Comedy of Roy Wood Jr. surfaces under-appreciated contributions of real historical black figures

Roy Wood Jr.
(photo by Lisa Gansky CC BY-SA 2.0)

I'm a big fan of Roy Wood Jr., and every installment of his "CP Time" bit on The Daily Show is an instant classic.  They're always funny, but often, also, are educational.

Last year during African American History Month, Wood talked about little recognized black explorers, such as Matthew Henson, an American who journeyed to the North Pole, and Abubakari II, a Malian royal said to have set sail for the New World more than a century before Columbus.

This year, on Wednesday night, he highlighted African American spies who contributed importantly in the history of war and civil rights, including Josephine Baker and Harriet Tubman.

Baker on a German poster in 1929

The piece reminded me of two memorable experiences learning about these women.  I first learned about Josephine Baker, an American-born French resistance agent in World War II, only recently, in a seemingly unlikely place, a 2019 exhibit at the Musée d'Orsay titled Black Models: from Géricault to Matisse.  In the brilliant, wide-ranging exhibit on the intersection of black culture and French history, Baker was featured among entertainers whose work was fused into a new French cultural identity in the 20th century.

Tubman NHP in 2018 (photo by RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-SA 4.0)

In 2018, my family first visited the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, which opened in Maryland in 2013.  Situated amid the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, the museum is not on the beaten path, but it's worth every extra mile to visit.  Impassionedly curated, the exhibits comprise an encyclopedic history of civil rights of which I knew precious little, even having gone to grade school in Maryland and being schooled in constitutional law.  Tubman's vital contributions as a Union spy, as well as the real story of her military leadership, portrayed by an eponymous 2019 film, is featured among narratives every American should know about the future face of our $20 note.

Report from Quarantine Week 2: Me and the Violet Fog

Another week in quarantine.  Technically, my latter and last.  But until there's an antibody test, who can go anywhere?  Here's my self-serving report from week 2.


What I'm Reading
(besides Dr. Grillo's blog)

John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us (2008) (Amazon).  This beautiful little book with blessings for all occasions was a gift of our dear friend Sister Catherine, who missions to children on the Navajo and Zuni Reservations in New Mexico. I perused it when she gave it to us. But picking it up again now amid the present crisis, its texts (and no less its title) have a new layer of meaning. Consider these verses from the poem, "For the Interim Time":

You are in the time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.

. . .

What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.

There are poems about travel that are especially poignant to me in present circumstances.

First Book of Samuel (BibleGateway).  My church's yearlong Bible-reading study continues telling the ancient story of Israel.  This book, which chronicles King Saul's fall and David's rise, includes David and Goliath (ch. 17) (and Samuel on the whole reminds me of the Kings TV show, not so scriptural, but a beautifully portrayed drama, with Ian McShane as the Saul character).  I should have mentioned last week that we're accompanying the reading with videos from the nonprofit animation studio, BibleProject (1 Samuel). The studio's outstanding quick-draws are a joy to watch and learn from (también disponible en español y otros idiomas).

What I'm Watching

Doctor Who s12 (2020) (season 38 overall) (BBC trailer).  Whenever there's a new doctor, you're not sure whether it's you or the actor who isn't hitting stride.  Excited as we were about the debut of Jodie Whittaker as the first female Doctor, in 2018 (eat dust, James Bond), series 11 was further complicated by the departure of storyline mastermind Stephen Moffat (still waiting on Sherlock s5, Stephen!). Whatever the reason, series 11 felt like a string of unconnected afterthoughts, despite heroic efforts by the cast to make us care.  Finally series 12 reintroduces the concept of arc, and I feel like we're back on track, story-wise.  The scripts still need work, as they condescendingly tell us rather than show us the writers' social agenda.  But looking past that, we quite enjoyed e7's devilish villains, and we're looking forward to the concluding Cyberman saga.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina s3 (2020) (Netflix trailer).  Guilty pleasure, I admit, but this Archie Comics reimagining is too clever to resist.  Where Doctor Who lately clubs you over the head with social allegory, Sabrina catches you unawares like a Maine lobster.  If Riverdale is an artificially flavored orange pop for the brain, Sabrina is a delicate hazelnut gelato.  Amid exquisite sets, the narratives are intricate, the characters are surprisingly multilayered for a live-action comic book, and the actors perform whimsically.  Lucy Davis as Aunt Hilda Spellman walks away with best supporting actress.  We're only getting started in s3, but we're already absorbed and delighted.

