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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of American Anthem, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action. Find more at\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/series/622671774/american-anthem\">NPR.org/Anthem\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>It was a coincidence that the police were there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the summer of 2015, hundreds of black activists and organizers from across the country gathered on the campus of Cleveland State University for a three-day conference called the Movement for Black Lives. This was an opportunity to get together and share best practices and plan future actions, and was the first time many of them were meeting face to face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a heavy moment. News was spreading about Sandra Bland—a black woman who was found dead in a Texas jail cell after being arrested at a traffic stop, and just the latest in a long list of names that had become synonymous with police violence against black people. But there were moments of joy, too. During a break, someone put on the song “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-48u_uWMHY\">Alright\u003c/a>” by \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/166009689/kendrick-lamar\">Kendrick Lamar\u003c/a>, and a whole auditorium of people broke loose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Z-48u_uWMHY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a celebratory moment of black love,” says Waltrina Midleton. She’s a youth reverend, then based in Cleveland, who helped set up the event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conference ended on a Sunday afternoon. At the same time people were saying their goodbyes with hugs and kisses, a bus was coming across campus. Inside, a police officer was detaining a black 14-year-old suspected of drinking alcohol. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivXg7xp2F0\">In surveillance and body cam tape\u003c/a> released by the Greater Cleveland Authority Regional Transit Police, you can see the cop take the kid off the bus and handcuff him inside a sheltered bus stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middleton could make out that something was going on. “I’m standing on the steps,” she says, “and all of a sudden, the crowd went from of folks saying goodbye to, ‘Oh, something’s happening.’ ” It had been less than a year since police shot and killed Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old who was playing with an Airsoft gun outside a rec center, in the very same city. People started gathering at the scene, holding up their phones to record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the incident report, officers asked the 14-year-old for his mother’s name and address, which he gave to them. One of the bystanders also asked for this information. From the report:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“That unknown female was informed by us that we will handle calling a parent or guardian. [REDACTED] blurted out to her his mother’s phone number. Ptl. Horton and Ptl. Dorko were blocking the crowd from entering the shelter and the ability for them to have any communication with [REDACTED] (for his safety).”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“Our ultimate goal was to make sure that this young child was not criminalized,” Middleton says. “That this child left the situation alive, and also that an adult who was accountable for that child was present.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crowd grew, more police showed up, and bystanders became protesters. Some of them linked arms around the police cars. An officer pepper sprayed them. The scene continued to intensify until, finally, the teen’s mother arrived. The police escorted mom and son to an ambulance, and then let them go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a story involving a young black male, escalating tensions, police in riot gear and people getting pepper sprayed, this is a happy ending. Some of the protesters begin to shout a familiar refrain: “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUC_DOhfzwQ\">We gon’ be alright\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>Kendrick Lamar’s \u003cem>To Pimp a Butterfly\u003c/em> was released in the spring of 2015. “Alright” was the fourth single off the record. It’s hard to say exactly when the song was first used at a protest, but the story in Cleveland touched on many of the issues of the moment concerning police relations with black people. At \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/TheHilltopHU/status/652838787492519936\">similar\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2hKKT7JWcA&t=2s\">demonstrations\u003c/a>, the chanted hook quickly became a fixture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lPD5PtqMiE&t=1554s\">In a 2016 interview\u003c/a> with super-producer Rick Rubin hosted by \u003cem>GQ\u003c/em>, Lamar said he sat on the beat—dreamed up by another super-producer, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/122029835/pharrell-williams\">Pharrell Williams\u003c/a>—for six months before figuring out what he wanted to say. “The beat sounds fun,” he said. “But it’s something else inside the chords that Pharrell put down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1554&v=4lPD5PtqMiE\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>dah dah dah\u003c/em>s that make up those chords are Williams’ own disembodied voice, running constantly through the song. They’re haunting, in a way. “Maybe it’s the ancestors who never received the justice they deserved,” says Miles Marshall Lewis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The author of the upcoming book \u003cem>Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar\u003c/em>, Lewis interviewed Lamar after the release of \u003cem>To Pimp a Butterfly\u003c/em> and learned the artist was inspired to write “Alright” by a trip to South Africa—specifically the cell on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Similarly, Lamar told NPR in a 2015 interview that he was thinking about the history of chattel slavery in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Four hundred years ago, as slaves, we prayed and sung joyful songs to keep our heads level-headed with what was going on,” Lamar said. “Four hundred years later, we still need that music to heal. And I think that ‘Alright’ is definitely one of those records that makes you feel good no matter what the times are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the song’s prechorus, Lamar lays this feeling out succinctly. He begins in the past:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\u003cem>Wouldn’t you know, we been hurt, been down before\u003cbr>\nWhen our pride was low\u003cbr>\nLooking at the world like “Where do we go?”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The emotional payoff of the chorus isn’t complete without this lead-in, acknowledging the long history of black oppression. Then he brings us back to the present, where things are different, but not different enough:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\u003cem>And we hate po-po\u003cbr>\nWanna kill us dead in the streets for sure\u003cbr>\nI’m at the preacher’s door\u003cbr>\nMy knees getting weak, and my gun might blow,\u003cbr>\nBut we gon’ be alright\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>When the narrator shows up at a preacher’s door, reeling in the face of police violence and oppression, he’s holding a gun. Lewis says the moment reflects the old duality of the civil rights struggle: “He might trade in the Martin hat for the Malcolm hat, and have to defend himself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s up to the listener to decide which way the gun is pointed: at the police, at the preacher, at someone else, or back at the artist himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>On June 17, 2015, a white nationalist shot and killed nine black people inside Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S. C.—including Reverend DePayne Middleton Doctor, Waltrina Middleton’s cousin. In the aftermath, Middleton said she wanted to leave her work, her ministry, her activism, shut the door to the world and people around her. “It’s so easy to say ‘my cousin was murdered, I’m done. Eff all this. This isn’t going to change anything.’ And walk away,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This sentiment is reflected in “Alright,” too — particularly the contrast of the bright, optimistic, communal chorus against the dark, self-critical and solitary verses: “I can see the evil, I can tell it, I know it’s illegal / I don’t think about it, I deposit every other zero.” There’s a powerlessness here, as even Lamar, who at this point in his career was positioned as \u003cem>the\u003c/em> rapper, succumbs to apathy and greed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s not denying that we’re in a protracted state of trauma,” Middleton says. “He’s saying, ‘I know that we may have all of these things around us that will allow us to escape, but the movement is still there, the fight is still there.’ And I think it’s important to recognize that—because sometimes we don’t think about the psychological impact and trauma of fighting for your life every single day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After the death of Freddie Gray, a lot of us was just stuck and lost,” says Devin Allen. He’s a photographer from Baltimore, who documented many of the protests, prayers, riots and marches that took place in 2015 when Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died after injuries he sustained while being transported by police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we spoke, Allen talked about the curfew that followed, the occupation, the black people shot by police who, for better or worse, haven’t become household names. He said that protesters in Baltimore weren’t singing “Alright” in the streets like in other cities. Instead, the song had a more private presence: something you listened to in the car by yourself, at home with your family, at the club with your friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allen’s photos these days deal with softer subject matter: Friends, neighbors, random kids living their lives in Baltimore. It’s cautiously optimistic work that he says is inspired by Lamar. And he sometimes posts videos of his daughter dancing along to “Alright,” or mugging for the camera, rapping along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One day we will be all right,” he says. “Gotta keep fighting for that. The moment I don’t believe it’s gonna be all right, what am I fighting for?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can read the phrase “We gon’ be alright” as indicative of some distant future, where white supremacy and oppression are no longer a major concern — \u003cem>one day\u003c/em>, as Allen puts it. But maybe it can also mean something simpler, sooner. Something as small as coming home to your family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 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=Both+Party+And+Protest%2C+%27Alright%27+Is+The+Sound+Of+Black+Life%27s+Duality&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of American Anthem, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action. Find more at\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/series/622671774/american-anthem\">NPR.org/Anthem\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>It was a coincidence that the police were there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the summer of 2015, hundreds of black activists and organizers from across the country gathered on the campus of Cleveland State University for a three-day conference called the Movement for Black Lives. This was an opportunity to get together and share best practices and plan future actions, and was the first time many of them were meeting face to face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a heavy moment. News was spreading about Sandra Bland—a black woman who was found dead in a Texas jail cell after being arrested at a traffic stop, and just the latest in a long list of names that had become synonymous with police violence against black people. But there were moments of joy, too. During a break, someone put on the song “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-48u_uWMHY\">Alright\u003c/a>” by \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/166009689/kendrick-lamar\">Kendrick Lamar\u003c/a>, and a whole auditorium of people broke loose.\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/Z-48u_uWMHY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Z-48u_uWMHY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a celebratory moment of black love,” says Waltrina Midleton. She’s a youth reverend, then based in Cleveland, who helped set up the event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conference ended on a Sunday afternoon. At the same time people were saying their goodbyes with hugs and kisses, a bus was coming across campus. Inside, a police officer was detaining a black 14-year-old suspected of drinking alcohol. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivXg7xp2F0\">In surveillance and body cam tape\u003c/a> released by the Greater Cleveland Authority Regional Transit Police, you can see the cop take the kid off the bus and handcuff him inside a sheltered bus stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middleton could make out that something was going on. “I’m standing on the steps,” she says, “and all of a sudden, the crowd went from of folks saying goodbye to, ‘Oh, something’s happening.’ ” It had been less than a year since police shot and killed Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old who was playing with an Airsoft gun outside a rec center, in the very same city. People started gathering at the scene, holding up their phones to record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the incident report, officers asked the 14-year-old for his mother’s name and address, which he gave to them. One of the bystanders also asked for this information. From the report:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“That unknown female was informed by us that we will handle calling a parent or guardian. [REDACTED] blurted out to her his mother’s phone number. Ptl. Horton and Ptl. Dorko were blocking the crowd from entering the shelter and the ability for them to have any communication with [REDACTED] (for his safety).”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“Our ultimate goal was to make sure that this young child was not criminalized,” Middleton says. “That this child left the situation alive, and also that an adult who was accountable for that child was present.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crowd grew, more police showed up, and bystanders became protesters. Some of them linked arms around the police cars. An officer pepper sprayed them. The scene continued to intensify until, finally, the teen’s mother arrived. The police escorted mom and son to an ambulance, and then let them go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a story involving a young black male, escalating tensions, police in riot gear and people getting pepper sprayed, this is a happy ending. Some of the protesters begin to shout a familiar refrain: “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUC_DOhfzwQ\">We gon’ be alright\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>Kendrick Lamar’s \u003cem>To Pimp a Butterfly\u003c/em> was released in the spring of 2015. “Alright” was the fourth single off the record. It’s hard to say exactly when the song was first used at a protest, but the story in Cleveland touched on many of the issues of the moment concerning police relations with black people. At \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/TheHilltopHU/status/652838787492519936\">similar\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2hKKT7JWcA&t=2s\">demonstrations\u003c/a>, the chanted hook quickly became a fixture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lPD5PtqMiE&t=1554s\">In a 2016 interview\u003c/a> with super-producer Rick Rubin hosted by \u003cem>GQ\u003c/em>, Lamar said he sat on the beat—dreamed up by another super-producer, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/122029835/pharrell-williams\">Pharrell Williams\u003c/a>—for six months before figuring out what he wanted to say. “The beat sounds fun,” he said. “But it’s something else inside the chords that Pharrell put down.”\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/4lPD5PtqMiE'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/4lPD5PtqMiE'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The \u003cem>dah dah dah\u003c/em>s that make up those chords are Williams’ own disembodied voice, running constantly through the song. They’re haunting, in a way. “Maybe it’s the ancestors who never received the justice they deserved,” says Miles Marshall Lewis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The author of the upcoming book \u003cem>Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar\u003c/em>, Lewis interviewed Lamar after the release of \u003cem>To Pimp a Butterfly\u003c/em> and learned the artist was inspired to write “Alright” by a trip to South Africa—specifically the cell on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Similarly, Lamar told NPR in a 2015 interview that he was thinking about the history of chattel slavery in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Four hundred years ago, as slaves, we prayed and sung joyful songs to keep our heads level-headed with what was going on,” Lamar said. “Four hundred years later, we still need that music to heal. And I think that ‘Alright’ is definitely one of those records that makes you feel good no matter what the times are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the song’s prechorus, Lamar lays this feeling out succinctly. He begins in the past:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\u003cem>Wouldn’t you know, we been hurt, been down before\u003cbr>\nWhen our pride was low\u003cbr>\nLooking at the world like “Where do we go?”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The emotional payoff of the chorus isn’t complete without this lead-in, acknowledging the long history of black oppression. Then he brings us back to the present, where things are different, but not different enough:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\u003cem>And we hate po-po\u003cbr>\nWanna kill us dead in the streets for sure\u003cbr>\nI’m at the preacher’s door\u003cbr>\nMy knees getting weak, and my gun might blow,\u003cbr>\nBut we gon’ be alright\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>When the narrator shows up at a preacher’s door, reeling in the face of police violence and oppression, he’s holding a gun. Lewis says the moment reflects the old duality of the civil rights struggle: “He might trade in the Martin hat for the Malcolm hat, and have to defend himself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s up to the listener to decide which way the gun is pointed: at the police, at the preacher, at someone else, or back at the artist himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>On June 17, 2015, a white nationalist shot and killed nine black people inside Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S. C.—including Reverend DePayne Middleton Doctor, Waltrina Middleton’s cousin. In the aftermath, Middleton said she wanted to leave her work, her ministry, her activism, shut the door to the world and people around her. “It’s so easy to say ‘my cousin was murdered, I’m done. Eff all this. This isn’t going to change anything.’ And walk away,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This sentiment is reflected in “Alright,” too — particularly the contrast of the bright, optimistic, communal chorus against the dark, self-critical and solitary verses: “I can see the evil, I can tell it, I know it’s illegal / I don’t think about it, I deposit every other zero.” There’s a powerlessness here, as even Lamar, who at this point in his career was positioned as \u003cem>the\u003c/em> rapper, succumbs to apathy and greed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s not denying that we’re in a protracted state of trauma,” Middleton says. “He’s saying, ‘I know that we may have all of these things around us that will allow us to escape, but the movement is still there, the fight is still there.’ And I think it’s important to recognize that—because sometimes we don’t think about the psychological impact and trauma of fighting for your life every single day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After the death of Freddie Gray, a lot of us was just stuck and lost,” says Devin Allen. He’s a photographer from Baltimore, who documented many of the protests, prayers, riots and marches that took place in 2015 when Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died after injuries he sustained while being transported by police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we spoke, Allen talked about the curfew that followed, the occupation, the black people shot by police who, for better or worse, haven’t become household names. He said that protesters in Baltimore weren’t singing “Alright” in the streets like in other cities. Instead, the song had a more private presence: something you listened to in the car by yourself, at home with your family, at the club with your friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allen’s photos these days deal with softer subject matter: Friends, neighbors, random kids living their lives in Baltimore. It’s cautiously optimistic work that he says is inspired by Lamar. And he sometimes posts videos of his daughter dancing along to “Alright,” or mugging for the camera, rapping along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One day we will be all right,” he says. “Gotta keep fighting for that. The moment I don’t believe it’s gonna be all right, what am I fighting for?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can read the phrase “We gon’ be alright” as indicative of some distant future, where white supremacy and oppression are no longer a major concern — \u003cem>one day\u003c/em>, as Allen puts it. But maybe it can also mean something simpler, sooner. Something as small as coming home to your family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 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=Both+Party+And+Protest%2C+%27Alright%27+Is+The+Sound+Of+Black+Life%27s+Duality&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "10 Things You Might As Well Know About The 2019 VMAs",
"headTitle": "10 Things You Might As Well Know About The 2019 VMAs | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>On this early Tuesday morning, we sit facing a yawning precipice: the longest possible stretch of time in which no one is called upon to watch MTV’s Video Music Awards. Bask in the sweet, creamy silence of it all. We’ve earned it!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, it was a better-than-usual year for the stalwart awards show, which has been running since 1984 and tends to be best known for its moments of outrageousness. (Think Kanye West rushing the stage while Taylor Swift attempted to give a victory speech in 2009, or Miley Cyrus twerking alongside Robin Thicke four years later.) This year, the handing out of trophies barely registered, but a handful of performances and moments still shone through the din. Here’s a quick rundown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1.\u003cstrong> Missy Elliott got her moment, and then some.\u003c/strong> The hip-hop legend won a wildly overdue Video Vanguard award — the VMAs equivalent of a Hall of Fame induction — and celebrated with a terrific medley that featured “The Rain,” “Hot Boyz,” “Get Ur Freak On,” “Work It,” “Pass That Dutch” and “Lose Control.” Elliott received a lovely bundle of testimonials from the likes of Lizzo, adulation from an ecstatic crowd and the opportunity to give a gracious speech in which she heaped praise on God, her dancers and other sources of strength.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/i9I-ut1TXoA\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2. \u003cstrong>Lizzo’s star turn has only begun.\u003c/strong> Though the incalculably appealing breakout star went home empty-handed, trophy-wise, her medley of “Truth Hurts” and “Good As Hell” was a huge standout for the night — a win that’ll do a lot more for her staying power than some statuette. Flanked by her marvelous team of dancers, Lizzo sang her guts out while performing in the figurative shadow of a gigantic CGI rear end, a move that was funny and raucous without crowding out her moments of poignancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/Uo0RK_olDb4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Even more than usual, the actual awards barely qualified as an afterthought.\u003c/strong> All you need to know about the VMAs — the awards themselves — is that the prize for Artist of the Year was announced in a voiceover in passing, the way you’d quickly acknowledge the winner of, like, Best Costuming in an R&B Video by a Duo or Group. (Ariana Grande won Artist of the Year, but since she wasn’t in the room, why bother?)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>4. Speaking of which: \u003cstrong>They offloaded Video of the Year and Song of the Year smack in the middle of the telecast.\u003c/strong> About 10 years after Kanye West infamously interrupted her VMAs speech — you know, “I’ma let you finish,” that whole thing — Taylor Swift took Video of the Year for “You Need to Calm Down,” while Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus won Song of the Year for their eternal “Old Town Road” remix. Then the show just kept rolling along for another hour and a half.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5.\u003cstrong> It was a big night for Taylor Swift in general.\u003c/strong> The pop star, whose new album \u003cem>Lover\u003c/em> came out Friday, opened the night with a medley of “You Need to Calm Down” and “Lover,” filling the screen with drag queens, vibrant colors and all the CGI emoji fit to print. When she won Video for Good — the VMAs’ prize honoring socially conscious messaging — Swift shrewdly let collaborator Todrick Hall give the speech. She even wound up adjacent to one of the night’s big memeable moments: presenter John Travolta \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/PopCraveMusic/status/1166165376436191232\">handing the Video of the Year trophy to Jade Jolie\u003c/a>, presumably thinking the \u003cem>Drag Race\u003c/em> veteran was Swift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/eIRCskNRTDY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>6. \u003cstrong>Latin music got its due.\u003c/strong> Outside of, say, the Latin Grammys, Latin music tends to get short shrift in major music awards shows; it might get a medley here or there, but tends to get consigned to the margins. The 2019 VMAs understood what a creative and commercial force Latin music has become, and smartly let the music weave its way throughout the telecast as a result. Rosalía, J Balvin, Bad Bunny and Camila Cabello all performed, while Cardi B’s live-wire goofiness was a dominant presence over the course of the night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/qOSSmwK-PR0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>7. \u003cstrong>Normani is next.\u003c/strong> The Fifth Harmony singer performed a grabby, impeccably choreographed re-creation of her “Motivation” video, turning heads late in a telecast that had begun to sag. It’s the year of Lil Nas X, and Billie Eilish, and Lizzo, and Megan Thee Stallion — and it’s the year of Normani, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/RQJGqgq7MeE\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>8. \u003cstrong>Lil Nas X isn’t done yet.