Princess Michael of Kent has long been familiar to hardcore royalists or royal-hate-watchers. She’s always been awful, but she introduced a new generation to just how racist and terrible she is in late 2017, when she arrived at the Queen’s annual Christmas luncheon at Buckingham Palace. This was the year where then-Meghan Markle was first invited to participate in royal Christmas activities, and Meghan was invited to the luncheon. To welcome Meghan to the family, Princess Michael of Kent wore a blackamoor brooch which was racist AF. She later apologized, but people were already pointing out that she had a long history of doing and saying racist sh-t. So here we are. Guess who has coronavirus?

Princess Michael of Kent has been diagnosed with coronavirus and is suffering from ‘extreme fatigue and terrible fevers’, it has been reported. The royal, 75, who is married to the Queen’s first cousin Prince Michael of Kent, has been unwell for nearly a month, her spokesman confirmed.

Simon Astaire said Princess Michael tested positive for coronavirus after her housekeeper ‘fell ill three weeks ago.’

Mr Astaire told The Sun on Sunday: ‘She and her husband Prince Michael have remained in isolation at Kensington Palace ever since. Prince Michael did not test positive.’

A source close to the couple added to the newspaper that the princess is ‘suffering from extreme fatigue and has terrible fevers.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Yeah, the virus really affects the elderly. But if she was in good health before the virus – and I have no idea if she was – then she has a fighting chance. I have to say, given what little I know of her, I bet she’s an anti-masker. Doesn’t she seem like the type? She was probably out, licking stair railings and breathing all over peasants this whole time. And please enjoy how they casually blamed the housekeeper too. Anyway, thoughts and prayers.

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Photos courtesy of Getty, WENN, Avalon Red.

As soon as we knew that the Biden-Harris ticket won, some of us were already thinking about who would be appointed to fill Kamala Harris’s Senate seat. Harris is the junior senator from the biggest state in America, California, and she’s the first Black-Indian woman to serve in the Senate. She’s such a groundbreaker, and I knew the pressure would be on California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint a woman, especially a woman of color, to Kamala’s seat. The way it works is that the governor appoints someone to fill the Senate seat for the length of time left (Kamala would have been up for re-election in 2022) and then there’s an open election. Anyone can challenge the appointee senator in the primary and general election. Well, Gov. Newsom has indicated that he wants to appoint Alex Padilla, a Latino man and CA’s Secretary of State. Now people are yelling about it and trying to force Gov. Newsom to appoint a woman (specifically a woman of color).

As speculation grows that Gov. Gavin Newsom is leaning toward California elections chief Alex Padilla to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, a crowd of top Democratic donors and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown are launching an aggressive campaign to argue that another woman of color should fill that seat instead.

Brown, the former longtime speaker of the California Assembly, said he’s launching a drive Monday to organize Black churches, pastors, civic leaders, fraternal organizations and prominent members of the Black press statewide to urge Newsom to consider leading Black women for the seat. Among the leading choices, he said, are Reps. Barbara Lee, Karen Bass and Maxine Waters; San Francisco Mayor London Breed; and state Sen. Holly Mitchell.

“There’s no way that Gavin Newsom should allow anyone other than a Black woman to fill the seat of Harris, who’s only the second Black woman in the history of the U.S. Senate,” Brown told POLITICO on Sunday. “There should be no contest.”

Brown’s campaign comes as some 150 of the state’s top female Democratic donors on Monday will publish full-page newspaper ads with an open letter urging Newsom to pick a woman of color, Vox reported Sunday. Other leading advocacy groups like SheThePeople, which promotes women in politics, have called on Newsom to name a woman of color to the seat. The group’s founder, Aimee Allison, said Lee’s long-running advocacy for the Black community and progressive causes should make her the natural choice for the plum U.S. Senate seat.

Ramped-up calls for a woman of color come as sources believe Newsom is leaning heavily toward picking California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. He would be the first Latino U.S. Senator in the state’s 170-year history. Picking a statewide officeholder like Padilla would give Newsom two appointments since he also could choose their replacement.

[From Politico]

I don’t envy Gov. Newsom and the pressure he’s facing from all of these groups must be enormous. On one hand, it’s well beyond time that California – home to millions of Latin-American people – should have their first Latino senator, and I can completely understand how that kind of appointment would pay dividends for the California Democratic Party for decades. On the other hand, Kamala Harris was such an important, groundbreaking and badass senator and I would very much like to see her replaced with another woman, especially a Black woman. Like, it’s kind of offensive to me that a man (any man) would be appointed to replace Kamala Harris. So…yeah, Gov. Newsom isn’t going to make anybody happy. Also: when this kind of thing happens, usually the governor consults heavily with the outgoing senator about who should replace them in the Senate seat. I wonder who Kamala Harris wants to replace her?

