/shrinking-gap-between-number-of-blacks-and-whites-in-prison/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a third of U.S. prisoners are black.\u003c/a> In this infuriating documentary, director Ava DuVernay argues that mass incarceration, Jim Crow and slavery are “the three major racialized systems of control adopted in the United States to date.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Not-Your-Negro/dp/B01MR52U7T\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>I Am Not Your Negro\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Narrated by the words of James Baldwin with the voice of Samuel L. Jackson, \u003cem>I Am Not Your Negro\u003c/em> connects the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. Although Baldwin died nearly 30 years before the film’s release, his observations about racial conflict are as incisive today as they were when he made them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hulu.com/movie/whose-streets-3e8f4b7a-75d4-4484-9843-e665b60e2758\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Whose Streets?\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2014 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Mo. was one of the deaths that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. Frustrated by media coverage of unrest in Ferguson, co-directors Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis documented how locals felt about police in riot gear filling their neighborhoods with tear gas. As one resident says, “They don’t tell you the fact that the police showed up to a peaceful candlelight vigil… and boxed them in, and forced them onto a QuikTrip lot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80184131\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>LA 92\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>LA 92 \u003c/em>is about the Los Angeles riots that occurred in response to the police beating of Rodney King. The film is entirely comprised of archival footage—no talking heads needed. It’s chilling to watch the unrest of nearly 30 years ago, as young people still take to the streets and shout, “No justice, no peace.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80198423\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Teach Us All\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, American schools are still segregated. \u003cem>Teach Us All \u003c/em>explains why that is—school choice, residential segregation, biased admissions processes—and talks to advocates working for change. Interspersing interviews from two Little Rock Nine members, the documentary asks how far we’ve really come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/show/black-america-mlk-and-still-i-rise/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this two-part series, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. chronicles the last 50 years of black history through a personal lens. Released days after the 2016 election, some themes of the documentary took on a deeper meaning amid Donald Trump’s win. “Think of the civil rights movement to the present as a second Reconstruction—a 50-year Reconstruction—that ended last night,” Gates said \u003ca href=\"https://www.salon.com/test2/2016/11/12/henry-louis-gates-on-trump-that-election-clearly-represented-a-backlash-against-the-progress-black-people-have-made-since-1965/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in an interview with\u003cem> Salon.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Podcasts\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/floodlines/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Floodlines\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> from \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An audio documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, \u003cem>Floodlines \u003c/em>is told from the perspective of four New Orleanians still living with the consequences of governmental neglect. As COVID-19 disproportionately infects and kills Americans of color, the story feels especially relevant. “As a person of color, you always have it in the back of your mind that the government really doesn’t care about you,” said self-described Katrina overcomer Alice Craft-Kerney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/podcasts/1619-podcast.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>1619\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> from \u003cem>The New York Times \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began.” Hosted by recent Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, the\u003cem> 1619 \u003c/em>audio series chronicles how black people have been central to building American democracy, music, wealth and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://aapf.org/podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Intersectionality Matters! \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>from \u003cem>The African American Policy Forum\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leading critical race theorist who coined the term “intersectionality,” this podcast brings the academic term to life. Each episode brings together lively political organizers, journalists and writers. \u003ca href=\"https://soundcloud.com/intersectionality-matters/15-pt-6-under-the-blacklight-covid-in-confinement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">This recent episode\u003c/a> on COVID-19 in prisons and other areas of confinement is a must-listen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510333/throughline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Throughline \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>from\u003cem> NPR\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every week at \u003cem>Throughline, \u003c/em>our pals Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei “go back in time to understand the present.” To understand the history of systemic racism in America, we recommend “\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/869046127/american-police\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Police\u003c/a>,” “\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/08/14/751126384/mass-incarceration\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mass Incarceration\u003c/a>” and “\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/07/24/744884767/milliken-v-bradley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Milliken