What A Day - Georgia In My Line

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

Georgia held its primary yesterday, and in a state where officials have been accused of voter suppression, the elections were rife with issues. Polling stations saw hours-long lines that invariably led some voters to give up. Raquel Willis, writer and trans activist, fills in for Akilah Hughes. We discuss how we can better support black queer and trans leadership in this moment.And in headlines: Brazil’s Supreme Court orders Bolsonaro to stop hoarding COVID data, an art dealer’s buried treasure, and the legal battle for a radio in the Titanic.Find more of Raquel's work: raquelwillis.comSupport these Black-led LGBTQ+ organizations: actblue.com/donate/black_led_lgbtq

it's wednesday june 10th i'm gideon resnick and i'm raquel willis filling in for akilah hughes and this is what a day we're returning in our grandfathers on suspicion of being antifa well not my grandfathers they're not around anymore that's i'm sorry, that's sad On today's show, we're going to talk to writer and activist Raquel Willis About what this moment means for the black, queer, and trans community Then some headlines But first, the latest We've been standing, these people have been standing in line What is going on in Georgia? queer, and trans community, then some headlines. But first, the latest. We've been standing, these people have been standing in line. What is going on in Georgia?

I mean, we know what's going on in the United States. This is ridiculous. That was Anita Hurd, an 80-year-old woman standing in line at a voting site in Georgia yesterday morning, waiting to exercise her right to vote. So Gideon, as she said, what is going on in my home state? A lot. Yesterday, obviously, Georgia held primary elections. That is what people are waiting to vote for. And they're voting on the presidential primary, but also Senate races and other local races. And the voting issues were plentiful throughout the entire day. So seemingly from the start of the day, there were anecdotes primarily from black voters beginning to pour in like Anita, waiting hours, in some cases, bringing chairs or growing so frustrated that they inevitably gave up on voting. And this is also taking place in

the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and on a relatively hot Georgia day. The primary already had to be moved twice because of the pandemic before Tuesday. And by evening, several counties had to extend their hours to allow for people to vote. And Georgia Secretary of State said he would open an investigation into what happened. Of course. So what do we know about what caused these voting issues? So there are kind of a lot of things all on top of each other. But according to local reporting there, the pandemic was certainly part of it. So Fulton County, where Atlanta is, was a focal point, but there were other issues throughout the state too. But in Fulton, there are reports of

log jams and processing absentee ballot applications while people were out of the office before primary day. There were poll workers who didn't show up in some precincts that were closed. And then there were also new voting machines and a lack of in-person training for those because it was hard to get people to come out during a pandemic. And according to reporting throughout the day, those new voting machines and this rush from Republican leadership to implement them statewide were a large source of the problems. In instances at some of these polling sites where there were struggles with the machines, voters could cast provisional ballots. But of course, those quickly ran out at multiple sites, too. And some backstory here. This election is coming after a very close race for governor in 2018 between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp. In that election, of course, there were concerns about voter suppression disproportionately

affecting Black voters, as has been the case throughout the country for years. And so this is clearly adding concerns that Black voters will be suppressed in the state again. Kemp ultimately won that race, and Stacey Abrams has gone on to found a pro-democracy group called Fair Fight to address issues of voter suppression. And she tweeted on Tuesday that, quote, Georgians deserve better. And they certainly do. Okay. And this year in Georgia, there are several big races. It could be close for the presidential election. And then there are two Senate seats up for election that Democrats are trying to win. Yes, that's right. So Democrats

are running to replace the two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. That last one's a special election. And so for this primary, there was immediate anger from Democrats at the state's Republican governor and secretary of state for the way that they just kind of plowed ahead with this new voting system without enough provisional ballots to back it up if the machines were not working, which they didn't in some cases, or local workers didn't know how to operate them. And what's even worse is that these problems didn't come as a surprise to many. There were many warnings. In advance of the primary, residents had been saying that they were waiting months for absentee ballots to show up, and some of those never came. That was even the case for