Young Sheldon s3 (2019-20) (CBS promo).  Comedy break.  This show remains as strong as it premiered.  I am one of that odd contingent that doesn't like Big Bang Theory but adores Iain Armitage's young Sheldon.  That said, even I was moved by the closing scene of e16 in the Caltech cafeteria—after my wife explained it.

Late night.  All our favorites are back, reinventing themselves in this time of crisis, and, as John Oliver put it to Stephen Colbert, "committing union infractions out the wazoo" to keep us laughing.  For HBO's Last Week Tonight, Oliver just posted his third viral installment.  Production of the CBS Late Show has been a family affair in Colbert's Connecticut home; when did his kids all grow up?  His tech snafu with Daniel Radcliffe was an instant classic, and I enjoyed his gin-infused dialog with Ryan Reynolds.  We're looking forward to Tooning Out the News, premiering officially on CBS All Access on April 7.  Producing Comedy Central's "Daily Social Distancing Show" from his New York City sofa, Trevor Noah has been killing it.  His correspondents haven't missed a beat—see "What Day Is It?," Video Chat with Roy Wood Jr. and Jaboukie Young-White, and Ronnie Chieng with Andrew Yang on universal-basic-income-come-lately—and the Daily Show graphics team rallied in force this week.  Finally, a mellow highlight of the week was Monday night's musical "Homefest" on James Corden's Late Late Show (CBS).  Who needs a studio?


What I'm Eating

Garlic.  A lot of garlic.  Now's the time.  In quarantine, you don't have to worry about any close-talking strangers.  Vampires beware.  Thanks, by the way, to whoever gave us this great gift pack of Terra Delyssa organic infused olive oils, which we rediscovered in the cupboard when we feared our olive oil stock had run dry.

King cake.  And everything else in the freezer.  My culinarily gifted Louisianan wife made this for Mardi Gras, when I was in Bissau, and froze some for me.  I've been told that if we're ever allowed to return to the grocery store, I might get gumbo.  Damn you, quarantine!

Billy’s Bistro.  We’re ordering for curbside pickup this weekend.  Remember, if you can, support your local businesses!

What I'm Drinking

Peet's Major Dickason's Blend.  Peet's bestseller.  We're grinding the beans.  It gets the job done.  It's dark, which I like; my wife likes that less.  We also tried this week Community's Private Reserve Holiday Jazz, which I gave to my wife for Christmas as part of a haul of Community coffees to tide her over while I was (or would be, but am not now) in Africa.  We both love Community coffees.  But there was something off about this one's florals that I couldn't get over.  I'd give you the rest of it, but I breathed all over it, so now it's a biohazard.

McQueen and the Violet Fog (Vimeo).  This is a truly special gin, bearing the unique flavor of a 100% neutral cane spirit from Jundiaí, Brazil, which is just north and inland from São Paulo.  Among 21 botanicals, its six "signature" ingredients are basil, rosemary, fennel seed, calamansi, star anise and açai.  It's small-batch distilled from maceration and vapor infusion in a single copper pot still.  Wine Enthusiast's Kara Newman gave it a 93: "This gin is clear, with a distinctly sweet candied lemon peel fragrance. The soft palate finishes with mild violet jazzed up by white pepper and a hint of coriander. Tailor-made for an Aviation."  The name of the gin comes from a darkly quirky poem by Atticus; the last two stanzas are printed on the back of the bottle.

What I'm Wearing

This was a gift from my mom-in-law.  She gets me.

What I'm Doing to Stay Sane

That's my weight bench from high school in the 1980s, today in my garage.  It's lived with me in five states.  "Do we really need to move that?," my wife asked in Arkansas in 2011. "They have gyms in Rhode Island."  "Why, yes," I said presciently, "in case the gym closes because of a pandemic."

Happy weekend!  

Yeah, it's actually the weekend.  Like I can tell the difference....

