Can you feel the new energy?

August is my favorite month (biased), but between politics, the Olympics, and back to school season creeping in--change may be here, finally.

Simone and Suni holding it down for Team USA gymnastics.

I have so many draft newsletters that I simply have to throw away. Coming from a line of hoarders, even deleting the writing that’s no longer applicable feels like some sort of loss. But alas, none of the things I wanted to say to you this summer really stood the test of time. Here’s are two of the drafts that are getting the boot:

As you can see by the dates here, I wrote both of these before 1) Joe Biden dropped out of the election in historic fashion, and 2) sweating out my blowout and braids repeatedly all summer. I personally prefer some humidity to bone-dry desert (as do my sinuses), but I think all of us have had enough of wading through sausage gravy disguised as air. If climate change could do me a favor, just a single full month of Autumn this year would be delicious. I want a sweater, a fire, some leaves. Not just slop summer into bitter winter.

My hair was fully straight 10 minutes before this photo was taken. The humidity doesn’t want me to be great, actually.

Back to that first note though: Joe Biden leaving the race. Wow. Wow! It has been hard to even put in words how much everything has changed. Everyone alive with progressive values has felt the switch. And weirdly, democrats haven’t even been in disarray about it. Kamala Harris is the nominee officially as of this morning. She has the delegates, y’all. This is the first time a Black AND Indian woman has been at the top of the ticket for the two major parties in this country. It’s a big deal.

And every action has an equal opposite reaction, so the republican party is absolutely disintegrating. JD Vance, a grifter who spent a smidge of time in Appalachia while he was changing his name incessantly and being rumored to have intercourse with a sofa, is somehow even worse than Trump for conservatives. Not only does he have evil, Draconian views on reproductive rights and which pets single women are allowed to have—he says them, out loud, on the record, in audio AND video ALL THE TIME. He’s 39 years old, so we are seeing now just how important it will be for millennials to delete the evidence of their stupid opinions once Boomers actually do retire and pass the reigns.

All of this, has given me an inordinate amount of hope. Honestly, shame on me. Where do I get off smiling like this when doomscrolling and eye rolls have been the norm since 2016?

Watching a white kid jam out to “Not Like Us” at the Harris rally, with Quavo and Megan Thee Stallion in attendance, as Beyoncé’s “Freedom” rang through the arena gave me hope. Having a Black woman (WHO IS ALSO INDIAN FOR ANYONE WHO DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THAT TWO THINGS CAN BE TRUE AT ONCE) leading the party ticket gives me hope that the entertainment industry that’s being ground into dust by old white men might actually hire and support Black women again soon (because it would be really odd to have a Black woman leading the country but nowhere to be seen on screen). I have hope that Democrats no longer hiding from racist attacks, but calling them out will create an environment where my podcast about changing a racist mascot isn’t relegated to “only for Black people” or “DEI nonsense” as the right has been able to label everything made by anyone darker than a paper bag for the past 8 years unchecked. Selfishly I’d love for you to listen to the trailer, and I made a cute little backdrop just to make it easier:

The episodes start coming out weekly on 9/3 and y’all, it’s the best thing I’ve ever made. Quote me on it. —

I just feel like after Biden won in 2020, and then the republicans staged a coup, it seemed like nothing was ever going to change for the better again. And then with the entertainment industry slowdown, followed by unprecedented strikes, followed by axing anything with a Black person in it, I was kind of in an identity crisis. “Why do you even want to do this?” is something I got used to asking myself about every single part of my life that I was so sure about before. And with this new energy, which today, August 2nd, 2024 (every day is a week long nowadays), feels unstoppable, I feel like we’ve remembered COLLECTIVELY who tf we are.

Also maybe the Olympics and watching so many young athletes, and specifically Americans achieve great things has affected my bleak outlook on life.

This is just a way to say hey. Also, what are you watching? What do you wanna chat about? I will obviously be back here once we get the VP pick (I love Walz AND Beshear—two things being true at once), but I also don’t want to be a stranger.

-A