newyorker--2020-06-12--Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods,” and Judd Apatow’s “The King of Staten Island,” Reviewed

Alive to the needs of our time , and not content with giving us one film , Spike Lee , as generous as he is scathing , has two new works on release .
The first , “ 3 Brothers , ” lasts ninety-five seconds and comprises three pieces of footage , skillfully conjoined .
Each piece shows the death of an African-American man at the hands of police .
Two of the men , Eric Garner and George Floyd , are all too real , and the third , Radio Raheem , is a character in Lee ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1989 ) .
What the mini-movie demonstrates is not so much the coincidence of fact and fiction ( each victim has the breath squeezed out of him ) as the fulfillment of a prophecy .
“ I told you so , ” Lee seems to say , in a rage of regret .
His second new film , “ Da 5 Bloods , ” is a little longer , at more than two and a half hours .
It largely tells the story of four men : Paul ( Delroy Lindo ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Norm Lewis ) , and Melvin ( Isiah Whitlock , Jr. ) .
Years ago , they were comrades-in-arms , in the Vietnam War ; now , as senior citizens , they are both more and less than friends , too tightly bound by everything that befell them to relax into mere companionship .
So frequent are the gestures of togetherness , as the guys bump fists and pledge themselves to unity , that you wonder if they ’ re trying to prove something that they fear no longer holds fast .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the present day , at a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City .
Their notional purpose is to find and to repatriate the remains of their platoon leader , Norman ( Chadwick Boseman ) , the fifth blood of the title , whom they revered , and who was killed in the wake of an encounter with the Vietcong .
On the quiet , though , our heroes have an ulterior motive .
“ Our platoon was ordered to find a C-47 C.I.A .
plane that went down with a payroll for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Uncle Sam was paying them in gold bars , for their help against the VC .
Well , we found the gold.
” It was secreted there , awaiting retrieval at a later date .
Thus , the veterans ’ journey is both an act of homage and a search for buried treasure .
No surprise , perhaps , that the tone of “ Da 5 Bloods ” should career all over the place , from the solemn—listen to the soaring soundtrack , by Terence Blanchard—to the brutally hectic .
Lee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movie for our money , and the cornucopia , in this case , is stuffed to bursting point .
Some of the stuffing is borrowed : the plot about wartime gold being shared among fellow-grunts is lifted from “ Charade ” ( 1963 ) , if you please , starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant , while Wagner ’ s “ Ride of the Valkyries , ” which roared from loudspeakers mounted on helicopters in “ Apocalypse Now ” ( 1979 ) , here accompanies the gentle chugging of a riverboat , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Eddie rightly scoffs at “ those Hollyweird motherfuckers trying to go back and win the Vietnam War , ” meaning Sylvester Stallone , in the second “ Rambo ” flick ( 1985 ) , and the strangely smiling Chuck Norris , in “ Missing in Action ” ( 1984 ) .
Yet the climax of “ Da 5 Bloods , ” reluctant to shake old habits , pits a bunch of stranded Americans against gun-toting Vietnamese , amid ancient ruins .
Looks pretty Hollyweird to me .
So , what else do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for one thing : Otis discovers that he has a love child in Vietnam , while Paul is tracked down en route to the treasure by his son , David ( Jonathan Majors ) , who is worried about his old man .
Then come the French : the saintly Hedy Bouvier ( Mélanie Thierry ) , who runs an outfit called LAMB , or Love Against Mines and Bombs , and a white-suited sinner named Desroche ( Jean Reno ) , who , to judge by the size of him , must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Love of Unregistered Pâtisseries .
To be honest , none of these subplots add much to the film ’ s essential force ; as in “ Miracle at St. Anna ” ( 2008 ) , Lee ’ s tale of African-American troops in Italy , set mostly in 1944 , his footing becomes less sure when he strays from familiar ground .
On the other hand , because this is a Spike Lee enterprise , much of it does grip the gaze and summon up the blood .
Now and then , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frame close inward like curtains being half drawn , as we turn back in time to the Vietnam War .
We see Paul and his buddies in combat fatigues , fully armed , and , to our consternation , we realize that they are still being played by the same aging actors , with the same wrinkles and the same creaky knees .
No prosthetics , no C.G.I .
The effect is at once comical and oddly moving , a rebuff to the laborious digital youth that was applied to De Niro and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Irishman , ” last year .
Lee is suggesting that these folks haven ’ t changed as they once hoped to do—that the shape of their adult existence was somehow formed and fixed by the traumas in Southeast Asia .
And by the training , too ; when a kid throws firecrackers in the street , in modern-day Ho Chi Minh City , the middle-aged Americans drop to the ground as if dodging tracer bullets .
In short , Lee ’ s new movie—like the great “ BlacKkKlansman ” ( 2018 ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adventure , the caveat being that history is never done with us , and that we struggle to shrug it off our backs .
In the throes of his feature films , Lee is never not a documentarian ; he doesn ’ t hesitate to interrupt the flow of chatter with a still photograph of Milton L. Olive III , say , who fell on a grenade to save his comrades , in 1965 , and was , we hear , “ the first brother to be awarded the Medal of Honor in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t dishonor a sacrifice by asking what it was for .
That ’ s why “ Da 5 Bloods ” kicks off with a clip of Muhammad Ali , denying that he has any quarrel with the Vietnamese , and moves on to Bobby Seale , from 1968 , who declaims , “ Here we go , with the damn Vietnam War , and we still ain ’ t gettin ’ nothin ’ but racist police brutality , etc.
” And there it is , deep in that “ etc.
” There ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Why fight and die for your country , Lee implies , if your country will choke you anyway ?
When Paul and the gang go for gold , they aren ’ t raiding a lost ark ; they are claiming reparation , for centuries of willful impoverishment .
As Norman puts it , in a rousing flashback , “ the U.S.A. owe us.
” It ’ s a hell of an argument , and I wish I could feel it ring out across a crowded movie theatre ; mind you , such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recent weeks , in the aftermath of George Floyd ’ s death , in Minneapolis , that it ’ s easy to imagine viewers watching “ Da 5 Bloods ” online and being swayed , even at home , by the surge of its indignation .
It seems wholly fitting that , where “ BlacKkKlansman , ” a more focussed film , was calmed by the central presence of John David Washington , as an unflappable cop , the core of the new movie should belong to Delroy Lindo , as Paul—wrathful , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He ’ s a Trump voter , in a MAGA cap ; he ’ s a mess , who ends up addressing the camera , like the witness to a natural disaster ; and he breaks your heart .
I won ’ t forget the sight of him as he marches off into the jungle by himself , shouting the Twenty-third Psalm as if issuing a command .
“ The Lord is my shepherd , I shall not want , ” he cries , biting hard on the final “ t. ” So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to war , the poor soul , and never came back .