Last thing: I’ve joked a few times about how Gov. Newsom would appoint the Duchess of Sussex to the Senate seat. He’s not going to but damn, that would be so much fun and it would make so many people mad.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

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Just last week, the CDC recommended that families keep their Thanksgiving celebrations to just their households. All across the US, COVID numbers are spiking at an alarming rate. With the second wave potentially upon us, the stage is set for some disastrous results if we don’t stick to restrictions. Unfortunately, it appears as though those warnings fell on many deaf ears. The numbers for air travel over past the weekend are staggering, with over three million people at airports from Friday through Sunday.

Warnings from public health officials not to travel for Thanksgiving didn’t stop passengers from packing US airports and planes this weekend.

From Friday to Sunday, more than 3 million people passed through airport security checkpoints in the United States — a record weekend for air travel since the pandemic hit in March. Sunday was the biggest day for air travel since March 16, with 1.05 million people screened.

US health officials have pleaded with the American public not to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday this week as new Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths soar. Friday saw a one-day record of 196,000 new US cases, according to Johns Hopkins.

The airlines say that the cleaning procedures used between flights, the exchange of fresh air in the cabin throughout flights and the hospital-quality air filters now used on planes make it safe to fly. The airlines also require passengers to wear masks.

But officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the risk of spreading disease lies less in the flight itself and more with large family gatherings, especially with hospitals in many parts of the country already at capacity treating Covid patients.

[From CNN]

I read a few tweets over the weekend from folks saying that all those who were complaining about having to miss Thanksgiving or Christmas had never worked in a hotel/restaurant/hospital/airport. One that really got me said they’d obviously never been deployed. The hypocrisy of entitled “patriots” is galling. I’m not a big fan of Thanksgiving so I’m trying not to get too preachy about this. But we did just cancel our family Christmas plans, much to our heartbreak. I’ve spoken to those with college-aged kids who honestly don’t know if they should let their kids come home for Thanksgiving. At least most winter breaks allow time for quarantine until the test results come back. Other than the college kids, I have a hard time with any argument for going against the guidelines. I know everyone here understands this is not the flu. The vaccine news is wonderful, but vaccines won’t cure it and they won’t be available for several months. I know it’s not easy to continue to sit life out, but at least we will all be here for next year’s celebrations if we do.

CB mentioned on Twitter yesterday, we lost one of our own to COVID-19, longtime reader and commenter Escaped Convent. She was hospitalized last spring, on a ventilator for months and fought hard but eventually passed peacefully in hospice with her best friend by her side. Fellow CBers T. Fanty, Miss M (The Original Lucy), Miss Jupitero and I met Nunny, as we affectionately called her, here on CB, backing her as she battled Kaiser for Benedict Cumberbatch. We had so much fun, we continued our friendship into an email circle in which we spoke, several times a day, every day, until she was hospitalized. Nunny had the most soothing voice I’ve ever heard and a phone call from her felt like a therapy treatment. She had no children of her own but always thought of ours, dropping a card or trinket in the mail for their birthday or just because. And even though she’d never met any of them in person, she kept every one of their thank you notes to read over and over. She was sage and smart, fabulously well-read, had a wicked sense of humor and loved to laugh. She cherished music and art as long as it wasn’t modern. And she adored her community here at CB. She once told us she felt like she moved into the right neighborhood when she came out of lurking in the comments. So if you have a moment this week, make yourself a cup of tea in Nunny’s name. Or better yet, eat some fabulous dessert you usually deny yourself. Swoon over something or someone you find beautiful. And if you can, think of a way to reach out to someone you’ve been meaning to talk to. But whatever you do, don’t watch White Christmas, she f*cking hated that movie.

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Photo credit: Getty Images and Priscilla Du Preez and Hannah Busing for Unsplash

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I feel like this should be bigger news, but it’s cracking me up that it’s not a major headline, actually. For the better part of three weeks, Emily Murphy, a Trump appointee to the General Services Administration, has been blocking transition funding and resources to the incoming Biden-Harris administration. It had become a big deal, especially as the days turned to weeks. The Biden-Harris people were trying to fund their own transitional government and find work-arounds for the unhinged Trumpers.

