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Why 'Get Out' Is 'Invasion of the Black Body Snatchers' for the Trump Era |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=38164"><span class="small">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Hollywood Reporter</span></a>
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Friday, 17 March 2017 08:50 |
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Abdul-Jabbar writes: "What startles some viewers of Get Out is that the biggest threat to the young black protagonist isn't the predictable redneck leftovers from Deliverance, but the wealthy white liberals who probably donate to the ACLU and tearfully tell their friends to watch Moonlight."
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (photo: unknown)
Why 'Get Out' Is 'Invasion of the Black Body Snatchers' for the Trump Era
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hollywood Reporter
17 March 17
The horror hit's family of "chipper Kellyanne ?Conways whitesplaining away racism" reveals the modern face of public bigotry, writes the THR columnist and NBA legend, who recalls his own past as the "Good Negro" of white society.
 recently watched the highly entertaining thriller Get Out and the deeply disturbing documentary I Am Not Your Negro. Turns out they're the same movie. They both deal with the subjugation of the unpopular voice — whether black, female, gay, Muslim, Jewish or immigrant — through the enslavement of the body. Get Out uses the medical-horror genre, and I Am Not Your Negro uses ex-pat African-American writer James Baldwin's passionate outrage at the martyrdom of his three murdered friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. But both films explore the differences between the end of legal slavery and the lingering effects of institutional slavery. The urgent message in both is that unless the body is free from others trying to control its actions and free from constant threat of injury or death, that body, that person, that people are still enslaved.
Get Out's well-deserved 99 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and huge financial success have as much to do with its sly, subversive message as its spooky ride. Written and directed by the immensely talented Jordan Peele, the film embodies and expresses the African-American experience with infrastructural racism in a way that blacks hope whites will better understand after seeing it. Most important is the idea that when you live under constant physical threat of violence — whether from police, the legal system or racist groups — that in itself is a way to control people. Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his blunt and incisive book Between the World and Me, describes this daily dilemma for people of color: "Not being violent enough could cost me my body. Being too violent could cost me my body. We could not get out."
What startles some viewers of Get Out is that the biggest threat to the young black protagonist isn't the predictable redneck leftovers from Deliverance, but the wealthy white liberals who probably donate to the ACLU and tearfully tell their friends to watch Moonlight. This echoes something the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail, where his body had been locked up for marching for freedom: "I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice."
Why is that relevant today? Because 54 years later, we're still facing the same issues of imprisoning and enslaving the body, through direct and indirect violence as well as through limiting educational and job opportunities. The charming Armitage family of the movie may seem liberal, but they could just as easily be Trump surrogates, a family of chipper Kellyanne Conways, whitesplaining away racism.
A couple weeks ago, President Trump announced that he was "the least racist person" during a press conference in which he openly demonstrated clueless racism by bristling at a black reporter's question of whether or not he would be including the Congressional Black Caucus in discussions about issues related to the African-American community. Which he then followed up by aggressively suggesting the reporter should set up the meeting, implying because she's black she must know them personally. What makes Trump's pronouncement of his lack of racism so stunning is that it occurred soon after the U.S. Justice Department abandoned its longstanding fight against the Texas voter ID law, which is a blatant attempt to restrict poor and minority voters. This week, the GOP revealed its health care plan to replace Obamacare, a key provision of which is to defund Planned Parenthood as punishment for providing abortion services, despite the fact that none of its federal funding is used for abortions. Texas legislators are discussing a bill that permits doctors to lie to women about the health of their fetuses to discourage them from seeking an abortion. These are ways to control women's bodies, putting them in physical and financial danger while reducing their value to society by proclaiming they aren't smart enough to choose their own course. And Trump's administration has decided to withdraw the previous administration's support for the rights of transgender students at public schools, further imprisoning those children in their bodies.
Slave shackles by any other name.
It's horrifying watching poor Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) paralyzed in that chair while his will and body are being stolen, because growing up, I felt as paralyzed as him. Watching James Baldwin struggle with the frustrations of black bodies being destroyed both physically and mentally in the documentary reminded me of my own struggles as a young black man in the '60s. I was the poster child for the Good Boy, which to many Americans meant Good Negro. Everyone was telling black children that if you studied hard and did what you were told, you could be successful and welcomed into white society. I studied hard and earned good grades. I practiced hard and earned a good living. But I knew as a child that my name and religion were not my own. Alcindor was the Christian slave monger who owned my ancestors. I was paralyzed by that past, by white America's expectations for how a black man should behave, by how much gratitude I should constantly express for allowing me to succeed. I overcame that paralysis when I adopted a religion and name that I felt connected me more to my cultural roots. Reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time inspired me to find my own voice. When I used that voice to speak about political and social injustice, some Americans responded with hatred and death threats. Ironically, I was just doing what people came to America to do since it was founded: reinvent myself according to my beliefs rather than someone else's.