Alive to the needs of our time, and not content with giving us one film, Spike Lee, as generous as he is scathing, has two new works on release. The first, “3 Brothers,” lasts ninety-five seconds and comprises three pieces of footage, skillfully conjoined. Each piece shows the death of an African-American man at the hands of police. Two of the men, Eric Garner and George Floyd, are all too real, and the third, Radio Raheem, is a character in Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” (1989). What the mini-movie demonstrates is not so much the coincidence of fact and fiction (each victim has the breath squeezed out of him) as the fulfillment of a prophecy. “I told you so,” Lee seems to say, in a rage of regret.
His second new film, “Da 5 Bloods,” is a little longer, at more than two and a half hours. It largely tells the story of four men: Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.). Years ago, they were comrades-in-arms, in the Vietnam War; now, as senior citizens, they are both more and less than friends, too tightly bound by everything that befell them to relax into mere companionship. So frequent are the gestures of togetherness, as the guys bump fists and pledge themselves to unity, that you wonder if they’re trying to prove something that they fear no longer holds fast.
We meet them as they gather, in the present day, at a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. Their notional purpose is to find and to repatriate the remains of their platoon leader, Norman (Chadwick Boseman), the fifth blood of the title, whom they revered, and who was killed in the wake of an encounter with the Vietcong. On the quiet, though, our heroes have an ulterior motive. “Our platoon was ordered to find a C-47 C.I.A. plane that went down with a payroll for the native people,” Otis explains. “Uncle Sam was paying them in gold bars, for their help against the VC. Well, we found the gold.” It was secreted there, awaiting retrieval at a later date. Thus, the veterans’ journey is both an act of homage and a search for buried treasure.
No surprise, perhaps, that the tone of “Da 5 Bloods” should career all over the place, from the solemn—listen to the soaring soundtrack, by Terence Blanchard—to the brutally hectic. Lee always likes to give us plenty of movie for our money, and the cornucopia, in this case, is stuffed to bursting point. Some of the stuffing is borrowed: the plot about wartime gold being shared among fellow-grunts is lifted from “Charade” (1963), if you please, starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, while Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” which roared from loudspeakers mounted on helicopters in “Apocalypse Now” (1979), here accompanies the gentle chugging of a riverboat, as the gold hunters embark upon their quest. Eddie rightly scoffs at “those Hollyweird motherfuckers trying to go back and win the Vietnam War,” meaning Sylvester Stallone, in the second “Rambo” flick (1985), and the strangely smiling Chuck Norris, in “Missing in Action” (1984). Yet the climax of “Da 5 Bloods,” reluctant to shake old habits, pits a bunch of stranded Americans against gun-toting Vietnamese, amid ancient ruins. Looks pretty Hollyweird to me.
So, what else do we have? Tricky parental relations, for one thing: Otis discovers that he has a love child in Vietnam, while Paul is tracked down en route to the treasure by his son, David (Jonathan Majors), who is worried about his old man. Then come the French: the saintly Hedy Bouvier (Mélanie Thierry), who runs an outfit called LAMB, or Love Against Mines and Bombs, and a white-suited sinner named Desroche (Jean Reno), who, to judge by the size of him, must be the chairman of LOUP, or Love of Unregistered Pâtisseries. To be honest, none of these subplots add much to the film’s essential force; as in “Miracle at St. Anna” (2008), Lee’s tale of African-American troops in Italy, set mostly in 1944, his footing becomes less sure when he strays from familiar ground.
On the other hand, because this is a Spike Lee enterprise, much of it does grip the gaze and summon up the blood. Now and then, the screen narrows; the fringes of the frame close inward like curtains being half drawn, as we turn back in time to the Vietnam War. We see Paul and his buddies in combat fatigues, fully armed, and, to our consternation, we realize that they are still being played by the same aging actors, with the same wrinkles and the same creaky knees. No prosthetics, no C.G.I. The effect is at once comical and oddly moving, a rebuff to the laborious digital youth that was applied to De Niro and his coevals in Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” last year. Lee is suggesting that these folks haven’t changed as they once hoped to do—that the shape of their adult existence was somehow formed and fixed by the traumas in Southeast Asia. And by the training, too; when a kid throws firecrackers in the street, in modern-day Ho Chi Minh City, the middle-aged Americans drop to the ground as if dodging tracer bullets.
In short, Lee’s new movie—like the great “BlacKkKlansman” (2018)—is a history lesson wrapped in an adventure, the caveat being that history is never done with us, and that we struggle to shrug it off our backs. In the throes of his feature films, Lee is never not a documentarian; he doesn’t hesitate to interrupt the flow of chatter with a still photograph of Milton L. Olive III, say, who fell on a grenade to save his comrades, in 1965, and was, we hear, “the first brother to be awarded the Medal of Honor in ’Nam.” But you don’t dishonor a sacrifice by asking what it was for. That’s why “Da 5 Bloods” kicks off with a clip of Muhammad Ali, denying that he has any quarrel with the Vietnamese, and moves on to Bobby Seale, from 1968, who declaims, “Here we go, with the damn Vietnam War, and we still ain’t gettin’ nothin’ but racist police brutality, etc.”
And there it is, deep in that “etc.” There’s the link between then and now. Why fight and die for your country, Lee implies, if your country will choke you anyway? When Paul and the gang go for gold, they aren’t raiding a lost ark; they are claiming reparation, for centuries of willful impoverishment. As Norman puts it, in a rousing flashback, “the U.S.A. owe us.” It’s a hell of an argument, and I wish I could feel it ring out across a crowded movie theatre; mind you, such are the social and political convulsions of recent weeks, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, in Minneapolis, that it’s easy to imagine viewers watching “Da 5 Bloods” online and being swayed, even at home, by the surge of its indignation.
It seems wholly fitting that, where “BlacKkKlansman,” a more focussed film, was calmed by the central presence of John David Washington, as an unflappable cop, the core of the new movie should belong to Delroy Lindo, as Paul—wrathful, tearful, and barely in control. He’s a Trump voter, in a MAGA cap; he’s a mess, who ends up addressing the camera, like the witness to a natural disaster; and he breaks your heart. I won’t forget the sight of him as he marches off into the jungle by himself, shouting the Twenty-third Psalm as if issuing a command. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” he cries, biting hard on the final “t.” So much for green pastures. He went to war, the poor soul, and never came back.
The weight of the past presses down, in a very different way, on Judd Apatow’s “The King of Staten Island.” The movie is about the gangling Scott Carlin (Pete Davidson), who is twenty-four, lives with his mother, and has vague plans to be a tattoo artist. His sister, Claire (Maude Apatow), is off to college, leaving Scott to hang out with his errant friends. He has sex with Kelsey (Bel Powley), but any satisfaction is muffled by the antidepressants he takes. “There’s something wrong with me up there,” he tells her, indicating his head, and there’s no hiding the root of the wrongness: his father, a firefighter, died seventeen years earlier, in heroic circumstances. No wonder Scott looks and behaves like an overgrown kid. His life is in embers.
Fans of “Saturday Night Live,” having followed Davidson’s rise to fame, will know how closely—indeed alarmingly—he is being used here as a template for Scott. Both have mental-health problems; both have Crohn’s disease; and both employ comedy not to deflect from their adversities but to tunnel into them. (One major change: Davidson’s father, also a fireman, perished on 9/11.) If you have a taste for this near-reckless candor, and for the snarls of pride with which Scott defends his slackerdom, you will relish this movie, at least in its early phase. The later stages, be warned, contain scenes of emotional uplift, in which Scott gets a dose of male bonding at the local firehouse. He becomes a dogsbody, and learns how to fold the American flag. So that’s how you cure depression.
By the end, in truth, I found myself swamped by Scott, and wondered if he might have made more impact as a secondary character—maybe as a foil to his widowed mother, Margie, who is played to perfection by Marisa Tomei. Not since Barbara Stanwyck has an actress blended zest and pathos into such expressive chords. Margie, eager to support her son, sports one of his tattoos on her arm. “Is that a cocker spaniel?” she is asked. “No,” she replies. “That’s my daughter, Claire.” ♦


newyorker--2020-06-12--“I Take Responsibility” and the Limits of Celebrity Activism

Hollywood is perhaps one of the last places to look for inspiration—practical , emotional , or otherwise—in times of crisis .
Still , our gilded class ’ s response to the societal shitstorm that has dominated our minds and screens for the last four months has felt notably unfastened .
In April , the comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres made headlines when she joked that life while quarantined in her ten-thousand-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion felt like “ being in jail.
” The same week , the Times reported on the four hundred inmates being held at Rikers Island for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic .
The inmates included Raymond Rivera , a fifty-five-year-old man who , after having his case delayed several months , contracted COVID-19 in jail and died the day after state officials lifted the warrant against him .
As public sentiment has turned from coronavirus-induced fear to sadness and anger following the tragic killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer , the celebrity response has ranged from milquetoast to head-scratching .
In a video shared to Instagram on June 2nd , the movie heartthrob turned Silicon Valley financier Ashton Kutcher choked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conversation that he had with his two young children .
He explained how his son wanted to be read to first , but Kutcher told him that his sister would go first because “ for some boys , girls don ’ t get to go at all.
” The story was meant to serve as a poignant and instructive allegory for the score of Instagram users who had commented “ All Lives Matter ” under a recent post of his where he had opined “ BLM.
” Around the same time , Virgil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Louis Vuitton and the founder and C.E.O .
of Off-White , was being memed into a fine dust after posting a screenshot of his paltry fifty-dollar donation to a bail fund started by the Miami art collective ( F ) empower .
And , on Thursday , a two-minute video for an initiative bluntly titled “ I Take Responsibility ” joined the ever-growing canon of the unsought celebrity P.S.A .
The video features a coalition of white actors and entertainers asserting their culpability in perpetuating anti-black racism .
Filmed in a sombre @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the spot shows Sarah Paulson , Stanley Tucci , Kesha , and others vowing no longer to “ turn a blind eye ” or “ allow racist , hurtful words .
.
.
to be uttered in my presence ” and “ to stand against hate.
” The Web site for the initiative allows visitors to decide which vice they feel most guilty of ( “ Saying racism doesn ’ t exist , ” “ not being inclusive , ” etc . )
and to “ make it better today ” by pledging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ families affected [ by racism ] ” before directing them to various organizations and petitions .
Elsewhere , many celebrities simply invoked proverbial , and often literal , “ prayer hands ” emoji ( 🙏 ) —a de-facto “ get well soon ” to society and all its ills .
The missed notes have been particularly grating in the pop-music world , where many stars have built careers and amassed huge profits working within black musical traditions and selling their work to black audiences .
As black communities are being disproportionately decimated by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ die at the hands of law enforcement , there are some who feel that figures like Drake should use their massive platforms to do more than , say , offer a fan the chance to fly on his private jet ( On June 1st , Drake was challenged by fellow Toronto artist Mustafah the Poet to match a four-hundred-dollar donation to a black bail-fund network .
The rapper reportedly replied , “ Say less brother , ” and posted a donation receipt for a hundred thousand dollars . )
A similar desire to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in combatting anti-black racism is likely how # TheShowMustBePaused was first conceived .
Led by Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang—two black women who have worked in executive roles at major record labels—the initiative was meant to be an industry-wide day of observance for “ the long-standing racism and inequality that exists from the boardroom to the boulevard.
” According to the stated mission on the project ’ s Web site , the women hoped that this day of reflection would be a positive first step in the effort to “ hold accountable the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ major corporations and their partners who benefit from the efforts , struggles and successes of Black people.
” On Tuesday , June 2nd , scores of artists posted black squares on their Instagram feeds , often alongside the hashtag # BlackoutTuesday .
Nearly all the major music labels observed the blackout , and explained , with varying levels of specificity , what a continued commitment to this mission would look like at their respective companies .
The trend was quickly picked up by many people outside the industry , too .
And , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ posts ended up saturating the # blacklivesmatter tag on Instagram , displacing resources and information that some organizers had been compiling for years .
By Wednesday , it was back to business as usual on many artists ’ feeds—after all , there were deluxe-edition albums to promote .
The current cultural moment is one whose urgency feels particularly ill-suited to the sort of vapid pageantry that typically constitutes the “ socially conscious ” arm of a celebrity ’ s public-relations repertoire .
Given all the vested corporate interests that celebrities have , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the appearance of political integrity more than its actual presence , it ’ s wishful to expect every musician with more than a million followers to be schooled in the perils of systemic racial inequality , much less to be equipped to speak publicly about it .
In fact , it would probably be in our collective best interest that not all of them did .
Still , one hopes that , among the faction of the highly followed and highly influential who were jumping to post black squares and vague sentence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use their visibility to do more .
The increased pressure on artists to monetize their personal brands and the subsequent professionalization of social media have turned these solipsistic Internet spaces into de-facto storefronts for mini corporations .
Sadly , it seems that many of the famous names behind these accounts have also adopted the sort of risk-averse , politically opaque rhetoric favored by Fortune 500 companies—opting for tepid platitudes and lazy hashtag activism in lieu of more resolute ( and potentially alienating ) public displays .
The tiptoeing of the entertainment industry ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the more conspicuous by the activity of their less popular peers .
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic , and now in the wake of the George Floyd murder and other police-related violence , smaller and independent artists have used their reach to compile and disseminate resources like recommended viewing and reading lists ( flawed as they may be ) , to amplify the work of organizers , and to publicize bail funds to donate to in support of the many protesters who have been arrested in cities across the country , and they have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mutual Aid Fund , the initiative started by the New York creative collective affiliated with the Queens hardcore band Show Me the Body , has amassed more than twenty-two thousand dollars in just over a month , with the bulk of proceeds going to members of the New York City D.I.Y .
music scene who have been financially affected by the coronavirus pandemic .

