Antiracist Accountability: Belated Holiday Gifts from Black-Owned Businesses

Hello again!

After holding myself accountable for inconsistencies in my completion of these posts this year, I want to offer some further repairs with a quick additional Antiracist Accountability post before 2021 is over!

For anyone who has yet to complete all their gift shopping this holiday season, I would like to offer a second chapter to February's post encouraging shopping at bookstores owned and run by Black businesspeople.  As you may remember, part of the rationale for the original post was that our purchases can help buffer small, Black people-owned businesses against the deleterious financial impact of the pandemic.  Furthermore, choosing to shop at Black-owned (and more generally People of Color-owned) businesses can help hone the infinite range of gift options while also allowing us to enact our antiracist values.

Today, I'm uplifting one particular subset of Black-owned businesses for a couple of additional reasons:

• These businesses sell products that are finely hand-crafted, which means your purchases support skilled Black artisans,
• Because the products at these stores are made in-house, they are all unique,
• These products can be used for a variety of self-care and space beautification purposes through their strong sensory engagement and aesthetic appeal, and last but not least,
• The products sold at these businesses are excellent gifts both for people whose tastes you know very well, but also for people for whom you want to get something nice but who you maybe don't know super well--an unusual range of possible happy gift recipients!

I therefore recommend to you: Black-owned candle companies!

You can readily find Black-owned candlemakers by searching online, but I'd love to offer some specific suggestions of stores whose products I've purchased for myself and others.  They include:

Named for the owner's grandparents home, 228 Grant Street Candle Company is a Baltimore-based soy candle company whose collection "features scents for every mood and every season. Our curated fragrance profiles are inspired by nature and travel."  The beautiful aesthetic of their candles is simple, elegant, and timeless.

Short for Knits, Soy, and Metal, KSM Candle Company is another Baltimore-based shop that features handmade soy candles as well as other home goods, body products, and treats, like jewelry, books, and DIY candle making kits.

Lotta Scents Candle Company is based in Phoenix, Arizona.  They sell hand-poured coconut candles and wax melts through their Etsy store, including intriguingly-titled aromas like "The Gentleman", "Gray Sweatpants", "Reset", and "Unwind".

Happy candle shopping!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability Post: Accountability

Hey everyone,

I didn't write an Antiracist Accountability post last month.  

I'm not happy about that.  

In reflecting on why I didn't follow through with my goal to write at least one such post a month, I'm torn: 

On the one hand, as I shared in my Thanksgiving post last month, I've been dealing with some major revelations and doing some deep emotional work in the last few months.  It has been painful and draining, and it's depleted my ability to look outside myself as much as I would normally want to or be able to.  In the little tracts of free time when I haven't been working or with my Child, I've leaned hard on people who are close to me, I've reduced my consumption of the news to almost nothing, and I've relied heavily on comforting reruns and light, easy reality TV because I'm sad and exhausted.  I have to acknowledge that I have simply not had the emotional strength to engage in work beyond the limited scope of my self, while also acknowledging that I'm frustrated with and somewhat unforgiving toward my current limitations.

On the other hand, this turtling is self-protective in the hopes of ultimately being restorative.  If I'm not being overly self-excusing and if I'm in fact being accurately optimistic, I'm hoping that the work I'm doing will actually empower me to be a better antiracist ally in the long-term.  In other areas of my life, like my clinical work and my teaching, there have already been ways in which I've been more available to people and responsibilities because of the emotional work I've been doing and the healthier boundaries I've set.

And honestly, there have been many moments in my antiracist process when I've seen striking parallels between the psychological and interpersonal dynamics that perpetuate and perpetrate racism and the interpersonal patterns I'm working to extricate myself from.  The healthier I become and the more skilled I get at addressing these patterns in my life, the more effective I hope to become as a sustainable advocate and ally.

Still, I struggle with the way my white privilege manifests in this phase of my life: that I have the choice to check out of focused, concerted antiracism and to take my eye off the ways racism is still at work today.  While racism harms every corner of society and every person, no matter their race, it is easier for a white person to disengage from that truth and therefore be less responsive to the urgent need for persistent, active antiracist work.

Ultimately, each of these analyses of my current state can all be true at the same time.  I'm exhausted.  I'm healing.  I am not operating at my full strength, and my wounds must be attended to, even if they are inconvenient.  That will mean that I cannot give myself as fully to other things that matter to me.  That will mean I ask those things for grace, patience, and forgiveness, even as I struggle to offer that to myself and even as I know the larger struggle continues.  That will mean that even my attempts to heal transact with my privilege in ways that are uncomfortable and problematic.  Which means I must do my best to continue to hold myself accountable through it all, as best I can.

Here's hoping for more strength, clarity, and change in the new year for all of us.

{Heart}

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! 2021 Edition

Hi friends,

I hope you all enjoyed a happy, healthy holiday last week.  

Husband, Child, and I were really lucky this year: we got to spend the holiday with some of our family, because of vaccines, pre-travel and home testing, and honest communication around precautions.  The time together was immeasurably precious in no small part because my Child got to meet one aunt and uncle for the first time, and he got to see my brother and his new wife for the first time since before the pandemic.  I have wished for this time together for almost two years, and I am so grateful it could actually happen.

This is therefore a particularly timely opportunity to reflect upon the things for which I am grateful.

(And now I'm going to be cryptic for a moment for a bunch of legitimate reasons, so vaguery ahoy.)  

Looking back over the entire year this has also been an inconceivably emotionally challenging year for me--and I don't say that lightly after how difficult last year was, when I wasn't even confident about writing a post on gratitude because things seemed so bleak.  In the past year, the pandemic has honed and clarified some patterns in parts of my life to the point that they have required my attention, introspection and deep, committed, persistent labor.  I've had moments of revelation that have been excruciating.  It has been truly humbling how overwhelmed and destabilized I've felt at those times; it felt like the world was bending around me to the point of being unrecognizable.  As my head swam and my heart reeled, I finally had to accept that my narrative of these parts of my world was not true, was no longer serving me, and that it never had.

