Hi everyone,

Big news! The Spite Stack is moving from Substack to Patreon!

Thank you so so much for bearing with me these past few *quiet* months as I carefully made the jump to Patreon. I know you all value a platform that isn’t promoting nazi propaganda and anti-trans hate, and I took those critiques to heart. And in doing so, I realized I had way more to offer you in a place like Patreon, with more audio, video, and personalization on my end. I want this to be something you feel good contributing to and I think you’ll agree there’s no doubt that the value is worth it.

Your support has meant the world to me, has bailed me out many-a-time, through many-a-dying industry, and I’m over the moon to be able to bring you more creative work than ever.

All the rants, observations, videos, and sweet sweet playlists you already know and love from Substack will still be on Patreon. One of the biggest reasons I made the move is for Patreon’s expanded features—so I can give you even more benefits.

ALSO: Don’t worry, if you paid for a subscription here, it is no longer going to be charging you. Keep reading…

A common misconception is that everything on Patreon is behind a paywall. Well not here. 🥰 My monthly newsletter will remain free — it’ll just be posted on Patreon instead of Substack.

My first newsletter is already live on Patreon and it’s a special one! It’s about my journey moving back to New York, titled “Hello to All That” (a play on Joan Didion’s essay Goodbye to All That)....

Bonus ✨

As a thank you for all your support, I’m gifting all current Substack subscribers FREE ACCESS on Patreon to our highest tier, Basically a Producer! This will give you access to all my paywall content and benefits!

Offer expires October 13!

Here’s how it works:

• Free Subscribers → 1 free month
  

• Paid Monthly Subscribers → 2 free months

• Annual Subscribers → All your remaining months of your Substack annual subscription, PLUS 2 bonus months
  📬 Check your email for personalized details and access link

Claim Your Free Access

• ⚠️ Be sure to redeem the offer using THIS email address (the one we sent this message to), so we can apply your access correctly

• You’ll enter your payment info to redeem the free month

• You won’t be charged until the end of your complimentary period

What’s included on Patreon?

Here’s how the tiers break down on Patreon:

Free Membership

• 1 x Newsletter (per month)

• 1 x Casual Friday Audio Drop (per month): Casual Friday is a casual, off-the-cuff audio segment where I share what’s on my mind. That might be rants, reflections, things that didn’t make it into the newsletter, or anything else I feel like sounding off on.

Moral Support ($5 per month)

Everything in the free membership PLUS, all of the below:

• 2 x Newsletters (per month): Get ONE extra newsletter per month (1 free + 1 paid member-only)

• 2 x Casual Friday Audio Drops (per month): Get ONE extra Casual Friday audio drop per month (1 free + 1 paid member-only)

• BTS Content + Fauci Video/Photo Dump: Exclusive BTS photos and videos I’d never post anywhere else. PLUS a monthly photo/video dump of my beloved Fauci.

• Polls & Submissions: Help shape upcoming content by voting on topics, submitting ideas, and more

• Chat Rooms: Join member-only chat rooms where you can connect with others and talk about your favorite topics.

Basically a Producer ($10 per month)

Everything in the free membership + Moral Support tier, PLUS all of the below:

• 3 x Newsletters (per month): Get TWO extra newsletters per month (1 free + 2 paid member-only)

• 4 x Casual Friday Audio Drops (per month): Get THREE extra Casual Friday audio drops per month (1 free + 3 paid member-only)

• 1 x Bonus Video Segment (per month): An exclusive video segment similar to the content posted on my YouTube

• Exclusive Content Extras: This tier unlocks more than just newsletters and audio drops. You’ll also get access to exclusive content such as…Ask Akilah Q&As, This Shouldn’t Be News article series, recommendations, reviews, and more

• Early Access to my YouTube Videos: Watch my monthly YouTube video at least 2 days before it drops publicly

• BTS Content + Fauci Video/Photo Dump: Exclusive BTS photos and videos I’d never post anywhere else. PLUS a monthly photo/video dump of my beloved Fauci.

• Polls & Submissions: Help shape upcoming content by voting on topics, submitting ideas, and more

• Chat Rooms: Join member-only chat rooms where you can connect with others and talk about your favorite topics.

Questions?

If you have any questions → Submit here

I or someone from Patreon will get back to you.

Thank you for being here!! I’m so grateful for your support, and I can’t wait for what’s ahead in the future of The Spite Stack!

- A

A survey, a very funny fiction piece. Made you click 🤍

The Epstein Files

by Jenny Jaffe

“Do you want to read the Epstein Files?”

I blinked. I double checked my Zoom connection. “Do I want to read THE Epstein Files?”

The studio exec nodded. “We have the exclusive adaptation rights.”

“To… the Epstein Files? Sorry. It’s just, I don’t think anyone’s read them.”

“Well, most people haven’t. Because we have the exclusive adaptation rights,” the studio exec repeated, like I was stupid, which I was starting to suspect I was.

The other studio exec unmuted and chimed in. “If you’re interested, we’ll have Beth send the materials to you over Embershot.”

“The materials? The Epstein Files?” I didn’t want to keep repeating myself so I quickly added, “When you say adaptation do you mean, like, docuseries? Or like a dramatization of the events?”

“Oh,” said the studio exec. “There’s actually another writer working on a dramatic miniseries. We’re looking for, like, what could a sitcom take be? Like is there a network version, could it be an animated, like, Adult Swim version, or one thing we’ve talked about is could it be sort of a comedic play on the X-Files…?”

“We’re open,” said the other network exec. “We want you to have fun with it.”

“With the — with the Epstein Files?”

“We’re hearing takes over the next few weeks,” said the other studio exec. “So it’s a bit of a fast turnaround, but if it piques your interest at all...”