Hollywood is perhaps one of the last places to look for inspiration—practical, emotional, or otherwise—in times of crisis. Still, our gilded class’s response to the societal shitstorm that has dominated our minds and screens for the last four months has felt notably unfastened. In April, the comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres made headlines when she joked that life while quarantined in her ten-thousand-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion felt like “being in jail.” The same week, the Times reported on the four hundred inmates being held at Rikers Island for minor parole violations, despite a worsening pandemic. The inmates included Raymond Rivera, a fifty-five-year-old man who, after having his case delayed several months, contracted COVID-19 in jail and died the day after state officials lifted the warrant against him. As public sentiment has turned from coronavirus-induced fear to sadness and anger following the tragic killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, the celebrity response has ranged from milquetoast to head-scratching.
In a video shared to Instagram on June 2nd, the movie heartthrob turned Silicon Valley financier Ashton Kutcher choked back tears as he recounted a pre-bedtime conversation that he had with his two young children. He explained how his son wanted to be read to first, but Kutcher told him that his sister would go first because “for some boys, girls don’t get to go at all.” The story was meant to serve as a poignant and instructive allegory for the scores of Instagram users who had commented “All Lives Matter” under a recent post of his where he had opined “BLM.” Around the same time, Virgil Abloh, the artistic director of menswear for Louis Vuitton and the founder and C.E.O. of Off-White, was being memed into a fine dust after posting a screenshot of his paltry fifty-dollar donation to a bail fund started by the Miami art collective (F)empower. And, on Thursday, a two-minute video for an initiative bluntly titled “I Take Responsibility” joined the ever-growing canon of the unsought celebrity P.S.A. The video features a coalition of white actors and entertainers asserting their culpability in perpetuating anti-black racism. Filmed in a sombre black-and-white and scored with saccharine piano, the spot shows Sarah Paulson, Stanley Tucci, Kesha, and others vowing no longer to “turn a blind eye” or “allow racist, hurtful words . . . to be uttered in my presence” and “to stand against hate.” The Web site for the initiative allows visitors to decide which vice they feel most guilty of (“Saying racism doesn’t exist,” “not being inclusive,” etc.) and to “make it better today” by pledging to do things like “donate to families affected [by racism]” before directing them to various organizations and petitions. Elsewhere, many celebrities simply invoked proverbial, and often literal, “prayer hands” emoji (🙏)—a de-facto “get well soon” to society and all its ills.
The missed notes have been particularly grating in the pop-music world, where many stars have built careers and amassed huge profits working within black musical traditions and selling their work to black audiences. As black communities are being disproportionately decimated by the coronavirus and black people continue to die at the hands of law enforcement, there are some who feel that figures like Drake should use their gigantic platforms to do more than, say, offer a fan the chance to fly on his private jet. (On June 1st, Drake was challenged by his fellow Toronto artist Mustafah the Poet to match a four-hundred-dollar donation to a black bail-fund network. The rapper reportedly replied, “Say less, brother,” and posted a donation receipt for a hundred thousand dollars.)
A similar desire to push industry leaders toward more decisive action in combatting anti-black racism is likely how #TheShowMustBePaused was first conceived. Led by Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang—two black women who have worked in executive roles at major record labels—the initiative was meant to be an industry-wide day of observance for “the long-standing racism and inequality that exists from the boardroom to the boulevard.” According to the stated mission on the project’s Web site, the women hoped that this day of reflection would be a positive first step in the effort to “hold accountable the industry at large . . . including major corporations and their partners who benefit from the efforts, struggles and successes of Black people.” On Tuesday, June 2nd, scores of artists posted black squares on their Instagram feeds, often alongside the hashtag #BlackoutTuesday. Nearly all the major music labels observed the blackout, and explained, with varying levels of specificity, what a continued commitment to this mission would look like at their respective companies. The trend was quickly picked up by many people outside the industry, too. And, somewhat ironically, the flood of black-square posts ended up saturating the #blacklivesmatter tag on Instagram, displacing resources and information that some organizers had been compiling for years. By Wednesday, it was back to business as usual on many artists’ feeds—after all, there were deluxe-edition albums to promote.
The current cultural moment is one whose urgency feels particularly ill-suited to the sort of vapid pageantry that typically constitutes the “socially conscious” arm of a celebrity’s public-relations repertoire. Given all the vested corporate interests that celebrities have, and the timeworn tradition of rewarding famous people for the appearance of political integrity more than its actual presence, it’s wishful to expect every musician with more than a million followers to be schooled in the perils of systemic racial inequality, much less to be equipped to speak publicly about it. In fact, it would probably be in our collective best interest that not all of them did. Still, one hopes that, among the faction of the highly followed and highly influential who were jumping to post black squares and vague sentence fragments, there are some who could use their visibility to do more. The increased pressure on artists to monetize their personal brands and the subsequent professionalization of social media have turned these solipsistic Internet spaces into de-facto storefronts for mini corporations. Sadly, it seems that many of the famous names behind these accounts have also adopted the sort of risk-averse, politically opaque rhetoric favored by Fortune 500 companies—opting for tepid platitudes and lazy hashtag activism in lieu of more resolute (and potentially alienating) public displays.
The tiptoeing of the entertainment industry’s biggest names has been made all the more conspicuous by the activity of their less popular peers. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, and now in the wake of the George Floyd murder and other police-related violence, smaller and independent artists have used their reach to compile and disseminate resources like recommended viewing and reading lists (flawed as they may be), to amplify the work of organizers, and to publicize bail funds to donate to in support of the many protesters who have been arrested in cities across the country, and they have gone to protests themselves. Corpus Family Mutual Aid Fund, the initiative started by the New York creative collective affiliated with the Queens hardcore band Show Me the Body, has amassed more than twenty-two thousand dollars in just over a month, with the bulk of proceeds going to members of the New York City D.I.Y. music scene who have been financially affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Of course, not all of the ultra-famous have blown hot air. Various high-profile figures have disrupted their seemingly endless promotion cycles and retrofitted their social channels to speak pointedly about the current moment. One such figure is “Star Wars” ’s John Boyega. Despite apparent pushback from some of his fans, the British actor, who is of Nigerian descent, has been very outspoken in disparaging racism and brutal policing and has voiced support for protests around the world. On June 3rd, a video of an impassioned Boyega addressing the crowd at a large Black Lives Matter demonstration in London circulated widely online. Elsewhere, figures such as the Chicago rapper Noname, whose popular online book club has highlighted titles by Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freire, and Octavia Butler, have continued to use their platforms to galvanize their following and espouse their unequivocal beliefs. Some celebrities who in the past had been perhaps overzealous in exploiting their soapbox (ahem, Kanye) even seem to have stepped back and taken a more measured approach this time around.