\u003c/strong> Okay, so “Old Town Road” has \u003cem>finally\u003c/em> been dethroned after a record-setting run atop the \u003cem>Billboard\u003c/em> Hot 100. But the genre-smashing, social-media-savvy star has more ideas to burn, if his sly and funny VMAs performance is any indication. The charming, lighthearted intro to his seemingly \u003cem>TRON\u003c/em>-inspired performance of “Panini” had some of the night’s biggest (only?) laughs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/wC53WdkG44w\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>9. \u003cstrong>Why don’t they let Joe Jonas perform onsite?\u003c/strong> In 2017, Joe Jonas’ band DNCE performed at the VMAs — sort of — by playing a set in Las Vegas that got stitched into the telecast from afar. This year, The Jonas Brothers returned to the VMAs after an 11-year absence, but were consigned to yet another stage, this time in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Is Joe Jonas not allowed within 1,000 yards of Shawn Mendes or something?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/BjMQC_bnaNE\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>10. \u003cstrong>Wrong host, wrong time.\u003c/strong> Sebastian Maniscalco is a hugely successful comedian who sells out multi-night runs at Madison Square Garden. He’s a big name. But his opening monologue — in which he snidely mocked trigger warnings and safe spaces and participation trophies and whatnot — felt like the sort of tired, these-kids-nowadays diatribe you’d expect from your least favorite uncle. It’s not that the bit was too edgy, or somehow hurtful, but that it was thuddingly predictable and utterly \u003cem>played out\u003c/em>. The night quickly bloomed into a world-straddling three-hour pansexual fantasia of self-love and acceptance, which only made it clearer how out of his element Maniscalco was. He needed a safe space of his own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/LBxTDp6Cpyg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2019 MTV MUSIC VIDEO AWARDS: THE WINNERS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MICHAEL JACKSON VIDEO VANGUARD AWARD\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nMissy Elliott\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>VIDEO OF THE YEAR\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nTaylor Swift, “You Need to Calm Down”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ARTIST OF THE YEAR\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAriana Grande\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>SONG OF THE YEAR\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nLil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus, “Old Town Road (Remix)”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST NEW ARTIST\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBillie Eilish\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST COLLABORATION\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nShawn Mendes & Camila Cabello, “Señorita”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PUSH ARTIST OF THE YEAR\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBillie Eilish\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST POP\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nJonas Brothers, “Sucker”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST HIP-HOP\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nCardi B, “Money”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST R&B\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nNormani ft. 6lack, “Waves”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST K-POP\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBTS ft. Halsey, “Boy With Luv”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST LATIN\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nRosalía & J Balvin ft. El Guincho, “Con Altura”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST DANCE\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe Chainsmokers, Bebe Rexha, “Call You Mine”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST ROCK\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nPanic! At The Disco, “High Hopes”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>VIDEO FOR GOOD\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nTaylor Swift, “You Need to Calm Down”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST DIRECTION\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nLil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus, “Old Town Road (Remix),” directed by Calmatic\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST VISUAL EFFECTS\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nTaylor Swift ft. Brendon Urie, “ME!,” visual effects by Loris Paillier & Lucas Salton for BUF VFX\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST EDITING\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBillie Eilish, “bad guy,” editing by Billie Eilish\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST ART DIRECTION\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAriana Grande, “7 Rings,” art direction by John Richoux\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST CHOREOGRAPHY\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nRosalía & J Balvin ft. El Guincho, “Con Altura,” choreography by Charm La’Donna\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nShawn Mendes & Camila Cabello, “Señorita,” cinematography by Scott Cunningham\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST GROUP\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBTS\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST POWER ANTHEM\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nMegan Thee Stallion ft. Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign, “Hot Girl Summer”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>SONG OF THE SUMMER\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAriana Grande & Social House, “boyfriend”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 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=10+Things+You+Might+As+Well+Know+About+The+2019+VMAs&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Monday night's MTV Video Music Awards brought lots of Taylor Swift and Missy Elliott, not to mention Lizzo, Normani, Lil Nas X, Rosalía and more.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On this early Tuesday morning, we sit facing a yawning precipice: the longest possible stretch of time in which no one is called upon to watch MTV’s Video Music Awards. Bask in the sweet, creamy silence of it all. We’ve earned it!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, it was a better-than-usual year for the stalwart awards show, which has been running since 1984 and tends to be best known for its moments of outrageousness. (Think Kanye West rushing the stage while Taylor Swift attempted to give a victory speech in 2009, or Miley Cyrus twerking alongside Robin Thicke four years later.) This year, the handing out of trophies barely registered, but a handful of performances and moments still shone through the din. Here’s a quick rundown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1.\u003cstrong> Missy Elliott got her moment, and then some.\u003c/strong> The hip-hop legend won a wildly overdue Video Vanguard award — the VMAs equivalent of a Hall of Fame induction — and celebrated with a terrific medley that featured “The Rain,” “Hot Boyz,” “Get Ur Freak On,” “Work It,” “Pass That Dutch” and “Lose Control.” Elliott received a lovely bundle of testimonials from the likes of Lizzo, adulation from an ecstatic crowd and the opportunity to give a gracious speech in which she heaped praise on God, her dancers and other sources of strength.\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/i9I-ut1TXoA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/i9I-ut1TXoA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>2. \u003cstrong>Lizzo’s star turn has only begun.\u003c/strong> Though the incalculably appealing breakout star went home empty-handed, trophy-wise, her medley of “Truth Hurts” and “Good As Hell” was a huge standout for the night — a win that’ll do a lot more for her staying power than some statuette. Flanked by her marvelous team of dancers, Lizzo sang her guts out while performing in the figurative shadow of a gigantic CGI rear end, a move that was funny and raucous without crowding out her moments of poignancy.\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/Uo0RK_olDb4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Uo0RK_olDb4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Even more than usual, the actual awards barely qualified as an afterthought.\u003c/strong> All you need to know about the VMAs — the awards themselves — is that the prize for Artist of the Year was announced in a voiceover in passing, the way you’d quickly acknowledge the winner of, like, Best Costuming in an R&B Video by a Duo or Group. (Ariana Grande won Artist of the Year, but since she wasn’t in the room, why bother?)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>4. Speaking of which: \u003cstrong>They offloaded Video of the Year and Song of the Year smack in the middle of the telecast.\u003c/strong> About 10 years after Kanye West infamously interrupted her VMAs speech — you know, “I’ma let you finish,” that whole thing — Taylor Swift took Video of the Year for “You Need to Calm Down,” while Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus won Song of the Year for their eternal “Old Town Road” remix. Then the show just kept rolling along for another hour and a half.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5.\u003cstrong> It was a big night for Taylor Swift in general.\u003c/strong> The pop star, whose new album \u003cem>Lover\u003c/em> came out Friday, opened the night with a medley of “You Need to Calm Down” and “Lover,” filling the screen with drag queens, vibrant colors and all the CGI emoji fit to print. When she won Video for Good — the VMAs’ prize honoring socially conscious messaging — Swift shrewdly let collaborator Todrick Hall give the speech. She even wound up adjacent to one of the night’s big memeable moments: presenter John Travolta \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/PopCraveMusic/status/1166165376436191232\">handing the Video of the Year trophy to Jade Jolie\u003c/a>, presumably thinking the \u003cem>Drag Race\u003c/em> veteran was Swift.\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/eIRCskNRTDY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/eIRCskNRTDY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>6. \u003cstrong>Latin music got its due.\u003c/strong> Outside of, say, the Latin Grammys, Latin music tends to get short shrift in major music awards shows; it might get a medley here or there, but tends to get consigned to the margins. The 2019 VMAs understood what a creative and commercial force Latin music has become, and smartly let the music weave its way throughout the telecast as a result. Rosalía, J Balvin, Bad Bunny and Camila Cabello all performed, while Cardi B’s live-wire goofiness was a dominant presence over the course of the night.\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/qOSSmwK-PR0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/qOSSmwK-PR0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>7. \u003cstrong>Normani is next.\u003c/strong> The Fifth Harmony singer performed a grabby, impeccably choreographed re-creation of her “Motivation” video, turning heads late in a telecast that had begun to sag. It’s the year of Lil Nas X, and Billie Eilish, and Lizzo, and Megan Thee Stallion — and it’s the year of Normani, too.\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/RQJGqgq7MeE'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/RQJGqgq7MeE'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>8. \u003cstrong>Lil Nas X isn’t done yet.\u003c/strong> Okay, so “Old Town Road” has \u003cem>finally\u003c/em> been dethroned after a record-setting run atop the \u003cem>Billboard\u003c/em> Hot 100. But the genre-smashing, social-media-savvy star has more ideas to burn, if his sly and funny VMAs performance is any indication. The charming, lighthearted intro to his seemingly \u003cem>TRON\u003c/em>-inspired performance of “Panini” had some of the night’s biggest (only?) laughs.\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/wC53WdkG44w'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/wC53WdkG44w'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>9. \u003cstrong>Why don’t they let Joe Jonas perform onsite?\u003c/strong> In 2017, Joe Jonas’ band DNCE performed at the VMAs — sort of — by playing a set in Las Vegas that got stitched into the telecast from afar. This year, The Jonas Brothers returned to the VMAs after an 11-year absence, but were consigned to yet another stage, this time in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Is Joe Jonas not allowed within 1,000 yards of Shawn Mendes or something?\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/BjMQC_bnaNE'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/BjMQC_bnaNE'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>10. \u003cstrong>Wrong host, wrong time.\u003c/strong> Sebastian Maniscalco is a hugely successful comedian who sells out multi-night runs at Madison Square Garden. He’s a big name. But his opening monologue — in which he snidely mocked trigger warnings and safe spaces and participation trophies and whatnot — felt like the sort of tired, these-kids-nowadays diatribe you’d expect from your least favorite uncle. It’s not that the bit was too edgy, or somehow hurtful, but that it was thuddingly predictable and utterly \u003cem>played out\u003c/em>. The night quickly bloomed into a world-straddling three-hour pansexual fantasia of self-love and acceptance, which only made it clearer how out of his element Maniscalco was. He needed a safe space of his own.\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/LBxTDp6Cpyg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/LBxTDp6Cpyg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2019 MTV MUSIC VIDEO AWARDS: THE WINNERS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MICHAEL JACKSON VIDEO VANGUARD AWARD\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nMissy Elliott\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>VIDEO OF THE YEAR\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nTaylor Swift, “You Need to Calm Down”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ARTIST OF THE YEAR\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAriana Grande\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>SONG OF THE YEAR\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nLil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus, “Old Town Road (Remix)”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST NEW ARTIST\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBillie Eilish\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST COLLABORATION\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nShawn Mendes & Camila Cabello, “Señorita”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PUSH ARTIST OF THE YEAR\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBillie Eilish\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST POP\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nJonas Brothers, “Sucker”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST HIP-HOP\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nCardi B, “Money”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST R&B\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nNormani ft. 6lack, “Waves”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST K-POP\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBTS ft. Halsey, “Boy With Luv”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST LATIN\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nRosalía & J Balvin ft. El Guincho, “Con Altura”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST DANCE\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe Chainsmokers, Bebe Rexha, “Call You Mine”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST ROCK\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nPanic! At The Disco, “High Hopes”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>VIDEO FOR GOOD\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nTaylor Swift, “You Need to Calm Down”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST DIRECTION\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nLil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus, “Old Town Road (Remix),” directed by Calmatic\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST VISUAL EFFECTS\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nTaylor Swift ft. Brendon Urie, “ME!,” visual effects by Loris Paillier & Lucas Salton for BUF VFX\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST EDITING\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBillie Eilish, “bad guy,” editing by Billie Eilish\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST ART DIRECTION\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAriana Grande, “7 Rings,” art direction by John Richoux\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST CHOREOGRAPHY\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nRosalía & J Balvin ft. El Guincho, “Con Altura,” choreography by Charm La’Donna\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nShawn Mendes & Camila Cabello, “Señorita,” cinematography by Scott Cunningham\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST GROUP\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBTS\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BEST POWER ANTHEM\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nMegan Thee Stallion ft. Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign, “Hot Girl Summer”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>SONG OF THE SUMMER\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAriana Grande & Social House, “boyfriend”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 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=10+Things+You+Might+As+Well+Know+About+The+2019+VMAs&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>For over two decades, Missy Elliott has created with her eyes and ears towards the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was body positive before it was a marketing gimmick (“\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atIvKSfKDOA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I got a cute face / chubby waist\u003c/a>“). She \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UvBX3REqSY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">embraced Afrofuturism\u003c/a> before it became part of the pop culture lexicon. She went overseas to Korea to work with \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VjE4RHZAaI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">G-Dragon\u003c/a> before K-Pop charted on Billboard. And, from 1997’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHcyJPTTn9w\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)\u003c/a>” to 2019’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rOKdATrV4g\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Throw It Back\u003c/a>,” she produced, rapped, danced and sang at the highest level, and used her talents to make listeners feel like their best, most liberated selves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Justin Timberlake was right, speaking in \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjDz-B-m0Vw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the testimonials\u003c/a> that played on MTV before Elliott took the VMA stage: her reception of the Video Vanguard Award at tonight’s ceremony was an incredibly belated accolade. And the technicolor celebration of self-love, blackness, immigrant identity, queerness and fatness on display throughout the awards proved that Elliott’s pop music philosophy—the rhythm’s potential to free us from shame so we can all celebrate our bodies, identities and selves—has come to fruition and then some in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On stage at the VMAs, Missy Elliott took fans through 20 years of career highlights in a dazzling seven-minute show filled with airtight choreography, CGI visuals and homages to her best-known music videos. She and her dancers revisited era-defining tracks like “Lose Control,” “Get Your Freak On” and “Work It,” which included a show-stopping dance number from \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/vmas/status/1166157038331867136?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alyson Stoner\u003c/a>, the little girl in the video now all grown up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elliott’s iconic inflatable suit made an appearance during “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” the outfit in which she defiantly, exaggeratedly took up space during \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/07/arts/the-model-who-invented-heroin-chic.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">peak heroin chic\u003c/a> in the late ’90s. We saw the cornfields from the “Pass That Dutch” video transform from historical sites of exploitation into a party for black ingenuity. Set designs, costume changes and complex group choreography flowed from one track into the next so quickly and seamlessly that it was easy to forget to breathe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/MTV/status/1166161090331500544?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was Elliott’s night, and her influence echoed throughout the VMAs before and after her performance. Lil Nas X’s rendition of “\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MTVNEWS/status/1166151868776624128?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Panini\u003c/a>,” where he danced in a black-lit, neon robot outfit in a set reminiscent of \u003cem>Blade Runner\u003c/em>, recalled the cowboy-meets-cyborg getups Elliott wore in the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opkRF3UZSJw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">She’s a Bitch\u003c/a>” music video from 1999.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/lizzo/status/1166185191444033541?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lizzo\u003c/a>, whose work descents from Elliott’s fat-positive, sex-positive vision of self-love, and with whom Elliott collaborated this year on the thick-girl anthem “Tempo,” took the stage with dancers of all shapes and sizes in front of a giant, jiggling booty. In the testimonials that played before Elliott’s turn to take the stage, Lizzo teared up while recalling the magnitude of Elliott’s influence. And Normani’s impressively athletic choreography during her performance of “\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MTV/status/1166182278701228034?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Motivation\u003c/a>” seemed inspired by Ciara—an artist Elliott developed and produced early on in her career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/LilNasX/status/1166193669302562823?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elliott and the Gen Z and millennial artists she’s influenced imbued the VMAs with a refreshing sense of joy missing on the show in recent years, and the air of celebration carried over into the rest of the night, as people of a wide variety of identities historically underrepresented on MTV got a chance to shine. Taylor Swift brought a gaggle of queer and trans artists on stage after winning the Video for Good award for “You Need to Calm Down,” and stepped aside as executive producer \u003ca href=\"https://www.etonline.com/todrick-hall-delivers-moving-words-for-taylor-swift-while-helping-her-accept-award-at-2019-mtv-vmas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Todrick Hall\u003c/a> gave the acceptance speech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Performances from Ozuna, J Balvin and Bad Bunny (and J Balvin’s heartfelt speech when he accepted the Best Latin award with Rosalía for “Con Altura”) brimmed with Latinx pride. And the introduction of the new Best K-Pop category further attested to the evening’s celebration of many different cultural identities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Missy Elliott herself hasn’t publicly addressed all of these issues (for instance, she’s widely regarded as a queer icon, despite being completely private about her personal life). But she has clearly empowered by example. Her music’s message of acceptance and celebration came through loud and clear, reverberating through decades of pop until it reflected back at her on the 2019 VMA stage.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"headline": "The Liberated Pop Future Missy Elliott Envisioned is Now",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For over two decades, Missy Elliott has created with her eyes and ears towards the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was body positive before it was a marketing gimmick (“\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atIvKSfKDOA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I got a cute face / chubby waist\u003c/a>“). She \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UvBX3REqSY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">embraced Afrofuturism\u003c/a> before it became part of the pop culture lexicon. She went overseas to Korea to work with \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VjE4RHZAaI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">G-Dragon\u003c/a> before K-Pop charted on Billboard. And, from 1997’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHcyJPTTn9w\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)\u003c/a>” to 2019’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rOKdATrV4g\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Throw It Back\u003c/a>,” she produced, rapped, danced and sang at the highest level, and used her talents to make listeners feel like their best, most liberated selves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Justin Timberlake was right, speaking in \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjDz-B-m0Vw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the testimonials\u003c/a> that played on MTV before Elliott took the VMA stage: her reception of the Video Vanguard Award at tonight’s ceremony was an incredibly belated accolade. And the technicolor celebration of self-love, blackness, immigrant identity, queerness and fatness on display throughout the awards proved that Elliott’s pop music philosophy—the rhythm’s potential to free us from shame so we can all celebrate our bodies, identities and selves—has come to fruition and then some in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On stage at the VMAs, Missy Elliott took fans through 20 years of career highlights in a dazzling seven-minute show filled with airtight choreography, CGI visuals and homages to her best-known music videos. She and her dancers revisited era-defining tracks like “Lose Control,” “Get Your Freak On” and “Work It,” which included a show-stopping dance number from \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/vmas/status/1166157038331867136?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alyson Stoner\u003c/a>, the little girl in the video now all grown up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elliott’s iconic inflatable suit made an appearance during “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” the outfit in which she defiantly, exaggeratedly took up space during \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/07/arts/the-model-who-invented-heroin-chic.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">peak heroin chic\u003c/a> in the late ’90s. We saw the cornfields from the “Pass That Dutch” video transform from historical sites of exploitation into a party for black ingenuity. Set designs, costume changes and complex group choreography flowed from one track into the next so quickly and seamlessly that it was easy to forget to breathe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>This was Elliott’s night, and her influence echoed throughout the VMAs before and after her performance. Lil Nas X’s rendition of “\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MTVNEWS/status/1166151868776624128?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Panini\u003c/a>,” where he danced in a black-lit, neon robot outfit in a set reminiscent of \u003cem>Blade Runner\u003c/em>, recalled the cowboy-meets-cyborg getups Elliott wore in the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opkRF3UZSJw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">She’s a Bitch\u003c/a>” music video from 1999.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/lizzo/status/1166185191444033541?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lizzo\u003c/a>, whose work descents from Elliott’s fat-positive, sex-positive vision of self-love, and with whom Elliott collaborated this year on the thick-girl anthem “Tempo,” took the stage with dancers of all shapes and sizes in front of a giant, jiggling booty. In the testimonials that played before Elliott’s turn to take the stage, Lizzo teared up while recalling the magnitude of Elliott’s influence. And Normani’s impressively athletic choreography during her performance of “\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MTV/status/1166182278701228034?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Motivation\u003c/a>” seemed inspired by Ciara—an artist Elliott developed and produced early on in her career.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Elliott and the Gen Z and millennial artists she’s influenced imbued the VMAs with a refreshing sense of joy missing on the show in recent years, and the air of celebration carried over into the rest of the night, as people of a wide variety of identities historically underrepresented on MTV got a chance to shine. Taylor Swift brought a gaggle of queer and trans artists on stage after winning the Video for Good award for “You Need to Calm Down,” and stepped aside as executive producer \u003ca href=\"https://www.etonline.com/todrick-hall-delivers-moving-words-for-taylor-swift-while-helping-her-accept-award-at-2019-mtv-vmas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Todrick Hall\u003c/a> gave the acceptance speech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Performances from Ozuna, J Balvin and Bad Bunny (and J Balvin’s heartfelt speech when he accepted the Best Latin award with Rosalía for “Con Altura”) brimmed with Latinx pride. And the introduction of the new Best K-Pop category further attested to the evening’s celebration of many different cultural identities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Missy Elliott herself hasn’t publicly addressed all of these issues (for instance, she’s widely regarded as a queer icon, despite being completely private about her personal life). But she has clearly empowered by example. Her music’s message of acceptance and celebration came through loud and clear, reverberating through decades of pop until it reflected back at her on the 2019 VMA stage.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "After Leaving Behind a Record Deal, Netta Brielle Rediscovers Her Motivation",
