Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 110
April 9, 2018
“The Simpsons” just made its Apu problem worse — and proved its creative bankruptcy
FOX
On Sunday’s episode of “The Simpsons” its writers and producers delivered a message to America, care of Springfield, U.S.A., one as disposable and succinct as a postcard: “We’ve stopped caring. You should too.”
As to what we should stop caring about, the obvious answer would be Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the character that inspired half of the plot’s spine for “No Good Read Goes Unpunished.”
We weren’t meant to see that from the get-go, understand. Executive producer Al Jean teased as much before the episode aired, promising “a Twitter explosion in act three.” That was the moment at which we were to realize that the wandering and weak plot spine was meant as a half-baked clap back at comedian Hari Kondabolu’s “The Problem with Apu,” an excellent documentary that premiered on TruTV in November 2017.
That’s right around the time that “The Simpsons” writers would have been in the early stages of working on "No Good Read Goes Unpunished." The main story begins with a concerned Marge urging the family to rekindle a love of reading, which she does by taking Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Homer to a local bookstore. There, she encounters a classic edition of "The Princess in the Garden," one of her favorite childhood books, and she decides to read it to Lisa.
Only after she’s perched on her older daughter’s bed does Marge realizes that the book’s heroine is a colonialist slave owner who considers brown people to be savages. “They were too naturally servile to oppose her will,” one line reads. This leads Marge to quickly revise the book to make it “as inoffensive as a Sunday in Cincinnati” by removing what she calls its spirit and character. Marge rewrites the heroine as “cisgender” and a crusader for net neutrality.
In response Lisa, typically Springfield’s most overtly and overly-conscientious progressive voice (a fact fueling much of Monday’s consternation on Twitter) points out that without flaws, the heroine has no room to evolve and therefore her story lacks a point.
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” a flummoxed Marge asks.
“It’s hard to say,” Lisa replies, then looks directly at the audience. “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?”
Then she casts a longing look at a framed picture of Apu sitting on her bedside table bedecked with an inscription that reads, “Don’t have a cow, Apu.”
Amazing. In a scant three sentences, part of a sequence that lasts all of 16 seconds, “The Simpsons” writers managed to display enough layers of dismissiveness to build a truly impressive lasagna of willful ignorance.
Where to begin?
There’s the laziness of dismissing valid concerns about the character as so much politically correct bluster, as opposed to evidence of harm offered by an array of voices representing a slice of the population long overlooked. That’s the central point of Kondabolu’s documentary; in fact, as incensed as he is about how Apu has impacted the way he’s viewed in the world, what really upsets him, and other actors and public figures interviewed in the film, is how the characterization of Apu leads to his parents being mistreated. (If you haven't seen the documentary, by the way, it's streaming on TruTV's website and is available via video on demand.)
Stubborn solipsism breeds in the most vaunted of Hollywood’s writers’ rooms. And “The Simpsons,” stocked by Harvard Lampoon alumni and overwhelmingly white and male, is one of the toughest clubs for a comedy writer to break into. Let’s assume, fairly safely and based on the data indicating that 86.3 percent of TV writers are white, that no people of color were present or consulted when “No Good Read Goes Unpunished” was written.
That’s no more smug of an assumption than the declaration that Apu used to be “applauded and inoffensive,” no doubt informed by all the people quoting Hank Azaria’s accent back to people who work on “The Simpsons.” In Hollywood’s creative bubble, that’s a major barometer of success.
Industry accolades are another. On Twitter, Jean defended that line by pointing out that Hank Azaria, the actor who voices Apu, won an Emmy for voicing the character in 1998. “Only 20 years ago,” he argues.
Emmy voters never make mistakes, and so little has changed in 20 years. Right?
The tenor of the conversation sparked by “The Problem with Apu” has sharpened even since its cable debut five months ago. Back then I wrote, “It's worth wondering how many of the people who would learn the most from 'The Problem with Apu' will want to watch it. 'The Simpsons' is a beloved property, a nearly sacred icon of American popular culture. . . . And a number of its passionate fans may not want to confront any implication that their favorite cartoon also is a potent perpetuator of a damaging stereotype.”