newyorker--2020-06-12--Getting White People to Talk about Racism

George Floyd ’ s killing has prompted a national outcry and a wide reassessment of the ways in which racist systems are intrinsic to America .
The anti-racism trainer Suzanne Plihcik argues that racism occurs even in the absence of people who seem like racists : “ We are set up for it to happen , ” and changing those systems will require sustained white action , she tells Dorothy Wickenden .
The political reporter Eric Lach follows a congressional Democratic-primary race to learn how the coronavirus pandemic has changed modern campaigning , and the fiction writer Bryan Washington recalls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ queer spaces will survive the shutdown .
Getting White People to Talk About Racism An anti-racism trainer examines white supremacy in America , and how hard it is for those who benefit from structural racism to acknowledge its existence .
How do you campaign when you can ’ t shake hands and kiss babies ?
We follow a congressional Democratic primary race to see how candidates are changing their strategies .
The Supreme Court Weighs the End of DACA An undocumented lawyer explains how he came to argue for DACA before the Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When It ’ s Gone A fiction writer remembers moments in gay bars and queer spaces before the pandemic .

Illustration by Golden Cosmos
Download a transcript
George Floyd’s killing has prompted a national outcry and a wide reassessment of the ways in which racist systems are intrinsic to America. The anti-racism trainer Suzanne Plihcik argues that racism occurs even in the absence of people who seem like racists: “We are set up for it to happen,” and changing those systems will require sustained white action, she tells Dorothy Wickenden. The political reporter Eric Lach follows a congressional Democratic-primary race to learn how the coronavirus pandemic has changed modern campaigning, and the fiction writer Bryan Washington recalls moments in gay bars and wonders whether queer spaces will survive the shutdown.
Getting White People to Talk About Racism
An anti-racism trainer examines white supremacy in America, and how hard it is for those who benefit from structural racism to acknowledge its existence.
Running for Office During a Pandemic
How do you campaign when you can’t shake hands and kiss babies? We follow a congressional Democratic primary race to see how candidates are changing their strategies.
The Supreme Court Weighs the End of DACA
An undocumented lawyer explains how he came to argue for DACA before the Supreme Court.
You’ll Miss It When It’s Gone
A fiction writer remembers moments in gay bars and queer spaces before the pandemic.


newyorker--2020-06-12--Eric Garner’s Family Is Still Grieving

Eric Garner’s Family Is Still Grieving

Jason Fulford grew up in Brooklyn , a few subway stops away from the Gowanus Houses , the public-housing project where his cousin and grandparents lived .
It was at the Gowanus Houses where Fulford was first made aware of a murder at the hands of the police .
In 1994 , Nicholas Naquan Heyward , Jr. , a thirteen-year-old black boy , was playing with a toy gun in a stairwell when he was shot in the stomach by a police officer .
The details of Heyward ’ s killing too closely mirror the case of Tamir Rice , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a police officer in an Ohio park , in 2014 , also for playing with a toy gun , in an eerie congruence too cruel and precise to be merely coincidental .
In 2014 , Fulford endured yet another tragedy , this time in his own family .
Fulford ’ s cousin , Eric Garner , was the black man killed by New York City police officers for allegedly selling loose cigarettes .
Garner let out his cry of “ I can ’ t breathe , ” now a viral rallying call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group of officers forced him to the ground and eventually smothered him to death with an illegal choke hold that induced a heart attack .
Fulford talks about the experience that his family went through in the video above , and offers advice to the family of George Floyd .
Fulford says that Garner “ had such a huge heart.
” The world knows Eric Garner ’ s name because the moments when that heart gave out , under the unrelenting stress of the officer ’ s grip , were captured on video @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time in connection to Garner ’ s death was Ramsey Orta , the man who took the video .
( Orta was arrested for gun charges filed just a month after he uploaded the video , in 2014 .
He was released from prison in late May , owing to the coronavirus pandemic . )
Fulford , whose expressions narrated his torment as he spoke to The New Yorker ’ s Christopher Hwisu Kim , found out about his cousin ’ s death on social media , along with the rest of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a wedding in Puerto Rico when he watched the video for the first time , unprepared .
He remembers his heart sinking—the virality setting off another wave of shock .
Fulford said to himself , “ There ’ s no way this could be Eric .
Not my cousin Eric.
” Since then , the video of Garner ’ s death has been a recurring source of exhaustive pain for Fulford .
Seeing it today can reignite grief that causes him to shake and feel nauseated .
But for Fulford , as painful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there is an even more haunting question : “ How many Erics were there that we have not seen on camera ?
” Six years later , in Minneapolis , another black man , George Floyd , borrowed the language that Garner had used to desperately plead for his own life .
Floyd ’ s dying lips uttered the same cries of “ I can ’ t breathe ” as a police officer , Derek Chauvin , knelt on Floyd ’ s neck for an exasperating nine minutes , killing him as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s knee on Floyd ’ s neck is another instance of intentional and casual cruelty thinly disguised as law enforcement , an all too often fatal corporeality for black people in the U.S. Fulford was immediately struck by the similarity between the murders of Garner and Floyd .
Like the deaths of Rice and Heyward , the details between their killings are too similar to write off as coincidence—they point to something larger .
Fulford was pleased that the protests in 2014 helped people to stand against the police violence that killed his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they weren ’ t productive .
Garner ’ s killer , Officer Daniel Pantaleo—who was later revealed , by a leak from the civilian review board , to have one of the most abusive records in the N.Y.P.D.—walked free after a Staten Island grand jury failed to indict him for his use of excessive force and the Justice Department dropped the case .
And the policing system would continue to result in the kind of violence that led to Floyd ’ s death , a few years later .
“ It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of my cousin , ” Fulford said .
The latest iteration of protests , in reaction to the deaths of Floyd and other victims of brutality , including Breonna Taylor , Ahmaud Arbery , and Tony McDade , are familiar to Fulford .
Thousands of people have gathered in every major U.S. city each night for the last two weeks to condemn what they witnessed again , with many calling for the defunding or dismantling of police forces .
“ Now we ’ re seeing an escalated version of what happened to my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Fulford said .
“ For six years to go by and that to be the message that we are sending out to everyone , especially my people.
” Fulford admits that he is not O.K.
, and can not commit to protesting , for fear that the experience will be too overwhelming .
He tries to quell disabilities evoked by the constant reinforcement of trauma with running , his form of advocacy and therapy .
An unfortunate bond links the Garner and Floyd families , as both have had to relive the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killed on camera while grieving on a national stage .
Fulford offers this advice to the Floyds : “ Stay as strong as they can .
.
.
fight for a cause , and something that will be everlasting and that can have an impact on people where acts like this just will not happen again.
” Finally , Fulford offers the Floyd family a message of solidarity , reminding them that there are many people who are ready and willing to stand in this fight alongside them .
He says that their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much light there can be in sharing some of the good that George brought to this world.
” “ There is a George in there that the world would have loved to know , ” Fulford adds .
“ He is shining a light right now and saying things need to change , just like my cousin did .
”

