A week of a Black man being executed by the state, military personnel being fired over Charlie Kirk, and Israel demanding the disarmament of Hamas

Hi, I’m Marcela: I’m a comedian, I live in Brooklyn, and I really like to tell people how to feel about the news. After wowing zoomers all over on TikTok by giving them news with a sense of humour and anarchy, I decided to start a weekly Sunday newsletter to share my feelings about more news. 

My newsletter has evolved into this beautiful news column for shado which also covers international news. I hope the newsletter keeps you informed and makes you laugh a little. We live in hell and I believe humour helps keep this place a little bit cooler.

Today I’m sharing my feelings about a Black man Charles L. Adair being executed by the state, the US government firing military personnel for celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk, and Israel demanding the disarmament of Hamas.

Onto the news… 

News that momentarily extinguished my desire to write or talk

I opened the Kansas City Defender newsletter and I saw his face. His name is Charles L. Adair. The headline said he was executed in a jail cell. His ribs broken, the state claims his death was self inflicted by ongoing alcoholism. I’ve had strong tequila before but never the kind that broke my ribs and fractured my chest. The state is lying, the state always lies. The state lies because anything built on a lie must sustain itself with lies. The clearer the truth, the higher the likelihood of the state to lie. Charles’ body stored the memory of murder, his body screamed out the truth, and the state suppressed the cries by disseminating lies about no injury.

I read this news seven days ago and I haven’t been able to write anything on this site since then. I’ve been angry for not being able to force myself to record videos. I didn’t know why I couldn’t will myself to do my two favourite things: write and talk. The urge nagged at my insides yet I felt blocked to act. Now and then, Charles’ face would briefly flash in my mind. This morning I woke up thinking about him. I’ve never met this man, never stepped on the land called Kansas yet I grieved his death. A Black man once again killed for being Black. Killed for daring to exist. My grief stopped me from creating.

I’m not just grieving, I’m furious. The fury is fuelled by how many white people, some who have never said anything about Gaza, all of a sudden became civil rights activists overnight when their beloved white man was cancelled. This white man whose greatest hits include encouraging parents to give their children terrible Christmas gifts or pretend to have devoured their children’s halloween candy and recording these incidents for the world’s entertainment. I’ve watched these videos, I laughed at them, but this is not a voice worthy of a crusade. My debate team not reaching finals because the other team cheated is more worthy of an uprising. Talk about suppressed freedom of speech.

There are a litany of ruthless actions by the state that deserved attention: but a white man with a suit, oh no! The same corporate interests that attempted to cancel Jimmy are the same corporate interests that ignore the murder of a Black man. How easy it is to ignore and even worse justify the deaths of thousands of Palestinians when you’ve trained for hundreds of years to ignore the execution of Black people.

The swift action against Jimmy Kimmel’s cancellation has reminded me that white people only care about protecting whiteness. They will garner their collective strength to cancel ESPN2 because when the state threatens whiteness the state is no longer serving its purpose.

News that made me feel like only fascist men are people according to the US government

The rebranded department of war is going to war against any military personnel who posted anything celebrating the demise of Charlie Kirk – otherwise known as a late birthday present to me. When the universe gave me unemployment, forced displacement, and a meager bank account balance for my birthday, I thought the universe hated me. Turns out the universe and the witches of Etsy loved me enough to introduce me to and remove Charlie Kirk from my life on the same day. 

I had no idea who Charlie Kirk was until a friend told me that the witches’ spell had been accepted by the universe and Charlie was sent to meet Satan (sorry Satan). Lucky me, I didn’t have to suffer his diatribes, I just got to bask in his demise. The Etsy witches article has now been removed because you know liberals are always itching for fascist validation.

Unfortunately, the fascists and liberals in the world don’t believe that murdering white men who spew out hate (AKA American values) is a gift. Hence, Pete Hegseth, a man who has made a career from being hateful, has drawn a line at where the “hate” stops. Crossing the line is when people who are paid to murder other people for the state celebrate the murder of a fascist. Yes, you are allowed to go abroad and mercilessly kill people for their resources, but you are not allowed to celebrate the death of a yammering fascist, god damnit!

