On The Vine: This is an email that shouldn’t get you in trouble
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Sorry we’re late this week, y’all.
“I love you all just know my mental health is F’d up.”
Those Chiefs linebacker Willie Gay Jr.’s words he tweeted last week; simple, and profound.
It’s been slow, but the taboo around mental health awareness — particularly mental health within the Black community — is being eroded away.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid said Gay has met with the in-house team clinician (it’s refreshing they’re that forward thinking. Then again, it should tell you something that an organization that invests hundreds of millions of dollars in their players’ physical well-being, make sure to invest in their mental well-being).
“I’m proud of him for mentioning it,” Reid said Wednesday. “A lot of people don’t mention it, (so) I think it’s a great tribute to the kid, bringing it forward. “So many people keep this hidden, and then disastrous things happen. I’m just glad he came forward with it.”
Take care of yourselves, y’all.
Around the block
Federal grand jury investigating ex-KCK police detective Roger Golubski
Roger Golubski, a former detective with the Kansas City, Kansas, police department, has been accused of using his badge to exploit and rape vulnerable Black women. The Star has reported for years on accusations against Golubski, including numerous columns by Melinda Henneberger, opinion editor and columnist for The Star.
Henneberger has spoken with alleged victims of Golubski and their families, and reported on decades of misconduct, abuse and manipulation. Separately, the newspaper engaged in a partnership of reporting with KCUR detailing the former detective’s connection to several slain Black women in Kansas City, Kansas.
This week came news that Federal prosecutors in Kansas have initiated a criminal grand jury investigation into Roger Golubski.
The Star’s Aarón Torres and Luke Nozicka wrote:
Tricia Rojo Bushnell, executive director at the Midwest Innocence Project, said while she and others were hopeful, they want to see results.
“Whether those be indictments or pattern-and-practice investigations that we’ve be calling for from the DOJ,” she told The Star. “But there have been investigations ... or attempted investigations for years.”
Last week, Bushnell and Team Roc, the social justice arm of rapper Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, took out a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post calling on the Justice Department to investigate alleged misconduct by officers in Kansas City, Kansas...
It was in 2017, when Lamonte McIntyre was freed from prison after serving 23 years for two murders he did not commit, that questions began to arise publicly about Golubski. His mother says Golubski coerced her into having sex with him.
See these from The Star...
Jackson County Executive Frank White proclaims Oct. 15 as Rafaela ‘Lali’ Garcia Day
‘It’s been up and down’: Couple hope crowds will return to their new Kansas City cafe
‘It’s unbelievable’: Amid COVID, Kansas City Thai restaurant opens two more spots
Beyond the block
Raiders Coach Resigns After Homophobic and Misogynistic Emails
I wanted to write this whole thing about how Jon Gruden was likely the first NFL coach I remember having any kind of association with (I was born in ‘91), but honestly, it’s not worth trying all that.
The New York Times’ Ken Belson and Katherine Rosman report:
Jon Gruden stepped down Monday as the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders football team hours after The New York Times detailed emails in which he had made homophobic and misogynistic remarks, following an earlier report of racist statements about a union leader...
Gruden’s departure came after a New York Times report that N.F.L. officials, as part of a separate workplace misconduct investigation that did not directly involve him, found that Gruden had casually and frequently unleashed misogynistic and homophobic language over several years to denigrate people around the game and to mock some of the league’s momentous changes.
He denounced the emergence of women as referees, the drafting of a gay player and the tolerance of players protesting during the playing of the national anthem, according to emails reviewed by The Times.
In numerous emails during a seven-year period ending in early 2018, Gruden criticized Goodell and the league for trying to reduce concussions and said that Eric Reid, a player who had demonstrated during the playing of the national anthem, should be fired. In several instances, Gruden used a homophobic slur to refer to Goodell and offensive language to describe some N.F.L. owners, coaches and journalists who cover the league.
Check these out too...
California becomes first state to require ethnic studies for high school graduation
‘We Suffer While You Debate’: Many Fear Being Left Behind as Democrats Trim Spending Bill
Trans employees at Netflix plan walkout even as one activist is reinstated following suspension
Idk, Dave Chappelle hasn’t really been doing “comedy” lately — right? He’s doing something that more closely resembles problematic, if not slightly entertaining, rants from your favorite uncle who no longer “recognizes” the world around him.
A friend recently asked what I thought of Chappelle’s latest Netflix comedy special, “The Closer.” I don’t really know. I don’t know that I have the knowledge, nuance and insight to have an informed opinion. But the world around him clearly wishes he’d recognize that as a Black man he can be both the oppressor and the oppressed.
The Verge’s Zoe Schiffer reports:
The trans employee resource group at Netflix is planning a company-wide walkout on October 20th to protest statements made by co-CEO Ted Sarandos regarding Dave Chappelle’s latest comedy special “The Closer”
“Trans Lives Matter. Trans Rights Matter. And as an organization, Netflix has continually failed to show deep care in our mission to Entertain the World by repeatedly releasing content that harms the Trans community and continually failing to create content that represents and uplifts Trans content. We can and must do better!” wrote a leader of the trans ERG in an internal organizing message.
The walkout comes after Netflix suspended three employees, including a Trans person who spoke out against Chappelle, after they crashed a leadership meeting.
For the culture
Oscar-winning composer Jon Batiste: ‘I see jazz as a superpower’
“I see jazz as a superpower,” Jon Batiste told The Guardian. “It has never depended on popularity to maintain relevance because its value is undeniable; it represents all the nuances of the human soul. It is an honor to play this music because it is my heritage – it is the Blackest, deepest American classical music that has grown to become a universal art form.”
Ammar Kalia writes of the Oscar-winning composer (only the second Black composer to win an Oscar, following Herbie Hancock’s 1986 win):
“Social music” is the catch-all term Batiste uses to describe his varied, jazz-referencing output. Born into a New Orleans musical dynasty, he first played drums at eight years old in the family group, the Batiste Brothers Band, before switching to piano and developing his ear by transcribing scores from video games such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter II. By 17, he was immersed in the language of jazz and had already released his debut album, Times in New Orleans. Within the decade he had graduated from the prestigious Juilliard School, toured globally and counted the likes of Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock among his friends and mentors.
“All my work comes from within and each album is a record of a specific moment in time and in my life,” he says. “Which is why this latest record speaks to the protests that were happening. It is saying that as humans we all come from a common ancestry and lineage. Only we are the ones who can save ourselves. As long as there are evil forces in the world, the work is never finished.”
Take care
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