Jason Fulford grew up in Brooklyn, a few subway stops away from the Gowanus Houses, the public-housing project where his cousin and grandparents lived. It was at the Gowanus Houses where Fulford was first made aware of a murder at the hands of the police. In 1994, Nicholas Naquan Heyward, Jr., a thirteen-year-old black boy, was playing with a toy gun in a stairwell when he was shot in the stomach by a police officer. The details of Heyward’s killing too closely mirror the case of Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old black boy who was killed by a police officer in an Ohio park, in 2014, also for playing with a toy gun, in an eerie congruence too cruel and precise to be merely coincidental.
In 2014, Fulford endured yet another tragedy, this time in his own family. Fulford’s cousin, Eric Garner, was the black man killed by New York City police officers for allegedly selling loose cigarettes. Garner let out his cry of “I can’t breathe,” now a viral rallying call against racist police brutality, as a group of officers forced him to the ground and eventually smothered him to death with an illegal choke hold that induced a heart attack. Fulford talks about the experience that his family went through in the video above, and offers advice to the family of George Floyd. Fulford says that Garner “had such a huge heart.” The world knows Eric Garner’s name because the moments when that heart gave out, under the unrelenting stress of the officer’s grip, were captured on video. The only person who served jail time in connection to Garner’s death was Ramsey Orta, the man who took the video. (Orta was arrested for gun charges filed just a month after he uploaded the video, in 2014. He was released from prison in late May, owing to the coronavirus pandemic.)
Fulford, whose expressions narrated his torment as he spoke to The New Yorker’s Christopher Hwisu Kim, found out about his cousin’s death on social media, along with the rest of the world. He was getting ready for a wedding in Puerto Rico when he watched the video for the first time, unprepared. He remembers his heart sinking—the virality setting off another wave of shock. Fulford said to himself, “There’s no way this could be Eric. Not my cousin Eric.” Since then, the video of Garner’s death has been a recurring source of exhaustive pain for Fulford. Seeing it today can reignite grief that causes him to shake and feel nauseated. But for Fulford, as painful as watching the video can be, there is an even more haunting question: “How many Erics were there that we have not seen on camera?”
Six years later, in Minneapolis, another black man, George Floyd, borrowed the language that Garner had used to desperately plead for his own life. Floyd’s dying lips uttered the same cries of “I can’t breathe” as a police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on Floyd’s neck for an exasperating nine minutes, killing him as the public watched, again. Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck is another instance of intentional and casual cruelty thinly disguised as law enforcement, an all too often fatal corporeality for black people in the U.S. Fulford was immediately struck by the similarity between the murders of Garner and Floyd. Like the deaths of Rice and Heyward, the details between their killings are too similar to write off as coincidence—they point to something larger.
Fulford was pleased that the protests in 2014 helped people to stand against the police violence that killed his cousin. But he also found that they weren’t productive. Garner’s killer, Officer Daniel Pantaleo—who was later revealed, by a leak from the civilian review board, to have one of the most abusive records in the N.Y.P.D.—walked free after a Staten Island grand jury failed to indict him for his use of excessive force and the Justice Department dropped the case. And the policing system would continue to result in the kind of violence that led to Floyd’s death, a few years later. “It’s something that should have been avoided because of my cousin,” Fulford said.
The latest iteration of protests, in reaction to the deaths of Floyd and other victims of brutality, including Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade, are familiar to Fulford. Thousands of people have gathered in every major U.S. city each night for the last two weeks to condemn what they witnessed again, with many calling for the defunding or dismantling of police forces. “Now we’re seeing an escalated version of what happened to my cousin happen to another black man,” Fulford said. “For six years to go by and that to be the message that we are sending out to everyone, especially my people.” Fulford admits that he is not O.K., and cannot commit to protesting, for fear that the experience will be too overwhelming. He tries to quell disabilities evoked by the constant reinforcement of trauma with running, his form of advocacy and therapy.
An unfortunate bond links the Garner and Floyd families, as both have had to relive the agony of watching their loved ones being killed on camera while grieving on a national stage. Fulford offers this advice to the Floyds: “Stay as strong as they can . . . fight for a cause, and something that will be everlasting and that can have an impact on people where acts like this just will not happen again.” Finally, Fulford offers the Floyd family a message of solidarity, reminding them that there are many people who are ready and willing to stand in this fight alongside them. He says that their family is going to “see how much light there can be in sharing some of the good that George brought to this world.” “There is a George in there that the world would have loved to know,” Fulford adds. “He is shining a light right now and saying things need to change, just like my cousin did.”
Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests


newyorker--2020-06-12--“I Didn’t Know” Is Not a Defense for Enabling Trump

Apologies and disavowals have been unusually numerous of late .
When two top military officials said that they should not have enabled and participated in President Donald Trump ’ s recent photo op in Lafayette Square , both of them communicated that they didn ’ t quite know what they were participating in .
“ I didn ’ t know where I was going , ” the Secretary of Defense , Mark Esper , told NBC News , though the following day he was compelled to admit that he had known , even if he was not aware of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ More than a week later , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , General Mark Milley , said that he should not have followed the President to the photo op , and unnamed Defense Department officials told the Times that Milley believed that he was accompanying Trump on a troop inspection .
The leaders of the nation ’ s military were not the only men to use ignorance as a defense recently .
At the Times , James Bennet , who resigned as the editorial-page editor on Sunday , said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led to his downfall , an article in which the Republican senator Tom Cotton advocated using military force to disperse protests .
And on Tuesday , Republican lawmakers claimed not to have read a tweet of Trump ’ s promoting a deranged and hateful conspiracy theory about a seventy-five-year-old protester who had been assaulted by the police in Buffalo , New York .
Even after reporters showed them printouts of the tweet , they continued to profess ignorance .
In each case , the men claimed , in effect , to have abdicated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , under ordinary circumstances , to imagine military leaders claiming to walk anywhere blindly , an editor claiming to publish a piece without looking , or members of Congress asserting that they do not keep track of the President ’ s pronouncements .
But , it seems , Trump ’ s reactions to the ongoing protests have finally turned so politically poisonous that copping temporary incompetence looks preferable to association .
The ignorance defense is not new .
The phrase “ I didn ’ t know ” might be as good a summary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nuremberg trials as is the better-known “ I was just following orders.
” In their book about Nuremberg , the historian Ann Tusa and her co-author and husband , John Tusa , call it “ one of the commonest devices for avoiding any share of responsibility.
” This device , they write , allowed defendants “ to pose as moral human beings who recognized the wrong , acknowledged that crimes had been committed but at the same time to maintain that they had lived in a vacuum.
” In many years of writing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phrase “ I didn ’ t know ” or the collective-voice “ We didn ’ t know ” more times than I can possibly remember—not only from people who had held positions of power but from ordinary citizens who sensed the question of culpability only in retrospect .
Like former officials , these regular people were obfuscating .
They had not lacked information .
It was in the nature of state terror to broadcast itself—through the newspapers , the radio , propaganda films , show trials , and the arrests and disappearances of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The constant awareness of terror is an essential component of terror .
Of course they knew : everybody did .
And yet these people who said that they “ didn ’ t know ” were telling a sort of truth .
Yes , they knew that people all around them were being arrested , jailed , and executed .
They even knew , on some level , that these people , or most of them , were innocent of the crimes of which they were accused .
What they didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would live to see an era when these arrests and executions would be viewed as crimes .
They lived in a time defined by state terror ; what they were telling me is that they hadn ’ t known that they should think it was wrong to arrest and kill innocent people .
Similarly , the vacuum that the Nuremberg defenders claimed to have lived in was a moral rather than an information vacuum : they knew but they didn ’ t know , because , they claimed , they lacked the capacity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This is what Republican lawmakers are saying , in effect , when they look at the printouts of Trump ’ s tweets and claim not to have read them .
All of them are probably capable of absorbing two hundred and eighty characters at a glance—by the time they respond to the question , they have , in fact , read the tweet .
But they live in a world in which Presidential lies , having become so normal and familiar , are no longer subject to moral judgment .
The protests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end of this shameless era .
Perhaps the sense of the changing of the tide caught up with Milley and forced him to apologize .
But admitting a mistake while claiming ignorance is a way of abdicating responsibility .
History is familiar with this trick and does not look kindly on it .

Apologies and disavowals have been unusually numerous of late. When two top military officials said that they should not have enabled and participated in President Donald Trump’s recent photo op in Lafayette Square, both of them communicated that they didn’t quite know what they were participating in. “I didn’t know where I was going,” the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, told NBC News, though the following day he was compelled to admit that he had known, even if he was not aware of the Bible-waving plan in all its details. More than a week later, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said that he should not have followed the President to the photo op, and unnamed Defense Department officials told the Times that Milley believed that he was accompanying Trump on a troop inspection.
The leaders of the nation’s military were not the only men to use ignorance as a defense recently. At the Times, James Bennet, who resigned as the editorial-page editor on Sunday, said that he had not read the piece that led to his downfall, an article in which the Republican senator Tom Cotton advocated using military force to disperse protests. And on Tuesday, Republican lawmakers claimed not to have read a tweet of Trump’s promoting a deranged and hateful conspiracy theory about a seventy-five-year-old protester who had been assaulted by the police in Buffalo, New York. Even after reporters showed them printouts of the tweet, they continued to profess ignorance.
In each case, the men claimed, in effect, to have abdicated their professional responsibilities: it is hard, under ordinary circumstances, to imagine military leaders claiming to walk anywhere blindly, an editor claiming to publish a piece without looking, or members of Congress asserting that they do not keep track of the President’s pronouncements. But, it seems, Trump’s reactions to the ongoing protests have finally turned so politically poisonous that copping temporary incompetence looks preferable to association.
The ignorance defense is not new. The phrase “I didn’t know” might be as good a summary of the testimonies of defendants at the Nuremberg trials as is the better-known “I was just following orders.” In their book about Nuremberg, the historian Ann Tusa and her co-author and husband, John Tusa, call it “one of the commonest devices for avoiding any share of responsibility.” This device, they write, allowed defendants “to pose as moral human beings who recognized the wrong, acknowledged that crimes had been committed but at the same time to maintain that they had lived in a vacuum.”
In many years of writing about Soviet history, I heard the phrase “I didn’t know” or the collective-voice “We didn’t know” more times than I can possibly remember—not only from people who had held positions of power but from ordinary citizens who sensed the question of culpability only in retrospect. Like former officials, these regular people were obfuscating. They had not lacked information. It was in the nature of state terror to broadcast itself—through the newspapers, the radio, propaganda films, show trials, and the arrests and disappearances of friends, neighbors, and family members. The constant awareness of terror is an essential component of terror. Of course they knew: everybody did.
And yet these people who said that they “didn’t know” were telling a sort of truth. Yes, they knew that people all around them were being arrested, jailed, and executed. They even knew, on some level, that these people, or most of them, were innocent of the crimes of which they were accused. What they didn’t know at the time was that they would live to see an era when these arrests and executions would be viewed as crimes. They lived in a time defined by state terror; what they were telling me is that they hadn’t known that they should think it was wrong to arrest and kill innocent people. Similarly, the vacuum that the Nuremberg defenders claimed to have lived in was a moral rather than an information vacuum: they knew but they didn’t know, because, they claimed, they lacked the capacity to form an opinion about the facts.
This is what Republican lawmakers are saying, in effect, when they look at the printouts of Trump’s tweets and claim not to have read them. All of them are probably capable of absorbing two hundred and eighty characters at a glance—by the time they respond to the question, they have, in fact, read the tweet. But they live in a world in which Presidential lies, having become so normal and familiar, are no longer subject to moral judgment.
The protests continuing across the country may spell the end of this shameless era. Perhaps the sense of the changing of the tide caught up with Milley and forced him to apologize. But admitting a mistake while claiming ignorance is a way of abdicating responsibility. History is familiar with this trick and does not look kindly on it.
Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests


newyorker--2020-06-12--Can Coronavirus Contact Tracing Survive Reopening?

John Welch , a nurse anesthetist with the nonprofit Partners in Health , was working at a clinic on the rural central plateau of Haiti when , in August of 2014 , he got a call asking if he could fly to Liberia .
The charity had just agreed to help in the fight against Ebola , which had cropped up in Guinea that winter and was now spreading rapidly across West Africa .
Welch , who specializes in pediatric surgeries , would go on to play a vital role in the American response to the coronavirus , but in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and virtually nothing about Ebola .
Within a week , however , he had flown to Atlanta , for a two-day crash course on the features of the disease , and then travelled to the Liberian capital of Monrovia .
It had been about three weeks since the World Health Organization had declared the outbreak a global emergency , and the press carried reports of bodies decaying on Monrovia ’ s streets .
By the time Welch arrived , there were about a half-dozen Ebola-treatment units in or near the capital , most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Those organizations , though , were just beginning to understand how complicated the epidemic would be , and how long it would take to control it .
A few months after arriving in Liberia , Welch was transferred to Port Loko , Sierra Leone , where P.I.H .
had agreed to help manage a small hospital .
Not long after he arrived , Welch , covered in protective gear , sat at the bedside of a young woman who was dying from complications of labor .
Her doctors and nurses could not prove @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and no surgeon or midwife could be found who was willing to perform a C-section .
Port Loko was the hot zone .
“ Nothing was happening in that hospital besides Ebola , ” Welch said .
“ The first month , all we did was try to clear some cases out of the hospital so that we could reëstablish essential services.
” Tests were scarce , so patients were divided into positive cases , negative cases , suspected cases , and presumed cases , those who had not tested positive but were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ again , into “ wet ” patients , who had diarrhea and vomiting or were hemorrhaging blood from their orifices , and “ dry ” ones , who were not .
Patients who had recovered were released from the hospital , but that meant persuading their families that they were no longer contagious .
Often , when people developed fevers and went to the hospital , their possessions were set on fire or doused with chlorine , so the Port Loko hospital started sending patients home with cooking utensils , a cell phone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bit of cash .
By the end of 2014 , the virus had been beaten back in the cities , although , at any time , there were a few hundred active cases , about half of them nestled in areas so remote that they could not even be reached by motorcycle .
The outbreak ’ s last Ebola death was reported in April , 2016 .
“ If you ask me how we beat Ebola in West Africa , there ’ s a three-second answer : contact tracing , ” Welch said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public-health technique , developed during syphilis outbreaks in the nineteen-thirties , in which the infected are interviewed about the people they ’ ve come in contact with ; those contacts are then asked to isolate themselves , in order to prevent the contagion from spreading further .
At the time of the Ebola outbreak , Liberia ’ s public hospitals employed a total of fifty physicians—the country had few of the capabilities of a modern , Western-style health-care system .
It relied instead on an army of amateur community-health workers , who could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Tolbert Nyenswah , who was Liberia ’ s deputy health minister at the time , told me , “ Because we could not spare doctors or nurses , we hired social workers and schoolteachers as contact tracers—people who were respected in the community.
” Welch recalled long meetings with village and tribal leaders , to identify trusted and influential people to hire as tracers .
As soon as patients with Ebola symptoms arrived at Port Loko Hospital , they were interviewed about everyone they ’ d been in contact with since they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tracer then went to the patient ’ s neighborhood to tell those contacts that they needed to isolate at home for twenty-one days .
Every day for three weeks , the tracers would return , to insure that those people were still isolating , to check on their health , and to see if there was anything they needed .
Liberia , a nation of five million people , eventually employed as many as ten thousand tracers .
Welch recalled that , after he had been in the region for eight months , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be an outbreak in a particular region , I could tell you which village .
If you told me the village , I could tell you which house.
” He told me this story one evening at the beginning of May , speaking by phone from his apartment in Boston ’ s South End , where he was helping direct a similar program , the Massachusetts COVID-19 Community Tracing Collaborative .
The which house stage in Massachusetts , Welch said , felt far away .
He told me , “ I think we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to where we were with Ebola when I first arrived in Monrovia.
” The Community Tracing Collaborative , or C.T.C.
, which was publicly announced at the beginning of April , was one of the first and largest contact-tracing programs to be launched in response to COVID-19 , and it has provided an early model for similar programs developed by cities and states across the country .
But the C.T.C .
was even more notable because it had been developed by Partners in Health , an organization whose fame far exceeds its hundred-and-forty-million-dollar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who established the organization in the late nineteen-eighties , are among the most famous figures in public health : they include Paul Farmer , who is renowned for his humanitarian work in Haiti and is the author and subject of best-selling books ; Ophelia Dahl , who ran the organization for over a decade ; and Jim Yong Kim , who , from 2012 to 2019 , was the president of the World Bank .
P.I.H.
’ s mission has long been to build durable medical systems in the poorest parts of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ training local community-health workers and allowing them to mold programs to local needs .
Much of P.I.H.
’ s work has been in the least developed countries .
And so the decision to have the group design and administer the COVID-19 response in a city filled with world-class hospitals also suggested that , in a crisis , the American health-care system needed tools and resources that it didn ’ t already have .
Massachusetts ’ s first confirmed COVID-19 cases appeared in February—a cluster connected to a corporate meeting held by the pharmaceutical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Long Wharf .
On March 3rd , the state ’ s first case of community transmission emerged , in the Berkshires , and a week later the governor , Charlie Baker , declared a state of emergency .
At the time , the state had only ninety-two confirmed cases , three-quarters of which could be traced to the Biogen conference , but that low figure was due to a shortage of tests : it was clear that the virus had spread much farther .
During the first week of April , the total @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than doubled , from forty-seven hundred to more than twelve thousand .
The number of cases—and hospitalizations , and deaths—was rising fast enough that Boston ’ s biggest hospitals were drawing up protocols that would help them decide who would be allocated a ventilator if the intensive-care units were overwhelmed .

