There is Joy at Night

by with One Comment CultureFeaturedPolitics

History will be made on July 20, 2020. MSNBC‘s weekend host of AM Joy will officially be the first African-American woman to anchor a show during primetime on cable television. Many of her viewers and followers, many of whom have been following her for years, feel like they’re a part of this history. And as a result, many have shared their strong views in celebration of this historical moment. African-Americans specifically feel like their sister or their Aunt Joy has made history. She has recently been praised by CA Rep Maxine Waters who made it clear how huge this was for African-American women. Many women have shared that this is a great opportunity and door for all women that Joy is walking through. 

You also have a number of esteemed journalists coming forth to congratulate her on this historic accomplishment and great promotions, such as Dan Rather, former anchor of “CBS Evening News”, and iconic Carole Simpson, the first African-American woman in history to host a show on a major news network. Simpson, who anchored “NBC News” in 1975, became the first African-American woman to anchor a major network newscast.

Joy Reid’s Journey…

Many people don’t know that Joy has been working for this moment for nearly 25 years. According to Wikipedia, Reid began her journalism career in 1997, leaving New York and her job at a business consulting firm to begin working in southern Florida for a WSVN Channel 7 morning show.[10] She left journalism in 2003 to oppose the war in Iraq and President George W. Bush, but returned to broadcasting as a talk radio host, and then worked in the Barack Obama presidential campaign.[1] From 2006 to 2007, Reid was the co-host of Wake Up South Florida, a morning radio talk show broadcast from Radio One’s then-Miami affiliate WTPS, alongside “James T” Thomas.[7] She served as managing editor of The Grio[11] (2011–2014), a political columnist for Miami Herald (2003–2015), and the editor of The Reid Report political blog (2000–2014).[12] From February 2014 to February 2015, Reid hosted her own afternoon cable news show, The Reid Report.[13] The show was canceled[14] on February 19, 2015 and Reid was shifted to a new role[15] as an MSNBC national correspondent.[16] Since May 2016, Reid has hosted AM Joy, a political weekend-morning talk show on MSNBC, and is a frequent substitute for other MSNBC hosts, including Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow. As of 2018, Reid’s morning show on Saturday averages nearly 1 million weekly viewers.

In June 2020, it was announced that Reid would likely be taking over “Hardball with Chris Matthews”. But in July, MSNBC announced that Reid would host “The ReidOut”, a new weeknight show at 7 p.m. EST that was once slotted to replace Hardball and Chris Matthews’s following his sudden retirement. 

Joy Reid was the one that brought us the Trayvon Martin story. She reported this horrific tragic loss of life from its conception to today, as well as countless others who’ve been unarmed and murdered by the police. She is a wife and mother and finds time for family while leading a successful career. Joy is known as the no-nonsense journalist, the one you cannot lie to. She’s quick with follow-up questions and will literally pull out receipts as they call it while live on air. She has been wrongly attacked and made to look bad in the media for previous LGBTQ comments that were taken out of context… an unsuccessful attempt to stop her successful rise. In fact, the LGBTQ community came to her rescue. Trained journalists and everyday citizens know that Reid has been a strong advocate for the LGBTQ community, as well as other marginalized communities. She is someone that everyone loves to hear from, talk to, or take a picture with while attending the annual National Association of Black Journalist Convention (NABJ), where she has held multiple nominations. So I am personally excited about this move by MSNBC to make history with Joy Reid in July 2020. I hope that we support her as she has supported us over the years.

Similar Read: Should Biden’s VP be a Black Woman?

My Summary of the 5th Dem Debate

by with No Comment FeaturedPoliticsRace Relations

MSNBC/WaPo should be banned from hosting debates. Too many of the questions were centered on Trump’s personality. That shouldn’t be the focus of the questions for a presidential debate, but talking about DT has been excellent for MSNBC’s ratings. DT has especially helped Rachel Maddow’s career.

The debates took place in Atlanta, at Tyler Perry Studios. Buttigieg’s camp just had a week of race-related issues and the only people who got questions concerning race were Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang. ? Yang’s response was spot on though. 

Warren – She’s good when she’s prepared to answer non-surprise questions so this performance wasn’t bad for her. I appreciated that her responses were more specific than most of the other candidates’ responses. At one point she said: “And in the first 100 days, I want to bring in 135 million people into Medicare For All at no cost to them. Everybody under the age of 18, everybody who has a family of four income less than $50,000. I want to lower the age of Medicare to 50 and expand Medicare coverage to include vision and dental and long-term care.” This doesn’t sound too different from what is available now through the ACA. ?

Booker questioned Warren’s wealth tax much like Yang did in the last debate. Booker had a great night. I’m miffed that the media puts so much glory on Buttigieg, the Rhodes Scholar, when Booker is ALSO a Rhodes Scholar. I’m glad Booker let people know! ??

Buttigieg – If I weren’t following the race and only saw this debate, I might think Buttigieg was great. He claims the progressive title but he totally isn’t. He has a lot of big money backing him. The moderators favored him so much that instead of addressing him on his manufactured Black endorsements, people from his camp using stock images of Kenyans to show Black support, and being dismissive of his own constituents in South Bend – they tried to bait Kamala to attack him. Kamala didn’t take the bait. I wonder if she didn’t because she thought that if he were to win the nomination he’d seek her out as his VP since she’s a Black woman and he polls at 0% with Black voters. The moderators were really SOFT on him.