"headTitle": "After Leaving Behind a Record Deal, Netta Brielle Rediscovers Her Motivation | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>fter her deal with Atlantic Records didn’t pan out, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nettabrielle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Netta Brielle\u003c/a> found herself back in Northern California asking, “What am I going to do now?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The East Bay singer-songwriter had to figure out how to pull herself up from what she saw as a position of failure. Her remedy for that dip in self-confidence? Getting active behind the scenes, making vision boards, playing the flute and even acting in movies. Now we’re about to see the fruits of her labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks ago she dropped a three-song project, \u003ca href=\"https://music.apple.com/us/album/an-ep-by-netta/1464097824\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>An EP by Netta\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. It was a subtle reveal of new material, as well as some older pieces that she’s recently revamped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Aug. 24, Netta will be the star of a concert and Q&A at \u003ca href=\"https://www.queenhippiegypsy.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Queen Hippie Gypsy\u003c/a>’s headquarters in downtown Oakland as part of the event \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-spiritual-lounge-netta-brielle-at-queen-hippie-gypsy-tickets-66269332357\">The Spiritual Lounge\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And on Sept. 6, Netta will appear on the silver screen in the film \u003cem>E.14\u003c/em>, directed by Rafael Flores. It’s set to debut during First Friday at United Roots on Telegraph Avenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She told me that her busy agenda is a byproduct of a recalibrated focus on what “art” means to her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">W\u003c/span>hen you put something on your vision board, be careful. You might get what you’ve asked for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>See, earlier this year, Netta created a chart that had the words “better,” “confidence” and “goal planning.” She wrote notes about wanting to return to her roots as an artist, and even recommit to her pursuit of a career in acting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And then I get a call, asking if I want to audition for this movie. It’s about Oakland. And this young girl who is involved in sex trafficking,” said Netta, sitting across from me at the Mo’ Joe Café on Sacramento Street in her hometown of Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/VvVBxcFGpTk\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “call” wasn’t just a phone call, but more of “a calling,” for the spiritual folks in the room. Yet, faced with the opportunity she had envisioned, she started to second-guess herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of these negative thoughts popped in my head. But I told myself, ‘This is what you asked for. If you don’t get the role, at least go audition for it’,” said Netta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She got the part of Liberty, a young woman who is a sex worker who becomes pregnant. The role inspired Netta to study the world of sex trafficking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got into it. I drove up and down East 14th, looked at the girls and their body language,” Netta told me. “I even interviewed a few women who were in the life, and found a way to get out of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Netta continued to reflect on her time spent on the stroll, saying, “It was a really wild experience, not even just the acting side of it, but learning about this thing going on in Oakland—and has been going on for some time!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Netta’s right. The heavy saturation of pimp culture in this region goes back far beyond Too $hort’s 1987 saga \u003cem>Freaky Tales\u003c/em>, and even before 1973, when the blaxploitation film \u003cem>The Mack\u003c/em> was filmed here. There are tales of the sex trade in Northern California during the Gold Rush. \u003ca href=\"https://www.dominican.edu/academics/lae/undergraduate-programs/history/assets/title-of-thesis-201cwomen-of-the-golden-gate-prostitution-in-san-francisco-1848-1870201d\">One study reveals\u003c/a> that during that time period, “[San Francisco] housed more brothels and bars than any other place in the larger United States.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, there have been efforts to curb sex trafficking of minors here in the Bay Area. In 2009, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Human-trafficking-a-blight-in-progressive-Bay-Area-5517754.php?psid=hQlsw\">the FBI listed\u003c/a> the Bay Area as one of the sex trafficking hubs of the nation. In 2014, the anti-trafficking group MISSSEY and Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley launched \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-xpm-2014-jan-09-la-me-ln-oakland-child-sex-trafficking-20140109-story.html\">an anti-trafficking billboard campaign\u003c/a> and internet database, \u003ca href=\"http://www.heatwatch.org/human_trafficking/statistics\">HEAT Watch\u003c/a>. In 2017, the documentary film\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://www.survivinginternationalboulevard.com/#title\">\u003cem>Surviving International Boulevard\u003c/em> \u003c/a>showed what’s going on in nonfiction form. And this week, Regina Evans’ live stage play about sex trafficking, \u003ca href=\"http://www.ubuntutheaterproject.com/letters\">\u003cem>52 Letters\u003c/em>,\u003c/a> comes to a close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you haven’t heard about these works of art highlighting the culture or campaigns addressing the issue, you might be familiar with the high-profile case from 2016, when a young woman who went by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11106467/why-the-celeste-guap-scandal-isnt-only-about-her-case\">Celeste Guap\u003c/a> alleged that she was exploited by and had sex with dozens of officers, some while she was underage, resulting in charges of misconduct and prostitution against the officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a very serious and real thing,” said Netta. “Especially for really young girls.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And no sooner than the cameras started rolling did Netta see just how real the subject matter is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/2U6J2F2VNpPFW8d4WseyYS\" width=\"800\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first day we started shooting, there was this young girl out there. I was dressed basically like her,” said Netta. “She was like, ‘Are you Netta Brielle? I love your music.’ And we talked for a minute.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I interrupted Netta with a “Whoa,” but in spite of my outburst, she continued. “And I was like, I hear you God,” said Netta, looking up past her red beret, toward the ceiling. “It was wild to me. It was powerful. This is somebody who listens to my music, and now I’m portraying their life,” Netta said, now looking at me. “It was a lot, it was draining. I had to cry for like three days straight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">N\u003c/span>ow the film is wrapped, and Netta is eager to get involved in more acting gigs. She told me that earlier this year she did a performance on the set of a piece Chinaka Hodge is producing for Apple TV. And she’s working with an agent for more openings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her whole mindset is about being committed to reaffirming her purpose. She put the R&B on the back-burner, because she felt like she was boxing herself in as a singer. But she’s more than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She holds an undergraduate degree in theater from San Jose State. And she used to be a part of ACT’s Young Conservatory program in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before she found acting as a student at Berkeley High, she was an artist of another sort: she played the flute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I went to Willard Junior High, and I would carry around my flute.” Said Netta, almost laughing. “They’d be like, ‘Here come Netta with that damn flute!’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiYPaW-FE4E\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite getting teased, that was her introduction to the arts. The seed was planted when she first played the instrument while at Malcolm X Elementary. Netta’s grandmother watered that seed when she bought Netta her own flute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even with her family’s support, Netta was shy about her talents. “I became insecure about it. I’d tuck it in my backpack so people couldn’t see it, but it’d be poking out of the top,” said Netta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But recently, she’s decided to pick it up. Netta told me that she was thinking, “What else can I do, that I’m using my brain? And not just be so boxed in to ‘Netta, the R&B singer’… so I started thinking about what I used to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Netta continued, “I started going back to the things that made me unique… It’s theater, it’s the flute, it’s these things that I used to feel insecure about—cause I used to get teased!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although she’s never played the flute live on stage, in January of this year, Netta posted an \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BtMgg4IBxCC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Instagram video\u003c/a> of her playing T.I.’s “Motivation” on it. Fitting. After talking to her about her path, her ups and downs, and what she’s currently working on—that melody is all the more inspirational.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we parted ways, I asked her what her greatest accomplishment is thus far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People only see the glitz and the glamour, the social media, you performing on stage, or you in the studio and they think you’re ‘on’ and it’s all good,” she reflected. “But for me it’s not like that. I had to work for everything I have. And when I made mistakes, I had to pull myself back up. So the idea that I know how to do that, I feel like that’s my greatest accomplishment.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The singer makes her film debut in 'E.14,' an indie movie that takes on Oakland's sex-trafficking epidemic. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>fter her deal with Atlantic Records didn’t pan out, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nettabrielle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Netta Brielle\u003c/a> found herself back in Northern California asking, “What am I going to do now?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The East Bay singer-songwriter had to figure out how to pull herself up from what she saw as a position of failure. Her remedy for that dip in self-confidence? Getting active behind the scenes, making vision boards, playing the flute and even acting in movies. Now we’re about to see the fruits of her labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks ago she dropped a three-song project, \u003ca href=\"https://music.apple.com/us/album/an-ep-by-netta/1464097824\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>An EP by Netta\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. It was a subtle reveal of new material, as well as some older pieces that she’s recently revamped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Aug. 24, Netta will be the star of a concert and Q&A at \u003ca href=\"https://www.queenhippiegypsy.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Queen Hippie Gypsy\u003c/a>’s headquarters in downtown Oakland as part of the event \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-spiritual-lounge-netta-brielle-at-queen-hippie-gypsy-tickets-66269332357\">The Spiritual Lounge\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And on Sept. 6, Netta will appear on the silver screen in the film \u003cem>E.14\u003c/em>, directed by Rafael Flores. It’s set to debut during First Friday at United Roots on Telegraph Avenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She told me that her busy agenda is a byproduct of a recalibrated focus on what “art” means to her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">W\u003c/span>hen you put something on your vision board, be careful. You might get what you’ve asked for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>See, earlier this year, Netta created a chart that had the words “better,” “confidence” and “goal planning.” She wrote notes about wanting to return to her roots as an artist, and even recommit to her pursuit of a career in acting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And then I get a call, asking if I want to audition for this movie. It’s about Oakland. And this young girl who is involved in sex trafficking,” said Netta, sitting across from me at the Mo’ Joe Café on Sacramento Street in her hometown of Berkeley.\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/VvVBxcFGpTk'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/VvVBxcFGpTk'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The “call” wasn’t just a phone call, but more of “a calling,” for the spiritual folks in the room. Yet, faced with the opportunity she had envisioned, she started to second-guess herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of these negative thoughts popped in my head. But I told myself, ‘This is what you asked for. If you don’t get the role, at least go audition for it’,” said Netta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She got the part of Liberty, a young woman who is a sex worker who becomes pregnant. The role inspired Netta to study the world of sex trafficking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got into it. I drove up and down East 14th, looked at the girls and their body language,” Netta told me. “I even interviewed a few women who were in the life, and found a way to get out of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Netta continued to reflect on her time spent on the stroll, saying, “It was a really wild experience, not even just the acting side of it, but learning about this thing going on in Oakland—and has been going on for some time!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Netta’s right. The heavy saturation of pimp culture in this region goes back far beyond Too $hort’s 1987 saga \u003cem>Freaky Tales\u003c/em>, and even before 1973, when the blaxploitation film \u003cem>The Mack\u003c/em> was filmed here. There are tales of the sex trade in Northern California during the Gold Rush. \u003ca href=\"https://www.dominican.edu/academics/lae/undergraduate-programs/history/assets/title-of-thesis-201cwomen-of-the-golden-gate-prostitution-in-san-francisco-1848-1870201d\">One study reveals\u003c/a> that during that time period, “[San Francisco] housed more brothels and bars than any other place in the larger United States.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, there have been efforts to curb sex trafficking of minors here in the Bay Area. In 2009, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Human-trafficking-a-blight-in-progressive-Bay-Area-5517754.php?psid=hQlsw\">the FBI listed\u003c/a> the Bay Area as one of the sex trafficking hubs of the nation. In 2014, the anti-trafficking group MISSSEY and Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley launched \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-xpm-2014-jan-09-la-me-ln-oakland-child-sex-trafficking-20140109-story.html\">an anti-trafficking billboard campaign\u003c/a> and internet database, \u003ca href=\"http://www.heatwatch.org/human_trafficking/statistics\">HEAT Watch\u003c/a>. In 2017, the documentary film\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://www.survivinginternationalboulevard.com/#title\">\u003cem>Surviving International Boulevard\u003c/em> \u003c/a>showed what’s going on in nonfiction form. And this week, Regina Evans’ live stage play about sex trafficking, \u003ca href=\"http://www.ubuntutheaterproject.com/letters\">\u003cem>52 Letters\u003c/em>,\u003c/a> comes to a close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you haven’t heard about these works of art highlighting the culture or campaigns addressing the issue, you might be familiar with the high-profile case from 2016, when a young woman who went by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11106467/why-the-celeste-guap-scandal-isnt-only-about-her-case\">Celeste Guap\u003c/a> alleged that she was exploited by and had sex with dozens of officers, some while she was underage, resulting in charges of misconduct and prostitution against the officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a very serious and real thing,” said Netta. “Especially for really young girls.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And no sooner than the cameras started rolling did Netta see just how real the subject matter is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/2U6J2F2VNpPFW8d4WseyYS\" width=\"800\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first day we started shooting, there was this young girl out there. I was dressed basically like her,” said Netta. “She was like, ‘Are you Netta Brielle? I love your music.’ And we talked for a minute.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I interrupted Netta with a “Whoa,” but in spite of my outburst, she continued. “And I was like, I hear you God,” said Netta, looking up past her red beret, toward the ceiling. “It was wild to me. It was powerful. This is somebody who listens to my music, and now I’m portraying their life,” Netta said, now looking at me. “It was a lot, it was draining. I had to cry for like three days straight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">N\u003c/span>ow the film is wrapped, and Netta is eager to get involved in more acting gigs. She told me that earlier this year she did a performance on the set of a piece Chinaka Hodge is producing for Apple TV. And she’s working with an agent for more openings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her whole mindset is about being committed to reaffirming her purpose. She put the R&B on the back-burner, because she felt like she was boxing herself in as a singer. But she’s more than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She holds an undergraduate degree in theater from San Jose State. And she used to be a part of ACT’s Young Conservatory program in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before she found acting as a student at Berkeley High, she was an artist of another sort: she played the flute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I went to Willard Junior High, and I would carry around my flute.” Said Netta, almost laughing. “They’d be like, ‘Here come Netta with that damn flute!’”\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/AiYPaW-FE4E'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/AiYPaW-FE4E'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Despite getting teased, that was her introduction to the arts. The seed was planted when she first played the instrument while at Malcolm X Elementary. Netta’s grandmother watered that seed when she bought Netta her own flute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even with her family’s support, Netta was shy about her talents. “I became insecure about it. I’d tuck it in my backpack so people couldn’t see it, but it’d be poking out of the top,” said Netta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But recently, she’s decided to pick it up. Netta told me that she was thinking, “What else can I do, that I’m using my brain? And not just be so boxed in to ‘Netta, the R&B singer’… so I started thinking about what I used to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Netta continued, “I started going back to the things that made me unique… It’s theater, it’s the flute, it’s these things that I used to feel insecure about—cause I used to get teased!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although she’s never played the flute live on stage, in January of this year, Netta posted an \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BtMgg4IBxCC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Instagram video\u003c/a> of her playing T.I.’s “Motivation” on it. Fitting. After talking to her about her path, her ups and downs, and what she’s currently working on—that melody is all the more inspirational.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we parted ways, I asked her what her greatest accomplishment is thus far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People only see the glitz and the glamour, the social media, you performing on stage, or you in the studio and they think you’re ‘on’ and it’s all good,” she reflected. “But for me it’s not like that. I had to work for everything I have. And when I made mistakes, I had to pull myself back up. So the idea that I know how to do that, I feel like that’s my greatest accomplishment.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Why Wil Blades is the Latest Celebrated Jazz Musician to Leave the Bay Area",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">D\u003c/span>eep ambivalence often greets the news of a Bay Area jazz musician making the move to New York City. There’s sadness and disappointment at losing yet another player to the siren call of Gotham, tinged with a streak of respect for their moxie and pride at their cultural contributions. But when the word arrives about Bay Area cats taking their talent to Los Angeles? Well, that hurts, stoking an intrastate rivalry that tends to be felt much more strongly up here than down there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest departure cuts particularly deeply, as Hammond B-3 \u003ca href=\"https://www.wilblades.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">maestro Wil Blades\u003c/a> isn’t a young lion looking to make his mark, but a stalwart of the local scene. He arrived in the Bay Area from Chicago in the late 1990s at the age of 18 and, over the next two decades, built a vaunted national reputation as a hard-swinging player equally adept at New Orleans funk as Ellingtonian suites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vn6fMhYTu8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He celebrates his 40th birthday and bids adieu to the Bay Area with performances on Aug. 25 at Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.thefreight.org/event/1860067-wil-blades-40th-bday-bash-berkeley/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Freight & Salvage\u003c/a> and Aug. 26 at Santa Cruz’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kuumbwajazz.org/calendar/wil-blades-40th-birthday-party-with-donald-harrison-jr-jeff-parker-scott-amendola-mike-clark/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kuumbwa Jazz Center\u003c/a>. The concerts feature a brilliant cross-section of longtime collaborators, including drummers Scott Amendola, Mike Clark and Brandon Etzler and guitarists Jeff Parker and Jack “Tone” Reardon. Blades will also be joined by an early mentor, trumpeter/percussionist Oscar Myers, and New Orleans alto sax great Donald Harrison Jr., “an incredibly underrated musician,” Blades says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blades’ move reflects an unfortunate reality for artists in the Bay Area. His wife is a film and video editor, and in both of their fields, “if you want to take further steps, you have to leave the Bay,” Blades says from his new digs in Los Feliz. “You’ve seen that over the years with Josh Redman, Benny Green, Will Bernard, even though some of them have moved back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blades’ departure is a leading indicator of a full-blown bear market on the Bay Area jazz scene. Indeed, it says as much about Los Angeles’ rising stock as it does about San Francisco and beyond, as every week seems to bring word of another player relocating to the Southland. Former Brooklynites like Soulive guitarist Eric Krasno and saxophonist Hailey Niswanger are living in Los Angeles. And Blades’ \u003ca href=\"http://www.jeffparkersounds.