Raoul Peck's unforgettable I Am Not Your Negro chronicles the civil rights struggles of the '60s, while Get Out shows how the public racism of that time has hidden itself by burrowing like a ravenous tapeworm into the bowels of America, growing fatter each year as it feeds off good intentions and bad faith.
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Trump Breaks World Record for Unconstitutional Travel Bans |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9160"><span class="small">Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker</span></a>
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Thursday, 16 March 2017 14:18 |
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Borowitz writes: "In an official statement announcing the new world record, the White House called Trump's second unconstitutional ban 'especially impressive' because it came only thirty-eight days after his first."
President Donald Trump signs his Muslim ban executive order. (photo: Ilivier Douliery/Bloomberg)
Trump Breaks World Record for Unconstitutional Travel Bans
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
16 March 17
 The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report." 
 otching the first major achievement of his Presidency, Donald Trump has broken the world record for unconstitutional travel bans, the White House confirmed on Wednesday.
In an official statement announcing the new world record, the White House called Trump’s second unconstitutional ban “especially impressive” because it came only thirty-eight days after his first.
“In addition to the world record for unconstitutional travel bans, President Trump has also smashed the speed record for signing them,” the statement read.
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, touted the new world record in a press briefing that sometimes resembled a victory lap.
“After the first unconstitutional travel ban, a lot of people questioned whether the President could follow it up with another unconstitutional one so quickly,” a gloating Spicer said. “I think he silenced a lot of doubters today.”
In a tense moment, Spicer lashed out at a reporter who claimed that, by issuing two unconstitutional travel bans in less than two months, Trump had “set the bar too high.”
“The travel ban he is planning to sign tomorrow will be more unconstitutional than the first two travel bans put together,” Spicer snapped.
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New Republican Bill Would Give Employers Access to Your Genetic Information |
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Thursday, 16 March 2017 14:09 |
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Allard writes: "A new bill would give my employer access to my genetic information, and potentially make my kids unemployable."
Lab worker conducts genetic testing. (photo: iStock)
New Republican Bill Would Give Employers Access to Your Genetic Information
By Jody Allard, VICE
16 March 17
A new bill would give my employer access to my genetic information, and potentially make my kids unemployable.
 hree years after the Social Security Administration declared me totally and permanently disabled, I decided to give up my Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits and give working another try. After months of looking, I began a new job three weeks ago. Two weeks after I started, Republicans introduced a new bill in Congress that would give employers the right to order their employees to undergo genetic testing—and access their results.
I have mitochondrial disease—a progressive genetic disease that targets my muscles, eyes, and organs—and over time it has had a serious impact on my ability to work. I've tried hard over the last few years to find a treatment plan that would enable me to return to work, but that effort may soon be for nothing. My days on the job could be numbered if my new employer has access to my genetic test results, and that's exactly what a new bill in Congress would give them.
The bill, called the "Preserving Employee Wellness Act," expands what employers can legally require as part of their "employee wellness programs" to include genetic testing, as long as participation in the program itself is "voluntary." Don't get too excited about the voluntary aspect of the program, though. If you opt out of these employee wellness programs, your employer can legally discriminate against you by raising your health insurance premiums by up to 30 percent (even 50 percent in some cases). Many people would be forced to choose between affordable health insurance and medical privacy.
Under the bill, employers wouldn't have access to individual genetic test results—the results they receive would be randomized. At large corporations, that might offer some protection (depending on how much demographic data is included in the results). But for small companies like my new employer, it wouldn't be hard to match employees to their genes. It's not clear yet how anonymous results would be, but to take my own example, my company is tiny. If my employers got age, sex, race, or any other detail along those lines, it would be pretty simple to figure out which information belongs to whom. My medical expenses aren't that bad now, but upon seeing my genetic information, my employer would discover that my expenses are likely to be massive down the line—and that I'm likely to go back on disability (using their plan) before other employees. This company seems pretty chill, but financially I'm a bad bet, and it's concerning.
Employee wellness programs themselves aren't new. But right now the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits employers from requiring employees to take medical exams unless they're voluntary, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) prevents employers from requesting genetic information from employees and their families. The Preserving Employee Wellness Act would change all of that by stipulating that workplace wellness programs are presumptively in compliance with the ADA and GINA. It's your employer, not you, who will get to decide what "voluntary" testing means—and how much medical information you have to disclose about yourself and your family.
In the past, genetic testing was far too expensive for employers to dabble with. However, a new era of inexpensive and broadly available genetic tests have made the option more appealing to employers. "The challenge becomes how to implement usage of this information and to very clearly define rights of the patient in the control of the information," says Troy Moore, chief scientific officer at Kailos Genetics. "This is exceedingly challenging due to lack of knowledge on the part of the legislative branch, pressure by lobbying groups and a lack of general interest in the public—until it affects them personally."
