newyorker--2020-08-07--How Did I Catch the Coronavirus?

How Did I Catch the Coronavirus?

Near the end of March , when friends offered me their home on Long Island—they had gone to stay with relatives in Vermont—I thought that I ’ d go for a week .
I had been quarantining at my partner ’ s house , in Brooklyn .
He lives in a one-room studio , which doubles as his work studio , on the second floor of an old , four-story communal house , which he was sharing with four other people .
We formed a pod .
No outside contacts .
No one left the house after mid-March , except @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bike ride , or to walk the house dog .
I promised that , while away , I would continue to social-distance .
I ’ d be joining the experiment in solitude under way across the world .
When I arrived at my friends ’ empty house , a wake of vultures was perched in a dead tree in the back yard .
Not exactly auspicious .
But the salty fresh air felt miraculous , the yard was covered in soft , lime-green moss , and the house was peaceful , full @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old piano , raised beds ready for planting , and a single room on the second floor that looked out over a marina .
The only sounds were the birds and boats ’ clanging masts .
My friends had left the kitchen fully stocked , so I didn ’ t worry about bringing my city germs to the local grocery store .
The days passed quickly .
I stayed longer than I thought I would .
Then , on Tuesday , April 14th , right when I planned to head back to Brooklyn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ throat was sore , like sandpaper , and it hurt to swallow .
My left ear popped painfully throughout the day .
My body ached , my head throbbed .
I felt fatigued , weak , like it took almost all of my energy just to keep my limbs from going slack .
I felt a bit hot , but mostly cold , often to the point where I had chills , even with a sweater , a blanket , and woolen socks , despite the thermostat reading seventy-one degrees .
I was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , no matter how much tea and water I drank .
By Saturday , I had an awful stomach ache .
I felt so tired that I stayed on the couch all afternoon .
When I showered , I noticed a weird burning sensation on the bottom of my left big toe and itchy , painful red bumps on a few others .
Still , I didn ’ t think that I had COVID-19 .
I didn ’ t have a persistent dry cough or a debilitatingly high fever .
I had not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I had no chest pain or tightness—other than what I assumed was the usual anxiety-induced variety .
I had been isolated since April 1st .
Scientists state that the incubation period can be anywhere from two to fourteen days , although fourteen days , or longer , is rare .
Where would I have picked it up ?
I had had almost no exposure to any other person for more than two weeks .
In any case , by the second week , I started to feel a little better .
Still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might just be quarantine malaise .
Some friends came to visit .
They stayed six feet away , in the yard .
I mentioned that I had a problem with my hands—I have psoriasis , and psoriatic arthritis , and it had flared a bit on a couple of fingers—and their eyes widened .
They asked whether I had noticed anything strange with my toes .
How did they know ?
They had just read an article that said a small percentage of COVID-19 patients were developing red and purple bumps and lesions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or itch , similar to chilblains or even , in appearance , to frostbite .
I sent a dermatologist pictures and a description through Teladoc .
“ It does look like COVID-19 toes , ” he wrote .
“ I would recommend to get tested.
” Although SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus—able to enter our body through our airways and then easily bind to receptors on respiratory-tract cells—it causes a vascular disease .
In some ways , that makes it much scarier .
Medical experts believe that the virus is able to infect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of blood vessels , and can catch a ride to any organ in the body .
Doctors have seen blood clots , inflammation , or both , in the lungs , heart , kidney , liver , gut , and brain .
COVID toes are , some scientists believe , another manifestation ; the virus creates tiny blood clots that cause blockages and a frostbite-like effect in the extremities .
I tried to take encouragement from the fact that , so far , COVID toes only seem to affect the young .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Feverish , again .
My heart felt like it was trembling ; the invisible foot on my chest felt heavier than usual .
I had read that , in a few rare cases , healthy people around my age , in their mid-thirties , were dying , suddenly , from blood clots .
I wondered whether COVID toes were the first sign of a fatal blockage forming in my veins .
I imagined a sticky clump of orgiastic virus particles in my feet , trying to escape up my veins , on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scheduled a test at a drive-through clinic in Riverhead .
There was no line in the parking lot .
The apocalypse was quiet and banal , a boring nightmare .
Two women in hazmat suits and face shields came out to my car , and one stuck a long swab up my nostril .
I didn ’ t mind it as much as I thought I would .
They handed me a bag containing four bottles of New York State hand-sanitizer spray , which was bottled in a prison ; a fluorescent-yellow T-shirt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mask ) ; and bilingual informational handouts that included a list of food pantries in the area .
I drove home along roads bordered by pine trees and water .
Two days later , a doctor from the clinic called .
The test was , unsurprisingly , positive .
The next day , May 1st , late in the afternoon , I received another call , from a doctor who worked as a contact tracer with the New York City Department of Health .
She asked whether I had had any of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Organization , which she read from a list .
( COVID toes were not yet on it . )
She asked where I had been staying two days before I became symptomatic , and whether I had been commuting to an office , or whether I had gone to church or any other kind of indoor gathering .
I had not .
She told me , per the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , that , starting from the day I got the test , I would need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had gone seventy-two hours without a fever ( and without taking any fever-reducing drugs ) .
She asked whether that was possible or whether I ’ d need a place to stay and help with meals .
She was kind , but she stuck to a script .
She was uninterested in my theories on where I might have got sick , the few places I had been ; they did not fit inside the Department of Health ’ s criteria for potentially exposed close contacts , which it defines as anyone you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for more than ten minutes .
For the past thirty days , my contacts were , therefore , zero .