“I think I have to think about it?” I said. “But I’m not NOT interested, you know, in at least, like, reading the Epstein Files.”

We ended the call with a good natured callback to our small talk at the beginning of the conversation, and promises to find a project together, “if not this then something”, and then I immediately called my manager.

My friend Jenny Jaffe wrote the funniest and best short piece and I couldn’t not share it.

Read the Rest

Also, I keep alluding to a big move I’m making tf away from here and I need your help on a teeny-tiny survey. Can you tell me what you like about this space and what would make it worth your money and sweet sweet attention?(That header is part of the upcoming announcement!!!!!!!)

Survey Here!

Can’t wait to hear from you and send you some great stuff this fall 👀

-A

I will acknowledge that I’m feeling a bit heightened due to hormonal changes this week. But. I’m getting real sick of white people’s shit. And before the tears in the comments drown us all, let me say I know I’m generalizing. I know the good white people are in the audience, and that I hope you understand that this is a direct response to the whining regarding “woke” being anything not white, male, old, and stupid in the year of our lord 2025.

I also want to say, given how much shit Black women have been forced to eat this year I don’t care. I just don’t care. Feel your feelings.

Caveats aside, wtf? Are we living through the worst era of white people ever????

Read more

I’ve received dozens of messages wondering where tf I’ve been, and I can finally announce that I’ve been working tirelessly on a new video podcast from called, “How is This Better”

Pretty sick trailer if I do say so myself.

New episodes start dropping next Friday wherever you get podcasts, so subscribe and help me prepare for the shitshow future the right is forcing on us.

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

YouTube

A

Between tariffing everyone to f*ck and back for no apparent reason besides, “doesn’t understand how anything works” and picking fights with our allies, it’s clear that Trump and the GOP see American strength in isolationism. But why? I think simply calling them stupid would be too easy/accurate, so let’s just say it’s misguided.

The GOP’s recent (re: last decade) fascination with Russia and emulating their worst policies—attacking journalists, disappearing protesters, attacking neighboring countries??? is wild. Am I the only one who noticed that Russia highkey sucks? Why would we want to be like them? The GOP’s obsession with Russia is like an incel teenage boy’s obsession with Andrew Tate. Oh, you don’t get that he sucks and we all hate him.

This Trump era of failsons pulling ideas out of their ass and thinking they have some special insight (RFK Jr. claiming no one had narcolepsy —a disorder Winston Churchill had—when he was a kid cause he hadn’t heard of it comes to mind) is too exhausting. I’m sick of moronic “hunches” being treated as facts. Can any of these motherfuckers even read??? Unclear given that their latest hunch has brought them to “punching ourselves in the dick as economic policy.”

Isolationism is bad because when our world is smaller, it means our potential is too. Using Kentucky as an example, Governor Andy Beshear made the point recently that because of Trump’s unprovoked verbal attacks on Canada, Kentucky bourbon is no longer a hot commodity up there. Canada has hella winter, there’s a reason they drink bourbon. The US likes bourbon, sure, but are we really gonna make mint juleps (yuck) the national beverage to bolster that economy? Or, more likely, are those distillers gonna lose their businesses?

If Russia is so cool, how come half of 90-Day Fiancé’s cast members are hot Russian women fleeing to marry certified US uggos just for citizenship? Do you know how many spin-offs that show has? More than 20! Trump says he wants to sell US citizenship for $5 million, but he’s making it so shitty here no one in their right mind would pay that to live in a country like this. Ugh.

Something has to give. I can’t take anymore of this stupidity.

—

+ Speaking of stupidity: Bluesky kind of sucks, and I had to create a whole new account because the people who run it don’t respond to help requests. If you used to follow me there, I promise you don’t anymore. But if you want to, you can do so, here.

+ One way I have found to stay sane in the hellishness of 2025 is to not really be online as much as I used to be. It helps. Longer form work has given me some space, and I don’t get overwhelmed by the news until much later in the day. Progress? Anyway, one thing I made recently was a personal website.

+ I also made this video about scaring Stephen King, IRL. If you like writers, are a fan of cinematic storytelling, miss seeing the inside of video stores, or simply were traumatized by Wes Craven’s Scream at a tender age, this video is for you.

+ ALSO a HUGE THANK YOU IS IN ORDER Because REBEL SPIRIT WON A WEBBY AWARD! We did it! And that was in no small part due to this awesome community of readers’ choice to click a link, sign up (I know) and vote for us. I’m so over-the-moon (one day I’ll tell you about the anxiety dreams I had about losing. One involved Hillary Clinton talking me down on FaceTime) If you have suggestions for our 5-word speech for the event, let me know in the comment below.

Thanks for being you, and again, hopefully something good happens soon.

A

Alright, my final plea at the end of democracy and in the midst of what is an absolutely hideous time in America is a frivolous ask, I know:

VOTE FOR REBEL SPIRIT NOW

Reasons to help a sista out:

1. Things are awful, and tbh this little award is something to look forward to in the hellscape for a number of reasons, not the least of which being we are still waiting on a season 2 order, and awards help.

2. Because we were kinda ramrodded into a “DEI” category because I’m Black, which kinda misses the point. Like, yes, the show is about inclusivity regarding a racist mascot, but it’s made it impossible to promote it. (I tried through a Black internship program I did and because they were afraid to lose funding they couldn’t support…bleak)

3. Because the show in first place is a white girl chat show funded by a PAC. What? I’m sorry I’m being really honest because

4. My mom has cancer, and while that may seem guilt-trippy and you may be like “wow, cannot believe you’re weaponizing trauma for a vote,” the reality is nothing matters to me more than her, and I’m trying to get to a place where anything matters and this might do the trick.