Murphy was the one in charge of signing the letter to formalize the transition and release the funds. She had not. Murphy was called to speak to Congressional leaders yesterday but Murphy blew off Congress, because of course she did. Rep. Katie Porter was about to carve Murphy up with her whiteboard. Still, there was sufficient pressure building and it felt like the House was very close to issuing a subpoena. Then last night, soon after Michigan certified their election results, this happened:

Here’s the full letter from Murphy to Biden: pic.twitter.com/DJ4SFLzrfP

— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) November 23, 2020

Yes, she’s finally signing the damn letter and authorizing the transition funds, but she did not refer to Joe Biden as President-Elect. The letter was so whiny and self-pitying, as if she’s not some dumbf–k MAGA committing sedition, and her pain and suffering (entirely self-inflicted) is more important than the peaceful transfer of power. And she and her Dear Leader can’t even keep their stories straight – Murphy says that she came to her decision independently, then Donald Trump tweeted this:

…fight, and I believe we will prevail! Nevertheless, in the best interest of our Country, I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 23, 2020

So he took credit for authorizing the transition, which I guess is A) the closest we’ll get to a concession and B) the compromise made to make the poor loser crybaby feel bigly. But of course he still wants his dumbass Nazi supporters to believe that he still has a chance of stealing the election (he does not).

What does GSA being allowed to preliminarily work with the Dems have to do with continuing to pursue our various cases on what will go down as the most corrupt election in American political history? We are moving full speed ahead. Will never concede to fake ballots & “Dominion”.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2020

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Photos courtesy of Getty.

The Frogmore Cottage Scandal is kind of a non-starter, right? The royal press pack had already punched themselves out about a million other things, and now they can’t really decide what part of this story is actually “scandalous.” As we heard, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have moved all of their stuff out of Frogmore Cottage (“in the dead of night”) and a few weeks back, Princess Beatrice and Jack Brooksbank moved into the freshly renovated cottage. The palace was, as always, “blindsided” by the arrangement between the cousins.

There were some questions about where Eugenie and Jack had been living before this Frogmore move. Well, they have a place in London – since early 2018, they’ve lived in Ivy Cottage, on the grounds of Kensington Palace, much like Harry lived in Nottingham Cottage, also on the grounds of KP. But during the pandemic, Eugenie and Jack apparently moved in with her father at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, and they largely worked from home. Harry and Meghan apparently offered Eugenie and Jack use of Frogmore so they could have their own space for when the baby came:

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have said they “are delighted” to be able to “open up” their home, Frogmore Cottage, to Harry’s cousin, Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank. The recently renovated house on the Windsor estate in Berkshire was Prince Harry’s and Meghan’s main home until they stepped down as working members of the Royal Family at the end of March.

It will remain the Sussex’s “residence in the UK” according to their office, but a source says that Harry and Meghan “are delighted to be able to open up their home to Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank as they start their own family”.

Harry and Meghan have not been at Frogmore since they left the UK in the Spring. Whilst the Duke and Duchess are not expected to return to the UK very often, they will still stay at Frogmore Cottage when they do. Following newspaper reports that they had “moved out” of Frogmore, their office insisted that they would “share the property” with Eugenie and Jack “when they travel to the UK”.

Sources close to Harry and Meghan have confirmed that they will “retain financial responsibility” for the property. It’s not known what contribution Eugenie and Jack will make towards the rent payments and bills.

[From ITV]

The “retain financial responsibility” thing is new and notable, although I’m not sure what other financial arrangements need to be met? The Queen basically gave the Sussexes a lifetime lease on Frogmore Cottage, and even if she wanted to yank that, they paid for all of those fakakta renovations themselves and I’m pretty sure they paid whatever “rent” in advance. What other financial responsibilities are there? Are the Sussexes paying Eugenie’s cable bill? It’s also interesting that the Sussexes claim they’ll “share the property” if and when they return to the UK. My guess is that Harry and Meghan know they won’t return for another year at least and they’re basically fine with Eugenie and Jack living there instead of the property standing vacant forever. LOL – I actually loved how mad people were about Frogmore sitting there, gathering dust. Those nitpicking racists in the British media made such a BFD about costs of the reno, it would have served them right to simply have Frogmore sit there vacant.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid, Avalon Red.