Gabbard went after him, but I doubt her attack will affect his polling numbers. He’s a big-money establishment candidate. She is not.

Harris came into the debates with planned statements. Not once did she answer a question. LOL, She’s very evasive. She also seems to get a thrill out of criticising people. I think she’d make a horrible Commander in Chief. A leader who gets off in criticizing others isn’t a good thing. We already have that!

Neither Harris nor Biden could respond to how they could get Republicans to work with them. I think that says a lot.

I’d feel so badly for the person put in charge of typing up the transcript of a Biden vs Trump debate. ?

Klobuchar – She brings absolutely nothing new to the table. She’s a younger Biden in a dress.

Steyer annoyed me. He also isn’t offering anything new but he thinks he is. He also kept saying he’s the only candidate talking about term limits. He’s wrong. Yang has been talking about term limits too. In fact, Yang is for 12-year Congressional term limits and 18-year Supreme Court justice term limits.

Yang made the most out of the little time he was given. He isn’t the establishment and is obviously not an MSNBC/WaPo favorite. All his answers were substantive and teachable moments. Who knew the only other country without paid family leave for new mothers was Papua New Guinea? What other candidate has concluded that we should have a WTO, but for data (new world data organization) and that this would get Russia to the table and make it so they have to join the international community and stop resisting appeals to the world order?

Sanders offers great teachable moments too. He’s the best at revealing the country’s problems and realities.

Similar Read: Who Did Well in the 4th Debate… Sanders, Yang, Buttigieg? 

Before Watching the Debate Tonight…

by with No Comment FeaturedPolitics

Before you watch the debates tonight and tomorrow night remember these few things:

a. Flint still doesn’t have water

b. Donald Trump has been accused by a new woman of sexual assault

c. Who will speak up about the border crisis

d. Warren and Sanders have proposed student loan debt elimination

e. Biden is still making political gaffes but is it sticking…

f. Pete has a crisis happening in South Bend with white cops killing black men

g. There are multiple women and women of color running for President

h. There are plenty of white men running for president

i. Climate change is real and listen for who speaks up about it

j. The economy is not better under the Trump administration and listen who references that

k. There is a war happening in Sudan- who will speak up about it

l. Healthcare is still not accessible by every American in every state

m. The election is still over a year out

Listen intently and give every candidate a real chance to win you over.

This article was originally published on 26 June 2019. 

What To Do When They Come For You?

by with No Comment Media

What to do when they come for you? It sounds like a Robert De Niro line from one of his famous mafia movies, except it’s a legitimate question Joy Reid and her team should be trying to answer.

If you’re a liberal or a big Joy Reid supporter, you’re probably defending her and prepared to move on. If you’re a conservative and not a fan of her politics, then you might be suggesting a double standard and calling for her job. Either way, it’s almost inevitable that more of her (The Reid Report) blog posts from 10+ years ago will surface.

Disparaging comments and hard to explain sentiments regarding 9/11 conspiracies, jabs at John McCain, and her apparent homophobia, which includes petty and insensitive digs at Anderson Cooper and her current MSNBC partner Rachel Maddow, are coming back to haunt her at a time when her progressive voice echoes loud for those who identify with liberal and Democratic policies.

Reid first apologized in December 2017 when homophobic posts from her past about Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (D) first appeared saying her comments were, “insensitive and tone-deaf.” However, more troubling posts surfaced in April 2018, and this time around she sang a different tune denying that she wrote these posts and that she must have been hacked…

“Most straight people cringe at the sight of two men kissing… I couldn’t go see Broke Back Mountain because of the gay characters. “Does that make me homophobic? Probably… And I’m not exactly proud of it. But part of the intrinsic nature of ‘straightness’ is that the idea of homosexual sex is…well…gross. For the record, I’m sure gay people think straight sex is gross, too.” – The Reid Report

When these most recent comments surfaced, she revealed that she had hired a cyber security consultant in December 2017 to investigate. The consultant believes her blog was hacked during the time many of these posts were published, stating he found significant evidence which indicated that Reid’s old blog had been compromised.

On April 28th, MSNBC shared her recent statement regarding the matter. She stated, “I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things.” In another comment shortly thereafter she spoke about her evolution…

“I’ve also spoken openly about my evolution on many issues and know that I’m a better person today than I was over a decade ago… I believe the totality of my work attests to my ideals and I continue to grow every day.” – Joy Reid

Should her apologies and the above acknowledgment of her evolution suffice? Should we believe her when she admits to writing some of the disparaging comments but not all of them?

If she was a college student in 2005 when she admitting to writing some but not all of these distasteful things, I think many people on both sides of the isle would give her a pass. But in 2005, she was a 36-year old journalist with the assumed maturity and professionalism that should trump any college student.

Many people are calling for her to be fired for her homophobic comments in the past. The irony – many of the people calling for her to be fired likely agree with her past sentiments and beliefs about homosexuality and gay relationships.

For now, her employer MSNBC is sticking by her. The bigger question is… should you do the same?

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