Were some of those reasons self-serving? Yes. Am I still hitting send and letting this plea rip? Yes. I have plenty to say about the state of things. About the lack of due process for people on American soil, about Harvard and Maine being sued by a retaliatory and deeply unqualified and shitty US government, about tariffs that are needless and a trade war the US is absolutely going to lose…all of it. And we will get there. But today is the last goddamn day to push for this. At midnight PT this will all be over, and I want to at least know that I did everything I could to support Rebel Spirit, the best podcast in the DEI category at the Webbys.

Okay, good talk. Please vote. There are thousands of you. Make the difference. Thanks!

A

Popping in during a constitutional crisis to ask for your vote in a relatively low-stakes awards push feels weird, but hey, it’s 2025 babay.

Rebel Spirit, my podcast about changing a Confederate mascot in a state that wasn’t even in the Confederacy is currently in 2nd place for the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging category at the Webbys. I know. Nuts. Don’t even ask me what PAC sponsored chat show is beating us. It’s not great.

All I ask is that you take a couple of minutes away from the job you totally love that hasn’t got you even a little burned out to vote for our show. It may even help us get a season 2.

VOTE FOR REBEL SPIRIT

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. If you already did it, consider using another email to vote again? Or let your friends know. You’re doing a good thing.

Okay, that’s the end of today’s little groveling sesh. Expect a post later this week about how Trump and the GOP is making it a small world after all…

xx

A

The next episode will be about the time I met Quentin Tarantino at Friendsgiving. I swear!

-A

I’m a virgo. I’m part of the 92%. I can read. Therefore I am not built for this moment of watching the inevitable play out.

Subscribe now

A favor to ask

Rebel Spirit, the most personal and profound project of my life, is nominated for a Webby Award this year! The website is surely convoluted, and you basically have to hit the voting button, use the search option, and look up Rebel Spirit to vote for us in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion podcast category—probably the last time it’ll be legal to have a DEI category. Probably the last time it’ll be legal to vote tbh…

We’re currently in 2nd place, and if you opened this, it’s a sign to help us get to 1st. You can do it! It is a two-minute side quest and I’m maybe begging.

Go Vote for Us PLS

And in return…

The stock market is tanking, every beautiful public service we’ve paid for in our lives is being gutted and the money is being routed upwards to dead-eyed billionaires who don’t care if we live or die. BUT:

Music and art still exists, and maybe I’m just desperately trying to cling onto good things, but I made a playlist that I’m updating regularly of the best songs of 2025. And the fact that we are basically at 100 great songs already is a testament to the good in the world. Check it out:

More news soon but…idk, hang in there!

A

Luigi Mangione is back in court today for the federal charges against him in connection to his alleged murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare. And while I’ve written extensively about how the media has completely missed the mark on the public empathy for Mangione (and am feverishly editing a video essay on the subject—subscribe to my YouTube channel, duh), a perfect new piece of media has entered the chat:

Common Side Effects, an animated show from Joe Bennett and Steve Hely on MAX, is a damning indictment of not the insurance companies’ often craven refusal to help sick people—but big pharma’s interest in keeping people sick enough to need their medicines.

Subscribe now

The series follows Marshall, and unlikely genius wearing a bucket hat and open Hawaiian shirt (and his tortoise) who have discovered the cure to every ailment on earth: a blue mushroom that only grows in the most pristine conditions in a Peruvian valley—that can heal even the most mortal of wounds. So far the only side effect is a hallucination of a little gray baby thing, but we see the shrooms heal everything from terminal rashes, to a bird’s broken neck, to plane crash injuries. It’s the medicine that would upend the world as we know it, because if there’s no need for any other medicine, or doctors, and healing was nearly instant, why would anyone need to work? How would economies persist? How could there be any hierarchies? These are enormous questions the show is tackling (while seeing our protagonist framed by the government and hounded by everyone who finds out about his discovery).

I highly suggest the show, not just because it feels like another dagger in American healthcare and the limited justice it provides, but because it’s immaculate. The theme song is a unique blend of woodwinds. The story lines are incredibly grounded in the vein of the best episodes of Breaking Bad sort of way. And while mushrooms have become all the rage (the mycology of The Last of Us comes to mind), this show is incredibly grounded for adult animation.

As the Luigi Mangione of it all unfolds over the next year or more, I expect we will be having more nuanced discussions about his health, and healthcare in general, and I’ve already written my heart out about insurance, but this show is making me think hard about Big Pharma. And not in the “just asking questions,” douche-bro vein of RFK Jr. and his idiot podcast illiterati. I just mean, when money touches everything, and in a society hellbent on making everything a profitable, endlessly scalable business, how much can we even expect anybody, from scientists, to doctors, to insurance companies, to landlords, to ANYBODY to help?

A

Waking up everyday to the horrors™️ has not been great for any of our mental health. But one thing that I think has helped me zoom out has been watching the slow realization, that, for many, they got scammed. Whether they thought not voting was some sort of progressive action or they actually thought Donald Trump was going to improve their lives, the acceptance phase of being sold a lemon has started to set in.

I started asking myself, “Why do people get scammed in this way?” Feeling somehow morally superior for being part of the 92% of Black women who voted for an alternative to this. But everyone is capable of being scammed. Everyone. For like two weeks in 2009 I was in a MLM because the economy was trash and as a new college graduate, I needed money desperately. An opportunity that seemed too good to be true was just one 45-minute meeting about supplements away.

The people most vulnerable to scamming are those who are distracted, and those who are desperate. The desperation can be for many things, for me it was money, but for others it can be a desperation to be right, a desperation for someone else to be wrong, a desperation for privacy or shelter, or safety, or a desperation to escape bad feelings.

