A week of NYPD lying about being attacked, Georgia’s anti-trans bill, and the US telling the ICJ to support Israel’s occupation of Palestine

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.

I’m sharing my feelings about the NYPD lying about being attacked by people seeking asylum, Georgia’s bill erasing transgender people, and the US telling the ICJ to support Israel’s occupation of Palestine 

Onto the news… 

News that made me say we live in a reality show called the real terrorists of Earth

At the end of January the NYPD released short footage of people seeking asylum, preventing the NYPD in Times Square from arresting one of their comrades. I couldn’t have thought of a better way to celebrate the beginning of Black History Month. However, the NYPD, the media, and politicians didn’t agree with me because they believe using physical violence is something only the police are allowed to do. 

The powerful institutions that maintain this police state were angry about these “non-Americans” “attacking” the police. The governor of New York state said they should be sent back. I guess it’s okay for a governor to be a racist and tell people to go back to their country. I was told to go back to my country multiple times when I was in middle school and high school. Looks like the governor of New York has never grown out of being a middle school bully. 

The NYPD has also never grown out of being middle school bullies. After all the vitriol and hate about the migrants attacking them brought all the racists to the yard, the full video of the “attack” was released revealing the migrants were actually defending themselves against NYPD harassment. It’s much like how so-called Israel likes to pretend like nothing happened before 7th October. Looks like the IDF trained the NYPD well. 

The NYPD edited out the beginning of the altercation where the NYPD was harassing the people on the sidewalk. The police slammed Yohenry Brito on the wall for doing nothing, then attempted to arrest him. His friends were doing the right thing. Friends don’t let their friends get assaulted then kidnapped. These men should have been immediately given their citizenship because there’s nothing more American than defending yourself from an oppressor. Isn’t that the myth of the American Revolution? 

The American Revolution – like everything else about the so-called United States of America – is a myth. Which is why these men were arrested. This country doesn’t stand for freedom, it enforces oppression. What else do you expect from a country started by rich white enslavers? 

No enslaver has ever stood for freedom. That would be like a basketball player hating balls. You have to love oppression if you are an enslaver. Which is why the oppressed don’t have a right to defend themselves in the United States of America or anywhere in this oppressor-run world. The oppressors wrote all the rules. 

These immigrants not being allowed to defend themselves against the NYPD is the same as how Palestinians are not allowed to defend themselves against an occupying genocidal force. The NY Post even went as far as labelling the immigrants in Times Square “asylum-seeking-thugs” for fighting for their rights. The Palestinians are also labelled as terrorists for fighting for their lives. 

There will be no freedom for anyone if the real terrorists keep making the rules. We currently live in a terrible reality show called The Real Terrorists of Earth. Like every reality show, The Real Terrorists of Earth is bad for everyone involved except for the people who make money from it. So can we please all come together and cancel it?

News that made me say I don’t know if transphobes have read Marx for Dummies

A bill erasing transgender people has been introduced to so-called Georgia’s General Assembly, proving once again that politicians’ jobs are to make our lives terrible. Politicians get all their legislative ideas from a bucket labelled “tools for oppression.” Every time they feel a group of people who shouldn’t have rights is feeling confident, they pull out ideas from this bucket to ensure this group stays oppressed. 

While this bucket is metaphorical, I do think politicians have a literal bucket in their home where they store all their empathy. You can’t have all that empathy weighing you down when your job is to be a bad person. 

The metaphorical bucket I speak of is the white-supremacist-racist-heteropatriarchy that guides all the laws of this country. Oppressing people is the so-called United States’ personality, just like never closing drawers is my personality. The only difference between me and this country is that I’m trying to change, I really am, I promise. The United States isn’t trying to change. It never wants to claim that oppression is the law of the land. Instead the US pretends like oppression is actually freedom! 

Which is why the legislators of Georgia have labelled this bill that defines two biological sexes based on “biological” reproductive organs and “remove[s] sexual orientation and gender identity from the state’s criteria for hate crimes” as the Women’s Bill of Rights. This bill should really be called “The Bill of Rights for Those Who Hate Women” but even bigots know that would be bad PR. 