v. Bradley\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=This+List+Of+Books%2C+Films+And+Podcasts+About+Racism+Is+A+Start%2C+Not+A+Panacea&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As of Friday, 15 of the top 20 bestselling books on Amazon were about race or racism. Earlier this week, \u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> was number one on Apple Podcasts—which, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GeeDee215/status/1268000245214035974\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as host Gene Demby said\u003c/a>, is “dope,” but unfortunately occurred under “soul-crushing circumstances.” And \u003cem>The Help \u003c/em>is trending on Netflix (ahem, a film that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2011/08/18/139755308/the-help-draws-audiences-and-ire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">drew immediate ire\u003c/a> upon release).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re in the middle of one of those awfully predictable news cycles—a video of police killing a black person goes viral, protests ensue and broader America suddenly realizes \u003cem>we need to talk about race. \u003c/em>Of course, while \u003ca href=\"https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/this-week-has-happened-before.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this week has happened before,\u003c/a> it’s also happening on a much larger scale than ever before, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2020/06/03/map-protests-wake-george-floyds-death/5310149002/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">demonstrations in all 50 states.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help people be better allies, lists of antiracist books, films and podcasts are being published in droves. There’s never a bad time to learn, but such a list can become erroneously prescriptive, a balm to centuries-old lacerations that cut deeper than the individual reader. \u003ca href=\"https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/anti-racist-reading-lists-what-are-they-for.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">As Lauren Michele Jackson wrote for \u003cem>Vulture,\u003c/em> \u003c/a>“The word [anti-racism] and its nominal equivalent, “anti-racist,” suggests something of a vanity project, where the goal is no longer to learn more about race, power, and capital, but to spring closer to the enlightened order of the antiracist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, with that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of books, films and podcasts about systemic racism, acknowledging that they are just books, films and podcasts. You’ll find research on how racism permeates everything from the criminal justice system to health care. We hope you spend some time with these resources (and that you listen to \u003cem>Code Switch—\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/03/26/820991385/the-very-best-of-code-switch-in-8-episodes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here’s a list of episodes\u003c/a> to get you started). Information is power—you decide what you do with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Books\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/10/10/why-are-all-the-black-kids-sitting-together-in-the-cafeteria\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Beverly Daniel Tatum\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This classic text on the psychology of racism was re-released with new content in 2017, 20 years after its original publication. By providing straight talk on self-segregation and inequality in schools, Tatum shows the importance—and possibility—of cross-racial dialogues starting young.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://uncpress.org/book/9781469653662/race-for-profit/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History, \u003cem>Race for Profit \u003c/em>chronicles how the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 failed to stop racist, exploitative mortgage lending practices. Since the policy was supposed to be a balm to the 1960s uprisings—much like the ones we’re seeing now—it serves as a reminder to remain vigilant when policymakers promise change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/07/27/745925045/book-a-terrible-thing-to-waste\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and its Assault on the American Mind\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Harriet A. Washington\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From lead poisoning to toxic waste, Americans of color are disproportionately harmed by environmental hazards. This is detrimental to physical health—air pollution is linked with higher COVID-19 death rates, \u003ca href=\"https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/air-pollution-linked-with-higher-covid-19-death-rates/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to Harvard researchers.\u003c/a> But Washington also argues that environmental racism is causing cognitive decline in communities of color. A deconstruction of IQ and an indictment of EPA rollbacks, \u003cem>A Terrible Thing To Waste\u003c/em> is a stirring read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674979826\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Elizabeth Hinton\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The origins of mass incarceration—which disproportionately puts black people behind bars—are often pinned on Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. But Hinton argues the carceral state was erected “by a consensus of liberals and conservatives who privileged punitive responses to urban problems as a reaction to the civil rights movement.” The 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act, part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society plan, led to today’s police militarization. This account of history poses relevant questions for today’s land of the free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/586392678/automating-inequality-how-high-tech-tools-profile-police-and-punish-the-poor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Virginia Eubanks\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Algorithms are made by humans, so they are susceptible