A post shared by Tyler Perry (@tylerperry)

Tyler Perry is known for his generosity. Last spring, Tyler loaned his Beverly Hills mansion to Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan while they were transitioning from royal life. During the pandemic, Tyler picked up the grocery tab for senior citizens at 70 different grocery stores in Atlanta. Tyler also donated a van to a women’s organization in Atlanta that provides hygiene products to women experiencing homelessness.

Tyler’s latest act of kindness is very much on brand. Tyler experienced food and housing insecurity while pursuing his dream as a writer (he once had to live in his car). He said seeing all the people lining up at foodbanks inspired TPS (Tyler Perry Studios) Giving. Tyler opened his Atlanta studio for a four hour food drive. He paid to feed 5,000 families through boxed meals and grocery store gift cards. Here is more on the story via People:

On Sunday, the star opened up his Atlanta movie studio, Tyler Perry Studios, for four hours to feed 5,000 families with a combination of food boxes and gift cards for local supermarket chain Kroger.

Perry, 51, personally funded the event, called TPS Giving, and studio employees donated their time to volunteer and hand out all of the goods.

“Tyler was heartbroken seeing people all over the country stand in line for food so he decided he wanted to give back to his community in Atlanta,” a source close to Perry tells PEOPLE. “Hopefully this encourages others who are able to, to give back during the holiday season in a year that has been difficult for many.”

[From People]

This is another feel good story in which high profile people who have experienced times of poverty are now giving back. I am here for this. I truly believe in giving back whenever I have it to spare. That five dollar gift card can mean the difference of someone going hungry or being fed. It has been a tough year for many. Last week, 25,000 people lined up in their cars at the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas, TX. We may not realize how that $10 we donated to a food bank a few weeks ago matters. Every little bit counts.

I am not necessarily a fan of Tyler’s movies but I like how he never gave up on himself and kept going. I also like reading about how he loves to give back and help in his community. I hope that many will take a page from Tyler’s book during this time and give whatever they can. If you have extra cash this holiday season, please donate to your local food back or to Feeding America or No Kid Hungry. If you have canned goods in your cabinet that you know you won’t use, donate them to your local food bank. You can even donate the remaining balance of one of your gift cards to this program. I hope this Thanksgiving, despite not being able to be with our friends and family like we are used to, will remind us of the many things that we can be thankful for.

A post shared by Tyler Perry Studios (@tylerperrystudios)

A post shared by Tyler Perry (@tylerperry)

A post shared by Tyler Perry (@tylerperry)

Mandy Moore is expecting her first child, a baby boy, with her husband, Taylor Goldsmith. Like most parents-to-be, Mandy is very excited for her new addition, although the pregnancy didn’t quite kick off as smoothly as she’d hoped. When last we heard from Mandy, she was really struggling with food aversions, Fortunately, it sounds like those are starting to go away and things are looking up for the mom-to be. However, looking back on those long, foul days, Mandy doesn’t know how women get through them.

Mandy Moore had a rough start to her pregnancy.

While sitting down for The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM radio, the actress, 36, opened up about her time self-isolating amid the coronavirus pandemic and her early pregnancy with her first child, a baby boy.

“I am with child. I’m due early next year … I feel very lucky,” the This Is Us star said.

“I was really sick in the beginning — super sick,” Moore explained. “But I was home, so I didn’t have to miss out on work. I don’t know how women do it. I literally woke up and was sick all day long. I couldn’t eat, I lost a bunch of weight. I just stayed in bed all day, but I know that’s not the case for everybody, that it sometimes can persevere for the entire pregnancy.”

“So, I’m lucky that that kind of trailed off and I feel much better now,” she added. “But beyond that, I feel like I have my energy back, I’m feeling good.”

[From People]

I mentioned the last time Mandy spoke about this, I didn’t have any sickness during pregnancy. I am so grateful for that. I know there is a lot of information out there about how well the body nourishes the baby even when the mom is struggling with morning sickness, but it would freak me out. Not to mention, pregnancy is uncomfortable anyway, being constantly sick on top of that, yikes! So I am happy to hear that Mandy is back on her feet and feeling better. Yes, she is lucky that she had the ability to sit home and feel like crap… if one can feel lucky about that.