With that said, this year I am thankful for:

• Seeing things more clearly now, and accepting clarifying truths about my life that earlier versions of myself could not.  As I let go of my denial, I am liberated in ways I could not have previously appreciated.  I feel lighter, more grounded, and more available to the relationships that make me feel loved and happy.  
• Having relationships to turn and return to.  I am so fortunate and grateful that so many people were waiting for me once I finally woke up, like:
• My Husband, my refuge and stalwart ally.
• My Child, who brings me limitless joy just by existing.
• My best friend, who loves me generously and in ways I still don't know how to love myself.
• The friends and family, many of whom have shown up for me, almost miraculously, exactly when I needed them and have been lighting my way to greater health and happiness when I have had no idea how to find it myself.
• The friends and family who have simply reached out to check on me because they know I've been in pain.
• My hard-won understanding that love is not only a feeling, it's actions.  If a person is not capable of loving you through consistent action, their love serves them and not you.

I'm also thankful for:

• Gorgeous beaches with laughing gulls overhead and little birds that run in the surf.  My Child screaming with thrilled joy on sight of the giant, rolling ocean.
• Walks through every corner my infinitely beautiful neighborhood as the seasons change.
• The community pool just down the street with a baby pool and almost no one using it in the middle of the day on work days, where my Child could roam freely and start learning how to play in water bigger than a bathtub.
• Storm King.

• Reading board books with my Child.
• Returning to the classroom with a new set of kind, thoughtful students.
• My cats, my dog, and my sweet little bird.
• Anyone who laughs at my jokes.  There are few better feelings.
• Halloween, including spooky movies, spooky books, and jack-o'-lanterns.
• Discovering new music and, per my Child's request, listening to it over and over.
• Garbage television that is actually incredibly humanizing and also a much-needed diversion.
• Reruns of my beloved favorite show, even when the series finale still makes me sob.
• Despite another impossible pandemic year almost coming to a close, still managing to be on track to watch at least 52 movies this year.
• The future.
• Anyone who reads this blog.

No matter how hard this year has been, I hope it has also contained things that have given you comfort, purpose, and hope for tomorrow.

{Heart}

A Successful Trek Through "Dune"

 Hi team,

Today I'll write a quick post about the new "Dune" (2021) movie.

I was incredulous about this new version of the science fiction classic, given that the source material is notoriously difficult to successfully transition into film.  I was also put off by the 2 hours and 35 minutes runtime, not wanting to sink that kind of time into a movie that might not pay off.  However, I heard enough positive responses from multiple people that I ultimately decided to give it a try.

Honestly, this is a pretty great movie!  The performances are great; while everyone is deeply watchable and wields gravitas commensurate with this rich and meaty story, Rebecca Ferguson often holds the emotional heart of the movie as Lady Jessica.  The set design is absolutely arresting and engrossing, including the vast, empty brutalist architecture that houses much of the film complemented by the even more vast and brutal landscape of Arrakis.  Hans Zimmer's (as usual) moody, bleak score is an excellent partner to the scenery.  Most impressively, the pace is neither plodding and overly perseverative nor noisily frenetic in a scrambling attempt to fill the time, which means spending slightly over 2 1/2 hours with this film feels like time completely well-spent.

I gave it a 4.5.

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: Two Inspiring Black Psychologists

Hey friends,

Despite being very down to the wire this month, I want to squeeze in an Antiracist Accountability post.  This one will piggyback on last month's post on how psychological research transacts with race.

So here we go!

This month, I want to highlight the trailblazing and revolutionary impact of two Black psychologists: Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth Clark.

The Clarks may best be remembered for the pivotal role their research played in the 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision in the Supreme Court, where they demonstrated that, at a very young age, Black children internalized harmful and racist stereotypes under-valuing and demeaning Black people compared to white people.  This was demonstrated in part through their series of studies evaluating Black children's preferences for and attitudes toward white and Black dolls.

Photo credit: Gordon Parks.

While their legal impact was perhaps most felt through that Supreme Court decision, the Clarks were expert witnesses in several earlier trials over school desegregation.

The Drs. Clark earned their bachelor's degrees at Howard University before becoming the first Black people to earn doctorates in psychology from Columbia University.  Kenneth Clark later became the first Black tenured full professor at the City College of New York and the first Black person to be president of the American Psychological Association.

As if all of these contributions and accomplishments weren't enough, almost a decade before their seminal Supreme Court testimony, Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth Clark opened the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem in 1946.  As a sibling institution to the Lafargue Clinic, which primarily served Black adults in Harlem, the Northside Center served the community's children.

Long may they be remembered.

{Heart}

A Halloween Sampler for All Souls: 2021 Edition!

 Halloooo!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I am very behind in writing this month, so I will get straight to it: It is time for a medley of the scary films I've watched in the last year, in the hopes of offering some great, fun, and spooky options for anyone looking to punctuate the holiday with a creepy movie.

As always, each of the following films will be accompanied by the usual 1 - 5 rating scale for overall quality, as well as a scary/intense rating of 1 - 5 exclamation points, to be interpreted as follows:

! = not at all scary 

!!!!! = so scary!

This year's movies are:

"The Vast of Night" (2019)

Rating: 3.5 Scary Rating: !!!!

This year's scary scifi entry!  With seemingly era-consistent dialogue and slang reminiscent of 2005's "Brick", "The Vast of Night" transports you back to 1950s New Mexico in what is an effectively creepy UFO-chasing film.  While in some ways I found the film as a film a bit disappointing, its increasingly frantic pursuit of the mystery behind bizarre radio and phone line disruptions coupled with some memorably chilling moments make it worth watching.