At that time I failed to consider the show’s own writers to be among its biggest fans. Nothing wrong with being proud of your own work, but the whole of “No Good Read Goes Unpunished” exists to prove that they know the show’s not going anywhere anytime soon. So...insert shrug emoji here.
In three more episodes, “The Simpsons” will beat the record set by “Gunsmoke” for most episodes aired, and among the critics that are still watching, the consensus is that its best days are behind it. Why bother provoking with thoughtful satire when you can just respond to a detractor who can’t — nay, shouldn’t — argue with success?
Salon reached out to Kondabolu for comment but did not hear back. However, he did offer these responses on Twitter.
TO THE JOURNALISTS WHO HAVE ASKED ME FOR A PUBLIC STATEMENT ABOUT LAST NIGHT’S SIMPSONS EPISODE, I JUST WANT SAY: “Congratulations to the Simpsons for being talked about & being seen as relevant again.”
— Hari Kondabolu (@harikondabolu) April 9, 2018
The Simpsons always critiqued pop culture, mocked hypocrisy & went after broken institutions. I LEARNED FROM THE BEST. — Hari Kondabolu (@harikondabolu) April 9, 2018
“No Good Read Goes Unpunished,” the series’ 633rd episode, opens with the writers giving themselves a good ribbing by way of patting themselves on the back, as the ‘toon within a ‘toon “The Itchy and Scratchy Show” airs a ceaseless marathon of every slaughter ever. In one scene the fictionalized home of “Itchy and Scratchy,” FXX (the real life home of “Every. Simpsons. Ever.”) does a PR stunt involving feline offal being slopped out of an airplane and onto excited fans cheering mindlessly.
The universal adoration for a cartoon cat and the homicidal mouse who regularly dismembers him is so accepted that nobody dares to be taken aback at the implied barbarity of a blood-and-guts shower. It’s just a cartoon after all. A cartoon that no longer needs to work at being funny.
No actual beings are injured in the making of “The Simpsons” show within a show. And despite what “The Problem with Apu” posits, the implied takeaway is that “The Simpsons” isn’t in the business of harming anyone either. Just a cartoon, folks!
Jeff Westbrook, credited with writing the episode, must have seen “The Problem with Apu,” but he and the other writers failed to digest a central point Kondabalu makes in it. When the most popular Indian American character on TV is a stereotype voiced by a white guy, and when that character contributes to a generation of children and their parents suffering prejudice and bullying, then perhaps that character is due for an unflinching reappraisal.
Drawing a false equivalency between a decades-old children’s book and an animated series that’s in the midst of its 29th season doesn’t cut it. As NPR’s Linda Holmes points out in her excellent piece, “Apu is not appearing in a 50-year-old book by a now-dead author. Apu is a going concern. Someone draws him, over and over again. Azaria makes money to keep imitating Peter Sellers imitating an Indian man. Scripts are still being written.“
But this spectacular thud is only one example of the series’ more pressing problem of irrelevancy. The entire episode is a classic example of a group of TV writers’ collective failure to acknowledge a significant flaw in their classic creation. Or to consider that opening themselves up to accepting measured criticism of that creation may actually win them points as opposed to sinking them further into creative bankruptcy.
Don’t forget that it takes several months for an episode of “The Simpsons” to make it on the air, by the way. That means that this line had to have been written right around the time that Kondabolu’s documentary made its TV debut. That throwaway bit, and the compostable plot coupon leading up to this, is a reactive response to an issue that begs for a thoughtful, measured reply that addresses it and, perhaps in the course of doing so, ameliorates the problem.
Instead, Marge places her hand on Lisa’s shoulder and says, “Some things will be dealt with at a later date.”
“If at all,” Lisa finishes, before mother and daughter both stare out at America with their wide, round and blank peepers. In the silence of that pause, they deliver the moral of this story: In the end, “The Simpsons” has stopped caring about how intelligently and compassionately Springfield satirizes the good people of the U.S. of A. And so should the rest of us.