to human biases. From deciding which neighborhoods get policed to who gets welfare benefits, discrimination has gone digital. By scrutinizing statistical models and telling personal stories, Eubanks shows that machines do not correct racist systems—they only shift blame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/868390203/the-end-of-policing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>The End of Policing\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Alex S. Vitale\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the wake of high-profile cases of police brutality, the same ideas for reform are trotted out—implicit bias training, body cameras, police-community dialogues. But Vitale argues that this fails to get to the root of the problem—policing itself. While calls to abolish the police are often met with skepticism, academics and activists have long-discussed alternatives to addressing homelessness, domestic disputes and substance abuse. \u003ca href=\"https://www.versobooks.com/books/2817\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A free ebook\u003c/a> of \u003cem>The End of Policing\u003c/em> is available now. (And you can read \u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> editor extraordinaire Leah Donnella’s conversation with Vitale \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/06/03/457251670/how-much-do-we-need-the-police\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here.\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nyrb.com/products/blackballed?variant=1094927969\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Blackballed: The Black Vote and U.S. Democracy\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Darryl Pinckney\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As young Americans take to the streets to say black lives matter, they’re often told to vote. While voting is important, it’s also important to remember how black political representation has been chipped away by voter ID laws, gerrymandering and felon disenfranchisement. \u003cem>Blackballed \u003c/em>addresses the struggle for voting rights and for racial equality more broadly, drawing on Pinckney’s own experiences and writings of civil rights leaders to create a complicated picture of black political identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/358318685/dog-whistle-politics-how-coded-racial-appeals-have-reinvented-racism-and-wrecked\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Ian Haney López\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Entitlement mentality.” “Quotas.” “Welfare queens.” From Barry Goldwater to Bill Clinton to the Tea Party, politicians have relied on racially coded language to win over white voters and decimate social programs. \u003cem>Dog Whistle Politics \u003c/em>makes the case that not only does this strategy endanger people of color, but it also hinders economic mobility for all Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ugapress.org/book/9780820354750/medical-bondage/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Deirdre Cooper Owens\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The foundational knowledge of American gynecology relied on the exploitation of enslaved black women’s bodies. In \u003cem>Medical Bondage,\u003c/em> Cooper Owens centers the stories of black women that have been overshadowed by the “discoveries” of white male doctors who experimented on them. Baseless theories about black inferiority and higher pain tolerance \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/content/113/16/4296\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">still permeate medical schools today\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/body-and-soul\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> by Alondra Nelson\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Black Panther Party is most remembered for its militant action, but health care was also a major pillar of its activism. The People’s Free Medical Clinics tested for hypertension and assisted with housing and employment. Its outreach also brought attention to rampant discrimination within mainstream medicine. Nelson writes that the Black Panther Party understood health as a human right, echoing today’s fight for universal health care. You can \u003ca href=\"https://manifold.umn.edu/read/body-and-soul/section/afa172a4-8eaa-4413-a403-ec76794217e6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">read \u003cem>Body and Soul\u003c/em> online for free.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Films\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>13th\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. imprisons more people than any other country in the world, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/30/shrinking-gap-between-number-of-blacks-and-whites-in-prison/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a third of U.S. prisoners are black.\u003c/a> In this infuriating documentary, director Ava DuVernay argues that mass incarceration, Jim Crow and slavery are “the three major racialized systems of control adopted in the United States to date.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Not-Your-Negro/dp/B01MR52U7T\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>I Am Not Your Negro\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Narrated by the words of James Baldwin with the voice of Samuel L. Jackson, \u003cem>I Am Not Your Negro\u003c/em> connects the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. Although Baldwin died nearly 30 years before the film’s release, his observations about racial conflict are as incisive today as they were when he made them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hulu.com/movie/whose-streets-3e8f4b7a-75d4-4484-9843-e665b60e2758\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Whose Streets?