Texas, Paper Art, Frozen 2, Heath Ledger.

Greetings, friends!

I took the week off last week because MAN, last week ate. my LUNCH. My schedule was a little different, Rosie was teething, Mac was…three…and I couldn’t muster one single brain cell to put fingers to keyboard. Can anyone relate?

But this week, the clouds have literally and figuratively parted. We’ve had two back-to-back 65 degree days in Asheville, which honestly feels like someone took the needle from Pulp Fiction and injected serotonin into my frontal lobe (I have no idea if I got any of the anatomy about the brain right, I’m just gonna roll through it. My memory of what a brain looks like all stems from this clip from that episode of Lizzie McGuire where the fake brain explodes all over Gordo. Anyone?).

Spaghetti with meatballs.

Everyone I know was talking about Texas last week, and for good reason. My family was without power a few weeks ago for 5 days when our heater (which was old) finally passed to another dimension. We were all living in our bedrooms and near the fireplace wearing winter coats, hats, and gloves inside while Asheville got two snowstorms and the temperatures dipped into the teens. What we didn’t know was that in the last days of its life, the heater was drawing in triple its normal amount of natural gas trying to heat our home, slapping us with not only the cost of replacing the heater, but a utility bill that was…painful. The whole week was one of the most challenging I’ve ever had as a parent and one day found me crying in my closet floor.

All that to say - I have a tiny, tiny idea of what these precious folks in Texas, Oklahoma, and other states were dealing with last week. We had a generator to power small space heaters in each bedroom and never lost running water. I have goosebumps sitting here trying to put myself in the shoes of a stay-at-home mom in Texas with small children, no power, no heat, and no water. Their reality puts mine to shame - and on top of everything, they’re likely being billed not hundreds, but thousands of dollars in gas and electric bills as they tried to warm their homes. If you’re able to toss a few dollars in the pot, this article from the New York Times gives a great list of boots-on-the-ground organizations in the affected areas. I donated and I hope you will, too.

Primavera.

For the last few weeks (slowly, but surely), I’ve been chipping away at these paper art creations for the folks who ordered them. At the beginning of February, my friend Molly came up with a brilliant idea. She wanted one of the Amanda Gorman pieces I was making, and suggested I offer to make Black icons for people at a cost I could donate for Black History Month. So I did! I ended up with about 30 orders and and chipping away at them. It’s been unexpectedly powerful for me to work on these people. Of course, I knew it would be special to imagine these pieces living on people’s walls and that the featured person would get to inspire them visually - what I didn’t expect was the meditative element of spending time with each person - poring over their hair, clothing, gestures - to be so moving. I’ve welled up a few times as I glued Chadwick Boseman’s arms, crossed in fists across his chest, down on a page, or as I carefully cut out Henrietta Lacks’ hairstyle and read more about her life. I am really grateful that Molly came up with this cool idea and that so many people gave me the opportunity to learn more about their heroes. I’ve got more to go - the Obamas, Kobe Bryant, and MLK Jr., to name a few - but the effort has been so special and I hope people enjoy these as much as I enjoyed making them.

Pop culture corner.

As usual, so many things to say.

Being the nostalgia addict that I am, I’m a devotee of Disney+. In scrolling around earlier this week, I came across an amazing docuseries called “Into The Unknown: The Making of Frozen 2.” I’m surprised there isn’t more buzz about this series because it is COOL AS HELL. I mean, you have to care about music, behind-the-scenes footage, animation, etc. to agree with me here, I guess - but I’m someone who always watches directors cuts and the version of the DVD (#antiquated) with commentary - so this stuff is right up my alley. I was covered in goosebumps, cried a couple of times, made Jordan watch certain sections with me. I think Frozen 2 was a largely unsuccessful movie from a plot perspective, but watch this backstory really gave it new life. Here’s the a clip of the first time the team hears Into the Unknown with the full, live orchestra. If this doesn’t give you goosebumps, go get your heart checked:

In other Disney+ news, I’d never seen Ten Things I Hate About You (I know, I know) and watched it a few days ago. HEATH. LEDGER. THOUGH. Watching the movie (which was obviously great) sent me down a wormhole of the Heath Ledger ilk, and I was truly shocked to read that he was 28 when he died. TWENTY EIGHT. I think because of his appearance in The Dark Knight being so edgy and mature, I always put him as so much older than that in my head. I was only 19 when he died, but now that I’m older than he was, 28 feels really young. Shockingly young. He was so great in everything he was ever in, and just so DREAMY. Man.

In other news, a blogger I’ve followed for more than a decade (Kathleen Barnes at carriebradshawlied.com) recently posted a list of “happiness hacks,” AKA things people do in their day to boost their happiness. I thought that was such a wonderful topic, so I wanted to share a few things I got from that post and things I do for myself: lighting a candle when I’m working; having fresh (inexpensive - like $3 at the grocery!) flowers cut in bud vases all over the house; re-potting my grocery store orchids into larger, prettier containers; having a special “end of the day” drink (non-alcoholic, usually, just a fancy La Croix and simple syrup with some fruit in it!); making a point to watch movies I’ve always wanted to see but never have (finally took on 9 to 5 this week and oh. my. gosh. 😍). Would love to hear yours if you’re up for sharing.

Finally, as usual, leaving you with a couple of follow recommendations. Two podcasts - one, The Big Picture, is a movie commentary show that is nerdy as hell, but if you like this kind of stuff, you’re welcome:

Listen to this episode from The Big Picture on Spotify. We kicked off our ranking of the top movie stars over 35 years old earlier this week. Now comes the hard part. Sean and Amanda drill down to make the tough choices. Hanks? Sandler? Streep? Denzel? Charlize?

The second is the opposite, an incredibly vapid but great to listen to while folding laundry podcast called Even the Rich. This most recent series is on the Kardashian family. It’s a great guilty pleasure. And in 2021, no pleasure is guilty. It’s just pleasure.

Listen to this episode from Even the Rich on Spotify. Once upon a time, no one had ever heard the name Kim Kardashian. But in the 15 years since the Kardashians have been on the scene, they've changed the nature of celebrity as we know it.

Happy weekend, friends. So much love to ya!

Chris Harrison, Galentine's, Framing Britney Spears.

Heavy metal.

Woooo boy, Chris Harrison really whiffed an interview with Rachel Lindsay, a former Bachelorette and the first Black lead in the franchise’s history (which is still a wild sentence to type, since that happened within the last 5 years). Lindsay is now an anchor at the Extra news desk, so she had Harrison on to talk about the season and the new allegations coming out against one of the cast members, Rachael Kirkconnell.