SCOTUS, climate change, drug addiction, immigration highlight law and policy issues at UMass colloquium

Today at the Fifth UMass Interdisciplinary Legal Studies Colloquium in Boston, scholars talked about a range of intriguing work, from politics to climate change to drug legalization, being done across the University of Massachusetts campuses—Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, and Lowell, and Law (at Dartmouth) and Medical (at Worcester).  Here’s a taste.

View of Boston from One Beacon Street today.  "Back Bay is called 'Back Bay' for a reason," UMass Dartmouth Professor  
Chad McGuire said, referring to reclaimed land that is threatened by rising sea levels.

Law and Policy Inside the Beltway
Panel 1—Moderated by yours truly

Queer Sacrifice in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Jeremiah Ho, UMass Law.  Professor Ho explicated his theory of “interest convergence,” and how a lack thereof explains the result in the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the LGBTQ-rights cakeshop case.  His research shows how images—sometimes literally—of gay identity have informed public and judicial perception of LGBTQ rights cases.  Three more cases lie on the horizon, in the Court’s next term, Ho said, so stay tuned.   Meanwhile preview his "Queer Sacrifice" work, just out in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, at SSRN.

Can Presidents Influence Public Attitudes Toward the Supreme Court? Evidence from a Survey Experiment, Paul M. Collins, Jr. (blog), Department of Political Science, UMass Amherst.  Collins’s long-term research digs deep into how statements and action by the President of the United States exert influence over public perception of the U.S. Supreme Court and its decisions.  What the President says matters; consider, Collins proffers, the White House has a whole office dedicated to SCOTUS spin.  Collins also notes that low public knowledge of the Court is a factor in allowing public opinion to be influenced by forces external to the Court.  I can’t help but think about the Court’s intransigence on cameras and public access.  Anyway, Collins has discovered that the public is more easily influenced on “low salience” issues, but less so on “high salience” (I’d say “hot button”) issues, such as immigration.

On the Supreme Court of the United States of America (and Congruent Agencies and Ministries in the Term of President Donald Trump), Judge Francis Larkin, UMass Law.  Judge Larkin shared observations of recent events in President-Court interaction.  He recalled FDR’s Court-packing plan, relative to its recent resurgence in politics (e.g., WaPo).

Forcing Disclosure, Justine Dunlap, UMass Law.  Professor Dunlap is looking at mandatory disclosures under Title IX, especially faculty duties.  She observes that the evolution of Title IX over recent decades, under administrations from both sides of the aisle, have fairly sought to respond to a real problem of unredressed sexual harassment and assault on college campuses.  But the responses have not always been well tuned.  And mandatory reporting, however well intentioned, can put faculty in the impossible bind of having to betray student trust.  (Professor Julie Baker in Q&A aptly noted also that the consequences of ill-tuned reporting schemes for accused perpetrators are not always conducive to dispute resolution or justice.)  Dunlap talked about a system being implemented at the University of Oregon that contemplates a third class of potential “reporter”—rather than all or nothing, a “student-directed reporter.”

Recovery, Resiliency, and Equality in Economic Development
Panel 2—Moderated by Professor Justine Dunlap, UMass Law

Opening for Business: Tax-Haven Economy and the State of Exception in Puerto Rico, Jose Atiles, Department of Political Science, UMass Amherst.  Professor Atiles is working on Puerto Rico and U.S. development strategies.  He explained that there are two prevalent approaches to development policy concerning the island, one the “blank canvas” approach, which encourages recovery investment on the selling point that, more or less, my words: there’s nothing there at present; two the “PR is open for business” approach, which seeks to exploit the island’s legal status as a tax haven.  Both of these representations are animated by a “neoliberal-colonial rationality,” and that troubling mindset is reflected in the law that facilitates these strategies.

I’m reminded of the colonial terra nullius doctrine with respect to the blank canvas, and the local-policy-characteristic Everett casino debate with respect to “open for business.”  Puerto Rico and its people are not our offshore plaything.  In Q&A, I asked Atiles what it would take for us to start thinking about PR more like we do Missouri.  Statehood and independence each have advantages and drawbacks, which he explained summarily; what won’t save PR, he said, is the status quo.