\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2014 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Mo. was one of the deaths that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. Frustrated by media coverage of unrest in Ferguson, co-directors Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis documented how locals felt about police in riot gear filling their neighborhoods with tear gas. As one resident says, “They don’t tell you the fact that the police showed up to a peaceful candlelight vigil… and boxed them in, and forced them onto a QuikTrip lot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80184131\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>LA 92\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>LA 92 \u003c/em>is about the Los Angeles riots that occurred in response to the police beating of Rodney King. The film is entirely comprised of archival footage—no talking heads needed. It’s chilling to watch the unrest of nearly 30 years ago, as young people still take to the streets and shout, “No justice, no peace.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80198423\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Teach Us All\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, American schools are still segregated. \u003cem>Teach Us All \u003c/em>explains why that is—school choice, residential segregation, biased admissions processes—and talks to advocates working for change. Interspersing interviews from two Little Rock Nine members, the documentary asks how far we’ve really come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/show/black-america-mlk-and-still-i-rise/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this two-part series, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. chronicles the last 50 years of black history through a personal lens. Released days after the 2016 election, some themes of the documentary took on a deeper meaning amid Donald Trump’s win. “Think of the civil rights movement to the present as a second Reconstruction—a 50-year Reconstruction—that ended last night,” Gates said \u003ca href=\"https://www.salon.com/test2/2016/11/12/henry-louis-gates-on-trump-that-election-clearly-represented-a-backlash-against-the-progress-black-people-have-made-since-1965/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in an interview with\u003cem> Salon.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Podcasts\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/floodlines/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Floodlines\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> from \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An audio documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, \u003cem>Floodlines \u003c/em>is told from the perspective of four New Orleanians still living with the consequences of governmental neglect. As COVID-19 disproportionately infects and kills Americans of color, the story feels especially relevant. “As a person of color, you always have it in the back of your mind that the government really doesn’t care about you,” said self-described Katrina overcomer Alice Craft-Kerney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/podcasts/1619-podcast.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>1619\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> from \u003cem>The New York Times \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began.” Hosted by recent Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, the\u003cem> 1619 \u003c/em>audio series chronicles how black people have been central to building American democracy, music, wealth and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://aapf.org/podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Intersectionality Matters! \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>from \u003cem>The African American Policy Forum\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leading critical race theorist who coined the term “intersectionality,” this podcast brings the academic term to life. Each episode brings together lively political organizers, journalists and writers. \u003ca href=\"https://soundcloud.com/intersectionality-matters/15-pt-6-under-the-blacklight-covid-in-confinement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">This recent episode\u003c/a> on COVID-19 in prisons and other areas of confinement is a must-listen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510333/throughline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Throughline \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>from\u003cem> NPR\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every week at \u003cem>Throughline, \u003c/em>our pals Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei “go back in time to understand the present.” To understand the history of systemic racism in America, we recommend “\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/869046127/american-police\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Police\u003c/a>,” “\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/08/14/751126384/mass-incarceration\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mass Incarceration\u003c/a>” and “\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/07/24/744884767/milliken-v-bradley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Milliken v. Bradley\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=This+List+Of+Books%2C+Films+And+Podcasts+About+Racism+Is+A+Start%2C+Not+A+Panacea&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "'I May Destroy You' is HBO's New Unforgettable, Unmissable Drama",
"headTitle": "‘I May Destroy You’ is HBO’s New Unforgettable, Unmissable Drama | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Note: This review discusses, and the show contains, scenes depicting, and stories about, sexual assault. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first episode of the HBO series \u003cem>I May Destroy You\u003c/em>, Arabella has other things going on before she’s sexually assaulted. She’s trying to meet a book deadline, and she’s worried she can’t, and in the great tradition of writers doing everything else when they can’t write, she steps out for a drink. When she next comes to, she realizes she was drugged and assaulted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But before that, she has friends, she has family, she’s struggling with her path from social media breakout star to author, and she’s navigating a long-distance relationship with a man she met in Italy, where she meant to be writing but then didn’t, quite. Played by creator Michaela Coel, also the writer and star of \u003cem>Chewing Gum\u003c/em>, she’s not a character constructed to be traumatized; she’s a character, full stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>I May Destroy You \u003c/em>is about sexual violence