Quantcast
Channel: VICE CA
Viewing all 38002 articles
Browse latest View live

The Trump Administration Is Waiving 25 Laws to Build a New Bit of 'Wall'

0
0

The fate of Donald Trump’s “great, great wall on our southern border,” which he’s vowed will stem the flow of all undocumented immigrants and drugs, currently hangs in limbo, as Congress battles over whether to fund the multibillion-dollar project. But quietly, part of the wall is really being built, after a fashion anyway: An expansion of 18-foot Bush-era fencing is slated for construction next month.

The Department of Homeland Security has waived 25 laws to jump-start construction projects in eastern New Mexico, the agency announced Tuesday. The laws are mainly environmental regulations that need to be brushed aside in order to begin building in the Chihuahua Desert, one of the most biologically diverse deserts in the world.

“Border Patrol must have a more effective means of deterring and preventing illegal crossings,” the DHS secretary, Kirsten Nielsen, said in her Monday notice about the waiver, which will cover a 20-mile stretch running east from Santa Teresa. This area, part of Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector, is “an area of high illegal entry” where 25,000 border crossers, 67,000 pounds of marijuana, and 157 pounds of cocaine were apprehended in fiscal year 2016, Nielsen said in her announcement.

“There is presently a need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States to deter illegal crossings,” Nielsen continued.



The waived laws include the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires agencies to assess the environmental impact of all major projects; the Clean Water Act, which prevents discharging pollutants into navigable waters; the Clean Air Act, which regulates emission of hazardous pollutants into the air; and the Endangered Species Act, which protects imperiled species and their habitats.

Nielsen also waived regulations preserving the cultural heritage of Native Americans, including the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act.

Ignoring these laws helps “ensure expeditious construction” of more steel bollard structures to prevent border crossings, Customs and Border Protection spokesman Carlos Diaz told me. This barrier, expanding upon roughly 700 miles of fence (or wall, depending on what you choose to call it) begun by the Bush administration, already received funding from Congress’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget, a House Appropriations Committee member confirmed to me.

If Congress does reach an agreement to fund Trump’s wall—slated to be 30, instead of 18, feet tall—it is unclear whether CBP would use this waiver to apply to its construction, Diaz said. One of the wall prototypes DHS is considering is also made of bollard.

Diaz maintained that despite waiving more than two dozen laws, CBP remains “committed to environmental and cultural stewardship” and that it consulted with federal and tribal agencies as well as nonprofit groups.

“The fact the rules are waived doesn’t mean we’re going to disregard the environment,” he told me over the phone, and noted in an email that the agency “will utilize existing environmental data, perform additional environmental surveys, and use that information to assess potential impacts.” DHS has waived such laws in order to build border wall before—twice under the Trump administration and multiple times under the Bush administration beginning in 2005, noted Diaz.

The agency is free to do so thanks to 2005's REAL ID Act, which included an provision allowing the DHS secretary to waive all local, state, and federal laws that would impede in building walls or roads along US borders. Since then, more than 40 laws have been waived using the act.

“Congress commonly waives preexisting laws, but the new waiver provision uses language and a combination of terms not typically seen in law,” the Congressional Research Service noted in a 2009 report.

To environmental advocates, these waivers are a blatant admission that the US’s current border fence has harmed the areas it passes through—and that Trump’s wall across the southern border would be disastrous for the region’s ecology.

The planned new fencing in New Mexico could put rare wildlife species at risk, Kevin Bixby, the executive director of the nearby Southwest Environmental Center, told me. Among the species in the area are badgers, coyotes, longhorns, bobcats, and mountain lions, he said.

“This is going to prevent animals from going across the landscape to find water, which is very important in the Chihuahuan Desert, and it will make it harder for them to find mates,” said Bixby. “It will divide populations that span the border and create smaller more isolated populations. That’s a recipe for extinction.”

Brian Segee, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity species program, told me that wildlife will be harmed whether this barrier is like the Bush administration’s 18-foot bollard wall or taller and more solid like what Trump has proposed.

“Whatever manner of fencing that is put there will have environmental impacts and prevent wildlife movement where such wildlife wasn't prevented before,” said Segee.

Segee and the Center for Biological Diversity, along with the state of California, have sued to block DHS’s recent waiver to construct 14 miles of bollard wall in the San Diego area. But three legal challenges to waivers in the Bush era were unsuccessful, since the REAL ID Act creates sweeping protections for the waiver power, Segee explained. A waiver can only be challenged on constitutional grounds, and if a district court rules in favor of the waiver, only the Supreme Court can hear the case.

Already dozens of wildlife species have been impacted by the Bush-era fence that spans about one-third of the border, researchers in 2011 documented. The fence has divided 45 species in specialized habitats, leaving the majority of the species on one side of the barrier and the other side isolated, University of Texas researcher Jesse Lasky found. And in Arizona, scientists found that puma and coati were far more likely to appear in areas away from border fencing.

But most environmental impact has not been tracked, since the US government “threw laws in the trashcan” that would provide for such documentation, said Dan Mills, a program manager with the Sierra Club’s Borderlands Project.

Mills has also expressed concern about the new wall’s impact on climate change if the structure is built with cement, a source of greenhouse gas emissions. And on the Texas-Mexico border, where the border wall is slated to bisect a butterfly sanctuary and wildlife refuge, residents fear flooding could increase just south of the barrier, which would sit beside the Rio Grande river.

By waiving the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the federal government is also trampling tribal land claims, said Ezra Rosser, a law professor at American University who specializes in Native American economic development and law. “There could be even fairly far removed tribes that we now don't think of as being on border that may have some claim to the land,” Rosser told me. “Congress intended to provide such protections.”

But in the name of national security, these waivers are absolutely necessary to erect border barriers swiftly and efficiently, said Jayson Ahern, former acting commissioner of customs and border protection under the Bush administration. Ayhern said the agency still considered the environment when issuing such waivers, but that the environmental regulations were “long and onerous and could take years” to fulfill before building.

“There is a conscious decision made to make sure you protect human life as well as communities in those border areas,” Ayhern told me, explaining that when he worked under waivers he still evaluated environmental impacts. “It doesn't concern me because I know the process going back, and I know the people involved, and that they're looking at processes in place to secure border and to secure the homeland, but not to do foolish things that would disregard the environment or wildlife.”

Ayhern said that in many cases, a border barrier actually “improved areas that had been stomped on and littered upon.”

“You have illegal border crossings occurring in these environmentally protected lands, and you see destruction because of people entering country, making temporary camps and playing hide and seek with Border Patrol,” he said.

Veteran Border Patrol Agent Kent Lundgren, who co-founded the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, said the US government should prioritize blocking undocumented immigrants and drugs, and that the wilderness would remain strong.

“More than just being a barrier which [a wall] can usefully be, it is a message to a government south of us that does not recognize that border as a legitimate impediment to free passage,” Lundgren told me. “Wildlife adapt. I've worked outdoors my life, and if you put an impediment to an animal passage they find a way to cope with that.”

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Meredith Hoffman on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.


Canadians Spent Nearly $6-Billion on Cannabis Last Year

0
0

New data from Statistics Canada estimates Canadians spent an estimated $5.7 billion on cannabis in 2017. Cannabis is set to become fully legal and regulated this year in the country.

According to Stats Canada, about 4.9 million Canadians between the ages of 15 and 64 said they use cannabis. Those who use cannabis spend an average of about $1,200 per year on it, which works out to about $23 per week.

An estimated 90 percent of those billions of dollars spent last year was for non-medical cannabis, i.e. from illegal sources.

Because cannabis is not yet fully legal in Canada, some of Statistics Canada’s numbers are based on "a number of assumptions, models and sparse data sources related to the production of the mostly illegal cannabis industry.”

That said, Stats Canada estimates Canadians between ages 25 and 44 years old spent the most on cannabis out of any age bracket last year, nearly $2.5 billion. Those between 18 and 24 years old spent about $1.5 billion last year.

Statistics Canada estimates the overall average Canadians are paying per gram is $7.48. In British Columbia, the average is $6.98 per gram; in Ontario it’s $7.33 per gram.

In 2016, Stats Canada estimates that Canadians overall spent just over $6 billion on cannabis—slightly more than they did last year.

Stats Canada also says Canada illegally exported about $1.2 billion in cannabis last year.

Two Conservative Leaders Resign As #MeToo Hits Canadian Politics

0
0

In a stunning turn of events, Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown resigned after being accused of sexual misconduct by two women earlier in his career.

According to a CTV investigation, one of the women was a teenager when Brown took her to his house, gave her booze, and pulled out his penis, asking her to perform oral sex on him a decade ago. The other woman was one of his staffers—a university student—when he was a federal Conservative MP. She alleges Brown gave her lots of alcohol at a charity hockey event she organized in Barrie, Ontario, and invited her and others back to his house where he took her into his bedroom. There, she told CTV, he started kissing her, and lay on top of her while he had an erection. She said she was immobilized and told him to stop at which point he took her home.

“I would characterize that as a sexual assault,” she told CTV.

In a brief and bizarre press conference Wednesday night at the Ontario legislature, Brown denied the allegations before CTV published its story.

“A couple of hours ago I learned about troubling allegations about my conduct and my character,” he told reporters. “These allegations are false. Categorically untrue, every one of them. I will defend myself as hard as I can, with all means at my disposal. It’s never OK. It’s never OK for anyone to feel they have been a victim of sexual harassment, or feel threatened in any way.” He went on to say the allegations are “not how I was raised, it’s not who I am.”

Shortly after the presser, six of Browne’s aides including his press secretary, campaign manager, and chief of staff resigned. Brown issued a statement 1:30 AM Thursday saying he’d decided to resign following conversations with members of his caucus.

“These allegations are false and have been difficult to hear. However, defeating Kathleen Wynne in 2018 is more important than one individual,” the statement said.

“For this reason, after consulting with caucus, friends and family I have decided to step down as Leader of the Ontario PC Party. I will remain on as a MPP while I definitively clear my name from these false allegations.”

The controversy comes just half a year before the next provincial election and less than 24 hours after Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leader Jamie Baillie was forced to resign over allegations of workplace harassment. Meanwhile, Kent Hehr, the federal Liberal minister for sports and people with disabilities, was accused Wednesday of sexually harassing former colleagues while he was in the Alberta legislature.

It appears the #MeToo movement has found its way to Canadian politics. However, not everyone is convinced the spate of scandals will result in real change.

Arezoo Najibzadeh, 22, a sexual violence survivor and former Liberal party volunteer has long been outspoken about the culture of misogyny on Parliament Hill.

Reacting to the news about Brown, she told VICE, “it’s about time.”

Working on the Hill, she said you often hear allegations about powerful men but until now, none of them have come out publicly. In looking at the allegations against Brown, she said it’s important to consider the power dynamics at play.

“It’s folks with a lot of influence and social and political capital on Parliament Hill and on the other hand we have young women who have nothing to fall back on.” For victims who come forward, she said, they’re risking isolation and credibility.

But Najibzadeh also said women in powerful positions are to blame as well.

“All the more influential women MPs and advocates who know about men like (Brown) who know these abusive behaviours and say nothing and do nothing,” she said. For women to make it in politics, she said there’s a pressure to join the “boys club” and overlook misogyny.

She also emphasized the isolation felt by women of colour or queer women in the political space.

“You have women having to overcome language barriers, you have women having to trust government again or trust in the power and the good of politics again and to be carrying all that baggage as a racialized woman while trying to deal with white supremacy and sexism—that’s a huge burden.”

In October, VICE reported on a women’s panel at which Liberal MP Yasmin Ratansi was accused of making victim blaming remarks regarding sexual harassment in politics.