"His House" (2020)

Rating: 5 Scary Rating: !!!!!

I considered "His House" a close best movie runner up in last year's end-of-year movie round-up, and I stand by that strong endorsement of this riveting, frightening, and ultimately devastating movie.  It is exquisite in its gut-wrenching, multi-tiered horror.  It is simultaneously a righteous examination of the systemic dehumanization of immigrants, a mercilessly unflinching study of the egregious acts people can commit when they have to fight tooth and nail for a chance at survival, and a sincerely terrifying supernatural and haunted house story.  This one is definitely the strongest of this year's Halloween medley offerings!

"Winchester" (2018)

Rating: 4 Scary Rating: !!!

I am so. mad. that this movie has a catastrophically low 13% on Rotten Tomatoes.  I sincerely don't know what the almost universal panning is about.  I'm not going to pretend this is among the greatest scary movies of all time, but it is definitely a competent and solidly entertaining haunted house story.  It includes strong performances, a basis in a real place and real events, and a passable attempt at a deeper psychological discussion of the nature of grief.  Maybe I'm just biased by the inclusion of a psychologist as one of the main characters, but I had a lot of fun watching this movie.  It deserves a second chance.

"Black Narcissus" (1947)

Rating: 3.5 Scary Rating: !!!

This year's throw-backy entry!  I'm not sure how much "Black Narcissus" was originally intended to be a horror movie, but it certainly reads that way today: a small cohort of nuns are sent far into the mountains in a foreign land where they grapple with extreme isolation in an unforgiving terrain, fighting (at times unsuccessfully) the encroaching madness that results.  Intriguingly, this is ultimately a movie about the dangers of colonialism--to the colonizers.  

A note: As you might expect, the portrayal of Indian people in this film is at best dated and at worst super problematic.

"The Nun" (2018)

Rating: 1 Scary Rating: !!

At the recommendation of a dear friend, Husband and I have been working our way through "The Conjuring" series of horror movies in chronological order.  This seems like a worthwhile endeavor, especially because I really liked "The Conjuring" (2013) when I saw it in theaters.  Obediently following directions, we began with "The Nun"... 

...and it was pretty awful.  Perhaps ironically, it seems like it could have been an interesting, more supernatural version of "Black Narcissus", but instead it is too ridiculous to be sincerely scary.  Truly, it makes some utterly bizarre choices.  For example:

• Why is there a French guy randomly in the middle of 1950s Romania?  
• Why is some of the signage in English?  
• Why do the priest and novice nun sent to investigate the suspicious death of a nun at this spooky convent only seem to conduct their investigation at night?
• Why do the aforementioned priest and novice seem NOT to understand that they do NOT have to follow every spooky apparition they see?
• Are we seriously meant to believe that bombardment during World War II is enough to unleash basically literally the devil, that the Catholic church knew that World War II bombardment unleashed basically literally the devil, and all they did to contain basically literally the devil was to have a small isolated convent deal with it by praying 24/7??
• Why is demon hellspawn able to touch someone literally wearing the blood of Christ?  
• How is the blood of Christ still liquid in the 1950s???  

The questions all but blot out the potential scare factor of this movie.  If you're in the mood for some real camp, this is your movie.

Happy spooky movie watching!  I wish you a wonderful Halloween filled with exactly as much creepiness as your heart desires!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: When Research Goes Wrong

 Hey friends,

I can't remember if I've mentioned this already, but one of the several professional roles I currently inhabit is the role of professor.  For the last few years, I have taught a course once a year that I got to write from scratch.  It's such an incredible opportunity that is a ton of work, but is also very rewarding.

One of the reasons it's so rewarding is I get to include whatever I want (within reason, of course--"reason" being "content that is technically relevant to the major themes of the course").  This year, one of the tweaks I've made to the course contents is to increase my emphasis on ways in which students planning to pursue careers in psychology need to develop their research evaluation skills, including evaluating who is missing and what is being missed in the research base.

With that in mind, I'd love to share one example of a study that really got it wrong, the consequences thereof, and the research that subsequently got it right.

In 1992, a study by researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley of the University of Kansas was published that claimed that young children from low socioeconomic status families were exposed to 30 million fewer words by age 3 than their counterparts in wealthier, higher SES families.

This study had a massive impact on research and academic institutions.  It was cited over 8,000 times in other articles, and was a clarion call to concerned educators, administrators, and families nationwide.  The researchers claimed their findings that lower SES children were exposed to less language could be directly linked to poorer academic outcomes later in childhood, including overall readiness to learn in school and specific skills like recognizing letters and numbers.

The trouble is, there were a multitude of flaws in the original study.  It had a tiny sample (under 50 families).  The study's small sample clearly conflated socioeconomic status with race and ethnicity: All of the “welfare families” (the researchers' term) were Black, 7 of the 10 of working class families were Black, and 9 of the 10 professional families were white.  Despite the possibly complicating factor of race and ethnicity, the researchers failed to examine the role of race in the outcomes of their study.

Credit: https://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2015/11/is-the-30-million-word-gap-a-stat-we-should-be-using/

And yet, that factor was very likely impactful, given the study's methods: Researchers physically went to families' homes with a tape recorder, stopwatch, and clipboard, spending 1 hour per month for 2 years observing young children interacting with their families.   These researchers, most of whom were white, clearly did not take into consideration how being observed in person would actively transact with race and class, including how privileged families might take being observed as a cue to perform, while underprivileged families might become more inhibited under the watchful gaze of a stranger.