and consent; those themes come up over and over in different stories that change characters in different ways. But it avoids the flatness that would come from drama as a didactic explainer. Arabella’s is a story that widens out to show how being assaulted affects her sex life, her relationships with her friends and her family, her career, her aspirations, and her health. It documents the police investigation without centering it. This is not a whodunit, even though Arabella’s drive to understand what happened propels some of the plot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coel doesn’t just star in the series. She wrote these 12 episodes herself. She co-directed much of the season with Sam Miller, who’s worked on \u003cem>Luther \u003c/em>and on episodes of everything from \u003cem>Luke Cage \u003c/em>to \u003cem>American Crime\u003c/em>. She’s a producer and the star. Her face is the series’ indelible image. And she based the story of Arabella’s assault on \u003ca href=\"https://www.essence.com/entertainment/michaela-coel-hbo-i-may-destroy-you/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a night in her own life\u003c/a>. It is, transparently, the most personal of projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You see that personal passion-project quality not only in the writing, but in the way Coel and Miller manage the visual language. The wardrobe and hair and knockabout style of filming conversations among friends are unobtrusive and casual in many stretches of the story, which build to those moments when they are emphatically not. This is not a twitchy, self-conscious style that draws attention to itself for no reason; it’s a reservation of visual emphasis for the places where it belongs. Arabella changes her hair, or she puts on a Halloween costume, and the air around her changes, too. It doesn’t look or sound like any other story. With that said, it also makes excellent use some of the best techniques that have emerged in recent television, including episodes that pause the narrative to pay attention to a different point of view, or a different point in time, to enrich the main story thread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the early going, \u003cem>I May Destroy You \u003c/em>can feel disorienting, because its upending of conventional crime and trauma story structures is so thorough. If you went in not knowing it was a story about sexual assault, you could watch most of the first episode as a day-in-the-life pilot for a quirky half-hour about a wandering millennial, about the publishing industry, about dating apps, and about social media in general. But this is the wisdom of the writing, at its core: This is how you demonstrate that Arabella existed in full before she was assaulted. She \u003cem>already \u003c/em>had a story unfolding, and a life that a series about her could have followed. She wasn’t simply suspended in air, waiting for something narratively important to happen to her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And just as she had a story already, Arabella had a personality already, and Coel resolutely draws her as a woman who is both traumatized and flawed. The rounded character she would have been in that quirky half-hour about the millennial and the book contract, she still is. She can be insensitive and mean, and she can be just as unaware of other people’s experiences and needs as they are of hers. Arabella and her friends—best friend Terry (Weruche Opia), friends Kwame (Paapa Essiedu) and Simon (Ami Ameen), dreamy Italian boyfriend Biagio (Marouane Zotti)—exist in a web of connections in which they hurt and are hurt, sometimes right and sometimes not. They both buoy and disappoint each other, making \u003cem>I May Destroy You \u003c/em>an outstanding examination of friendship as much as anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It sometimes helps, when encouraging people to try out an unconventionally structured show, to provide a hint that the overall shape of the story will satisfy. Let’s say only this: After 12 episodes, there is a gut-punch brilliance to how Arabella’s story is brought to a close that it would be wildly unfair to spoil. But know that Coel concludes in a way that’s both formally clever—that feels too slight, but it’s true—and dramatically satisfying. It is the holy grail of a certain kind of drama to find an ending that seems, in retrospect, both surprising and inevitable. And it’s very hard to get that right, but she got there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s significant that HBO (together with the BBC) has produced this show at all, particularly given its \u003ca href=\"https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hbo-diversity_n_4899679\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dismal record\u003c/a> when it comes to the diversity of voices that get to make the highly personal, idiosyncratic dramas that have built the brand. (And it’s worth emphasizing, perhaps, that despite being a half-hour show from a woman whose last big project was very funny, this is a drama series.) But it’s equally encouraging, if your eye is on what television networks are supporting, that the show is so particular, and that it comes from a voice that’s so fresh, and that it leads with a frankness that a lot of conventional “gritty” drama series cannot match.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And ultimately, this is a chance to watch a brilliant lead performance. It’s tricky to call an actor mesmerizing, for fear of making her power seem magical rather than the result of craft. But Coel here is magnetic and memorable, for sure, and you won’t be able to take your eyes off her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27I+May+Destroy+You%27+Is+HBO%27s+New+Unforgettable%2C+Unmissable+Drama&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Note: This review discusses, and the show contains, scenes depicting, and stories about, sexual assault. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first episode of the HBO series \u003cem>I May Destroy You\u003c/em>, Arabella has other things going on before she’s sexually assaulted. She’s trying to meet a book deadline, and she’s worried she can’t, and in the great tradition of writers doing everything else when they can’t write, she steps out for a drink. When she next comes to, she realizes she was drugged and assaulted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But before that, she has friends, she has family, she’s struggling with her path from social media breakout star to author, and she’s navigating a long-distance relationship with a man she met in Italy, where she meant to be writing but then didn’t, quite. Played by creator Michaela Coel, also the writer and star of \u003cem>Chewing Gum\u003c/em>, she’s not a character constructed to be traumatized; she’s a character, full stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>I May Destroy You \u003c/em>is about sexual violence and consent; those themes come up over and over in different stories that change characters in different ways. But it avoids the flatness that would come from drama as a didactic explainer. Arabella’s is a story that widens out to show how being assaulted affects her sex life, her relationships with her friends and her family, her career, her aspirations, and her health. It documents the police investigation without centering it. This is not a whodunit, even though Arabella’s drive to understand what happened propels some of the plot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coel doesn’t just star in the series. She wrote these 12 episodes herself. She co-directed much of the season with Sam Miller, who’s worked on \u003cem>Luther \u003c/em>and on episodes of everything from \u003cem>Luke Cage \u003c/em>to \u003cem>American Crime\u003c/em>. She’s a producer and the star. Her face is the series’ indelible image. And she based the story of Arabella’s assault on \u003ca href=\"https://www.essence.com/entertainment/michaela-coel-hbo-i-may-destroy-you/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a night in her own life\u003c/a>. It is, transparently, the most personal of projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You see that personal passion-project quality not only in the writing, but in the way Coel and Miller manage the visual language. The wardrobe and hair and knockabout style of filming conversations among friends are unobtrusive and casual in many stretches of the story, which build to those moments when they are emphatically not. This is not a twitchy, self-conscious style that draws attention to itself for no reason; it’s a reservation of visual emphasis for the places where it belongs. Arabella changes her hair, or she puts on a Halloween costume, and the air around her changes, too. It doesn’t look or sound like any other story. With that said, it also makes excellent use some of the best techniques that have emerged in recent television, including episodes that pause the narrative to pay attention to a different point of view, or a different point in time, to enrich the main story thread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the early going, \u003cem>I May Destroy You \u003c/em>can feel disorienting, because its upending of conventional crime and trauma story structures is so thorough. If you went in not knowing it was a story about sexual assault, you could watch most of the first episode as a day-in-the-life pilot for a quirky half-hour about a wandering millennial, about the publishing industry, about dating apps, and about social media in general. But this is the wisdom of the writing, at its core: This is how you demonstrate that Arabella existed in full before she was assaulted. She \u003cem>already \u003c/em>had a story unfolding, and a life that a series about her could have followed. She wasn’t simply suspended in air, waiting for something narratively important to happen to her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And just as she had a story already, Arabella had a personality already, and Coel resolutely draws her as a woman who is both traumatized and flawed. The rounded character she would have been in that quirky half-hour about the millennial and the book contract, she still is. She can be insensitive and mean, and she can be just as unaware of other people’s experiences and needs as they are of hers. Arabella and her friends—best friend Terry (Weruche Opia), friends Kwame (Paapa Essiedu) and Simon (Ami Ameen), dreamy Italian boyfriend Biagio (Marouane Zotti)—exist in a web of connections in which they hurt and are hurt, sometimes right and sometimes not. They both buoy and disappoint each other, making \u003cem>I May Destroy You \u003c/em>an outstanding examination of friendship as much as anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It sometimes helps, when encouraging people to try out an unconventionally structured show, to provide a hint that the overall shape of the story will satisfy. Let’s say only this: After 12 episodes, there is a gut-punch brilliance to how Arabella’s story is brought to a close that it would be wildly unfair to spoil. But know that Coel concludes in a way that’s both formally clever—that feels too slight, but it’s true—and dramatically satisfying. It is the holy grail of a certain kind of drama to find an ending that seems, in retrospect, both surprising and inevitable. And it’s very hard to get that right, but she got there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s significant that HBO (together with the BBC) has produced this show at all, particularly given its \u003ca href=\"https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hbo-diversity_n_4899679\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dismal record\u003c/a> when it comes to the diversity of voices that get to make the highly personal, idiosyncratic dramas that have built the brand. (And it’s worth emphasizing, perhaps, that despite being a half-hour show from a woman whose last big project was very funny, this is a drama series.) But it’s equally encouraging, if your eye is on what television networks are supporting, that the show is so particular, and that it comes from a voice that’s so fresh, and that it leads with a frankness that a lot of conventional “gritty” drama series cannot match.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
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"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"order": 16
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},
"science-friday": {
"id": "science-friday",
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"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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