Najibzadeh and others in attendance told VICE Ratansi said "sexual violence happens because women sexualize themselves" and that when it comes to dealing with sexual harassment, women should should have thicker skin and treat these encounters "like water off a duck's back."

Ratansi later issued an apology over her remarks.

Najibzadeh said if the #MeToo moment is actually going to result in long-term change in politics, survivors’ voices and stories need to be elevated.

Last summer, the federal government unveiled its strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence, including $100 million to research the problem and come up with solutions.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

David Copperfield Accused of Drugging and Sexually Assaulting Teen Model

0
0

A former teen model accused David Copperfield of sexual assault on Wednesday, saying the world-renowned magician drugged and attacked her in 1988, when she was 17 years old.

Brittney Lewis told the Wrap she first met Copperfield at a modeling competition in Japan, which he helped judge. Soon after, she said, he invited her to see him perform in California, where they stayed in adjacent hotel rooms. After his show, the magician—who was 32 at the time—allegedly took Lewis to a bar and poured something into her drink. Lewis said she then blacked out and vaguely remembered being placed in a cab before she came to in her hotel room—with Copperfield on top of her.

“I remember my clothes being taken off,” she told the Wrap. “He was kissing my face and then I remember him starting to go down on my body with his face, and then, as soon as he started going down, I just completely blacked out.”

Lewis added that Copperfield came into her room the next day and assured her that "nothing happened because I was underage," allegedly promising, "I didn’t enter you." Lewis said she flew home that day after Copperfield had her write a letter affirming she was OK, and never saw him again.

Copperfield did not explicitly address Lewis's allegations in the article, but did issue a statement on Twitter Wednesday that seemed to allude to an allegation against him dating back to 2007, when a woman named Lacey Carroll accused him of sexual assault. The FBI investigated that claim but never filed charges against Copperfield, who insisted he was innocent. In 2010, Carroll was charged for making a false assault accusation against another man, a crime she eventually copped to.

Lewis told the Wrap she didn't plan to take legal action against Copperfield. In any event, the statute of limitations for the incident has expired, one legal expert told the outlet, because Lewis reported it to the FBI in 2007 after hearing about the Carroll case. That report started a one-year clock for criminal or civil charges over Lewis's own allegation.

In his statement, Copperfield claimed to support #MeToo, but also labeled "false accusers" a "true disservice to those who have been victims of sexual assault."

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, a strong majority of sexual assaults have historically gone unreported, and most research suggests false accusations are exceedingly rare.

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Judah Friedlander Is a Ping-Pong Freak

0
0

I write about politics for a living, but when I'm off the clock, I enjoy collecting knives, doing crossword puzzles, and baking cookies. In my new web series, "Eve's Hobbies," I hang out with successful people and have them teach me about their secret passions. In the first episode, I hang out with comedian Judah Friedlander, the onetime 30 Rock regular with a new stand-up special on Netflix, who is also a master of ping-pong. He taught me about the ins and outs of the game, which is much more complicated than you might think, and also spoke about comedy, #MeToo, and the collapse of the American empire. Enjoy!

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Eve Peyser on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Trump Wanted Art So This Museum Offered Him a Gold Toilet

0
0

A few months back, the White House reached out to the Guggenheim Museum and asked to borrow a Van Gogh for the president and Melania Trump's private residence. The request seemed reasonable enough—museums have lent presidents fine art before—but the Guggenheim couldn't make it happen. Instead, its curator gave the Trumps another option: an 18-karat, solid-gold toilet.

According to the Washington Post, more than 100,000 patrons of the Guggenheim had already gone to town in Maurizio Cattelan's masterwork—titled, simply, "America"—and he wanted to extend the same privilege to the First Couple. The museum's curator, Nancy Spector, passed on the message: "Should the President and First Lady have any interest in installing it in the White House," she wrote, the crapper was all theirs.

"It is, of course, extremely valuable and somewhat fragile, but we would provide all the instructions for its installation and care," Spector added, according to an email obtained by the Post.

Spector once called the sculpture "a cipher for the excesses of affluence." It's reportedly worth more than $1 million in gold alone, but it's also been shit, pissed, and otherwise violated in by an army of regular old plebes. The Guggenheim removed it from a fifth-floor bathroom at the museum in September—and in Spector's eyes, "it was the Trump reference that resonated so loudly during the sculpture’s time at the Guggenheim." Only makes sense that the president should get to use it himself.

It doesn't look like the Trumps took Cattelan up on his offer, despite the fact that they could use a reliable toilet at the White House. The artist and shitter enthusiast wouldn't go into details about why he'd offered "America" to the president—he's known for being enigmatic, to say the least—but when the Post pressed him on the question, he at least gave them something.

"What's the point of our life?" he asked. "Everything seems absurd until we die and then it makes sense."

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

'Waco' Is Wack

0
0

The most famous footage of David Koresh features the bespectacled leader of the Branch Davidians slouched against an unadorned wall, speaking directly into a camera provided by FBI agents amid the fateful 51-day standoff. "Being an American first, I'm the kind of guy that will stand in front of a tank," he says unblinkingly, neither antagonizing nor exaggerating. He's deadly serious when he says, "You can run over me, but I'll be biting one of the tracks. No one's gonna hurt me or my family. That's American policy."

At its heart, the Waco siege that resulted in the deaths of 76 people (including Koresh) sublimated an issue that had all but bubbled over by the time ATF agents stormed the burned-out cult compound on April 19, 1993: the point at which citizens' rights to self-determination end, and the rights of the state to serve its impression of people's interests begin.

It's the fundamental conflict that grounds every fight over abortion, gun control, and taxation today—which is why it's so disappointing that the meandering first episode of the Paramount Network's Waco miniseries concerns itself more with a marginally recognizable cast and being "ripped from the headlines." These concerns take center stage, rather than the dreams, fears, and hopes that could ignite a long-overdue conversation between a government of the people and the people it purportedly serves—a conversation that feels especially needed now.

On paper, the cast is very strong. Haunted heartthrob Taylor Kitsch stars as Koresh opposite the looming Michael Shannon as FBI negotiator Gary Noesner. But the veil-piercing, thousand-yard stare Kitsch hardened in the underrated second season of True Detective is flattened here, making a mullet-wearing musician out of a minister whose remaining followers still await his resurrection 24 years later. Shannon does his best to portray a man torn between a genuine desire to save people and an increasingly militarized police force, but a particularly trite "Bad day at work, honey?" moment at home in Waco's first episode—literally following the Ruby Ridge catastrophe—all but ensured that he's just along for the ride.

Character-actor mainstay Shea Whigham is reduced to "git'er done" levels of gumption as FBI hostage rescue agent Richard M. Rogers; a desperately uninventive decision to cast Julia Garner as Waco victim Michele Jones turns the talented Electrick Children actress into a manic-pixie-cult-girl. Yet again, producers picked the wrong Culkin in their casting of Rory as David Thibodeau—and where's Janet Reno in all this, too?

But the biggest problem with Waco isn't the casting—in fact, I'll keep watching just to see the indefatigable John Leguizamo, who wrote one of the sharpest Hollywood critiques of 2017, as undercover ATF agent Robert Rodriguez. Waco's biggest issue is the writing, which loses the plot at levels that evince the "we know better"-ism of most politicians and pundits during the 2016 presidential campaign. Gone are the pathos that turned a dyslexic Texas pastor into a prophet, as well as the level of devotion that made his male followers take vows of celibacy while Koresh alone had children with their wives. All but missing is the urgency of law officials to assert their prudence over a population perceived to be growing increasingly irrational.

The constant use of medium shots featuring little to no narrative-supporting elements in the background suggest that we'll never get close to people whose ghosts still resolutely haunt the American psyche. In a "ripped from the headlines" television landscape with the award-winning performances of The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story on one side, and even the memorable production design of Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders on the other, Waco feels like a whiff that won't get another do-over. Despite the opportunity to show the human cost of ideology-plus-weaponry on a larger-than-life level, we sadly end up with something that's hardly dignifying to anyone, least of all the survivors. Their memories, and ours, deserve better, and thus far Waco ultimately suffers from the same thing that made it a tragedy in the first place—caring too much about ideas, and not people.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

The Star of 'Black Lightning' On Why It’s a Great Time to Be a Black Nerd

0
0

Salim Akil and Cress Williams are really damn happy throughout our conversation. Everyone is really damn black in this conversation. And as far as superheroes are concerned, the inclusion of blackness has “finally” entered into the entire damn larger conversation.

“I gotta say, this is all so exciting man. I mean it's crazy right? It's like being in the Harlem Renaissance,” an excited Akil tells me. His enthusiasm makes it easy to forget his age. This is a very grown man whose directorial career included the likes of Girlfriends, The Game, Being Mary Jane and now the CW’s Black Lightning.

In case you didn’t already know, Black Lightning is about the blackest thing on the CW (and now airing on Netflix) right now. Loosely based on a DC comic strip, you got a guy named Jefferson Pierce with the powers of electricity. Big whoop. But instead of the same ol’ super powered villains or aliens to take out, his decision to come out of retirement stems from true-to-life street-level crimes that impact his community and that thing called police brutality.

Our main man is of course played by the very smooth, Cress Williams, best known from his stints on 90210, Living Single, and Friday Night Lights among others. Everything about this show is rooted in blackness. No compromises. You never get the sense that it shys away from actual issues that affect its actual viewers of colour (maybe unlike virtually every other superhero show/movie ever?…).

Black Lightning is part of a wave of optimism. Our excitement over the upcoming Black Panther goes deep; there’s a longing that many nerds of colour never fully knew they had. Going in, it was my intention to talk some Black Lightning, but also speak about that fresh optimism that we all feel around this new era of black super heroism.

VICE: Cress, your career is pretty varied. You’ve done so much, Living Single being a personal favourite of mine. But being a superhero, the first black starring superhero for DC, how much did you really want this role?
Cress Williams: Man, more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life, mostly because I’m a big superhero fan. When I started to see all the great things happening with The Avengers and things of that nature, it just seemed obvious that the superhero thing was becoming a respected genre. That made wanting to become a superhero seem so much more important. Sure, I had opportunities but there are only so many leading black superheroes out there in the comic book space. Yeah I knew of the upcoming Black Panther, but I was aged and not as famous. I got an audition for the show Luke Cage and that didn’t work out. So as I was starting to give up, Black Lightning fell into my lap, and I didn’t even have to read the script, I just wanted a shot. And yeah, I was insecure about it, often wondering if some big star was waiting in the wings to take it up, but Salim Akil (creator) said that I was the guy he wanted from the very beginning.

And obviously Salim, this is very different for you. You’re coming from Being Mary Jane , The Game , the iconic Girlfriends. A lot of black-centric shows but how did a DC superhero end up in that mix?
Salim Akil: Coming from BET, we made a deal at Warner Brothers, sitting down with everyone involved in talking about that next big project.For me though, I wanted to reintroduce a certain type of black man into television. My idea was to take all the milestone media comic book characters out there and adapt them. Like oh man, in my mind, this was going to be great, but of course...they were all unavailable. But they knew of my interest in comic books, so they said look, we got a project that we’d like to do from DC called Black Lighting, would you be interested? So me, being a black man, we always gotta play it cool, so I played it cool and said, well you know, I’ll take a look at it (laughs). Of course inside I was like, hell yeah (laughs). Why do us black folk always gotta be cool in the moment? (laughs)

Top left to right, creators Mara and Salim Aki | Source: Getty

Just comes natural I guess. But Cress, this isn’t your first DC role here. We’re talking Lois and Clark as Baron Sunday, a villain. That feels like a completely different time compared to now, where we have black heroes at the forefront. How do you measure the importance of seeing that?
Williams: I think it’s paramount and interesting. Villains are a lot of fun generally speaking because they have more texture than most heroes. On one side, it’s two dimensional, and on the other, there’s more colour, because villains are inherently flawed. But here, we’re getting a three dimensional hero. He’s got problems, issues, flaws, and family. He’s not a version of Greek mythology, where he’ll be above what’s going down and swoop in to save the day. He’s in the fray, not above it. It allows me to just play to what’s true. I don’t have to pretend.