Stacey Abrams. And while this was the first time that these new machines had been used statewide, they had also been used in local races in December. And there were some issues with them then as well. So if this was a test before November of whether the state is capable of holding a free and fair election, Georgia definitely did not pass. And that's the latest. So as we've been following on the show, the past few weeks have been a series of wins for activists fighting to end racial policing and hold officers accountable. Just yesterday at George Floyd's funeral in Houston, the mayor announced he would ban chokeholds and strangleholds by police in that city. Later today, Congress is going to hear testimony from Floyd's brother as the House works to pass its Justice in Policing Act. A new polling from The Washington Post finds that 81% of Americans say the police need to make changes to address unequal treatment of white and black Americans. That follows other similar polling, which shows the sentiment at an all-time high. And cops got canceled. The TV show. It's a laudable goal elsewhere. So Raquel, let's talk about this moment that we're

in right now. Let's do it. So you've been involved in activism in both black and trans spaces for many years. And we were chatting earlier and you were kind of saying that right now there's both a sense that revolution might finally be here, but also this concern that the national conversation we're having is just too limited and leaving people out. So let's delve into that a little bit further. Yeah, I think that this has been a powerful time for folks to reflect on how white supremacy still operates in our society on all levels. You know, even beyond police brutality, we're seeing folks have conversations about the workplace, about the publishing industry, about their own lives. But what we're not really doing is connecting white supremacy to these other systems of oppression. And as a black trans woman, there's no way for me to feel safe in a world that even without white supremacy, there would still be homophobia, transphobia, and general

misogyny. Yeah. And when we think about all of this, what kind of causes factions within marginalized communities? Or what's the kind of genesis of that? And how do we counter that as a whole? Well, I think that people feel a sense of scarcity when certain issues that have been ignored for so long are finally being discussed. And so for, obviously, the Black community, it's been a long time coming to have a real reckoning around how our community is impacted by police brutality. And so you'll see how the conversation becomes limited, particularly on the experiences of Black cisgender heterosexual men. And a lot of times other names, like a young woman named Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police, was erased in some ways.

And then even further, there was a Black trans man named Tony McDade, who was a 38-year-old who was shot and killed by Tallahassee police officers literally two days after George Floyd. And so, you know, we haven't really seen as much of an investigation into that case, as much of a push around public pressure to get to those answers. We do know that the officer involved with killing Tony McDade has not been charged or named due to a Florida law that grants their anonymity. And so this means that we still are seeing an erasure of the experiences of black, queer and trans people when it comes to this larger conversation around police brutality. Right. I mean, that story certainly has not been discussed at the level of the other ones that you mentioned or even, you know, there hasn't even been any amount of closure on what happened there. Absolutely. And I think that we also need to reckon with this conversation around who is the perfect victim. And I think when you're looking at situations that involve

transgender people, a lot of times we're not going to be considered the right victim because we're still dealing with systemic and social transphobia on a larger scale. But also in the case of Tony McDade, there are reports that are murky. Some are saying that he was armed with a weapon. There are also reports that the officers didn't try to de-escalate the situation at all and literally shot him on sight while calling him the N-word. And so regardless of any of those circumstances, we know that some misconduct was happening when those police officers got involved. Yeah. And thinking about the timing of all of this, it's important as well, because we're looking at protests against police brutality that are coinciding with Pride Month. And, you know, there's the history of Stonewall riots being against a police raid. There's a lot to unpack

there in terms of the way that people are viewing the different layers of this moment. Yeah, I mean, we've had this idea of Pride Month that has been so corporatized and so focused on glittery floats and, you know, disco and house music just, you know, on these floats going down the streets. And while all of that is great, it does a disservice to the radical history of the Stonewall Riots, which really was a queer militant uprising against the NYPD. And so when we ignore those things, we ignore this rich history of Black, queer, and trans resistance in our country. So when we're having these conversations about who is involved in movements, who should be prioritized and centered, we are missing the mark if we allow transphobia and homophobia to continue to go unchecked.