Near the end of March, when friends offered me their home on Long Island—they had gone to stay with relatives in Vermont—I thought that I’d go for a week. I had been quarantining at my partner’s house, in Brooklyn. He lives in a one-room studio, which doubles as his work studio, on the second floor of an old, four-story communal house, which he was sharing with four other people. We formed a pod. No outside contacts. No one left the house after mid-March, except for a rare grocery run, or a bike ride, or to walk the house dog. I promised that, while away, I would continue to social-distance. I’d be joining the experiment in solitude under way across the world.
When I arrived at my friends’ empty house, a wake of vultures was perched in a dead tree in the back yard. Not exactly auspicious. But the salty fresh air felt miraculous, the yard was covered in soft, lime-green moss, and the house was peaceful, full of light. It had an out-of-tune old piano, raised beds ready for planting, and a single room on the second floor that looked out over a marina. The only sounds were the birds and boats’ clanging masts. My friends had left the kitchen fully stocked, so I didn’t worry about bringing my city germs to the local grocery store. The days passed quickly. I stayed longer than I thought I would. Then, on Tuesday, April 14th, right when I planned to head back to Brooklyn, I woke up symptomatic.
My throat was sore, like sandpaper, and it hurt to swallow. My left ear popped painfully throughout the day. My body ached, my head throbbed. I felt fatigued, weak, like it took almost all of my energy just to keep my limbs from going slack. I felt a bit hot, but mostly cold, often to the point where I had chills, even with a sweater, a blanket, and woollen socks, despite the thermostat reading seventy-one degrees. I was badly congested. I was always thirsty, no matter how much tea and water I drank. By Saturday, I had an awful stomach ache. I felt so tired that I stayed on the couch all afternoon. When I showered, I noticed a weird burning sensation on the bottom of my left big toe and itchy, painful red bumps on a few others.
Still, I didn’t think that I had COVID-19. I didn’t have a persistent dry cough or a debilitatingly high fever. I had not lost my sense of smell or taste. I had no chest pain or tightness—other than what I assumed was the usual anxiety-induced variety. I had been isolated since April 1st. Scientists state that the incubation period can be anywhere from two to fourteen days, although fourteen days, or longer, is rare. Where would I have picked it up? I had had almost no exposure to any other person for more than two weeks. In any case, by the second week, I started to feel a little better. Still unusually exhausted, but I thought that might just be quarantine malaise.
Some friends came to visit. They stayed six feet away, in the yard. I mentioned that I had a problem with my hands—I have psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis, and it had flared a bit on a couple of fingers—and their eyes widened. They asked whether I had noticed anything strange with my toes. How did they know? They had just read an article that said a small percentage of COVID-19 patients were developing red and purple bumps and lesions on their toes, which might burn or itch, similar to chilblains or even, in appearance, to frostbite. I sent a dermatologist pictures and a description through Teladoc. “It does look like COVID-19 toes,” he wrote. “I would recommend to get tested.”
Although SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus—able to enter our body through our airways and then easily bind to receptors on respiratory-tract cells—it causes a vascular disease. In some ways, that makes it much scarier. Medical experts believe that the virus is able to infect the endothelium, or the internal layer of blood vessels, and can catch a ride to any organ in the body. Doctors have seen blood clots, inflammation, or both, in the lungs, heart, kidney, liver, gut, and brain. COVID toes are, some scientists believe, another manifestation; the virus creates tiny blood clots that cause blockages and a frostbite-like effect in the extremities.
I tried to take encouragement from the fact that, so far, COVID toes only seem to affect the young. But the next day, I felt worse. Feverish, again. My heart felt like it was trembling; the invisible foot on my chest felt heavier than usual. I had read that, in a few rare cases, healthy people around my age, in their mid-thirties, were dying, suddenly, from blood clots. I wondered whether COVID toes were the first sign of a fatal blockage forming in my veins. I imagined a sticky clump of orgiastic virus particles in my feet, trying to escape up my veins, on a journey to my heart.
I scheduled a test at a drive-through clinic in Riverhead. There was no line in the parking lot. The apocalypse was quiet and banal, a boring nightmare. Two women in hazmat suits and face shields came out to my car, and one stuck a long swab up my nostril. I didn’t mind it as much as I thought I would. They handed me a bag containing four bottles of New York State hand-sanitizer spray, which was bottled in a prison; a fluorescent-yellow T-shirt (along with directions for making a mask); and bilingual informational handouts that included a list of food pantries in the area. I drove home along roads bordered by pine trees and water. Two days later, a doctor from the clinic called. The test was, unsurprisingly, positive.
The next day, May 1st, late in the afternoon, I received another call, from a doctor who worked as a contact tracer with the New York City Department of Health. She asked whether I had had any of the COVID-19 symptoms recognized by the World Health Organization, which she read from a list. (COVID toes were not yet on it.) She asked where I had been staying two days before I became symptomatic, and whether I had been commuting to an office, or whether I had gone to church or any other kind of indoor gathering. I had not. She told me, per the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that, starting from the day I got the test, I would need to self-isolate for ten days or until I had gone seventy-two hours without a fever (and without taking any fever-reducing drugs). She asked whether that was possible or whether I’d need a place to stay and help with meals. She was kind, but she stuck to a script. She was uninterested in my theories on where I might have got sick, the few places I had been; they did not fit inside the Department of Health’s criteria for potentially exposed close contacts, which it defines as anyone you’ve been within six feet of for more than ten minutes. For the past thirty days, my contacts were, therefore, zero.
For the majority of the nearly five million COVID-19 cases across the United States, the point of infection is unknown. “We don’t know how their exposure occurred or what kind of environment they were in when it happened,” Crystal Watson, an expert on contact tracing at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me. When an outbreak is under control, this would not be the case. Test-and-trace teams would track the percentage of cases that can be linked to another person—or, more specifically, the percentage of cases that were already on the health agency’s radar, as potentially exposed contacts. “If your contact-tracing program is doing well, the number is going to be high,” Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist who teaches a popular online course on contact tracing, told me. With cases surging across the U.S., that number isn’t high in any of the existing state and city contact-tracing teams. “One type of data that we’re not doing a good job collecting and making public,” Watson said, “is the contribution of different modes of transmission to virus spread.”
If contact-tracing programs collected this data, my disease detective might have asked me to list everywhere I had been, but she did not. I had actually been somewhat surprised that she even called. On April 30th, there were still more than two thousand cases per day in New York City. A full lockdown was in place, and everyone was encouraged to stay home. The next morning, Oxiris Barbot, then commissioner of the N.Y.C. Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, had urged people during a press briefing “to be even more diligent” when it came to face masks and hand sanitizer. “The reality is that we’re still seeing transmission across the city, and, given the large volume of new cases, we can’t track those back to a single-point source.”
While my case of COVID-19 was one of tens of thousands that hadn’t been linked at the time, it still seemed statistically unlikely. The first possibility is that I picked it up on March 31st or April 1st, right before I left Brooklyn, when the virus was as common as pollen in the breeze. Maybe someone who was sick sneezed or coughed on my car-door handle, right before I got in the car. Highly unlikely, but not impossible. The virus can survive on plastic for up to three days. Based on data so far, experts say that fomite transmission—which means picking up the virus from a contaminated surface, such as a door handle—is not responsible for the majority of cases. The scientific consensus is that large-droplet transmission is the most common route. If an infected person sneezed, coughed, or breathed heavily right next to me, I might have inhaled large droplets from them (although I think I would have noticed if that had happened in the haunted early weeks of the pandemic). Or a sick person’s droplets might have landed on my hands, and then I, inevitably, touched my face.


newyorker--2020-08-07--Isabel Wilkerson’s World-Historical Theory of Race and Caste