Man, when thinking about my short time on Lois And Clark, to now, it’s all just exciting. Just thinking about it now fills me with optimism. After Obama’s presidency, where we ended up with the guy we got now, that optimism was no longer there. Even for me. I started to think we hadn’t made much progress. But seeing moments like this, with Black Panther along with Luke Cage...man. We got a long ways to go, don’t get me wrong, but this is also a testament to the fact that we’ve made progress. I’m extremely excited.

And in the light of #blacklivesmatter, police brutality, and black on black crime, issues that have an effect on black folks like myself and Black Lightning equally. Do you feel it as a responsibility to have them addressed in some way through your art?
Akil: For me, what I feel is a responsibility to be true to who I am. That’s first. If it works in the art, I’ll put it in the art. Ultimately, it’s also about entertainment. We want folks to have fun with the fact that he has powers and that he fights. But in the midst of that, I have to speak and write on the things that I know. I wanted it to be as what people call now, authentic as possible. But here’s the thing, if we’re not talking about so-called black on black crime, whose gonna do it? It’s human on human crime. If people stop putting the black label on it, then maybe folks would pay attention. If it’s just niggas over here killing each other, it just seems like, whatever, let them do their thing. These are Americans, and young human beings. They didn’t put the guns there, nor manufactured them. They didn’t create these drugs out of a lab. So in Black Lightning, yes, we start with those issues, but we expand the thought and vision to say, but why and how?

The conversation around diversity has been making its rounds with #oscarssowhite, and the praise for Get Out ’s recent nominations. Cress, you’ve obviously been around way before any of these conversations were happening through hashtags. Tell me about your own issues up until this point.
Williams: For me, I’ve been in this industry as an actor since the early 90s. I’ve seen things change for the good, and I’ve seen the other kind of thing. When I first started auditioning, the opportunities weren’t there. As a man of colour, you often felt like you were furniture most of the time. More of a device than an actual character. As you move along this system, you’d see these auditions that stated, open to all ethnicities. It would be easy to go, and you’d think, oh hey, things are changing, but then you’d see some character named Irish Smith. O....k, and you’d go in the waiting room and you’re the only person of colour there. So the audition begins, and before you’ve said your first line, you feel the mental wall that says, I don’t have a shot at this at all, and that these people aren’t really considering me. Any actor of colour is familiar with this, well call them fake auditions. Many of them are placed there to make certain people feel like they’ve been responsible to the times.

When the wave of diversity talks began, everyone white would say that it was a great time for us. But even on my end, what I experienced was yeah, it’s a great time for the famous black folk (laughs), because it’s about diversity, but really around famous black folks getting more opportunities. Those still trying to slug it out, you’re in the same boat. My manager and I talk about it all the time. On the other hand, white talent is cultivated. You get people who pop up that haven’t had a job, and suddenly, they’re a breakout star because of the cultivation. That doesn’t often happen with people of colour. I’m hoping we still move forward though. Every actor just wants to be treated as equal.

Image source: Netflix

And Salim, in a lot of ways, folks like yourself have been alternatives to those barriers that exist. This may be obvious, but has it always been intentional on your part given the mostly black on script resume?
Akil: Well I think the secret is out about that right now. Our company motto is that we do black on purpose. There’s this thing that used to go around where it would be, oh this character just happens to be black. Well no. In our stories, the characters are black on purpose, and not only do we find excitement in that, we find life in that. That’s what our business was. That we knew that we could create things for the black community and they would come because they want to see themselves. That’s the secret. It’s just good business. We knew that from the beginning, and respected that market in the same way. We’ve never wavered from it, and god willing, never will. Luke Cage, Black Lightning, Black Panther...they can all come out and all do well. The myth that you can only have one or the other has been broken and busted up. And hopefully, I’ll get to do those milestone comics in the future. Put that in the article, show people that I still want it (laughs).

And going back to Black Lightning and other things like it, as a black nerd myself, it’s hard to express how important it is for me personally to see superheroes that look like myself get their shine. How does to be a part of all that?
Williams: Man. A shorthanded answer would be that it's beautiful. It's extremely exciting. But it's interesting, because I guess when you're doing something like this, and you're in the midst of doing it, you almost don't know the full impact it’s having.

Man, people are really showing up impact wise. From Black Panther breaking records to Black Lightning being one of the best performing shows on the CW at the moment.
Akil: You know what was so fucking cool two nights ago man? The second episode came on, and I was sitting there with my boys and one of them was sneaking actually, peaking around the corner because he’s supposed to be in bed. But to see us go to commercial, and to then see a Black Panther trailer? I was like man, what it must feel like to be a black kid right now. To be able to go to school and talk about this stuff. My kids go to private schools, which are predominantly white, and there’s maybe one of five black kids up at that school. For them to be able to walk through the doors, and have that strength, and feel like they have their own super hero...I think that’s great. I remember what it felt for me when people would be talking about these heroes when I was a kid, but couldn’t point to a black Superman. I gotta say, this is all so exciting man. (laughs) I mean it's crazy right? It's like being in the Harlem Renaissance.

Follow Noel Ransome on Twitter.


I Spent Three Strange Days on a Prison Bus to See a Doctor

0
0

This article was published in collaboration with the Marshall Project.

One morning, I am woken up by an officer telling me I’m scheduled to be on a bus ride to the hospital with other prisoners, also known as a “medical chain,” the next day. Lately, I’ve been experiencing a series of irregular heartbeats that cause me to pass out and become a burden on the staff, which apparently has become enough of a nuisance for them to refer me to a cardiologist at a hospital in Galveston, Texas.

As I rub the sleep from my eyes, I begin the task of strategically packing my property into potato sacks, otherwise known as “chain bags.” I dread the misery of the next three days: seemingly endless riding on a cramped bus; suffering from motion sickness while handcuffed to an inmate with bad breath; having to use the on-board toilet while trying to keep balanced; and, worst of all, strip-searches and an inventory of my property each time I enter or leave a facility.

On about four hours of sleep, Day 1 begins with the Blue Bird’s departure (that’s the type of bus), transporting myself and about 25 other female prisoners. Our first stop, after an hours-long drive, is a men’s prison, which just so happens to primarily house sex offenders.



We are offloaded behind two sets of fences lined with razor wire and escorted to dirty segregation cells where we will stay for a few hours so the drivers can change shifts. The male prisoners stare at me like I am a piece of fresh meat; one of them grabs his crotch, and the officer escorting us orders him to face the wall as we pass.

By 2 AM, we are on the bus again, after having a total of seven hours of sleep in the past two days. Soon, we arrive at the hospital’s waiting area, and for another eight hours we sit on benches so narrow it’s impossible to stay upright.

After all that, I meet the cardiologist, who seems awful rushed. He administers an EKG—the same thing the unit healthcare provider at the prison had done—and confirms, “Yep, it’s beating too slow…” (duh) and then, “We will have you brought back here in two weeks for some more tests.”

And then he was gone. Five minutes later I am back in the waiting area watching the clock for our departure.

On Day 3 at 2 AM, on a total of nine hours of sleep, we are back on the Blue Bird again, and this time we’re not stopping—not for a person in need of medical attention, not even for a fight. Their reasoning is that a “situation” could be a decoy for an escape attempt; if anything does happen, the bus driver must wait to pull into the next closest prison, which could be anywhere from five to 50 miles away.

All I want is to be back in my bunk in prison. At once, the irony of it all hits me: For years, all I’ve ever thought about is getting out. Now all I want is in!

I sit back in my seat and observe the free world out of a quarter-sized hole in the metal that covers the bus window.

There is not enough moonlight to show the clouds. We could be at 2,000 feet or 22,000, which is also how I feel in relation to my past and future: unanchored, floating between them. How did I get to this point? What good will this dreadful experience do for my future?

Outside I see people under streetlights, pumping gas into their vehicles; a man on his cell phone who looks lost; a worker passing bags of burgers through a drive-thru window. At a red light, I see a woman—who appears to be a prostitute—jump out of one car, straighten her mini-skirt, and hop into another. Later, I see homes and businesses in various stages of construction, taco stands, and a couple on the side of the road assessing a fender bender they just got into.

What catches my attention the most are the children. When you live in a place where they are absent, they seem suddenly strange, with their short little legs chasing their mothers into stores. If they only knew the value of the freedom they possess.

I think back to driving to work, paying the bills, the free world in all its normalcy.

I think back, also, to a decade ago, when I sobered up just in time for my daughter to be born. I remember watching her finish her bottle, before reaching her tiny fingers toward my face. I’d thought about how perfect she was.

But I couldn’t wait to get high once she was born. Two months after that, I was 30 pounds lighter and would soon stand before a judge and a caseworker to determine the placement of my child. My cousin offered to be an adoptive parent, wanting nothing more than the chance at what I had been so freely given, yet so easily taken for granted: motherhood.

My daughter, with her big, forgiving eyes, deserved so much more than I could give her, and it would only be a matter of time before my unwillingness to change, to get sober, would taint her perfection. To continue holding on felt selfish.

Finally, one day, I handed her small squirming body to my cousin as a tear slipped from my eye.

Who knows what could have become of my daughter had I dragged her through a lifestyle of drug-induced dysfunction? Maybe one day she will appreciate what I did and want to get to know me.

As the wheels on the bus go round, my mind spins, thinking about the many mistakes I’ve made. The memories serve several functions; one is to dampen the longing for freedom that is stirring in my soul because I didn’t cherish my freedom when I actually had it.

Some incarcerated people say it is easier not to think about freedom at all.

Suddenly the ride is over. I step off the bus and the early morning sunlight assaults my eyes. With one last look at the Blue Bird, I realize that I will never forget this trip. And I don’t want to forget: It reminds me that no matter how painful, I cannot forget that time is valuable, and that I may yet become a free bird again.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not respond to a request for comment on "medical chain" bus conditions.

Deidre McDonald, 34, is incarcerated at the Carol Young Complex in Dickinson, Texas, where she is serving a maximum sentence of 30 years for forgery offenses stemming from a drug addiction.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

We Can't Stop Arguing About This Stupid Meme

0
0

On Thursday, our Canadian counterparts blogged about a meme that tore them apart. Basically, it asks you to pick a pair of fighters from a three-by-three grid and imagine them as your allies in a hypothetical doomsday scenario. The choices are made with the understanding that whatever goes unpicked would become an enemy dead-set on killing you.

When the post went live, the team at VICE US first agreed that the Canadians made absolutely terrible decisions. Then everyone went on to make their own picks in a wide-ranging argument that may have actually damaged personal relationships. After I typed EAGLE AND GATOR over and over in all caps into our group chat, I sort of got what it's like to really, really care about the Super Bowl.

Anyway, the people who felt passionate about their choices were asked to contribute their rationales below. Here they are:

50 Eagles, 10 Gators

I'm operating under the assumption that you don't have mind control over your allies, and both they and your enemies in this scenario would be like Terminators or the zombies from 28 Days Later in the sense that they'd be all kill, all the time. That said, I'm not going to pick the rats, because under my logic they wouldn't be able to do shit like play defense. I also don't see any way that they would be able to take down a gator. That's why you gotta pick 'em. They're basically tanks!

