When Disney purchased Star Wars from George Lucas in 2013, it was only a matter of time until the comic book rights jumped from its longtime home at Dark Horse Comics to the Disney-owned Marvel Comics. And, now, we’re watching history repeat itself, but with two big time sci-fi properties instead of one.
With an announcement to IGN, Marvel Comics has officially acquired the rights to both the Alien and Predator series. Much like Star Wars, the two franchises were Dark Horse Comics staples that have now been whisked away thanks to Disney’s billion-dollar acquisition of Fox. But despite leaving their home of over 30 years, Alien and Predator fans need only look at Marvel’s success with the Star Wars comics to know that that the two classic properties are in good hands:
“There’s nothing more thrilling than a story that will keep you at the edge of your seat, and Alien and Predator have delivered that time and time again!” said Marvel Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski in a statement to IGN. “I can clearly remember where I was when I saw each of these modern masterpieces for the first time, and reveling in how both masterfully weave extraterrestrial dread and drama into some of the most iconic scenes we’ve ever seen on film. And it’s that legacy that we’re going to live up to!”
While Marvel’s announcement focuses solely on the comics rights, it’s hard not to wonder whether Disney would ever lean into Alien and Predator movies now that they’re under its umbrella. Recently, both Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver have each revealed two separate Alien projects that are hoping to get off the ground following the Fox merger.
As for Predator, there has been little movement on that property since the Disney purchase. The Shane Black-directed Predators laid the groundwork for a sequel, but its underperformance at the box office might have scuttled those chances. However, anything is possible as Disney wades a little bit further into the Alien and Predator waters with this latest move.
If someone invites you to a “COVID-19 party,” you need to run. Seriously. And believe it or not, that little absurdist nugget of practical advice might actually prove useful to you in the coming days. Because CNN reports that students in the state of Alabama — primarily in the Tuscaloosa area, home to the University of Alabama, and other colleges — are engaging in parties in which people who have the coronavirus are encouraged to attend and the first person to contract the virus wins a cash prize.
Yeesh. Sure, college is a weird place, and cringey party themes come with the territory, but we promise you that parties in which you place bets and actively try and contract a potentially deadly virus are not a normal part of the college experience. Even if you’re part of the Greek system.
Believing it to be just a rumor, Tuscaloosa Fire Chief Randy Smith investigated the claim and confirmed through local doctor’s offices and the state health department that the parties appeared to be real, according to Alabama ABC affiliate ABC 33/40 News. “We had seen over the last few weeks parties going on in the county, or throughout the city and county in several locations where students or kids would come in with known positives. We thought that was kind of a rumor at first… we did some additional research… not only did the doctor’s offices help confirm it but the state confirmed they also had the same information.”
Speaking to CNN, City Council member Sonya McKinstry revealed that the first party attendee to contract coronavirus and get confirmation from a doctor wins the pot — made up of the money made from door entry. So not only are students in Alabama attending what sounds like the worst party in the world, they’re paying to do it. As anyone who has experienced college parties knows: the parties you have to pay always suck.
Curiously, none of the attendees of these modern Pox Parties has been interviewed yet. As of Thursday, July 2nd, Alabama currently has 39,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and almost 1,000 deaths.
The NBA’s bubble league appears set to occur in Orlando at the end of this month, with 22 teams heading to Disney with the hopes of determining a champion amid the COVID-19 pandemic. For the league’s remaining eight teams, though, the possibility of a potentially nine month-long layoff doesn’t seem all that appealing, and reports have indicated that the league is looking into ways to keep those from squads from getting too rusty.
According to Jackie MacMullan of ESPN, the NBA is closing in on a plan to get those teams on the floor in an environment similar to what it’s doing in Orlando. MacMullan, with a little help from the Twitter account of Adrian Wojnarowski, reports that the league is zeroing in on a plan that would send those squads to Chicago in September for a “mini-training camp.”
The NBA is closing in on signing off on a second “bubble” in Chicago for the eight teams that were not invited to play in Orlando, enabling mini-training camps and subsequent games against other clubs with a target date of September, sources tell ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan.
