Yes. This should be a Mother’s Day post.
But I like to think that in the Noorani-Gavin household, every day is Mother’s Day.
I also like to think I’m a good golfer. (I’m not.)
So, I will enlist you, faithful reader, in supporting my fabulous wife (and bailing me out). A few years back, after serving as a prosecutor in family court in Newark, NJ, and then launching her own law practice, Toya decided she wanted to help women of color figure out their next career steps.
Part of that practice for Toya is sharing her own story. Which she does via Woke Up Worthy.
Therefore, do me a solid, give it a read and a subscription? Because outside of the daily heroics necessary to deal with the likes of me, Toya is a wonderful mother and a brilliant writer.
First. Let’s talk immigration.
What is happening on the border is an abject tragedy. As I wrote in Crossing Borders, systems throughout the Western Hemisphere are robbing people of their dignity. And with poverty, violence and climate change driving migration, policy makers around the world are pretending a complex problem can be addressed via simple solutions.
After spending nearly 20 years in the immigration movement, now removed by multiple degrees, I feel angry, powerless and, well, mad.
I would recommend a few pieces to read. Try to find a balanced perspective. But it is just too maddening. More on this later. Maybe. Hopefully. Certainly.
Bueller?
My niece spent a weekend with us. She got some quality time with her newest cousin, helped me wash the cars and, when we cleaned up the yard, had an absolute blast with the leaf blower. In fact, I am not sure what was louder: the blower or her hooting and hollering every time she turned it on. It was pure joy.
After Anisa went to bed, we reached an agreement. The first night we would watch my niece’s movie of choice. The next night, on her request, we would watch one of my favorite movies from growing up.
The first night was Power Rangers. And I’ll be honest, it was jarring. After five minutes it dawned on me that my future now includes an incredible number of hours of children’s programming. Of course, I find comfort in the fact that now that Robert DeNiro has a baby at age 70, I have company. Welcome to Cranky Dad, Bob.
Now I’m not saying that the 1970’s shows I grew up with were high-brow affairs. I can still see “Ultraman” in my mind’s eye, but I have no idea what the premise was. “Chips” taught me that any and all crime is solved on California highways. “Fat Albert” was kind of awesome and I relished the subtle sarcasm of “The Muppet Show.”
I’d rather not discuss my unfortunate adolescent addiction to the daily 3pm showing of “Days of Our Lives.” Although I often wonder if Roman Brady is still alive…
The Power Rangers juggernaut is really something to behold. Despite awful dialogue, remedial acting skills and dollar store costumes, my niece knew every part of the story. And the backstory. The amount of money Haim Saban (who was also an owner of Univision) must have made producing “Power Rangers” was astronomical.
In the end, I think the story was about family, loyalty and friendship. More than anything, I was just happy my niece had a great evening. Nothing better than seeing a young person truly enjoy a story.
Did the shows I grew up on make me a better or worse person? Are the Power Rangers warping children’s minds in one way or another? For my part, Mother’s Day gifts aside, I think I turned out somewhat okay. And I think my niece is a rock star. More than the shows we watched, I attribute both outcomes to my parents and my sister. I will probably change my mind as Anisa gets older, but I’m not sure the shows we watched really mattered that much.
Either way, the entire experience got me thinking about what Anisa is going to watch as she gets older. Particularly as culture wars rage and polarization pervades every corner of society.
Our politics are no longer about left vs right. Nor are they about issues. Our politics are defined by a stacking of our racial, religious, sexual, geographic and cultural identities. Political forces exploit our stacked identities – and the fears that come with them – so our partisanship becomes our social norm.
And, if politics is downstream from culture, our political fights are expanding from our elections to our entertainment. Which the autocrats have come to understand.
In what Ian Bassin at Protect Democracy refers to as “autocratic capture,” Governor Ron DeSantis is using, “regulatory powers of the state to force private actors to toe a political line.” In this case, the private actors being singled out are none other than Disney.