I won’t delve into the craziness of it all except to briefly recap: Kirkconnell, who is white, is being accused of racist behavior. Allegedly, she’s of made fun of a classmate for “liking Black guys;” went to an Old South party at her college; dressed up in as an Indigenous person at a party. Harrison came in hot, clearly upset about the idea of “cancel culture” and how harshly the Internet has dealt with Kirkconnell in the last few weeks.

Of course, like with many things, the Internet mob has gone too far in some places, digging up Kirkconnell’s parents’ voting record and declaring that because they’re Republicans, she must be a racist. So he’s not wrong (even Lindsay agreed there).

That said, the things being discussed are relevant to the moment we’re in as a country - and particularly so, because the lead of this season is Matt James, the franchise’s first Black male lead.

I think this conversation is worth watching, because in many ways, this is a case study in what not to do as a white person when discussing this sort of stuff. And by the way - I’m coming from a place of great humility in saying this, as I myself have been schooled again and again on my own mis-steps (and will 100% make more in the course of my lifetime). While he references the “love,” “respect,” and “grace” in his relationship with Lindsay and off-camera, all we see as an audience is Harrison steam-rolling a Black woman in a conversation about race.

At one point in the interview, Lindsay expresses that she thinks the reason it’s become a big deal is that Kirkconnell hasn’t spoken out or given a statement, despite having had six weeks to do so. There is a marked tonal shift, and Harrison, visibly upset, responds:

“When do you jump in? When is the time? And who is Rachel Lindsay, and who is Chris Harrison, and who is whatever ‘woke police’ person out there - who are you? And I’ve heard this a lot: ‘I think she should ______,’ ‘I think he should _____,’ - who the hell are you? Who are you that you demand this?” (5:20ish minutes)

Later in the interview, Lindsay asks if the Bachelor franchise will make a statement about any of the allegations. Again, angry*, Harrison responds:

“I don’t think it is incumbent upon the Bachelor franchise to speak out on everything that everyone wants to hear about on social media. …We’re not in the business of dealing with every problem that you have. That’s not how this works. We don’t have the time of day to handle everything that comes up on social media.” (12ish minutes)

Maybe the worst moment is when he launches into a monologue about whether “erasing history” is a good or a bad idea, then talks about how we should “give people time” to make statements:

“The ‘woke police’ is out there and this poor girl Rachael, who has just been thrown to the lions - I don’t know how you are equipped when you’ve never done this before, to be ‘woke’ enough, to be eloquent enough, to be ready to handle this. My guess is, this woman needs a little time. …We don’t give people time to have some perspective and try to drink this in for a second, see how this affects their life, and then speak on it.” (5:30ish minutes)

Certainly, people should have a moment to acknowledge what they’ve done wrong and to change some behavior. But what Harrison is missing there is the impact these things have on Black people, who are never given the luxury of “time” to deal with it. And it’s especially tone-deaf to say this to Lindsay, who had to deal with an openly racist cast member…on her own season. Someone whose social media made that clear, and who should’ve been filtered out of the pool of candidates from the beginning.

To get into the technicalities, I think what we’re seeing here is Harrison being hamstrung by the fact that he can’t discuss that Kirkconnell won the season and can’t speak on anything because, typically, contestants don’t issue any kind of statement about what has happened on the show until it’s finished airing - an unspoken rule that saves the drama for The Women Tell All or After The Final Rose, the only live shows within the season. I sense that his frustration is that she simply can’t address it, and so he’s stepping in as her proxy. He has a franchise to defend, and, to my ears, a winner to defend (why else would he be getting so worked up if Kirkconnell isn’t Matt’s final selection?).

BUT.

Even his salient points are muffled by the mis-steps he made in constantly talking over a Black woman about issues of race, making constant, sneering remarks about "woke-ness,” and an overall tonal failure. It stopped being about Kirkconnell and became about how, in having a conversation where he encourages the country to treat her with nuance and grace, Harrison exhibits neither.

The real star is here is Lindsay, who kept her cool completely, listened, and extended generosity to her friend, showing Harrison exactly what he should have been doing all along. Especially poignant to note that as a Black woman, and a would-be victim of Kirkconnell’s alleged racism, she’s the one being forced to care for the white person in the conversation.

It’s a great learning opportunity for all of us white people, and a reminder of how ugly we can look when our own overconfidence and defensiveness gets the better of us when we feel personally slighted.**

*And also if a woman had acted this angry and defensive the Internet would be treating her like she was unhinged.

It’s difficult to see how The Bachelor, a franchise that’s beloved, is going to survive when it’s already had a fair share of controversy surrounding sexual assault, racial misfires, and cyber-bullying in the extreme. It’ll have to be a major pivot, but how to do that without sacrificing the show’s core conceit? I really don’t know.

**A post-post note, updated Monday, 2/15: Chris Harrison has stepped aside from the franchise for an undisclosed amount of time. The issue is more complicated than I originally understood, and it’s clear that the thoughts Harrison expressed in this interview weren’t just flippant, but representative of more deeply held beliefs and biases that perpetuate systemic racism. He’s now issued two apologies and I hope for the best in his learning and experience moving forward as, hopefully, an advocate for anti-racism.

Indie pop.

On to happier things, like GALENTINE’S DAY ON SATURDAY!!! Y’all, Galentine’s has become a much bigger deal to me than Valentine’s. If you’re like me, Valentine’s Day is stuffed with all these weird expectations. You don’t want to be “that girl,” who expects a lot of frilly, frothy, cutesy stuff and a lot of attention, buuuut…aren’t you always slightly disappointed if you don’t at least get a bouquet of flowers? Anyone?

Jordan and I remedied this expectations death trap a while ago by declaring that Valentine’s Day was “pizza and board game night,” which is always really fun. But Galentine’s? Now that’s a holiday I can get excited about.

Galentine’s Day started on the show Parks and Recreation, where Leslie Knope, a feminist icon of joy and transformative optimism, founded February 13th as the day when we celebrate the women in our lives and what they’ve brought to the world.

I’m gathering (outdoors, distanced, and masked) on Saturday with a few of my nearest and dearest women to celebrate the joy that is female friendship. I hope you’ve got plans, even if it’s a group text where you name specifically what you love about each other.

GIRLS ARE GREAT! If you’re a Galentine reading this, I love you and I’m so glad you’re here. You bring so much to the table! Go eat a heart-shaped pizza to celebrate yourself!

Pop culture corner.