The eight teams that would make up this bubble league, assuming this comes to fruition and they all opt to go to Chicago, are the Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, and New York Knicks from the Eastern Conference, and the Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves from the Western Conference. There is obviously a long way to go between now and September, and it might not make sense for all of these teams to agree to this arrangement — the Warriors, one could argue, would benefit from a gigantic layoff heading into next season due to the injuries their stars suffered this season and the sheer number of games they played during their five consecutive trips to the NBA Finals.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
Blimes Brixton and Gifted Gab never expected their success to arrive as a result of teaming up as a duo. To hear the two outstanding MCs tell it, a tag-team membership was never in the plans for either. But just like another rap partnership that eerily mirrors their own, they have turned out to be far more appealing to a mass audience as a tandem, like Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, the superstar Seattle Supersonics duo of the ’90s that Gab grew up idolizing.
The irony — and the comparisons — aren’t lost on them, but they don’t see the big deal. “Being from San Francisco, it was a big culture shock to travel the world and the country and to see that people were so segregated,” Blimes admits. “It’s normal to us. It is a no-brainer. She spits her ass off. People say I spit my ass off. Let’s both spit our asses off together and see what happens.”
The two rappers, Blimes from San Franciso and Gab from Seattle, got the first glimpse of the potential of their group dynamic when their 2018 single, “Come Correct,” went massively viral. The combination of boom-bap sensibilities, cocksure braggadocio, and the yin-yang dynamic of their approach — Blimes, brusque and punchy, Gab, slick and smooth, and of course, the obvious visual contrast between them — made them an instant fan favorite, prompting them to formally establish a partnership and begin work on a joint album.
That album, Talk About It arrived last Friday after a 2019 that saw both release incredibly entertaining solo albums and slowly build a buzz that included placements on HBO’s Insecure and an extended social media promo campaign billing them as hip-hop’s new favorite “aunties.” Despite the quality of their solo material, it was evident throughout the buildup that the real anticipation was for Talk About It, providing more proof that their lyrical alchemy could produce more than the sum of its parts.
And it has. The versatile album’s sounds span far beyond the established “real hip-hop” of their debut single, encompassing the joyful bop “Feelin It,” the synthy, ’80s-inspired pop-funk of “Shellys (It’s Chill),” the throwback hyphy sound of “Un Deux Trois,” and the spacey slow groove of “My Way.” Along the way they’re joined by both contemporaries like IAMSU and Jay Park, and established vets Method Man and Bahamadia (they brought back Bahamadia, y’all!). But the main attraction is the covalent bond between the two charismatic, unapologetic stars and their Big Auntie Energy.
Over the phone with Uproxx, they broke down the evolution of their sound, the tribulations of being women in the music game, what it’s like to watch their plans evolve to fit the fan demand for more of their united sound, and of course, life in quarantine.
What have you guys been up to in the COVID universe with the zombie apocalypse outside?
Blimes: Hella digital performances, hella digital takeovers. A lot of platforms and companies have been really active in keeping up their engagement with their viewership, which was dope to start off. We were honored to be like included in a lot of those, but we only got one offer for payment. And that was from another music artist. Another music artist came out of her own pocket to bread us out to play a digital Fest. And then you’ve got these bigger platforms that weren’t doing it.
As independent artists, how has this time affected your income and your workflow? What are you doing to compensate?
Blimes: It definitely gave people, including me, a lot of time to think. Once the world stops, there’s nothing else to do. I wish that I was hella creative during this time. I’ve done some stuff but there’s been no inspiration. There’s really nothing to get inspiration from. ‘Cause I’m just looking at the same four walls all fucking day.
Gab: We’ve had to be imaginative and, honestly with the live show stuff that hasn’t been supplemented, there hasn’t been something that’s come in and held the place of live show income. So that’s been a big challenge. We’ve had to explore other avenues. Luckily we did enter a partnership right as COVID started. We entered a partnership with Zync (a song licensing company). We were able to establish some placements on our own, which helped us get some footing for establishing a Zync deal.
What were some of those?
Gab: The Insecure placement came before the deal. “Hot Damn” is in the new RZA movie coming out whenever it comes out, with Shameik Moore — the man of the hour [Moore recently caught flak online for ill-timed tweets that seemed to blame victims of police brutality]. Placements have luckily started to supplement the loss income from live shows, but getting creative with it and figuring out where to shift our energy has been vital.
People have been aware of you since “Come Correct,” but now you have “Feelin It” on Insecure and things like that. How has the buzz changed or picked up since?
