There’s not necessarily a ton of overlap between indie music and the programming of Cartoon Network. However, hardcore indie-rock fans might be familiar with Craig Of The Creek (created by former Steven Universe writers Matt Burnett and Ben Levin), as Jeff Rosenstock is the show’s composer. The show’s first musical episode, “In The Key Of The Creek,” premieres today, and alongside that, Rosenstock has shared a ten-minute album featuring music he wrote for the episode.

The singing here is reserved for the show’s cast — including former SNL star Noël Wells, Lauren Lapkus, and Phil LaMarr — so there are no Rosenstock vocals here. Still, all of the sub-2-minute tracks have a lot of the rocking characteristics of Rosenstock’s other music, and it’s fun to hear him creating new material in an entirely different context. Terry Crews is a part of the show’s cast, but unfortunately, he is not heard here.

This is the second unexpected dispatch of new Rosenstock music in recent days, as he is fresh off the release of a surprise new album, No Dream. That followed his 2018 record Post-, which was also a surprise release.

Listen to In The Key Of The Creek: A Craig Of The Creek Musical below.

This Sunday at Backlash, Edge and Randy Orton will have their second match since the Rated R Superstar came out of retirement, and according to WWE, it’s going to be “The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever.” Will it actually be the greatest wrestling match ever? In a recent interview with ESPN, Edge says he doesn’t think so.

When asked about the upcoming match’s moniker, Edge replies that what is considered the greatest of any work of any kind of art is subjective:

I’ll preface all of this with saying there’s no such thing as the greatest match ever. You’re not going to be able to say definitively, what is the greatest song of all time? What is the greatest painting of all time? What is the greatest movie of all time? What is the greatest band of all time? It’s impossible because there’s no general consensus. You can have great matches, but what is the greatest is going to be different to almost everybody.

Here’s how Edge describes his initial reaction to finding out how his Backlash match would be promoted:

I just laughed because I didn’t think it was serious. Then I realized fairly quickly it was. Then my reaction was, is this wise, because anytime you say something the greatest ever beforehand, you’re setting yourself up for failure. And I don’t ever want to think that way. I need to think the opposite of that. I can’t control the court of public opinion. I need to do and be proud of the work that I put in.

He later adds, “All I can do is take it as if this is all just a bonus and in a weird way, a compliment. Or it’s a giant rib. I don’t know.” But whether it’s a rib or a compliment, Edge doesn’t think the match should be promoted this way.

This shouldn’t even be happening. Let alone for the company, and let’s call it straight, Vince, to think that he can bill this the ‘Greatest Match Ever.’ Would I have preferred they not billed it as that? Absolutely. But I also know there are times where heels get dug in the sand and there’s no changing it.

Though he has issues with the match’s promotion, Edge is positive about other aspects of his feud with Orton, saying “I’ve been given a lot of freedom, in terms of writing my promos and in terms of storyline.”

The Spurs are among the 22 NBA teams that will convene in Orlando in July for a restarted season, but they will do so without the presence of one of their top stars.

LaMarcus Aldridge averaged 18.9 points and 7.4 rebounds per game for the Spurs this season, but will not be with the team later this summer after he had arthroscopic surgery to repair a rotator cuff injury to his right shoulder on April 24.

It’s a significant blow to the Spurs, who enter the restarted season at 27-36, four games back of the Grizzlies for the eight seed. Despite having a major gap to makeup to reach the postseason, the Spurs were set to come into Orlando as the team in that group battling for the final playoff spot with the best record this season against above-.500 teams. That is a key distinction for the bubble league, as only playoff teams plus the additional five in the hunt in the West and the Wizards in the East were making the trip. Teams are only going to be playing the best in the NBA, and as such, it might be a war of attrition among those looking to claw their way into the postseason.

The Spurs will have to lean more heavily on the likes of Jakob Poeltl and Rudy Gay to fill the void left by Aldridge — who had become, somewhat improbably, the team’s second best three-point shooter this season from his frontcourt spot.

Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT: Breezango became number one contenders to the Tag Team Championship, serial killer Dexter Lumis did some delightful caricatures, and Drake Maverick somehow earned his real-life job back by doing well at the position he’d just been fired from. It’s a thing.

If you’d like to read previous installments of the Best and Worst of NXT, you can do that here. Follow With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter, where everything and everyone is terrible.

And now, the Best and Worst of NXT TakeOver: In Your House for June 7, 2020.