Recently a phone scammer tried two weeks in a row to hack my Twitter account. Because I don’t particularly value the platform anymore, it was harder to scam me. It went like this: A guy called me from an Atlanta number and said someone in Madagascar had tried to login to my account. I was on my way to lunch (distracted), but I had the clarity of mind to ask some questions:

“Oh really? How come I didn’t get a notification in my email about someone trying to login?” which is an obvious question. Every site now basically will alert you if there’s a suspicious login, and a phone call in 2025 is egregious.

“Well if you check your email now you’ll see we sent you an email with a login code, so if you can verify that code we can protect your account.”

That is fishy as hell. If someone was really hacking my account, couldn’t I just login on my own with whatever code ON MY OWN and have it verify my identity? For this reason I changed the subject.

“Yes, I see the code. I’m not going to give it to you though. You see, I requested my archive a week ago and you sent me all of the photos and videos I had ever posted, but not the tweets, can we get that resent?”

“Sure, I can walk you how to get your archive.”

“No, I already did the steps, the problem is on your end, I emailed about it. You should see the email about it.”

“Well if you could just give us that code, we can verify it’s you and look into it.”

Then I decided to trip him up.

“What’s your name?”

“My name is gonna be Michael.”

“Okay, ‘Gonna Be Michael,’ why does this say you’re calling from Atlanta? Isn’t ‘X’ famously headquartered in San Francisco?”

“We moved our headquarters to Atlanta.”

“Oh, okay. Well thank you for that information. I’m late for lunch and you’re obviously scamming…”

*click*

Days later several prominent journalists had their accounts hacked. I can’t verify this is how it happened, but imagine if I had actually cared about someone hacking my Twitter account? I probably would’ve unwittingly given my precious email code directly to this stranger from an unlisted phone number.

—

Anora to me is a movie about a woman who strips for money, who desperately needs it, falling for a Russian scammer. Maybe “Vanya” isn’t explicitly scamming, he asks her to marry him so he can stay in the country, and oh he’s fabulously wealthy and they can just party forever. But isn’t that the scam? An easy out, freedom for a small fee that alleviates all the troubles? If Anora had opportunity, a high paying career, benefits, would she be so willing to give up her current life for the simple promise of a life with a guy she doesn’t know?

In last week’s episode of Severance we got a deep dive into Gemma/Ms. Casey, Mark S. (Adam Scott’s) “deceased” wife in the show. In the (absolutely beautifully shot) episode, we learn about Gemma’s fertility struggles, and the toll it took on her relationship with Mark. Because they simply couldn’t connect on the trauma of their struggles to get and stay pregnant, Gemma started looking to Lumon, not knowing that it’s clearly some sort of cult corporation who would enslave her in endless severed scenarios while making Mark believe she was actually dead.

We live in a nation of deeply desperate people. Economically, spiritually, opportunistically. The American Dream in 2025 is to wake up with an unannounced gifted wad of millions of dollars with none of the inescapable problems not having that money has created. And we have billionaire scammers telling the most desperate among us that if we just let them do whatever they want to our democracy, we can have what they have.

Between Anora and Severance, the only way out of the scam was to suffer the consequences of falling for it. There’s no telling where Severance will go with this storyline now that we are all up to speed, but I like to think there is a moment for heroic people who see clearly to act. In Anora, not everything promised came true, but at least she got an expensive ring back in the end.

Maybe there’s hope for us before it’s too late.

-A

P.S.: I’m actively working on leaving this site and because my work is becoming even more multimedia (Subscribe to my YouTube), I may have news (!!!) on where I’m headed very very soon. What that means for paid subscribers is to stay tuned, I’ll send a separate email once these details are solidified and we can figure out how to go forward together. Thanks for hanging in there.

I spent literally 40 hours working on this, do me a solid and watch. Also, consider subscribing, liking, commenting, and helping me punch the right-wing media complex online (my old stomping grounds).

Speaking of, tomorrow is the State of the Union. I’m hosting a fun, concurrent chat with Senators Chris Murphy and Brian Schatz for MoveOn.org/TrumpBS starting at 8:15ET/5:15PT. Come hang out.

xx

A

P.S.: still porting this over to a new platform. F Substack (but thanks for subscribing)

Black people do not have the luxury of ignoring reality in their politics. For the short period of time that we’ve had the right to vote, the overwhelming majority of the choices involved holding our nose and selecting the lesser of two evils. You see, Black people understand the importance of mitigating damage, because damage is the world we live in. Unfortunately the lesser of two evils lost. We don’t need to keep re-litigating it.

I’ve been really angry lately. There are plenty of reasons for this. From the year being immediately tarnished by historic wildfires across LA, to the inauguration, to the very loud rolling back of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, to planes crashing and falling out of the sky while concentration camps are being built in Guantanamo, to the biggest fucking loser ass bitch from South Africa employing ugly dork ass kids to steal our money and data, to having to endlessly remind well-meaning leftists that we actually can’t win anything if we can’t work together.

It’s too much, but for the sake of my own sanity (and the dozens of drafts I’ve tried and failed to write about this), I’m going to stick to the vilification of Black people and the immediate consequences it’s having across our government:

Ever since the absolutely horrifying and devastating helicopter crash that slammed into a commercial flight landing at DCA last week, the damage of dropping DEI has come into clear view. Wanna know how I know? I’m in my hometown Facebook “Boone County Neighbors” group—a group that is overwhelmingly white and conservative. I rarely post, but I listen. And leading up to the inauguration and through the announcements of ICE raids these morally bankrupt individuals have celebrated. Since that crash, however, things have been eerily silent.