Blimes: When people start to notice us, and when people start to check for us, it feels really gratifying and fulfilling because we’ve known that this would happen. I think Gab and I knew that people needed to know who we were for a long time. And people always told us individually, “Man, y’all need to blow up.” we never knew that the vehicle for that would be forming a group. Neither of us expected this — it wasn’t on our vision boards.
But that was the key, that was the amplification. It was us getting together, that turned into this giant vehicle for the rest of the world to see us and hear about us. Because when people look at us, they want to talk about it. They’re like, “Why are these two together? How did these two get together? This is an odd pair.” And that’s why we went with the album named Talk About It. ‘Cause we make people talk about it.
Let’s talk about Talk About It. I think that it’s going to surprise a lot of people if they know you from “Come Correct.” You guys are not doing the boom-bap, underground, backpack, rappity-rap sh*t the whole album. What was the driving impulse behind the musical evolution? What do you expect to surprise people?
Gab: I think the album has like a great mix of shit. It’s really a cohesive album and it has like something for everybody, we even tied it together with skits. So you have like hella different elements. You get to see our personality. You get some comedy and you get some dance cuts, you get some rappity-rap cuts. You have some cuts over singing. There’s a whole lot going on. You’d have to find something in that album that you fuck with, but there’s no way you wouldn’t.
Blimes: I think through that it hella shows our influences. Gab grew up singing in the church and you can hear that practice throughout the album. You can hear the harmony throughout the album. My dad is a blues musician. My grandfather is a jazz musician. You can hear the musicality, the importance of the musicality that we both grew up with throughout the album. And then you got the influences of Golden Era boom-bap rap that we grew up on. You got Bahamadia on the album, you got Method Man on the album. But we also showed them what we’re capable of. That we’re not just some old heads and that we are capable of making music that’s current. Because I feel like a lot of artists don’t walk the line they’re on one side or the other and they stay on one side or the other.
Especially because it’s been so apparent to us that women in this industry have to work to gain the respect that men have off rip.
Talk about it!
Blimes: Women have to work 10 times as hard. So basically we were like we’re going to make this album and be like, “What else do you want us to do?” You say, “Jump,” we say, “How high?” Pay us some fucking respect.
So about that “odd couple” pairing. While I was researching for this interview, a Google glitch caused an Uproxx article about you to pop up with a Run The Jewels pic and headline. I actually interviewed them recently and they also spoke about being called an odd couple because they’re one white guy, one Black guy. Of course, you guys mirror that, but it’s even deeper because I know Blimes is queer as well and I’ve seen you guys field fan questions about that. How do you guys navigate that dynamic, especially in the current climate?
Gab: I mean, it’s not anything out of the norm for us. I’m of mixed race. My dad is white. My mom is Black. So it’s not a strange, foreign concept to me. It’s kind of hard for me to speak on because it’s just so normal. From the outside looking in, yeah, I get the “odd couple” appeal and the differences between us. But it isn’t outside the realm of what I’m used to. And Blimes and I are both from hella diverse cities — with her being from San Francisco and me being from Seattle. All we know is hella diversity. So this is also another representation of who we are and where we come from.
Blimes: Being from San Francisco, it was a big culture shock to travel the world and the country and to see that people were so segregated. And to see people’s reactions to Gab and I working together and be like, “Wait, so how did this happen? This doesn’t make sense,” was a shock because like Gab said, it’s normal to us. That’s my sis. She spits her ass off. People say I spit my ass off. I trust them on that. So yeah, we should link up. Let’s both spit our asses off together and see what happens. So that made sense.
Gab and I have always had this habit of talking to each other about stuff that comes up for us. It’s just not letting things fester, not letting things boil over, and if we’re seeing differently on a point, if we’re seeing differently on something in the studio, we talk about it — even if we don’t talk about it that day, even though being direct isn’t the easiest thing in the world for somebody that you’re getting to know.
We do have a good practice and a good habit of talking to each other about stuff that comes up, whether it be what’s going on, what’s coming up for us in terms of different communication styles because of our culture, or whether I’m feeling insecure about a joke that I made. Maybe I felt like it was insensitive, and I’m like, “Yo, what’s up, Gab? Did that hit you a certain way?” And she’s like, “No,” and we talk about it. Or Gab’s like, “Hey, let me do this part of the song, or let me do that part.”