A “Least Regrets” Framework for Coastal Climate Change Resiliency Through Economic Development, Chad McGuire and Michael Goodman, College of Arts and Sciences, UMass Dartmouth.  Professor McGuire continues his renowned work on environmental conservation and climate change, and now he’s brought public policy numbers wizard Professor Goodman (also president of the UMass Dartmouth Faculty Senate) onto the team to look at the economics.  They’re attacking the problem of aligning shorter-term economic incentives with the longer-term public interest in saving the human race from extinction.

I just saw Dan Gardner on The Daily Show talking to Roy Wood Jr. (video embedded below) (let me remind everyone that I shook Roy’s hand in East Providence) talking about how our “caveman” brains don’t well process the threat of climate change because it’s too abstract, that we need more urgent messaging.  McGuire and Goodman have it.  As I’m wearing a sweater in May, McGuire observed: “Spring has become less of a thing, and winter moving into summer is becoming more of a thing.”  We’ve lost 15-30 days of winter in New England, he shows with data, and seasonal transitions are becoming more abrupt.  Then he directs us toward the view of Boston from our huge glass windows here in the 32nd floor of One Beacon Street.  “Back Bay is called ‘Back Bay’ for a reason,” McGuire said.  Boston sits on filled-in bay.

At lunch, McGuire told me about rubber buffers that run through Boston streets to absorb shifts in the aqueous earth beneath.  And he told me about the latest alarming findings from the Ross Ice Shelf.  Our society has invested a great deal in developing low-lying land, and we’re going to have reconcile that policy with our climate game.

Human Rights Responses to Economic and Social Inequalities—A Book Proposal, Gillian MacNaughton, School for Global Inclusion and Social Development, UMass Boston.  For my money—both figuratively and literally—Professor MacNaughton’s work is what we need to save humanity from catastrophe—after and assuming we figure out how to survive climate change.  MacNaughton takes what we know and bemoan about inequality of wealth and opportunity in the United States and runs writ large with the problem.  As she wrote in her abstract: “The Global Wealth Report 2017 reveals that the wealthiest 1% of the global population owns 50% of global assets, while the poorest 50% owns less than 1%.”  Building on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, she plans to propose putting some punch behind international treaty guarantees of social and economic equality, such as we might start to address this problem on the global level.  I’ve often lamented that our increasingly disparate economic stratification will be our undoing in the United States if we don’t address it.  It’s worth being reminded how much more desperate the situation already is worldwide.  See also Professor MacNaughton's recent co-edited book, Economic and Social Rights in a Neoliberal World (Cambridge University Press 2019).

Drug Use and Abuse, and the Criminal Justice System
Panel 3—Moderated by Professor Julie Baker, UMass Law

Is Marijuana the Gateway Drug? Maybe Not, But Its Legalization Could Be, Nikolay Anguelov, College of Arts and Science, UMass Dartmouth.  Professor Anguelov is known to many of my readers and former students as the author of the 2015 book, The Dirty Side of the Garment Industry: Fast Fashion and Its Negative Impact on Environment and Society (CRC Press) (Amazon).  I have heard him speak many times to awestruck and sometimes squirming audiences about the connection between their affordable clothing and Bangladesh waterways poisoned with dye and arsenic.  Anguelov is more recently author of From Criminalizing to Decriminalizing Marijuana: The Politics of Social Control (Lexington Books 2018) (Amazon).  Anguelov is now fine-tuning his formidable research into marijuana use.  His early data invite the conclusion that legalization—which I as a libertarian have favored—might be contributing to the opioid epidemic at least by “contributing to the cultural normalization of drug use and experimentation.”  Ruh-roh, Shaggy.  This is going to require further research, and I’m anticipatorily squirming in my H&Ms.

Recovery Coaches in Opioid Use Disorder Care, Matthew Maughan, UMass Medical.  When opioid addiction turns to recovery, attorney Matthew Maughan is the policy guru to turn to.  Informed by his multifaceted experience and research, he explained the role and peculiar success of the “recovery coach.”  It might be awkwardly unorthodox in terms of developing a large-scale model, but sometimes a block grant for an activity tailored to a person’s specific needs offers the best hope for recovery and might as well be cost effective.  Maughan recounted the story of a recovery accomplished through mental clarity achieved on the water on a kayak, under the guidance of a recovery coach.  That’s got to cost less than any bill I’ve ever gotten from a medical clinic.