A spokesperson of the department of war said: “It’s a violation of the oath, it’s conduct unbecoming, it’s a betrayal of the Americans they’ve sworn to protect and dangerously incompatible with military service,” regarding troops who celebrated the murder of Kirk. I assume he was laughing hysterically as he typed those words because that’s what I do when I’m writing jokes. Or he didn’t find anything he said hypocritical, therefore not hilarious because he was channelling his inner founding fathers: the OG fascists of America.

I imagine when this spokesperson mentioned “Americans they’ve been sworn to protect” he was excluding everyone other than fascist white men, much like when the declaration of independence said all men it meant only fascist white men. Who are the Americans the military is sworn to protect? It can’t be the Black and brown people of DC who are under occupation, or the Black Americans in Chicago who Trump has threatened with war. It’s definitely not the naturalised American citizen who gets high, eats candy, and dreams of the fall of the empire.

At first glance, it may sound hypocritical of the Department of State to proclaim that troops should respect Americans while the government is using the troops to intimidate Black Americans, but it’s not. It’s the American exception. The United States of America is the land of the free and home of the brave – except for anyone who is not a white cis man. Calling the actions of the American government hypocritical when it proclaims empathy for some and violence for others supports the theory that the United States has ever been anything but hell for people who are not fascist cis white men. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s gaslighting – or even worse, the proclamation that only white cis men are people.

News that made me breakdown coloniser math for you… you’re welcome

Allegedly, Hamas and Israel have agreed on a ceasefire deal that will end the genocide. I say allegedly because Israel violates ceasefires more than Donald Trump goes to the tanning salon. I can’t say I’m shocked that trigger-happy genocidal criminals wouldn’t immediately stop murdering people after they claimed to have ceased. That’s like being shocked that Donald Trump has done something inhumane. 

I never underestimate how evil vile people are – it’s what keeps the last bit of my sanity intact. If I went around being shocked every single time an evil overlord decided to participate in evil overlord activities, my anxiety would ask me who do I think I am? adding work to its already overflowing plate. I do stay angry though.

The ceasefire is part of a 20-point plan drawn by the White House to “end the war in Gaza.” I would have saved the White House a whole lot of time by giving them my one point plan for peace in Palestine. My one point plan for peace in Gaza is Make Palestine Palestine again. I’m trying to use language that Donald and his ilk might understand.

Part of the 20-point plan includes the disarmament of Hamas but not the disarmament of Israel. I find it quite peculiar that the party that caused the most damage gets to keep all their armaments while the party that doesn’t have missile defenses must submit to disarmament. By quite peculiar I mean coloniser nonsense; sus; what in the actual fuck.

I could go on and on about how ridiculous it is to let an institution that sets people’s houses on fire so they can’t come back home keep weapons, while telling the people whose homes they are about to set on fire to drop their guns – but if you are here reading my complaints, you already know. You already know we live in a world run by colonisers and one of the rules of the colonisers is that the colonised are not allowed to defend themselves.

If we lived in a world where the right to bodily autonomy and self-defence existed, then there would be an arms embargo to Israel and it would include matches. If you set people’s houses on fire and post it on social media, you should never be allowed to have access to fire again. If five year olds aren’t allowed to have matches because they’ll burn the house down, then Israel should never have access to matches, let alone missiles, because it will burn the whole region down. Don’t believe me? Read about the greater Israel project.

However, we live in hell, so Israel can say Hamas needs to get rid of its weapons with a straight face while actively arming pro-Israeli militia groups in Gaza who recently murdered Palestinian journalist Saleh Al-Jafarawi for covering genocide.

Let’s break this coloniser math down.

Israel wants Hamas to disarm + Israel labels anyone who supports Palestinian liberation Hamas + Israel funds pro-Israeli groups in Gaza = Palestinians don’t have a right to self defense + Israel continues the genocide.

I took a break from the news to talk about being a veteran of Classwarfare

 

@feelthenewswithmarcela Are you a veteran of class warfare? #classwarfare #JobApplications #comedy #SocialCommentary #CareerTips ♬ original sound – Feel the News

See ya later,

Marcela