And Gab is continually proving that she’s an ally for the gay community. She’s the best cheerleader. She’s so welcoming of all our gay fans and so comfortable. There’s no question of whether or not she’s down for the fight for LGBT rights, and I would think that she would say the same thing about me when it comes to the race conversation.
Let’s come back to how the industry can be harder for women. Between recent situations with Noname and Doja Cat and of course, how Cardi B and Nicki were pit against one another for so long, it seems like there are just more challenges because there aren’t as many women — especially women who don’t look a certain way or fit the “industry standard.”
Blimes: Part of our success has been from staying true to ourselves, and we both feel really strongly about staying true to ourselves. We both feel really strongly about dressing the way we want to dress, being comfortable, and sometimes that’s sexy. Sometimes that’s feminine. Sometimes that’s tomboy. Sometimes that’s comfortable. We know that there’s so many standards placed on women, and we really, really, really, really want to go against the external standards. You’re not going to tell me how to dress. You’re not going to tell me how I need to show up. I am the gatekeeper of my own personal comfort. I’m the gatekeeper of my own personal style. And so that’s really important to us in terms of being women. That’s not to shit on any of the women that feel that they have to adhere to the standards.
And it seems like you’re held to a higher standard. If you slip up, that’s it. I don’t really believe in “cancel culture” but it seems like women are just subject to so much stronger criticism.
Blimes: I feel like Gab has a great example of this happening to her. And if she’s willing to share about it, I think it’d be really powerful.
I think I know where this is going. It’s a prime example of double standards.
Gab: It definitely is. We did one of those email interviews for a publication, and one of the questions, they were like, “Gab, we wanted to know…” Basically they asked about my name, and they were like, “Did you ask the OG for his permission?” [Bay Area rapper Gift Of Gab, of the group Blackalicious] The way they were asking was very clearly condescending, like, “Do you know that your name is very similar to his, and did you ask if it was okay to use that name?”
For one, it’s literally my name. My name is Gabrielle. I have to ask someone permission to use a name that’s mine? What are you talking about? And furthermore, I know who the person is. And even further than that, the person whose name it is knows me and is a fan of my work and is okay with it. So if he’s okay with it, why are y’all so upset about it?
Are you asking other artists with similar names that same question? If you interview ASAP Rocky, are you going to ask him, “So did you ask Aesop Rock his permission to use that name?” No, you’re not going to ask no other male rapper or nobody that question in that tone anyway, so why would you choose that with me — and to think that I’m going to just bow down to it or give a cutesy answer? No, I didn’t fucking ask to use somebody’s name, and why are you even asking me that question anyway? Whose side are you on? What is this even for?
Blimes: Exactly. We’re quicker to get canceled, takes way longer to gain the respect. Obviously, we have high hopes for this album, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bunch of men who are like, “I don’t know. I’m going to need them to prove it more on the second one. We’re going to have to see what they do with the second one.”
From my perspective, y’all have nothing left to prove. And I’m really hoping for the best for you guys.
Gab: Hell yeah.
Talk About It is out now via B.A.G. Enterprises. Get it here.
Warrior Nun (Netflix series, Thursday) — This manga-comic-book adaptation does indeed contain warrior-ing and nunn-ing, but it’s much more than that, including a superhero origin story, a coming-of-age tale, and an often-schlocky creation that arrives with certain expectations from the title itself. The action might take a few breaks, but when it’s on, expect some serious butt kicking of demons.
The Whistlers (42 Km Film on Hulu, Thursday) — Romanian New Wave director Corneliu Porumboiu’s 2019 festival-circuit film has a heist for you. The story involves a Romanian cop. who just happens to be a whistleblower, learning a coded whistling language (for real) to help mobsters escape from prison and steal millions of euros.
Thiago Ventura: POKAS (Netflix special, Thursday) — Another stand-up comedy special’s here to bridge the gap between the streaming giant’s regular Tuesday comedy infusions. Thiago Ventura will tell anecdotes about growing up in a poor Brazilian community while digging into social issues and taking a clear stance of actions mattering much more than words.
Say I Do (Netflix series, Wednesday) — Just what we need, another reality romance show, right? This one revolves around couples who have always planned on getting married but just never got around to tying that knot. Interior Designer Jeremiah Brent, Fashion Designer Thai Nguyen, and Chef Gabriele Bertaccini are all about creating dream weddings, and hopefully, we’ll see some Bride- and Groom-zillas.