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">comrade Jeff Parker\u003c/a> made the move several years ago from Chicago, where he’d earned international renown for his work with Tortoise and various AACM trailblazers. Like Blades, the decision also had to do with his partner, a filmmaker and teacher at California Institute of the Arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLgiczmHN6w\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">W\u003c/span>ith the emergence of Kendrick Lamar and the constellation of jazz-trained musicians working with Brainfeeder and Flying Lotus, the L.A. scene has generated more buzz than at any time since mid-1950s. As a native Angeleno who started writing about the Southland jazz scene in the early 1990s before moving to the East Bay in 1996, I can attest that the scene was just as buzzworthy back then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of what’s changed is a steady inflow of ambitious young musicians drawn to the increasingly strong music programs at leading institutions. The University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, long famed for supplying Hollywood with film composers, has built up a powerhouse faculty roster, including bassist Alphonso Johnson, saxophonist Bob Sheppard, keyboardist/composer Patrice Rushen, composer Vince Mendoza and drummers Roy McCurdy and Peter Erskine (with whom Oakland drummer Victor McElhaney was studying before he was killed in March).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across town, the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music continues to boost its jazz program, launching a global jazz studies major last fall. Cal Arts in Valencia has incubated adventurous improvisers for decades, while Cal State Northridge and Cal State Long Beach also boast strong jazz programs. The historic rivalry between USC and UCLA doesn’t seem to impact fraternization on the bandstand. [aside postid='arts_13860957']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People always allude to that, but all the students play with each other,” says Berkeley-raised tenor saxophonist/composer Hitomi Oba, a UCLA graduate who now teaches music theory and leads several ensembles as the school. “My students are always over there. It’s an exciting time as UCLA is hiring some new full-time faculty and they’re trying to make it distinct from other programs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>he schools draw young Bay Area musicians to Los Angeles, but what keeps them there is the numerous opportunities for work, whether teaching, playing recording sessions or composing for film, television and games. East Bay \u003ca href=\"https://victorlittlemusic.com\">bassist Victor Little\u003c/a>, a 50-something ace who’s toured or recorded with Booker T. Jones, Charlie Musselwhite and Patti Austin among many others, has thought about making the move, though he’s loath to pull up stakes without a solid gig already lined up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13863966\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13863966\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Wil-Blades-800x500.jpg\" alt=\"New Orleans alto sax star Donald Harrison Jr., left, and drum great Mike Clark, right, join Hammond B-3 organ master Wil Blades at his 40th birthday party and Bay Area farewell at Freight & Salvage on Aug. 25 and Kuumbwa on Aug. 26. \" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Wil-Blades-800x500.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Wil-Blades-160x100.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Wil-Blades-768x480.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Wil-Blades.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">New Orleans alto sax star Donald Harrison Jr., left, and drum great Mike Clark, right, join Hammond B-3 organ master Wil Blades at his 40th birthday party and Bay Area farewell at Freight & Salvage on Aug. 25 and Kuumbwa on Aug. 26. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Wil Blades)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The opportunities available down south became evident when he was spending a little time in Los Angeles last year on vacation. A friend called him up and told him to bring his bass down to a studio downtown “where they were auditioning a band for Taylor Hicks from \u003cem>American Idol\u003c/em>,” Little says. “I get down there and every guy in L.A. is there, a cattle call. I did my thing and they called me back, but it didn’t end up happening. I’ve thought a lot about the L.A. thing. It’s really hard to make it in the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>he same real estate prices that make the Bay Area unaffordable have swept away dozens of spots that once presented live music. “People are not wanting to spend the money,” says Little. “They might go out one night a week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blades arrived as the dot-com bubble was rapidly inflating and started working steadily within months. Over the years, a plethora of regular gigs whittled down to three, “the Boom Boom Room, Madrone Art Bar and the Royal Cuckoo,” Blades says. “There used to be Bruno’s and Pearl’s and Doc’s Lab, and so many more.” [aside postid='arts_13861452']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scene took a major hit after 9/11, but it was the 2008 recession that radically revamped the musical landscape, though many of the most significant changes were out of sight for fans. “Working musician gigs, private events, restaurant hits, weddings, the gigs we don’t advertise but are key to making a living,” Blades says. “They can pay several hundred dollars, and if you have a few in month it helps subsidize the gigs that don’t pay as much. A lot of those went away in 2008.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Blades, L.A. is more than a field of opportunity, it’s a frontier that seems particularly ripe for a player dedicated to the mighty but unwieldy B-3. “I counted 10 places around the Bay Area that have Hammond organs,” Blades says. “Here there are zero. I’m hoping to build a scene. The newness is pretty exciting.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">D\u003c/span>eep ambivalence often greets the news of a Bay Area jazz musician making the move to New York City. There’s sadness and disappointment at losing yet another player to the siren call of Gotham, tinged with a streak of respect for their moxie and pride at their cultural contributions. But when the word arrives about Bay Area cats taking their talent to Los Angeles? Well, that hurts, stoking an intrastate rivalry that tends to be felt much more strongly up here than down there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest departure cuts particularly deeply, as Hammond B-3 \u003ca href=\"https://www.wilblades.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">maestro Wil Blades\u003c/a> isn’t a young lion looking to make his mark, but a stalwart of the local scene. He arrived in the Bay Area from Chicago in the late 1990s at the age of 18 and, over the next two decades, built a vaunted national reputation as a hard-swinging player equally adept at New Orleans funk as Ellingtonian suites.\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/3vn6fMhYTu8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/3vn6fMhYTu8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>He celebrates his 40th birthday and bids adieu to the Bay Area with performances on Aug. 25 at Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.thefreight.org/event/1860067-wil-blades-40th-bday-bash-berkeley/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Freight & Salvage\u003c/a> and Aug. 26 at Santa Cruz’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kuumbwajazz.org/calendar/wil-blades-40th-birthday-party-with-donald-harrison-jr-jeff-parker-scott-amendola-mike-clark/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kuumbwa Jazz Center\u003c/a>. The concerts feature a brilliant cross-section of longtime collaborators, including drummers Scott Amendola, Mike Clark and Brandon Etzler and guitarists Jeff Parker and Jack “Tone” Reardon. Blades will also be joined by an early mentor, trumpeter/percussionist Oscar Myers, and New Orleans alto sax great Donald Harrison Jr., “an incredibly underrated musician,” Blades says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blades’ move reflects an unfortunate reality for artists in the Bay Area. His wife is a film and video editor, and in both of their fields, “if you want to take further steps, you have to leave the Bay,” Blades says from his new digs in Los Feliz. “You’ve seen that over the years with Josh Redman, Benny Green, Will Bernard, even though some of them have moved back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blades’ departure is a leading indicator of a full-blown bear market on the Bay Area jazz scene. Indeed, it says as much about Los Angeles’ rising stock as it does about San Francisco and beyond, as every week seems to bring word of another player relocating to the Southland. Former Brooklynites like Soulive guitarist Eric Krasno and saxophonist Hailey Niswanger are living in Los Angeles. And Blades’ \u003ca href=\"http://www.jeffparkersounds.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">comrade Jeff Parker\u003c/a> made the move several years ago from Chicago, where he’d earned international renown for his work with Tortoise and various AACM trailblazers. Like Blades, the decision also had to do with his partner, a filmmaker and teacher at California Institute of the Arts.\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/qLgiczmHN6w'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/qLgiczmHN6w'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">W\u003c/span>ith the emergence of Kendrick Lamar and the constellation of jazz-trained musicians working with Brainfeeder and Flying Lotus, the L.A. scene has generated more buzz than at any time since mid-1950s. As a native Angeleno who started writing about the Southland jazz scene in the early 1990s before moving to the East Bay in 1996, I can attest that the scene was just as buzzworthy back then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of what’s changed is a steady inflow of ambitious young musicians drawn to the increasingly strong music programs at leading institutions. The University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, long famed for supplying Hollywood with film composers, has built up a powerhouse faculty roster, including bassist Alphonso Johnson, saxophonist Bob Sheppard, keyboardist/composer Patrice Rushen, composer Vince Mendoza and drummers Roy McCurdy and Peter Erskine (with whom Oakland drummer Victor McElhaney was studying before he was killed in March).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across town, the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music continues to boost its jazz program, launching a global jazz studies major last fall. Cal Arts in Valencia has incubated adventurous improvisers for decades, while Cal State Northridge and Cal State Long Beach also boast strong jazz programs. The historic rivalry between USC and UCLA doesn’t seem to impact fraternization on the bandstand. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People always allude to that, but all the students play with each other,” says Berkeley-raised tenor saxophonist/composer Hitomi Oba, a UCLA graduate who now teaches music theory and leads several ensembles as the school. “My students are always over there. It’s an exciting time as UCLA is hiring some new full-time faculty and they’re trying to make it distinct from other programs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>he schools draw young Bay Area musicians to Los Angeles, but what keeps them there is the numerous opportunities for work, whether teaching, playing recording sessions or composing for film, television and games. East Bay \u003ca href=\"https://victorlittlemusic.com\">bassist Victor Little\u003c/a>, a 50-something ace who’s toured or recorded with Booker T. Jones, Charlie Musselwhite and Patti Austin among many others, has thought about making the move, though he’s loath to pull up stakes without a solid gig already lined up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13863966\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13863966\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Wil-Blades-800x500.jpg\" alt=\"New Orleans alto sax star Donald Harrison Jr., left, and drum great Mike Clark, right, join Hammond B-3 organ master Wil Blades at his 40th birthday party and Bay Area farewell at Freight & Salvage on Aug. 25 and Kuumbwa on Aug. 26. \" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Wil-Blades-800x500.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Wil-Blades-160x100.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Wil-Blades-768x480.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Wil-Blades.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">New Orleans alto sax star Donald Harrison Jr., left, and drum great Mike Clark, right, join Hammond B-3 organ master Wil Blades at his 40th birthday party and Bay Area farewell at Freight & Salvage on Aug. 25 and Kuumbwa on Aug. 26. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Wil Blades)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The opportunities available down south became evident when he was spending a little time in Los Angeles last year on vacation. A friend called him up and told him to bring his bass down to a studio downtown “where they were auditioning a band for Taylor Hicks from \u003cem>American Idol\u003c/em>,” Little says. “I get down there and every guy in L.A. is there, a cattle call. I did my thing and they called me back, but it didn’t end up happening. I’ve thought a lot about the L.A. thing. It’s really hard to make it in the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>he same real estate prices that make the Bay Area unaffordable have swept away dozens of spots that once presented live music. “People are not wanting to spend the money,” says Little. “They might go out one night a week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blades arrived as the dot-com bubble was rapidly inflating and started working steadily within months. Over the years, a plethora of regular gigs whittled down to three, “the Boom Boom Room, Madrone Art Bar and the Royal Cuckoo,” Blades says. “There used to be Bruno’s and Pearl’s and Doc’s Lab, and so many more.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scene took a major hit after 9/11, but it was the 2008 recession that radically revamped the musical landscape, though many of the most significant changes were out of sight for fans. “Working musician gigs, private events, restaurant hits, weddings, the gigs we don’t advertise but are key to making a living,” Blades says. “They can pay several hundred dollars, and if you have a few in month it helps subsidize the gigs that don’t pay as much. A lot of those went away in 2008.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Blades, L.A. is more than a field of opportunity, it’s a frontier that seems particularly ripe for a player dedicated to the mighty but unwieldy B-3. “I counted 10 places around the Bay Area that have Hammond organs,” Blades says. “Here there are zero. I’m hoping to build a scene. The newness is pretty exciting.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Friendship is Still Magic, But After 9 Years, BronyCon Has Called it Quits",
"headTitle": "Friendship is Still Magic, But After 9 Years, BronyCon Has Called it Quits | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>On a sweltering Saturday in Baltimore, 11,000 bronies have claimed downtown. These are the fans of the TV show \u003cem>My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic\u003c/em>, their name a mashup of “bro” and “pony” because many of the show’s earliest—and unanticipated—adherents were young men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For nine years they’ve evangelized the show, and for nine years they’ve been targets of scorn. But they’ve come here for BronyCon—the biggest \u003cem>My Little Pony \u003c/em>convention in the world—heedless of what that world may think of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s what brought me here, too. I’ve dodged the brony label for years, but I can’t deny my love for the show. It’s helped me out in dark times, and I wasn’t about to pass up my last chance to join fans at BronyCon. Friendship may be magic, but the magic is fading; the show has entered its ninth and final season, and after several years of dwindling attendance, the convention’s organizers decided it was time for a last hurrah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcBNxuKZyN4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The promise of a final party drew record crowds much as it attracted me. “Honestly, I’m shocked that we got to this point. We were not expecting to have such a banner year,” says current convention chair Shir Goldberg. “We were expecting the fandom to be excited and maybe we would double our attendance from last year, clocking at the seven- or eight-thousand range, but we did not expect 11,000 people to show up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People of all genders and ages—many colorfully costumed—parade down broad convention center halls. They gather for sprawling fan-illustrated card games, spontaneous singalongs to music from the show, and choreographed dance numbers. Everyone I spoke with waxed reflective, sharing stories of what first hooked them about\u003cem> My Little Pony\u003c/em>. Eliana Summers, BronyCon’s vice chair, says she first approached the show with skepticism, but it won her over with a moment of self-aware comedy. “It’s the same way you watch \u003cem>Toy Stor\u003c/em>y, and even as an adult it’s an incredibly enjoyable film because the humor works with children and adults. \u003cem>Pony \u003c/em>has always been that kind of clever, and that’s why we have about 10,000 people here to celebrate with us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13864080\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13864080\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Many fans identify with the earnest, slightly neurotic Twilight Sparkle.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many fans identify with the earnest, slightly neurotic Twilight Sparkle. \u003ccite>(Discovery Family/Hasbro Studios)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fans say they see themselves reflected in the shows’ sensibility, or in a particular character. T.J. Carson, who runs fan websites under the moniker PirateDash, relates to Rainbow Dash—the high-flying athlete. “She’s kind of a sporty, brash person and I’m kind of sporty—and I try not to be so brash.” For the record, the character who always resonated with me was Twilight Sparkle, a bookish nerd who panics when she’s unable to finish a task to her satisfaction and who regularly reports on lessons she has learned about friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s telling that I’m not alone in this. Daniel Chadborn, a psychologist on a team that has studied the phenomenon for nearly a decade, said fans list Twilight Sparkle as the show’s most likable character. In addition to her neurotic but endearing personality, Twilight Sparkle’s sincere focus on friendship might appeal to viewers who are socially marginalized—and also provide a model of pro-social behavior. \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/view/bronystudyresearch\">According to Chadborn’s study\u003c/a>, bronies are more likely to donate to charity, less likely to accept gender stereotyping, and have five to 10 times higher LGBTQ representation than the average U.S. population. “Bronies tend to show that the No. 1 reason that they like the show is the story and characterizations,” he says. “Very early on there was the phrase ‘what would pony do’,” he added, meaning “how would this character react to this? How should I behave in that matter?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13864087\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 594px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13864087\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/GettyImages-1158945983.jpg\" alt=\"A man shows off his 'My Little Pony' tattoo during BronyCon 2019. \" width=\"594\" height=\"409\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/GettyImages-1158945983.jpg 594w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/GettyImages-1158945983-160x110.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A man shows off his ‘My Little Pony’ tattoo during BronyCon 2019. \u003ccite>(ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many people flocked to the fandom because it provides a creative outlet, not to mention a ready market for their artwork. Claire Revell says she has slipped away from \u003cem>My Little Pony \u003c/em>in recent years, but came all the way from England with new pony art for the last BronyCon. “I met a lot of people through it. I met my current boyfriend through it,” she says, “and it’s really quite changed my life, more than I realize.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Revell isn’t the only person who met a life partner through pony fandom. Jayson Thiessen, chief director for many seasons of the show and for \u003cem>My Little Pony: The Movie\u003c/em>, says that’s part of its lasting impact: “People have come together and formed relationships and got married and had kids during the course of the show, because of the show … and we were wondering, how many kids owe their existence to this show? And it’s just kind of amazing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children may be the most lasting consequence of the fandom, but show writer M.A. Larson is thinking about what else its legacy may be. “I wonder how the show’s going to live on, and will the new generations get the same lessons out of it,” he says. Many bronies I’ve talked to compare their plight to that of \u003cem>Star Trek \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Doctor Who\u003c/em> fans, who had to persist for years without new content. While Hasbro, the owner of \u003cem>My Little Pony\u003c/em>, will doubtless manufacture equine toys and spinoffs for years, they may never catch fire the way \u003cem>Friendship is Magic\u003c/em> did. So many fans are moving on, even though they’ve come back to the last BronyCon to see old friends and relive some of the old magic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That old magic was heady stuff for me. My hours at BronyCon threw me back to an earlier self, when the show hit me like a bolt from the blue. I was studying at Brigham Young University, returned from a Mormon proselytizing mission cut short by a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Shattered and lonely, I felt bereft of a life I thought I had figured out: no longer the ambitious student, the unshakable older brother, the model Latter-day Saint. Then came a show about candy-colored ponies learning to accept themselves and each other—one song and smile at a time. I hadn’t watched an episode in years, but BronyCon reminded me how much I needed \u003cem>My Little Pony \u003c/em>back then, and how it strikes a chord in me still. In fact, until I sat down to write this essay I didn’t realize how much of my current life I owe to the show—it even, indirectly, led to me meeting my own wife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while this year’s BronyCon was the biggest, it was never more bittersweet. As convention chair Shir Goldberg says: “Friendship\u003cem> is \u003c/em>magic, you know. It’s cliché, but the reason the fans stay in the fandom is the people. It’s not for the content or the merch, it’s for all of the people that created that stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>James Perkins Mastromarino is a producer for NPR and WBUR’s \u003c/em>Here & Now\u003cem>, an obsessive board gamer, and lover of all things magical.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 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=The+Friends+We+Made+Along+The+Way%3A+After+9+Years%2C+BronyCon+Calls+It+Quits&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On a sweltering Saturday in Baltimore, 11,000 bronies have claimed downtown. These are the fans of the TV show \u003cem>My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic\u003c/em>, their name a mashup of “bro” and “pony” because many of the show’s earliest—and unanticipated—adherents were young men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For nine years they’ve evangelized the show, and for nine years they’ve been targets of scorn. But they’ve come here for BronyCon—the biggest \u003cem>My Little Pony \u003c/em>convention in the world—heedless of what that world may think of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s what brought me here, too. I’ve dodged the brony label for years, but I can’t deny my love for the show. It’s helped me out in dark times, and I wasn’t about to pass up my last chance to join fans at BronyCon. Friendship may be magic, but the magic is fading; the show has entered its ninth and final season, and after several years of dwindling attendance, the convention’s organizers decided it was time for a last hurrah.\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/ZcBNxuKZyN4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/ZcBNxuKZyN4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The promise of a final party drew record crowds much as it attracted me. “Honestly, I’m shocked that we got to this point. We were not expecting to have such a banner year,” says current convention chair Shir Goldberg. “We were expecting the fandom to be excited and maybe we would double our attendance from last year, clocking at the seven- or eight-thousand range, but we did not expect 11,000 people to show up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People of all genders and ages—many colorfully costumed—parade down broad convention center halls. They gather for sprawling fan-illustrated card games, spontaneous singalongs to music from the show, and choreographed dance numbers. Everyone I spoke with waxed reflective, sharing stories of what first hooked them about\u003cem> My Little Pony\u003c/em>. Eliana Summers, BronyCon’s vice chair, says she first approached the show with skepticism, but it won her over with a moment of self-aware comedy. “It’s the same way you watch \u003cem>Toy Stor\u003c/em>y, and even as an adult it’s an incredibly enjoyable film because the humor works with children and adults. \u003cem>Pony \u003c/em>has always been that kind of clever, and that’s why we have about 10,000 people here to celebrate with us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13864080\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13864080\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Many fans identify with the earnest, slightly neurotic Twilight Sparkle.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/twilightsparkle-69dc0c7d0f198086b944c9f991472823c9659c0e.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many fans identify with the earnest, slightly neurotic Twilight Sparkle. \u003ccite>(Discovery Family/Hasbro Studios)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fans say they see themselves reflected in the shows’ sensibility, or in a particular character. T.J. Carson, who runs fan websites under the moniker PirateDash, relates to Rainbow Dash—the high-flying athlete. “She’s kind of a sporty, brash person and I’m kind of sporty—and I try not to be so brash.” For the record, the character who always resonated with me was Twilight Sparkle, a bookish nerd who panics when she’s unable to finish a task to her satisfaction and who regularly reports on lessons she has learned about friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s telling that I’m not alone in this. Daniel Chadborn, a psychologist on a team that has studied the phenomenon for nearly a decade, said fans list Twilight Sparkle as the show’s most likable character. In addition to her neurotic but endearing personality, Twilight Sparkle’s sincere focus on friendship might appeal to viewers who are socially marginalized—and also provide a model of pro-social behavior. \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/view/bronystudyresearch\">According to Chadborn’s study\u003c/a>, bronies are more likely to donate to charity, less likely to accept gender stereotyping, and have five to 10 times higher LGBTQ representation than the average U.S. population. “Bronies tend to show that the No. 1 reason that they like the show is the story and characterizations,” he says. “Very early on there was the phrase ‘what would pony do’,” he added, meaning “how would this character react to this? How should I behave in that matter?