John Welch, a nurse anesthetist with the nonprofit Partners in Health, was working at a clinic on the rural central plateau of Haiti when, in August of 2014, he got a call asking if he could fly to Liberia. The charity had just agreed to help in the fight against Ebola, which had cropped up in Guinea that winter and was now spreading rapidly across West Africa. Welch, who specializes in pediatric surgeries, would go on to play a vital role in the American response to the coronavirus, but in 2014 he knew little about viral outbreaks and virtually nothing about Ebola. Within a week, however, he had flown to Atlanta, for a two-day crash course on the features of the disease, and then travelled to the Liberian capital of Monrovia.
It had been about three weeks since the World Health Organization had declared the outbreak a global emergency, and the press carried reports of bodies decaying on Monrovia’s streets. By the time Welch arrived, there were about a half-dozen Ebola-treatment units in or near the capital, most of them run by aid organizations. Those organizations, though, were just beginning to understand how complicated the epidemic would be, and how long it would take to control it.
A few months after arriving in Liberia, Welch was transferred to Port Loko, Sierra Leone, where P.I.H. had agreed to help manage a small hospital. Not long after he arrived, Welch, covered in protective gear, sat at the bedside of a young woman who was dying from complications of labor. Her doctors and nurses could not prove that she was not carrying Ebola, and no surgeon or midwife could be found who was willing to perform a C-section.
Port Loko was the hot zone. “Nothing was happening in that hospital besides Ebola,” Welch said. “The first month, all we did was try to clear some cases out of the hospital so that we could reëstablish essential services.” Tests were scarce, so patients were divided into positive cases, negative cases, suspected cases, and presumed cases, those who had not tested positive but were obviously symptomatic. Suspected cases were divided again, into “wet” patients, who had diarrhea and vomiting or were hemorrhaging blood from their orifices, and “dry” ones, who were not. Patients who had recovered were released from the hospital, but that meant persuading their families that they were no longer contagious. Often, when people developed fevers and went to the hospital, their possessions were set on fire or doused with chlorine, so the Port Loko hospital started sending patients home with cooking utensils, a cell phone and SIM card, and a little bit of cash.
By the end of 2014, the virus had been beaten back in the cities, although, at any time, there were a few hundred active cases, about half of them nestled in areas so remote that they could not even be reached by motorcycle. The outbreak’s last Ebola death was reported in April, 2016. “If you ask me how we beat Ebola in West Africa, there’s a three-second answer: contact tracing,” Welch said. He was referring to a simple public-health technique, developed during syphilis outbreaks in the nineteen-thirties, in which the infected are interviewed about the people they’ve come in contact with; those contacts are then asked to isolate themselves, in order to prevent the contagion from spreading further. At the time of the Ebola outbreak, Liberia’s public hospitals employed a total of fifty physicians—the country had few of the capabilities of a modern, Western-style health-care system. It relied instead on an army of amateur community-health workers, who could take on the work of contact tracing. Tolbert Nyenswah, who was Liberia’s deputy health minister at the time, told me, “Because we could not spare doctors or nurses, we hired social workers and schoolteachers as contact tracers—people who were respected in the community.” Welch recalled long meetings with village and tribal leaders, to identify trusted and influential people to hire as tracers. As soon as patients with Ebola symptoms arrived at Port Loko Hospital, they were interviewed about everyone they’d been in contact with since they first developed a fever. A contact tracer then went to the patient’s neighborhood to tell those contacts that they needed to isolate at home for twenty-one days. Every day for three weeks, the tracers would return, to insure that those people were still isolating, to check on their health, and to see if there was anything they needed.
Liberia, a nation of five million people, eventually employed as many as ten thousand tracers. Welch recalled that, after he had been in the region for eight months, “if you told me there would be an outbreak in a particular region, I could tell you which village. If you told me the village, I could tell you which house.” He told me this story one evening at the beginning of May, speaking by phone from his apartment in Boston’s South End, where he was helping direct a similar program, the Massachusetts COVID-19 Community Tracing Collaborative. The which house stage in Massachusetts, Welch said, felt far away. He told me, “I think we are at a similar point with COVID-19 to where we were with Ebola when I first arrived in Monrovia.”
The Community Tracing Collaborative, or C.T.C., which was publicly announced at the beginning of April, was one of the first and largest contact-tracing programs to be launched in response to COVID-19, and it has provided an early model for similar programs developed by cities and states across the country. But the C.T.C. was even more notable because it had been developed by Partners in Health, an organization whose fame far exceeds its hundred-and-forty-million-dollar budget. The nonprofit’s founders, who established the organization in the late nineteen-eighties, are among the most famous figures in public health: they include Paul Farmer, who is renowned for his humanitarian work in Haiti and is the author and subject of best-selling books; Ophelia Dahl, who ran the organization for over a decade; and Jim Yong Kim, who, from 2012 to 2019, was the president of the World Bank. P.I.H.’s mission has long been to build durable medical systems in the poorest parts of the poorest countries on earth, by training local community-health workers and allowing them to mold programs to local needs. Much of P.I.H.’s work has been in the least developed countries. And so the decision to have the group design and administer the COVID-19 response in a city filled with world-class hospitals also suggested that, in a crisis, the American health-care system needed tools and resources that it didn’t already have.
Massachusetts’s first confirmed COVID-19 cases appeared in February—a cluster connected to a corporate meeting held by the pharmaceutical company Biogen, at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf. On March 3rd, the state’s first case of community transmission emerged, in the Berkshires, and a week later the governor, Charlie Baker, declared a state of emergency. At the time, the state had only ninety-two confirmed cases, three-quarters of which could be traced to the Biogen conference, but that low figure was due to a shortage of tests: it was clear that the virus had spread much farther. During the first week of April, the total number of deaths in the nation more than doubled, from forty-seven hundred to more than twelve thousand. The number of cases—and hospitalizations, and deaths—was rising fast enough that Boston’s biggest hospitals were drawing up protocols that would help them decide who would be allocated a ventilator if the intensive-care units were overwhelmed.
Paul Farmer watched these events with other global-health emergencies at the front of his mind. When epidemics strike the poorest countries on earth, he told me, public-health professionals often succumb to what he calls “clinical nihilism”—the conviction that the number of cases is too overwhelming for doctors to treat, and that the only realistic approach is to contain the spread. As COVID-19 cases began to proliferate throughout the United States, Farmer said, “a lot of us predicted that there would be containment nihilism instead”—that governments would give up on even trying to control the disease and plan for herd immunity instead. Farmer explained, “In its worst form, it’s basically just, ‘Let the immune system take care of it.’ ” But by late March lockdowns had been imposed in thirty states, and it was obvious that most political leaders were willing to make sacrifices to prevent their constituents from getting sick. This was “a pleasant surprise,” Farmer said. But the lockdowns were always intended to be temporary, and there was not yet any national plan for what would take their place.
Meanwhile, Jim Yong Kim was speaking with public-health leaders who were battling the virus in Asia. The lockdown in Wuhan, China, had at that point dramatically reduced transmission but hadn’t ended the spread. “It’s almost as if there are two different rates of transmission—one outside of households and one within households,” Kim told me. “In Wuhan, the lockdowns were effective on transmission outside of households,” he said. But plenty of transmissions were still happening within homes. “So lockdown was not going to be enough.” A better strategy, he believed, and one that could help monitor outbreaks even once restrictions were lifted, was to apply the basic contact-tracing formula: test for the virus, trace anyone in close contact with an infected person, and have them enter isolation. “The U.S. is different from China—it can’t do anything on a mandatory basis,” Kim said. “But the best way to stop families from infecting one another is that, once someone becomes positive, you have to separate people.”
What Kim envisioned was a radical, emergency expansion of the American public-health infrastructure—a rapid increase in testing capacity, hundreds of new contact tracers, social workers to help insure compliance, and isolation hotels for the sick who could not safely isolate from the people with whom they lived. Kim has known Baker, a moderate Republican, for about fifteen years, and, during the last weekend of March, he called the governor with a proposal. Drawing on staff who had helped contain outbreaks in developing countries across the globe, P.I.H. would design and implement a contact-tracing program for Massachusetts. It would need the state to supply funding to hire a thousand tracers. The next day, Farmer was at the State House, waiting to present a more detailed proposal to the governor. Kim, who has a pragmatic disposition, and Farmer, who has a more idealistic one, had anticipated that the main argument against their program would be that the outbreak in Massachusetts was simply too advanced for contact tracing to do much good. But, Farmer recalled, “Baker walked right in and said, ‘I’m really so fucking sick of people saying it’s too late.’ And we thought, All right, cross that one off the list.” That week, the governor announced that he was dedicating forty-four million dollars to a new contact-tracing program, to be run by P.I.H.
P.I.H. normally sends idealistic young physicians and nurses from Boston to destinations overseas; now it recalled them from Rwanda, Lesotho, and Haiti to lead the Massachusetts program. Emily Wroe, who had just wrapped up a stint as P.I.H.’s chief medical officer in Malawi, came back to the U.S. and signed on to oversee the program’s design and implementation. She divided the project into three job categories. Case investigators would quickly call people who had tested positive for the virus and interview them extensively about their contacts, beginning forty-eight hours before they first noticed symptoms. Contact tracers, the largest group, would call each of those contacts, ask them to isolate at home for fourteen days, and then follow up frequently, to make sure that they were doing so and to check for any symptoms. The third group, care-resource coördinators, were effectively social workers, appointed to help people solve problems—how to get food, find a place to stay, or manage addictions—that might prevent them from being able to isolate themselves. The idea was that this workforce would accompany each person through their illness or isolation—that, instead of an authoritarian hand requiring people to stay at home, the state would extend a helping one.


newyorker--2020-06-12--How Electronic Voting in Georgia Resulted in a Disenfranchising Debacle