Burden Of Truth (CW, 8:00 p.m.) — An unreliable whistleblower could blow the whole deal for Joanna and Billy, while Lena’s going to extreme lengths on another case.
In The Dark (CW, 9:00 p.m.) — Nia’s shipment is missing, and it’s almost go-time, so the crew must come together in crisis mode. However, Dean’s lurking about with his own plan for the tardy and misplaced stash.
Blindspot (NBC, 9:00 p.m.) — This crazy tattoo show’s somehow still around, and the team’s scrambling to beat Madeline and Ivy to the bunker, but Madeline’s got a line to the inside.
Cake (FXX, 10:00 p.m.) — Two Aussie brothers experience love, life, and humanity while leading a dangerous mission against man’s eldest enemy.
After sticking the landing to HBO’s Watchmen with a season (series?) finale that mostly satisfied viewers and critics across the board (no small feat), Damon Lindelof‘s other high-profile ending has been getting some renewed attention and perhaps a more generous appraisal after it confounded audiences 10 years ago. We’re talking, of course, about Lost, the hit ABC series that ran for 121 episodes before attempting the unenviable task of wrapping up a project that stacked mystery on top of mystery, dabbled in time travel, and featured mad science experiments and, sure, supernatural forces, too.
While looking back at the controversial Lost finale in an interview with Collider, a candid Lindelof opened up about how the writers started laying the groundwork when ABC reluctantly gave the all-clear to end the show after six seasons. According to Lindelof, the plan from the beginning was always that Jack would die at the end of the show, but that death ended up taking place over the whole final season where the writers pulled a narrative trick called the “flash-sideways.” Lost was famous for its flashback sequences, or in some cases, flash-forward sequences, but the “flash-sideways” was a clever ruse to make the viewer think the main characters were trapped in a time paradox when, really, they were in the afterlife.
But pulling off this deception required planting the seed that time travel was possible, which the writers did in Season 4, the first season where they were actively working towards an endgame. With time travel in the game, Season 5 could now end with the potential for a time paradox and allow the writers to pull off the “flash-sideways.” Via Collider:
So that basically led to us backing into Season 5 so that ‘The Incident’ would end Season 5, so when you started to get presented with Oceanic 815 flying over a sunken island, your brain would tell you, ‘Oh this is a parallel timeline where the plane never crashes.’ And it didn’t feel like that was a finale reveal. It felt like once Desmond started waking up or gaining consciousness, or the Charlie of the parallel timeline remembered putting his hands up with the ‘Not Penny’s Boat’, that the audience would start to get wise of like, ‘How are these characters remembering events that didn’t happen to them? The only logical answer is that they’re in an afterlife.’ But I didn’t see it getting widespread theoretical attention.
Essentially, over three seasons, the writers worked backward to make the afterlife revelation work in the final season. In theory, anyway. Even Lindelof will admit that they failed to “strike a balance” with the number of mysteries they used in the show, which he recently revealed was the result of ABC’s demand to keep the show going. Originally, Lost was supposed to end after three seasons, and it took Lindelof years to convince the network to let the writers end it sooner rather than later.
If it was up to ABC, Lost would’ve run for 10 seasons. Fortunately, we don’t live in the parallel universe where that happened.
It may not have lived up to its predecessor — how could it? — but Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep was one of the better Stephen King adaptations in recent years. It’s worth watching for Rose the Hat alone. And unlike the Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall-starring original, King gave his blessing to Doctor Sleep, saying, “I read the script very, very carefully and I said to myself, everything that I ever disliked about the [Stanley] Kubrick version of The Shining is redeemed for me here.” He did have one note, though.
“When [Jacob Tremblay’s character] got killed, [King] leaned over to me and said, ‘That’s a little brutal, isn’t it?’ We changed it. We backed off,” Flanagan told the Kingcast podcast. “When he saw it, we maybe cut to Jacob two additional times, so there were two more stabs. We took those out. That was the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been on a set. That was horrible for everyone except Jacob, who had a blast. That was Stephen’s only note for the movie.” Tremblay lived in a shed for five years. He’s fine.
Flanagan also discussed his next movie based on a King book, Revival. “What I love about it is it’s a return to cosmic horror, which I think is so fun. It is relentlessly dark and cynical and I’m enjoying the hell out of that,” he said. “I haven’t gotten to end a movie [this] way since Absentia, maybe? Maybe Ouija? This one was a really fun piece of material for me because I get to be like, oh, you want a dark ending? Cool, get ready.”