The new bill applies to your family's genetic info, too. If being forced to tell your employer about your grandmother's bout with breast cancer sounds illegal, that's because it is—right now. Today, GINA prevents employers from accessing their employees' family medical history. But a provision in the Preserving Employee Wellness Act would allow them to demand detailed family medical information, including genetic test results, from employees and their family members.
As soon as my oldest son read about the bill, he came to me with his concerns about what it would mean for his future employability. For people like my kids, whose family history is an insurance underwriter's nightmare, giving employers access to their family history could make them unemployable. It could also prevent them from being approved for disability insurance, long-term care insurance, or life insurance, none of which are protected under GINA.
Genetic testing can have searing personal and financial implications. Not everyone wants to know, for instance, that they're likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or breast cancer in the future, and it's important to consider how genetic testing will shape your future before you take the test. That's why genetic counseling is required before undergoing traditional genetic testing (direct-to-consumer products like 23andMe are considered entertainment, so they're exempt from this requirement). But there's no provision in Preserving Employee Wellness Act that would require employers to provide genetic counselors to their employees. On the contrary, the bill allows employers to coerce employees into taking genetic tests they might not want to take at all.
There's yet another downside to this bill: As soon as an employee sees their test results, they are required to disclose them on any future applications that inquire about it, such as life insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, and health insurance. It's already legal to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions for those first three categories, and Republicans are trying to make it legal for the fourth, too—by pushing people with pre-existing conditions on to high-risk health insurance plans. So it's not just about what an employer does with your info, but how getting tested affects your ability to be insured.
If employee wellness programs actually helped anyone, this might be slightly less appalling, but they're pretty much a scam. Plus, if employers begin to ask too many lifestyle-related questions as part of these programs (such as inquiring into employees' pot-smoking habits), they may see younger, generally healthier employees choosing to opt out in order to avoid losing their jobs. Then, as more healthy people pull out of the insurance pool, rates go up for everyone else.
"Higher rates due to worsening experience from less-younger enrollment might end up being more costly than any potential savings of putting in a wellness program with testing and the subsequent financial penalties," says Don Goldmann, past president of the National Association of Health Underwriters and vice president of Word & Brown General Agency.
Even if there aren't systemic consequences of this bill for healthy young adults, there will be for people like me and my family. It targets disabled and chronically ill people who need stable jobs and health insurance even more than the average American, and it allows employers to discriminate against them in the name of "wellness." My employer has no right to my private genetic information and neither does yours.
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FOCUS: Jeff Sessions Goes Full 'Reefer Madness' on Pot |
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Thursday, 16 March 2017 12:49 |
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Dickinson writes: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions continued a personal campaign to demonize marijuana, calling cannabis a 'life-wrecking dependency' that is 'only slightly less awful' than heroin in a speech on violent crime in Richmond, Virginia, Wednesday."
Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (photo: Getty)
Jeff Sessions Goes Full 'Reefer Madness' on Pot
By Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone
16 March 17
Attorney general says marijuana is "only slightly less awful" than heroin
 ttorney General Jeff Sessions continued a personal campaign to demonize marijuana, calling cannabis a "life-wrecking dependency" that is "only slightly less awful" than heroin in a speech on violent crime in Richmond, Virginia, Wednesday.
Insisting that the federal government should return to a Nancy Reagan-style, 1980s anti-drug campaign – "educating people and telling them the terrible truth" about controlled substances – Sessions conflated the nation's opioid addiction and overdose crisis, which now claims 140 lives a day, with marijuana, a drug he said will "destroy your life."
Sessions has no facts on his side. The use of medical pot as a painkiller can provide an alternative to opioids, and many in recovery cite cannabis as lessening the agony of opiate withdrawal. Research published on the federal government's own DrugAbuse.gov website finds that states with medical marijuana programs have reported "reductions of 16 to 31 percent in mortality due to prescription opioid overdoses, and 28 to 35 percent in admissions for treatment of opioid addiction."
No matter, Sessions cast his ignorance as bold, "unfashionable" truth-telling. The attorney general's remarks on marijuana follow:
"I realize this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use. But too many lives are at stake to worry about being fashionable. I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store. And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana – so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that's only slightly less awful. Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life."
Answering reporters' follow-up questions, Sessions added that, "I think medical marijuana has been hyped, maybe too much" and declared himself "dubious" about benefits of smoked marijuana.
Despite the Drug War saber-rattling, Sessions proceeded to offer a vague note of reassurance on the future of state-legal recreational marijuana. The attorney general said that "much" of the Cole memo – the Obama DOJ guidance deprioritizing federal pot enforcement in states that have legalized – is "valid," and he recognized that federal law enforcement is "not able to go into a state and pick up the work that police and sheriffs have been doing for decades."
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