Honestly, there's nothing in this grid that can take down a gator besides the guy with the gun. Some of my co-workers seem to think the trick would be getting the birds to go for their eyes, but like, they could just shut them? That's not a very vulnerable weak spot, IMO. Anyway, that wouldn't even be an option here, because I'm picking the birds, who's only possible threat would be the guy with the gun. That said, 50 eagles is an insane number, and there's no rifle on the planet that has that many rounds in it, nor is there any marksman alive who could pick off dozens of apex predator birds before they descended upon him. Best he could do would be pick off one or two.

With the human quickly disposed of, my indestructible dinosaur team would absolutely wipe the floor with their remaining foes. It might take a long time, but they'd definitely be able to pick off the rats one by one. I feel extremely strongly that this is the objectively correct answer and would be willing to fight anyone to the death who believes otherwise. At the very least, the concept of sports rioting makes a lot more sense to me now.

Go Eagles! Gonna go find a greased pole to try to climb up and maybe light a car on fire now. See ya!

@allie_conti

10,000 Rats, 50 Eagles

First of all, you need land AND air in this situation. Eagles are the only air option, so you'd have to be a moron not to pick them. Also, have you ever seen an eagle? They're bigger than they look, and they'll fuck you up easy. Who can come against the eagles? The hunter? He'll pick like maybe two of them off before they pick his eyes out. Not even going to discuss the eagles matchup vs the other animals because it's not worth my time, and you're just a contrarian if you think they could beat them. Also, there's only 47 of the other creatures. 50>47. So there's that.

In regards to the rats, I'm just going to leave this here:

One rat almost chewed through that dude by itself. Now imagine having 10,000 creatures like that on your side. That's more than 200 rats for each of you opponents, chewing on them and shit. The gorillas are shook just thinking about it. Also they're more agile than anything else on that table and harder to fight due to their size.

So, yeah, that's why I'm right and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

P.S. anyone who picks the hunter for any reason is a cop.

@SlimiHendrix

50 Eagles, 1 Hunter

There is literally only one correct answer to this meme: eagles and hunter. Let's start with the eagles, which are by far the most valuable asset in this game. There is a reason why air superiority is the first objective a modern military seeks to achieve during war. If you own the air, you will almost certainly win the conflict. In this case, simply picking the eagles achieves total air superiority. The eagles will kill everything, and nothing will be able to kill the eagles.

If you think 10,000 rats are a problem, realize that they represent only 200 sorties by the eagles. At one sortie per minute, those rats are dead in an afternoon. Many of you will undoubtedly say that an eagle cannot take down something as robust as a gorilla or crocodile. But YouTube is replete with examples to the contrary. And even if the eagles struggle to pierce the armor of a crocodile with their razor-sharp talons, they can easily just take out the eyes of all comers and slowly pick at their prey as they die from infection.

There is only one thing that stands in the way of the eagles dominating this scenario, and that thing is the gun. The only creature that can easily kill something that flies is the hunter. Therefore, it is necessary to pick the hunter in order to ensure that the only gun in the game does not take out our precious eagles. If the hunter were to be killed in the first minute of the game, it would be just fine. It's all about the eagles. If along the way the hunter takes out some gorillas or bears, probably the only other creatures to pose even a small risk to the eagles, all the better. In conclusion:

–Michael Bolen

10,000 Rats, 50 Eagles

I would choose the 50 eagles and 10,000 rats. If the animals are, as the meme says, defending me, I presume that they are ignoring their biological instincts and making decisions that will result in me being protected. That makes this a cut-and-dry numbers game.

Any animal with skin will be exhausted if they manage to get through my vermin family's countless bites and scrapes. Think about how many rats 10,000 is. The average rat can grow up to a pound in body mass. That's 10,000 pounds of grimy whoop-ass coming down on you. The eagles will finish off anyone who gets close enough to threaten me.

With this combination, I rule the land and the sky. Also the sea, because rats can swim for a mile without getting tired. All I have to do is find some high ground or a narrow area where the larger animals have to approach one on one, and I can handle myself until their soft, exposed body parts are open to an attack from my gnaw squad.

The biggest challenge to my strategy is the hunter with the gun. With a long-range weapon, he could ignore the horde and shoot me from afar. My only chance would be to sic a fleet of eagles on him. With their ability to spot small prey from hundreds of feet in the air, I think they would find him before he found me.

It's not pretty, and I would definitely need to shower afterward, but this is clearly the most likely strategy to result in my survival.

@BeckettMufson

50 Eagles, 15 Wolves

Look, eagles are obvious. If you have 50 eagles coming after you, you are going to be bloody and eyeless and screaming faster than you can say, "Oh, hey, is that an eagle?" Eagles can reach speeds of 100 miles per hour when they're diving—a coordinated attack by eagles is going to be able to take down most of these animal groups, and unless the hunter is Hawkeye he's not going to be able to shoot and move quickly enough to do much about those birds.

I understand the arguments for rats. A swarm of rodents can do a lot of damage. But can they stop charging bulls and bears and lions? In that scenario, you're probably dead, and the last thing you'll see is a bunch of animals being engulfed by biting rats while they're simultaneously trampling on the rats. Think about the blood. Think about the sounds. So, no thanks. The gators are tempting—why not retreat to a swamp and surround yourself with gators? Then you're in the swamp, idiot, and what are you going to do, stay there for the rest of your life?

No, the correct answer is to bundle yourself up in high-grade snow gear and head to some mountains, preferably wooded ones, with the wolves. None of these animals, except the bears, will do well in the cold climate, and the eagles/wolves combination can overcome those guys easily. Some creatures, like the gators, will probably freeze to death before they can even get to you. A lot of those dangerous rats will die in the snow, and the rest of them can have their little skulls crushed easily by the eagles. You're welcome.

-@HCheadle

10,000 Rats, 50 Eagles

I can't think of anything more terrifying than the concept of 10,000 rats. Rats can chew through metal (which is, dare I say, metal as hell), which means they can chew through flesh. So I definitely want the rats on my side; there may be some chance of a rat king occurring and taking some out of commission, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Since they are land-based, I would want command of another element, so I pick eagles as my second choice. With the eagles and rats fighting alongside each other, there won't be any issue of the eagles swooping/eating the rats, yet they'll swoop in and knock out the other animals trying to kill me.

- @annaroseiovine

15 Wolves, 1 Hunter

You people have this all wrong. It's not about winning, it's about the experience. In all likelihood no one is coming out of this scenario alive, so you might as well just enjoy the ride. With that in mind, I'm going with the dude with the gun so I have someone human to chat with for a bit before the animal onslaught, and then I'll go with the wolves so I could hear some pleasant howling as the eagles or whatever clawed my eyes out.

@PeterSlattery3

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Tinder Didn’t Ruin TV Dating, It Made These Shows Better

0
0

In the pilot episode of Sex and the City, which first aired in 1998, Carrie meets Mr. Big in a simple stroke of fate. She drops her bag on a busy New York City sidewalk, and Big stops to help her pick up her spilled belongings. He hands her a strip of condoms and she bashfully thanks him. In a split second, all thanks to a dropped purse, Carrie’s life is changed forever.

This is what Hollywood likes to call the “meet cute.” Eli Wallach’s character Arthur describes this to Kate Winslet’s character Iris in the 2006 film The Holiday, by using an example of a man and a woman shopping for pajamas in the same store. “The man says to the salesman, ‘I just need bottoms,’ and the woman says, ‘I just need a top,’” Arthur tells Iris. “They look at each other and that's the meet cute.”

The “meet cute” solely relies on fate, and we love it because it’s so rich with hope for single people. For years, film and TV have been constantly feeding us the same, linear narrative of what love looks like. Maybe if you’re just at the right bus stop, at the right time, your undiscovered soulmate will also coincidentally be waiting for the same bus. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this trope is complete bullshit. It creates a romanticized picture of love entwined with fate. Finding love is hard; you actually have to work at it. It’ll take a lot more than just a spilled purse on a sidewalk to meet “the one.”

Sometime around 2012, dating in the real world changed significantly, causing some TV writers to rethink how their characters would find love. Single people everywhere were downloading Tinder, first in secret, as a way to find casual hookups, but then as a way of finding real, long-lasting romantic relationships. By 2014, Tinder was registering about one billion swipes per day, as it quickly became one of the most common ways to meet new singles in your area.

Audiences aren’t relating to on-screen “meet cutes” anymore. Sure, our hearts will still swoon when Marissa asks Ryan, “hey, can I bum a cigarette?” in the first episode of The OC, but more and more shows are taking a realistic view of modern love and are introducing dating apps into storylines. As a result, we’re actually seeing more diverse and relatable heterosexual narratives, offering criticisms of the relationship between love and fate. (It's worth noting that few shows outside of Looking have really explored what dating apps look like in the LGBTQ+ community, as TV still gives us lacklustre representations of dating outside of heteronormativity.)

In season four of Broad City, Abbi matches with one of her old high school teachers on Bumble. This particular episode, while delightfully bizarre, introduces the idea of how dating apps can open new doors within preexisting relationships. When Abbi first met Richard, their relationship had clearly defined roles: student and teacher. But now, several years later, their relationship is deemed “appropriate” (if you’ve seen the episode, you’ll know why that’s questionable). Bumble allows Abbi and Richard to explore a sexual relationship that can exist outside of the prefixed roles.

We also see this same trope in season one of Easy. In the episode entitled “Utopia,” married couple Lucy and Tom use Tinder to find another woman in efforts to fulfill a threesome fantasy. They end up matching with their child’s music teacher, Annie, which is also a relationship that has clearly defined roles. Annie respects Tom and Lucy’s marriage and has a professional friendship with them. Because of these defined roles, the fact that Annie also has a threesome fantasy would have never been discovered. The couple matches with her on Tinder and they have, in a very honest and accurate depiction, some good old fashioned group sex. Both Broad City and Easy are exploring a relatable experience within the realm of dating apps. There’s an unspoken social contract that suggests it’s rude to swipe left on people you know when you see them on a dating app. But is this really just a weird pleasantry? Much like when you see your hot coworker on Tinder and you swipe right, you’re telling yourself that you’re abiding by this social contract, but in reality, you want to bang them.

While these two examples are of altering existing relationships, we’re also seeing characters in our favourite shows create new relationships using dating apps. In season three of Black Mirror, the episode “Playtest” explores using a dating app while travelling. Cooper is travelling England alone and matches with Sonja on an app. Cooper and Sonja meet for drinks and then go back to Sonja’s house, where Cooper spends the night. The two know that the relationship has an expiry date, as Cooper will eventually leave the country, which allows them to share personal stories with each other because there’s zero risk involved. The unnamed dating app that the two use to meet each other brought together two people who otherwise would have never met, and even gave Cooper someone to rely on when his credit card number is stolen and he runs out of funds. This type of Tinder relationship is common; it’s the short lived “I’m only in town for one night” type of hookup, but “Playtest” proves that oftentimes, these types of relationships have more depth than just sex.

In season two of Jane the Virgin, Jane uses “Cynder,” despite expressing she wants the classic “meet cute.” Jane goes on one date with a stranger from the internet, thinks it goes really well, only to find out that he blocked her on the app afterwards for being “clingy.” Even though this is a reality of dating in the digital age, Jane is discouraged from trying again and even ends up meeting someone the “organic” way in the end of the episode. The message of this episode is that the “meet cute” conquers all, which aligns with the show’s telenovela theme, but not with reality.