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13864087\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 594px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13864087\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/GettyImages-1158945983.jpg\" alt=\"A man shows off his 'My Little Pony' tattoo during BronyCon 2019. \" width=\"594\" height=\"409\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/GettyImages-1158945983.jpg 594w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/GettyImages-1158945983-160x110.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A man shows off his ‘My Little Pony’ tattoo during BronyCon 2019. \u003ccite>(ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many people flocked to the fandom because it provides a creative outlet, not to mention a ready market for their artwork. Claire Revell says she has slipped away from \u003cem>My Little Pony \u003c/em>in recent years, but came all the way from England with new pony art for the last BronyCon. “I met a lot of people through it. I met my current boyfriend through it,” she says, “and it’s really quite changed my life, more than I realize.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Revell isn’t the only person who met a life partner through pony fandom. Jayson Thiessen, chief director for many seasons of the show and for \u003cem>My Little Pony: The Movie\u003c/em>, says that’s part of its lasting impact: “People have come together and formed relationships and got married and had kids during the course of the show, because of the show … and we were wondering, how many kids owe their existence to this show? And it’s just kind of amazing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children may be the most lasting consequence of the fandom, but show writer M.A. Larson is thinking about what else its legacy may be. “I wonder how the show’s going to live on, and will the new generations get the same lessons out of it,” he says. Many bronies I’ve talked to compare their plight to that of \u003cem>Star Trek \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Doctor Who\u003c/em> fans, who had to persist for years without new content. While Hasbro, the owner of \u003cem>My Little Pony\u003c/em>, will doubtless manufacture equine toys and spinoffs for years, they may never catch fire the way \u003cem>Friendship is Magic\u003c/em> did. So many fans are moving on, even though they’ve come back to the last BronyCon to see old friends and relive some of the old magic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That old magic was heady stuff for me. My hours at BronyCon threw me back to an earlier self, when the show hit me like a bolt from the blue. I was studying at Brigham Young University, returned from a Mormon proselytizing mission cut short by a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Shattered and lonely, I felt bereft of a life I thought I had figured out: no longer the ambitious student, the unshakable older brother, the model Latter-day Saint. Then came a show about candy-colored ponies learning to accept themselves and each other—one song and smile at a time. I hadn’t watched an episode in years, but BronyCon reminded me how much I needed \u003cem>My Little Pony \u003c/em>back then, and how it strikes a chord in me still. In fact, until I sat down to write this essay I didn’t realize how much of my current life I owe to the show—it even, indirectly, led to me meeting my own wife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while this year’s BronyCon was the biggest, it was never more bittersweet. As convention chair Shir Goldberg says: “Friendship\u003cem> is \u003c/em>magic, you know. It’s cliché, but the reason the fans stay in the fandom is the people. It’s not for the content or the merch, it’s for all of the people that created that stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>James Perkins Mastromarino is a producer for NPR and WBUR’s \u003c/em>Here & Now\u003cem>, an obsessive board gamer, and lover of all things magical.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 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=The+Friends+We+Made+Along+The+Way%3A+After+9+Years%2C+BronyCon+Calls+It+Quits&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The air tingles with prose. Patrons perch atop bar stools, but they aren’t drinking. Individuals congregate together as a group, but they aren’t talking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paperbacks adorn a table stained by water rings, and tote bags dangle over the backs of chairs. Classic rock is blaring from the speakers, but at this table, silence rings out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Silent Book Club is meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concept is simple yet revolutionary: Members meet up at a bar, a library, a bookstore or any venue that will host them. Once the bell rings, silent reading time commences. After an hour, the bell rings again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other than that, there are no rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liberated from the orthodoxy of traditional book clubs, participants can bring whatever they’d like to read and chat about anything, before and after the designated reading time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea began with two friends reading together at a bar in San Francisco, annoyed by the assigned reading of a demanding book club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wished that I had a book club where basically there was no assigned reading but you could just show up, hang out with your friends, talk about what you were reading and then just sort of read your book with no pressure to prepare snacks or vacuum your house or do any of the things that normal, traditional book club hosting entails,” says Guinevere de la Mare, who co-founded the organization with Laura Gluhanich in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And Laura was like, ‘That sounds amazing. Let’s do it.’ And so we did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, \u003ca href=\"https://silentbook.club/blogs/events\">Silent Book Club has over 70 chapters\u003c/a> for what de la Mare calls Introvert Happy Hour. Locations dot the globe, with congregants meeting monthly in Pakistan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and many other cities and countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.instagram.com/p/BL-XTfgj_To/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The founders help interested individuals create new chapters by offering logistical assistance and social media suggestions. From there, de la Mare says, she lets each group do as it pleases, with the goal of creating spaces “where people can connect with like-minded individuals, even if all that they have in common is a love of reading.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many clubs share book recommendations, or members go around in a circle to talk about what they’re reading. Others exchange scholasticism for schmoozing, order drinks and become part of the barroom din that once pierced their silent reading time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some people choose to talk about their book. Some people choose to talk about how they felt about the experience. Some people don’t talk at all,” says Ana Maria Panait, who started a chapter in Johannesburg, South Africa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The space is especially attractive to introverts who might have trouble energizing themselves to socialize and meet up with new people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The designated silent time and built-in conversation topic make for a safe space in which introverted individuals can feel comfortable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just relieves this ton of pressure around that horrible awkward small talk which I think is a big hurdle to a lot of people who don’t want to go to parties,” de la Mare says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mandy Shunnarah began her own chapter in Columbus, Ohio, which averages between 25 and 50 attendees each month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say that I’m an introvert who’s really good at pretending to be an extrovert for small amounts of time,” she says. “What I like about Silent Book Club is you get the community of a book club but without the homework. So there’s less pressure to contribute to one single conversation or to make insightful comments about one particular book. I think it’s more of a low-pressure social situation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As chapters continue to pop up, silent bibliophiles are carving out spaces for introverts to find joy, comfort and camaraderie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Socializing might not come naturally to all participants, but with books in tow, what follows is often organic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Says Shunnarah: “We stay until the library kicks us out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Josh Axelrod is a New Orleans-based journalist. His work has appeared on CNN and in \u003c/em>The Jerusalem Post\u003cem> and \u003c/em>The New Orleans Advocate\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The air tingles with prose. Patrons perch atop bar stools, but they aren’t drinking. Individuals congregate together as a group, but they aren’t talking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paperbacks adorn a table stained by water rings, and tote bags dangle over the backs of chairs. Classic rock is blaring from the speakers, but at this table, silence rings out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Silent Book Club is meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concept is simple yet revolutionary: Members meet up at a bar, a library, a bookstore or any venue that will host them. Once the bell rings, silent reading time commences. After an hour, the bell rings again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other than that, there are no rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liberated from the orthodoxy of traditional book clubs, participants can bring whatever they’d like to read and chat about anything, before and after the designated reading time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea began with two friends reading together at a bar in San Francisco, annoyed by the assigned reading of a demanding book club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wished that I had a book club where basically there was no assigned reading but you could just show up, hang out with your friends, talk about what you were reading and then just sort of read your book with no pressure to prepare snacks or vacuum your house or do any of the things that normal, traditional book club hosting entails,” says Guinevere de la Mare, who co-founded the organization with Laura Gluhanich in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And Laura was like, ‘That sounds amazing. Let’s do it.’ And so we did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, \u003ca href=\"https://silentbook.club/blogs/events\">Silent Book Club has over 70 chapters\u003c/a> for what de la Mare calls Introvert Happy Hour. Locations dot the globe, with congregants meeting monthly in Pakistan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and many other cities and countries.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The founders help interested individuals create new chapters by offering logistical assistance and social media suggestions. From there, de la Mare says, she lets each group do as it pleases, with the goal of creating spaces “where people can connect with like-minded individuals, even if all that they have in common is a love of reading.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many clubs share book recommendations, or members go around in a circle to talk about what they’re reading. Others exchange scholasticism for schmoozing, order drinks and become part of the barroom din that once pierced their silent reading time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some people choose to talk about their book. Some people choose to talk about how they felt about the experience. Some people don’t talk at all,” says Ana Maria Panait, who started a chapter in Johannesburg, South Africa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The space is especially attractive to introverts who might have trouble energizing themselves to socialize and meet up with new people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The designated silent time and built-in conversation topic make for a safe space in which introverted individuals can feel comfortable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just relieves this ton of pressure around that horrible awkward small talk which I think is a big hurdle to a lot of people who don’t want to go to parties,” de la Mare says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mandy Shunnarah began her own chapter in Columbus, Ohio, which averages between 25 and 50 attendees each month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say that I’m an introvert who’s really good at pretending to be an extrovert for small amounts of time,” she says. “What I like about Silent Book Club is you get the community of a book club but without the homework. So there’s less pressure to contribute to one single conversation or to make insightful comments about one particular book. I think it’s more of a low-pressure social situation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As chapters continue to pop up, silent bibliophiles are carving out spaces for introverts to find joy, comfort and camaraderie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Socializing might not come naturally to all participants, but with books in tow, what follows is often organic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Says Shunnarah: “We stay until the library kicks us out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Josh Axelrod is a New Orleans-based journalist. His work has appeared on CNN and in \u003c/em>The Jerusalem Post\u003cem> and \u003c/em>The New Orleans Advocate\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>As a crowd gathered Tuesday night outside the Walmart in Cielo Vista, El Paso, strums of two guitars drifted through the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their 3/4 cadence held an onlooking circle of mourners, many of them standing tall through their tears. Just three days before, on this spot, a white supremacist-fueled massacre claimed the lives of 22 people and wounded 26.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two young men thrummed together before a circle of silent onlookers, as they began their song:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/fotornelas/status/1158942680019156992\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Photojournalist \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/fotornelas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Omar Ornelas\u003c/a> of USA Today Network captured this scene at a vigil just one night before Donald Trump’s visit to El Paso. The \u003cem>corrido\u003c/em>, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCb3DFg_TMU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">El Llanto de El Paso Texas\u003c/a>,” attributed to songwriter Josue Rodriguez, sparked an immediate emotional outpouring from viewers, many of whom grew up listening to familiar melodies in Mexican households.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To many, it may be just a song. But for me and many others, after the deadliest attack \u003ca href=\"https://www.vox.com/2019/8/6/20756750/el-paso-shooter-targeted-latinx-walmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">targeting our people\u003c/a> in recent U.S. history, it’s an act of strength and resilience we need now more than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A Long Oral Tradition\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Mexican oral tradition of the \u003ci>corrido\u003c/i> allows us to look critically at and heal from disturbing events. It gives us the power look death in the eye. To name it. To inspire empathy among the masses, and take action against threats on one’s freedom, sovereignty and right to live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the \u003cem>llanto\u003c/em>, the collective cry that brings people together—\u003cem>el canto del pueblo, \u003c/em>or the song of the people—that says: “We do not fear you. You have only made us stronger. Your hate will only bring us closer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the lyrics of “El Llanto de El Paso Texas” say:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>A Saturday morning on August 3,\u003cbr>\nat the Walmart in Cielo Vista\u003cbr>\npeople peacefully walked,\u003cbr>\nbut they could never imagine\u003cbr>\ntheir lives would change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They heard several shots,\u003cbr>\na gun unloading.\u003cbr>\nThe massacre began,\u003cbr>\nand my people were scared.\u003cbr>\nThe could not find where to run,\u003cbr>\nbut they all helped each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These events that I tell you,\u003cbr>\nthe news reported 22 killed,\u003cbr>\nand 26 badly injured.\u003cbr>\nEl Chucho [El Paso] is sad,\u003cbr>\nmany families are in mourning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was an act of terrorism\u003cbr>\nthat this monster caused.\u003cbr>\nHe wanted to break my people,\u003cbr>\nbut he didn’t succeed.\u003cbr>\nNow we’re more united than ever,\u003cbr>\nmany thanks to God.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Corridos\u003c/em>, based on the Spanish word \u003cem>correr\u003c/em> (“to run”), are folk songs that capture a collective cry against injustice; the musicologist Henry Cowell called them “\u003ca href=\"https://folkways.si.edu/mexican-corridos/latin-world/music/album/smithsonian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">stories told in song\u003c/a>.” Over generations, their form of balladic storytelling became known as “border music,” although their roots predate the U.S.-Mexico border we know today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the outset of the \u003ca href=\"https://laii.unm.edu/info/k-12-educators/assets/documents/mexican-revolution/music-of-the-revolution.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mexican revolution\u003c/a>, \u003cem>cantantes\u003c/em> would carry their guitars from town to town with songs like “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlGtOv-QEQQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">La Adelita\u003c/a>,” recounting tales of peasant soldiers and indigenous communities rising up against an elite governing class in Mexico. This creative dissemination of the news—delivered across \u003ca href=\"http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/~/media/ArtsEdge/LessonPrintables/grade-9-12/corridos_about_mex_rev_what_is_a_corrido.ashx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">36 lines\u003c/a> in 3/4 time—built a backbone to a growing resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even today, \u003cem>corridos\u003c/em> put a human face on even the most difficult circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The Corrido Does Not Tell Lies’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2004, celebrated San Jose-based \u003ci>norteño\u003c/i> band \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/los-tigres-del-norte\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Tigres del Norte\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.emol.com/noticias/magazine/2004/04/22/145666/mexico-piden-censurar-cancion-de-los-tigres-del-norte-sobre-mujeres-asesinadas.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sparred\u003c/a> with the Mexican state of Chihuahua over their \u003ci>corrido\u003c/i> “Las Mujeres de Juárez\u003cem>.” \u003c/em>Against a jolting, upbeat tempo, its lyrics reveal a crisis outside the north Mexican border town—mass femicide of hundreds of \u003cem>maquiladora\u003c/em> workers:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Humiliating and abusive,\u003cbr>\nThe untouchable impunity,\u003cbr>\nThe bones in the desert\u003cbr>\nTell the raw truth\u003cbr>\nThe dead women of Juárez\u003cbr>\nAre a national embarrassment.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>In the final stanza, singer Jorge Hernandez calls for an investigation into the murdered women left in the deserts of Chihuahua:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Because there are several thousands of dead women\u003cbr>\nIn clandestine cemeteries\u003cbr>\nMany missing women\u003cbr>\nThat I refuse to believe\u003cbr>\nIt’s the people’s demand\u003cbr>\nThat the law sheds light on this.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Threatening censorship, the governor of Chihuahua claimed the lyrics were too macabre for mass consumption and would incite fear in a region grappling with excessive violence. Critics argued that the real reason the state wanted to squash the song was to avoid upsetting a regional economy fueled by industrial production along the border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guadalupe Morfin Otero, a government commissioner who worked on the case of the murdered women of Juárez, defended the song. “It seems to me that the corrido does not tell lies,” he said. “This and other artistic expressions that have surfaced on this theme are valid when they are an expression of solidarity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Reclaiming the Narrative\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, a recording of mariachis performing Juan Gabriel’s “Amor Eterno” at the El Paso vigil captivated a country grieving in the wake of three mass shootings in one week. The \u003cem>bolero\u003c/em>, written by Gabriel after his mother’s death, was made popular by Spanish singer Rocío Durcal. Its heartrending rendition, illuminated by candlelight in El Paso, hit home for many Latinos, who hold the song close to their heart in times of grief and loss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n\u003cp lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">If you come from a Mexican family, you know this song. It's usually sung at funerals as a last good bye. It ends with the promise that one day we will reunite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElPaso?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#ElPaso\u003c/a> sang it to the 20 victims of Saturday's massacre. \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/AmorEterno?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#AmorEterno\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/EUACgnqIsl\">pic.twitter.com/EUACgnqIsl\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Angélica María Casas (@AngelicaMCasas) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AngelicaMCasas/status/1158255630043537408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 5, 2019\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\">\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a time when Latinos are targeted, stigmatized and falsely accused en masse, it’s critical we reclaim our own narratives. By deconstructing tragedies like the mass shooting in El Paso, line by line, the \u003cem>corrido\u003c/em> provides a deeper understanding to a grieving community, and says to the rest of the world, “this is \u003cem>our\u003c/em> story.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Passed from guitar to guitar, handed down from grandparent to parent to young one, \u003cem>corridos \u003c/em>like “El Llanto de El Paso Texas” help us make sense of the madness. And even in this moment of fractured families, driven apart by steel, concrete and bullets, our strength carries on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sobrevivimos\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In storytelling through song, corridos say: 'We do not fear you. You have only made us stronger. Your hate will only bring us closer.'\r\n",