Upon replication years later with more rigorous research protocols, it has been estimated that the actual "word gap" is 4 million words, meaning that children from lower SES families are exposed to 4 million fewer words by age 4 years compared to children from higher SES family--quite the shortfall compared to the original estimate.

So what are the lingering questions and consequences of this research?

The biggest question to me is: Prompted by the original research, who were we holding accountable for closing the "word gap", and why?  It would be so easy to hold lower SES families accountable for the perceived shortfall in language to which their children are exposed.  But what this facile conclusion overlooks is the opportunity to examine what public schooling is really meant to accomplish, and who it is really meant to serve.

The pedagogical practices of public schooling, as implemented in the United States, are rooted in the dominant culture.  Perhaps the reason the higher SES kids in the original study seemed to perform better in their later academic lives is that they were already at a profound advantage: many of them were being raised in the dominant culture that their future educations were fine-tuned to resonate with.  By comparison, students not raised in the dominant culture are at a disadvantage--in a sometimes literal sense, they are learning more than one language as they enter the public school system.  The racial and socioeconomic achievement gap in American schools is very real, but the responsibility for that arguably lies more with academic institutions themselves than with students and their families.  Schools should ensure their curricula are equally accessible to all of the students they serve rather than demanding that underprivileged students struggle with the inequitably distributed burden of acculturating themselves to their schools.

At its worst, the original research could have been, and likely was, used to perpetuate already-existing societal messages that poor families and Black families are inherently inferior to wealthy, white families and that their inferiority is their problem to solve, rather than recognizing that the education system and academic research institutions are active creators of and contributors to discrepancies in achievement.  Because of the immense power those institutions wield, they bear much of the responsibility for neutralizing those discrepancies.

To learn more about this--as I originally did!--check out Code Switch's excellent episode on this topic!

{Heart}

I Just Can't Turn the Ignition on "Cars"

 Oh hi,

I'm going to challenge myself to write an increasingly rare actually brief movie review.  Starting now!

I watched Pixar's "Cars" (2006), and it was fine.  I was in the mood for something gentle and relatively unchallenging, and this movie definitely delivered.  That said, it didn't do much for me--and we know that I'm fine with making a film analysis mountain out of a cinematic molehill.  

I must acknowledge that this is likely in no small part because this film isn't really for me: I'm not into cars, I'm even less into NASCAR and motor racing in general, and given my life-long pattern of hopping from city to city the plucky-yet-fading small town narrative simply doesn't resonate with me.  I'm therefore in less of a position to criticize "Cars" because I'm not its target market, and a sizable caveat is needed alongside my opinion on this movie.

With that caveat stated, I found the film's arc surprisingly flimsy and predictable.  I typically love Pixar for its thoughtfulness and heart, but "Cars" truly fell flat.  Ultimately, there's just no way around the fact that I found this to be a pretty disappointing and lackluster movie.  I therefore gave it a 2.

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: #DiversifyYourFeed Tridux

Hey team,

I'm writing a quick Antiracist Accountability post this month while I have some longer-form ideas brewing for future months.  So for now: another #DiversifyYourFeed happy update!

Last month, @AlexisNikole was featured in a New York Times article!!!

The article discusses the history of Black foragers throughout American history, and it is informative and wonderful!  You can read it here!

AND you can hear some more of her wisdom check out her take-down of some ignorant nonsense people were spouting in the comments on the article here!

Congratulations, best wishes, and happy foraging to Alexis!

{Heart}

Revisiting "The Wolf of Wall Street"

Hi there everybody,

Whilst I'm in the recently-established habit of rewatching a bunch of movies I've seen before, I've tacked on "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013).

Longtime friends of the blog will remember that I've already written a post about this film.  Now having rewatched it, it's striking that I wrote my first-ever Snap Judgment about it, thereby introducing that post format as a way to write a relatively (but not really all that) brief take on a movie right after watching it.  "Maybe not the most thorough reflection or analysis or anything," I wrote, "but a gut reaction immediately post viewing."

Reconsidering this movie over seven years after I first saw it has led me to also reconsider the gusto with which I rated it a 5, while also wrestling with what new rating to give it.  Looking at the five bullet points with which I highlighted "Wolf of Wall Street" the first time around might help me finally settle on an updated appraisal.  So here goes:

• Remain unintimidated by the runtime.

I still stand behind this.  Yes, almost three hours a long time to watch a movie, but it also moves along at a steady clip and is packed with content, so it hardly feels like a dangerously-close-to-"Titanic" (1997)-length movie.

• Because for example: people move all sorts of ways and it's AMAZING.

While DiCaprio's wedding dancing is still astonishing, the quaalude chase scene didn't land quite so hilariously this time--perhaps because I've lost ever more patience for the unencumbered worship of self-destruction that comprises the majority of the runtime in movies like this.  Sure, there's a brief comeuppance at some point in most films about drug addled scam artists, but those 5-10 minutes of consequences increasingly don't do enough to counterbalance the celebration of substance abuse that they ultimately are.

There's also plenty of other physical action in this film that doesn't sit well--like DiCaprio's Jordan Belfort gut punching his wife Naomi (played by Margot Robbie) before terrifyingly kidnapping their young daughter and ramming his car into a gate with the child in the seat next to him.  Or the just-barely-consensual last time Belfort and Naomi have sex before she ends their marriage.  Or earlier on, when Naomi seems to be gaining the upper hand by setting Lysistrata-esque limits on Belfort's wanton cheating by planting her stiletto firmly on his face, only to be humiliated by the revelation that their in-house body guards can see her from a nanny cam Jordan has planted in their child's room without her knowledge.  Or all of the scenes of myriad sex workers with the dehumanizing, houndish denizens of Belfort's fraudulent firm.  The uncontested misogyny throughout the movie is exhausting.