As the summer of 1958 was coming to an end , Martin Luther King , Jr. , was newly famous and exhausted .
All of twenty-nine years old , he had been travelling across the country for weeks promoting his first book , “ Stride Toward Freedom , ” a memoir of the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott—a protest that , at three hundred and eighty-two days , was the most sustained mass action in American history .
It had led both to a Supreme Court decision that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional and to retaliatory bombings of Black churches @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mobilize support for the movement ’ s next phase , but days after his first event he ’ d been kicked , choked , and arrested by the Montgomery police .
And now , in Harlem on September 20th , he was being denounced as an Uncle Tom for not appearing at a Black-owned bookstore whose politics conflicted with the mainstream image he was trying to project .
So he sat at a table with a pile of books at the white-owned Blumstein ’ s department store on West 125th Street .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even sell books—a store whose management refused to hire Black clerks until a boycott forced the issue .
The staff had put his signing table at the back , by the shoes .
“ Is this Martin Luther King ?
” a woman in sequinned cat-eye glasses asked when she got to the table .
He said yes , and she plunged a steel letter opener deep into his chest .
Later , King viewed his months of recovery as a period of productive recalibration .
It became clear to him how much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ battles and backlashes ahead .
He marked the end of his convalescence by going to India , the birthplace of a man whose self-discipline he had admired since he was in theology school : the late Mohandas Gandhi , the leader of the mass movement that secured India ’ s independence from the British , in 1947 .
King had most recently enacted Gandhi ’ s philosophy of nonviolence by publicly forgiving his would-be assassin , a woman who struggled with mental illness .
King liked to say afterward that he ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arriving home , though , spiritual lessons weren ’ t what he wanted to share .
He was more animated by the concrete political steps that leaders had taken to redress the wrongs of India ’ s age-old caste system .
Gandhi fought for the right of “ untouchables ” —known today as Dalits—to gain entry to Hindu temples that had long barred them as “ impure.
” “ To equal that , President Eisenhower would take a Negro child by the hand and lead her into Central High School in Little Rock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Constitution of 1950 had officially abolished untouchability , declared caste discrimination a crime , and created affirmative-action quotas for Dalits and indigenous tribes—in part because a formidable Dalit thinker and leader , B. R. Ambedkar , had played a crucial role in writing it .
“ Today no leader in India would dare to make a public endorsement of untouchability , ” King told reporters .
“ But in America , every day some leader endorses racial segregation.
” In “ Caste : The Origins of Our Discontents ” ( Random House ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indian system of hierarchy illuminates more about American racial divides than the idea of race alone can , and early in her book she relays a story that King told about his India trip .
He was visiting a school for Dalit children when the principal introduced him as “ a fellow untouchable.
” The comparison made King flinch—but then its truth overwhelmed him .
“ In that moment , he realized that the Land of the Free had imposed a caste system not unlike the caste system of India and that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his life , ” Wilkerson writes .
“ It was what lay beneath the forces he was fighting in America.
” This story is almost certainly apocryphal , borrowed from a sermon that one of King ’ s mentors gave more than two decades earlier .
In later years , King took little interest in how the idea of caste might apply in his own country .
But the anecdote at once lends a civil-rights hero ’ s weight to Wilkerson ’ s bold thesis and provides the model response to it : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mechanics of white supremacy .
In her view , racism is only the visible manifestation of something deeper .
Underlying and predating racism , and holding white supremacy in place , is a hidden system of social domination : a caste structure that uses neutral human differences , skin color among them , as the basis for ranking human value .
“ Caste is insidious and therefore powerful because it is not hatred ; it is not necessarily personal , ” she writes .
“ It is the worn grooves of comforting routines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social order that have been in place for so long that it looks like the natural order of things.
” The caste model moves white behavior away from subjective feelings ( what motivates these people to do what they do ) and into the objective realm of power dynamics ( what they do , and to whom ) .
The dynamic that concerns Wilkerson the most is how a dominant caste stops a low-ranking caste from gaining on it .
The most enduring caste system , India ’ s , turned a division @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the Laws of Manu and other ancient Hindu texts , caste was inscribed with rigid precision , slotting occupations into four varnas , or ranks—priest , ruler-warrior , merchant , laborer—and a fifth category , outcastes ( another old name for today ’ s Dalits ) .
Caste as a lived Indian reality , though , is crueller than any study of scriptural texts would indicate ; it ’ s also more fluid .
Each varna comprises innumerable subcastes , or jatis , and , over generations , some jatis have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slipped down .
New occupational groups have been incorporated into the system as others have vanished .
In the nineteenth century , the hierarchy , vicious enough by its own design , was entrenched by taxonomies imposed by the British Raj—categories used as instruments of colonial control .
What fascinated King , during his sojourn in the subcontinent , was how the newly independent state intended to weaken the caste order by insuring entry for low-caste citizens into schools , universities , and government jobs .
What fascinates Wilkerson , like many progressives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hierarchy in its purest form .
Writing with calm and penetrating authority , Wilkerson discusses three caste hierarchies in world history—those of India , America , and Nazi Germany—and excavates the shared principles “ burrowed deep within the culture and subconsciousness ” of each .
She identifies several “ pillars ” of caste , including inherited rank , taboos related to notions of purity and pollution , the enforcement of hierarchies through terror and violence , and divine sanction of superiority .
( The American equivalent to the Laws of Manu is , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) In Wilkerson ’ s first book , “ The Warmth of Other Suns , ” which documented the Great Migration of American Blacks in the twentieth century , she wrote about past lives with finer precision and texture than most professional historians have done .
So she must have considered the risks involved in compressing into a single frame India ’ s roughly three-thousand-year-old caste structure , America ’ s four-hundred-year-old racial hierarchies , and the Third Reich ’ s twelve-year enforcement of Aryanism .
Even on her home terrain , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ poles of the American caste system , ” Blacks and whites , her analysis sometimes seems more ahistorical than transhistorical , as temporal specificities collapse into an eternal present .
But this effect is consonant with the view of history she presents in her book—one involving more grim continuity than hopeful departures , more regression to the mean than moments of progress .

As the summer of 1958 was coming to an end, Martin Luther King, Jr., was newly famous and exhausted. All of twenty-nine years old, he had been travelling across the country for weeks promoting his first book, “Stride Toward Freedom,” a memoir of the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott—a protest that, at three hundred and eighty-two days, was the most sustained mass action in American history. It had led both to a Supreme Court decision that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional and to retaliatory bombings of Black churches. The book tour was meant to mobilize support for the movement’s next phase, but days after his first event he’d been kicked, choked, and arrested by the Montgomery police. And now, in Harlem on September 20th, he was being denounced as an Uncle Tom for not appearing at a Black-owned bookstore whose politics conflicted with the mainstream image he was trying to project. So he sat at a table with a pile of books at the white-owned Blumstein’s department store on West 125th Street. It was a store that didn’t even sell books—a store whose management refused to hire Black clerks until a boycott forced the issue. The staff had put his signing table at the back, by the shoes.
“Is this Martin Luther King?” a woman in sequinned cat-eye glasses asked when she got to the table. He said yes, and she plunged a steel letter opener deep into his chest.
Later, King viewed his months of recovery as a period of productive recalibration. It became clear to him how much stamina he would need to withstand the battles and backlashes ahead. He marked the end of his convalescence by going to India, the birthplace of a man whose self-discipline he had admired since he was in theology school: the late Mohandas Gandhi, the leader of the mass movement that secured India’s independence from the British, in 1947. King had most recently enacted Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence by publicly forgiving his would-be assassin, a woman who struggled with mental illness.
King liked to say afterward that he’d gone to India as a pilgrim. Arriving home, though, spiritual lessons weren’t what he wanted to share. He was more animated by the concrete political steps that leaders had taken to redress the wrongs of India’s age-old caste system. Gandhi fought for the right of “untouchables”—known today as Dalits—to gain entry to Hindu temples that had long barred them as “impure.” “To equal that, President Eisenhower would take a Negro child by the hand and lead her into Central High School in Little Rock,” King wrote. The Indian Constitution of 1950 had officially abolished untouchability, declared caste discrimination a crime, and created affirmative-action quotas for Dalits and indigenous tribes—in part because a formidable Dalit thinker and leader, B. R. Ambedkar, had played a crucial role in writing it. “Today no leader in India would dare to make a public endorsement of untouchability,” King told reporters. “But in America, every day some leader endorses racial segregation.”
In “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” (Random House), Isabel Wilkerson contends that the brutal Indian system of hierarchy illuminates more about American racial divides than the idea of race alone can, and early in her book she relays a story that King told about his India trip. He was visiting a school for Dalit children when the principal introduced him as “a fellow untouchable.” The comparison made King flinch—but then its truth overwhelmed him. “In that moment, he realized that the Land of the Free had imposed a caste system not unlike the caste system of India and that he had lived under that system all of his life,” Wilkerson writes. “It was what lay beneath the forces he was fighting in America.”
This story is almost certainly apocryphal, borrowed from a sermon that one of King’s mentors gave more than two decades earlier. In later years, King took little interest in how the idea of caste might apply in his own country. But the anecdote at once lends a civil-rights hero’s weight to Wilkerson’s bold thesis and provides the model response to it: a lightning flash of insight about the mechanics of white supremacy. In her view, racism is only the visible manifestation of something deeper. Underlying and predating racism, and holding white supremacy in place, is a hidden system of social domination: a caste structure that uses neutral human differences, skin color among them, as the basis for ranking human value.
“Caste is insidious and therefore powerful because it is not hatred; it is not necessarily personal,” she writes. “It is the worn grooves of comforting routines and unthinking expectations, patterns of a social order that have been in place for so long that it looks like the natural order of things.” The caste model moves white behavior away from subjective feelings (what motivates these people to do what they do) and into the objective realm of power dynamics (what they do, and to whom). The dynamic that concerns Wilkerson the most is how a dominant caste stops a low-ranking caste from gaining on it.
The most enduring caste system, India’s, turned a division of labor into a division of lineage. In the Laws of Manu and other ancient Hindu texts, caste was inscribed with rigid precision, slotting occupations into four varnas, or ranks—priest, ruler-warrior, merchant, laborer—and a fifth category, outcastes (another old name for today’s Dalits). Caste as a lived Indian reality, though, is crueller than any study of scriptural texts would indicate; it’s also more fluid. Each varna comprises innumerable subcastes, or jatis, and, over generations, some jatis have climbed up the ranks as others have slipped down. New occupational groups have been incorporated into the system as others have vanished. In the nineteenth century, the hierarchy, vicious enough by its own design, was entrenched by taxonomies imposed by the British Raj—categories used as instruments of colonial control. What fascinated King, during his sojourn in the subcontinent, was how the newly independent state intended to weaken the caste order by insuring entry for low-caste citizens into schools, universities, and government jobs. What fascinates Wilkerson, like many progressives before her, is the ossified model—heritable hierarchy in its purest form.
Writing with calm and penetrating authority, Wilkerson discusses three caste hierarchies in world history—those of India, America, and Nazi Germany—and excavates the shared principles “burrowed deep within the culture and subconsciousness” of each. She identifies several “pillars” of caste, including inherited rank, taboos related to notions of purity and pollution, the enforcement of hierarchies through terror and violence, and divine sanction of superiority. (The American equivalent to the Laws of Manu is, of course, the Old Testament.) In Wilkerson’s first book, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” which documented the Great Migration of American Blacks in the twentieth century, she wrote about past lives with finer precision and texture than most professional historians have done. So she must have considered the risks involved in compressing into a single frame India’s roughly three-thousand-year-old caste structure, America’s four-hundred-year-old racial hierarchies, and the Third Reich’s twelve-year enforcement of Aryanism. Even on her home terrain, where she focusses on what she calls the “poles of the American caste system,” Blacks and whites, her analysis sometimes seems more ahistorical than transhistorical, as temporal specificities collapse into an eternal present. But this effect is consonant with the view of history she presents in her book—one involving more grim continuity than hopeful departures, more regression to the mean than moments of progress.
In the nineteen-thirties, Allison Davis, a pathbreaking African-American social anthropologist whom Wilkerson calls her spiritual father, risked his life to examine the interplay of caste and class in Natchez, Mississippi. The work that he and his collaborators ultimately produced, “Deep South” (1941), was the first systematic, empirical study of post-Reconstruction life in the region. Confirming the work of other social theorists of the time, they concluded that the structures that kept Blacks immiserated and imperilled were so entrenched that they constituted a caste system. When Gunnar Myrdal incorporated their research into his own classic report, “An American Dilemma” (1944), the idea of caste fully entered the twentieth-century American conversation about race.
Twenty years after Myrdal published his report, and five years after King travelled to India, the dream of seeing aggressive anti-discrimination legislation in America was realized: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. Wilkerson emphasizes the recoil that followed this victory. No Democratic contender for President has won the majority of the white vote since. In her analysis, the arc of the political universe bends toward caste, as progressive legislative or electoral victories activate the threatened dominant group. Had observers better grasped white anxieties unleashed by the growth of America’s nonwhite population and the two-term Presidency of Barack Obama, Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 would have come as no surprise. In the voting booth, Wilkerson argues, whites across the board set aside considerations like gender affinity and such class concerns as access to health care in order to support a man who had signalled his commitment to the continued dominion of their caste.
Trump didn’t need to tweet out “You will not replace us.” Throughout American history, Wilkerson says, white-supremacist ideas deemed taboo have simply gone undercover. When, in the early years of the twentieth century, the Postmaster General banned the grotesque postcards that certain whites liked to send, featuring the corpses of the lynched (“This is the Barbecue we had last night”), the cards kept on circulating in envelopes. With Trump, a twenty-first-century version of these clandestine networks produced what Wilkerson sees as a “consolidation of rank among the historic ruling caste” following the disruption represented by a Black First Family.
The Obamas have been touted, in some circles, as proof of progress toward racial equality. The experience of élite Black Americans is central to Wilkerson’s account, but for the opposite reason. She sees in their attempts to transcend their assigned place in the hierarchy a natural caste experiment—and a failed one at that. Regardless of their wealth or refinement, the system tries to shove them back down. To illustrate this phenomenon, she ranges across disciplines from sociology to economics to medicine, interspersing her analysis with what she calls “scenes of caste,” among them wrenching personal ones.