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"title": "El Paso and the Strength of the Mexican Corrido | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As a crowd gathered Tuesday night outside the Walmart in Cielo Vista, El Paso, strums of two guitars drifted through the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their 3/4 cadence held an onlooking circle of mourners, many of them standing tall through their tears. Just three days before, on this spot, a white supremacist-fueled massacre claimed the lives of 22 people and wounded 26.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two young men thrummed together before a circle of silent onlookers, as they began their song:\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Photojournalist \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/fotornelas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Omar Ornelas\u003c/a> of USA Today Network captured this scene at a vigil just one night before Donald Trump’s visit to El Paso. The \u003cem>corrido\u003c/em>, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCb3DFg_TMU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">El Llanto de El Paso Texas\u003c/a>,” attributed to songwriter Josue Rodriguez, sparked an immediate emotional outpouring from viewers, many of whom grew up listening to familiar melodies in Mexican households.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To many, it may be just a song. But for me and many others, after the deadliest attack \u003ca href=\"https://www.vox.com/2019/8/6/20756750/el-paso-shooter-targeted-latinx-walmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">targeting our people\u003c/a> in recent U.S. history, it’s an act of strength and resilience we need now more than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A Long Oral Tradition\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Mexican oral tradition of the \u003ci>corrido\u003c/i> allows us to look critically at and heal from disturbing events. It gives us the power look death in the eye. To name it. To inspire empathy among the masses, and take action against threats on one’s freedom, sovereignty and right to live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the \u003cem>llanto\u003c/em>, the collective cry that brings people together—\u003cem>el canto del pueblo, \u003c/em>or the song of the people—that says: “We do not fear you. You have only made us stronger. Your hate will only bring us closer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the lyrics of “El Llanto de El Paso Texas” say:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>A Saturday morning on August 3,\u003cbr>\nat the Walmart in Cielo Vista\u003cbr>\npeople peacefully walked,\u003cbr>\nbut they could never imagine\u003cbr>\ntheir lives would change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They heard several shots,\u003cbr>\na gun unloading.\u003cbr>\nThe massacre began,\u003cbr>\nand my people were scared.\u003cbr>\nThe could not find where to run,\u003cbr>\nbut they all helped each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These events that I tell you,\u003cbr>\nthe news reported 22 killed,\u003cbr>\nand 26 badly injured.\u003cbr>\nEl Chucho [El Paso] is sad,\u003cbr>\nmany families are in mourning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was an act of terrorism\u003cbr>\nthat this monster caused.\u003cbr>\nHe wanted to break my people,\u003cbr>\nbut he didn’t succeed.\u003cbr>\nNow we’re more united than ever,\u003cbr>\nmany thanks to God.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Corridos\u003c/em>, based on the Spanish word \u003cem>correr\u003c/em> (“to run”), are folk songs that capture a collective cry against injustice; the musicologist Henry Cowell called them “\u003ca href=\"https://folkways.si.edu/mexican-corridos/latin-world/music/album/smithsonian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">stories told in song\u003c/a>.” Over generations, their form of balladic storytelling became known as “border music,” although their roots predate the U.S.-Mexico border we know today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the outset of the \u003ca href=\"https://laii.unm.edu/info/k-12-educators/assets/documents/mexican-revolution/music-of-the-revolution.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mexican revolution\u003c/a>, \u003cem>cantantes\u003c/em> would carry their guitars from town to town with songs like “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlGtOv-QEQQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">La Adelita\u003c/a>,” recounting tales of peasant soldiers and indigenous communities rising up against an elite governing class in Mexico. This creative dissemination of the news—delivered across \u003ca href=\"http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/~/media/ArtsEdge/LessonPrintables/grade-9-12/corridos_about_mex_rev_what_is_a_corrido.ashx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">36 lines\u003c/a> in 3/4 time—built a backbone to a growing resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even today, \u003cem>corridos\u003c/em> put a human face on even the most difficult circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The Corrido Does Not Tell Lies’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2004, celebrated San Jose-based \u003ci>norteño\u003c/i> band \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/los-tigres-del-norte\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Tigres del Norte\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.emol.com/noticias/magazine/2004/04/22/145666/mexico-piden-censurar-cancion-de-los-tigres-del-norte-sobre-mujeres-asesinadas.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sparred\u003c/a> with the Mexican state of Chihuahua over their \u003ci>corrido\u003c/i> “Las Mujeres de Juárez\u003cem>.” \u003c/em>Against a jolting, upbeat tempo, its lyrics reveal a crisis outside the north Mexican border town—mass femicide of hundreds of \u003cem>maquiladora\u003c/em> workers:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Humiliating and abusive,\u003cbr>\nThe untouchable impunity,\u003cbr>\nThe bones in the desert\u003cbr>\nTell the raw truth\u003cbr>\nThe dead women of Juárez\u003cbr>\nAre a national embarrassment.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>In the final stanza, singer Jorge Hernandez calls for an investigation into the murdered women left in the deserts of Chihuahua:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Because there are several thousands of dead women\u003cbr>\nIn clandestine cemeteries\u003cbr>\nMany missing women\u003cbr>\nThat I refuse to believe\u003cbr>\nIt’s the people’s demand\u003cbr>\nThat the law sheds light on this.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Threatening censorship, the governor of Chihuahua claimed the lyrics were too macabre for mass consumption and would incite fear in a region grappling with excessive violence. Critics argued that the real reason the state wanted to squash the song was to avoid upsetting a regional economy fueled by industrial production along the border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guadalupe Morfin Otero, a government commissioner who worked on the case of the murdered women of Juárez, defended the song. “It seems to me that the corrido does not tell lies,” he said. “This and other artistic expressions that have surfaced on this theme are valid when they are an expression of solidarity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Reclaiming the Narrative\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, a recording of mariachis performing Juan Gabriel’s “Amor Eterno” at the El Paso vigil captivated a country grieving in the wake of three mass shootings in one week. The \u003cem>bolero\u003c/em>, written by Gabriel after his mother’s death, was made popular by Spanish singer Rocío Durcal. Its heartrending rendition, illuminated by candlelight in El Paso, hit home for many Latinos, who hold the song close to their heart in times of grief and loss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n\u003cp lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">If you come from a Mexican family, you know this song. It's usually sung at funerals as a last good bye. It ends with the promise that one day we will reunite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElPaso?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#ElPaso\u003c/a> sang it to the 20 victims of Saturday's massacre. \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/AmorEterno?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#AmorEterno\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/EUACgnqIsl\">pic.twitter.com/EUACgnqIsl\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Angélica María Casas (@AngelicaMCasas) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AngelicaMCasas/status/1158255630043537408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 5, 2019\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\">\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a time when Latinos are targeted, stigmatized and falsely accused en masse, it’s critical we reclaim our own narratives. By deconstructing tragedies like the mass shooting in El Paso, line by line, the \u003cem>corrido\u003c/em> provides a deeper understanding to a grieving community, and says to the rest of the world, “this is \u003cem>our\u003c/em> story.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Passed from guitar to guitar, handed down from grandparent to parent to young one, \u003cem>corridos \u003c/em>like “El Llanto de El Paso Texas” help us make sense of the madness. And even in this moment of fractured families, driven apart by steel, concrete and bullets, our strength carries on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sobrevivimos\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Opinion: Even a Grammar Geezer Like Me Can Get Used to Gender Neutral Pronouns",
"headTitle": "Opinion: Even a Grammar Geezer Like Me Can Get Used to Gender Neutral Pronouns | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Letter-for-letter, no part of speech gets people more worked up than pronouns do. Linguistic history is dotted with eruptions of pronoun rage. Right now, the provocation is the gender-neutral pronouns that some nonbinary people have asked to be called by, so that they won’t have to be identified as “he” or “she.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several of these in circulation. Some are new words, like “ze” and “co,” but some go back a ways—in fact, people have been proposing new gender-neutral pronouns for \u003ca href=\"https://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm\">150 years\u003c/a>, though none has ever caught on. But the most popular choice, and probably the most controversial one, is the familiar pronoun that people describe as the singular “they.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can see why people would pick “they.” In everyday speech we often use that pronoun for a single person, though only when the word or phrase it substitutes for—its antecedent, as it’s called—doesn’t refer to a specific individual. So we say, “Somebody lost their wallet,” or, “If a student fails, they have to retake the course.” Or the person we’re referring to may be simply unknown. Your daughter’s cell phone rings at the dinner table; you say, “Tell them you’ll call them back.” Male or female, one caller or several? The pronoun “they” is like, “whatever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That singular “they” goes back hundreds of years. \u003ca href=\"http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/austhlis.html#X2\">Jane Austen’s\u003c/a> novels are bristling with sentences like “No one can ever be in love more than once in their life.” But that use of the pronoun fell into disrepute in the 19\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> century, when grammarians condemned it as incorrect and proclaimed that the so-called generic “he” should be used instead. The idea is that when you write, “Every singer has his range,” the pronoun “his” refers to both men and women—or as they sometimes put it, “the \u003ca href=\"https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/300287\">masculine embraces the feminine\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When second-wave feminists protested in the 1970s that the generic “he” was sexist, they roused a storm of indignation. They were accused of \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-07-09-vw-8305-story.html\">emasculating\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/10/magazine/on-language-gender-benders.html\">neutering\u003c/a> the language. The chairman of the Harvard Linguistics Department charged that they were suffering from “\u003ca href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/10/pronoun-envy\">pronoun envy\u003c/a>.” \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/29/magazine/on-language-proximity-talks.html\">William Safire\u003c/a> warned that to accept the use of “they” in place of “he” would be to “cave in to the radic-lib forces of usage permissiveness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In retrospect, those reactions betrayed the obtuseness that the psychologist Cordelia Fine calls “\u003ca href=\"https://wwnorton.com/books/Delusions-of-Gender\">delusions of gender\u003c/a>.” The fact is that the pronoun “he” is never gender-neutral. If Sting had sung, “If you love somebody, set him free,” it would have brought only a male to mind. What the language required was “set them free.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gender-neutral singular “they” has history, English grammar and gender equity on its side, and it’s gradually been \u003ca href=\"https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/columnists/mcintyre/87915039-132.html\">restored\u003c/a> to the written language. Schoolroom crotchets can be hard to let go of. But we’ve largely leveled the linguistic playing field—at least, “he” no longer takes precedence over “she.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that didn’t make any provision for the rainbow of nonbinary and nonconforming \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/28/us/pride-identity.html?searchResultPosition=1\">gender identities\u003c/a> that have risen into public awareness in recent years. The language still required us to choose between “he” and “she” to refer to a specific individual. The singular “they” initially sounded awkward here. We can say, “Somebody named Sandy was brushing their hair” where the pronoun replaces the nonspecific “somebody”—that’s been standard colloquial English for centuries. But when someone says just, “Sandy was brushing their hair,” you’re brought up short. Your first thought is that “they” must refer to some group of people whose hair Sandy was brushing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But you can make this work if you tweak your internal grammar so that the pronoun “they” can refer to a specific individual. It takes some practice to get the hang of it, but the human language processing capacity is more adaptable than people realize, even for geezers like me. As I read through an \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/magazine/gender-nonbinary.html\">article\u003c/a> about a nonbinary person who uses “they,” “them” and “their,” the pronouns ultimately sort themselves out. In context, they’re rarely ambiguous, no more than any other pronoun: “Tracy should take better care of themself”; “Pat hasn’t made up their mind.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That new use of “they” has passed muster with the AP’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2017/ap-style-change-singular-they-is-acceptable-in-limited-cases/\">style guide\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=they\">American Heritage Dictionary\u003c/a>. In theory, anyone can adopt it, whatever their gender identity. But we’ll still be using “he” and “she” to refer to most individuals who identify as male and female. You can introduce new gender-neutral terms without driving out the gendered ones. “Sibling” has been part of the everyday language for more than 50 years, but we can still talk about brothers and sisters. When someone says, “Taylor has a lot going for them,” it’s a fair bet that that’s the pronoun that Taylor prefers to be called by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not a lot to ask—just a small courtesy and sign of respect. In fact, the accommodations we’re being asked to make to nonbinary individuals are much less far-reaching than the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/745283921/the-handbook-of-nonsexist-writing\">linguistic changes\u003c/a> that \u003ca href=\"https://public.oed.com/blog/resistance-fertile-language-borne-feminist-movement/\">feminists\u003c/a> called for 50 years ago. Yet the reactions this time have been even more vehement than they were back then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fifth-grade teacher in \u003ca href=\"https://wapo.st/2YKHqyV\">Florida\u003c/a> whose preferred pronouns are “they,” “them” and “their” was removed from the classroom when some parents complained about exposing their children to the transgender lifestyle. When the diversity and inclusion office at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville published a guide to alternative pronouns in 2015, the state \u003ca href=\"https://www.mic.com/articles/142080/tennessee-budget-bill-bans-gender-neutral-pronouns-tramples-on-free-speech\">legislature\u003c/a> promptly defunded the center and barred the university from promoting the use of gender-neutral pronouns in the future. Like the classic episodes of pronoun rage in earlier eras, these aren’t about pronouns at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 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=Opinion%3A+Even+A+Grammar+Geezer+Like+Me+Can+Get+Used+To+Gender+Neutral+Pronouns&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "For anyone struggling to use \"they\" as a singular pronoun, linguist Geoff Nunberg says: Just practice. He believes human language processing capacity is far more adaptable than people realize.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Letter-for-letter, no part of speech gets people more worked up than pronouns do. Linguistic history is dotted with eruptions of pronoun rage. Right now, the provocation is the gender-neutral pronouns that some nonbinary people have asked to be called by, so that they won’t have to be identified as “he” or “she.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several of these in circulation. Some are new words, like “ze” and “co,” but some go back a ways—in fact, people have been proposing new gender-neutral pronouns for \u003ca href=\"https://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm\">150 years\u003c/a>, though none has ever caught on. But the most popular choice, and probably the most controversial one, is the familiar pronoun that people describe as the singular “they.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can see why people would pick “they.” In everyday speech we often use that pronoun for a single person, though only when the word or phrase it substitutes for—its antecedent, as it’s called—doesn’t refer to a specific individual. So we say, “Somebody lost their wallet,” or, “If a student fails, they have to retake the course.” Or the person we’re referring to may be simply unknown. Your daughter’s cell phone rings at the dinner table; you say, “Tell them you’ll call them back.” Male or female, one caller or several? The pronoun “they” is like, “whatever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That singular “they” goes back hundreds of years. \u003ca href=\"http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/austhlis.html#X2\">Jane Austen’s\u003c/a> novels are bristling with sentences like “No one can ever be in love more than once in their life.” But that use of the pronoun fell into disrepute in the 19\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> century, when grammarians condemned it as incorrect and proclaimed that the so-called generic “he” should be used instead. The idea is that when you write, “Every singer has his range,” the pronoun “his” refers to both men and women—or as they sometimes put it, “the \u003ca href=\"https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/300287\">masculine embraces the feminine\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When second-wave feminists protested in the 1970s that the generic “he” was sexist, they roused a storm of indignation. They were accused of \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-07-09-vw-8305-story.html\">emasculating\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/10/magazine/on-language-gender-benders.html\">neutering\u003c/a> the language. The chairman of the Harvard Linguistics Department charged that they were suffering from “\u003ca href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/10/pronoun-envy\">pronoun envy\u003c/a>.” \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/29/magazine/on-language-proximity-talks.html\">William Safire\u003c/a> warned that to accept the use of “they” in place of “he” would be to “cave in to the radic-lib forces of usage permissiveness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In retrospect, those reactions betrayed the obtuseness that the psychologist Cordelia Fine calls “\u003ca href=\"https://wwnorton.com/books/Delusions-of-Gender\">delusions of gender\u003c/a>.” The fact is that the pronoun “he” is never gender-neutral. If Sting had sung, “If you love somebody, set him free,” it would have brought only a male to mind. What the language required was “set them free.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gender-neutral singular “they” has history, English grammar and gender equity on its side, and it’s gradually been \u003ca href=\"https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/columnists/mcintyre/87915039-132.html\">restored\u003c/a> to the written language. Schoolroom crotchets can be hard to let go of. But we’ve largely leveled the linguistic playing field—at least, “he” no longer takes precedence over “she.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that didn’t make any provision for the rainbow of nonbinary and nonconforming \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/28/us/pride-identity.html?searchResultPosition=1\">gender identities\u003c/a> that have risen into public awareness in recent years. The language still required us to choose between “he” and “she” to refer to a specific individual. The singular “they” initially sounded awkward here. We can say, “Somebody named Sandy was brushing their hair” where the pronoun replaces the nonspecific “somebody”—that’s been standard colloquial English for centuries. But when someone says just, “Sandy was brushing their hair,” you’re brought up short. Your first thought is that “they” must refer to some group of people whose hair Sandy was brushing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But you can make this work if you tweak your internal grammar so that the pronoun “they” can refer to a specific individual. It takes some practice to get the hang of it, but the human language processing capacity is more adaptable than people realize, even for geezers like me. As I read through an \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/magazine/gender-nonbinary.html\">article\u003c/a> about a nonbinary person who uses “they,” “them” and “their,” the pronouns ultimately sort themselves out. In context, they’re rarely ambiguous, no more than any other pronoun: “Tracy should take better care of themself”; “Pat hasn’t made up their mind.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That new use of “they” has passed muster with the AP’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2017/ap-style-change-singular-they-is-acceptable-in-limited-cases/\">style guide\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=they\">American Heritage Dictionary\u003c/a>. In theory, anyone can adopt it, whatever their gender identity. But we’ll still be using “he” and “she” to refer to most individuals who identify as male and female. You can introduce new gender-neutral terms without driving out the gendered ones. “Sibling” has been part of the everyday language for more than 50 years, but we can still talk about brothers and sisters. When someone says, “Taylor has a lot going for them,” it’s a fair bet that that’s the pronoun that Taylor prefers to be called by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not a lot to ask—just a small courtesy and sign of respect. In fact, the accommodations we’re being asked to make to nonbinary individuals are much less far-reaching than the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/books/titles/745283921/the-handbook-of-nonsexist-writing\">linguistic changes\u003c/a> that \u003ca href=\"https://public.oed.com/blog/resistance-fertile-language-borne-feminist-movement/\">feminists\u003c/a> called for 50 years ago. Yet the reactions this time have been even more vehement than they were back then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fifth-grade teacher in \u003ca href=\"https://wapo.st/2YKHqyV\">Florida\u003c/a> whose preferred pronouns are “they,” “them” and “their” was removed from the classroom when some parents complained about exposing their children to the transgender lifestyle. When the diversity and inclusion office at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville published a guide to alternative pronouns in 2015, the state \u003ca href=\"https://www.mic.com/articles/142080/tennessee-budget-bill-bans-gender-neutral-pronouns-tramples-on-free-speech\">legislature\u003c/a> promptly defunded the center and barred the university from promoting the use of gender-neutral pronouns in the future. Like the classic episodes of pronoun rage in earlier eras, these aren’t about pronouns at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 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=Opinion%3A+Even+A+Grammar+Geezer+Like+Me+Can+Get+Used+To+Gender+Neutral+Pronouns&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "lets-call-it-what-it-is-domestic-terrorism",
"title": "Gilroy. El Paso. Dayton. How Long Before We Call it What it Really Is?",
"publishDate": 1564616725,
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"headTitle": "Gilroy. El Paso. Dayton. How Long Before We Call it What it Really Is? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>his past Sunday, as I left the San Francisco Ballet’s performance at Stern Grove, and as my daughter quickly fell into a nap in the backseat of my car, I took a second to check my phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a text from my mother, asking if I was in Gilroy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Pen.Commentary.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The horrible event that took place—a shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival that left three dead, including two minors, before the suspect shot and killed himself—is bad enough on its own. But when you look at all the details that’ve emerged, from the ethnicity of the victims to the political views reported thus far of the assailant, a heinous crime quickly becomes a building block of our new, disgusting reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two days after the shooting, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Investigators-find-items-in-Nevada-apartment-of-14268336.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">federal law enforcement official told the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em>\u003c/a> that investigators found reading material on white supremacy and radical Islam in the shooter’s Nevada home. An Instagram account \u003ca href=\"https://www.apnews.com/35e45f6d09e347c4a1c51c52cf77725c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported by the Associated Press\u003c/a> to be the gunman’s contained posts just hours before the shooting \u003ca href=\"https://www.apnews.com/35e45f6d09e347c4a1c51c52cf77725c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">denouncing “hordes of mestizos,” and promoting the book \u003cem>Might Makes Right\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, a popular text in white supremacism and extremist groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I get it: law enforcement usually needs time to confirm extremist connections. By the time that happens, we’ve usually moved on to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/08/03/747909492/shooting-at-el-paso-mall-leaves-multiple-people-dead\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the next mass shooting in El Paso\u003c/a>, or \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/08/04/747989695/9-killed-at-least-16-injured-in-shooting-in-dayton-ohio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the next mass shooting in Dayton\u003c/a>, and in a matter of days, not weeks. As a citizen—one who regularly attends public cultural events—I can’t help but see these details in shootings over and over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A larger context needs to be mentioned every time a shooting influenced by ideology happens in America. Every single time. The issue of white supremacy influencing domestic terrorism needs to be clearly stated in the news. I’m glad it was a topic of discussion during the democratic presidential debates, as it should be a topic of discussion heading into the 2020 election. It’s as big an issue as legislators dictating the reproductive rights of women, and the president using his executive powers to build a border wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13862627\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13862627\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Police officers arrive on the scene of the investigation following a deadly shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California on July 28, 2019. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Police officers arrive on the scene of the investigation following a deadly shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California on July 28, 2019. \u003ccite>(Philip Pacheco/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>s of today, July 31, there have been \u003ca href=\"https://www.massshootingtracker.org/data\">287 reported instances of shootings\u003c/a> this year in which there were multiple victims—mass shootings. While it’s easy to tally the numbers of shootings, it’s harder to keep a tally on the number of shootings committed by people influenced by white supremacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s hard because stories like Gilroy are reported by folks who aren’t telling it as it is. For instance, the \u003ca href=\"https://abc7.com/what-we-know-about-gilroy-garlic-festival-suspect/5427212/\">local ABC station reported\u003c/a> that “… they believe it could turn out that [Santino William] Legan was simply another angry and unstable man who acted out violently and used racial and ethnic anger to justify the shooting he was contemplating.