• Speaking of which: Cinematography WIN!

I mean, sure?  There are certainly several scenes that take on a Where's Waldo? aesthetic because they are so jam-packed with riotous debauch.  As I previously noted, Director Martin Scorsese certainly knows how to use a camera to tell a story.  Those party scenes aside, though, this aspect of the film just didn't hit me the way it did the first time around.

• Jonah Hill!  Matthew McConaughey!  Jon Bernthal!

Yes, but also I can't believe I didn't mention the electric Margot Robbie??  The woman makes a deep Long Island accent sound sexy for Christsakes.

This movie admittedly has a great cast.  Cristin Milioti has such raw yet resigned vulnerability.  Jean Dujardin is so fun as a smug and pretentious Swiss banker!  Kyle Chandler is great as the all-American boy scout-y FBI agent who still knows how to play hardball.

• Yes there is a ton of crazy debauchery, but there's also a healthy and very well-executed bit of pathos.

Yeah.... no.  I just can't get behind that sentiment at all anymore.  

Again, maybe I've just lost patience with these kinds of movies.  Maybe it's the fact that this film is based on real events.  Maybe it's the fact that Scorsese gave the actual Jordan Belfort a freaking cameo in this movie (ew).  But watching "Wolf of Wall Street" again makes it excruciatingly clear that this film doesn't remotely dance on the line between exalting and maligning the wrongdoings and weaknesses of its main character--it takes a cocaine-and-booze-coated flying leap over that line into almost unadulterated glorification.  Fifteen or so minutes of not even that severe consequences can't possibly compete with two hours and forty-five minutes of Belfort bragging about all the exploitive, greedy, destructive nonsense he pulled, especially when that's ostensibly in his own voice.  The wolf of Wall Street is not a man whose name any of us should know, yet Scorsese is ensuring his legacy of unrepentant self-aggrandizing continues.  At this point in my life, it's hard to walk away from a movie like that without feeling kind of icky for dignifying it with my eyeballs.

And yet, to my dismay, I'm still torn.  This movie is a lot--a lot of entertainment and silliness, and a lot of unexamined darkness and ugliness.  I hate to admit that a part of me was still taken in by how much fun a lot of this movie is in its early and middle stages.  It is dazzling, almost stupefying, in its debauchery.  But once Jordan's fist landed in Naomi's stomach, something in me shifted.  From then until the film closes on Chandler's Agent Denham's humble commute home on the subway and Belfort, ever grifting, leading a sales seminar in front of a wrapt, packed audience, it is made clear that this film doesn't have a moral leg to stand on.  

In the cold light of day, years after first watching it and a few weeks after watching it for the second time, this movie is harmful.  It is over-identified with its insatiable antihero, and thereby Scorsese and his audience become just another mark for the con artist at its center.  We just don't need more of these stories--especially when they are about real people who actually did (at least some version of) the awful things portrayed in this film, and now they get to profit from the fruits of their ill-gotten gains via Scorsese's highest-grossing film ever (?!).

And especially when, in addition, that film was financed by corrupt backers who stole billions of dollars from Malaysia???

On that last point, the real question is: Why am I surprised?

At the end of all this consideration, and to reflect my deep ambivalence about this movie, my updated score for "The Wolf of Wall Street" is a 3.

{Heart}

43 "Jump Street": A Silly Movie Rewatching Extravaganza

Hello encore!

In order to maintain adherence to my writing goals, I am attempting two posts in one day before the month is over!

In order to further adhere to my writing goals, I will attempt to actually keep this post short!

I have really been appreciating the fact that I have loosened my parameters for which movies "count" in my 52 movies/year goal to include movies that I have watched before.  It's meant that I can revisit movies without feeling, completely arbitrarily and perfectionistically, like they're a "waste of time", which is good because what does that even mean for someone who loves movies??

Not all of the movies I've rewatched are excellent, but that's fine--as dedicated readers may be aware, Husband and I are at times prone to watching movies that are concertedly and intentionally fine--just fine--because sometimes I just don't need a challenge or an emotionally transformative experience.

HOWEVER.  Two recent rewatches are most certainly excellent:

"21 Jump Street" (2012)

and

"22 Jump Street" (2014)

Readers with a very good memory may recall that I have a personal love story with these movies.  In 2012, Husband (then-Boyfriend) and I went to see a terrible Disney movie (unheard of!), hated it immediately, and for then-Boyfriend's very first time ever, we theater hopped into "21 Jump Street", where it saved the evening because it was thoroughly delightful.

In retrospect, it comes as absolutely no surprise that I loved both "Jump Streets", as they are directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller--the directors of a little movie I may have mentioned before called "The LEGO Movie" (2014).

True to form, both of these movies are silly, inventive, self-aware, sweet, and charming, thereby casting off the constraints that would normally accompany remakes of pre-existing media and render them a bit tired, boring, and stiff.  The casts are great.  The writing is great.  I giggled a lot.  Who could possibly complain?

Interestingly, my reliability as a rater for these films is remarkably high, likely aided by the fact that the movies' quality is commensurately high and they have, to my pleasure and relief, held up well with the passage of time.  When I originally saw each of them, I rated both "Jump Streets" (I am oddly tempted and actually barely fighting the impulse to instead refer to them as "Jumps Street", like attorneys general) as a 4.  Upon rewatching them, I gave "21 Jump Street" a 4, and upgraded "22 Jump Street" slightly to a 4.5.

So, if you're in the mood for something easy and fun, please enjoy the national treasure that is Channing Tatum and these two delights of cinema.

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: Olympics Edition

Hey everyone,

It's time for this month's Antiracist Accountability post!

This week's news that champion gymnast Simone Biles has withdrawn from competing in this summer's Olympic games is a great jumping off point (gymnastics pun?) for some self-examination for the white allies of the world.