“The State of Florida,” David French writes in the New York Times, “is targeting Disney because of the company’s constitutionally protected expression.” French concludes that if Disney loses their lawsuit against Florida, “America’s first liberty will be at risk, and the culture wars will escalate out of control.”
I’d argue things are already out of control.
Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter has turned the site into a breeding ground for extremism. And none other than Tucker Carlson is making noise that he will take his wares to the site.
Meanwhile, leaders of the far-right Daily Wire, are wading deeper into the culture wars as they lay tracks to produce original television and movie-length content. But in his reporting of the plans, Bloomberg’s Devin Leonard is keen to point out how relatively small the potential audience of such an effort, much less how difficult it will be to raise the money. “The Daily Wire says its next goal is to reach 10 million subscribers,” Leonard writes, “10 times more than it has now and still a rounding error for Disney+ and Netflix, which together have nearly 400 million subscribers.”
Let me pause and try to be clear. I think it is fine if a company wants to produce content catering to conservative cultural values. There are plenty of left-leaning media companies that do the same thing. But if the goal is to weaponize identities via that content, then we are on a slippery slope where polarization becomes extremism.
Which is what bothers me about Leonard’s reporting: When it comes to weaponizing identities, size doesn’t matter. It is all about salience.
Because in the battle for ideological purity, the intensity of your message doesn’t just build your audience; it taps an emotional valence. We are a polarized society because we disagree about issues. That’s fine. What worries me more is that we are a polarized society with growing strains of extremism because we are an emotional basket case as a nation. Which political forces are ready and willing to exploit.
All of this brings me back to being a husband and a father. As Toya (and many of you) will attest, I have a dark sense of humor. A deep sarcasm -- that I blame on The Muppets -- that she rightfully worries will undermine the confidence of our daughter. Stay tuned for future issues of Cranky Dad to see if I stay on this side of that line.
Of course, I aim to be a supportive father that raises a fearless daughter who becomes a person that takes on the world. Just like her mother. It won’t be easy. I will have to be thoughtful about things I have never thought about. And we will need to be aware of the forces around us.
What my niece taught me is that just in case I fail, we can watch a lot of Power Rangers. Because I’m not sure my choice of movies that second night, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is going to provide much in terms of moral clarity.
Although, every time my niece calls these days, we giggle “Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?”
Watching
The other day, while I was finding the latest episode of “Succession” to hate watch, I learned “Barry” is out with another season. Renew your HBO Max subscription and catch up on “Barry.” Bill Hader is brilliant.
Listening
I know. As a person who has a job for smart people, I am supposed to listen to serious podcasts in order to pipe knowledge into my brain. I can’t do it. Or at least, rarely can I do it.
Instead, I am a sucker for comedy podcasts and “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” is my go-to. While his Bill Burr episodes are pretty great, his recent conversation with Steven Wright was pure gold.
For the kids out there, Wright, in my mind, is the OG of deep sarcasm. For example, a joke he shared during the Conan interview: “I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time'. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.”
Outside of the technical aspects of comedy, the best part of the conversation was when Wright shared the pieces of abstract art that he saw at age 17 which deeply influenced the way he viewed the world. Which kind of made me pretty excited to take Anisa to art museums in the years ahead.
And for the Neil Gaiman fans out there, a friend sent me this interview he did with Tim Ferris. I loved it.
Reading
Finally, I wanted to recommend my friend Daniel Stid’s blog, “The Art of Association.” I find his perspective on politics, philanthropy and pluralism to be helpful and challenging in all the right ways.
Finally, finally. Something I am looking forward to reading: Will Saletan’s “The Corruption of Lindsey Graham.” Back in my immigration days, I worked quite a bit with Graham and his staff. He and his people were great to work with. Always trying to find the way forward. What I hope Saletan explains are the forces that got Graham to this place and if any sort of path forward remains.