What’s Good, Medium?
10/13/2016
Jenn Marie recalls her unbelievable interview with notorious drug dealer Rick “Freeway” Ross:
I didn’t know what to expect when I interviewed the 1980’s drug kingpin, Rick Ross. To say I was a bit intimidated is a bit of an understatement. But as I picked up the phone and pressed record, I took a deep breath and reminded myself one thing: “He’s just an ordinary person…” and that is what makes the story so damn interesting.
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein grapples with being Black and Jewish on Yom Kippur:
In 2016, I assume that every conversation with one of my Black friends and family members may be our last one. My friends and family are located close to the places where Black people have been the victims of extrajudicial police murders. Whenever I hear the news, I wait — in complete terror — for a name. And I have given instructions to my husband about what to do if it’s me.
I find too often that white Jews hear stories like this and think, “That’s sad for them. I will act in solidarity when I can.” As we think about making the world whole, about Teshuvah and our commitment to Tikkun Olam and respecting and loving G-d, the G-d that we make together, I believe this approach should be questioned.
Why? Because Black people are People. What is happening is an affront to all of us, not just those of us who are Black. It is time to stop treating this like it is a grief that only Black people can feel and understand, as if Blacks are somehow a different species.
In fact, it is hard to be Black and Jewish in a community that does not see how alienating this approach can be. I have thought many times, in the last two months especially, about walking away from Judaism because I did not feel fully acknowledged as a fellow human.
Chuck Badger breaks down why “I have a wife/daughter/mother/sister” is not a productive response to Donald Trump’s sexism:
‘Treat all women like you would your wife or daughter,’ not only isn’t the solution to the Trump tapes, it’s actually part of what created the Trump tapes. It no-doubt comes from a good place to say: Trump could’ve been talking about my daughter or sister. But there’s a problem with not recognizing a problem until it affects you directly. A teacher of mine once recalled a foreign-exchange trip to Soviet Georgia in the 1980s. Georgian men in a lobby were literally bidding to buy girls. Her male students thought this was funny. But they stopped laughing when they learned the Georgian men were bidding on them too.
Mark had a difficult time watching Ava Duvarney’s Netflix doc 13th. Here’s why:
I have immediate family whose lives have been affected by the government’s war on black (and brown) people who use, sell or are in close enough proximity to those who have sold drugs. I grew up in a family whose means of dealing with anti-black racism and bias which prevents people who look like me from advancing, was selling drugs. As a baby, a BABY…I and my mother were held at gun point during a drug bust of a family member. My great-grandmother died in prison because of the criminalization of crack cocaine. I am not just waking up. I do not feign anger over injustice because of something I’ve read on Facebook. I live everyday with the consequences of black families being ripped apart, scarred, and perpetually damaged as political leverage.
So, for me, watching “13th” wasn’t about not dealing with issues affecting millions of Americans, nor shying away from knowing history, it was about knowing it too well and being traumatized all over again.