I, like many of you, watched Framing Britney Spears on Hulu this week. It’s an important watch, I think. There are so many elements that still ring true today, and so many ways the culture has shifted since the early aughts. For those of us who grew up with Britney as the queen she is, it’s chilling to see all the tabloid stuff laid bare. Especially for anyone who’s transitioned into motherhood, watching a 25-year-old new mom be hounded by paparazzi while battling postpartum depression in an extremely public way is truly devastating. The Justine Timberlake of it all and the constant conversation around her virginity was so gross - I wrote a little about that in an essay series I did on teenage sex and purity culture, which you can read here. Justice for Britney.

Part One of the RHSLC reunion was just. absolutely. everything. This franchise is giving me life. Thank you, Bravo. And thank you, Vanessa Bayer.

My follow recommendation for the week is a podcast! I know there are a lot of fellow Office fans out here. Have you listened to the Brian Baumgartner (AKA Kevin Malone) podcast “An Oral History of The Office” on Spotify? It is a fantastic listen, with interviews with every major cast members, creator, show runner, and director. It will put a lump in your throat and a smile on your face, guaranteed. Listen if only to hear Kevin not sound like Kevin.

Fifteen years ago, the American television landscape changed forever with the launch of a new series that struggled initially, but became one of television's most beloved and enduring comedies. "An Oral History of The Office" pulls back the curtain on what went into creating this unstoppable force in American popular culture and why it continues to resonate with new audiences today.

Happy weekend, friends - I hope you spend the weekend celebrating the love in your life, both big and small. I’m certainly grateful for you. ❤️

Promising Young Woman, 3, Bodies, Books, Mouth Acting.

Coffee, black.

Two things:

First, did you know that having a three-year-old is basically the same thing as living with a tiny, adorable sociopath who’s trying out their newest behavioral tricks on you to see what sticks? I can almost imagine him with a notebook and pen every night in bed, throwing ideas at the wall and imagining what will be the most enraging thing for me to encounter. Pulling his sister across the house by her sleeve? Check. Refusing to get dressed without a knock-down-drag-out, one of which ended with me straddling him to put his pants on on the floor? Check. Nearly hitting his sister in the cranium by accident with a broom. handle, being told to put it away, and calmly responding, “I will never do that.”? Check.

Of course, there are moments of pure bliss and sweetness in between all of those crazy times, but this was a week wherein I openly wept in my closet floor in front of both kids. And then I Uber Eats-d a McDonald’s biscuit. I’m not sorry, y’all. It’s survival.

Secondly, I watched Promising Young Woman this week and I can’t shake it off. It’s not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but it is really powerful and arresting in a lot of ways. The basic premise is: Cassie is a girl whose best friend Nina is sexually assaulted (and not believed) in medical school, which caused them both to drop out. She’s on a warpath to get revenge, pretending to be drunk in bars, then allowing men to take her home and attempt to take advantage of her, only to meet their fate at her hands. I was ready for kind of the Charlie’s Angels of revenge comedy, but it was much darker and more poignant than I expected. The art direction, costuming, and soundtrack are all intensely feminine, setting the gritty subject matter against a backdrop of cotton candy. It also features some of television’s favorite men in the villain role: Seth Cohen, Schmidt from New Girl, Richard Splett from Veep. If you’re of my generation, this does more than disappoint you when they all turn out to be dirtbags - it makes you examine the biases you have in mentally trying to excuse their behavior because you like them (which is, of course, exactly the point). Some images you won’t be able to forget, but it’s a movie worth seeing and seeing with someone so you can talk about it after, because that’s all you’ll want to do.

Cafe au lait.

First order of joy is that I’m operating on LEVEL 10 GRATITUDE for the basic reality of having heat inside my home. Our heater gave up the ghost on Thursday of last week, and Asheville had not one, but TWO snowstorms in the 5 days it took to get our heater fixed. We’re very fortunate to have my parents in town whose house we could escape to when needed, but there were lots of very inconvenient and very cold stretches of time in our house. I nearly Frenched the guys yesterday who came to install the new heater. They pulled up in their truck ten minutes early, probably wanting to finish their coffee…until they saw me, masked, the hood of my coat up, practically smashing my face against the glass of their windows like the murderer I am. I SWEAR I’M NOT CRAZY.

Even though we’re living in a time where we filter, Facetune, edit, and polish things before they go online, there is also this counter-movement happening of body positivity and acceptance of one’s physical appearance. When I was growing up, it was perfectly normal for blogs and magazines to rip a woman’s physical appearance (“She shouldn’t be wearing that!” “She doesn’t have the thighs for that dress.” “Too fat!” “Nose is too big!” “Greasy hair, gross!”) - and now, those very institutions have turned on a dime to celebrate women instead of criticizing them. Surely, on some level, this is Lizzo’s doing (all good things seem to eventually lead back to Lizzo). But it’s so encouraging to me the more I think about the world my daughter (and son!) will grow up in - that knocking on the way someone looks is just profoundly out of the zeitgeist as an acceptable form of media chatter. I hadn’t really thought about it until it hit me last week, and I felt a deep sense of peace. Thanks, Queen Lizzo.

Pop culture corner.

So much dadgum GOSSIP surrounding the A Rod/J Lo/Madison from Southern Charm debacle. 👀 Not touching that with a ten foot pole, but wowowowowow put some respect on J Lo’s name, please.

Book recommendations! I’m currently (and very slowly) chipping away at Barack Obama’s newest book, A Promised Land, which is super interesting and VERY easy to read. He does a great job of walking you through major political moments in a way that is not totally inside baseball; you can be at virtually any level of awareness and stay with it. I also have been picking up and putting down The Vanishing Half. Heard recently that it wasn’t worth finishing, so we’ll see. Considering re-reading Amy Poehler’s memoir Yes, Please - just feels like the time is right.

The long-awaited Britney Spears documentary from the New York Times, “Framing Britney Spears,” is coming out on Hulu today. We are huge #teamBritney fans over here, so I’m curious (and preparing myself to be depressed) about her current status to lead and govern her own life. Whatever else, it’s heartbreaking to think about someone being ripped apart by the media like she was for so many years. You can watch a little blurb about it here. As Danny Pellegrino said, “She’s given us so much.”

My two follow recommendations for the week:

The first comes to you from Twitter.com, featuring the one and only Chris Jones. Chris was a writer for Esquire and ESPN, and is an incredibly kind and hilarious storyteller. Start with this incredible story about athlete Ricky Jones and click around his Twitter feed for more inspiration. Delightful.

Back in 2004, Ricky Williams, the American football player, left the Miami Dolphins after a third strike for smoking weed and disappeared. He’d had a notable career besides, but this was the capper: He said goodbye to his coach from Hawaii and vanished off the face of the Earth.