In the early days of California’s shutdown, I read diary entries from the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. The entries portrayed many things; fear, despair, anxieties…the same things I was seeing every day on my social media.
My Facebook was filled with commentary and experiences from Black people, women, LGBTQ+ folks, and other diverse groups. One friend had a fever of 102 and a vicious cough, another was sheltering-in-place with her children while working from home, and yet another friend had lost a job opportunity. Would history remember their experiences? Would anyone remember how they felt, what they feared the most, what they were hopeful about?
The Internet has given diverse communities outlets to express ourselves for the world. We make people laugh through TikTok, start engaging conversations on Twitter, and document our dog’s antics on Facebook. However, as a historian, I look at all of this material and wonder: who is organizing all these narratives? In 100 years, we may have archived the social media of MJ Rodriguez, Cardi B, Billy Porter, Hillary Clinton, and Anthony Bourdain, but their lives are not representative of the majority. Most of us will not ever be a presidential nominee, win an Emmy, or be on the front of magazines. And while I am not against recording celebrities, I believe that we can learn the most about a historical event from those who are never given the spotlight.
Historical narratives are often framed around the experiences of straight white men. As a Black woman thinking about future history books, I felt anxious that stories like the ones I saw on my Facebook would never be told because they would not be considered important. I could not let my family and friends be forgotten by history. With that determination set in my bones, I began assembling an oral history project, The #DocumentingCOVID Project, aimed at recording my communities.
Every week, I interview people to assure they will not be forgotten by history. I am recording the stories of people living through the COVID-19 pandemic so future generations will know how diverse communities and women survived. Since April, with the help of many supportive friends, I have interviewed 23 people from all walks of life: CEOs, hairdressers, mothers, teachers, COVID-19 survivors, community center workers, and government employees. Within these groups is even more diversity: Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, Jewish, people with disabilities, etc. In each interview, I ask people about their experiences during this pandemic as it relates to their identities.
For example, when speaking with Black mothers, who often give “the talk” about the police, I ask how they navigate a new talk… about COVID. For teachers, I ask about their concerns over what they can cover through virtual learning and the preparedness of future students. For people living with disabilities, we talk about the experience of watching large companies suddenly instituting working from home for able-bodied people, something disability advocates have been demanding for years. The records created by my interviewees gives a nuanced look at the pandemic: not everyone is making sourdough starters and perfecting their brownie recipe. Many people from diverse communities are afraid, suffering, but also showing a steel resistance to a pandemic that puts them most at risk.
Recording the narratives of diverse communities is essential because the nuances they give disrupt historical myths. One of my favorite things to do is read through primary sources in archives. Recently, I came across former slave narratives collected in the 1930s by Professor John B. Cade of Southern University and A&M College. Professor Cade and his interviewers traveled around the Jim Crow South, collecting the memoirs of former slaves. The power of these slave narratives is that they debunk many of the myths we have created about slavery. When someone tells me about how “slaves were usually treated well”, I will now always share the story of Florence Bailey, who testified that slaves on her plantation were “branded by cutting ashes into their skin.” It is hard to stand by your belief that slavery was only “a bit bad,” when the voices of survivors say the exact opposite.
As I look ahead to the years that will follow this pandemic, I can already see some of the myths that will be created: it was hysteria created by the media, it was a Democrat hoax, it was just a cold, etc. While historical myths are created in part to organized political following in the present, they also occur because people do not know their history. It is my hope that the oral histories collected during this pandemic by researchers across the world will assure diverse communities are not forgotten. That our stories are not forgotten. That in a way, the work being done now, by historians and researchers can serve as a Mythbusters time capsule for future generations.
COVID-19 takes more lives each day and we do not have a cure. But we do have voices. Voices that recall the devastation, fear, and also the hope. One of the last questions I ask my interviewees is what their feelings about the future are. It has surprised me, after almost an hour of describing the exhaustion, anxieties and frustrations that the most common answer is “I am hopeful.”
When they write the history of this pandemic, I want the world to know that despite everything we faced, we held tightly to hope. And if anyone doubts this, all they need to do is listen to the voices we have saved, telling our stories, preserved so our great-grandchildren will know how we survived.