There are probably a LOT of reasons for this, but not the least of which being the insane and stupid scapegoating of Black people who weren’t present on the helicopter, in the cockpit of the plane, or in the air traffic control tower. And beyond it being an obvious lie, I think people with the slightest bit of decency were taken aback by the craven rush to blame someone before the recovery efforts even began. It’s classless, it doesn’t make them look like good people for shouting about their support for this guy.

But what’s worse is that since Elon bullied out the FAA chief on inauguration day (seemingly for investigating SpaceX’s predilection for exploding debris across Texas and the Caribbean every single mission), plane crashes are on the rise. The Philly crash, hell, even today AS I TYPE, a Japan Airlines flight clipped a Delta flight on the ground in Seattle.

Trump claimed he eradicated diversity from the FAA in an executive order on January 22nd. He then appointed a guy from reality tv to head of the transportation agency and an alcoholic FOX News host to head of the military.

So maybe Black people are, frankly, the reason planes used to make it to their destination without incident. If they can spew conspiracies, so can we.

It’s Black History Month, and while the Grammys and Super Bowl halftime show no doubt show the beauty of diversity, it’s not lost on me that we are in a major moment of backlash. That the “end racism” emblem in both end zones will be painted over in anticipation of Trump’s attendance speaks volumes. The NFL can’t even symbolically disagree with racism out of fear of backlash.

We are quickly QUICKLY backsliding into the Jim Crow era. And Americans fighting online today have no actual education on what that time was like. Most seem to think MLK peacefully marched and then died for their sins and racism was dead from that day forward. But they don’t know that Jim Crow was so insidious that it had Hitler taking notes. They don’t know that most marginalized people in the US have African Americans’ sacrifices to thank for their presence (and that includes Irish and Italian white people too). They don’t get that segregating the schools hurts ALL Americans (listen to Rebel Spirit!!!!), and that’s what the intention is behind dissolving the Department of Education. They don’t know their history, and if they don’t learn it QUICKLY, they are doomed to repeat it. Dare I say Americans today aren’t tough enough to survive it this time.

A

PS: I’m going to move my substack to another provider because the owners of this site align with Elon Musk and I can’t bother with that. For paid subscribers (ILY), nothing will change for subscriptions, I will make sure it all ports over normally and you’ll still get these emails.

Years ago, back before I was a fully realized adult, I drove a 1995 Infiniti I30. It was my pride and joy. Dark green, Bose audio system, leather heated seats. The height of luxury for any 20 year old college graduate trying to make the most of their new freedom.

The summer after I graduated from Berea College, that beauty broke down on the side of a highway. Smoke poured out of the engine, and I had to have it towed to a shop miles away. That summer was formative for me.

The car was a tragedy. Week after week it remained in the shop. They assured me they’d tried everything, and by this point I’d sunk $2,000 into it trying to bring it back to life. Though it would start, and could drive, without fail several more times it would putter out, smoke coming in through the vents now, me canceling whatever plans I was en route to, waiting for my mom to come pick me up. So much for independence. It was simply out of my control.

Ultimately I sold that car for parts. But in one month-long period that summer I had the car and it worked, and even though I had endless questions, the only good answer the mechanic could come to was, “sometimes the check engine light goes off on its own.”

He said it, and the car drove until I finally sold it to move on with my life, miles away in Orlando, FL.

More recently I got a new car battery after it died outside of my dog’s sitter’s house the moment I got back to LA, exhausted from a day of travel. The night extended two hours while I waited for roadside assistance to bring my car back to life. The next day the same man installed a new battery right there in my driveway. And like always, the ‘check engine’ light came on.

But the thing is, my car is in great shape. I take care of it. So instead of falling into further anxiety (and potentially endless car debt), I reminded myself that sometimes…the check engine light goes off on its own. Summer turned to fall, and sometime over a week ago I hit a bump on the road, and like a miracle, THE CHECK ENGINE LIGHT WENT OFF ON ITS OWN.

We cannot control everything. Not by a long shot. Not through over-education. Not through sheer willpower. Not through terminal hope. The next year will have a lot of challenges (I’m sorry), but many will largely be out of our control. But if the in-fighting between Elon Musk and the MAGA base he keeps calling slurs on X is any early proof: the check engine light sometimes goes off on its own.

We may want to intervene, but sometimes it’s better if we control ourselves, our reactions, our energy.

I hope your 2025 is better than what has been. I hope it’s big, and bright, and more ambitious, and more rewarding. I hope you surprise yourself in a good way. I hope it’s one worth remembering.

See you in your inbox all year,

Akilah

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The vibes run the gamut. There are some big hot 100 hits, some indie faves, lots of international options, remixes of 2023 songs that hit hard. I definitely think if you wanna remember a single positive feeling about this year as it winds down, go listen on Spotify. It’s a good companion for any of the chores or errands that bookend your holiday season.

Subscribe

More “best of” lists coming as we countdown to 2025.

Happy listening,

A

Next week I’ll be back with my mega “best of 2024” lists compiling music, podcasts, shows, books, movies, and more. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it.

Happy holidays! 🎅🏿🎄✨🍪🐾🎁👼🏾

Akilah

Death to those LED headlights. New car manufacturers are doing everything in their power to kill Princess Diana again with those sun rays burning a hole through our retinas. It’s not right and it is the only amount of personal responsibility I’ll let you skirt in this conversation because you NEED TO TURN YOUR BRIGHTS OFF WHEN THERE’S ONCOMING TRAFFIC.

I don’t know if there’s an afterlife, but if there is, I hope you are forced to stare directly into your cars brights for as long as you inflicted them on the rest of us mortals trying to get home before you’re allowed to do any of the fun heaven stuff.

“But Akilah, my TESLA shifts the lights automatically” — don’t complain to me about your faulty purchase! Turn off whatever dumb ass setting it comes with and save a life. We’re never going to Mars.