newyorker--2020-08-07--“She Dies Tomorrow,” Reviewed: An Apocalyptic Drama of Emotional Crises

Amy Seimetz ’ s two features , “ She Dies Tomorrow , ” released online Friday , and “ Sun Don ’ t Shine , ” from 2012 , share a wonderfully dangerous tonal instability .
Both films confront grave matters—the earlier film , a road-movie film noir , involves the coverup of a killing , and the new one is metaphysical science fiction about a strange and extreme new form of mortal contagion—and both do so on the edge of practicality and exaggeration , monstrosity and triviality , reality and hallucination .
“ She Dies Tomorrow ” starts from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stakes—by implication , global ones .
Its exaggerations are wilder , its hallucinations are colder , and its physical realities and dramatic specifics are even less separable from the elements of fantasy .
Unlike the earlier film , “ She Dies Tomorrow ” is also a work of extreme subjectivity .
It is less a drama than a cry , a work that projects roiling inner furies into a controlled , symbolic form .
It ’ s an avenging vision of the political sickness that has overtaken the United States and much of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ particular version of that sickness : when intimate relationships turn ugly .
In its barest dramatic outline , it ’ s the story of a prosperous thirtysomething woman named Amy ( Kate Lyn Sheil , who is also the star of “ Sun Don ’ t Shine ” ) who , as she settles into a new house that she has just bought , is seized with an idea that ’ s as horrific as it seems ridiculous : that she is going to die the next day .
She expresses no cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dying for “ no reason , ” of a personal sense of apocalypse in which emotions overwhelm reason , is the eruptive force that sets the movie in motion and gives it a hectic thrust , as others in her social ambit are quickly afflicted with the same fatal certainty .
In her new , partially furnished house Amy , who lives alone , is alienated from the comforts of her solitude .
She attempts to establish a tactile connection to her new property : she touches the foliage on the grounds and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the furniture .
An alcoholic in recovery , she has a drink ; she lights a cigarette ; she lights a fire ; she goes online to buy herself an urn .
But the crucial connection that Amy tries to make is personal : she calls her friend Jane ( Jane Adams ) , an artist , who , from worry about her , puts off a family obligation in order to visit her .
When Amy speaks of her imminent death , Jane thinks she ’ s just drunk and reminds her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ die .
But , after Jane heads off to the family gathering , she is gripped by the same premonition , which then gets transmitted to her brother and sister-in-law and their guests ; eventually , it turns out that the infection , such as it is , has been spreading elsewhere in the neighborhood—whether it ’ s local or more widespread is unclear , but the main dramatic link between the victims suggests that there ’ s money involved .
Yet there ’ s an underlying emotional pathology that , in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the root of the catastrophe—an affective breakdown with comfort and luxury at the root .
Amy is in a relationship with a man named Craig ( Kentucker Audley , the co-star of “ Sun Don ’ t Shine ” ) , who , in an early , brief , and dreamlike scene , is revealed to have a history of explosive anger .
( It was recently reported that Seimetz obtained a restraining order against her former partner , the filmmaker Shane Carruth , whom she alleges was abusive .
Carruth has denied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interview in the L.A. Times , Seimetz acknowledged drawing on this experience of anxiety and trauma in making the film . )
Seimetz dramatically folds Craig ’ s frightful and fateful outburst into the over-all range of emotional distortions—involving narrow social norms and the exclusionary rules and habits that sustain them—that are at the root of the apocalyptic disease .
In a banteringly romantic conversation with Craig , for instance , Amy reveals that she had an abortion at twenty-two—and that she doesn ’ t regret it , since , if she ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d never have been able to buy the house .
As for Jane , she has a troubled relationship with her brother Jason ( Chris Messina ) and her sister-in-law Susan ( Katie Aselton ) , two cozy members of the suburban bourgeoisie who find her insufferably weird ( as when , for instance , she cancels at the last minute when she wants to start working on her art , and then decides to drop in on them anyway , in her pajamas ) .
The judgmental verities of their set—also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between their other guests , Tilly ( Jennifer Kim ) and Brian ( Tunde Adebimpe ) —are portrayed as inseparable from the mortal epidemic of impending doom that sweeps through it .
The disease thrusts each of its victims into a deep and abstracted inwardness—a state that is marked with flashing red and blue lights and a sepulchral sonic murk , tropes of psychological horror that are as disturbing as they are borderline absurd .
( The absurdity , at times , feels willful—the world-building is slighter than the world destruction . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ clips of microscopic images of living liquid , from blood Jane examines and photographs .
Her art—which she makes , literally , through a microscope , and which involves specimens that she keeps in a refrigerator , in a studio that rather resembles a laboratory—comes off as the meticulously controlled premonition of an unknown taint waiting to burst forth and destroy the world of comfortable consumption that her art work decorates and that provides her very sustenance .
The same goes for Seimetz ’ s own film : it ’ s a controlled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the character of Amy herself isn ’ t spared .
There ’ s also a hint of a new world to come , to be built with and by the plague ’ s survivors—or , rather , those who may well be immune to it .
This is hinted at late in the film , with the appearance of a solitary , white-haired , calm-voiced hide tanner at a remote outpost .
He is played by the filmmaker James Benning , whose work , unlike Seimetz ’ s , exists largely outside the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sense , too , Seimetz , with a self-scourging artistic modesty , imagines her own work as tainted and , in imagining a better post-apocalyptic world , imagines it , too , as superseded .