Best: Todd-foolery

I think most of us were hoping an NXT TakeOver with an “In Your House” theme would, at the very least, include the classic (and super cheap looking) house set and an appearance from Todd Pettengill. If you’re a younger fan and didn’t grow up watching Todd, he’s the platonic ideal of a Vince McMahon-approved on-screen personality; charismatic, great at reading a full paragraph of corny shills and still sounding like he means it, and as threatening as a cool breeze on a summer afternoon. What I didn’t expect was realizing Todd’s still way better at this than anyone currently employed at WWE in an announce position. He was (and is, apparently) the perfect mix of performative, sincere, and interested slash knowledgeable about the product. Todd hasn’t been around for 25 years but you hear him say, “Io Shirai,” and your brain’s like, “of course Todd Pettengill knows who Io Shirai is, Todd Pettengill gives a shit about ALL of this.”

NXT TakeOver: In Your House is an episode of NWA Powerrr. Think about it. You’ve got a throwback concept complete with classic sets and a studio audience, featuring ironic “retro” commercials, hosted by a WWF morning show personality from the 1990s. Now all I want to see is Karrion Kross vs. The Question Mark.

Code Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Code Banana

Sad to see Code Orange perform on an NXT TakeOver without Aleister Black showing up on his creaky catapult. And besides, if we’re going to have a returning musical guest during quarantine, couldn’t we have gotten Poppy to show up and sing ‘Don’t Go Outside?’

Best: It’s True, Integrated Conditioning System IS A-boat That

The funny retro commercials throughout the show were hit or miss for me. I popped for Bugenhagen showing up in the ice cream commercial and loved the Lord Alfred Hayes tribute, but if I never see D-X putting themselves over for being confused old codgers on NXT TV again it’ll be too soon.

I DID love the Adam Cole remake of Bret Hart’s old ICOPRO commercial, though. That was hyper, hyper targeted at the exact kind of wrestling fan I am. OF COURSE I remember that commercial, and OF COURSE I’m going to wallow in the sweet, sweet nostalgia of a time when everything that happened wasn’t instantly turned into a meme, and you had to remember the more kitschy memories of your fandom with your actual human brain. After 20 years of watching WWE incessantly jack off the Attitude Era, I don’t think I realized how susceptible I am to New Generation nostalgia. Less D-X invading Monday Nitro while dorks cheer, more Papa Shango lighting jobbers on fire with voodoo magic while children cry.

Mostly Best: Low Stakes Trios Openers

I don’t actually have much to say about the six-woman tag, to the point that I’ve been sitting at my laptop for like 15 minutes trying to think of something broader than, “I liked it!” I liked it. I like that TakeOver gave these six a showcase match, and that they included an under-card match about personal feuds without any stipulations, championships, or “possible future title opportunities” on the line. They kept it simple, and it allowed almost everyone in the match to shine. Tegan Nox and Shotzi Blackheart would be a pretty great tag team, especially in a world where the main roster Women’s Tag Team Division spans three brands despite having a grand total of maybe four teams. It’s a better match than this clip of people taking turns jumping onto the pile makes it look.

Raquel Gonzalez felt like the clumsiest part of the match, but that’s probably an experience thing. Not to mention the ongoing weirdness of Full Sail University going from an independent wrestling show with WWE production to an abandoned minor league hockey arena with a studio audience booing when the sign says “boo” and cheering when it says “cheer.” It’s interesting that Candice LeRae’s team lost — you’d think given their status as the new evil “power couple” or whatever they’d have had Candice or Johnny win at least one of their matches — but maybe Nox getting another win over Kai means Nox and Kai can finally pause their beef and expand their opponent pool. I imagine one or the other would be a solid next challenger for the NXT Women’s Championship, pending NXT picking a side with Shirai’s alignment.

Not the best match, but a perfectly cromulent way to begin the show. High energy, lots of different character flavors, and it didn’t outstay its welcome.

Best: Priest Vs. Demon

Then there’s Finn Bálor vs. Damian Priest, with Finn continuing to write the Prince Devitt page in WWE’s Book of Brothers, and Priest wearing pants that make him look like he’s in the Lingerie Football League. I love this pairing, because the best WWE opponent for Bálor (that we’ve found, at least) is a bigger, surprisingly quick guy who can easily overpower him, but keeps getting taken out of his game by Bálor’s wild swings of momentum. Bálor lives or dies by momentum, and Priest’s clearly going to make the mistake of trying to match him step for step. He’s good enough to do that for a while, but not internally powered by a literal demon, so he can’t do it forever.