And while we’re airing vehicular grievances, I’m sick of you edgelords not using your damn turn signal. Get a real vice! Break the law in a way that won’t kill somebody—shoplift! Take a pair of gloves when your doctor leaves your exam room. Don’t simply drift into my lane, narrowly missing my car, and then flip me off when I give you the honkhonk you earned. You wanted this attention!

Everybody wants to talk about how communication is important, but can’t be bothered to communicate that they spent the last ten minutes dissociating and now need to get off at the exit NOWNOWNOW. Surely you can integrate flicking that turn signal on into your healthy lifestyle.

Ooh! And please stop racing me to the 4-way stop! That you may have to wait 5 seconds for your turn shouldn’t hurt your fragile bitch baby ego. Sit there and take it like everybody else. I already know you don’t know what to do if you arrive at the stop sign at the same time as everybody else (you’re supposed to let the car to the right go first), you’re just gonna skip the order and try to cause a wreck. It’s giving desperation, babe. You don’t look important and you don’t command respect. You look like you can’t process dairy but just ate a gallon of ice cream. Is it really an emergency? Is it worth dying over? CHRIST.

I have a friend out here in LA who told me he sold his car and takes the bus everywhere now because driving was making him a worse person. He spent the entire drive infuriated, fighting for his life, that by the time he got where he was going he had no desire to be there. I feel that. I can’t sell my car because what will I live in when what’s left of the various industries I built my career in collapse next year??? (idk if I’m even joking anymore tbh) But I do miss when I lived in New York and took the train and could read and listen to music and generally become a better person on my commute and not activate my villain-self.

Leave your car related grievances in the comments below.

A

I’mma start by saying I’m biased. I can admit it. Perhaps if my health was never an issue I’d have a hard time understanding why the masses at worst support, but at best, empathize with Luigi Mangione, the man charged with shooting Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare. But since the arrival of benign tumors on my liver at 26 and the crowdfunding campaign then (and crowdfunding campaigns since), and the insurmountable medical bills that they didn’t cover, I fall into the camp that sees a refusal to provide care due to cost or an incorrect perceived lack of need as inherently violent.

When I search for empathy for Brian Thompson I come up pretty empty. The coastal publications might think this makes me a bad person, but their empathy doesn’t extend to the clear majority of us who understand how bad American healthcare is, so what do they know?

Writers in newsrooms from The Atlantic, to The New York Times keep putting out dimwitted op-eds reducing Mangione’s violence to meaningless barbarism, failing to engage with the horrifying realities of healthcare in America. We are a sick country, and one with businesses that profit from us staying sick and dying. Couple that with the fact that healthcare is largely still tied to employment, and we have millions of people too sick to work, but somehow working, just so they can get the medical care they need, and it doesn’t take a damn rocket scientist to see why people aren’t falling over themselves sad about the killing.

It’s no wonder desperate people seek out snake oil salesmen like RFK Jr. for alternatives to medicine they can’t afford to access. I’m not saying it’s right (obviously), I’m just saying I get it. When you facilitate an environment of desperation, people will take the cheaper “solution” every time. And that might be listening to podcasts from people who are not intelligent selling an alternative to the doctor’s office. But I digress…

What you won’t see in any of these bloviating scribbles is a description of withholding care as violence. I don’t purport to love Luigi Mangione’s Goodreads ratings, but I certainly understand what would push a rich and privileged someone in chronic pain, whose mother writhed in pain nightly—to violence. The Times says he walked away from his affluence and became radicalized, but more likely, his affluence convinced him there’d be someone to save him if there was ever a problem, and what he found was that even with loads of resources, adequate healthcare is overpriced and hard to come by.

For all the thousands of words these outlets have dedicated to three bullet holes, far less has been written about Daniel Penny’s vigilante violence against a man whose only threat was a loud voice on a train. Surely we should all be more worried about the fact that Daniel Penny is currently bar-hopping in Manhattan after killing a man on video, no? Do we only reserve our ire for those who would strike down rich white men protecting company profits? If the goalposts for what qualify for violence are so mobile, how do you expect anyone to care? If the media is going to cherry-pick what qualifies as violence, and it boils down to a guy in performance fleece getting the business in midtown Manhattan by a guy wearing a backpack, of course no one is going to respect their opinions.

I won’t go full conspiracy-theorist (it makes me tired), but some of these pieces come across as paid for by United Healthcare and their subsidiaries. During the election all these rags interviewed people eating spaghetti at midnight in diners about what they thought about a variety of issues. Now they aren’t the least bit curious about why, across the political spectrum, the race divide, the culture wars, everyone but super rich white people seem to understand on a cellular level why this came to pass? They don’t think it’s odd that they’re the only ones left scratching their heads, trying to fill in gaps that are already full?

People have had enough. People are tired of feeling like our lives don’t matter. We watch in 4K video as the ultra elite eat on the hard work of generations of people they never have to meet, while we struggle to make ends meet on our end. Most Americans are one emergency away from being homeless. If you have $600 in savings and you get hit by a car, your life might be over even if you survive the crash. That’s how real it is for most people in the richest country in the world. When the workers don’t share in those profits, the empathy gap widens.

Piece after piece has compared our current state to the Gilded Age, but we are also in something completely new. In the Gilded Age, the poor could generally ignore the wealth disparity. The quality of life differences were there, but they weren’t broadcast constantly in the faces of those starving in the streets. Now we have an internet that throws it in our faces minute-by-minute. And in this instance, it wasn’t a wealth gap that was illuminated, though United Healthcare is a huge enterprise worth nearly half a trillion dollars. That’s money that sick people have paid into it and not gotten reciprocal value. I’m not saying people should be murdered, but I am saying a lot of people have died waiting for people at that company to help them and it rarely makes a headline.