— Chris Jones (@EnswellJones) January 29, 2021

The second is also a Twitter link (but really TikTok) where this girl, Mary Elizabeth Kelly, is doing incredible impressions that blew my mind!! It will make you happy, too.

more👄mouth acting👄 pic.twitter.com/vJTCe8pp1t

— Mary Elizabeth Kelly (@mare_kell) January 12, 2021

Happy weekend, friends. Make it count!

The first newsletter!

…and by “newsletter,” I of course mean “A thing I’m posting on my blog that will appear in your inbox!”

I miss writing regularly for my blog so much, so I decided this is the way I’m going to assault you with my thoughts. Every Friday (hopefully), I’m going to send out some random musings and we’ll see if people enjoy it. We’ll have a heavy thought, a light thought, and pop culture corner, because…well, that’s pretty much the running loop in my brain at all times. Here we go!

Deep thoughts:

I have long had a very soft spot for prison issues. I think it started when someone made me watch Dead Man Walking (when I was way too young to watch that movie) and started thinking about the death penalty, which I immediately found to be horrifying. Also - remember that Grey’s Anatomy episode where the death row inmate invites Meredith to his execution? Burned in my brain. I bet it’s burned in yours.

But what I’m learning about now goes beyond my gut reactions and into real policy - the issue of prison reform. I read a harrowing (I warned you) story this week out of my home state of Alabama that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. I’m still learning, so I don’t have anything concrete to offer except to say: if you care about this, do a little investigating into your state’s prisons and how they’re run. I was devastated to discover that Alabama’s prisons have regular and horrendous instances of violence, suicide, and terrible conditions. Whatever your feelings about whether people who commit crimes deserve ______ punishment, I hope it tugs at your heartstrings to imagine a scenario where a human being, worthy of kindness and grace, is being so mistreated that taking their own life feels like a better option. It’s not fun to learn about, but it is responsible. If you live in Alabama, you can dig more into this by poking around the SPLC website, along withe Alabama chapter of ACLU.

Lightening the mood:

AMANDA. DADGUM. GORMAN. Is anybody else still thinking about this girl?! I’ve been working on a Wall of Women for Rosie’s room (you can see the finished Michelle Obama below, downloaded from my Instagram stories) and have included a lot of women who inspire me in the lineup: Dolly Parton, Mindy Kaling, RBG, Princess Di, Sarah Jessica Parker, Padma Lakshmi - but once I saw that beautiful recitation at the inauguration, I knew Amanda had to be on the wall as well. My sweet little printer (9 years old, bless her heart) finally stopped serving me this week, so I’m waiting on a new one to forge ahead with the project, but I am actually giddy to start work with her piercing yellow coat and fabulous - like BAM! - red headband. Did you know she recently signed with IMG?! Because she’s a beautiful brilliant goddess. I’ll keep you posted with progress.

Part of Rosie’s gallery wall, soon to feature Queen Amanda Gorman!

Pop culture corner:

THERE IS SO MUCH THAT IS HAPPENING. Armie Hammer is a cannibal? Erika Girardi is a criminal?? So many franchises of Housewives are on right now that I am up to my eyeballs (Atlanta, Dallas, OC, Southern Charm, WOWZA). And while I’m complaining about too much too watch, let me complain about the fact that This is Us has had like…4 episodes in the last 8 months*. *I did not check to make sure this is accurate stat. This is my ranting corner and I will SAY WHAT I PLEASE. Like…are you back, or aren’t you?? PICK A LANE, This Is Us!

We also have to talk about Freaks and Geeks, which is on Hulu available for your streaming pleasure. I’d never seen it before and it is absolutely, positively brilliant in every way. A true television tragedy that it didn’t get picked up for more than one season. I’m going to start it over from the beginning once I finish it. It’s beautiful, relatable, not cloying, the parents actually like the kids and vice-versa, and the nerds are just…chefs kiss. Beautiful. Also, SO many people who went on to be stars! Weird to see Seth Rogen play kind of a jerk. I once dated a guy that looked young James Franco in this show - dreamboat. Also, a d-bag. And that’s because you can’t trust people who are that hot.

What else…Southern Charm, y’all. Can we talk about it for a second? It is so beyond cringey to me. I feel really weird that they’re trying to somehow balance the scales of Kathryn’s racist DM’s by including a bunch of…unpaid POC on the show? Like why aren’t we paying Madison (from Gwynn’s) or Venita as full-time cast members? Also that show is just a-damn-DRIFT without Cam. Remember that one season where Kathryn was on the up-and-up, and Naomi, Chelsea, and Dani (who should absolutely not be on our screens as much as she is) rallied around her? That was some girl power magic right there, y’all. And now, we’re…here. Watching Austen and Madison scream at each other. Sigh.

Speaking of sigh…the fact that The Office is now at Peacock is just so depressing to me. Like many of you, that show was a daily watch for our household. I went yesterday to record a clip of the “Is Hilary Swank hot?” conversation, only to find that the entirety of Season 5 is behind a paywall. Am I a moron? Is there a way around this that I haven’t discovered?

I’d like to close each of these “newsletters” with a recommendation to read/watch/follow. So here’s our first, the most screamingly wonderful thing you’ll ever see. I may really be digging myself a hole here, because I don’t know how I will ever top this master of joy.

Happy weekend, friends.

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I Voted. Here’s Why.

The truth is, I hesitated to post about the election. Things are so very polarized, and it’s so important to me that this space remain one in which people feel respected, considered, and loved. 

And as much as I fear anyone ever taking something I say personally or not the way I meant it (and I fear it a lot, like...had months of anxiety in 2018 because of it “a lot”), even stronger than the fear is a feeling in my gut that I want to make my stance in this race known. Not because I’m deluded enough to believe that anybody is waiting on pins and needles, but because when I started blogging a million years ago on a LiveJournal (shoutout to my homies from 2005 who also had a lot of feelings!), it was just a collection of my thoughts. For whatever else this blog has turned into, that’s still what it is. 

This little piece isn’t meant to convince you, or shame you if you don’t agree with me - if you’ve read my blog long enough, you (hopefully) know that that’s not my style. So not my style, in fact, that last week I published this piece to help you make your own decision regardless of my own biases - I believe in informed, smart voting, no matter what the vote being cast reflects. Instead, it’s simply to tell you what’s going on in my head and heart. 

So here’s what I think. 

When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, I wrote this piece. I try to come from a place of “calm now, panic later if and when we actually should.” It bothers me when people panic, and In response to the massive panic that took place after Trump’s election, I found myself desperately searching for steadiness and pragmatism. 

The piece is called “It’s Going To Be Okay, But First:” and was filled with data, and mourning, but ultimately, with hope. 

The thing is, as pragmatic a non-panicked person as I try to be, it was not okay. Not okay for so many people and in so many ways.