I appreciated this being so straight-forward, as well. The story was that Priest wants to make a name for himself at Bálor’s expense, and Bálor — who still has WALTER in the back of his mind — needs to assert his dominance over the larger opponents who saunter in to his yard and assume they can shit wherever they want. Bálor kicking Priest’s ass here in such a competitive way means that when Bálor vs. WALTER finally does happen and jerks like me are like, “WALTER is going to chop him into sludge,” you can respond with, “well, Damian Priest was bigger and stronger than him and surprisingly fast and agile, too, and Bálor took him to the woodshed at In Your House.”

p.s. WALTER is going to chop him into sludge

Best: Keith Lee’s Black Lives Matter Gear

Wanted to make sure I got a picture of this in here. Between Keith’s trunks and entrance gear and Mia Yim showing up in a Central Park 5 t-shirt, it was a surprisingly real night of representation for WWE. I’m really happy they didn’t have Keith wear that to the ring and lose to Gargano, whose only gear statement was, “I wanted to look like The Mandalorian but ended up looking like a BMX racer who missed his jump and landed in the curtains.” There’s no better visualization of the Internet than, “I want to talk about something important” “Maybe later, first let me tell you my opinions about STAR WARS.”

(Johnny’s entrance was fun too, don’t get me wrong. It’s funny that on the outside the In Your House house set looks like a backdrop from a bad high school performance of Death of a Salesman, but apparently contains a fully sized, fully furnished house on the inside. It’s like a TARDIS. How did Gargano get the key, though? Does he live there? Is that where he’s been filming his dinner segments? And more importantly, who frames a picture of Dok Hendrix and hangs it by their front door so they see it every time they leave? I guess I shouldn’t expect much from someone who sets the thermostat to 69* and laughs at himself.)

*nice

Best: End Of An Era

The past three or four years of NXT have been dedicated to a number of ongoing stories — Undisputed Era’s golden prophecy, the women’s division bubbling over with talent to a detrimental degree, and a few others — but the “A-story,” so to speak, has been Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano. To put it another way, the last TakeOver where the main event didn’t involve Ciampa, Gargano, or Adam Cole was NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III in August of 2017. To illustrate how long ago that was, Drew McIntyre was still NXT Champion, Hideo Itami had a match, and Ember Moon was challenging for the women’s title. Sanity wrestled the Authors of Pain for the tag titles. Doesn’t that seem like it happened 40 years ago?

At NXT TakeOver: Sorry About WrestleMania, the bubble finally burst, I think. The “final beat” between Gargano and Ciampa was the first match in their series to be abjectly bad, as they wrestled nearly a full hour plus commercial breaks in relative silence for the benefit of Triple H and blew off a four-year feud with an evil wife heel turn and a bunch of dick-kicks. Ciampa can kick out of four men beating the dog-shit out of him for an entire main event and start spamming moves like nothing happened, but if Candice LeRae kicks him in the butthole once, he’s toast. It was a lot, especially once they were dedicated to finishing the story whether there were fans around or not.

The “double turn” of sorts has been bad for both characters, I think. Ciampa as a do-gooder who loves his family has never vibed with me, as he calls himself a PSYCHO KILLER and was, by his own admission, responsible for making Johnny’s life a living hell for like three years. Gargano doesn’t seem to know how to be a heel AT ALL, so he’s just being babyface Gargano but like, delivering threatening promos over dinner. It’s like they didn’t know how to end the story or what to do with either of them when it was over, so they’re just, to quote the prophet Big Bear, doin’ thangs.

Now free of their endless feud and working with character alignments that don’t necessarily play to their strengths, NXT TakeOver: In Your House gives us Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa like we haven’t seen them in years: as losers.

Johnny Gargano challenges Keith Lee for the North American Championship, which is a bit like a bird challenging a line drive. Gargano believes his ability to kick out of pretty much goddamn anything will protect him from Keith’s offense, not remembering that he loses his stat buff when Ciampa’s not around. His OVR instantly drops from 98 to like, 85. Keith has tons of momentum from Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, and his spring-long dedication to closing the book on his feuds with Damian Priest and Dominik Dijakovic. That means he can, say, withstand Johnny’s observably lame heel attacks for a while until he’s able to hit a Spirit Bomb, followed by a second powerbomb transitioned into the Big Bang Catastrophe like he created a finisher in Smackdown vs. Raw 2010.

I think it could’ve been better at about half the length, as it felt like a really good 10-minute match stretched out to 20. It’s gotta be hard to come up with a believable, engaging story pitting a tiny heel who doesn’t even seem to know how evil he wants to be against a champion babyface three times his size. It’d be like booking Hulk Hogan to defend the championship against a heel Tito Santana in 1985. It’d be worth watching, sure, but also, LOL, what?