The executive editor at The Atlantic, Adrienne LaFrance callously reduced Mangione’s manifesto to “complaints against customer service.” She calls support for Mangione “De-civilization” as if there is anything civilized about creating bureaucratic healthcare systems. This decivilization is (in too many words) described as essentially every argument becoming zero-sum to the degree that violence seems like an increasingly acceptable response. She tries to tie a news-cycle not focusing on a successful assassination long enough, to the potential for more violence, even as she and her publication have made a 5-course meal out of this vigilante killing. Surely this example would be more apt for school shootings than a truly isolated incident. Can she spare a word for the politicians paid for by the gun lobby who make sure we don’t linger on the dead school kids before their bodies are cold? No? Just this guy?

She asserts that, “You cannot fix a violent society simply by eliminating the factors that made it deteriorate,” but doesn’t go on to suggest we try, and doesn’t provide an example in which successfully eliminating factors that made it deteriorate historically didn’t stop violence. Indeed, societies with less rampant inequality have far less crime. I haven’t asked Mangione, but I bet if healthcare in this country was equitable and of quality he probably wouldn’t have murked that guy.

Her final point is that we have to, without exception, reject anyone who would choose violence, but this falls on deaf ears when the man she wants us to reject makes good points regarding the violence of a man who implemented faulty AI to incorrectly reject a high number of insurance claims to save his company some dough since 2021. It’s really hard to reject the actions of someone who has suffered similarly, but couldn’t take it anymore. It’s nearly impossible to reject someone whose violent actions almost certainly caused a different healthcare company, Anthem, to walk-back talk of not even covering anesthesia for the duration of long surgeries (!!!!!) that very same day. Comparing him to Trump’s promise to use the power at his disposal for violence is a real stretch.

And I’m no big fan of violence, obviously. So reading out-of-touch article after out-of-touch article claiming my fascination is akin to bloodlust is just silly. If anything I think these companies and CEOs should act in a way that relieves human suffering, and in turn, that will decrease all likelihood that copycats would follow. I would certainly hope movement towards universal healthcare and healthcare not tied to employment status would decrease the likelihood of violence. Why not try it? Even if it didn’t stop random vigilante violence it might save the lives of those whose healthcare companies have let them down time and time again. If you’re against violence, be against it when it affects people with less than you.

Also newsrooms, do better. No wonder everyone is sick of reading your shit.

A

It’s finally December, and I’ll speak for me: I can’t wait for this year to end. It’s a weird place to be, ready for a new year, but that new year already promising to be…challenging at best? As we await the next fresh hell, it’ll be important to find silver linings in the cloud of ass and so this is a new series I’ll do when called for to help us find anything positive to latch onto. Trust me, it won’t be easy, but I will do my best.

For the past month, Donald Trump has done a slow rollout of his cabinet picks. I’m calling them the junk drawer or the injustice league, personally, but suffice it to say it’s the ghouls who will be doing his bidding in dismantling our democracy and selling it for parts to Russia, China, and basically all the people your grandparents fought against in wars for decades to protect something or other here in the US.

And while the bleakbleakbleak reality that people whose negligence, incompetence, malice, and shortcomings have caused outsized harm to countless scores of people is tough to take, maybe there’s something good in there to soothe us.

Today’s revelation is that in picking the absolute worst scumbags to run our government, Donald Trump has inadvertently continued the work of the #MeToo movement.

If you’re a predator and a Trump loyalist, this is probably the worst-case scenario. Pete Hegseth with his uneven sideburns and bad breathalyzer results could’ve skated by making at least hundreds of thousands of dollars a year hosting shows old people have muted in the general room at their group homes while kids read to them. And when called to serve as SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, THE LITERAL HEAD OF THE US MILITARY (!!!!!!!) was outed by everyone AND HIS MOTHER (!!!!) as being abusive to women, a bad husband, and an alcoholic.

This, after Donald Trump BENEVOLENTLY (👀) nominated Matt Gaetz who has disgraced everyone around him by venmoing children to have sex with them and traffic them AlLeGeDlY, and purposely (wink implied) brought those chickens home to roost so intensely that he resigned from Congress with no plans to come back and a (hopefully not booming) Cameo account.

So many pundits in the wake of November 5th’s disappointing election results have claimed “woke” is to blame for these shifts nationally. If only women knew their place, if only Black people weren’t so uppity. If only trans people who have always existed suddenly stopped, then maybe dems could win an election!

But who besides Trump is putting trash predators on the curb so their criminal histories can be kicked directly into the street for naming and shaming purposes? Who has been more dedicated to this cause recently than him? And clearly it takes one to know one, he knows all of them!

I knew Linda McMahon was married to Vince because as a child of the 90s I watched a lot of wrestling. At some point I memory-holed her involvement in a scheme that saw loads of young men abused. And while she is still going to be the head of the Department of Education —while it lasts I guess? Because if they get rid of your department, what’s even your job?—at least we now know that her intentions have always been to harm kids.

TL;DR: When Trump sends his people, he’s not sending his best. But he is making sure people we were otherwise ambivalent about can be scrutinized publicly for being absolute pieces of trash. He fully is the reason Matt Gaetz got canceled. Pete is next. And maybe the republicans will get too spooked to defy their dear leader further than this, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about who these monsters actually are.

A silver lining. 🌥️

Thanks for reading,

A

YouTube | IG | BlueSky

The first nearly 3 minutes of this Shrek clip is what I’m referring to with the title of this essay. Dems were elated when Kamala became the nominee, shouting me down immediately on Twitter and podcasts (Kara Swisher does not deserve to make more money than me) when I warned that white people will not support her.