Similarly, in season four of New Girl, Jess strikes out hard on “Dice,” a fictional dating app. Schmidt acts as Jess’ Dice coach, and teaches her to be skeptical of every man she meets. This episode actually perpetuates the stereotype that apps such as Tinder are watering holes for sex-obsessed, predatory men and that the women on dating apps are naive and gullible. While dating apps should always be used with some caution, this episode moreso gives into the expectation that men on dating apps treat women like garbage. In actuality, Schmidt is warning Jess to stay away from men just like himself without being reflective of the fact that not every man is just like himself. Sure, dating apps can be exhausting when you strike out over and over again, but this dramatized depiction of “bad dates” isn’t reflective of how many people actually have good dates using dating apps.

Any discussion of Tinder on TV would not be complete without Master of None’s much-praised “First Date” episode. Now that Aziz Ansari is facing allegations of sexual misconduct, it’s worth taking a closer look at the show’s approach. The episode follows Dev as he goes on date after date with several different women, perpetuating the idea that men hold the power on app-reliant dates because he controls whether the date is cut short or not. The real kicker though, is when he sleeps with Christine, even though he was initially put off by the racist condom jar on her bedside table. He tells her it’s offensive before leaving her apartment, after having sex with her. Dev most likely had no intentions of seeing her again, but was “caught up in the moment.”

Although the sex itself was consensual, there’s still a line of trickery present. Having consensual sex with a man on the first date, only to find out after that he hated you all along, sadly, is not a new trope. Yes, the jar on her bedside table is fucked up and racist. But he knew there were few, if any, consequences for sleeping with someone he was unlikely to want to see again because of the vague anonymity that exists in dating apps. Though Dev is let off the hook for this slight in Master of None, I’d like to see storylines in TV hold men accountable for this kind of behaviour.

This brings me to another episode of Black Mirror. In the newly released season four, the episode “Hang the DJ,” by far has the most relatable depiction of online dating, even though the episode’s concept seems far off. “Hang the DJ” critiques how fast paced we are when it comes to dating apps and encourages us to be patient and trust our gut. Amy and Frank are living in a society that forces them to serial date, similar to New Girl and Master of None, only far more dramatized. But, isn’t that exactly the world we live in, now? Good dates are oftentimes forgotten about because someone better could be just a swipe away. In “Hang the DJ,” we see Amy trapped in a montage of 36-hour dates. She gets dinner with them, she sleeps with them, she goes home. The endless cycle of emotionless sex, all the while thinking of that one person who got away, was uncomfortably relatable. Most TV shows are offering comedic or romantic examples of dating apps, whereas “Hang the DJ” offered a warning: if you’re always actively looking for true love, you probably won’t recognize it when you do stumble upon it. Although this episode had a hopeful ending, the message was still an excellent foreshadow of where this obsession with having “the best” could lead us.

Ultimately, how we find love is changing, and at least some of the narratives we see in TV and movies need to reflect the dominance of internet dating if they want us believing in their storylines. I want to see my favourite characters deal with the highs and lows of dating apps while looking for love instead of dropping personal belongings on New York City sidewalks.

Follow Beth on Twitter.

'Vanity Fair' Cut James Franco from Cover After Misconduct Accusations

0
0

James Franco was supposed to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair's new 2018 Hollywood Issue, but the magazine reportedly scrubbed him off in the wake of the actor's sexual misconduct allegations.

Sources at Vanity Fair told the Hollywood Reporter that Franco was originally one of about a dozen film and TV stars interviewed and photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the magazine's annual Hollywood Issue. But after five women came forward with accusations against the actor, Vanity Fair decided to digitally delete Franco's image before going to press.

"We made a decision not to include James Franco on the Hollywood cover once we learned of the misconduct allegations against him," the magazine confirmed to the Reporter.

This year's Hollywood Issue cover features Oprah, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks, and Gal Godot, among others. "The films and TV shows represented by the actors in this year’s Hollywood Portfolio... took the #MeToo movement in stride, offering strong women in leading roles, as well as strong men supporting them," Vanity Fair wrote in an announcement this week.

The Hollywood Reporter notes that the stars featured on Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood covers are normally shot individually or in small groups and later pieced together into a complete image, hence the existence of Oprah's third hand. Because of this, the magazine's choice to remove Franco didn't require any last-minute, All the Money in the World-style reshoots—but a change to the cover design right before publication is still rare.

Allegations that Franco exploited and treated some of his acting students inappropriately during scenes followed his Golden Globe win for The Disaster Artist. Although he's denied the accusations, calling them "not accurate" in a Late Show interview, he's kept a low public profile since the LA Times report dropped. A source recently told PEOPLE that he's allegedly "in a bad place" and "just hiding out," and E! News reported that the actor was "somewhat relieved" he didn't receive an Oscar nomination for the film.

A spokesman for Franco has not responded to the Hollywood Reporter's request for comment.

Disclaimer: James Franco has previously written for VICE.

Related: Rose McGowan on Sexism in Hollywood

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

People from Auschwitz Explain What It's Like to Live There

0
0

This article originally appeared on VICE Germany

This Saturday, the 27th of January, will mark the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camps in the south of Poland, where approximately 1 million Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis between 1940 and 1945.

Today, the town Oświęcim, which is the Polish name for Auschwitz, has a population of 40,000 people and attracts over 2 million tourists a year. In 2016, German photographer Felix Adler spent six weeks in Oświęcim, where he talked to locals to hear their thoughts on what it's like to live right next to the former death camps.

Beata

"When you think about it, it does sound a little strange to say, 'I live in Auschwitz'. But life here is actually fairly normal. For example, this new shopping centre that I’m really excited about just opened."

Leszek

"I didn’t choose to live in Auschwitz, it’s just where I was born. I have to make a living, too," Leszek explains. His coal plant stands on the grounds of a former Krupp munitions factory, where people in forced labour produced ammunition for Nazi Germany.

Krzysztof

"As a Jehovah’s Witness, it's my job to spread the word of God in places like this, too," Krzysztof says, standing outside the local Kingdom Hall. "Aside from the fact that so many people were killed here – which was of course really bad – Auschwitz is just like any other town. The people here must always work to make themselves better, and God can help them with that."

Marija

"I like it a lot here, especially in summer. I was actually born in eastern Poland, near Lviv, which is now part of western Ukraine. Then I came here to Auschwitz."

Darek

"Ah, it’s not so bad here – the city is very beautiful and the tourists that come to see the camp always give me money."

Martin and Piotr

"It's weird having to tell people that you’re from Auschwitz," Martin says. "One time, when we were on holiday in Poznan [in western Poland] and we told some people where we were from, they asked us which barracks we lived in."

Zbyszek

"Everyone here calls me King!"

Jan

"My nephew is James A. Pawelczyk, the first Polish astronaut to go into space," fisherman Jan keeps repeating with pride.

Tomasz

Tomasz comes to the banks of the Sola river every day to sunbathe. The SS used to dispose of the ashes from the camp's crematoria in this river, while Rudolf Höß, the commandant of Auschwitz, would bring his children here to play.

Natalia

“I’m not from Auschwitz, I’m from Krakow. We’re just visiting my boyfriend’s grandmother. I’d definitely find living here very strange."

This article originally appeared on VICE DE.

Hillary Clinton Protected Adviser Accused of Sexual Harassment, Report Says

0
0

On Friday, the New York Times reported that one of Hillary Clinton's top advisers during her 2008 presidential campaign was accused of repeated sexual harassment, but Clinton demanded he be kept on the campaign. Burns Strider, Clinton's former faith adviser, who notably sent her passages from scripture every morning, was accused of sexually pestering the 30-year-old woman who he shared his office with. From the Times:

[The woman] told a campaign official that Mr. Strider had rubbed her shoulders inappropriately, kissed her on the forehead, and sent her a string of suggestive emails, including at least one during the night, according to three former campaign officials familiar with what took place.

The complaint was taken to [Patti Solis] Doyle, the campaign manager, who approached Mrs. Clinton and urged that Mr. Strider, who was married at the time, be fired, according to the officials familiar with what took place. Mrs. Clinton said she did not want to, and instead he remained on her staff.

Instead, the woman who made the complaint was given a new position, and Strider was ordered to go to counseling and lost several weeks of pay. In 2016, he was brought back on by the Clinton campaign to run the independent group, Correct the Record, but was ultimately fired for "workplace issues, including allegations that he harassed a young female aide."

The news of Clinton's alleged indifference to sexual harassment illustrates her complicated position as a feminist leader. Accused sexual predator Harvey Weinstein was a longtime Clinton ally, and during the campaign, Trump claimed that Clinton had a history of attacking women who have accused her husband of sexual assault.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Eve Peyser on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Is This Indiana Civil Rights Lawyer the Great Progressive Hope of 2018?

0
0

Less than a day after announcing his campaign for Congress in the parking lot of a brewery near his New Albany, Indiana, home, Dan Canon stood on a bench on a well-trafficked pedestrian bridge over the Ohio River telling anyone who would listen why they deserved healthcare. Some kept walking, some stopped to join in the growing circle around him.

"Healthcare is your right, and you have to assert that right. You get a small group of people that believe that and it spreads. If we tell our elected representatives we [have that right], well, they're not doing their jobs,” he told them in his role as a political busker. “So what do you do? You fire them!”

That’s the sort of personalized campaign Canon is running to flip Indiana’s Ninth District from red to blue. The progressive civil rights attorney is one of the most fascinating midterm House candidates in the country, a longtime advocate for causes ranging from gay marriage to immigration to cannabis who spends his free time acting in community theater, playing in bands, and marching in protests. If he can get into Congress, it'll be proof for a lot of leftists that yes, their preferred candidates really can win.

He has his work cut out for him: In 2016 Donald Trump won the district by 27 points and Republican Congressman Trey Hollingsworth beat his Democratic opponent by 14 after moving from Tennessee in 2015. But with the prospect of a nationwide “blue wave” coming in this year’s midterm elections, Canon could actually win. If he does, it will serve as a flashing beacon that the Republican Party is in serious trouble— just as the 2015 victory of Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Matt Bevin, a Tea Party outsider, was, in retrospect, a forerunner of Trumpism.

The incumbent Hollingsworth has one advantage over any eventual Democratic opponent—he’s one of the wealthiest members of Congress, with almost $60 million in assets. Canon says his advantage will come through optics and lived experience. “You have people like Trey Hollingsworth who come to a district as an outsider millionaire with multi-generation wealth and doesn’t understand living paycheck to paycheck, doesn’t understand making the choice between paying for health insurance and paying the rent, or scrounging for change in the couch to buy a Big Mac,” Canon told me. “These are things that I’ve actually experienced, and I think gives me a point of identification with lots of other people. Very few if any candidates at an office this size understand those very real problems because of the prevalence of money in politics… It’s difficult for working-class folks to run for office.”

Now that an orthodontist with a massive and well-documented video game collection has dropped out the race, Canon’s most prominent opponent in the Democratic primary is Liz Watson, an attorney from Bloomington who spent most of her professional life in DC. Canon, by contrast, has always been based in the Ninth District, which stretches from Indianapolis’s conservative, affluent southern suburbs down to Louisville’s middle- and working-class northern suburbs 110 miles away. It includes the hip liberal college town Bloomington, vast swathes of farmland and rural communities, small factory towns, and a city whose opioid crisis is so extreme it led to one of the largest HIV outbreaks in US history.

Before he was a candidate, Canon was a civil rights lawyer on behalf of nearly every liberal cause under the sun. Most notably, he represented a gay couple in Kentucky denied a marriage license, a case that advanced through the court system and merged with others to become the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court case that gave same-sex couples the right to marry.