Right. And I think it's important to always have a sense of where, you know, what the actual history is when you view it through all these very corporatized lenses. Absolutely. And I think right now, one of the biggest things that we can do is really pivot to supporting Black queer and trans leadership. I mean, so often these corporate campaigns that come out during Pride Month don't actually support those activists and organizers on the ground who are doing some of the most transformative work. And so what we can do now is reorient around that Black queer and trans leadership that really gave birth to this whole movement in the beginning. Raquel, thank you so much for the insight today.

And for those looking to follow more of Raquel's work, we've put a few links in our show notes. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. number of deaths and infections in the country, presumably because knowledge is power and he wants all of it. A justice argued that concealing the information could impede efforts to understand the virus and that it violated the government's duty to protect the life and health of its citizens. Brazil currently has the highest death toll from COVID-19 in all of South America and the third highest globally. Bolsonaro has often denied the severity of the pandemic, pushing leaders to ease lockdown restrictions and encouraging large rallies.

On Monday, Brazil's Supreme Court gave its health ministry 48 hours to return information to its website. Jeez. After two days of turmoil, Conde Nast named a new interim director for the food magazine Bon Appetit. Amanda Shapiro will be temporarily filling in for Adam Rappaport, who resigned on Monday after photos of him in brownface resurfaced. He could have avoided so much if he'd just gotten a costume at Spirit Halloween like the rest of us. Rappaport's offensive picture also prompted many staff members to call out the culture of gender and racial bias at the magazine he ran. Staff also alleged that only white editors have been paid for their video appearances. And several editors called for staff to not appear in videos until their colleagues of color receive equal pay and are compensated for their video appearances.

That's a lot. In other New York media resignation news, yep, there's more. Christine Barbaric, the co-founder of Refinery29, resigned after writers of color called out the website's culture of racism and unfair pay practices. Writers shared their stories of being tokenized, underpaid, and fired for mistakes their white colleagues made. I feel like I just read the same story twice. Honestly, every single one has the same beats to it.

Woof. As lockdown measures relax, Americans are getting back to what they do best, going outside and discovering things that already existed. This week's prize was a buried treasure chest that was found in the Rocky Mountains. getting back to what they do best, going outside and discovering things that already existed. This week's prize was a buried treasure chest that was found in the Rocky Mountains. It is 46 pounds. It's filled with around $2 million of artifacts, gold, and jewels, and was hidden by art dealer and amateur blackbeard Forrest Fenn in 2010. Fenn then included clues to the treasure's location in his autobiography, The Thrill of the Chase,

leading an estimated 350,000 people to go hunting for it before it was claimed by a yet unidentified adventurer. That is far too many people. Along the way, at least five treasure hunters passed away. They didn't realize that the real treasure was being alive. Yikes. Fenn's treasure generated controversy in its time, with some claiming it was a hoax and others suing because Fenn's clues were misleading.

Side note, fairy teachers pet energy to use lawyers on a treasure hunt. Society's rules don't really apply to treasure. But congrats to whoever found Fenn's loot. Please, let's all just not do this again for a while. Yeah, that's not fun. Moving on from land treasure to water treasure. A salvage company in Atlanta is seeing obstacles to their plan to retrieve radio equipment from the sunken Titanic. That radio put out distress calls as the ship sunk in 1912. Probably messages like, come quick, Rose is floating on a door. Thereby allowing 700 people to be rescued the u.s government says the company's proposed expedition would violate federal law

we love to do that which requires special authorization for this kind of mission plus an agreement with the united kingdom to leave the historic wreck alone. Diplomacy can be tough, but there are some things we can all agree on. There are ghosts living in the Titanic, and we can't risk waking them up. TBD whether the expedition goes on as planned this summer. If it gets canceled, another good use of these guys' submarine would be to go to that slave owner statue that got sunk in england and help sharks find it i'm down for that honestly yeah i mean it seems like it would be tough on their tummies but let them at it and those are the headlines that's all for today if you like the show show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review,

toss us a Werther's, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, which I hope you are, and not just clues to the location of an art dealer's treasure like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe to Cricut.com forward slash subscribe. I'm Raquel Willis. I'm Gideon Resnick. And please don't

wake up the ghost on the Titanic. Please, we are begging you. What a Day is a product of Cricket Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis.

Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.