And the cheers for Black people stepping up and getting out the vote were loud, but when it ultimately didn’t go the way dem media wanted it to go, we (the only demographic that bothered to vote the correct way) were called “the problem.”

The media’s backlash to “wokeness” is unsurprising. Suddenly this ill-defined, all-encompassing term for essentially “making people feel included” and “being anything other than a straight white man” is why Kamala Harris lost the election. Kamala was the great multi-racial feminine hope until she lost and our media class yeeted her off that glass cliff. In Shrek, when the titular Shrek saves Fiona but is still in disguise, she sees him as a valiant prince rescuing her with his noble steed. When it’s revealed that he’s an ogre (hard R), and everyone knows how the world feels about ogres, all that extended goodwill gets revoked and Donkey is insulted as simply “his pet.” Donkey quips, “So much for noble steed…”

Never mind that VP Harris ran on strong military, borders, and “I have a glock” —her very presence means she was “woke.” If there is a sociological term for the phenomenon where no matter what a Black person says it’s construed as “extremely far left,” I’d love to hear it.

I have experienced this personally. Black women are often misunderstood, simply because people’s insane bias makes us impossible to hear clearly. Kamala’s only guilty of “identity politics” because she has an identity outside of being a white man.

Let’s be clear, white men are an identity and their politics won. If you don’t think ignoring the climate, entitlement to unearned privilege, bitter grievance, less than a baseline of understanding of how the government works, and foolishly high belief in one’s ability to fix the problems they create isn’t part of white male identity, I beg you to literally go outside. Go to a restaurant. Get your coins trapped in a vending machine. Drive down a highway. Wait in a line at any event.

Donald Trump only won this election because he is white. You can’t name a single Black person who could even be the nominee, much less win an election with several baby mamas, rape charges, fraud charges, felonies, bankruptcies etc., The media is running themselves ragged explaining why Kamala’s campaign was bad, but Donald Trump got shot by his own supporters, swayed for an hour to music, rambled incoherently, and had zero ground game in turning out the vote. Kamala’s name being “hard to pronounce” was her crime. He is a criminal, but there are a million ways white people in the media have come up with to excuse it. Let’s not reflect on why a country ultimately voted for the guy who had 1 million Americans die on his watch during the height of the covid pandemic while he was shoveling tests and PPE to our adversary, Russia.

And since the election, Trump-supporting politicians and influencers have dropped the mask. They say that they hate fat people. They’re saying, “your body, my choice,” which is a rape threat…Saying that they don’t like trans people and won’t respect them. They do not want a Black person in Hollywood to ever be on screen again *personal, guttural sigh*. They want to be able to discriminate against people for their hair texture. But the answer is…we have to continue being nice and try to convince them even while they hurl slurs at us??

Well this is as much the media’s fault as any of us “woke” individuals. All we did was exist, and all they did was fail to defend our right to. Maybe that’s what’s funniest about this overblown response to the election: Democratic establishment lying to themselves about how much they actually ever publicly and loudly supported anyone darker than a paper bag. Still waiting on the VRA. Oh, was this election loss the last straw? The democratic media stopped covering covid the moment studies suggested it affected minorities worse. They interviewed swing voters who all, ultimately, voted for Trump instead of interviewing any Black families affected by the reversal of affirmative action and book bans and the criminalization of teaching American history as it happened because it hurts the white kids feelings.

They let Michael Barbaro hmmmm through interview after interview about “cancel culture” even though our new president is a rapist appointing rapists. They allowed both-sides grifters on every show to look “balanced.” They let mania about CRT and DEI masquerade as genuine problems while shying away from ever even acknowledging racism in any meaningful way. They lamented the phrase “defund the police” while failing to acknowledge that police budgets have only gotten higher, and interrogating why that hasn’t stopped crime. They filled their primetime hours with tales of trans-panic while completely ignoring that trans people’s life expectancy is shamefully low because of other groups predilection for murdering them.

If “woke” is dead, and we have to push away from it (which is the exact wrong, lesson, but the media seems so intent on learning it), then I think the media needs to apply that thinking equally to the parties. No more hand-holding republicans while we scold dems. Allow us to play just as dirty.

For starters, the Trump campaign and surrogates routinely called Kamala Harris “low IQ.” How about the punditry class be honest about why they don’t go after Barron Trump? Do you think the reason Trump doesn’t care about dismantling the Department of Education and effectively killing special education for millions of kids is because Barron has finally aged out of those classes? Wouldn’t it be “woke” to not just say it like it is?

RFK Jr. is not a scientist and frankly looks and sounds like he has loads of diseases. A more sensitive me before the election would tread lightly on what is obviously a medical issue for the man, but now? Let’s play fair. Why would we trust someone who presents that way to lead HHS? If he was Black and appeared in public yelling about how sunscreen is bad for you and pasteurization (a scientific miracle) is worse than chugging the raw milk bacteria hellbent on killing you, you’d have no problem hiding behind “meritocracy” and shouting his Black ass down. Why don’t you show a bunch of kids in wheelchairs any time we have to hear about his stance on vaccines? It seems too polite not to, and frankly, isn’t a key component of “wokeness” a tendency towards respecting others? Let’s just say it like it is.

Matt Gaetz raped a teenager. Trump wanted him for Attorney General. (Thankfully the creep pulled out, knowing that the report being released would ruin his lousy life). Use the term “rape” use the term “trafficked.” It’s “woke” to split hairs over this. I don’t care how he actually identifies.

I think the real lesson in this election was that Republicans go so low they can see up a snake’s asshole, and democrats are both supposed to be gentle with them and also be berated for extending their kindness politics to marginalized groups. If that’s really how you feel, then let’s go low. Let’s all go to hell. If we are never going to hold republicans to the high standards we hold ourselves to, then the standard has to go.

This is all so enraging,

A