Canon is currently representing a group of protesters—Kashiya Nwanguma, Molly Shah, and Henry Brousseau—who say they were attacked at a Louisville Trump rally in March 2016 and are suing the president for allegedly inciting the violence by telling his supporters to “get ‘em out of here.” Judges have yet to decide whether the suit, which was brought before the election, can go forward; Canon and the other attorneys are attempting to get Trump’s tax returns during the discovery process and want to depose the president, saying in a motion that “as of this writing, Trump has played golf 20 times since his inauguration. He has the time for a deposition."

“I go after the cadre of supervillains,” he told the crowd during a recent stump speech.

The suit also targets one of the alleged assaulters, Indiana resident Matthew Heimbach, who supposedly riled up other Trump supporters. Heimbach is the founder of the Traditionalist Worker Party and promoted the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. “It’s about bankrupting the Nazis and smoking out the keyboard warriors,” Canon told me.

Canon’s once sued Kentucky Governor Bevin in an effort to legalize medical marijuana, a suit that was thrown out in September. He's helped represent prison inmates suing over inhumane conditions, a teacher suing to protest an allegedly unjust suspension, and immigrant families fighting the travel ban. One of Canon’s mediations led to an entire police department’s use of body cams. “I go after the cadre of supervillains,” he told the crowd during a recent stump speech.

He’s done all this while teaching law at his alma mater the University of Louisville, raising two young children with his wife Valerie, acting in community theater, marching with Black Lives Matter. How does he manage it all? “Badly,” Canon told me with a laugh.

Still, not bad for a guy raised by a single mother who dropped out of high school at 17.



Pat, Dan’s mother, worked multiple jobs to support the family after his father left when he was three. While Canon went on to become the first in his family to get a college degree, he took the scenic route there. “I was way into music and not into school. I stopped going, much to the chagrin to my long-suffering mother,” Canon said. “I ran the gamut of people I hung out with, and about half of them felt it wasn’t important to get educated.” He ended up getting his GED shortly after dropping out, even before some of his friends properly graduated, and moved to Los Angeles to pursue music as “a sideman for a lot of different rock and roll and country acts.” Any of note? “Nah, not really,” he said.

It was music that led Canon to law. “There’s something about playing music that puts you in a unique position to learn about people and communities and social problems,” he said. “Like being a bartender, people unload on you as a quasi-therapist and tell you what’s going on in their lives. I learned to care about people who weren’t myself during that process.” Canon wanted to do more, to have a direct effect. He thought about joining the Peace Corp after college, but decided instead on civil rights law, to “go out and do good stuff,” he said. He graduated with honors from the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law in 2007.

A decade later, he finds himself running for office inspired by his mother. “It was her willingness to step up and do more when the time called for it,” Canon told the crowd at a fundraising speech last fall in the home of Aaron Yarmuth, son of Kentucky Congressman John Yarmuth.

Canon has already grabbed endorsements from multiple Democratic Socialists of America chapters and unions like the Teamsters Local 89. He seems to have a way of inspiring what Democratic operatives might call the “base.” Dustin Collins, his campaign manager, is a 27-year-old Air Force veteran and cancer survivor who married his minister husband thanks to Obergefell and cut his teeth in politics as an organizer for Barack Obama in 2008, helping to turn Indiana blue for the first time since 1964. “[Canon] stirred a passion in me that reminded me why I got involved in politics in the first place,” Collins told me, “a passion that we as a party need to reignite so we don’t continuously come in last in voter turnout.”

If Canon wins, it’ll be a case of being in the right place at the right time—the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is targeting the Ninth in 2018. “I think the math is there for a Democrat to win the Ninth District,” said Adam Dickey, the district’s Democratic Party chair. “[Dan’s] message focuses a lot on fighting for individuals. It manifests itself in different issues, but he’s articulating a vision that goes deeper than what previous candidates have had to offer.”


Mary Hellen Ayres is a campaign volunteer and Bloomington resident. “Authenticity counts for a lot, especially outside of Bloomington,” she said. “He’s been living in this district most of his life—he could’ve moved to Louisville or DC, but he didn’t. That means something.” Ayres said she and other activists in the Ninth will support whoever wins the primary, but Dan “has an ability that’s not shared by [Watson] to connect in a real way with people here,” she said. “We know the only Democrat that’s going to flip this district is the one who can get a lot of people to the polls.” Ayres, a midwife of 25 years, has some grassroots experience “working on a campaign to change midwifery laws in Indiana,” but said she never expected to work on a congressional campaign. “But I didn’t expect to find someone as exciting as Dan either,” she added. “He reminds me of a Paul Wellstone,” the legendary Minnesota progressive.

Canon is the sort of candidate leftists dream of—an actual populist, with unimpeachable credentials and even a sense of humor. He’s unwavering in his support of universal universal health care, decriminalizing marijuana as a means to tackle the opioid crisis, raising the minimum wage, criminal justice reform, and other progressive benchmarks. “Dan is unafraid to say what he believes, and the party really ought to be saying [the same thing],” Ayres said.

But his delivery stands out, especially in comparison to some milquetoast technocratic Democrats. "This is an act of incredible cruelty done for no other reason than to appease the lowest common denominator: Trump's white nationalist base,” Canon said in his statement condemning the Trump’s administration's to end protected status for 200,000 Salvadorans in early January. That's the sort of aggressive language Democrats have traditionally been hesitant to embrace, especially in red states like Indiana. “New candidates equals new rhetoric equals new party,” he said.

Canon’s response to the GOP tax bill was a press release marked up in the margins with handwritten notes like the actual tax bill. Canon is also very entertaining on Twitter, and has conducted novel fundraising stunts like #DineWithDan, where donors at the $25 level and above have a chance to eat a meal cooked by Canon at home.

“There’s this dual pressure in this part of the country that you have to be authentic and inauthentic at the same time,” Canon said. “[The Democratic Party wants] you be natural and real and yet dance around your principals.”

There are certainly shades of 2016’s election at play—with Canon playing the passionate, insurgent Bernie Sanders and Liz Watson as the measured insider from DC. Canon himself doesn’t endorse that kind of talk, though. “People are looking for an excuse to re-litigate 2016, but I’m not because I don’t want to create a rift in the party,” he said.

Canon has raised more money than Watson in the last quarter but is still at a disadvantage compared to Hollingworth. Despite that disparity, a one-term incumbent who underperformed Trump in 2016 and voted for the massively unpopular healthcare bill is a textbook target for Democrats.

“We’ve got two good candidates, what a luxury,” said Ayres. “But [in the Ninth] the race is won by being yourself, and Dan being Dan, with his bold record in court, is a pretty winning proposition.”

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.


Toronto Billionaires Were Murdered in ‘Targeted’ Killing, Police Say

0
0

The deaths of the Canadian billionaires whose bodies were found in their Toronto mansion in December have been determined a double homicide by police.

“The Shermans were targeted in this event,” Toronto police Homicide Detective Sergeant Susan Gomes said in a press conference on Friday.

Gomes said they “haven’t developed any suspects” yet in the case. The double-homicide determination, Gomes said, was developed from six weeks’ worth of evidence. So far, she said, investigators have compiled 127 witness statements and searched two residential properties belonging to the Shermans.

The Shermans were last seen alive in the evening of Wednesday, December 13, according to Gomes. After that timeframe, no one had heard from or seen the couple until their bodies were found that Friday.

Gomes confirmed that the couple was found in lower-level pool area of their mansion hanging by belts by a poolside railing in a semi-seated position on the pool deck. They were wearing clothing. There was no sign of forced entry in the home.

Gomes said they are “in the process of attaining or have executed 20 judicial authorizations and searches.”

“Legal complexities and some executions have been challenging given the litigious nature of Barry Sherman’s businesses, in particular the search and seizure of electronics in Barry Sherman’s workspace at Apotex,” Gomes said. Two residential properties belonging to the Shermans have been searched.

The Shermans’ net worth was $4.16 billion, making them some of the richest people in Canada. Barry, 75 years old, was the founder of Apotex Inc., a Canadian pharmaceutical giant known for generic prescription drugs. He was the 13th-richest person in Canada in 2016, according to Canadian Business. Both Honey, 70 years old, and Barry were known philanthropists.

In a case of weird timing, the president and CEO of Apotex, Inc., Dr. Jeremy Desai, reportedly resigned today.

The Shermans’ bodies were found at their mansion located in Toronto’s North York area in the late morning of Friday, December 15. Their deaths were caused by “ligature neck compression,” according to initial post-mortem investigations.

Both Shermans were found by their indoor lap pool with men’s leather belts around their necks. Reportedly, a real estate agent who was to prepare the Shermans’ multi-million-dollar mansion for an open house—it was up for sale—had found the bodies.

Police had told the public that Barry’s and Honey’s deaths were “suspicious” early in the investigation. However, the initial dominant theory in the media claimed the couple’s deaths could have been the result of a murder-suicide. The couple’s family rejected this theory, hiring their own private investigators, a lawyer, and forensic pathologist to look into the deaths.

"Our parents shared an enthusiasm for life and commitment to their family and community totally inconsistent with the rumors regrettably circulated in the media as to the circumstances surrounding their deaths," the family said in a statement the day after the Shermans’ bodies were found. "We are shocked and think it's irresponsible that police sources have reportedly advised the media of a theory which neither their family, their friends, nor their colleagues believe to be true."

Last week, the Toronto Star reported that the couple’s death was indeed the result of a double murder—a ”professional, contract killing”—according to investigators hired by the Shermans’ family. They revealed that Barry and Honey were found with marks on their wrists that indicated the couple were tied together at some point—a finding at odds with the murder-suicide theory. No rope or similar material were discovered near the bodies.

Additional autopsies were conducted by a top forensic pathologist, who determined the deaths were homicides.

How Xanax Became the British Teenager's Drug of Choice

0
0

Dan lives with his parents in a beautiful four-bed detached house in Surrey, the type with polished granite kitchen surfaces, ankle-deep cream carpets and a "family room". He's 17, into streetwear, especially Nike and Supreme, and spends his weekends going to raves, messing about with graphic design software or catching up on coursework in his bedroom.

Dan doesn’t fit the profile of a former drug addict, but that's exactly what he is. Until recently, like an increasing number of teenagers in Britain, he was regularly using a huge amount of the benzodiazepine Xanax – enough to make him physically dependent on the drug.

"For me, it’s easier to get Xanax than it is to get alcohol," he says over the phone from his family home. "If I order alcohol off Amazon or whatever, I'll have to sign on delivery. Xans, you can get next-day delivery and have it in your postbox waiting for you." Xanax is cheap, too: anywhere between 30p to £3 a bar, depending on where Dan was buying it, from dark web marketplaces or the dealers at his sixth-form college.

Xanax is the trade name for alprazolam, a benzodiazepine sold by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. When prescribed for anxiety, doctors recommend 1.5mg a day, and to never surpass 4mg daily. At the height of his addiction, Dan was taking the equivalent of 5mg a day, and sometimes more if he was stressed about something ("meeting up with a girl, an exam, a night out"). Like the vast majority of UK users, though, the pills he was popping were likely counterfeit Xanax – alprazolam that had been pressed into tablets by DIY dealers and marketed on the dark web as the legitimate branded stuff, meaning his true daily dosage could have been even higher.

Like many teens now addicted to Xanax – or similar drugs from the benzodiazepine family – Dan was introduced to the pills recreationally at raves and parties, often mixing them with alcohol or other drugs. However, he quickly realised they were what he calls a "cure" for his anxiety – something he had suffered from throughout his teens, like his brother before him – and was the first of his group to become dependent. "I tried to keep it quiet, but if I was like, 'I want to bring Xans [to school],' it wasn’t an embarrassing thing to do," he says. "It's [seen as] kinda cool. It worked for me. I was pretending I was using them recreationally, when really I was reliant on them just to cope."