Amy Seimetz’s two features, “She Dies Tomorrow,” released online Friday, and “Sun Don’t Shine,” from 2012, share a wonderfully dangerous tonal instability. Both films confront grave matters—the earlier film, a road-movie film noir, involves the coverup of a killing, and the new one is metaphysical science fiction about a strange and extreme new form of mortal contagion—and both do so on the edge of practicality and exaggeration, monstrosity and triviality, reality and hallucination. “She Dies Tomorrow” starts from a higher concept and takes on higher stakes—by implication, global ones. Its exaggerations are wilder, its hallucinations are colder, and its physical realities and dramatic specifics are even less separable from the elements of fantasy. Unlike the earlier film, “She Dies Tomorrow” is also a work of extreme subjectivity. It is less a drama than a cry, a work that projects roiling inner furies into a controlled, symbolic form. It’s an avenging vision of the political sickness that has overtaken the United States and much of the world, and of a very particular version of that sickness: when intimate relationships turn ugly.
In its barest dramatic outline, it’s the story of a prosperous thirtysomething woman named Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil, who is also the star of “Sun Don’t Shine”) who, as she settles into a new house that she has just bought, is seized with an idea that’s as horrific as it seems ridiculous: that she is going to die the next day. She expresses no cause, no reason—and the very idea of dying for “no reason,” of a personal sense of apocalypse in which emotions overwhelm reason, is the eruptive force that sets the movie in motion and gives it a hectic thrust, as others in her social ambit are quickly afflicted with the same fatal certainty.
In her new, partially furnished house Amy, who lives alone, is alienated from the comforts of her solitude. She attempts to establish a tactile connection to her new property: she touches the foliage on the grounds and runs her fingers along the floorboards and the furniture. An alcoholic in recovery, she has a drink; she lights a cigarette; she lights a fire; she goes online to buy herself an urn. But the crucial connection that Amy tries to make is personal: she calls her friend Jane (Jane Adams), an artist, who, from worry about her, puts off a family obligation in order to visit her. When Amy speaks of her imminent death, Jane thinks she’s just drunk and reminds her that she’s not about to die. But, after Jane heads off to the family gathering, she is gripped by the same premonition, which then gets transmitted to her brother and sister-in-law and their guests; eventually, it turns out that the infection, such as it is, has been spreading elsewhere in the neighborhood—whether it’s local or more widespread is unclear, but the main dramatic link between the victims suggests that there’s money involved.
Yet there’s an underlying emotional pathology that, in the allusive and time-fractured action, appears at the root of the catastrophe—an affective breakdown with comfort and luxury at the root. Amy is in a relationship with a man named Craig (Kentucker Audley, the co-star of “Sun Don’t Shine”), who, in an early, brief, and dreamlike scene, is revealed to have a history of explosive anger. (It was recently reported that Seimetz obtained a restraining order against her former partner, the filmmaker Shane Carruth, whom she alleges was abusive. Carruth has denied being physically abusive. In a recent interview in the L.A. Times, Seimetz acknowledged drawing on this experience of anxiety and trauma in making the film.) Seimetz dramatically folds Craig’s frightful and fateful outburst into the over-all range of emotional distortions—involving narrow social norms and the exclusionary rules and habits that sustain them—that are at the root of the apocalyptic disease. In a banteringly romantic conversation with Craig, for instance, Amy reveals that she had an abortion at twenty-two—and that she doesn’t regret it, since, if she’d had a baby then, she’d never have been able to buy the house. As for Jane, she has a troubled relationship with her brother Jason (Chris Messina) and her sister-in-law Susan (Katie Aselton), two cozy members of the suburban bourgeoisie who find her insufferably weird (as when, for instance, she cancels at the last minute when she wants to start working on her art, and then decides to drop in on them anyway, in her pajamas). The judgmental verities of their set—also reflected in a subplot of romantic crisis between their other guests, Tilly (Jennifer Kim) and Brian (Tunde Adebimpe)—are portrayed as inseparable from the mortal epidemic of impending doom that sweeps through it.
The disease thrusts each of its victims into a deep and abstracted inwardness—a state that is marked with flashing red and blue lights and a sepulchral sonic murk, tropes of psychological horror that are as disturbing as they are borderline absurd. (The absurdity, at times, feels willful—the world-building is slighter than the world destruction.) The malady is also signalled with quick clips of microscopic images of living liquid, from blood Jane examines and photographs. Her art—which she makes, literally, through a microscope, and which involves specimens that she keeps in a refrigerator, in a studio that rather resembles a laboratory—comes off as the meticulously controlled premonition of an unknown taint waiting to burst forth and destroy the world of comfortable consumption that her art work decorates and that provides her very sustenance.
The same goes for Seimetz’s own film: it’s a controlled cinematic blast of principled near-nihilism in which the character of Amy herself isn’t spared. There’s also a hint of a new world to come, to be built with and by the plague’s survivors—or, rather, those who may well be immune to it. This is hinted at late in the film, with the appearance of a solitary, white-haired, calm-voiced hide tanner at a remote outpost. He is played by the filmmaker James Benning, whose work, unlike Seimetz’s, exists largely outside the circuit of commercial distribution. In this sense, too, Seimetz, with a self-scourging artistic modesty, imagines her own work as tainted and, in imagining a better post-apocalyptic world, imagines it, too, as superseded.


newyorker--2020-08-07--“The Rental,” a Horror Film About Love, Family, and Airbnb

In Hollywood , the term “ dump months ” is used to describe fallow periods in the release schedule , when audiences are less likely to go to theatres and revenue is low .
It ’ s during these windows—January and February , say , or mid-August through September—that the arty , low-budget , or off-kilter movies show up , free from the shadow of blockbusters .
In the coronavirus era , with most major studios moving big theatrical releases to 2021 or later , every month is a dump month .
The films being released are , by and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made a splash at the box office to begin with .
“ The Rental , ” a lean and slick thriller about a casual Airbnb stay gone catastrophically wrong , is one such film , and it thoroughly scratches the summer horror-flick itch .
The directorial début of Dave Franco , brother to James Franco , the film follows two couples on a weekend getaway to a palatial , ocean-view rental house in the Pacific Northwest .
There ’ s Charlie and Michelle , who , as played by Dan Stevens and Alison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wife .
Then there ’ s Charlie ’ s troubled younger brother , Josh ( Jeremy Allen White ) , and his girlfriend , Mina ( Sheila Vand ) , who ’ s strong-willed and accomplished , and who happens to be Charlie ’ s work partner at a newly successful venture-capital firm .
Tucked away in a spectacularly remote part of the country , the four are left with nothing to do but confront the demons of their past .
( Charlie has a secret history of philandering ; Josh has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ co-writer , the indie-film darling Joe Swanberg , are deft observers of character .
But they also manage to provide an entire summer ’ s worth of stimulation : “ The Rental ” is a slasher film masquerading as a psychological thriller , and is also a commentary on the racially fraught nature of renting an Airbnb , a seductive slice of real-estate pornography , a cautionary tale about the perils of surveillance technology , and , to top it all off , a study of a love quadrangle which allows for some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraternal relationships .
If I could see it again on the big screen , I would .