Tommaso Ciampa doesn’t fare any better, as his first TakeOver match of the post-Gargano-feud era sees him get completely gassed the hell out by Karrion Kross in like six minutes. It’s the exact finish I was hoping for. Kross is the scary new monster, who we’ve only seen squash jobbers. Ciampa’s got years of street cred as a crazy killer who kicks out of everything. So having Kross completely shut him down and make him pass out in the night’s shortest match asserts that THIS is the new crazy killer in town, and the torch has been passed. I don’t know what’s next for Ciampa after losing a feud to Adam Cole, losing a feud to Johnny Gargano, and getting browbeaten by a couple of musical theater majors, but I hope it’s a better use of his talent than sitting backstage with his elbows on his knees and obsessing over a championship he hasn’t held since the middle of 2018.

I don’t know what NXT needs to get out of the funk it’s in*, but I’m interested to see what it looks like once we’ve completely removed Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano, and Tommaso Ciampa. The upside to NXT being “developmental” and the top starts getting “call-ups” was that it let NXT tell stories with beginnings, middles, and logical ends. Now they’re being forced to learn how to get from one important story to the next without having their resources taken away, and everything feels a little dispassionate and uncertain. People either disappear without much fanfare, debut without a lot of character depth or explanation, or continue what they’ve been doing successfully for years on loop, possibly forever. So, you know. Main roster.

*live crowds and to stop being positioned as prime-time “main roster” competition against another wrestling show

Side note: I really love Karrion Kross and Scarlett née Bordeaux, and I finally figured out why. They’re basically Ryan and Sharpay from High School Musical if they started working out and got into combat sports. Kross is supposed to be this heartless, merciless assassin and you can just as easily imagine him pulling a production assistant aside and being all, “you have to play the first part in black and white, and when I start screaming you splash in the color! Also, Scarlett wrote a song that she’s going to lip sync. Yes every single time, why do you ask?” I want to see them enter to ‘Bop To The Top.’

Mostly Worst: The NXT FIGHT PARK

Speaking of the Attitude Era, here’s Adam Cole and Velveteen Dream doing a “cinematic,” G-rated remake of John Cena and Eddie Guerrero’s parking lot brawl in what looks like the city that gets blown up at the beginning of every Monday Nitro*.

Cole entering in an Undisputed Era monster truck was great, as my ironic love of Halloween Havoc ’95 has made me highly susceptible to any and all pro wrestling monster truck content, but Dream’s entrance was hilariously out of touch. Which member of Macular Degeneration X told him to dress up as Negan from The Walking Dead in the year of our Lord 2020? It’s not even current Negan, it’s 2016 Halloween costume Negan. What, for his next entrance is he going to be Left Shark? Maybe in a couple of years he’ll get to pretend he’s Jared Leto’s Joker from Suicide Squad.

The match itself was pretty corny, honestly. I think it would’ve benefited a lot from still being aired live (or at least on tape with the impression of being “live”) despite the locale. Pre-taped “cinematic” matches like this run of the risk of being even more over-edited and micromanaged by WWE’s editing team, so every little thing that happens needs three angles and six cuts. If the extent of your match plan is to wrestle a normal match outside except you’re wearing jeans and there are cars nearby, you could get away with a simpler presentation than is afforded you by concepts like “it’s happening entirely inside of Bray Wyatt’s head” or “an egotistical redneck watches his best friends get killed by a necromancer and is then buried alive.” I do think it’s funny that William Regal promised to find them a suitable location for both of their levels of stardom and then gave up looking between his office and his car, though. “THIS PARKING LOT IS PROBABLY FINE.” Maybe it would’ve worked better if the feud had anything to do with cars or parking lots**.

*I know it’s not. It’s filmed right outside of Full Sail, and the exploding Nitro town was part of the Streets of America at Disney Hollywood Studios before it got torn down to make room for part of Star Wars Land. Let me hold on to my dream of one day living in that fake town, and watching a giant projection of Lex Luger flex and scream while my house gets set on fire with wrestling excitement.

**For real though how do you do a match involving cars in the Full Sail parking lot and not tie to the multiple car-based abductions that’ve been happening in the Full Sail parking lot over the past several weeks? You could’ve at least thrown that car into the line-up as an Easter egg. Dexter Lumis stuffing the Undisputed Era into the trunk of a car and driving away with them as a heroic “evening of the odds” only poses further questions. And while we’re on THAT subject, how do you do a match with a monster truck and not get The Big Show involved? If we’re going to bring in Todd Pettengill and do ICOPRO jokes, we could take a minute to have Cole knock Dream off the roof of Cobo Hall and get accosted by Saurav Gurjar in a mummy costume.)

