Last week, Janet Mock, journalist, best-selling author, and advocate appeared on the iHeartRadio-produced program The Breakfast Club, which bills itself as the “world’s most dangerous morning show.” (It’s also broadcast live on Power 105.1 FM, a NYC based hip hop station.) The show, which is known for raucous and controversial discussions with high profile celebrities and artists, is hosted by DJ Envy, Angela Yee, and Charlamagne Tha God. It’s a thing; even Hillary Clinton has made an appearance. (That segment is worth revisiting now, actually.)
Mock went on the show to promote her book, Surpassing Certainty, and used the platform to advocate for issues important to the diverse transgender community. But things took an ugly turn a few days later when Lil Duval appeared on the show.
In his segment, Duval used a slur when asked his thoughts on President Trump’s tweeted ban of transgender personnel. “Shout out to all the trannies out there,” he said. Then, when pressed on how he’d respond if he found out that a woman he was dating was transgender, he said he kill her: “This might sound messed up, but I don’t care, she dying.” After some half-hearted pushback, the hosts asked about Mock herself, using her book as a prop. “Nope. That nigga doing his thing….ain’t finna get me,” Duval said.
Clips from the segment went viral, and activists and allies responded with the hashtags #BoycottBreakfastClub and #TransLivesMatter. They are currently posting videos of support for transgender women under #TransFolksAreNotJokes.
As the backlash grew, Mock responded in an op-ed for Allure.com. She wasn’t naive when she booked the show, she wrote. “I had watched previous interviews over the years and was familiar with their provocative and oftentimes problematic brand of talk,” she began. “I witnessed the male hosts critique the bodies of black cis and trans women alike, as if we’re objects on display, open for dissection.” And then this:
“It’s this deplorable rhetoric that leads many cis men, desperately clutching their heterosexuality, to yell at, kick, spit on, shoot, burn, stone, and kill trans women of color. Until cis people — especially heteronormative men — are able to interrogate their own toxic masculinity and realize their own gender performance is literally killing trans women, cis men will continue to persecute trans women and blame them for their own deaths.”
Mock is right: This kind of talk is dangerous. Some fifteen transgender women have been murdered in 2017 — and those are just the cases we know about.
On Sunday, Charlamagne, whose given name is Lenard McKelvey, appeared at Politicon in Pasadena, Calif., for an on-stage discussion of politics and the hip-hop community with MSNBC host Ari Melber. Instead, Ashlee Marie Preston, editor-in-chief of Wear Your Voice magazine, and Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, interrupted their session to call for a boycott of The Breakfast Club, while chanting, “we are not a joke.” Later, she wrote, “It’s time for the black community to stop neglecting black trans women and leaving us to fend for ourselves.”
She has a point. But why stop there?
Daily Beast writer Ira Madison III explores the long history of The Breakfast Club’s casual tolerance of violent rhetoric targeting cis and trans women. “In most cases, a host would never be held accountable for their guests, but when it comes to The Breakfast Club, Charlamagne is often caught laughing along with the vile things that come out of his guest’s mouths,” he says. It’s an opportunity for big business to be a bigger ally, he says. “It will take more than members of the community for Charlamagne to own up to the idea that even as he casts himself as a victim by claiming he isn’t responsible for his guests’ words, he still gets to profit from their hatred,” says Madison. “As long as companies like Viacom (a former Charlamagne employer) and iHeartRadio…don’t care how Charlamagne treats other members of the black community, they’ll continue to co-sign him and have him on their programs.”
The bottom line, he says, is simple. “[Charlamagne’s] opportunity comes from demeaning and endangering women and LGBT members of the black community and being allowed to do so by his white employers.”
On Point
| Don’t believe the hype: Diversity still a problem in Hollywood films |
| A new report from the Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism has found that the number of underrepresented characters in major films remain largely unchanged since last year. The annual report analyzes the demographic makeup of speaking characters from the 100 highest grossing films, as well as representation within the production ranks. "Every year we're hopeful that we will actually see change," says the report’s lead author. Click through for the numbers, but in terms of underrepresentation, the numbers for for women, Latinx and disabled characters are even more out of sync with U.S. demographics. It’s being called an “inclusion crisis” for women. |
| Hollywood Reporter |
| Do believe the hype: Diversity training does work after all |
| Four researchers offer hope for diversity trainers who have been told by a skeptical management that their programs don’t work, or worse, annoy white people. A recent analysis, which looked at 40 years of training, found that diversity training can be effective, with a couple of caveats. First, it needs to target awareness (via techniques like perspective-taking) and skill development. But most of all, it needs to be personalized to your organization. “Diversity training effectiveness depends on the specific training method used, the personality characteristics of those who are trained, and the specific outcomes that are measured after training concludes.” |
| HBR |
| NAACP issues nationwide advisory telling members that they may not be safe in Missouri |
| The travel advisory is not a boycott, they say, but a response to recent legislation signed into law that makes it more difficult to sue for housing or employment discrimination. The advisory says that people of color, women, people who identify as LGBTQ, and those with disabilities should "travel with extreme caution" while in Missouri because "they may not be safe." Says Cheryl Clay, Springfield's NAACP president,“Our ongoing issues of racial profiling, discrimination, harassment and excess violence towards people of color have been further exacerbated by the passage and signing of [Senate Bill] 43. [It] rolls back civil rights protections for employees and whistleblowers.” While testifying on the House version of the same bill, the committee chairman shut off the microphone of one NAACP member who called it, "nothing but Jim Crow." |
| Springfield News-Leader |
The Woke Leader
| Short Fiction: Everything Is Far From Here |
| In this wrenching short story, Cristina Henríquez writes as a young Latina woman seeking asylum in the U.S. She has just completed a harrowing journey, harassed by the mules who shepherded them through, and finds herself separated from the one she loves most, her son. Now, in a detention center awaiting her fate, she worries about why he hasn’t arrived yet. “At night, lying in her bunk atop the beige sheet, she imagines running back the way she came, retracing her steps through the dirt and the weeds until she finds him standing in the overgrowth somewhere, hungry and cold.” 'Everything Is Far From Here' is about the simple terrors found in both staying and going, and what it’s like to be alone, far from everything. It will stay close to your heart, I promise. |
| New Yorker |
| Gender pay gap widening in Hong Kong, twice that of Singapore’s |
| This piece is mostly chart, but it packs a real punch and tells a bigger story. According to a new report from the Hong Kong government, the gap between what men and women are paid is widening. It's now twice that of Singapore's, and has just edged out Australia and the U.S. Only South Korea’s gap is larger, with a whopping 40% difference between men and women. Not a good look on a chart. |
| Bloomberg |
| Life and love as a transgender woman in India |
| A month ago, I asked some raceAhead experts - corporate librarians, academic experts, and D&I practitioners - to help me compile a summer reading list. My question was simple: What book would you recommend to someone seeking to better understand the diverse world around them? Given the news of the day, I thought it would be smart to revisit it. The entire list is terrific, but I just moved this book to the top of mine: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy. “[It’s] the tale of a transgender woman building a life in Old Delhi. It’s an inspiring read about the timelessness of love, regardless of who you love," says Alicia “AJ” Petross, Vice President, Diversity, Inclusion, and Engagement at The Hershey Company. |
| Fortune |
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| —Geena Rocer, transgender model |