In Hollywood, the term “dump months” is used to describe fallow periods in the release schedule, when audiences are less likely to go to theatres and revenue is low. It’s during these windows—January and February, say, or mid-August through September—that the arty, low-budget, or off-kilter movies show up, free from the shadow of blockbusters. In the coronavirus era, with most major studios moving big theatrical releases to 2021 or later, every month is a dump month. The films being released are, by and large, titles that never would have made a splash at the box office to begin with.
“The Rental,” a lean and slick thriller about a casual Airbnb stay gone catastrophically wrong, is one such film, and it thoroughly scratches the summer horror-flick itch. The directorial début of Dave Franco, brother to James Franco, the film follows two couples on a weekend getaway to a palatial, ocean-view rental house in the Pacific Northwest. There’s Charlie and Michelle, who, as played by Dan Stevens and Alison Brie, make a winning husband and wife. Then there’s Charlie’s troubled younger brother, Josh (Jeremy Allen White), and his girlfriend, Mina (Sheila Vand), who’s strong-willed and accomplished, and who happens to be Charlie’s work partner at a newly successful venture-capital firm. Tucked away in a spectacularly remote part of the country, the four are left with nothing to do but confront the demons of their past. (Charlie has a secret history of philandering; Josh has a criminal record.) Franco and his co-writer, the indie-film darling Joe Swanberg, are deft observers of character. But they also manage to provide an entire summer’s worth of stimulation: “The Rental” is a slasher film masquerading as a psychological thriller, and is also a commentary on the racially fraught nature of renting an Airbnb, a seductive slice of real-estate pornography, a cautionary tale about the perils of surveillance technology, and, to top it all off, a study of a love quadrangle which allows for some titillating speculation about Dave Franco’s fraternal relationships. If I could see it again on the big screen, I would.


newyorker--2020-08-07--The Rikers Debate Project, and Isabel Wilkerson

The journalist and historian Isabel Wilkerson talks with David Remnick about how America ’ s racial hierarchy should be thought @ @ @ @ @ , not unlike the one that dominated in India .
Plus , Jonathan Blitzer talks @ @ @ @ @ ’ s new docuseries “ Immigration Nation.
” And we ’ ll meet some of @ @ @ @ @ inmates who make up the Rikers Debate Project .
The Documentary ICE Doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ filmmakers gained unprecedented access to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement .
What they found isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ Pulitzer Prize-winning historian ’ s new book , she asserts that racism in the United @ @ @ @ @ a caste system , not unlike the one that dominated in India .
Inmates and @ @ @ @ @ issues of our time , parliamentary style .

Illustration by Golden Cosmos
The journalist and historian Isabel Wilkerson talks with David Remnick about how America’s racial hierarchy should be thought of as a caste system, not unlike the one that dominated in India. Plus, Jonathan Blitzer talks with the filmmakers behind Netflix’s new docuseries “Immigration Nation.” And we’ll meet some of the volunteers and the former inmates who make up the Rikers Debate Project.
The Documentary ICE Doesn’t Want You to See
Two filmmakers gained unprecedented access to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. What they found isn’t pretty.
Isabel Wilkerson on America’s Caste System
In the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian’s new book, she asserts that racism in the United States is best understood as a caste system, not unlike the one that dominated in India.
The Rikers Debate Project
Inmates and former felons debate the critical issues of our time, parliamentary style.


newyorker--2020-08-07--Ellen DeGeneres’s Relatability Crisis

Ellen DeGeneres’s Relatability Crisis

“ I ’ m a good person , ” Ellen DeGeneres says in her standup special “ Relatable , ” which came out on Netflix at the end of 2018 .
“ I know I am .
But I ’ m a human being , and I have bad days.
” This wasn ’ t an apology for some perceived offense but a mild pushback against her genial public persona , epitomized by DeGeneres ’ s sign-off on her daytime talk show : “ Be kind to one another.
” In “ Relatable , ” she says of the catchphrase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thing , it is .
But here ’ s the downside : I can never do anything unkind ever now .
Ever .
I ’ m the ‘ be kind ’ girl.
” In the year and a half since , DeGeneres ’ s be-kind brand has taken one hit after another , culminating , this past month , in an all-out revolt by the present and former staff of “ The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
” A cash cow that has been on the air for seventeen seasons , the show has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ games , giveaways , and , above all , the sunny disposition of its host .
But it doesn ’ t appear to be a happy place to work .
In April , members of the show ’ s union crew expressed outrage that there had been no communication about hours or pay during quarantine , while DeGeneres hired non-union technicians to set up a remote broadcast from her home .
In mid-July , Krystie Lee Yandoli reported , at Buzzfeed , that DeGeneres stood atop an office culture of “ racism , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claimed that they were fired for going on medical leave or for taking bereavement days to attend a funeral .
A Black woman said that a producer had told her and a Black co-worker , “ Oh , wow , you both have box braids ; I hope we don ’ t get you confused.
” WarnerMedia , the parent company of the show ’ s production company , launched an internal investigation .
Days later , DeGeneres wrote a letter to her staff taking responsibility and promising changes , saying that she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the show a “ place of happiness.
” But any damage control was upstaged by another piece by Yandoli , containing allegations of sexual misconduct against the show ’ s brain trust .
Ex-employees accused the head writer and executive producer , Kevin Leman , of groping staff members and of soliciting sexual favors at an office party .
( Leman denied the claims . )
Another executive producer , Ed Glavin , was said to be “ handsy with women ” in the control room and to use intimidation tactics , such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a desk button—a gadget that should have disappeared with Matt Lauer .
( Glavin did not return a request for comment . )
The dozens of employees who spoke to Yandoli were split on whether DeGeneres had been insulated from the problems or had purposely turned a blind eye .
At best , she comes off as a distant boss who set a chilly backstage tone .
Since then , rumors have flown : that Glavin is being ousted , that DeGeneres might call it quits , that her time slot might go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right the ship , or maybe she ’ ll bail .
Either way , the reports amount to a crisis of authenticity for her public image , which was already complicated and compromised .
DeGeneres has made niceness her defining value , and yet , like Senator Amy Klobuchar , who based her political brand on Midwestern folksiness but has faced allegations of bad-boss behavior , she ’ s been dogged by tales of not-niceness .
( Niceness , of course , is something we expect more of from female bosses . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ T. Porter put a call out on Twitter for “ the most insane stories you ’ ve heard about Ellen being mean.
” Nearly three thousand replies came in , from supposedly brushed-off fans and un-thanked production assistants .
The thread was a little mean itself , and the responses have varying credibility .
But the exercise was reminiscent of a line in “ Mean Girls ” : “ How many of you have ever felt personally victimized by Regina George ?
” More than most anything , a television personality such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a broad viewership ; a two-faced Ellen won ’ t play .
Her audiences , celebrity guests , and sponsors want to reflect her nonthreatening warmth .
They want to be part of her goofy dance .
The fact that DeGeneres carved out such an accessible persona is a small miracle , after her tumultuous first act .
She made her name in the eighties , as a standup comedian with a friendly New Orleans drawl , a casual J. C. Penney aesthetic , and a knack for everyday absurdism .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Johnny Carson ’ s “ Tonight Show , ” she makes a phone call to God to inquire about the purpose of fleas .
( In “ Relatable , ” she reveals that she came up with the bit after her girlfriend was killed in a car accident and she couldn ’ t afford to live in their place alone , so she moved into a ratty basement apartment infested with fleas . )
Her ABC sitcom , which débuted in 1994 , as “ These Friends of Mine , ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about a perennially single bookstore owner with a bunch of kooky friends .
The series would be remembered today as an amiable “ Seinfeld ” ripoff were it not for the title character ’ s historic coming out , in 1997—an event that most every gay person who was watching , including me , can still feel in the gut .
The real-life Ellen came out simultaneously , on the cover of Time , and her niceness doubled as a kind of survival mechanism : for many Americans , her friendly face was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ openly gay person .
There ’ s no way around the fact that DeGeneres was a pioneer , with all the sacrifices that that entails .
Her sexuality was endlessly deconstructed and condemned , her show was cancelled , and she entered a depression .
“ The Ellen DeGeneres Show , ” which premièred in 2003 , was , in some ways , just as groundbreaking as her sitcom , since it repositioned DeGeneres as the fun-loving lesbian next door whom Middle America could welcome into its living rooms .
This wasn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she says that she had to “ tone it down ” and wear feminine necklaces for the first few seasons , and that one station manager had balked , “ No one ’ s going to watch a lesbian during the day.
” With her significant help , however , mainstream culture had made major strides , with “ Will & Grace , ” “ Queer as Folk , ” and “ Queer Eye for the Straight Guy ” on television .
As a daytime host , DeGeneres could circle back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ standup : she was safe , she was likeable , and she gave stuff away for free .
Her marriage to the actress Portia De Rossi only reinforced her warm , domesticated image .
The show was wildly successful , and DeGeneres became one of the most highly paid celebrities in the world .
By 2018 , she was making an estimated eighty-seven million dollars a year ( much of which she gave to charities , and she and De Rossi began a wildlife-conservation fund ) .
But mind-boggling wealth made her tightrope @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” her first standup special in fifteen years , she tried to reconcile the gulf between familiarity and privilege .
“ Do you think you ’ re still relatable ?
” she recalls a friend asking her , then imagines her butler coming into the library to tell her that her breakfast is ready .
She makes Seinfeldian observations about how we all try to squeeze out the last bit of toothpaste , but then jokes that she likes to use gold bars to flatten the tube .
The special allowed DeGeneres @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was also a canny exercise in brand maintenance .
By then , anonymous reports of her brusque behavior at work were circulating in the tabloids .
In a fascinating New York Times profile by Jason Zinoman , headlined “ Ellen DeGeneres Is Not as Nice as You Think , ” she said of the rumors , “ That bugs me if someone is saying that , because it ’ s an outright lie .
”