Best (Again, Mostly): Captain Io

First, here’s the good news: the women’s division main-evented TakeOver for the first time since 2015, and Io Shirai is the NXT Women’s Champion. Point point point! Both of those notes are huge positives, as there were clearly times when Asuka or Shayna Baszler and Kairi Sane could’ve (and probably should’ve) gone on last, especially considering that previous note about three guys main-eventing for almost three straight years.

The match is very good, too. Shirai’s been one of the best and most reliable performers in wrestling, anywhere, for years. She’s also not afraid to leap from high places, and when I say leap I mean leap. A lot of people just kinda bend their knees and fall into stunts like that, but Io always gives it a full jump. Here she is living teenage Mick Foley’s dream and jumping off the roof of a house en route to winning her first WWE championship.

Charlotte Flair, jokes about her aggro dominance and apparently omnipresence across three WWE brands aside, is probably the most bulletproof “big match” performer in WWE. She almost always delivers when it comes to important matches, no matter the format or context. Rhea Ripley’s called the “future of the women’s division” for a lot of reasons, one of the primary ones being the level of emotion she brings to matches, and how good she is at communicating that to an audience. It’s a really good combination of talent that accomplishes something way overdue — Shirai as Women’s Champion — and would probably be getting a lot more praise across the board today if it wasn’t for the finish.

The first problem is that per the stipulation, Charlotte Flair didn’t have to be involved in the finish to lose the championship. So, to make it easy on everyone, Charlotte Flair wasn’t involved in the finish. She still managed to kind of “win,” though, as her locking Rhea Ripley in the Figure-Eight is what left Ripley open to a moonsault from Shirai. At least when Ronda Rousey lost the Raw Women’s Championship in a similar set-up, she took the pin. It’s hard to buy NXT as the leading women’s division in wrestling when Charlotte only got involved because someone confronted and challenged her to, won the title, completely dominated everyone, and then lost it without “losing.” Then there’s the actual moonsault, which … whew, you can count on Io to hit it flush something like 90% of the time, but Rhea wasn’t in position when Io started backflipping and came about a kneecap away from getting her spine compressed. Look how close the knee comes to hitting her on the top of her head:

It still look like it hurt like a motherfucker, though. That’s the kind of miscommunication and momentary lapse of timing that can lead to serious injuries, and I really hope her neck’s okay.

All in all, it was a good match with the right winner, even if it didn’t take the best path to get there. It’s also nice that Io actually won the championship here, as without the main event title change, this would’ve been one of the most pointless TakeOvers ever. Adam Cole retained to continue a nearly 400-day run, Keith Lee retained the North American Championship, nobody debuted, nothing switched alliances or whatever, nothing was really “earned” to set up any future shows, and the Tag Team and Cruiserweight Champions didn’t even make the card. Shirai in a bunch of streamers and confetti with the NXT Women’s Championship over her head is a great image to end on, even though I’m not certain when she became a heroic character again. Did her alignment switch because Candice turned out to be evil?

Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night

Clay Quartermain

And here comes the challenge by Big Show!

mandrew

“Ow! My eye! I’m not supposed to get car keys in it!”

Harry Longabaugh

Got to get Scarlett out of that catsuit. A fine Bordeaux needs to breathe.

The Real Birdman

I think I’d pay extra every month to just get a hard cam only airing of matches

SexCauldron

Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Robert Zemeckis, 1988

EvilDucky

Next up: Ric Flair’s Farewell, or: How to Shoehorn Charlotte into yet ANOTHER piece of WWE programming

Baron Von Raschke

HHH: Wow…Lumis…good job throwing them in the trunk. That was a perfect first take.
Lumis: ………
HHH: I mean…It’s almost like you’ve done that before
Lumis: …….
HHH: Okay….um, see you Wednesday.
Lumis: ………..

FreewayKnight

Dexter’s Cab

Mr. Bliss

Lumis not driving a windowless van is a real disappointment

AJ Dusman

The next TakeOver will feature Raw and Smackdown stars being booked logically in entertaining and competitive matches. It’ll be called In Your House: Mind Games.

As a final treat, here’s Keith Lee pouncing Johnny Gargano through the ringside plexiglass. Finally, something we ALL can enjoy.

That about wraps it up for the Best and Worst of NXT TakeOver, a perfectly watchable show where the crowd approaches the uncanny valley — stop telling the PC people to start chants just because Full Sail does, it’s insincere! Only chant if you feel compelled to chant! Clap for who you like and boo who you don’t! WHEN YOU BUY A TICKET YOU EARN THE RIGHT TO…

…sorry, I blacked out there for a minute. But yeah, it’s a fine show, but definitely in the bottom tier of TakeOvers. It beat the hell out of TakeOver: USA Network, though. Agree? Disagree? Drop a comment down below to let us know what you thought of the show, and consider giving this a share on social media to get more eyeballs on it and keep us in the business of Disney Channel original movie jokes and Dexter Lumis asides. We’ll see you on Wednesday for the regular Best and Worst of NXT with all the fallout from In Your House, and, hopefully, the announcement of NXT TakeOver UK: INSURREXTION.