No one familiar with Georgia ’ s record of election administration was surprised to see another train wreck unfold during Tuesday ’ s primary .
Lines were so long that some voters waited seven hours to vote .
It was a monumental failure that—not surprisingly—occurred in predominantly African-American and poor neighborhoods .
Part of the problem was the use of expensive , new voting machines , which could signal problems for the Presidential election , in November .
On Tuesday , Georgians voted using thirty thousand new machines , called Ballot Marking Devices ( B.M.D.s ) , which the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seven million dollars , despite public opposition .
When voters finally made it to the front of the line , they signed into electronic poll books ( many of which malfunctioned ) and were given a smart card loaded with the ballot for their district .
They then inserted the card into the voting machine , the ballot popped up on a touch screen , they made their selections , and the machine printed out a summary of those choices .
If you want to understand why the state had to extend voting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some voters were still in line after midnight , you need only look at the math : in a precinct with a single B.M.D.
, only one person can vote at a time ; in a precinct with five B.M.D.s , five people can vote simultaneously .
( This assumes that those machines and the electronic poll books are functional .
If the e-poll books don ’ t work , the B.M.D.s can ’ t work . )
Contrast that system with the traditional one , in which people vote using a pen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ topped with cardboard privacy dividers .
In that system , if there are twenty dividers , twenty people can vote at a time , and the cost of increasing the number exponentially is negligible .
( In that system , B.M.D.s can be reserved for people with disabilities . )
A lawsuit filed last year by Fair Fight , the voting-rights organization chaired by Stacey Abrams , argued that the state had distributed fewer B.M.D.s to African-American precincts than their populations warranted .
Tuesday ’ s election , in which predominantly African-Amercian precincts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Voter suppression has a long history in Georgia , and here was an easy way to get it done , out in the open , allowing the blame to be placed on the technological incompetence of county election officials , as the state ’ s chief election official , Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did , on Tuesday .
His words were echoed in a statement from the state Republican Party .
“ This unacceptable incompetence will effectively disenfranchise countless eligible voters across Georgia ’ s largest county , ” the Party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from their public servants.
” ( Raffensperger is a Republican . )
Raffensperger succeeded Brian Kemp , who is now the governor .
As my colleague Jelani Cobb wrote in this magazine last year , Kemp , as secretary of state , oversaw his own election against Abrams , and refused to recuse himself even after engaging in a number of ethically dubious and corrupt actions to disenfranchise people of color and to promote his own candidacy .
( He ran on a platform of wanting to out-Trump Trump . )
Under Kemp @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million Georgians were purged from the voting rolls , and , shortly before the 2018 election , it was reported that Kemp was holding back more than fifty-one thousand voter-registration applications , on the ground that they did not meet the state ’ s extreme “ exact match ” voter-identification law ; more than eighty per cent of those applications were from people of color .
As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported , while Kemp was the secretary of state , two hundred and fourteen polling locations in rural , poor , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities were closed , and absentee ballots were not processed or were processed incorrectly .
NPR reported that , on Tuesday , sixteen thousand people had been assigned to vote at one Atlanta polling station .
It was Kemp , too , who initially rejected the help of the Department of Homeland Security to “ harden ” the state ’ s election system against cyberattacks , did not act when a researcher found the system to be exposed on the Internet , and rejected the possibility that Georgia ’ s elections were hackable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Georgia as one of the targets of Russian state hackers .
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that the hackers failed to penetrate election systems in the state .
Democrats called the G.B.I .
probe a “ sham.
” If , before , Georgia ’ s voters were subject to state-sanctioned inequities and malfeasance , Tuesday ’ s election also demonstrated that smugness and hubris can be strategic ways to disenfranchise voters .
The problems that caused the lines at polling places to extend for blocks—and caused some voters to walk away and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ times , in the rain—were predicted months , and even years , earlier .
In January , the Brennan Center for Justice and Common Cause wrote to Secretary of State Raffensperger ’ s office , urging election officials to prepare for the inevitable mess-ups that happen when a new voting system is introduced .
( They pointed out that , when the machines were piloted the previous November , “ voters in 5 out of 6 counties were unable to use the ballot marking devices when polls first opened on election day.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrote , “ will ‘ diminish and burden ’ the ‘ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to cast a vote that is properly counted.
’ ” That was before the global pandemic , which has made in-person voting even more fraught .
In April , the Coalition for Good Governance , an advocacy group , sued the state to move the primary , which had been originally scheduled for March 24th , to June 30th .
Among other things , they argued , touch-screen voting machines are a public-health risk .
Each B.M.D @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each voter .
Done badly , voters ’ health would be in jeopardy .
Done well , it would impede the flow of voters through the system .
In May , the coalition lost in court .
A number of election jurisdictions in seven states , including the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Ohio , will be rolling out new B.M.D .
systems for the general election .
Georgia is an object lesson in what happens when there are not enough machines , not enough polling places , not enough trained election workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allegiance to enfranchising citizens .

No one familiar with Georgia’s record of election administration was surprised to see another train wreck unfold during Tuesday’s primary. Lines were so long that some voters waited seven hours to vote. It was a monumental failure that—not surprisingly—occurred in predominantly African-American and poor neighborhoods.
Part of the problem was the use of expensive, new voting machines, which could signal problems for the Presidential election, in November. On Tuesday, Georgians voted using thirty thousand new machines, called Ballot Marking Devices (B.M.D.s), which the state purchased last year for a hundred and seven million dollars, despite public opposition. When voters finally made it to the front of the line, they signed into electronic poll books (many of which malfunctioned) and were given a smart card loaded with the ballot for their district. They then inserted the card into the voting machine, the ballot popped up on a touch screen, they made their selections, and the machine printed out a summary of those choices.
If you want to understand why the state had to extend voting hours in twenty counties, and why some voters were still in line after midnight, you need only look at the math: in a precinct with a single B.M.D., only one person can vote at a time; in a precinct with five B.M.D.s, five people can vote simultaneously. (This assumes that those machines and the electronic poll books are functional. If the e-poll books don’t work, the B.M.D.s can’t work.) Contrast that system with the traditional one, in which people vote using a pen and a paper ballot on a table topped with cardboard privacy dividers. In that system, if there are twenty dividers, twenty people can vote at a time, and the cost of increasing the number exponentially is negligible. (In that system, B.M.D.s can be reserved for people with disabilities.) A lawsuit filed last year by Fair Fight, the voting-rights organization chaired by Stacey Abrams, argued that the state had distributed fewer B.M.D.s to African-American precincts than their populations warranted. Tuesday’s election, in which predominantly African-Amercian precincts experienced egregious delays, proved them right.
Voter suppression has a long history in Georgia, and here was an easy way to get it done, out in the open, allowing the blame to be placed on the technological incompetence of county election officials, as the state’s chief election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did, on Tuesday. His words were echoed in a statement from the state Republican Party. “This unacceptable incompetence will effectively disenfranchise countless eligible voters across Georgia’s largest county,” the Party said. “Georgia voters deserve better from their public servants.” (Raffensperger is a Republican.)
Raffensperger succeeded Brian Kemp, who is now the governor. As my colleague Jelani Cobb wrote in this magazine last year, Kemp, as secretary of state, oversaw his own election against Abrams, and refused to recuse himself even after engaging in a number of ethically dubious and corrupt actions to disenfranchise people of color and to promote his own candidacy. (He ran on a platform of wanting to out-Trump Trump.) Under Kemp’s watch, more than a million Georgians were purged from the voting rolls, and, shortly before the 2018 election, it was reported that Kemp was holding back more than fifty-one thousand voter-registration applications, on the ground that they did not meet the state’s extreme “exact match” voter-identification law; more than eighty per cent of those applications were from people of color.
As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported, while Kemp was the secretary of state, two hundred and fourteen polling locations in rural, poor, and, in some cases, predominantly African-American communities were closed, and absentee ballots were not processed or were processed incorrectly. NPR reported that, on Tuesday, sixteen thousand people had been assigned to vote at one Atlanta polling station. It was Kemp, too, who initially rejected the help of the Department of Homeland Security to “harden” the state’s election system against cyberattacks, did not act when a researcher found the system to be exposed on the Internet, and rejected the possibility that Georgia’s elections were hackable. Later, the Mueller report named Georgia as one of the targets of Russian state hackers. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that the hackers failed to penetrate election systems in the state. Democrats called the G.B.I. probe a “sham.”
If, before, Georgia’s voters were subject to state-sanctioned inequities and malfeasance, Tuesday’s election also demonstrated that smugness and hubris can be strategic ways to disenfranchise voters. The problems that caused the lines at polling places to extend for blocks—and caused some voters to walk away and others to stand for hours, at times, in the rain—were predicted months, and even years, earlier. In January, the Brennan Center for Justice and Common Cause wrote to Secretary of State Raffensperger’s office, urging election officials to prepare for the inevitable mess-ups that happen when a new voting system is introduced. (They pointed out that, when the machines were piloted the previous November, “voters in 5 out of 6 counties were unable to use the ballot marking devices when polls first opened on election day.”) Failing to take action, they wrote, “will ‘diminish and burden’ the ‘First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to cast a vote that is properly counted.’ ”
That was before the global pandemic, which has made in-person voting even more fraught. In April, the Coalition for Good Governance, an advocacy group, sued the state to move the primary, which had been originally scheduled for March 24th, to June 30th. Among other things, they argued, touch-screen voting machines are a public-health risk. Each B.M.D. would need to be disinfected between each voter. Done badly, voters’ health would be in jeopardy. Done well, it would impede the flow of voters through the system. In May, the coalition lost in court.
A number of election jurisdictions in seven states, including the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, will be rolling out new B.M.D. systems for the general election. Georgia is an object lesson in what happens when there are not enough machines, not enough polling places, not enough trained election workers, and election officials with seemingly little allegiance to enfranchising citizens.