I unfortunately read the beginning of this bill because knowing the truth means having to torture yourself. The bill defines a female as an “individual who has, had, will have, or would have, but for a developmental or genetic anomaly or historical accident, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilises eggs for fertilisation”. The goal here is to limit womanhood to people who transphobes think are women. This definition reminded me of the one time I was awake during my biology class and I learned that all foetuses have genitalia associated with being “female” after fertilisation. Seriously I wasn’t dreaming, it’s the truth. 

If these bigots believe that life begins at fertilisation, then that means we are all technically female under this bill. At some point all us had the reproductive system that could produce eggs. So those t-shirts saying the future is female may have been right.

I personally want the future to be gender-binary free which is the opposite of what these legislators in Georgia want. A world without gender threatens capitalism because gender is one of the hierarchies capitalism depends on to divide the working class. Which is why these politicians are so obsessed with gender instead of other real problems, like lack of healthcare and having a soul. I told my friends the purpose of transphobic laws is to maintain capitalism. They asked me whether I really think these bigots have read Marx. I don’t know if the bigots have read Marx for Dummies but I do know the bigots work for capitalists. 

Capitalists know what’s good for them and they use legislators to maintain their interests. That’s why it’s illegal to steal from Whole Foods but it’s good for Whole Foods to steal from its workers. Even though the moral thing to do is use Whole Foods as your personal pantry.

News that made me say stop listening to colonisers

In December 2023 a majority of the countries in the United Nations passed a resolution for the International Court of Justice to provide an opinion about the “consequences of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.” Everyone other than genociders like Joe Biden know the consequences of Israel’s illegal occupation is for Israel to get out of Palestine as we sing Leave (Get Out) by Jojo. Some might not think a song sang by a pre-teen about her break up would be a revolutionary song but I disagree. 

However, since we live in a world run by colonisers, the ICJ can’t tell the Zionist state to leave like Jojo said. Instead, the ICJ listened to testimonies from the wrong side and the right side.  

Many countries on the right side called out the illegality of the Zionist state’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. These countries criticised Israel for being an apartheid state that violates the rights of Palestinians. To which Israel said, thank you so much for noticing, we are trying our very best. At, least that’s what Israel would have said if it was attending the hearings which it’s not. Israel doesn’t have to come to the hearings because it’s got its coloniser big brother (known as the United States of America to many and the evil empire to me) to vouch for it.

Last week, the United States of America “told the ICJ not to order Israel to end the occupation” because “any movement towards Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza requires consideration of Israel’s very real security needs”. For those of you who don’t speak coloniser, let me translate. The US is saying Israel should be allowed to continue colonising Palestine. The only way this can happen is if the occupying government is constantly policing Palestinians, otherwise the Palestinians might revolt. Colonisers hate revolution because revolutions end colonisation. That’s just coloniser 101. 

As an advanced coloniser with a police force larger than most militaries, the United States knows you can’t just colonise people without surveiling them. That’s why the anthem for colonisers everywhere is I’ll be watching you. Colonisers shouldn’t get an opportunity to give their opinions on the best way to bring about “justice” and this is why the ICJ will never bring about justice for Palestinians or the colonised anywhere. 

I’m not the first person to say this and I know I will not be the last person to say this. CAN WE PLEASE STOP USING INSTITUTIONS CREATED BY COLONISERS TO END COLONISATION? You wouldn’t drink a bottle of liquor to sober up unless you are a college student who thinks the best way to get over a hangover is to drink more. I don’t want to drink more coloniser lies, all it gives me is hangovers without the fun drunk part. 

We should be fighting colonisers using tools they tell us not to use because those are the tools that work. Think about everything the police, politicians, and the media tell you not to do and do those things. That’s the only way Palestine, Sudan, Congo and all the colonised will be free. 

President’s Day is a day to celebrate villains 

I took a break from the news to tell you my thoughts on President’s Day. 

@feelthenewswithmarcela Black excellence includes biting people! Read Wayward Lives Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman ! Subscribe to my newsletter. Come to my show tomorrow at Friends and lovers in Brooklyn for news! #feelthenews #books #blackhistorymonth #saidiyahartman #blackanarchists #leftisttiktok #leftistsoftiktok ♬ original sound – Feel the News

See ya later,

Marcela