Thanks again for reading as always, and we’ll see you then.

The coronavirus has aimed a ubiquitous blow to the music industry, with many venues saying they are the first to close and last to open. Nearly every music festival and major tour have been either canceled or postponed in order to ensure the safety of patrons, and some artists are toying with the idea of holding drive-in concerts. One LA design company even created a quasi-hazmat suit to allow music lovers to attend a show, and even vape, without contracting the coronavirus. But a new poll of epidemiologists around the country points to a harsh reality for music lovers, revealing they may have to wait longer than anticipated to return to venues.

A recent study conducted by The New York Times surveyed 511 epidemiologists from around the country. The poll asked professionals to gauge how comfortable they are with doing things like taking an airplane, attending a church service, exercising at a gym, or going to a concert. The survey found that a large majority of epidemiologists — 64 percent, to be exact — plan on waiting more than a year before attending sporting events, plays, and live concerts.

After sending in their responses, some explained their reasoning. “These are some of the highest-risk activities and probably attract more risk-embracing people,” said Vivian Towe, an epidemiologist at Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. “The addition of alcohol or drugs makes these activities too risky for me to consider anytime soon.”

Joseph Wagner, an epidemiologist at US Air Force School Of Aerospace Medicine, echoed Towe’s statement: “To me, this is a luxury and I can wait a long time until people can safely come together to enjoy it. That said, I can and will continue to support arts programs as if I was attending with donations.”

Many of the participants in the poll said their responses could change with the availability of a vaccine. Time will tell how much longer music lovers must wait before once again attending concerts and festivals.

Find the full results of the survey here.

In the midst of racial equality protests following the murder of George Floyd, a recent photo of college students with drawn-on swastikas on their shoulders surfaced—bringing me to tears.

It’s hard to imagine Ryann Milligan, a Penn State student, who has been identified in a change.org petition, stands with her friends smiling proud, showing off their swastikas and anti-Semitism. All over the country, people are angry and hurting. These egregious acts tear us further apart.

---

The photo reminds me of the first time I saw a swastika tattoo. It was 2007, and I had just turned 21 years old, entering into my junior year at Temple University. I was moving into a new apartment in Philadelphia, bright-eyed and hopeful to be a journalist and graduate soon. My roommate at the time was dating a sweet guy, someone I had met through social circles and lived down the hall from me on campus the year before. He invited his friend, someone I had never met, to help us move all the heavy furniture. It was a sweltering day in Center City, temperatures nearing 100 degrees, pearlescent sweat mustaches dotted our upper lips and perspired our faces. The friend I never met before, peeled off his shirt, leaving his white chest exposed. There it was—the hooked cross swastika tattoo of oppression and symbol of hatred— right in front of me.

I stood there, alone with him, looking at this large swastika near his right shoulder. It was an immediate gut punch. I wondered if he knew I was Jewish? If he found out, would he harm me? Does he hate black people too? I thought about all the times I read about people like him. All the racism, prejudice, xenophobia and white supremacy that’s continued to grow across the globe. I remembered my recent trip to Israel and the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust. What about my great grandmother—she was 13 years old when she escaped Nazi Germany on a boat after her entire family was slaughtered in a concentration camp. I thought about all the Jews who have been discriminated against for centuries.

I was silent for a few minutes, but those minutes felt like hours. A phone went off. I ignored it. I stared at him a little longer. “You going to answer it?” he asked me. I gripped the cell phone to my chest. “You know I’m Jewish,” I blurted out. He looked perplexed. I pointed to the swastika. “Oh, that,” he said. “I got dared to get that one night. I was really drunk. It doesn’t mean anything to me.” I don’t know what offended and enraged me more—that he dismissed it or that he didn’t understand why it was a big deal.

He clearly knew very little about the history of Nazism. I felt like it was my responsibility to strengthen his understanding of what it meant. Knowledge was my way of responding to the hate and anti-Semitism. I told him how horrible it made me feel. I explained how Jewish people and black people take that symbol as a sucker punch in the face. To my surprise, he listened and then apologized. He told me he would get it covered up immediately. I hope he did.

Things like this continue to happen in our country. Let’s not forget, less than three years ago, hundreds of white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched the streets of Charlottesville, Va., in the “Unite the Right” rally, protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. They brandished weapons and lit tiki torches, performing Nazi salutes and chanting “Jews will not replace us.”