In certain circles, Xanax has become such a common part of sixth-form education that, for the multiple teenagers I spoke to for this article, the drug's use is seemingly viewed as on par with smoking behind the bike sheds or necking a Lambrini on lunch break: they talked about "popping Xans in the toilet", "bowling around mellowed out" and "operating from within a bubble". But unlike weed or alcohol, there is no paraphernalia, smell or red-eyes to alert others to their use. The majority of adults have little idea these drugs are being abused, because they’re basically invisible until they become a problem.


WATCH:


Alongside opioids like Percocet and OxyContin, Xanax bars have been stars of the US rap scene's recent obsession with prescription pills. Since the death of Lil Peep in November, 2017 from the "combined toxic effects of fentanyl and alprazolam" there's been something of a backlash against Xanax in the rap community – Lil Pump says he's off it, Vic Mensa's called out Future for normalising its use, even Lil Xan says he's quitting – but that's yet to trickle down to all those British kids in bucket hats and creole earrings for whom Xanax is the drug of choice.

This is an issue. There's a reason that, in the US rap scene, post-boom, Xanax seems to be starting to bust: it's much more dangerous than many people assume it to be.

Prescription drugs seem safe because they’re legitimised by a medical seal of approval. In the UK, Xanax and other benzodiazepines – or "benzos" – are only a class C drug when misused, while weed is class B and heroin class A, further creating an illusion of safety.

Dan says that, after stealing money from his parents to fund his addiction, they demanded to see what he'd spent it on, so he took them to his room and showed them his huge stash of pills. "An interesting point is that my parents found my weed about two years ago and went ballistic, [but] when I showed them hundreds of Xans they didn’t get mad, because they saw it as prescription," he says. "Like, 'Oh, it’s not a drug, it’s medicine.' Not bothered or fazed by it at all."

Of course, while Xanax is a medicine, like many other medical grade drugs it's easy to misuse, with negative side effects including insomnia, nausea and blacking out. Combining Xans with other drugs presents all sorts of problems, and they’re especially lethal when paired with opioids or alcohol; in around a third of all fatal overdoses in the US, a benzodiazepine is found. Once you become physically dependent on the pills – which doesn't take long; a week or so of regular use will do it – you have to carefully wean yourself off. Getting the substance out of your system too quickly can lead to psychosis, brain damage, seizures and other side effects that can end in hospitalisation or death.

While these dangers haven't necessarily been taken onboard by teens or their parents in the UK, it seems the authorities are starting to pay attention. Parliament had its first debate about Xanax misuse this January; eight young people were hospitalised in Sussex over the Christmas period after taking the drug; and in May of last year police sent out an appeal after 20 teens needed medical treatment in one week as a result of taking Xanax.

Last week, Police Scotland issued a warning after at least 27 Xanax-related deaths were recorded in the country in 2017. Similar statistics from around the UK aren't available, but join certain drug harm reduction discussion groups on Facebook, and reports of young people dying after mixing Xanax with alcohol and other substances appear with alarming regularity.

"When you listen to music on Xans, or you make music on Xans, or you listen to music which is about Xans, it's really romantic. But the reality of Xanax is not. Xans invite you in with, like, a kiss, and then sucker punch you in the face."

What sets this drug trend apart is that, judging from what the teenagers I've spoken to for this piece have told me, much like with North America's prescription opioid crisis, Xanax use is pervasive among kids from every kind of economic background. The only common link is that users may suffer more from anxiety in their day-to-day lives.

Benzodiazepines like Xanax work by suppressing the output of neurotransmitters that interpret fear, which is why they are prescribed frequently in the US – where over 5 percent of the adult population take them – for anxiety disorders and pain relief. "With Xans, you’re back to being a normal person. You're not having panic attacks, you’re not being anxious and you can get through college," explains Dan.

For someone with moderate to severe anxiety, the effects of a benzo are like dropping slow motion into a soft blanket taut enough to catch you gently in motion. The anxious thoughts, if you still have them, hardly make a dent. You just don’t care.

In the UK, the NHS is unlikely to prescribe benzos for anxiety because they’re so addictive. If doctors here give you any kind of benzodiazepine it'll likely be diazepam (American trade name, Valium) for short-term use, and not Xanax, which is ten times as strong and hits your system quicker. Of course, with access to the dark web and its pharmaceutical souq, there's little to stop British teens from self-medicating – and none of the scripts or check-ups that keep America's prescription Xanax users vaguely in line. Compounding the problem is the fact that NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services are stretched useless: a report at the end of last year revealed how children are waiting up to 18 months for treatment.

Issy was 15 when she got into Xanax, after being offered it by a dealer she already knew at a party. "The week after I first took it, I was reading up on what they were, and realised they were anti-anxiety," she says over the phone. "So I bought more off that same guy and I remember him telling me, 'If you ever feel upset, literally just take a bit of a Xan and you’ll be fine.' I'd been struggling with depression and anxiety for a year, and this guy knew that. What he said was obviously the worst thing to say. I didn't know what I was getting myself into."

Once dependent, users have to be gradually and carefully tapered off Xanax, ideally with NHS assistance – something many young users still living with their parents don't want to seek out, for fear of getting into trouble. One 19-year-old from Poole I spoke to was intending to cut down, but didn’t come off the drug slowly enough or with help, and fell down a whole flight of stairs during a seizure. He woke up with blood all over his face and was taken off on a stretcher by emergency services.

Kristallo, a 19-year-old rapper from Birmingham, posts pictures of himself on Instagram holding bags of weed. Sometimes he’s on public transport drinking cans of Perla, or staring into bathroom mirrors with his mates, who are dressed like him, in Fila jackets and shotta bags.

On the 16th of November, 2017, Kristallo was grieving for the rapper Lil Peep, who had died the previous day from an overdose of Xanax and the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. He posted a tribute to the American, whose real name was Gustav Åhr, on Instagram: a black-and-white portrait with the caption "Burned Too Bright" and a candle emoji.

Kristallo was one of many British teens uploading commemorative posts: before his death, Lil Peep had managed to capture in his music the anxiety and nihilistic worldview common among many young people these days – a burden that Peep, like other rappers, numbed with painkillers and tranquillisers, like Xanax, often posting photos and videos of himself doing so online.

Until recently, this scene felt fairly isolated to American and international artists, such as Lil Uzi Vert, Smokepurpp and the Swedish rapper Yung Lean. But over the past year or so, more British MCs have been emulating their mumbled bars and the wavy, often cold mood that defines their music, as well as the prescription drug use that underpins it. Kristallo is one of them. In a recent song are the lines:

"I’m young, I still take exams / Forgetting all my notes, I’m takin’ Xans"

A huge Yung Lean fan, he got a "bit of a reputation" on social media, started to get recognised out and about, and thought he'd try his hand at rap. "We were just getting really waved and making music," he says over the phone. "None of the music we made was made sober. When you listen to music on Xans, or you make music on Xans, or you listen to music which is about Xans, it's really romantic. But [the reality of Xanax] is not. Xans invite you in with, like, a kiss, and then sucker punch you in the face."

Kristallo started doing Xanax in the summer of 2016 at parties before he became dependent. "When I did them a lot I was listening to artists like Yung Lean. He’s my inspiration, he’s everything that I want to be as an artist," he says. "I remember being on a Xan and then, like, listening to him talk about Xans, and I was thinking, 'It feels amazing, the music's amazing.' Until the music stops playing."

You can get Xanax in various forms, but it's the bars most teens want: little strips split into four blocks, like the legitimate medication sold by Pfizer in the States. Of course, almost none of the bars available on the dark net will be the real deal, but these are the pills made famous by American rappers, so they're the pills home manufacturers make up for market.

One dealer posted a video to YouTube showing how he, like many others, buys powdered alprazolam and presses it into Xanax bars himself, which "look exactly like the real Pfizer 2mg bars, but actually contain 3.5mg so pack more of a punch than the original ones". It's these that recreational users want to buy and flaunt on Instagram.

Issy has a private Instagram – a "spam" account – and in the recent past she has shared images of her Xanax use on there. "If I had Xans, I’d post a picture of them [or herself, evidently wasted] and say [wasted] 'Off three Xans', or some random shit like that," she says, adding that sharing the photos was a "bit of a joke at first".

Many others do the same. "If people are out and on Xans on a Saturday night, you know that went straight on people's Snapchats," says Issy, the implication being that it's not enough to simply do the pills – like rappers on their social media, you have to be seen to be doing them.

Dealers also now utilise Snapchat and occasionally Instagram Stories to advertise what they've got on offer. Issy and 18-year-old Anna* both confirmed that dealers from either their sixth form colleges or promoters for raves will take pictures and videos of their stock and post photos with information on price and availability.

All this performative pill popping is now so prevalent among certain types of teenager that it's started to become an internet culture cliché. Instagram meme accounts like @poundlandbandit and @dankmemes4homecountiesteens post "starter packs" that include Reebok Classics, messy bedrooms and Xanax bars; bloggers with huge reaches, like Tana Mongeau, tell haters to "pop a xan"; and that deliberately-tacky "sad" Instagram aesthetic now includes people posting photos of huge Xanax-shaped pillows or T-shirts bearing slogans like "Xanax and chill".

Among the teens who post this kind of stuff, there seems to be an almost competitive element – a contest to see who can take the most Xanax in one go. "It's like they turn into sweets and you want to munch them as much as possible," says Kristallo. "It’s all about who can do the most, or who can get the most messed up. It’s easy to just think of them as a really fun, easy thing to do, when in reality it's a guy who's losing his mind because he’s on, like, eight Xans at once because he's trying to prove a point."

"This specific corner of sesh culture is equal parts nihilism, banter and bravado: it’s showing how hard you are via how fucked up you can get, how many substances you can get away with taking and in which settings."

If you're hugely fucked up on Xanax, the internet slang to describe your state is "bartarded". As James Nolan wrote on VICE last year, users post videos and stories of themselves being "bartards" online, "half as cautionary tales and half as boasts". Often, these stories involve someone taking Xans and waking up hours or days later with no memory of the trail of destruction they’ve left behind. Blackouts are common – and, in fact, sometimes a goal.

Kristallo once collapsed in public – something he has no recollection of – and was told afterwards that he was repeating the phrase "I need a Xan" over and over. "I've lost bank cards on Xans, I’ve, you know, gone through weekends where I haven’t remembered a single thing because I've blacked out on them," he says. Anna*, who takes Xanax for anxiety, but whose friends use it recreationally, told me: "My friend plans with his other mates to try to blackout before the end of the night. I do think, 'You could have just stayed home,' because they don’t remember any of it."

This specific corner of sesh culture is equal parts nihilism, banter and bravado: it’s showing how hard you are via how fucked up you can get, how many substances you can get away with taking and in which settings. It’s showing how much you don’t care. As another teen, 17-year-old Carlos*, told me, "If you can go to one party and do a pill, three Xans, a bottle of lean or spirits and a gram of ket – or something like that – that shows that you’re not someone to fuck with."

Social media is where this Xanax culture is thriving, and unfortunately it'll continue to tick over here until it's replaced by whatever drug comes next. But it's not all bad online: with a lack of easily accessible information on Xanax addiction elsewhere, harm reduction-themed Facebook groups with thousands of members have been offering users advice in real-time, and – most importantly – reminding them to seek professional medical help when coming off Xanax.

