Merry Christmas, America — I Don’t Know What Else to Say
Welcome to the first edition of Takes & Typos hosted on Buttondown. If you missed the update midweek about the switch from Substack, you can find it here, but I’ll talk a bit more about the change in the closing of the newsletter.
Man, this week was weird.
I have the usual jetlag and the accompanying 3 AM wakeups. I landed in Tacoma on the twentieth, bracing myself for the usual “we wanted to wait until you arrived to tell you in person” family news that has become my norm... But it never came. Things with my family are actually pretty good. Mom is in good spirits. After fighting with the VA for over a year, there’s finally a solid care plan in place. There is a home care assistant, in-home PT & OT services, and the family collectively has their heads around the array of mobility options for people with disabilities.
It is a far cry from where things stood a year ago.
Not everything is perfect, but things feel normal with the family for the first time since we lost Dad in 2020. However, someone thought it was a good idea to give my oldest niece a karaoke machine as an early Christmas present. This was not, in fact, a good idea.
So, since family is largely sorted, to maintain balance—the Force must be balanced after all—the exasperation must come from elsewhere in my universe.
Y’all, I don’t know what else to say about the decision in the Ellis trial. When the verdict was delivered, I was gutted but also angry at myself for even hoping for justice for the Ellis Family. Monet, Ellis’ sister and tireless advocate, is the most courageous person in the City of Tacoma, and we all failed her. A jury of twelve adults, heard over the last three months, how a group of Tacoma Police officers beat, body-slammed, tasered, hog-tied, sat on, put a spit hood on, and then mocked Ellis as he pleaded for his life.
In response, the defense rolled out the invincible super-negro theory lawyers have used since at least the Rodney King trial. The officers were all acquitted and the County Sheriff, who lied repeatedly to the public about the case, saw the moment as an occasion for celebration.
But this isn’t just about Manny. The day he was murdered by police in Tacoma, he was one of four people killed in the US by police—a fairly typical total.
Since the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2015, which brought the Black Lives Matter Movement into the mainstream, we’ve arguably gone backwards. According to Mapping Police Violence (all data as of December 1, 2023), the needle hasn’t budged. US police have killed 1,191 people so far this year. We’re on pace to eclipse 2022’s total of 1250. Native Americans and Black Americans are roughly three times as likely to be killed by law enforcement in the US.
There have only been fourteen days in the year in which a law enforcement officer hasn’t ended at least one person’s life in America. I used to think sharing info like this would move people, it doesn’t. I used to think if we elected the right people, we could change things—I no longer believe that.
It doesn’t have to be this way. It isn’t like this in any other similarly wealthy nation. This is a societal failure and the result of policy choices. It’s one of the great failings of the American liberal project. I really don’t know what else to say and generally try not to swear in my public communications, so I guess I’ll stop there.
A Little Bit More on the Move
There’s an old saying that “if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.” For the last year or so, I have published this newsletter via Substack. It is a free-to-use subscription service that helps writers publish newsletters. The service is “free” to use but for people who have paid subscriptions for their newsletters, Substack takes a percentage.
This week, Substack took a stand: they are choosing to publish and monetize Neo-Nazi and white supremacist writers. They frame their decision around “protecting speech” and “resisting censorship.” That’s nonsense. We all know it.
Katie Notopoulos cut to the chase in her piece in Business Insider:
Substack is likely making money from these Nazi blogs, some of which are monetized and have paying subscribers, of which Substack takes a 10% cut.
That's one of the nice things about money: You don't have to accept it from Nazis. Money has a way of making things a lot more clear. Content has moral ambiguity; money doesn't.
You either take the Nazi money or you don't. Substack is apparently choosing to take it.
If you currently use Substack and want to switch, you can use this link. I still can’t believe I’m having to have this conversation but I would rather pay than use a “free” service that welcomes people whose long-term vision is wiping my family from existence.
There will not be a newsletter next week, I'll be traveling to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl.
Happy Holidays, lol.
As always, if you have any thoughts or feedback about the newsletter, I welcome it, and I really appreciate it when folks share the newsletter with their friends.