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Simply\u003c/em>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationally, \u003ca href=\"https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/29/santino-willian-legan-lagan-picture-rifle-might-makes-right/1860828001/\">\u003cem>USA Today\u003c/em> reported\u003c/a> that the assailant “was known as a quiet teen from an athletic family who stayed out of trouble,” before going into accounts from people who knew him and didn’t expect there was another side to him. Never did the word “terrorist” come up in that article.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-07-30/gilroy-shooting-suspect-motive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Los Angeles Times’\u003c/em> profile of the assailant\u003c/a>, the only time the word “terrorist” appears is in the bio for an author of the piece, because she also covered the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino… by a Muslim couple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Granted, the San Bernardino shooting took more lives: 14 people, 16 including the two assailants. But the Gilroy shooting rendered the same psychological effect on your average person; a terrifying sense that you can’t go anywhere nowadays, because you might get shot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s these actions, random acts of mass violence, that cause us to live in terror. It’d be wise to label them as terrorism, just as it would be wise to specify which ideology led to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13862630\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13862630\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/07292019_Gilroy-qut-1020x680-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"People leave mementos at a makeshift memorial outside the site of the Gilroy Garlic Festival after a mass shooting took place at the event yesterday on July 29, 2019 in Gilroy. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/07292019_Gilroy-qut-1020x680-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/07292019_Gilroy-qut-1020x680-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/07292019_Gilroy-qut-1020x680-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/07292019_Gilroy-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People leave mementos at a makeshift memorial outside the site of the Gilroy Garlic Festival after a mass shooting took place at the event yesterday on July 29, 2019 in Gilroy. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>hat’s especially true when \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/742896827/trump-attacks-congresswomen-at-n-c-rally-as-crowd-chants-send-her-back\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">chants of “send her back”\u003c/a> erupt at campaign rallies, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741827580/go-back-where-you-came-from-the-long-rhetorical-roots-of-trump-s-racist-tweets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">inspired\u003c/a> by tweets from the highest office in the land. Or when the president \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/RobertMaguire_/status/1158014418065776642\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">jokes about shooting people at the border\u003c/a> to rally his base.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To give credit to President Trump for the current state of nationalism and white supremacy would be to overlook the fact that this country was built on white supremacy and domestic terrorism. But given what’s transpired since the fall of 2016—headline after headline of President Trump using \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741827580/go-back-where-you-came-from-the-long-rhetorical-roots-of-trump-s-racist-tweets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">racism and bigotry\u003c/a> to pander to his base—it’s no surprise the that the FBI warns that domestic terrorism is on the rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This past May, Michael C. McGarrity, Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/confronting-the-rise-of-domestic-terrorism-in-the-homeland\">testified that\u003c/a>, “We believe domestic terrorists pose a present and persistent threat of violence and economic harm to the United States; in fact, there have been more arrests and deaths caused by domestic terrorists than international terrorists in recent years. We are most concerned about lone offenders, primarily using firearms, as these lone offenders represent the dominant trend for lethal domestic terrorists. Frequently, these individuals act without a clear group affiliation or guidance, making them challenging to identify, investigate, and disrupt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So yes, domestic terrorism is on the rise. And guess which state is leading the charge in hate groups?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of 2018, California was home to the most hate groups in the country, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map\">Southern Poverty Law Center\u003c/a>. While there’s some debate over what the SPLC classifies as a hate group (the Nation of Islam is listed as one, for example), California has more groups according to their data who identify as white nationalists than any other state in the country. Yes, more than both Virginia and Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m not picking the ideology as an issue out of thin air. We’ve seen it as the driving force behind many shootings, from a synagogue in Pittsburgh to a church in Virginia, and even a mosque in New Zealand. While some news outlets dance around the term “domestic terrorist” when writing about someone who has committed hateful acts while showing support for white nationalist ideology, I think they’re doing the public a disservice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s call it what is is: domestic terrorism.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Avoiding terms like \"domestic terrorism\" and \"white supremacy\" in reporting mass shootings does a disservice to the country.",
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"title": "Gilroy. El Paso. Dayton. How Long Before We Call it What it Really Is? | KQED",
"description": "Avoiding terms like "domestic terrorism" and "white supremacy" in reporting mass shootings does a disservice to the country.",
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"headline": "Gilroy. El Paso. Dayton. How Long Before We Call it What it Really Is?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>his past Sunday, as I left the San Francisco Ballet’s performance at Stern Grove, and as my daughter quickly fell into a nap in the backseat of my car, I took a second to check my phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a text from my mother, asking if I was in Gilroy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Pen.Commentary.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The horrible event that took place—a shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival that left three dead, including two minors, before the suspect shot and killed himself—is bad enough on its own. But when you look at all the details that’ve emerged, from the ethnicity of the victims to the political views reported thus far of the assailant, a heinous crime quickly becomes a building block of our new, disgusting reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two days after the shooting, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Investigators-find-items-in-Nevada-apartment-of-14268336.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">federal law enforcement official told the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em>\u003c/a> that investigators found reading material on white supremacy and radical Islam in the shooter’s Nevada home. An Instagram account \u003ca href=\"https://www.apnews.com/35e45f6d09e347c4a1c51c52cf77725c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported by the Associated Press\u003c/a> to be the gunman’s contained posts just hours before the shooting \u003ca href=\"https://www.apnews.com/35e45f6d09e347c4a1c51c52cf77725c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">denouncing “hordes of mestizos,” and promoting the book \u003cem>Might Makes Right\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, a popular text in white supremacism and extremist groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I get it: law enforcement usually needs time to confirm extremist connections. By the time that happens, we’ve usually moved on to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/08/03/747909492/shooting-at-el-paso-mall-leaves-multiple-people-dead\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the next mass shooting in El Paso\u003c/a>, or \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/08/04/747989695/9-killed-at-least-16-injured-in-shooting-in-dayton-ohio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the next mass shooting in Dayton\u003c/a>, and in a matter of days, not weeks. As a citizen—one who regularly attends public cultural events—I can’t help but see these details in shootings over and over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A larger context needs to be mentioned every time a shooting influenced by ideology happens in America. Every single time. The issue of white supremacy influencing domestic terrorism needs to be clearly stated in the news. I’m glad it was a topic of discussion during the democratic presidential debates, as it should be a topic of discussion heading into the 2020 election. It’s as big an issue as legislators dictating the reproductive rights of women, and the president using his executive powers to build a border wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13862627\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13862627\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Police officers arrive on the scene of the investigation following a deadly shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California on July 28, 2019. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Gilroy.PoliceArrive.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Police officers arrive on the scene of the investigation following a deadly shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California on July 28, 2019. \u003ccite>(Philip Pacheco/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>s of today, July 31, there have been \u003ca href=\"https://www.massshootingtracker.org/data\">287 reported instances of shootings\u003c/a> this year in which there were multiple victims—mass shootings. While it’s easy to tally the numbers of shootings, it’s harder to keep a tally on the number of shootings committed by people influenced by white supremacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s hard because stories like Gilroy are reported by folks who aren’t telling it as it is. For instance, the \u003ca href=\"https://abc7.com/what-we-know-about-gilroy-garlic-festival-suspect/5427212/\">local ABC station reported\u003c/a> that “… they believe it could turn out that [Santino William] Legan was simply another angry and unstable man who acted out violently and used racial and ethnic anger to justify the shooting he was contemplating.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Simply\u003c/em>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationally, \u003ca href=\"https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/29/santino-willian-legan-lagan-picture-rifle-might-makes-right/1860828001/\">\u003cem>USA Today\u003c/em> reported\u003c/a> that the assailant “was known as a quiet teen from an athletic family who stayed out of trouble,” before going into accounts from people who knew him and didn’t expect there was another side to him. Never did the word “terrorist” come up in that article.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-07-30/gilroy-shooting-suspect-motive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Los Angeles Times’\u003c/em> profile of the assailant\u003c/a>, the only time the word “terrorist” appears is in the bio for an author of the piece, because she also covered the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino… by a Muslim couple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Granted, the San Bernardino shooting took more lives: 14 people, 16 including the two assailants. But the Gilroy shooting rendered the same psychological effect on your average person; a terrifying sense that you can’t go anywhere nowadays, because you might get shot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s these actions, random acts of mass violence, that cause us to live in terror. It’d be wise to label them as terrorism, just as it would be wise to specify which ideology led to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13862630\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13862630\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/07292019_Gilroy-qut-1020x680-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"People leave mementos at a makeshift memorial outside the site of the Gilroy Garlic Festival after a mass shooting took place at the event yesterday on July 29, 2019 in Gilroy. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/07292019_Gilroy-qut-1020x680-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/07292019_Gilroy-qut-1020x680-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/07292019_Gilroy-qut-1020x680-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/07292019_Gilroy-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People leave mementos at a makeshift memorial outside the site of the Gilroy Garlic Festival after a mass shooting took place at the event yesterday on July 29, 2019 in Gilroy. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>hat’s especially true when \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/742896827/trump-attacks-congresswomen-at-n-c-rally-as-crowd-chants-send-her-back\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">chants of “send her back”\u003c/a> erupt at campaign rallies, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741827580/go-back-where-you-came-from-the-long-rhetorical-roots-of-trump-s-racist-tweets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">inspired\u003c/a> by tweets from the highest office in the land. Or when the president \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/RobertMaguire_/status/1158014418065776642\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">jokes about shooting people at the border\u003c/a> to rally his base.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To give credit to President Trump for the current state of nationalism and white supremacy would be to overlook the fact that this country was built on white supremacy and domestic terrorism. But given what’s transpired since the fall of 2016—headline after headline of President Trump using \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741827580/go-back-where-you-came-from-the-long-rhetorical-roots-of-trump-s-racist-tweets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">racism and bigotry\u003c/a> to pander to his base—it’s no surprise the that the FBI warns that domestic terrorism is on the rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This past May, Michael C. McGarrity, Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/confronting-the-rise-of-domestic-terrorism-in-the-homeland\">testified that\u003c/a>, “We believe domestic terrorists pose a present and persistent threat of violence and economic harm to the United States; in fact, there have been more arrests and deaths caused by domestic terrorists than international terrorists in recent years. We are most concerned about lone offenders, primarily using firearms, as these lone offenders represent the dominant trend for lethal domestic terrorists. Frequently, these individuals act without a clear group affiliation or guidance, making them challenging to identify, investigate, and disrupt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So yes, domestic terrorism is on the rise. And guess which state is leading the charge in hate groups?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of 2018, California was home to the most hate groups in the country, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map\">Southern Poverty Law Center\u003c/a>. While there’s some debate over what the SPLC classifies as a hate group (the Nation of Islam is listed as one, for example), California has more groups according to their data who identify as white nationalists than any other state in the country. Yes, more than both Virginia and Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m not picking the ideology as an issue out of thin air. We’ve seen it as the driving force behind many shootings, from a synagogue in Pittsburgh to a church in Virginia, and even a mosque in New Zealand. While some news outlets dance around the term “domestic terrorist” when writing about someone who has committed hateful acts while showing support for white nationalist ideology, I think they’re doing the public a disservice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s call it what is is: domestic terrorism.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How Tyler, the Creator Trojan-Horsed the Gay Agenda onto Hot 97's Airwaves",
"headTitle": "How Tyler, the Creator Trojan-Horsed the Gay Agenda onto Hot 97’s Airwaves | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>On last week’s Hot 97 interview with Funkmaster Flex, Tyler, the Creator wore an impish grin as he started his freestyle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Free Rakim, free Rakim/I might fly to Sweden to free him,” he rapped, referring to the incarcerated A$AP Rocky. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he quickly pivoted from activist to horn dog, fantasizing about switching places with Rocky so he “could f-ck all the sweet men.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s an open industry secret that most radio freestyles aren’t really freestyles, Tyler’s frequent pauses indicated that he really was going off the top of his head, which made the verses that followed seem even more bold. After stopping to think for a few bars, he continued: “Me and Flex/ Looking in the index/Just for some buff net n—-s/For some hot butt sex.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this point, Funk Flex threw up his arms in surprise. He looked visibly torn between not wanting to cosign Tyler’s very gay bars and not wanting to seem homophobic. He stuttered in semi-protest, “What made you want to go with that verse?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like a rebellious toddler gleefully testing a parent with weak boundaries, Tyler continued rhyming, dropping references to the men’s hook-up app Grindr and ice cream dates with guys. Sensing Flex’s discomfort, he threw in lines about the two of them hooking up and cuddling while watching \u003cem>Scooby-Doo\u003c/em>. Flex feebly yelled, “Pause!” but Tyler pressed on with a smirk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/gz1DBeX4fGA\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.mtv.com/news/3132836/tyler-the-creator-funkmaster-flex-freestyle-asap-rocky/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MTV\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tyler-the-creator-freestyle-863622/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Rolling Stone\u003c/em>\u003c/a> commended the seven-minute-long performance, hailing Tyler for bringing back the lost art of the completely impromptu radio freestyle. But he did something else important by loading his lyrics with gay references within the staunchly masculine, heteronormative space of Hot 97, the country’s most influential rap station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historically, Hot 97 has done a poor job handling LGBTQ+ issues. In 2013, after beloved host \u003ca href=\"https://www.gq.com/story/mister-cee-calvin-lebrun-hot-97-dj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mister Cee\u003c/a> was arrested for soliciting trans sex workers, his boss at the station, Ebro Darden, questioned him about his sexuality in an on-air interview. The conversation was supposed to be sympathetic, but Darden fixated on the binary of gay vs. straight rather than affirming the reality that there are \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43jzvb/straight-men-recall-the-first-time-they-were-attracted-to-a-trans-woman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">straight-identifying men who are attracted to trans women\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2014, Darden questioned rapper \u003ca href=\"https://www.xxlmag.com/news/2014/12/makonnen-hot-97/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">iLoveMakonnen\u003c/a>‘s interest in cosmetology, commenting in a leery tone that his hobby might make fans assume that he’s gay, thereby putting the artist in a position to defend his professed heterosexuality. (Makonnen came out as gay three years later, in 2017.) [aside postid='arts_13854123']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also in 2017, \u003ca href=\"https://www.allure.com/story/janet-mock-response-the-breakfast-club-trans-women\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Charlamagne tha God and the other hosts of Hot 97’s \u003c/a>\u003cem>Breakfast Club \u003c/em>questioned transgender author Janet Mock about her bottom surgery during a conversation about her coming-of-age memoir—a book that had nothing to do with her genitals. A few days later, \u003cem>Breakfast Club\u003c/em> hosts invited comedian Lil Duval on air. He misgendered Mock and joked that he would kill a trans woman if he were to mistakenly sleep with one—an attitude shared by murderers of trans women, who kill them in disproportionate numbers every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hot 97 hosts’ subtle cringes at LGBTQ+ people, and their lack of pushback when confronted with overt transphobia, has long sent the message that the station is a place where the queer and trans community is somewhat \u003cem>tolerated\u003c/em> but definitely not welcome. So perhaps the perfect person to trojan horse the gay agenda onto Hot 97’s airwaves is a complicated queer figure like Tyler, the Creator, who started his career as a homophobe and surprised everyone by hinting at same-sex attraction in his lyrics and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/tylerthecreator/status/587459235706900480?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweets\u003c/a> starting in 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/HmAsUQEFYGI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Tyler’s lack of contrition for his past anti-gay music \u003ca href=\"https://www.gq.com/story/tyler-the-creator-flower-boy-redemption\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">continues to frustrate LGBTQ+ listeners\u003c/a>, myself included, his masculine image, gruff voice and refusal label himself as gay or bi—even though he sometimes raps about dudes—has kept him relatively insulated from discrimination within the hetero rap world. Perhaps the straight-dude fans he hooked early on with 2011’s aggressively homophobic \u003cem>Goblin\u003c/em> don’t mind that Tyler is queer because his sexuality has only been a footnote, rather than a central theme, in the albums he’s released since becoming open about liking guys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tyler’s revelation accompanied a drastic change in how he conveyed meaning in his songs. On 2017’s \u003cem>Flowerboy\u003c/em> and this year’s \u003cem>IGOR\u003c/em>, he evolved from a shock-jock first-person narrator into a composer with jazzy, soulful tastes. On \u003cem>IGOR\u003c/em> especially, his rapping became one of many instruments in vibe-y arrangements of fuzzed-out synth melodies, collages of samples and pitch-shifted vocals. Once brash and trollish, he turned into a more sincere lyricist presiding over unfolding stories with many parts, where queerness is a facet but not the main focus. [aside postid='arts_13859566']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without a public apology for his past homophobia, or at least some insight into how he’s evolved, many LGBTQ+ listeners still bristle at Tyler. But a side-effect of his vague, label-less kinda-sorta coming out is his ability to continue to move freely in straight, masculine spaces where unmistakably queer artists like Big Freedia still \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59j4xn/big-freedia-drake-beyonce-essay\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">aren’t fully embraced\u003c/a>. That chameleon-like passing allows Tyler to hold court with hip-hop gatekeepers like Funk Flex—to whom he rapped about gay sex with a \u003cem>Goblin\u003c/em>-era brashness (minus the hatefulness) that pushed the boundaries of what’s accepted and \u003cem>celebrated\u003c/em> on Hot 97. The freestyle went viral, and the entire 90-minute interview has over 1.1 million views and counting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tyler, the Creator has a long way to go if he truly wants to champion the LGBTQ+ community, and he hasn’t proclaimed himself an activist. Still, on Hot 97 last week, he pulled off an important feat: using his passing privilege to normalize queerness on one of rap’s most important and conservative platforms.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On last week’s Hot 97 interview with Funkmaster Flex, Tyler, the Creator wore an impish grin as he started his freestyle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Free Rakim, free Rakim/I might fly to Sweden to free him,” he rapped, referring to the incarcerated A$AP Rocky. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he quickly pivoted from activist to horn dog, fantasizing about switching places with Rocky so he “could f-ck all the sweet men.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s an open industry secret that most radio freestyles aren’t really freestyles, Tyler’s frequent pauses indicated that he really was going off the top of his head, which made the verses that followed seem even more bold. After stopping to think for a few bars, he continued: “Me and Flex/ Looking in the index/Just for some buff net n—-s/For some hot butt sex.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this point, Funk Flex threw up his arms in surprise. He looked visibly torn between not wanting to cosign Tyler’s very gay bars and not wanting to seem homophobic. He stuttered in semi-protest, “What made you want to go with that verse?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like a rebellious toddler gleefully testing a parent with weak boundaries, Tyler continued rhyming, dropping references to the men’s hook-up app Grindr and ice cream dates with guys. Sensing Flex’s discomfort, he threw in lines about the two of them hooking up and cuddling while watching \u003cem>Scooby-Doo\u003c/em>. Flex feebly yelled, “Pause!” but Tyler pressed on with a smirk.