It’s the Democratic caucuses in Iowa. The first night votes (or something like them) get cast. Why am I hearing from Trump’s campaign spokesperson, and then Mike Bloomberg’s, who is not even competing there? Argh and double argh!
ETA: Now they’re amplifying Trump campaign ratfucking. FFS.
As you may or probably don’t know, last February for Black History Month I resolved to read only books by black authors. I read Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, Ibi Zoboi’s American Street, Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom, and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, as well as extensive selections of James Baldwin’s non-fiction writings, including The Fire Next Time.
It was, as you might expect, a very affecting experience. Each of the books, in its way, dealt explicitly with American racism, and the overall effect was so profound I spent a whole writer’s retreat writing something my dear friend and occasional sensitivity reader SB gave me a nice attaboy for attempting before very gently and sensibly steering me back toward my own wheelhouse. I say that not to reprise the attaboy, but to (hopefully) illustrate how moving an experience it was to connect with those voices.
Suffice to say, I’m doing it again this month. In fact, I started a little early, since I finished the last book I was reading (Tamsyn Muir’s delightful and deservedly praised Gideon the Ninth) a couple of days before February. I am currently reading Victor LaValle’s award-winning The Changeling, and though I’m not that far into it, I’m enjoying the shit out of it so far, and would recommend it to anyone on the strength of what I’ve read so far and his previous work.
I challenge you to join me. Especially if you’re not someone who reads black authors that much. It doesn’t have to be all month, doesn’t have to be work relating to American racism or even American blackness. It doesn’t have to be fiction or non-fiction. It can be whatever you like. Just read one book by a black author.
You’ll be glad you did.
In the wake of the DNC (“Stepping on our own dicks since 1972!”) changing debate qualifications so Mike Bloomberg gets his moment to shine after almost all the candidates of color have dropped/been forced out — and in these first days of Black History Month — this piece at The Root by Terrell Jermaine Starr resonates even more:
“Basically, Iowa allows white men to shoot their shot when they really shouldn’t even think about trying.
But it does something else far worse: kill the campaigns of non-white candidates. Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker were two of the most resume-ready candidates for president in recent memory and their melanin was icing on the cake. However, neither of them were able to sustain their candidacies, which depended on prioritizing the black voters who were supposed to buoy their campaigns. Julián Castro, a Latino and former Housing and Urban Development secretary who championed racial justice more than any other person on the trail, dropped out in December.
[…]
One has to wonder if any of these candidates would still be in the race if, say, South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi were the first primary states, where conversations around reproductive rights, infant mortality rates and combating racism would be at the top of black voters’ minds. Invariably, candidates would have to center black issues in the early stages of their campaigns and national media would have to shape coverage around these issues because it’s simply too many negroes in those states not to.
[…]
‘Iowa is considered ‘real America’ by far too many journalists and politicians where heartland, Middle America and rural are all proxies for whiteness and centering white political priorities,” Greer said. “And then New Hampshire just one week later presents a lopsided account of the needs, wants, and values of the entire party.’”
https://www.theroot.com/iowa-becky-the-hawkeye-state-is-gentrifying-black-peop-1841387214
But we’ll kill democracy and the planet the human race lives on before we’ll give up being on top.
From Pajiba:
“Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you? Have you f**king forgot who the real enemy is?
People may or may not have noticed it, but whenever I write about Trump these days, I always use a photo of him from the backside, because I don’t want to look at the man’s face, and I don’t want to foist his face on all of you. But I think some people may have forgotten who the goddamn enemy is, so let me remind you real quick.”
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