Straight out of the gate, there were some pretty bad takes in reaction to this news.  The over-arching themes were:

--Pearl-clutching and concern trolling for Biles's poor, pitiable teammates (who, despite being fragilized by critics, have seemed to hold up okay)
--Perpetuation of mental illness stigmatization and minimization
--Entitlement to being entertained by athletes, no matter the cost to said athlete

Rife throughout the feigned disappointment for Biles's decision was a boatload of unfounded moral superiority--a stance that many commentators were all too ready to assume while Monday morning quarterbacking about a dedicated and decorated athlete.  Their readiness to browbeat an incredibly accomplished athlete--a LITERAL Olympian widely proclaimed to be LITERALLY one of, if not the, greatest athletes of all time--about the importance of hard work and being a member of a team defies any logic.

...Because it's not about logic.  Not always explicitly articulated but most certainly evident in these responses was also some serious racist bullshit, in what is already an Olympic games (and institution) rife with racist bullshit.

There were several components of racism and white supremacy implicit in the criticism of Simone Biles.

White supremacy has instilled in white people a deep sense of ownership of and entitlement to the labor and excellence of Black people.  In this mindset, Biles's responsible and inspiring decision to respect and protect her mental and physical wellbeing by not competing in the Olympics flies in the face of the entitlement to Black entertainment some white people deeply feel.  She is asserting the fact that she belongs to herself, not the white people who want her to perform.

White supremacy expects effusive and uncomplicated gratitude for all that America has "given" Black people.  The very premise of this demand, from a nation that kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and forced into chattel slavery countless Africans to build its wealth, is repugnant on its face.  Taken to an extreme, this expectation of gratitude can demand that Black people continue to engage in self-sacrifice to the point of self-destruction.  Through her self-preservation, Biles resolutely rebukes this mindset.  She owes us nothing.  She is not disposable.

White supremacy has long-running tradition of concocting and perpetuating the myth that Black people, on whose backs our nation was built, are lazy.  This has led some white people to therefore feel empowered to lecture a Black Olympian--again, I cannot stress this enough, an athlete who is among THE BEST IN HUMAN HISTORY--about the necessity of working hard and being tough.  

White supremacy is predicated on the false belief that white people are, quite simply and as its name implies, superior to members of all other races.  Adopting an attitude of blatant and un-earned sanctimony toward a Black athlete whose literal superiority is consistently demonstrated and well beyond debate is so ludicrous it could only come from this absurd ideology.  And yet, still, some white people seriously (seriously??) questioned whether Biles is great following her decision to step back from this year's Olympics.  When Biles asserts the fact that she is, in fact, the Greatest Of All Time, many white people's anxiety and rage about their lack of superiority is triggered.

The fucking audacity in this criticism is truly stunning.

For anyone reading who noted within themselves feelings of anger, irritation, condescension, superiority, or entitlement toward Biles after her withdrawal from the Olympics was announced, this is an opportunity to take stock of the ways in which you are, perhaps unwittingly, acting out very old white supremacist beliefs.  This is a chance to reconsider these beliefs and commit to doing better.

In conclusion, in case anyone needs a tl;dr on this issue, journalist and poet Michael Harriot had some concise analysis:

And in case anyone is still confused, McSweeney's put together this handy decision tree:

Keep fighting the good fight, friends, and may all Olympians be healthy and proud of themselves for all they've done.

{Heart}

"Wework" "Betting On" the "Action" that is "The Last Blockbuster": Three Meh Documentaries Plus One Charming One

Heyo,

I've watched several documentaries in the past few months.  Some of them have been... fine?  Which led me to the following inspiration for today's post: As I review some of the underwhelming documentaries I've watched in the last little bit, I will also offer alternatives I've seen that vastly outshine them.  And to top us off, I'll share one film that is a delight!  

Let's roll!

First stop on the meh train to mehville:

Anyone who has read some of my past posts can probably guess that I am a giant sucker for a tale of a megalomaniacal new-clothed emperor wannabe wunderkind meeting their comeuppance.  Those stories scratch a certain kind of deep itch--a wish for there to be order and justice in the universe.  I wanted "Wework or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn" (2021) to be that, and it just fell flat.  I got nowhere near enough of the gory details I crave about what the hell exactly happens at Wework to appreciate its gigantic ruse and its eventual gigantic stumble, and of course Adam Neumann hasn't exactly met with the humbling he seems to very much deserve.  I gave this movie a 2.

As an alternative, might I suggest "Fyre Fraud" (2019) or "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley" (2019), both of which are:

• way better at delivering big yummy helpings of comeuppance
• way more generous with those juicy details of exactly how cataclysmically poorly conceived and executed each of their silly sham businesses were, and therefore
• way more fun.
• Also I'm kind of devastated I didn't write a post about "The Inventor" because I find Theranos FASCINATING.

Next up on our tour of meh-diocrity (sidenote: the redundancy of this neologism makes me lol):

"Betting On Zero" (2016) reveals the deeply questionable business practices behind the deeply suspicious health food/supplement company Herbalife.  As the company enters the crosshairs of iconoclastic hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, whose gigantic financial position predicting that Herbalife will fail lend the film its name, he subsequently falls into the crosshairs of his apparent rival, mega-investor Carl Icahn.  While this sounds like a perfect recipe for a riveting documentary, this film suffers from the fact that it concluded before the whole real life story.  Just like with "Wework", Googling the outcome of this clash-of-financial-titans battle after finishing this film only deepened my sense of disappointment.  I gave this film a 3.

As an alternative, I recently rewatched "The Big Short" (2015) which is:

• way more watchable
• in a depressing and aggravating way, way more intellectually satisfying
• crucial education that every American should have received at, if not before, the time of the events depicted, and
• admittedly not technically a documentary.