Worryingly, Facebook has recently been shutting down groups set up by the popular harm reduction page Sesh Safety with no warning or explanation, saying only that posts have breached community guidelines. When we went to the company for comment, they wouldn't add anything on the record, directing us only to their Community Standards – which was confusing, as the post that had been flagged as problematic (sent to us by a group administrator) didn't appear to break any of the rules.

Perhaps the worry here – as is often the case with open conversations around drugs – is that in allowing groups to offer honest and realistic harm reduction advice, Facebook could be seen to be condoning problematic drug use. It's an issue that prevents a lot of media organisations from engaging in much-needed pragmatic drug discussion and instead maintaining the status quo.

Whatever the reason, and whatever conversations people have, for now, Xanax use isn't going anywhere – and you only have to talk to the drug's users to find out why.

"This sounds very philosophical, but Xans are big because of how fluid in society you've gotta be," says Dan. "One minute, you've gotta be calm, relaxed, social, confident, and the next you're raving at a party. At college, your brain’s gotta be buzzing. It’s a difficult balance for a lot of people, especially people with mental health issues. We feel like we can’t meet that expectation."

Predictably, social media is central to this. "It's easy to portray the image of yourself as being all sex and drugs on Snapchat, but you’ve gotta go out and replicate that off social media," Dan continues. "It's a lot easier to speak online to someone. Offline, that's when you’re like, 'I'm not meeting these expectations.' Your self-esteem goes down and you become more anxious."

Exposed to Xanax via music or in social settings, a generation of teenagers – widely referenced as the most anxious on record – are discovering that the drug can help to pacify their anxiety. With access to the dark web, they're free to self-medicate with no oversight, until they realise they're physically dependent and can't stop popping pills. This, clearly, is no good. The NHS is in crisis and the UK government refuses to engage with the drugs question in any meaningful way, but ignoring this particular drug trend is only going to lead to more pressure on services in future.

Like anyone who has pushed through Xanax withdrawal, Kristallo talks about his experience with a sense of horror. "The anxiety that I felt when I was coming off Xans, when I was trying to get clean... I wouldn’t wish it on anyone – cold sweats, shaking and paranoia," he says. "Xans are a short-term kind of solution, and they can’t last forever. Once they finish, you end up worse mentally than before you initially started."

*Names have been changed

If you want help coming off Xanax or other similar drugs, make an appointment with your GP or call the free NHS helpline on 111.

Stay tuned for the next episode of High Society, about Xanax culture in the UK.

@hannahrosewens

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

One Year After Mosque Shooting, the Fear Hasn't Gone Away

0
0

Do you remember what you were doing on January 29, 2017? I only remember the next morning. I woke up to the news that a man entered the Grande Mosque de Québec and launched a violent attack that became known as the worst mass shooting in Canada in two decades. Accused shooter Alexandre Bissonnette was charged for the killings of six men, and another five people were seriously injured in the shooting. My heart broke for the victims, their families and friends. As a new resident of Montréal, and a Muslim-identifying woman, I felt particularly anxious. Now, as we embark upon the one-year anniversary of the attack I am realizing that this feeling has never really left me.

The Mosque shooting is only one of a number Islamophobic incidents. In the last year alone we have seen numerous cases of vandalism at Canadian mosques, threats against Muslim clerics, protests against Muslim-designated cemetery space, verbal and physical attacks on Muslim women, bomb threats directed towards Muslims, even legislation banning what Muslim women wear in public service spaces, just to name a few. There were over 125 hate crimes against Muslims in Canada in 2016. Despite this, Muslims are consistently placed in a negative light by some far-right, sensationalist media sources, designed to stoke division and anti-Muslim sentiment, like this false news story published by TVA. As a community, we are constantly on edge.

But in the last two weeks, we have seen just how insidious and pervasive anti-Muslim sentiment is in our society. Two weeks ago, an 11-year-old girl told a rather large, rather public, lie—saying a man cut her hijab off, when no such attack took place.

This story hit uncomfortably close to home for me. The school she goes to was my school. I walked that path to school every morning for six years. I see myself in that little girl. The Toronto suburb she lives in—Scarborough—is known for its large population of immigrants and visible minorities. The people of Scarborough are used to being stereotyped; they are accustomed to dismissal. But when we learned of this alleged attack on a little girl, Canada, and many around the world, paid attention.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I learned it wasn’t true. I was also saddened by what happened next. Many commenters chalked the incident up to a childhood mistake (albeit a rather large one); who among us hasn’t lied in our youth? But I knew this story would be used to downplay the occurrence of anti-Muslim acts. Even before the allegations were proven to be false, Twitter trolls were discrediting her story.

Even after the family released a public apology, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim far-right actors in Canada galvanized around the false report, viciously attacking the girl and her family, and Muslims in general. #HijabHoax was started on social media, trolls called on the child and her family to be fined, jailed, deported, or all three, without any regard for legal precedence or due process, rendering Muslims generally disposable because of a child’s lie. Rebel Media even launched a petition calling for the girl's mother to be investigated, claiming the story was a smear campaign to “[whip] up divisions amongst” Canadians, a laughable claim considering Rebel has, itself, been accused of the same, particularly after its sympathetic coverage of the alt-right at the Charlottesville riots.

Although this story was false, this vitriolic response points to the very real fears Canadian Muslims hold. Here is the truth: Islamophobia is a real and imminent problem in Canada. A recent Angus Reid poll indicates that almost half of Canadians view Islam negatively. Statistics Canada reported a steady rise in verbal and physical assaults on Muslims in Canada. I have heard, in the news or in personal conversations, countless stories of women who have experienced both verbal and physical assault because they wear hijab. One University of Toronto study indicates that these assaults happen as often as once a week in the Toronto region alone and are rarely reported. Reporting becomes even more challenging when we see members of the police perpetuating anti-Muslim sentiment online. It’s such a problem that there are self-defence classes targeted to women and girls who wear hijab. In this climate, what’s surprising is that the girl’s story wasn’t true.

Unwittingly, perhaps, this child zeroed-in on the very real fears Muslim Canadians hold. Instead of focusing on the lie, and the potential impact on our credibility, we should be thinking about what compelled this girl to make up a story of a faith-driven hate-crime. What has this little girl learned about being a hijab-wearing Muslim girl in Canada that she thought this a worthwhile story to imagine? We should be thinking about how precarious Muslim lives are, how fearful we are, and the fact that this fear is rooted in reality. Particularly as we embark upon the one-year anniversary of the attack on Québec’s Grande Mosque, we owe it to ourselves to consider existing prejudices in our society and how we can truly and effectively address them.

Follow Shazma on Twitter.

People Are Finally Getting Sick of Nostalgia in TV and Movies

0
0

2017 was the Year of the Revival. May saw the return of Twin Peaks (1990-91); September heralded the third season of Full House (1987-95) sequel Fuller House and the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery; last month, Psych (2006-14) returned in a made-for-TV movie, and there were new film installments in the Star Wars and Jumanji franchises. In 2018, viewers can expect new episodes of The X-Files (1993-2002), a Roseanne (1988-97) reboot, a new season of Arrested Development (2003-6), and the return of The Office (2005-13).

All these reboots, remakes, and revivals have me thinking that I should probably hold on to any flared, frayed jeans and fedoras in the back of my closet a little longer (hey, if Jumanji can make a comeback, anything can). Indeed, nostalgia is powerful: It makes high school seem fun, brings exes together, and spawns more Jumanji movies (sorry, I can’t get over it).

The intellectual properties that had new life breathed into them in the last year are classics, and I certainly understand why studios would be interested in bringing them back. Nostalgia sells, and many of these franchises have large fan bases ready to line up for more. Add the potential for bringing in new viewers, and it seems like anything possessing a nostalgia factor is a guaranteed instant success.

But after the nostalgia buzz wears off, most fans are left hugely disappointed in a revival. Rotten Tomatoes has determined that only 49% of the audience positively reviewed Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Many fans say it’s ruined the franchise forever by ignoring continuity, decimating Luke Skywalker’s character, and mocking the Jedi legacy. When it comes to public opinion, Star Trek: Discovery’s fared little better: it has a 55% rating by the audience, who claim it’s the worst Trek in years and cite the darker focus, emphasis on a season-long story arc, and unrelatable characters.

And audience opinion has rubbed up against that of the critics’, as reviews of The Last Jedi and Discovery have proved overwhelmingly positive—90% and 82% on RT, respectively. In both cases, the consensus is clear: There’s a lot to be admired in these new installments—so why aren’t fans liking them? If nostalgia is so powerful, what’s with all the hate?

Enter nostalgia fatigue—specifically, exhaustion caused by overexposure to reminders of a sentimental past. If those Rotten Tomatoes scores are any indication, it’s happening to television and film; in some reviews, fans who have followed these franchises for decades claim they won’t be continuing to. Amidst all the cries of “They ruined it” and “Everything’s changed,” a few questions plague my mind: Could it be audiences have finally had too much of a good thing? Is this insistence on bringing back old media television doing more harm than good for these beloved franchises?

Nostalgia is comforting because it’s familiar, and fans looking for the nostalgic factor don’t want things to change—but when a series is revived, the new episodes can’t engage with modern audiences without evolving. By extension, change often makes people upset, as audiences can feel like they’ve lost something close to them. Luke Skywalker’s arc in The Last Jedi is a perfect example: In the original trilogy he was moralistic, idealistic, and romanticizing the Jedi Order. In The Last Jedi, age and experiences have taken their toll, and as a result the change in his demeanor angered fans. It was a necessary change: continuing to possess a blind idealism would’ve seemed strange and potentially could have weakened the film’s quality—which would’ve also likely upset fans. It’s a lose-lose situation.

In contrast, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle—essentially a reboot instead of a continuation—doesn’t bring back any original characters and currently has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 75% for critics and 90% for audiences, delivering on nostalgia without triggering fatigue. Of course, another probable reason why Jumanji has been more popular among audiences than the new installments of Star Trek and Star Wars is because the stakes are lower: the fans of the latter two franchises are opinionated and devout, but such a fanbase doesn’t exist for Jumanji. Fans of larger franchises possess such dedication to the that, arguably, there’s no reasonable hope for any new installments to meet their expectations.

Nostalgia can act as the ultimate comfort food: No matter how much changes in your life, you can always go back to the Enterprise, or a galaxy far, far away, and finding those places have remained unchanged can be comforting. But nostalgia also requires some distance from what one is nostalgic for, a distance that isn’t always afforded to us. Reminders of “the way things were” are always around. And therein lies the problem with nostalgia culture—while nostalgia can be comforting, an abundance of revivals over a relatively short period of time can ultimately leave audiences more fatigued than revived.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Samantha Edmonds on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

I Love How This Person Yells Every Word in the 'Lady Bird' Trailer

0
0

You know what's a good movie? Lady Bird. True story! There's a reason why it made a bunch of money and is getting nominated for every award that's not, like, a Grammy or an Emmy—Greta Gerwig's directorial debut is a coming-of-age yarn that feels bold and unique, a perfectly paced film that explores not only the pains and pleasures of being young, but the pains and pleasures (mostly pains) of existence in the modern world itself.

I saw someone say on Twitter that a striking element of Lady Bird is that, for every bad feeling Lady Bird feels, everyone else's lives around her seem to be much more difficult. This genius rendition of the film's official trailer levels the playing field, then, by reducing every single character's line of dialogue to a maniacal-sounding scream. Looks like Twitter user @laterchalamet was responsible for this one, which marks the most significant cultural accomplishment made thus far from a Timotheé Chalamet fan account. (Your move, Armie Hammer fans.)

A coworker said after watching this that they found it hard to watch. Me? It's practically music to my ears. Check it out above.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Larry Fitzmaurice on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Viewing all 38002 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images