A week of the Yemen group chat disaster, putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, and US federal government lay-offs

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 US federal government firings, attempts to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, and the US terrorist attack on Yemen discussion via group chat 

Onto the news… 

News that made me feel like racists enjoy watching Black people suffer

When Elon Musk and his subject Donald Trump started attacking the federal workforce, my first gut feeling was they were doing this because the federal workforce is Blacker than the private sector. 

I didn’t have any evidence of the federal workforce employing proportionately more Black people compared to the private sector other than my two eyes. I’ve worked in the private sector and Black people are as rare in my field as vegan pizza slices in New York City. Why do New York pizzerias hate vegans? On the other hand, I know people who’ve worked in the federal workforce and there is more diversity there than in my private sector jobs.

Turns out my gut feeling about the hatred of Black people driving Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the rest of the MAGA crew to hate the government workforce is correct. A significant portion of the Black middle class was a result of federal jobs. To be fair, my general gut feeling about racism is always right. If a Black person walks into a room and they tell you they smell racism, believe them, and burn the place to the ground.

Nothing makes a racist more angry than seeing a Black person thriving, just like nothing makes me happier than seeing a racist lose their job (which unfortunately happens rarely). Racists usually get promotions for being racist. Elon Musk is the president even though no one voted for him and he was not born in the United States. His only qualification: a steadfast dedication to racism. That man is more dedicated to racism than I’m dedicated to eating dessert for breakfast and I love chocolate cake in the morning!

This country derives pleasure from extracting Black people’s labour while maintaining their oppression – and Black people seemingly being less oppressed is unacceptable for the racists. Let’s be clear, leaning on acquiring a federal job to live a decent life because the private sector is extremely racist is not freedom! It’s a slight cushion from the debasement of Blackness. However, Elon and Donald don’t want Black people leaning on anything soft: they want them to suffer.

A significant portion of Black people depending on desirable jobs from a state that has manufactured anti-Blackness is an irony that my brain cannot fully grasp. Blackness in this country was created as a class for bondage. Saidiya Hartman states, “the relations of chattel slavery served to enhance whiteness by racializing rights and entitlements, designating inferior and superior races, and granting whites’ dominion over blacks” in her book Scenes of Subjection.

The creation of a Black middle class through government I’m sure has no other purpose than to decrease the likelihood of Black insurrection – much like Nixon used in the Black capitalism initiative. 

This country doesn’t do anything for Black people unless it has to. A country that plunders Black people for profit will never be a safe space for any Black person. Watching these two overcover KKK members destroying the federal workforce because it brings comfort to some Black people in this country should reinforce the message that Black people will never be comfortable as long as the United States and white women who like to say girrrrl! as soon as they see a Black woman exist.

News that made me say it’s good to do nothing

Amid multiple genocides, people being deported right and left, state anti-Black racism, someone has decided that their priority is to get Harriet Tubman on the 20 US dollar bill. 

Listen, I’m not here to shame anyone about poor prioritisation. I, too, have been terrible at prioritising in my life. Did I once choose to go out and get wrecked even though I wasn’t fully packed to start moving the next day? Absolutely. Have I chosen to do stand-up every night instead of dealing with my mental health? Emphatic hell yes. No one is perfect – but I’m not asking anyone to be perfect, I’m just asking: can we please stop doing things that we shouldn’t be doing and start doing things we should be doing? Or do nothing at all?

Seriously, it is better for you to do nothing than to do something that you shouldn’t be doing. For example, saying hi to a cop. It is better for you to stay at home and twiddle your thumbs all day than say hi to a cop. 

Putting Harriet Tubman on a 20 dollar bill is another thing that we should not be doing. If you are thinking, oh Marcela, why don’t you want to honor a freedom fighter? That’s exactly why I don’t want her on a 20 dollar bill. I honour Harriet Tubman so I don’t want her existence to be marred by being placed on something meant to oppress. 

Harriet Tubman was a freedom fighter and money is meant to enslave us. Putting her on a piece of paper is pretty disrespectful and counter-revolutionary. It sends a message that someone who fought for freedom endorses something that is used to commodify every single aspect of our existence, turning us into wage slaves. What’s next, putting Malcom X’s face on NYPD cars?

American dollars only have the faces of villains on them now and we should keep it that way. Every single time someone pulls a bill with an enslaver on it, it should remind them, hey, George Washington is on this piece of fabric because this piece of fabric is evil. (Yes, in case you didn’t know, “paper” money is made of 25% linen and 75% cotton. See, I taught you something today. Don’t ever say I never taught you anything.)

I don’t want someone looking at a 20 dollar bill and thinking, oh cool, Harriet Tubman is on this because money will free me so I should accumulate as much money as possible. That is the lie of Black capitalism. The lie that Black people will find liberation through accumulation in a white supremacist system instead of through collective liberation. Money will not save us. Community will.

So instead of spending our time and energy placing our heroes on symbols of oppression, why don’t we spend our time fighting for liberation wherever we can? Harriet Tubman freed enslaved people, maybe instead of putting her on a bill we could all take longer lunch breaks and liberate items from our workplaces to feed our communities. For example if you work at a grocery store, maybe you should consider using your workplace as a free community pantry.

News that made me feel like terrorists’ plans shouldn’t be secret

The goonies of the White House, which is what I call all the Trump officials, added a journalist to a group chat discussing the American terrorist attack on Yemen. Every single American military action is a terrorist attack because the United States of America is a terrorist state. That’s why Trump not only terrorises us with his actions, but also his face. Was that a childish insult? Yes. Am I sorry about it? No. What I’m sorry about is that people are angry about this group chat for the wrong reason.

War criminals like Hillary Clinton just couldn’t believe that a bunch of people who are running an imperialist hellscape just couldn’t be bothered to keep their murderous plans a secret. 

The journalist who was added to the group chat and everyone else are screaming national security, national security! I don’t care about national security. I’m actually disappointed that one of those goonies didn’t accidentally add a foreign “adversary” to the group chat so that the people of Yemen could be warned about incoming terrorist attacks. My hope is that all of the empire’s nefarious plans are broadcasted to the world before they happen. Here’s to JD Vance and the rest accidentally adding random people to group chats; I hope one of those people is me.

Unlike the Atlantic journalist who kept the knowledge of the attack a secret, I would have told everybody – because I think if your national security is about violating other people’s security, your national security shouldn’t be a secret. Just like people being on their periods shouldn’t be a secret. I remember the first thing I learned about using a pad was to be discreet. No, if you are bleeding from your private parts, everyone should know about it. So you don’t have to explain why you are not in the mood for office shenanigans.

Nonetheless, people should be angry about this group chat because it shows how casual American “leaders” are about murdering people. The US terrorist attack on Yemen murdered 32 people including children and the group chat’s response to the murder was emojis. Emojis! Could you imagine what the Western media would say if a group chat of Osama Bin Laden sending people emojis after 9/11 was leaked? I guarantee you their concern wouldn’t be oh no, the “terrorists” are planning their attacks over group chat.

No one in the “mainstream” media is talking about how vile it is that a part of the conversation before the attack was making sure the messaging was right. No one in the western media is talking about how these goonies discussed how Europe should repay them for murdering people so Europe’s ships can easily move through the Suez Canal. To say western society is morally bankrupt is like saying Trump is financially bankrupt, redundant but still worth repeating until everyone is on board.

See ya later,

Marcela