And I don’t say that because “my team” lost the 2016 election. I’m perfectly used to losing.

I’m an Auburn fan.

It’s because the man who won the election seems devoid of a moral compass, or compassion, or the other things that we hold as imperatives for our role models. 

Though Maya Angelou taught us the old chestnut, “When people show you who they are, believe them,” I still manage to find myself shocked and devastated by his lack of integrity or willingness to lead with anything that resembles dignity, or humility. There are a few lessons that my dad taught me growing up which I wrote down in a notebook and never forgot. One of them is, “Good leaders take the blame and share the credit.” I can’t remember a time that President Trump has taken the heat for making a mistake, or that he’s deflected praise (even if well-earned) to another deserving person. 

All politicians are desperate to be loved, and all of them say things that are flat out wrong or stupid every now and again. Though I loved President Obama, he made mistakes. Everyone does. Unless you’re looking to hate someone, we can all offer a bit of grace to each other in those moments. But instead of an occasional misstep or gaffe, we’ve been living for the last four years with a President who actively mis-leads the American public. Who says things that are not true, even while he knows they’re not true as he’s saying them. Can we pause and just sit with that for a moment? Because if you’re like me, you’ve had to compartmentalize that truth in order to keep your head above water and believe that better times were ahead. The idea that I haven’t watched more than a handful of Presidential addresses, press conferences, State of the Unions...all because I knew I couldn’t trust what I was hearing, from the President of the United States - that feels heavy and awful to me. 

In the midst of all those other thoughts, as I sat down to write this, I found myself thinking mostly about the unpredictability of life. 

If the insane, Michael Bay-worthy mess that is 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is certain. Life can change in a snap. When Mac was born in December of 2017, our families poured into the hospital room, armed with hot chocolate and flowers. When Rosie was born at the height of the first wave in April 2020, we introduced her to our parents over Facetime. 

Life is very precious, and though we’re resilient as hell, very fragile. And when I thought about the issues surrounding this and all elections, the term “pro-life” began to form new meaning. 

I believe in the sanctity of human and animal life. I try my very best to catch and release bugs in my house. Sometimes, I admit, they do get squished in the transfer from trapped under a glass to the yard - but the intention is there. On my best days, I’m a vegetarian, although sometimes a cheeseburger tempts me away from that position. 

But there are some positions on which I never waver. 

I am, and have always been, anti-capital punishment and anti-war. I don’t think that committing a crime means your life is less valuable; the religion I subscribe to does not teach that. I believe that children are sacred, precious miracles and deserve to be born into a world that is ready to provide basic needs for them, rather than born for the sake of upholding an obligation, then abandoned by an administration who does not believe housing is a human right. I believe in the sacredness of a mother’s life, and that while she is pregnant, she deserves affordable healthcare and nutrition. I believe in the sacredness of the lives of Black women, who are disproportionately sick and dying in childbirth because of statistically proven systemic racism and pre-existing conditions that this administration seeks to punish. 

I am “pro-life” when it comes to poor people who have been losing their homes, whose children are hungry because this administration put ego before science and failed to save them. I think the lives of immigrant families and children are just as important as my own, and I find the practice of separating children from their parents, allowing them to get sick and die in isolation from their caretakers to be not only monstrous and horrific, but grieving to the heart of the God who sees all life as having been created on a singular and pristinely valuable plane. I am pro-life when Black men and women killed by people whose job title is “law enforcement.” I am pro-200,000+ lives lost in this pandemic, an unknowable number of which may have been spared had we simply stuck to a plan and listened to people who’ve made it their life’s work to know exactly how to respond in just such a situation. 

I support the lives of children in our public education system, one of whom once asked me, “Can you get pregnant from oral sex?” because the system is failing them to the degree that they have no sex education and therefore are some of the people we’re hypothetically talking about when we discuss abortion in the abstract. I believe that the lives of women everywhere should be held up as heroic, hard-working, beautiful and strong instead of demeaned by crude language and back-room smirks, not because they’re someone’s daughter, sister, or wife, but because they are a person unto themselves. I am pro-human, animal, and plant life, destroyed by a callous disrespect for the wonders of the planet. 

And while I am personally pro-life in the traditional sense of that phrase, in that had I gotten pregnant prior to getting married, I would’ve had that baby, I also will never vote to restrict women’s access to safe, legal abortions. Women will have abortions whether or not they’re legal, and the reasons are wildly varied. I’m not a doctor, and I’ll never understand the position of a woman seeking an abortion because I’ve never lived it. And because I’ve never lived it, all I can do is vote so that medical professionals have the latitude they need to give women a service they know how to advise about and provide, to offer the necessary mental health support, and make birth control affordable. 

Abortion can be terribly upsetting to me, as it can, I imagine, for most mothers to. I feel a lump forming in my throat as I sit here typing these words because of just how potentially devastating, personal, and tender the innumerable circumstances are where an abortion is the outcome. It is complicated. But it isn’t the only thing that matters to me. 

There is no perfect candidate, no perfect person. And still, having gone on record four years ago hoping against hope that it would all shake out in the end - hoping for Donald Trump’s success and wishing him well (because what’s the alternative?), I think there is such a thing as an unacceptable answer, even when given a choice. 

When we’re asked as a country, “Who are you?” we tend to answer in shouts, most of them directed at people who don’t align with us. What if, instead, we answered in whispers in our own hearts; what if we heard “you” in the singular rather than the plural? The voting booth is a private place, and maybe we could also think of it as a holy one - a confessional of sorts. What if we attenuated the scale of our response to that question, “Who are you?” to be just big enough for one ballot, for one conscience? 

(And while we’re talking about religion: I am not confused about whether Donald Trump represents the values of radical love, caretaking, humility, service, inclusion, and justice that are exemplified in my religious tradition by an underdog from Nazareth who was born to a poor, brown, teenage single mother: he does not. I will not allow him to pander to me as a Christian person by posing with a Bible or pretending that being “pro-life” is the same as loving God. Here, he has shown me who he is, and I believe him.)

Regardless of party or precedent, I will always vote for compassion over fear-mongering, for transparency over hubris, for empathy over ego, for softness over hardness. 

Two weeks ago, I proudly cast my vote for a Biden/Harris administration. 

Decision 2020: Candidate Overview

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Just kidding, it’s incredibly stressful.

A few weeks back, I polled my Instagram followers and asked what issues they were most curious about tracking. While I received a wide range of responses, two things were clear: people are very invested, and (to my surprise) many have not made their final decision about a presidential candidate.