“I’m a good person,” Ellen DeGeneres says in her standup special “Relatable,” which came out on Netflix at the end of 2018. “I know I am. But I’m a human being, and I have bad days.” This wasn’t an apology for some perceived offense but a mild pushback against her genial public persona, epitomized by DeGeneres’s sign-off on her daytime talk show: “Be kind to one another.” In “Relatable,” she says of the catchphrase, “It’s a wonderful thing, it is. But here’s the downside: I can never do anything unkind ever now. Ever. I’m the ‘be kind’ girl.”
In the year and a half since, DeGeneres’s be-kind brand has taken one hit after another, culminating, this past month, in an all-out revolt by the present and former staff of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” A cash cow that has been on the air for seventeen seasons, the show has a spirit of altruistic fun: pranks, games, giveaways, and, above all, the sunny disposition of its host. But it doesn’t appear to be a happy place to work. In April, members of the show’s union crew expressed outrage that there had been no communication about hours or pay during quarantine, while DeGeneres hired non-union technicians to set up a remote broadcast from her home. In mid-July, Krystie Lee Yandoli reported, at Buzzfeed, that DeGeneres stood atop an office culture of “racism, fear, and intimidation.” Former employees claimed that they were fired for going on medical leave or for taking bereavement days to attend a funeral. A Black woman said that a producer had told her and a Black co-worker, “Oh, wow, you both have box braids; I hope we don’t get you confused.” WarnerMedia, the parent company of the show’s production company, launched an internal investigation.
Days later, DeGeneres wrote a letter to her staff taking responsibility and promising changes, saying that she had vowed from the start to make the show a “place of happiness.” But any damage control was upstaged by another piece by Yandoli, containing allegations of sexual misconduct against the show’s brain trust. Ex-employees accused the head writer and executive producer, Kevin Leman, of groping staff members and of soliciting sexual favors at an office party. (Leman denied the claims.) Another executive producer, Ed Glavin, was said to be “handsy with women” in the control room and to use intimidation tactics, such as closing his door remotely by using a desk button—a gadget that should have disappeared with Matt Lauer. (Glavin did not return a request for comment.) The dozens of employees who spoke to Yandoli were split on whether DeGeneres had been insulated from the problems or had purposely turned a blind eye. At best, she comes off as a distant boss who set a chilly backstage tone.
Since then, rumors have flown: that Glavin is being ousted, that DeGeneres might call it quits, that her time slot might go to James Corden. Maybe DeGeneres will right the ship, or maybe she’ll bail. Either way, the reports amount to a crisis of authenticity for her public image, which was already complicated and compromised. DeGeneres has made niceness her defining value, and yet, like Senator Amy Klobuchar, who based her political brand on Midwestern folksiness but has faced allegations of bad-boss behavior, she’s been dogged by tales of not-niceness. (Niceness, of course, is something we expect more of from female bosses.) In late March, the comedian Kevin T. Porter put a call out on Twitter for “the most insane stories you’ve heard about Ellen being mean.” Nearly three thousand replies came in, from supposedly brushed-off fans and un-thanked production assistants. The thread was a little mean itself, and the responses have varying credibility. But the exercise was reminiscent of a line in “Mean Girls”: “How many of you have ever felt personally victimized by Regina George?” More than most anything, a television personality such as DeGeneres needs to come across as genuine to a broad viewership; a two-faced Ellen won’t play. Her audiences, celebrity guests, and sponsors want to reflect her nonthreatening warmth. They want to be part of her goofy dance.
The fact that DeGeneres carved out such an accessible persona is a small miracle, after her tumultuous first act. She made her name in the eighties, as a standup comedian with a friendly New Orleans drawl, a casual J. C. Penney aesthetic, and a knack for everyday absurdism. In her breakout routine, which she performed on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,” she makes a phone call to God to inquire about the purpose of fleas. (In “Relatable,” she reveals that she came up with the bit after her girlfriend was killed in a car accident and she couldn’t afford to live in their place alone, so she moved into a ratty basement apartment infested with fleas.) Her ABC sitcom, which débuted in 1994, as “These Friends of Mine,” and was retitled “Ellen,” was about a perennially single bookstore owner with a bunch of kooky friends. The series would be remembered today as an amiable “Seinfeld” ripoff were it not for the title character’s historic coming out, in 1997—an event that most every gay person who was watching, including me, can still feel in the gut. The real-life Ellen came out simultaneously, on the cover of Time, and her niceness doubled as a kind of survival mechanism: for many Americans, her friendly face was the first they could attach to an openly gay person. There’s no way around the fact that DeGeneres was a pioneer, with all the sacrifices that that entails. Her sexuality was endlessly deconstructed and condemned, her show was cancelled, and she entered a depression.
“The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which premièred in 2003, was, in some ways, just as groundbreaking as her sitcom, since it repositioned DeGeneres as the fun-loving lesbian next door whom Middle America could welcome into its living rooms. This wasn’t always easy. In “Relatable,” she says that she had to “tone it down” and wear feminine necklaces for the first few seasons, and that one station manager had balked, “No one’s going to watch a lesbian during the day.” With her significant help, however, mainstream culture had made major strides, with “Will & Grace,” “Queer as Folk,” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” on television. As a daytime host, DeGeneres could circle back to the un-edgy humor of her early standup: she was safe, she was likeable, and she gave stuff away for free. Her marriage to the actress Portia De Rossi only reinforced her warm, domesticated image. The show was wildly successful, and DeGeneres became one of the most highly paid celebrities in the world.
By 2018, she was making an estimated eighty-seven million dollars a year (much of which she gave to charities, and she and De Rossi began a wildlife-conservation fund). But mind-boggling wealth made her tightrope act even trickier. In “Relatable,” her first standup special in fifteen years, she tried to reconcile the gulf between familiarity and privilege. “Do you think you’re still relatable?” she recalls a friend asking her, then imagines her butler coming into the library to tell her that her breakfast is ready. She makes Seinfeldian observations about how we all try to squeeze out the last bit of toothpaste, but then jokes that she likes to use gold bars to flatten the tube. The special allowed DeGeneres to show her spikier side, but it was also a canny exercise in brand maintenance. By then, anonymous reports of her brusque behavior at work were circulating in the tabloids. In a fascinating New York Times profile by Jason Zinoman, headlined “Ellen DeGeneres Is Not as Nice as You Think,” she said of the rumors, “That bugs me if someone is saying that, because it’s an outright lie.”