As for how women do it, she must means women who do not have the luxury of staying home in bed while sick during pregnancy. Because the kind of sick Mandy’s talking about is vomiting when upright, right? I swear, the more I hear about other women’s pregnancies, the more grateful I am for mine. Mandy also said they will try to hide her pregnancy on This Is Us with the usual “carrying laundry baskets and oversized purses” and probably standing behind ferns and chairs. It’s comical when they try that, you can always tell. Pregnancy affects the whole body, not just the stomach. The best was Brooklyn 99 when they had Amy fake a pregnancy in jail to hide her real-life pregnancy. Oh well, it’s always entertaining to watch them try. The important part is Mandy is feeling better and can finally start enjoying being pregnant.

Photo credit: Instagram

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Late last week, Euphoria actor Lukas Gage posted a short video to his social media. It was a clip from an audition Gage had done over Zoom. During the pandemic, many actors have been auditioning over Zoom, so I wouldn’t imagine it was anything particularly unique to Gage. The clip Gage posted was a British-accented director mocking Gage’s apartment, apparently not realizing that his microphone was not muted. The director was apparently disgusted at the idea of Zooming with “poor people” and their “tiny apartments.”

psa if youre a shit talking director make sure to mute ur shit on zoom mtgings pic.twitter.com/PTgMZcRhEw

— lukas gage (@lukasgage) November 20, 2020

Gage didn’t name the director and many people thought it was Matthew Vaughn, a British producer/director of films like Layer Cake, X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass and Kingsman. But apparently it’s not Matthew Vaughn. It’s Tristram Shapeero, a television director. He was first contacted by the Daily Mail and it did not go well:

Tristram Shapeero defended his comments overheard in a Zoom call with actor Lukas Gage, claiming that he ‘didn’t say anything bad’ in his remarks on the size of Gage’s apartment. The British director, 54, is believed to be the industry pro, who on a Zoom stream with the actor, 25, that said ‘these poor people live in these tiny apartments’ – not realizing that he could be overheard with the ostensibly-offensive comments.

Shapeero initially blanched at the idea of speaking with a photographer, saying, ‘I’m on the phone with my brother at the moment so I have no comment to make it this time.’ When prodded further, Shapeero said he felt no need to say sorry because he wasn’t in the wrong.

‘I don’t have any apology because I didn’t say anything bad, and you have to look up the definition … it was three months ago,’ said Shapeero, who’s directed for shows such as Community, Never Have I Ever, Superstore, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Veep. ‘The context of which it was said and the context of the meanings of the words need to be properly evaluated – that’s all I’m gonna say.’

Shapeero then said he was planning on issuing a formal statement to clarify his stance on the issue after conferring with public relations professionals.

‘Actually I’m not gonna say anything right now, because were talking to some PR people, but there will be a statement I’m sure at some point, but I’m not confirming,’ he said.

[From The Daily Mail]

Wow, what a horribly bad reaction! Everything checks out – a snooty dude who mocks “poor” actors for living in regular old apartments would obviously not believe he said anything wrong when confronted. So yeah, hours later, he issued a long-ass statement to Deadline:

You probably don’t know who I am, but you’re likely familiar with my story. An actor, Lukas Gage, posted a clip on social media taken from a Zoom casting he and I had been a part of back in August…. Despite what is probably wise advice: to say the least possible and let this pass, I have decided to come forward, take responsibility, make the apology Mr. Gage deserves, and offer some background for my unacceptable and insensitive remarks. I am Tristram Shapeero, a 20-year veteran television director, half in the UK, and the second half here in the US.

First and foremost I offer Mr. Gage a sincere and unvarnished apology for my offensive words, my unprofessional behavior during the audition and for not giving him the focus and attention he deserved. My job is to evaluate performers against the part I am trying to cast. Lukas deserved better. This Zoom audition took place in August, after four months of lockdown. A number of my co-workers were also on the auditions which happened over several days. It was emotional to see actors work so hard to win the few parts available and we were deeply moved by the passion of these young people under the extraordinary circumstances.

I was using the word ‘poor’ in the sense of deserving sympathy, as opposed to any economic judgment. My words were being spoken from a genuine place of appreciation for what the actors were having to endure, stuck in confined spaces, finding it within themselves to give a role-winning performance under these conditions. As I say on the video, I’m mortified about what happened. While I can’t put the proverbial toothpaste back in the tube, I move forward from this incident a more empathetic man; a more focused director and I promise, an even better partner to actors from the audition process to the final cut.

With humility and gratitude, Tristram Shapeero

[From Deadline]

LOL. I mean, maybe in the moment, Shapeero really did mean it sympathetically like “these poor actors” but I feel like Gage, in the moment, understood his meaning completely. Also, Shapeero didn’t feel that bad – he didn’t give Gage the part.