If you’re like me, you want fast, helpful, and (most importantly) accurate snapshots of where each candidate stands on the issues you care about. And if you’re like me in the “I want a snapshot” way, you may also be like me in the “I’m desperate for spin-free information” way. It can be really hard to figure out whether you’re encountering news or data that has been accurately represented.

With that in mind, I have done my dead-level best to bring you unbiased, opinion-free reporting from sources are tried, true, and trusted. Nothing I’ve written here came out of my own brain - it’s all sourced from dependable publications, 100% of which are linked and you can check my work.

I am not on a mission to convince you to vote for anyone in this post. Rather, I want to provide you with the best information possible so that you can decide.

First, a small note: this post only addresses the most-asked questions my Instagram followers submitted, and it’s only a bird’s-eye view of each issue. We could get deep into the weeds with every question, but that would bore you. Trust.

Let’s go!

ON EDUCATION:

What’s the problem? Education in the United States has long had its issues, and now is no exception. Aside from the new challenges introduced by the coronavirus pandemic, there are so many things at play: inadequate teacher pay, the opportunity gap in public schools, and lack of access to quality pre-K, to name a few.

Where does Joe Biden stand?

• He’s promised to triple Title 1 funding to poorer schools to help close the opportunity gap between children of color and white children.

• He’s also pledged to provide universal pre-k to 3 and 4 year olds before entering kindergarten. 

• Re: charter schools*, he hasn’t made his stance perfectly clear, to the chagrin of both the right and left. He’s been quoted as saying he’s “not a fan,” and wants to shut down for-profit charters (which make up a very small percentage of all charter schools nationwide). Progressive Democrats want him to be tougher on charter schools, and Republicans balk at his stance because they want charters to be expanded.

  • *A note: charter schools are public schools that operate outside the bounds of a school district, funded by a mix of public and private dollars. Conservatives like them because it offers parents choice; liberals tend to have questions about them because they can leave public school reform behind in favor of simply “opting out” of a traditional public education.

• A lot more, which is outlined in his incredibly dense plan - you can read about it at the link below!

Read more about Biden’s plan here.

What has Trump done/promised?

• Trump is campaigning on two primary issues: school choice and “American Exceptionalism.”

  • School choice means that he supports and wants to increase funding for charter schools.

  • American Exceptionalism refers to teaching a curriculum that paints the United States in a positive light rather than focusing on the country’s struggles or uglier stories.

• He pledged to lower or even eliminate the Department of Education’s annual budget, but has instead increased it by $5 billion. He continues to propose decreasing federal funding to public education.

• His appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education was very controversial; DeVos has no prior experience in education and was widely criticized as being out of her depth.

Read more about what Trump has done and promises to do here.

ON ABORTION:

What’s the problem? While conservatives hold the line that abortion is morally wrong under most circumstances (though some allow exceptions for rape/incest/life endangerment), progressives push back that access to abortion should be easy and inexpensive, as abortion falls under the umbrella of women’s healthcare. Abortion can make the difference between whether someone votes for a candidate or not as it’s one of the most popularly cited “single issues” among single issue voters. Note: this is to say nothing of the Supreme Court’s stance on abortion potentially shifting with the appointment of a new justice.

Where does Biden stand?

• Biden has had a varied history on abortion. Because he’s a devout Roman Catholic*, he initially began his career in politics with a distaste for abortion.

  • *One of the major positions of the Catholic church is to be pro-life across the board (ex. anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-capital punishment, anti-war, etc.).

• Over the last few decades, he’s become more left-leaning, recently and most notably disavowing the Hyde Amendment* (which he previously supported). Changing his position means that he now supports federal funding being used more broadly for abortion.

  • *The Hyde Amendment designates that federal funding for abortions may only be used in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the life of the mother.

You can read more here.

What about Trump?

• Trump, too, has had a storied history with the issue of abortion, but his views have changed in the opposite direction (from liberal to conservative). In 1999, he was quoted as saying that he was “pro-choice in every respect.”

• In January of 2020, he curried favor with the pro-life movement by becoming the first sitting president to speak at the March for Life* rally, declaring his solidarity with their cause.

  • *March For Life is the largest pro-life organization in the world, which holds a peaceful event each January and produces literature for their cause year-round.

You can read more about his attendance at the March For Life here.

ON GUN CONTROL:

What’s the issue? The United States leads the developed world in gun homicides, topping the charts at 25.2x higher than other wealthy nations. Through the rise of groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA), conservative allegiance to the idea that citizens should be allowed to own and operate weapons has only grown stronger. Democrats push back that gun ownership should be allowed, but curtailed at certain points (like banning assault rifles).

Biden says:

• He plans to ban assault rifles.

• He also supports legally removing firearms from those who’ve been deemed a threat to themselves or others.

• He supports universal background checks.

• He would institute a voluntary buy-back program wherein people in possession of assault weapons or high capacity magazines could either sell them back to the government for a profit OR register them.

Read more here.

Trump’s position:

• It’s challenging to encapsulate President Trump’s views on guns because he has changed his position while campaigning and in office.

• During his 2015 campaign, he said a potential weapons ban a “total failure,” but then shocked fellow Republicans by aligning himself with Democrats and supporting gun reform in 2018.

  • Since then, there has not been sweeping change or further support.

• In 2016, he stated that the Orlando nightclub shooting could’ve been prevented if more of the citizens inside the club had been armed. Shortly after, he swung back to the left by supporting a ban on gun purchase for people on the no-fly list. He later went silent on that position after experiencing massive blow back after the NRA, whose endorsement he’d secured, opposed that position.

• The biggest gun-related move in his administration was in 2018, when he banned bump stocks, which was considered to be a bipartisan success.

ON COVID-19 VACCINES AND PROTOCOLS:

What’s the issue? A global pandemic has swept 2020 into a chaotic mess. So far, it’s claimed the lives of over 200,000 people in the United States. Schools have reopened with mixed success, and cases are still climbing in various states due to the mass attendance of super-spreader events, wherein lots of people are in close proximity. The numbers are disproportionately skewed such that people of color and low-income Americans are dying at higher rates due to pre-existing conditions and lack of access to quality healthcare.

What’s Biden’s plan?

• Biden took on H1N1 in the Obama administration, and is already familiar with experts who’ve been advising him every 4 weeks throughout the year. This team is comprised of disease experts (think Ebola, Zika, and other flus), Health and Human Services Crisis experts, bioethicists and other experts in the field.

• His plan is to start managing at a federal level, but he’s cautious about installing a federal mask mandate because he knows the push-back would be severe and might actually make things worse.

• He does not believe in rolling out a vaccine until it’s absolutely safe to do so, but when there is a vaccine, under a Biden administration, it would be completely free to all Americans - even the uninsured.

