Totally Messed Up!
Yesterday’s newsletter attempted to roll out the LongLists. via Longform. referral program and failed. If you clicked on the link it was all messed up. My bad!
So check it out, if you click here (https://pages.viral-loops.com/LF-Refers) you can get on the list and refer 2 people to read this newsletter to get a free pin in the mail.
Fact Checking
You know I NEVER (& at this point barely and rarely will ever) email you twice in one week. But, you know what they say about desperate times. I had to talk to you about last night’s Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
If you did not watch the debate, let me fill you in. Filled with a lot of YELLING, misinformation, and low blows. It was, in the words of CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash, a shitshow.
All jokes aside, last night contained very-little policy talk, and it is easy to trip up on what happened, who said what, and why Chris Wallace was the anchor instead of my girl Nina Parker from the Love and Hip Hop franchise. (How many people agree that Nina would have got them together real quick?)
With that said, here are some things that fact-checkers were able to pull from the first of three Presidential debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump:
Trump says that he “brought back 700,000 manufacturing jobs,” That’s a lie, 237,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost.
Biden cited a study saying 10 million people lost their employer-sponsored insurance during the pandemic, but the study also said all but 3.5 million of them would get insurance from another source.
Trump said that he has “given big incentives for electric cars.” That’s a lie, he actually tried to eliminate the programs that would encourage their manufacture and sale.
Biden said that that the US has “a higher deficit with China now than we did before” in talking about trade. That is a lie. The deficit is lower.
Trump said Biden supports the Medicare for All plan. That is a LIE. He never did that was Bernie Sanders. Bernie and Biden have worked together to publish the healthcare platform that Biden is running on but the plan is made of Biden’s ideas. This is probably a tactic to help recruit those “feeling the Bern!”
Biden did not refer to Black people as super predators while writing the 1994 crime bill—that was Hillary Clinton. Biden has maintained that his intent for the bill was to create equal sentencing mandates amongst all races across the board.
MOVING ON UP!
A congratulations is in order. Kerby Jean-Raymond: Pyer Moss creative director, activist, and all-around fashion killer is now the creative director globally or VP, Creative Direction for the Reebok footwear brand as well.
The first products under Kerby’s direction will drop in 2022. Although Reebok and Pyer Moss have been partners for a few years now, it is exciting to wonder about what he will be able to do with the Reebok brand itself now that is it not a “collaboration” project. Maybe, we can imagine fewer limits, or maybe more because there is a corporation in the mix?
It is also interesting to think about how Kerby’s work in social justice and equality will impact Reebok as an employer to people of color and a footwear brand that has some history with the hip-hop culture, especially since the Pyer Moss brand is so unapologetically Black.
Who are the Proud Boys?
"Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," Trump said after Biden named the far-right group. "But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left."
Last night Trump failed to condemn white supremacy, which is not surprising. But not only did he fail to condemn it, but his statement seemed also to encourage as an ominous “Stand by” floated out of his mouth as a warning.
A warning for what?
*Possibly an attack on OUR right to vote as we being to head to the polls for early voting, or the response to a Biden win in November.
Whatever it was, Trump named who we should be on the lookout for to be standing by to carry out these attacks. Surprisingly, they were not a white hooded group of klansmen from the south, nor were they machine gun-toting militiamen from middle America.
So who is this group exactly that Trump called out by name?
The Proud Boys are an extremist group founded in New York City as recent as 2016 by a cofounder of VICE Media, Gavin McInnes.
The SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) has them listed as:
self-described “western chauvinists” who adamantly deny any connection to the racist “alt-right,” insisting they are simply a fraternal group spreading an “anti-political correctness” and “anti-white guilt” agenda.
They are:
Transphobic
Islamaphobic
Violent
Well Funded
Organized
In fact, the Proud Boys are so well organized they have levels or degrees to their membership.
LEVEL 1: A prospective member simply has to declare “I am a western chauvinist, and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”
Level 2: A Proud Boy has to get a beating until they can yell out the names of five kinds of cereals —this is a little weird and very similar to a gang initiation of some sort but the reasoning is simple. Take the beating to demonstrate “adrenaline control”
Give up masturbation so that they have to go out and meet women.
Level 3: Fully commit by getting a Proud Boys tattoo.
ALLEGEDLY Any man regardless of his race or sexual-orientation can be a Proud Boy as long as they “recognize that white men are not the problem.”
I hate it here.
Black Talent Fund
We are underrepresented in both the fashion and footwear industries. To combat that, Alicia Pinckney, a global apparel designer for Timberland, has created an initiative to directly fund Black students studying to get into the fashion world.
Alicia’s initiative the Black Talent in Design & Fashion Fund is a scholarship that caters to students at the undergrad level in fashion programs. This way the resources can help the scholars to continue their design courses in college and leave as technically trained fashion professionals.
Check out the 2019 Design Census to see the demographic breakdown of those working in the industry.
Not only is the Black Talent in Design & Fashion Fund offering scholarships to 5 students this school year (the scholarship disbursement is still proceeding even with virtual classes), but they also provide their students with mentors currently in the field!
If you are interested in donating, applying to be a mentor with the program, OR you are a student and want to apply to receive a scholarship, head over to the Black Talent in Design & Fashion Fund website for more information. https://www.blacktalentfund.com/