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Photos courtesy of Getty.

A post shared by VIOLA DAVIS (@violadavis)

Viola Davis stars in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom which comes out on Netflix tomorrow, November 25. Over the summer Viola helped promote the No Kid Hungry program in her role as spokesperson. Viola grew up impoverished in Rhode Island and wants to give back the way that others helped her as a child. In an interview with AARP, Viola discusses how poverty is invisible and how growing up poor affected her self-worth. Below are a few excerpts:

On dreaming of bigger things as a child
Well, necessity is the mother of invention. While there were a lot of moments of joy in the house, there was a lot of alcoholism and violence, too. So we had a sense of tragedy and deprivation, along with poverty. What comes with poverty is invisibility. Nobody talks about the poor. We just wanted to be somebody, desperately. And that’s what happened.

You negotiate your worth. You’re saying you’re more than what your financial situation is. You’re more than your square-mile city of Central Falls. You’re more than your beautiful parents, who I love more than anything, even my dad. Not a specific dream necessarily, just the drive itself, because that’s what gets you out of the bed in the morning. A feeling of, I’m important.

Why she speaks out
Some of it could be survivor’s guilt, having come from poverty. And it’s the limitations and the disillusionment of success. After The Help and certainly How to Get Away With Murder, I had arrived. So what do you do? It’s like that final line from Willy Wonka: What happens when you get everything you always wanted? And you feel disappointment because it’s not what you thought it would be?

On what she wants to leave with people
To make everyone who comes in contact with me feel they’re worthy.

I’m not going to cry, though I feel like I’m going to cry. But I always say that I have one picture of my childhood. Every time I wake up, I look at myself and I’m that little 5-year-old girl — and I’m either healing her or comforting her, or I’m allowing her to have fun. I’ve tried to fight for it my whole life. Showing that, Look, I have some money in the bank. I have health insurance. We’re not on welfare anymore. My clothes are clean. I’m the right age. I put on some makeup so now I look cute.

There are all these tickets into worth. In this culture you’re always showing someone your worth. But the only real ticket into worth is that you were born. That’s it. Over and out. And I want everyone — anyone who comes into my home, anyone who enters into a friendship with me, anyone who works for me — to feel a sense of value, feel a sense of belonging and not shame, because they’re not on top of it all the time. I feel that lack of self-worth is the one thing that leads so many people down a slippery path.

“How does the importance of self-worth apply to the state of affairs in our country?”
That’s a four-hour question. But I’ll just say there is a strong caste system here. Whether you’re Black, white, Hispanic, dark, whatever, there is a status game that operates as soon as you wake up each morning. There are certain people who are valued over others. I can attest to that. Growing up living below the poverty line — you are no one’s demographic. No one’s fighting for you. And when you do get access to opportunity, the fight continues because you’re coming from generations of people who were not given access to opportunity, so you have to learn it on your own.

Do I believe that you can get out of it? Yes. But a lot of people don’t, because the world belongs to people who have a ticket into that society. I don’t want to get political here, so I won’t get into systemic racism and the history of the systems that have gotten us to this place. But I will say that without dismantling all of it, we get nowhere. Nowhere.

[From AARP]

Viola is the come-up and reach back poster child. I love the fact that Viola doesn’t try to distance herself from her upbringing but uses it as a source of strength and motivation. She is right, people who experience poverty from day to day are erased in our society. We blame them for being poor instead of looking at the systems that are in place that benefit from having impoverished sections of society. We don’t try to dismantle the systems that also create the working poor. What’s worse, most people who are born into poverty can never “pull themselves up by the bootstraps.” It can be impossible to rise out of poverty on your own. It takes a village. Viola remembers the people who helped her and the difference they made. She has never forgotten moments like the librarian sharing her sandwich with her.

I am here for Viola speaking truth about dismantling systems of oppression. Most people are not ready for that conversation, but here we are. I truly believe that we have the ability and the wealth to end world poverty. But, in order to have these equitable societies we have been marching for, we will need to get our hands a bit dirty and our hearts a bit full.

A post shared by VIOLA DAVIS (@violadavis)

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It’s tricky having tomato red hair when the backdrop of the photo wall is also tomato red. This is what happened with Bebe Rexha last night at the AMAs. She performed with Doja Cat and this is what I meant earlier in my post about BTS when I talked about their difference in the scale and sophisticat…