• His plan re: K-12 schools reopening can be found here, but largely includes funding schools with proper PPE and providing safety measures for educators and students.

Read more at Politico.com.

And Trump?

• President Trump has come under fire for admitting on audio tape to Bob Woodward in a series of interviews that he knew as early as February that the virus was both deadly and airborne, but that he chose to downplay it to the American public. Critics argue that his unwillingness to acknowledge the seriousness of the virus hobbled the country’s experts from executing a plan that could have prevented tens of thousands of deaths. 

• The administration has also been criticized for interfering with information that the CDC releases to the public, insisting that they be able to “review and seek changes to” the CDC’s weekly scientific reports before those reports are reviewed by health professionals.

• The administration has prioritized re-opening schools and bolstering the economy in recent months.

• Trump has repeatedly promised a vaccine before the end of 2020, even intimating that it could be ready as soon as Election Day of this year,

  • Pfizer, the only company who could possibly deliver a vaccine before Election Day, is under enormous pressure. The scientific community is urging them to take the time they need in order comply with FDA standards; the American public desperately needs a vaccine; the electorate wants to ensure Pfizer isn’t being motivated by political timing. Read more about that here.

• His own contraction of COVID-19 has put a new frame around his response to the pandemic. At the time of this post’s publication, he’s been out of the hospital from the hospital for a little over a week and is encouraging Americans “not to let the virus dominate your life.”

• Multiple members of his administration and team of advisors have tested positive for COVID-19, tracing back to an indoor reception for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, wherein none of the attendees were following CDC protocol for mask wearing or social distancing.

  • You can see photos of the event here, where the NYT has identified people who tested positive.

LGBTQIA+ rights:

What’s the issue? Gay and transgender rights have been the topic of lots of conversation over the last four years as Democrats push to increase legislation and recommendations to expand protections under the law, while Republicans work to define gender more strictly. Note: again, this overview relates only to candidate positions, not including Supreme Court stances on LGBT issues.

What’s Biden’s plan?

• Joe Biden has had a long history of varied opinions on LGBT issues. In the 90’s, he voted to stop same-sex marriage from being federally recognized, as well as voting to stop schools from teaching “the acceptance of homosexuality.”

• As recently as 2006, he said that “marriage is between a man and a woman.”

• However, his tune has drastically changed in later years. He went on the record supporting same-sex marriage before President Obama when they were in office in 2010.

• Since then, he’s been celebrated by many leaders of the LGBTQ community for evolving, but is also criticized by progressives for not moving far enough to the left.

Read more here.

Trump’s promises, what he’s delivered, and plans for the future:

• Despite posing with a rainbow flag during his 2016 campaign, the Trump Administration has made its stance clear on gay and transgender issues, holding that they’re different from issues of “biological sex,” and therefore not protected under the current civil rights law.

  • One of the biggest headline-makers of the last four years is HB2, a bill that passed in North Carolina requiring that every citizen use the bathroom that is reflected by the gender on their driver’s license. This caused uproarious protests and led to the state of NC losing massive amounts of business. As a result of that decision, the Supreme Court denied a hearing to a transgender plaintiff.

• Trump has rolled back Obama-era guidelines issued to K-12 schools that encourage protection for transgender students and allow bathroom choice.

• Trump famously tweeted that transgender citizens could no longer serve in the military, and the Department of Defense issued an order that prevents transgender people from transitioning while serving in the military, among other restrictions.

• For a full view of the changes Trump made from Obama-era policies, check out the link below, which includes a graphic!

Read more here,.

——————

Below are some questions I received that aren’t necessarily to do with large-scale policy positions, but rather, smaller one-off’s:

Q. What positive policies has the Trump administration enacted, if any? / What are Trump’s biggest wins and losses?

WINS:

• Banning bump stocks in 2018, which you can read more about in the “gun control” section above.

• He gave members of the military the largest pay increase in a decade.

• He’s created jobs. Depending on how you count, the total “non-farm employment” has grown between 6.7 and 7 million jobs during the Trump administration.

• If you’re conservative, a major victory would be that Trump has installed hundreds of conservative judges for lifetime appointments, including Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and, likely, Amy Coney Barrett.

• Passing sentencing reform with the First Step Act.

• Killing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and helping to shrink ISIS’ presence throughout the world

  • A note here - when you hear people talk about “defeating ISIS’ caliphate,” that doesn’t mean “defeating ISIS” - “caliphate” refers to territories occupied by ISIS, and there are still thousands of ISIS fighters throughout Iraq and Syria. Still, this was a huge blow to ISIS.

LOSSES (according to the Business Insider piece I linked below):

• National race relations and the response to Charlottesville and George Floyd’s murder

• His handling of COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis

• Family separation and the deaths of migrant children at the border

• Tarnishing America’s image globally

• Withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement in 2018

• Not following through on replacing Obamacare (AKA the Affordable Care Act), though he has dismantled parts of it

• Impeachment

Sources: Politifact , The New York Times, and Business Insider.

Q. What is QAnon/Pizzagate?

According to the NYT:

“QAnon is the umbrella term for a sprawling set of internet conspiracy theories that allege, falsely, that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against Mr. Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring. QAnon followers believe that this clique includes top Democrats including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and George Soros, as well as a number of entertainers and Hollywood celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres and religious figures including Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama. Many of them also believe that, in addition to molesting children, members of this group kill and eat their victims in order to extract a life-extending chemical from their blood.” 

There’s much more in this article, but the gist is that die-hard QAnon believers get their messages on pages like Reddit from an anonymous, “high-level government source” named Q. They maintain that President Trump is eventually going to expose this invented ring of child trafficking, and that he drops little hints for them now and again to prove his faithfulness to that mission. For example, he once said offhandedly at a photo op with senior military leadership, “This is the calm before the storm.” “The Storm” is what QAnon die-hards call the moment when the big take-down will occur, so this sent everyone into a frenzy.

It’s hard to attempt to fact-check or debate a massive conspiracy theory, so I won’t. QAnon can serve a broad purpose, from simply entertaining people to serving as the bedrock for someone’s political beliefs and the way that person casts her vote. If you believe it, it seems no amount of literature can convince you otherwise. If you don’t believe it, then you’re in line with every major publication in the country.  

QAnon has been identified by the FBI as a fringe conspiracy group that motivates acts of domestic terrorism.

Read the entire NYT deep dive here.

Q. Can you explain why the Biden/Harris campaign has been getting donations from Black Lives Matter?

They aren’t. The Black Lives Matter Foundation is a 501(c)3, which makes it illegal for them to donate to any campaign. 