The rally turned violent when white supremacist James Field Jr. steered his Dodge Challenger into a peaceful crowed of counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others. There was also the off-the-rails press conference with President Trump and his infamous quote: “You had some very fine people on both sides.” It’s difficult for things to actually change when the leader of our country doesn’t fully condemn racism.

Seeing that picture of those young women really brought me back to that day in 2007. That was twelve years ago, but what has really changed? According to the NY Times, the Anti-Defamation League statistics reveal that anti-Semitism has more than doubled in the United States in 2018 over 2015. The question begs why would these young college girls do this? What were they thinking? It could be that they don’t know better. Maybe they were raised like this. Maybe it was supposed to be a joke. Who knows.

The University responded to the image in a tweet stating, “We are disgusted by the behavior portrayed, which does not reflect our values. It is deeply troubling that as a society, we today are still facing racism.” They also mentioned that they will continue to speak out against hateful speech, but they don’t have the power to expel students over it, even if it is reprehensible. “But the University does have the power to condemn racism and address those who violate our values.” However, the Change.org petition is asking for Milligan’s removal at the college, which has garnered over 120,000 signatures so far.

In a time when our country is in turmoil, strife and demanding change, this can be a learning experience. When the women wash away the black ink swastikas on their skin, I hope they think about the visceral impact it’s caused others. I can promise you that pain won’t wash away as fast. Maybe they’ll think about their actions—let’s hope it’s tattooed inside their brain. At least, this time, the ink wasn’t permanent.

Many days, I find myself mesmerized by my daughter’s brilliant eyes and vibrant confidence. She’s enchanting, warm, and outspoken. I feel privileged to know her and love her. However, there are also many days I look at her, and far too often, think, “I am thankful that she does not look like me.”

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My daughter is biracial.

Even at three, we’ve already had many interesting conversations about race. Caroline sees herself as brown — dark brown. When we color our family, she picks the richest shade of mahogany and gleefully squiggles lines and circles to represent who she is. If you were to ask her who she looks like, she’ll adamantly vocalize that she looks exactly like mommy, and is utterly confused by anyone who would say otherwise. It warms my heart that she views my skin as beautiful. And I agree. However, I constantly worry about the day when she realizes society feels otherwise.

Each day, I wake up fully aware of my brown skin. Every day.

I intentionally style my hair, walk, and speak, knowing how others might perceive me as a black woman while in the grocery store, at work, or in the gym. I am entirely aware of my race, as I’ve spent my entire life as an outsider. The token person of color in a world that is mostly white.

• I remember being shown out of a craft store in elementary school as the shopkeeper screamed, “I don’t want nigger children in my store.”
• In high school, I reported that I was raped. The white man, whose sperm was found inside me, denied touching me. The detectives told me he was innocent and called me a liar. At that moment, I recall feeling powerless and worrying, “What’s the point of crying for help? Because, as a black woman, society will always value his words over mine.”
• In college, I remember having to console friends after a swastika was carved into a classmate’s dorm room door at Miami University.
• As a young adult, I’ve heard too many times to count, “You’re really pretty… for a black girl. But I can’t date black women.”
• As an adult, I worry about the day when I may be stopped, in my mostly white neighborhood, not because I did anything wrong, but simply because I look like I do not belong.

Now, before you draw your eyes away from this message:

• If you have turned on your TV and only see a mob instead of protesters — this message is for you.
• If you have shrugged your shoulders at President Trump’s tweets as “not that bad,” — this message is for you.
• If you’ve replied to reading “Black Lives Matters” with “Well, White Lives Matters too,” — this message is for you.
• If in those quiet moments in your home, you’ve thought, “But I’m not a racist. I don’t see color.” — this is for you.
• If you have watched the video of Amy Cooper in Central Park and thought, “I could never be her,” — this is for you.

To my white friends, family members, and neighbors — this article is for you.

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November 9th, 2016, I woke up with swollen eyes that were still stinging from hours of crying. The type of cry where your entire body aches and you simply feel worn — even hours after finally managing to catch your breath. I was sitting in our newly painted nursery, staring at the light yellow walls, and reflecting on the news of the day — Donald Trump Wins the 2016 Election.

I’m not writing this as a political statement — but as a plea to be heard. As it would merely be irresponsible of me to not mention the pivotal catalyst for my more vocal advocacy over the last several years.

I write this as someone who has defined her political views as conservative. I’ve worked for Republican leaders and have spent the majority of my adult life voting for and supporting candidates who believe in free enterprise and less government intervention in the lives of everyday Americans. Which, frankly, is all the more reason why I’m sharing these thoughts.