And now for our third and final lackluster mehpisode:

Again, "Class Action Park" (2020) has the makings of a satisfying documentary, but it ultimately falls apart (much like the disastrous rides that comprised this terrifying-sounding amusement park) because it doesn't really seem to know how to tell the story it's telling.  Much of the movie is a tour of Action Park in Vernon, New Jersey in the form of archival footage of the park interspersed with interviews with non-A list celebrities you may or may not recognize who either worked there or patronized the establishment in their youth.  The generally jocular, devil-may-care tone struck by this structure becomes more and more discordant with the fact that literally people died because of the horrific negligence of the park's owner...??  Like.... this is not remotely amusing??  This is an emotionally confused and therefore unsettling film.  I gave it a 2.

As an alternative and in closing, may I present to you:

"The Last Blockbuster" (2020) is remarkably similar in structure to "Class Action Park": it explores a business that had outsized impact on the culture around it and its ultimate downfall through contemporaneous footage with playful interjecting interviews with celebrities with whom you may or may not be familiar (including the delightful Ron Funches!!).  

It is different, however, in some very important ways:

• no one died
• no one is forced to be callously cavalier about the fact that someone died, because no one died
• Blockbuster is actually charming and therefore actually worthy of our nostalgia
• I really liked Blockbuster
• I really miss Blockbuster, and
• this movie makes me wonder if there really was a distinct Blockbuster smell and if so, would I recognize it if I ever encountered it again?

Despite its structural and superficial similarities to "Class Action Park", "The Last Blockbuster" is actually more in keeping with documentaries like "The Perfect Bid: the Contestant Who Knew Too Much" (2017) and "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" (2007); it is a sweet, earnest, gentle, good-hearted biography of the plucky people that comprise microcommunities brought together by their love of a generally wholesome thing entering its twilight.  It's a nice film that leaves you feeling nice.  I gave it a 4.

Fin!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability x Pride: "Paris is Burning" for "Kiki"

 Hi friends,

This Pride month, as with last year's, I want to uplift Black and Brown trans and gay people.  While last year I talked about Marsha P. Johnson's gargantuan influence on the movements for gay and trans rights, this year I want to share with you two documentaries about thriving enclaves of safety, joy, and artistry that gay and trans people of color have created in New York City and their evolution through the decades.  

The first is the electrifying classic "Paris is Burning" (1990).

The second is the unofficial epilogue to "Paris is Burning", "Kiki" (2016).

Viewed together, the films offer time-traveling front row seats in the uproarious performance halls and intimate apartments of New York City's gorgeous, resilient, burning bright ball scene.  

"Paris is Burning" introduces us to New York's ball culture and some of the major houses it was comprised of in the late 1980s.  The film reveals the origins of appropriated terms still used today (such as "throwing shade"), but more importantly centers the deep love, ingenuity, and vitality fostered in a community assailed by seemingly endless acts of individual and systemic violence.  Its beauty and joy is made ever sweeter by the heartbreak at the film's conclusion, when the audience learns how many of the film's participants lost their lives to illness and other manifestations of the brutality of oppression.  The poignancy lent to "Paris is Burning" by the ephemerality of its performances and, ultimately, many of its performers lends an enduring, weighty ache to an already indelible film.

As its unofficial sister film, "Kiki" updates us on the state of this community by focusing on the young people who are part of the kiki scene--essentially ballroom culture for teenagers.  "Kiki" shows us that in some ways, things have improved since "Paris is Burning": kiki performers have access to more resources and, in some cases, broader support from family and loved ones than their '80's ballroom forebears.  But of course, societally there is still so far to go until kids in the kiki scene gain the supports, resources, safety, and respect they richly deserve.

These truly are wonderful, uplifting, inspiring, and deeply human movies.  If you haven't already seen them both, I strongly recommend them and I hope you enjoy them!

You can watch "Paris is Burning" here.

You learn more about "Kiki" here and watch it here.

Perhaps obviously, I gave both of these glorious, gorgeous movies a 5.

Happy Pride!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: Tulsa and Black Wall Street

 Hi team,

For this month's Antiracist Accountability post, we're going to get historical.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma that destroyed Tulsa's Black Wall Street.

As a result of the Tulsa race massacre:

• Almost 300 Black people died
• Somewhere between 8,000 - 10,000 Black people were left homeless
• 35 blocks of the previously prosperous majority Black Greenwood District were destroyed
• Adjusted for today's currency, approximately $50 - 100 million in property was lost
• Years of Black entrepreneurship and resilience were wiped out
• For decades, the history of this event was intentionally erased

(Sources for these statistics are listed below.)

Learning about this event is critical for all Americans to better understand our history and the forces that continue to shape our nation today.  Here are some resources for learning more about the Tulsa race massacre and Black Wall Street:

• The Tulsa Historical Society and Museum has an extensive archive of photographs, audio files of interviews of people with firsthand accounts of the massacre, and documents about the massacre, including rare contemporary articles, many of which were later removed from public libraries in an effort to suppress memory of the massacre.
• The New York Times created an interactive resource that allows you to explore the people and businesses that comprised Tulsa's Black Wall Street.
• NPR's Code Switch returned to Greenwood to assess the current state of the neighborhood on the hundredth anniversary of the massacre that you can read or listen to as a podcast here.
• KOSU, Focus: Black Oklahoma, the History Channel, and WNYC Studios are collaborating to produce a six-part podcast series called "Blindspot: Tulsa Burning", which you can learn more about here.
• USA Today's "5 Things" podcast interviewed Professor Trevon Morgan, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics at Ohio State University, about the massacre and the ongoing case for reparations to repair the harm done by the massacre.
• For more learning and reading, NPR's Code Switch put together a list of recommended books and articles.