Nikki Brueggeman is a writer and poet based in Southern California where she focuses on the subjects of Blackness and history. She can be followed on Twitter @warriornikki.
The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to replace police officers with response teams for nonviolent emergency calls.
The new response teams will be unarmed and respond to situations that don’t require violent interactions such as substance abuse incidents, neighbor disputes, and mental health issues.
Four councilmen also suggested that this unarmed response team could enforce traffic violations including speeding, illegal turns, and other vehicle code violations. The decision comes as Los Angeles is enjoying a historical dip in violent crime.
In 2019, the homicide rate was the lowest since 1962 and has decreased by 77% since 1992.
“For years, police officers have used traffic enforcement as an excuse to harass and demean Black motorists while violating their rights,” Councilmen Marqueece Harris-Dawson said according to CBS Los Angeles. “We do not need armed officials responding to and enforcing traffic violations. This practice is expensive, costing the city millions and far too many innocent people their lives.”
The change in police enforcement has been applauded by Black Lives Matter. “More often than not, when such calls become violent, they become violent at the hands of police,” BLM-LA co-founder Melina Abdullah said.
“Driving while Black or Latino should not be a crime, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a young person of color who has not had a negative interaction that began with an alleged traffic infraction,” Councilman Herb Wesson said.
If the traffic proposal is adopted, leaders will work with Los Angeles Department of Traffic to develop methods of enforcement that do not require armed officers.
“It’s common sense. We don’t need an armed response to a broken tail light or a traffic accident,” Wesson said. “This is a logical next step to reimagining public safety in Los Angeles.”
“Don’t use a hammer if you don’t need to pound a nail,” writes economist Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution.
“The responsibility for handing out speeding tickets and citations should be handled by an unarmed agency,” Tabarrok adds. “Put the safety patrol in bright yellow cars and have them carry a bit of extra gasoline and jumper cables to help stranded motorists as part of their job—make road safety nice.”
The Los Angeles City Council’s decision is powerful push-back against a form of authoritarianism that Americans have lived under and accepted for decades. We’ve all been conditioned to the idea that armed agents of the state should to be summoned for the smallest law violations or to bring order to nonviolent conflict.
When, in reality, unarmed security guards do a fine job at keeping the peace at private establishments and meter maids can hand out parking tickets without needing a shotgun.
Over the past few decades, largely due to budget cuts, Americans have dropped the ball on caring for its most vulnerable by making drug addiction, mental illness, and homelessness an something to be handled by the police.
This puts undue pressure on police to solve societal ills they aren’t necessarily equipped to handle and subjects vulnerable populations to become the care of the prison system instead of organizations based on treatment.
The Los Angeles City Council’s decision is a step towards possibly having mental health response teams, community interaction teams, and homelessness efforts that can be solved by specifically trained, nonviolent actors, instead of armed officers.
It’s a move to create a more humane relationship between the state and its citizens and bound to save lives by reducing the number of interactions between citizens and armed officers.
City Girls had more than an eventful 2019. Their breakout hit “Act Up” went Platinum, one half of the duo, JT, was released from federal prison after a two-year stint, and the other half, Yung Miami, revealed she was pregnant with her second child. Fans are now awarded the opportunity to get a first-hand look at the duo’s eventful year through their new docuseries, City Girls: The Series.
The premiere of City Girls: The Series debuted Thursday and it gave viewers a behind-the-scenes look at a day in the life of Yung Miami. Titled Yung Miami’s Secret, the series’ first episode follows Yung Miami as she details all the work she put into City Girls while JT was in prison. “Soon as she went away, I did the first tour in all these cities and all these states, making sure JT’s name stayed alive,” Yung Miami said in the episode’s opening. “For all the haters who thought JT being away was going to slow us down, y’all was wrong. When JT gets home, she’s going to be bigger than ever. And they’re going to see that, the superstars that we really is.”
The episode also highlights the moment Yung Miami told her record label, Quality Control, that she was five months pregnant, a detail she had been keeping under wraps until then. The episode films the emotional moment the rapper as she phones Quality Control executive Pierre “P” Thomas and preps him for the news. “I’ve got something to tell you,” she says on the phone. “I know that JT’s in jail and I’m supposed to be out here holding down the crew and you and Coach been going so hard making sure we get everything done. I’m pregnant.”
Watch the first episode of City Girls: The Series above.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