Locating Cannabis Equity: Defining Areas Impacted by Drug Criminalization, Michael Johnson, Professor and Chair, McCormack Graduate School, UMass Boston, and Jeffrey Moyer, doctoral candidate in public policy, UMass Boston.  Moyer is working with Professor Johnson to study the intersection of enforcement and anti-discrimination.  Specifically, he asks whether the Massachusetts “Cannabis Control Commission’s use of a race-neutral variable is effective in selecting areas disproportionately impacted by criminalization.”  Part of the work has entailed mapping all drug arrests, which generates some compelling graphics when overlaid with demographic data.  I am reminded of being a journalism intern at WJZ-TV in Baltimore in the early 1990s, when we made an analog map—this was when we were still working on DOS-based computers—literally putting color pushpins in a map of Baltimore to look at the coincidence of murders with factual and demographic elements.  That was a time when we were first talking about the problem of race and policing “where the crime is.”  We also walked five miles to school, uphill both ways.

Moyer shows analysis of geographic data on police enforcement, obtained in part through a public record request.

To Plea or Not to Plea: A Virtual Simulation of Plea-Bargain Scenarios, Miko M. Wilford, Psychology Department, UMass Lowell; Annabelle Frazier, doctoral candidate in applied psychology, UMass Lowell; Kelly Sutherland, doctoral candidate in applied psychology and prevention science, UMass Lowell.  With doctoral candidates on a new applied psychology track at UMass Lowell, Professor Wilford is taking a behavioral look at plea bargaining, that irksome feature of the criminal justice system that we don’t like to talk about, even while we know it results in some guilty pleas calculated to avert draconian outcomes (my take).  Really they’re looking at the research of plea bargain research, trying to refine how we learn about people's decision-making processes in these high-stakes circumstances.  Perhaps no surprise once you think about it, it is difficult to simulate having so much at stake with volunteers in psychology-lab experiments.  The team is working on new, high-tech models using animations to engender empathy and generate better results.  See more at the project website, Pleajustice.org.

Personal Rights at the Borders

Panel 4—Moderator: Misty Peltz-Steele, UMass Law

Controlling Asylum: A Genealogical Analysis of Gender and Race Intersectionality, Phil Kretsedemas, College of Liberal Arts, UMass Boston.  Professor Kretsedemas is studying the status of domestic violence survivors and Latin American asylum seekers relative to Matter of A-B, an AG-Sessions opinion “that dramatically curtails asylum protections for survivors of domestic violence, and for many other people who have been persecuted by non-state actors.”  A U.S. District Court has lately pushed back on Sessions’s conclusions, Kretsedemas said, as he investigates the problem from critical dimensions of gender and racial equality.  Kretsedemas’s approach is further informed by comparative law, as he draws on parallel legal perspectives from foreign tribunals, including the U.K. House of Lords, and from parallel cultural perspectives, such as Guatemalan views on gender roles within families.  Present policies, focusing for example unduly on familial cohesion, have gravely injurious impact, for example failing to protect women from female genital mutilation.  Kretsedemas locates these policies in a context that includes family separation, though the latter issue has garnered greater public attention.

Troubling Bodies: The Office of Refugee Resettlement and the Unaccompanied Pregnant Teen, Shoshanna Ehrlich, College of Liberal Arts, UMass Boston.  Also examining a perhaps under-recognized issue within our vast immigration policy debate, Professor Ehrlich is studying the federal government’s “literal refusal to release [young women] from . . . custody so they may access abortion care,” plainly violating their civil rights, Ehrlich asserts.  Even the U.S. Government waived argument in the courts as to whether the teens involved here enjoy U.S. constitutional rights.  Yet in government memos discovered in ACLU litigation, Ehrlich shared in her presentation, Scott Lloyd, director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), opined that abortions desired even by teens impregnated by rape are not in the young women’s best interests.  Lloyd was removed from his post and “transferred to HHS’s Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives,” Rolling Stone reported in November 2018.  He was later summoned to testify in Congress about family separations, Politico reported in February 2019.  Ehrlich told of interviewing parents the government separated from their children, and the trauma that resulted, wondering how the government could at the same time justify refusing abortions on the rationale that mothers should not be separated from their unborn children, despite their personal circumstances and decisions.