Given that today is also Memorial Day, the centennial anniversary of the race massacre at Tulsa's Black Wall Street offers an important rejoinder to the patriotism and reverence that typically accompanies this day.  Memorial Day is often framed as a day to reflect on those who fought and died to make America possible and uphold rights all Americans enjoy.  Despite intentional attempts to erase its memory, the Tulsa race massacre is a reminder of the even longer fight, largely by white Americans, to maintain America's sinister tradition of racist oppression.  At its best, perhaps, Memorial Day is about the fight for what America could one day be, while the anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre and the memory of what was lost on Black Wall Street reminds us of what we have always been.  For a nation eternally at war with itself, with its higher and as yet unrealized ideals battling its founding practices of slavery and genocide, it's hard to imagine a more poignant coincidence of dates.

Maybe one day we can finally become a nation that fully manifests our ideals.  Let's hope, one day, the right side of this battle wins.

{Heart}

"I Care A Lot" About How Terrible This Movie Is

 Good morning,

In the scramble to finish yesterday's post before the end of the month, I was reminded of my ever-elusive, ever-aspirational goal of allowing myself to write shorter posts in the interest of maximizing how much I actually write.  While I'm really glad I was able to carve out time for a longer-form post about a movie I really enjoyed, I still maintain it's overall better to allow myself to be brief so my overall engagement in writing is more consistent rather than in such fits and starts, and often at the end of the month, which is a reflection of how relegated to the end of the to do list writing for fun tends to be.  

And also, not every movie deserves a long reflection.

Enter: "I Care A Lot" (2020).

Question: Did anyone need this movie?

Additional question: HOW did anyone LIKE this movie??

Yet another question: Does it sound to anyone like being in the midst of a pandemic that has disproportionately impacted and devastated facilities caring for the elderly, and when workers at those facilities are now routinely exposed to risks to their personal safety and well-being, overworked, and traumatized, is the right time to release a movie demonizing those workers???

Asking on behalf of this terrible, terrible movie.

As I attempt to answer these and other questions, buckle up for a post doused in competing showers of fuming exasperation and sarcasm because this is the only way I know how to cope with the crapsaster* that is this movie.

By way of brief synopsis for those blissfully unaware of this film: "I Care A Lot" stars Rosamund Pike in yet another cold psychopathic lady role, Marla Grayson, who postures as a legal guardian for vulnerable elderly people.  In actuality, Marla works her web of corrupt doctors (worse yet: corrupt LADY doctors!) and elderly care homes, as well as the apparently sole judge in her jurisdiction who oversees cases related to legal guardianship who is apparently not on the take but is instead just incredibly suggestible (a cute choice for the only Black major character in the film), to enrich herself by stripping her wards of all of their assets and selling them for her own gain.  

I, too, regularly pose smugly with my tiny espresso mug in front of my wall of victims.

Beef Number One: This movie is so goddamned sexist.  This movie exploits the indignant anger it expects of its audience at the proposition that a woman (you know, the people who are supposed to thanklessly mommy the whole world?) could be, *gasp!*, mean and bad!!  The scant backstory Marla is granted alludes to her also mean and bad mother, because of course Marla's wickedness must also have its origins in the faults of women and their failures to caretake.

Much to the chagrin of my relevant pet peeves, Marla's meanness and badness announces itself through her appearance: She is an attractive, put-together, poised, and well-dressed lady in a role where I guess we're supposed to expect her to look more like a frazzled pseudo-social worker who shops at Goodwill.  Instead, Marla is so conspicuously posh--to the point that it is ridiculous that anyone wouldn't spot her as a scam artist from a mile away. 

WARNING: LADY WEARING WHITE STUFF

Cue another movie in which apparently you should beware women who have recent razor's edge-straight, presumably expensive haircuts and wear too much white.  We know how I feel about those movies.

Bonus Sub-Beef: Oh, Marla's gay?  So we're demonizing not just women in general, but also specifically lesbians now?  Cool.  Yeah sure, that seems like a good take.

Beef Number Two: HOW DARE YOU MISALLOCATE THE TALENTS PETER DINKLAGE TO THIS SCHLOCK.

Beef Number Three:  The initial premise of this movie is truly bad enough.  The film is made no better by its sheer implausibility as it enters its third act, in which we are seriously meant to believe (oh no, surely we wouldn't spoil this gem in the grand history of cinema?) Dinklage's randomly Russian yet accentless mob boss, Roman Lunyov, sincerely agrees to partner up with Marla after she Rasputins her way out of a certain death of his engineering and manages to kidnap, drug, and entrap him via the very scheme she's been perpetrating all along?  Oh yeah, that is totally something that guy would do.

Yes this a totally believable moment in which a friendship is formed and I accept it unquestioningly.

Beef Number Four: Beyond the bizarre timing of the release of this film (I dunno, maybe it would have been wise to sit on this one a few years if you must release it at all?), it is also, irritatingly, a film that is extremely confused about what it actually is.  

The film reaches its finale as Marla, at the epic height of her utterly implausible rocket to fame and fortune, is gunned down by the family member of an elder she exploited in her early days of being an evil gay lady wearing too-nice clothes.  She is cradled by her sobbing girlfriend Fran (played by Eiza González) as she dies... tragically?  Is this movie seriously trying to tell us that we're sad about this?  You know you showed us she was really bad, right?  What is happening?? 

Wut.

In conclusion: I finished this movie out of sheer spite and I hated every minute of it.  Surprising absolutely not one person, I gave this movie a 1.

Epilogue: Damn it, I wrote way too much about this dumpster of a film.

Until next time!

{Heart}

* = My new word for "crappy disaster", thanks to this mess of a movie.