\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/gz1DBeX4fGA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/gz1DBeX4fGA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.mtv.com/news/3132836/tyler-the-creator-funkmaster-flex-freestyle-asap-rocky/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MTV\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tyler-the-creator-freestyle-863622/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Rolling Stone\u003c/em>\u003c/a> commended the seven-minute-long performance, hailing Tyler for bringing back the lost art of the completely impromptu radio freestyle. But he did something else important by loading his lyrics with gay references within the staunchly masculine, heteronormative space of Hot 97, the country’s most influential rap station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historically, Hot 97 has done a poor job handling LGBTQ+ issues. In 2013, after beloved host \u003ca href=\"https://www.gq.com/story/mister-cee-calvin-lebrun-hot-97-dj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mister Cee\u003c/a> was arrested for soliciting trans sex workers, his boss at the station, Ebro Darden, questioned him about his sexuality in an on-air interview. The conversation was supposed to be sympathetic, but Darden fixated on the binary of gay vs. straight rather than affirming the reality that there are \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43jzvb/straight-men-recall-the-first-time-they-were-attracted-to-a-trans-woman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">straight-identifying men who are attracted to trans women\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2014, Darden questioned rapper \u003ca href=\"https://www.xxlmag.com/news/2014/12/makonnen-hot-97/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">iLoveMakonnen\u003c/a>‘s interest in cosmetology, commenting in a leery tone that his hobby might make fans assume that he’s gay, thereby putting the artist in a position to defend his professed heterosexuality. (Makonnen came out as gay three years later, in 2017.) \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also in 2017, \u003ca href=\"https://www.allure.com/story/janet-mock-response-the-breakfast-club-trans-women\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Charlamagne tha God and the other hosts of Hot 97’s \u003c/a>\u003cem>Breakfast Club \u003c/em>questioned transgender author Janet Mock about her bottom surgery during a conversation about her coming-of-age memoir—a book that had nothing to do with her genitals. A few days later, \u003cem>Breakfast Club\u003c/em> hosts invited comedian Lil Duval on air. He misgendered Mock and joked that he would kill a trans woman if he were to mistakenly sleep with one—an attitude shared by murderers of trans women, who kill them in disproportionate numbers every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hot 97 hosts’ subtle cringes at LGBTQ+ people, and their lack of pushback when confronted with overt transphobia, has long sent the message that the station is a place where the queer and trans community is somewhat \u003cem>tolerated\u003c/em> but definitely not welcome. So perhaps the perfect person to trojan horse the gay agenda onto Hot 97’s airwaves is a complicated queer figure like Tyler, the Creator, who started his career as a homophobe and surprised everyone by hinting at same-sex attraction in his lyrics and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/tylerthecreator/status/587459235706900480?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweets\u003c/a> starting in 2015.\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/HmAsUQEFYGI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/HmAsUQEFYGI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Although Tyler’s lack of contrition for his past anti-gay music \u003ca href=\"https://www.gq.com/story/tyler-the-creator-flower-boy-redemption\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">continues to frustrate LGBTQ+ listeners\u003c/a>, myself included, his masculine image, gruff voice and refusal label himself as gay or bi—even though he sometimes raps about dudes—has kept him relatively insulated from discrimination within the hetero rap world. Perhaps the straight-dude fans he hooked early on with 2011’s aggressively homophobic \u003cem>Goblin\u003c/em> don’t mind that Tyler is queer because his sexuality has only been a footnote, rather than a central theme, in the albums he’s released since becoming open about liking guys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tyler’s revelation accompanied a drastic change in how he conveyed meaning in his songs. On 2017’s \u003cem>Flowerboy\u003c/em> and this year’s \u003cem>IGOR\u003c/em>, he evolved from a shock-jock first-person narrator into a composer with jazzy, soulful tastes. On \u003cem>IGOR\u003c/em> especially, his rapping became one of many instruments in vibe-y arrangements of fuzzed-out synth melodies, collages of samples and pitch-shifted vocals. Once brash and trollish, he turned into a more sincere lyricist presiding over unfolding stories with many parts, where queerness is a facet but not the main focus. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without a public apology for his past homophobia, or at least some insight into how he’s evolved, many LGBTQ+ listeners still bristle at Tyler. But a side-effect of his vague, label-less kinda-sorta coming out is his ability to continue to move freely in straight, masculine spaces where unmistakably queer artists like Big Freedia still \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59j4xn/big-freedia-drake-beyonce-essay\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">aren’t fully embraced\u003c/a>. That chameleon-like passing allows Tyler to hold court with hip-hop gatekeepers like Funk Flex—to whom he rapped about gay sex with a \u003cem>Goblin\u003c/em>-era brashness (minus the hatefulness) that pushed the boundaries of what’s accepted and \u003cem>celebrated\u003c/em> on Hot 97. The freestyle went viral, and the entire 90-minute interview has over 1.1 million views and counting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tyler, the Creator has a long way to go if he truly wants to champion the LGBTQ+ community, and he hasn’t proclaimed himself an activist. Still, on Hot 97 last week, he pulled off an important feat: using his passing privilege to normalize queerness on one of rap’s most important and conservative platforms.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "rita-forte-womens-hoops-and-america",
"title": "Rita Forte, Women's Hoops and America",
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"headTitle": "Rita Forte, Women’s Hoops and America | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">R\u003c/span>ita Forte simply wants funding for a recreational basketball league for women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m talking about 5-on-5, 12-minute games, for a block of two hours, once a week. Seems easy enough, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You’d especially think people would be behind the idea after the U.S. women’s national soccer team captured the World Cup for the fourth time, raising visibility for women’s sports and obviating the need for equal pay (highlighted by pieces such as this financial comparison between professional soccer-playing men and women, published by \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2019/07/19/what-the-u-s-womens-soccer-controversy-says-about-equal-pay/#3faa05866b50\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forbes\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, after shooting hoops with Forte, I see how it’s not that simple. Convincing folks to put a couple thousand dollars behind a women’s pickup league seems to be a bit lower on the totem pole of common concerns in this current climate. I mean, have you seen the news lately?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Trump’s racist \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1150381395078000643\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweets\u003c/a> toward four Democratic congresswomen—representatives Ayanna S. Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar—is up there with some of the wildest rhetoric I’ve ever heard from an elected official. And then you’ve got old heads in the rap game making blatantly erroneous comments, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VplqglPYGU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jermaine Dupri\u003c/a> claiming that all female rappers rap about the same subjects and then trying to cover his ass by creating some \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jermainedupri/status/1149775719750238209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1149775719750238209&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthegrio.com%2F2019%2F07%2F15%2Fjermaine-dupri-women-rap-backlash-response%2F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">So So Def Female Cypher\u003c/a> thingy. Clearly pandering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s just a couple outrageous headlines from this month. But there’s a common thread that ties together these issues, from unequal pay to unequal resources. It’s a matter of unequal respect… even here in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13861745\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13861745\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The Women's All-Ball squad!\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Women’s All B-Ball squad. Photo by Kim Woozy. \u003ccite>(Rita Forte)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">R\u003c/span>ita and I met up recently at Strawberry Creek Park in West Berkeley, shot some hoops and talked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ball was slightly overinflated, the rim was bouncy, and I made more excuses than buckets as I tried to clear my jump shot of cobwebs. Meanwhile, Rita worked on her footwork in the key and knocked down some mid-range jumpers while explaining the women’s hoops landscape, and how it ties into a larger story of women in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s not enough opportunities for women to come on the basketball court and expect there to be other women out there playing,” Rita said as she dribbled and shot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I grabbed the ball as it went through the net and tossed Rita her change, as she continued. “When you walk by the park, and you don’t see [groups of women], that means we have to organize. It doesn’t mean that we don’t want to play—because I was there. I wanted to play after high school and college, and there were others like me. But we had to organize.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rita, an Oakland native, says she came up playing ball, but a horrible knee injury in high school derailed her pro hoop dreams. Even still, she attended Williams College on a track scholarship, and along the way fell in love with DJing—that’s how I met her, on the ones and twos during the hyphy movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was around that same time, back in 2003, when she was looking for pickup games but couldn’t find any. The seed was planted, and some years later, she teamed up with Amanda Lesky and started \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/WomensAllBBall/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Women’s All B-Ball\u003c/a>. Over the past five years, they’ve run the league mostly out of pocket, with additional support from players and local businesses, including donated balls from Decathlon in Emeryville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their efforts have sometimes been scrappy, playing in gyms with unfavorable conditions or on courts where someone involved in the game is also an employee at the facility, allowing them access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From about 2015-2016, we played at Berkeley Youth Alternatives. And one of the players used to work there,” Rita said. “The ceilings are low and it’s shorter than the regular court.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s where they had their best turnout. At one point, Rita says, they had about 40 women show up for the three-hour hoop sessions, despite playing in a lackluster gym.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Rita and her cohorts have turned to \u003ca href=\"https://ifundwomen.com/projects/womens-basketball-for-all\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">crowdfunding, via Ifundwomen.com\u003c/a>. The campaign has run about a month, but they’ve currently met just over 12% of their $15,000 fundraising goal with about a week left in the campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can’t do a tournament for free,” explained Rita, as I practiced my crossover and pulled up for a shot. “You have to pay for food, referees, jerseys—we give trophies and cash prizes too,” Rita said, grabbing a rebound off my missed shot. She told me these hoopers are in their 20s and 30s, “but we want to do something for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s not just about the money, it’s about the resources, like access to gyms. Last week, Rita and I tried to meet at a YMCA in San Francisco during a scheduled women’s game, but it was canceled hours before tipoff. Rita also invited me to an Oakland Rise game, a local women’s semi-pro team. But it would’ve been hard for me to get to their home court, which is way out in Concord.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a few other pick-up leagues around the Bay Area, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/pickherupball/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pick Her Up Ball\u003c/a> at Head-Royce—but even their founder got some inspiration from Women’s All B-Ball. I wouldn’t have even known about the Head-Royce gym if it weren’t for my experience playing hoops for a rival college prep school here in the Bay Area. It turns out that Rita also went to a college prep school through the same program I did, A Better Chance, which takes kids out of the hood and puts them in private school settings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rita attended an all-girls boarding school in Southern California, and because there was a neighboring all-boys school, teenaged Rita got to compare and contrast the different institutions. She saw that with equal resources, there’s equal performance from all parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Damn, imagine a world in which everyone had equal access to resources… I… I actually can’t even imagine it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13861746\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13861746\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A few participants of the Women's All B-Ball League\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2.jpg 1979w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A few participants of the Women’s All B-Ball League. Photo by Kim Woozy \u003ccite>(Rita Forte)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">B\u003c/span>ut that’s where Rita’s head is. She long ago threw her hoop shoes over the proverbial power line, and retired her dreams of balling in the big leagues, and now she gets her competitive edge off by organizing to fill voids in society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ya’ll have the gyms, we have the formula, we can create a system,” Rita says, talking about the success her league has had in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She took a few dribbles and continued, “People hit us up all the time: when are you going to do this in Vallejo? When are you going to do this in San Rafael?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She sees the need, and isn’t bashful about taking her idea of institutionalizing support for women’s basketball on all levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just imagine, I mean, just remember I said it here first: who said Oakland can’t have the WNBA? The Oakland fans would love it. It could bring back all of the Oakland fans who haven’t seen a basketball game in years because of being priced out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, that would be tight. I can imagine Oakland showing up to watch hoops again at the arena, to hear Kehlani sing the National Anthem and enjoy Kamaiyah performing at the halftime show. I can see Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Oakland’s Mayor Libby Schaaf sitting courtside like Spike Lee and Jay-Z do at NBA games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I can also see that the WNBA has been overshadowed this summer by news of NBA free agents signing contracts, summer league highlights and Ice Cube’s Big3 league. Pro women hoopers don’t even get the respect they deserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I see why Rita’s efforts to get support haven’t won… yet.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Rita Forte simply wants funding for a recreational basketball league for women. Seems easy enough, right?",
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"title": "Rita Forte, Women's Hoops and America | KQED",
"description": "Rita Forte simply wants funding for a recreational basketball league for women. Seems easy enough, right?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">R\u003c/span>ita Forte simply wants funding for a recreational basketball league for women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m talking about 5-on-5, 12-minute games, for a block of two hours, once a week. Seems easy enough, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You’d especially think people would be behind the idea after the U.S. women’s national soccer team captured the World Cup for the fourth time, raising visibility for women’s sports and obviating the need for equal pay (highlighted by pieces such as this financial comparison between professional soccer-playing men and women, published by \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2019/07/19/what-the-u-s-womens-soccer-controversy-says-about-equal-pay/#3faa05866b50\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forbes\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, after shooting hoops with Forte, I see how it’s not that simple. Convincing folks to put a couple thousand dollars behind a women’s pickup league seems to be a bit lower on the totem pole of common concerns in this current climate. I mean, have you seen the news lately?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Trump’s racist \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1150381395078000643\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweets\u003c/a> toward four Democratic congresswomen—representatives Ayanna S. Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar—is up there with some of the wildest rhetoric I’ve ever heard from an elected official. And then you’ve got old heads in the rap game making blatantly erroneous comments, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VplqglPYGU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jermaine Dupri\u003c/a> claiming that all female rappers rap about the same subjects and then trying to cover his ass by creating some \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jermainedupri/status/1149775719750238209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1149775719750238209&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthegrio.com%2F2019%2F07%2F15%2Fjermaine-dupri-women-rap-backlash-response%2F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">So So Def Female Cypher\u003c/a> thingy. Clearly pandering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s just a couple outrageous headlines from this month. But there’s a common thread that ties together these issues, from unequal pay to unequal resources. It’s a matter of unequal respect… even here in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13861745\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13861745\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The Women's All-Ball squad!\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-1-1.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Women’s All B-Ball squad. Photo by Kim Woozy. \u003ccite>(Rita Forte)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">R\u003c/span>ita and I met up recently at Strawberry Creek Park in West Berkeley, shot some hoops and talked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ball was slightly overinflated, the rim was bouncy, and I made more excuses than buckets as I tried to clear my jump shot of cobwebs. Meanwhile, Rita worked on her footwork in the key and knocked down some mid-range jumpers while explaining the women’s hoops landscape, and how it ties into a larger story of women in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s not enough opportunities for women to come on the basketball court and expect there to be other women out there playing,” Rita said as she dribbled and shot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I grabbed the ball as it went through the net and tossed Rita her change, as she continued. “When you walk by the park, and you don’t see [groups of women], that means we have to organize. It doesn’t mean that we don’t want to play—because I was there. I wanted to play after high school and college, and there were others like me. But we had to organize.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rita, an Oakland native, says she came up playing ball, but a horrible knee injury in high school derailed her pro hoop dreams. Even still, she attended Williams College on a track scholarship, and along the way fell in love with DJing—that’s how I met her, on the ones and twos during the hyphy movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was around that same time, back in 2003, when she was looking for pickup games but couldn’t find any. The seed was planted, and some years later, she teamed up with Amanda Lesky and started \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/WomensAllBBall/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Women’s All B-Ball\u003c/a>. Over the past five years, they’ve run the league mostly out of pocket, with additional support from players and local businesses, including donated balls from Decathlon in Emeryville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their efforts have sometimes been scrappy, playing in gyms with unfavorable conditions or on courts where someone involved in the game is also an employee at the facility, allowing them access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From about 2015-2016, we played at Berkeley Youth Alternatives. And one of the players used to work there,” Rita said. “The ceilings are low and it’s shorter than the regular court.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s where they had their best turnout. At one point, Rita says, they had about 40 women show up for the three-hour hoop sessions, despite playing in a lackluster gym.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Rita and her cohorts have turned to \u003ca href=\"https://ifundwomen.com/projects/womens-basketball-for-all\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">crowdfunding, via Ifundwomen.com\u003c/a>. The campaign has run about a month, but they’ve currently met just over 12% of their $15,000 fundraising goal with about a week left in the campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can’t do a tournament for free,” explained Rita, as I practiced my crossover and pulled up for a shot. “You have to pay for food, referees, jerseys—we give trophies and cash prizes too,” Rita said, grabbing a rebound off my missed shot. She told me these hoopers are in their 20s and 30s, “but we want to do something for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s not just about the money, it’s about the resources, like access to gyms. Last week, Rita and I tried to meet at a YMCA in San Francisco during a scheduled women’s game, but it was canceled hours before tipoff. Rita also invited me to an Oakland Rise game, a local women’s semi-pro team. But it would’ve been hard for me to get to their home court, which is way out in Concord.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a few other pick-up leagues around the Bay Area, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/pickherupball/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pick Her Up Ball\u003c/a> at Head-Royce—but even their founder got some inspiration from Women’s All B-Ball. I wouldn’t have even known about the Head-Royce gym if it weren’t for my experience playing hoops for a rival college prep school here in the Bay Area. It turns out that Rita also went to a college prep school through the same program I did, A Better Chance, which takes kids out of the hood and puts them in private school settings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rita attended an all-girls boarding school in Southern California, and because there was a neighboring all-boys school, teenaged Rita got to compare and contrast the different institutions. She saw that with equal resources, there’s equal performance from all parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Damn, imagine a world in which everyone had equal access to resources… I… I actually can’t even imagine it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13861746\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13861746\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A few participants of the Women's All B-Ball League\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/0-2.jpg 1979w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A few participants of the Women’s All B-Ball League. Photo by Kim Woozy \u003ccite>(Rita Forte)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">B\u003c/span>ut that’s where Rita’s head is. She long ago threw her hoop shoes over the proverbial power line, and retired her dreams of balling in the big leagues, and now she gets her competitive edge off by organizing to fill voids in society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ya’ll have the gyms, we have the formula, we can create a system,” Rita says, talking about the success her league has had in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She took a few dribbles and continued, “People hit us up all the time: when are you going to do this in Vallejo? When are you going to do this in San Rafael?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She sees the need, and isn’t bashful about taking her idea of institutionalizing support for women’s basketball on all levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just imagine, I mean, just remember I said it here first: who said Oakland can’t have the WNBA? The Oakland fans would love it. It could bring back all of the Oakland fans who haven’t seen a basketball game in years because of being priced out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, that would be tight. I can imagine Oakland showing up to watch hoops again at the arena, to hear Kehlani sing the National Anthem and enjoy Kamaiyah performing at the halftime show. I can see Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Oakland’s Mayor Libby Schaaf sitting courtside like Spike Lee and Jay-Z do at NBA games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I can also see that the WNBA has been overshadowed this summer by news of NBA free agents signing contracts, summer league highlights and Ice Cube’s Big3 league. Pro women hoopers don’t even get the respect they deserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I see why Rita’s efforts to get support haven’t won… yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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},
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},
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"id": "bbc-world-service",
"title": "BBC World Service",
"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
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"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
}
},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
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}
},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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},
"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"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. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"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.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"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>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
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