Israel Daramola is not here for brunch.
[Ed.- The country seems to be disintegrating at a remarkable pace. Every day brings a fresh deluge of horror. In Alternative Facts, Israel Daramola pauses for a second to look back and take stock of the previous week to ten days. There’s danger in retreating into a shell and letting it wash over you; it’s important to catalogue each new, impossible wrong.]
Do you remember The Knick? Great show. Some people were disappointed about its cancellation but I think it ended on as high a note as possible, with Dr. John Thackery operating on himself in front of an audience of scholars, quickly losing blood and vision. In the end, when he realizes all is lost and death is imminent, he says out loud: “This is it. This is all we are.”
I was in LA when the events at Charlottesville took place. The reality of the anger, violence, and racist actions brought me down to earth, but more than that were the moments when I witnessed or spoke directly to people in the city about it. They all—well meaning as could be—thought that they were different. It wasn’t that long ago since the OJ trials and the LA riots; the racial politics and deep poverty and systemic issues are obvious still. Not just in LA, all over America. This is all we are.
Trump is a bag of skin, a tan turd, a golden piece of donkey shit. He is the epitome of shooting yourself in the foot but the one thing he’s done that no other presidential candidate would’ve done is, he has made race the forefront.
His unabashed support of the KKK and neo-Nazis stands in stark contrast to the quiet silence of a more presidential person, who
smiles and talks in generalities while letting the systemic issues continue to subjugate the poor and minorities while everyone else comfortably opts out and enjoys bottomless mimosas.
I have a feeling that’s what bothers people more than anything: the fact that they can no longer opt out and ignore what’s going on, despite what Tina Fey says. There is no more opting out and there is no escape from the truth about America. Charlottesville is not an anomaly. This is all we are.
In Other News:
Steve Bannon—a sentient sack of dog shit—has been “fired.” I put ‘fired’ in quotes because he’ll probably still be around, giving his racist terrible strategy advice while also going back to Breitbart (Buzzfeed for sophisticated skinheads). It’s hard to care much because he’s just another cog in this administration’s belief system. Take one out, plug one in. Fuck him regardless.
Did anything else happen this week? We’re not dead from nuclear war…so that’s cool. There was some good music I guess. Solar eclipse on Monday.
Song Of The Week:
And that’s it. RIP Heather Heyer.