Q. Why does Joe Biden support defunding the police and making our country less safe?/Can you address “defund the police” and explain what it means? How will we function without a police force?

First, let’s break down “defunding the police.” This is a phrase with a lot of baggage and that has been widely misinterpreted and misunderstood; even if people don’t agree, we should all understand what it is. There are a couple of versions of what people want: defund/divest from the police, and abolish the police

The argument for DEFUND/DIVEST FROM:

• In most American cities, the police force receives a disproportionately high amount of a municipal budget.* Proponents of the defund/divest movement argue that that increased spending allows police to have latitude and funding to misbehave more often, accounting for the fact that the United States has more police shootings than most other wealthy countries .

  • *think, really disproportionate - in New York, the police budget is $6 billion. That’s more than the budget of the World Health Organization, and more than the GDP’s of 50 countries around the world.

• “Defund,” which might sound like it means “remove all funding from,” actually means “reallocate.” In other words: proponents of this movement want to take SOME, not all, police funding, and redistribute it throughout the community in places where it could help make more systemic change and lift communities out of poverty - places like schools, parks, and libraries. These improvements, supporters, argue, would re-imagine society in a way that would decrease the need for a police presence altogether.

• In its inception, defunding the police was devised as a step toward abolition; however, in this current political conversation, many people support defunding without supporting abolishing the police, so it’s become its own stance.

The argument for ABOLISH:

• Having said that, there are people who want to fully abolish the police, and that means what you think it means: to totally get rid of policing.

• Members of this movement argue that police aren’t as necessary as we have come to think they are. Their position is that policing often leads to violence, rather than preventing it, and that the roots of policing are in racist institutions*, which means that policing often has racist results.

  • *A really important caveat here: this doesn’t mean that they’re accusing all individual police officers of being racist.

• They’re not arguing that policing should simply disappear in the span of a few days; instead, they want to slowly start tapering things like gang units, continued hiring, and overtime away until policing and mass incarceration are gone.

• Reform doesn’t work. Studies show that sometimes, efforts to reform police departments through “implicit bias training” can actually make things worse in the long run, because officers resent having had to complete the training at all.

• There’s also no data that shows that accountability measures, like body cams, have any positive effect on police behavior.

• When asked about what happens when there is violent crime, proponents of abolishing the police will cite the fact that police spend a very, very small portion of their time on duty responding to violent crime, and a much larger portion responding to traffic issues, non-criminal calls, interactions with the mentally ill, and drug-related activity or overdoses. When a call is placed to 911 for a non-violent reason, a paramedic, mental health professional, or other crisis team member would be dispatched instead of a police officer. (You can read more about that at this link, which is also the source of the graphic below. For violent calls, violence interrupters and mental health professionals would be called upon to help de-escalate violent situations.

Neither of these concepts are new and both have been around for decades, especially among Black feminist activists. Now, they’ve come into the mainstream as a response to the overwhelming racial unrest that arose from the George Floyd murder. For more, check out this article, or this one!

Biden’s position?

• Joe Biden doesn’t support ANY of these things, despite what Trump has said and to the great chagrin of many progressive Democrats who were hoping for a more liberal candidate. Just to be clear, again: Joe Biden does not support defunding the police.

• You can read more about Biden’s position (and what Trump has proposed) in this article.

Graphic courtesy of the New York Times.

Q. What were Trump’s border wall goals vs. progress made? What about MS-13?

This from the Washington Post:

“Trump has promised to build at least 500 miles of new fencing by early next year, and his administration has completed about 110 miles so far. To meet the president’s targets, crews will need to add about 30 linear miles of barrier per month throughout 2020, more than double the current pace of construction.”

• As far as the notorious gang MS-13 is concerned, Trump’s commentary is a mixed bag of truth and fiction. Here’s a great, short article (though it is a couple of years old) here that details the five biggest things he gets wrong (including that MS-13 is not out to foil immigration law, nor are they posing as “fake families” at the border).

• But MS-13 is certainly real and dangerous, and preys on immigrants and the children of immigrants (not the entire country at large). You can read more in detail about the heartbreaking violence in that same piece, where the author argues that if we’re going to make policy changes, we first have to be rooted in fact. 

• There’s an incredibly fascinating article, complete with graphics (like the one below) and tons of data, at this link.

Graphic from the Washington Post.

Q. Is Joe Biden a socialist or a “puppet of the socialist left?”

• No. The far-left doesn’t think he’s liberal enough.

Q. I heard Donald Trump talking about what he’s done for Black people. So…what has he done for Black people?

Trump claimed recently that he’s done “more for Black Americans than any other president, maybe excluding Lincoln.” Claiming that he’s done more for Black people than Lincoln or Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act, is incorrect.

What Trump is most likely referring to are four things: reforming sentences in federal prisons, creating “opportunity zones,” a low unemployment rate among Black people, and increasing funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Here’s a brief breakdown on each of those things: 

1. Opportunity zones:

• Basically, an “opportunity zone” is a type of tax break that incentivizes wealthy investors to pour funds into poor communities. By investing in an opportunity zone, they get to defer taxes on capital gains. If the properties they invest in or “flip” increase in value over a set period of time, the investor doesn’t have to pay any taxes on that property.

• The the way opportunity zones are drawn, affluent neighborhoods are included alongside struggling neighborhoods (for example, all of Puerto Rico is a zone - even resorts). The people who put this plan together designed it that way so that wealthier neighborhoods would attract investors; however, most investors are only putting money into those wealthy neighborhoods, not the lower income neighborhoods the plan was designed to help. The idea that this tax break has helped lift Black neighborhoods out of poverty is incorrect.

2. Low unemployment rates among Black Americans:

• This is true - but it’s the result of policies that predated the Trump administration and actually began in the Obama administration. Other important factors are that Black home ownership is still low, and Black unemployment was actually on the rise before the pandemic began. 

3. Increasing funding for HBCU’s:

• Congress actually decides how much money these schools receive, and the program that doles it out was started in the 60’s. Trump taking credit for it as a win doesn’t really track.

4. Federal prison sentencing reform:

• Federal prison sentencing reform: This is pretty much true. His support breathed life back into a bill that had been kind of in the basement of Congress since its proposal in 2015, when it was much more expansive than it ultimately became. 

Read the NYT fact-check of that statement, here.

Okay, friends! WHEW - that’s it! I am 100% positive that there are things I missed, and as always, I’m open to corrections where I’ve inevitably made typos or errors. But I do want to reiterate that I worked hard to ensure it was centrist, accurate, and properly sourced. I hope this novel has been helpful to somebody in parsing through the many things that can impact how you vote.

Be well, wear a mask, and pretty please - vote, vote, VOTE!