newyorker--2020-08-07--The Truth About the New Jobs Report

The Truth About the New Jobs Report

Donald Trump was quick to leap on the Labor Department ’ s employment report for July , which was released on Friday morning .
“ Great Jobs Numbers !
” the President blared on Twitter .
The White House press secretary , Kayleigh McEnany , fired out an exclamation point of her own , declaring , “ President @ realDonaldTrump is the JOBS president !
” The actual contents of the employment report present a very different picture .
They show that , as the coronavirus pandemic has spread across the country this summer , job growth has slowed sharply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by 1.8 million , compared to increases of 2.7 million in May and 4.8 million in June .
In more normal times , these monthly figures would be off the charts , but they pale in comparison to the loss of 22.1 million jobs in March and April , when stay-at-home orders were issued in many areas .
Taking the past six months as a whole , 12.8 million Americans have lost their jobs , a drop for which there is no precedent in the employment records , which go back to 1939 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rise in payrolls last month came from the leisure and hospitality sector , which reflected bars and restaurants reopening in parts of the country where the coronavirus is more contained .
As other types of businesses—such as clothing stores , dental practices , and factories—reopened , they , too , rehired significant numbers of people .
Total employment in the retail industry rose by 258,000 .
The health-care sector added 126,000 jobs .
Manufacturing payrolls increased by 26,000 .
This was welcome news for those who got rehired , but the figures need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to February , the July report shows that 2.6 million fewer people are now employed in bars and restaurants , 913,000 fewer people in the retail industry , 797,000 fewer in the health-care sector , and 740,000 fewer in manufacturing .
These are hardly “ Great Jobs Numbers , ” and , alas , the White House press secretary ’ s claim about Trump being “ the JOBS president ” doesn ’ t hold up either .
In January , 2017 , when Trump was inaugurated , total non-farm employment in the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it was 139.6 million .
In other words , about six million jobs have been eliminated since Trump took office .
The losses in 2020 have been so dramatic that they have more than wiped out the gains seen in the first three years of his Presidency .
The unemployment numbers tell a similar story .
In July , the official jobless rate fell from 11.1 per cent to 10.2 per cent .
But , as recently as February , the unemployment rate was 3.5 per cent .
During the shutdowns of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the way up to 14.7 per cent .
The subsequent declines have reversed less than half of the earlier increase .
According to the employment report , 16.3 million Americans are now jobless and looking for work .
But this figure doesn ’ t give a complete picture of the economic disruption that the pandemic has caused .
The report also showed that the number of people working part-time involuntarily has risen by 4.1 per cent since February .
In the same period , a large number of Americans appear to have dropped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working nor actively looking for work .
These folks don ’ t get counted in the official jobless tally .
But in February , according to the Labor Department ’ s figures , there were 164.6 million people in the civilian labor force .
In July , the figure was 159.9 million .
That ’ s a decline of 4.7 million .
Putting all these numbers together reveals a picture of an economy that is still being ravaged by the coronavirus , and in which tens of millions of Americans are utterly dependent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of figures from the Labor Department—weekly unemployment-insurance claims—indicates that roughly thirty million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits , the value of which the federal government increased as part of March ’ s CARES Act .
Many other people still have a job only because their employers are collecting money from the federal government under the Payroll Protection Program .
With talks on Capitol Hill about a new spending package seemingly stalled , there is still no assurance that these programs will be extended , or that the economy will receive other forms of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress and the Trump Administration fail to step in , the human and economic toll of the pandemic will likely get even larger than the one outlined in the jobs report .
More on the Coronavirus • To protect American lives and revive the economy , Donald Trump and Jared Kushner should listen to Anthony Fauci rather than trash him .
• We should look to students to conceive of appropriate school-reopening plans .
It is not too late to ask what they really want .
• A pregnant pediatrician on what children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is helping tycoons who have donated to his reëlection campaign exploit the pandemic to maximize profits .
• Meet the high-finance mogul in charge of our economic recovery .
• The coronavirus is likely to reshape architecture .
What kinds of space are we willing to live and work in now ?

Donald Trump was quick to leap on the Labor Department’s employment report for July, which was released on Friday morning. “Great Jobs Numbers!” the President blared on Twitter. The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, fired out an exclamation point of her own, declaring, “President @realDonaldTrump is the JOBS president!”
The actual contents of the employment report present a very different picture. They show that, as the coronavirus pandemic has spread across the country this summer, job growth has slowed sharply. In July, non-farm payrolls rose by 1.8 million, compared to increases of 2.7 million in May and 4.8 million in June. In more normal times, these monthly figures would be off the charts, but they pale in comparison to the loss of 22.1 million jobs in March and April, when stay-at-home orders were issued in many areas. Taking the past six months as a whole, 12.8 million Americans have lost their jobs, a drop for which there is no precedent in the employment records, which go back to 1939.
About a third of the over-all rise in payrolls last month came from the leisure and hospitality sector, which reflected bars and restaurants reopening in parts of the country where the coronavirus is more contained. As other types of businesses—such as clothing stores, dental practices, and factories—reopened, they, too, rehired significant numbers of people. Total employment in the retail industry rose by 258,000. The health-care sector added 126,000 jobs. Manufacturing payrolls increased by 26,000. This was welcome news for those who got rehired, but the figures need to be placed in perspective. Compared to February, the July report shows that 2.6 million fewer people are now employed in bars and restaurants, 913,000 fewer people in the retail industry, 797,000 fewer in the health-care sector, and 740,000 fewer in manufacturing.
These are hardly “Great Jobs Numbers,” and, alas, the White House press secretary’s claim about Trump being “the JOBS president” doesn’t hold up either. In January, 2017, when Trump was inaugurated, total non-farm employment in the United States was 145.6 million. Last month, it was 139.6 million. In other words, about six million jobs have been eliminated since Trump took office. The losses in 2020 have been so dramatic that they have more than wiped out the gains seen in the first three years of his Presidency.
The unemployment numbers tell a similar story. In July, the official jobless rate fell from 11.1 per cent to 10.2 per cent. But, as recently as February, the unemployment rate was 3.5 per cent. During the shutdowns of March and April, it jumped all the way up to 14.7 per cent. The subsequent declines have reversed less than half of the earlier increase.
According to the employment report, 16.3 million Americans are now jobless and looking for work. But this figure doesn’t give a complete picture of the economic disruption that the pandemic has caused. The report also showed that the number of people working part-time involuntarily has risen by 4.1 per cent since February. In the same period, a large number of Americans appear to have dropped out of the labor force—they are neither working nor actively looking for work. These folks don’t get counted in the official jobless tally. But in February, according to the Labor Department’s figures, there were 164.6 million people in the civilian labor force. In July, the figure was 159.9 million. That’s a decline of 4.7 million.
Putting all these numbers together reveals a picture of an economy that is still being ravaged by the coronavirus, and in which tens of millions of Americans are utterly dependent on government support. A different set of figures from the Labor Department—weekly unemployment-insurance claims—indicates that roughly thirty million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits, the value of which the federal government increased as part of March’s CARES Act. Many other people still have a job only because their employers are collecting money from the federal government under the Payroll Protection Program.
With talks on Capitol Hill about a new spending package seemingly stalled, there is still no assurance that these programs will be extended, or that the economy will receive other forms of support that it vitally needs. If Congress and the Trump Administration fail to step in, the human and economic toll of the pandemic will likely get even larger than the one outlined in the jobs report.
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