The 2016 election was devastating. It was devastating because I genuinely believed that it was impossible for someone who flooded the airwaves with so much hate could then become the leader of the country I love. A person who continues to falsely claim five young black men known as the “Central Park Five” are guilty of sexually assaulting a jogger in 1989, who is okay with continuously sexually assaulting women, and who belittles immigrants from “shithole” countries.

Like me, President Trump descended from immigrants. However, his continuous statements about immigrants from mostly black and brown countries are repugnant. It’s hard not to be offended when the President of the United States says that my parents didn’t deserve the opportunity to achieve the American Dream, like his, simply because of their country of birth.

Nevertheless, as I reflected on this new era, that we as Americans were about to venture into, I blamed myself.

The struggles of victims of violent crimes, immigrants, women, and people of color are real, and our voices need to be heard. However, I sat there crying and thinking, I did not do a good enough job sharing my experience as a human. I cried, thinking perhaps if I had more conversations that were open about my life and my experiences, maybe others would have a heightened sense of empathy and awareness for people like me.

As irrational as it sounds, I blamed myself.

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With Caroline in my arms and only a few days old, I promised her I would not remain silent. I would be fearless in the face of adversity, and I would leverage every tool I had to be a better and more vocal advocate for myself and others. I promised her I would do everything I could to change the world. I promised this to my firstborn child, hoping that her experience as a black child would be better than mine.

We are approaching the four-year mark of this promise, and last night I had another one of those cries. I believe my therapist would say this is good, as showing tears and anger is not one of my strengths. Nevertheless, it was another night of hyperventilating and hot tears as I realized we have so much further to go.

The dismissive and indifference highlighted by some of my friends and family members who continue to look the other way when it comes to people of color, victims of violent crimes, and immigrants must stop. I need you to take a moment to understand what it feels like to walk in my shoes, in my daughter’s shoes, and in #GeorgeFloyd‘s shoes.

• I need you to acknowledge and take the time to understand what is at the core of our anguish and concerns.
• I need you to realize there are systemic injustices that black and brown people face every day in our country.
• I need you to understand and acknowledge institutionalized racism exists.

The issues listed above impact us all.

However, how can it be that a photo from 2020 can look like a photo from 1967? How can you then look at the humans marching in America’s streets and dismiss them all as foolish thieves?

Do not let the small number of individuals who are using this moment and demonstrating violence as an easy excuse to dismiss the pain and injustice of an entire community. We are expressing raw anguish because we continue to share our stories, and we are not being heard.

You’ve told black athletes to stay in their lane. You’ve told black comedians to focus on jokes. You’ve mocked black politicians who focus on race as a public health crisis to look elsewhere.

I ask, who is supposed to speak out about our plight, and when will you hear us?

• Imagine being a young black girl and receiving harsher discipline at school because you’re perceived to be unruly, loud, and unmanageable. #BlackGirlsMatter
• Imagine what it is like to go on a run and die because you don’t look like you belong. #AhmaudArbery #LivingWhileBlack
• Imagine what it is like to be violently assaulted and being accused of making it up. #SophiaFifner #MeToo
• Imagine what it is like to be unfairly convicted of a crime that if you were just a few shades lighter would be a misdemeanor #FerrellScott
• Imagine what it is like to be black and to die simply because you exist. #BreonnaTaylor

People who look like me are living with this injustice every day, and we are tired. The only difference between me and the protester’s face you see on Fox News is that our anguish is released in different but equally valuable forms.

I have the privilege of access to health care, education, and resources to channel my frustrations through volunteerism, legislation, and countless therapy sessions. However, my plight is no different than the faces of the black and brown people you see on your screen. I am them, and they are me.

We are both living in a world where, whether we take a knee or protest in the streets, our concerns are not being heard — and we can not breathe.

I realize every person’s journey for understanding humanity takes different shapes in forms. Some jump headfirst completely embracing words and phrases like #blacklivesmatters, intersectionality, and implicit bias. However, for others, you may need a more gradual approach.

For those who need a more gradual approach, here are a few suggestions:

1. Actively listen more than you speak
2. Admit your bias and check your privilege
3. Learn with intentionality to understand people who do not share your same experience.

Change cannot happen in a vacuum. I refuse to live another 50 years, waiting for justice. I refuse to silently sit by waiting for you to listen. Therefore, I’ll close with this simple ask.

Please, take your knee off my neck and help me breathe.

This article originally appeared on Medium. You can read it here.

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“Am I a genius or do I just make smart purchases?”

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Black lives matter. Everywhere.

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