A breast cancer survivor gets her post-mastectomy empowerment tattoo in “Grace”
Rachel Pikelny, director
Rachel Pikelny’s heart-grabbing and just plain real film “Grace” is a sincere and revealing portrait of Grace Lombardo, an Illinois soccer mom and cancer survivor who elects to get an elaborate tattoo to adorn her mastectomy scars.
You can watch the full documentary "Grace" on Salon Premium, our new ad-free, content-rich app. Here's how.
Salon spoke with Pikelny about her very open and funny subject and how she, a cancer survivor herself, came up with such a subtle film that transcends mere advocacy.
How did you find Grace?
In September of 2016, I read a Chicago Tribune article about David Allen, a tattoo artist who was helping women heal after breast cancer. The process would not only cover their scars but also allow them to heal the deep emotional trauma and retake control of their bodies. The story just grabbed me. I’m a recent survivor myself and know all too well what’s left in cancer’s wake.
So I reached out to David and we met for breakfast. He offered to introduce me to a few clients on his schedule to be tattooed the following year. I wanted to film with someone who’d just finished cancer treatment and document her journey starting when everyone else thinks it’s “over.”
Grace was one of the women on David’s tattooing schedule. I did some sleuthing and found her blog, Grancer, which to my amazement, had 100,000+ followers and was at once raw and heartfelt, but also super witty and often, laugh-out-loud funny. We subsequently connected by phone, and based on her candidness and charisma, I knew she was the woman I wanted to feature in the film.
There are many intimate moments — the actual tattooing, talking about sex, talking with the kids — how would you say being the subject of the film influenced Grace's experience?
You know, it’s hard for me to say. It’s like that movie "Sliding Doors"; I don’t know how this would’ve unfolded for Grace if I hadn’t read that article, hadn’t decided to make this film, hadn’t been there with a camera crew.
What I can tell you is that I tried my best to let events unfold as they happened, to not influence the story but to be there to capture key moments. I worked with veteran cinematographers like Dana Kupper, an expert cinema vérité-style shooter. She somehow manages to be at the center of the action, to get the shot, without disturbing the events’ trajectory.
Being a survivor myself, I knew all too well what Grace was experiencing post-treatment. I asked specific questions not to introduce Grace to new emotions, but to enable her to share universal truths about a survivor’s experience — truths that I, too, struggle to face.
I wanted to be especially careful about disrupting the family dynamic. I’m a mom to young kids, and I know that it’s important to address big topics — like, um, cancer — in whatever way is appropriate for your particular child. But I also knew that she’d be willing to go there. From reading her blog, Grace doesn’t sugarcoat, especially in conversations with her children and with her husband Joe. As she says in one post, “I speak to my kids like adults. This may screw them up or make them extra cool, TBD.”
The film doesn't reference that you are a breast cancer survivor. Did you consider incorporating that into the film?
For a long time after my diagnosis in 2015, I wasn’t terribly open about my experience. I wore a pretty convincing wig and tolerated chemo fairly well, so many people didn’t even know I was in treatment.
After my hair started to grow back, I ditched the wig and finally decided to “come out” about my battle with cancer. Honestly, it was more to explain the motive behind my unsexy buzz-cut than wanting to shine a spotlight on my experience. As time went on, and I found my “new normal,” I became more and more comfortable talking about my experience. And that’s around the time I read about the tattooer David Allen and started this film.
I think it’s important that viewers know I’m a survivor. It gives authenticity to the film. But still, I didn’t want the film to be about me. In a way, Grace is somewhat of a surrogate for my own story — and the story of one in eight women out there. That’s the statistic. The details of every survivor’s journey differ, but there are some common threads — struggling with a new identity, issues with body image, changes in intimacy, fear of recurrence, and more.
I hear it was an all-female crew. Can you describe what the production was like, perhaps with an anecdote?
That was a decision I made very early in the process. I’ve worked with so many talented — and feminist! — male crew members over the years. But by taking extra effort to work with women, from the field crew to the editing team to the sound mixer, I wanted to make a statement that we own this story, that it’s an issue that affects so many of us and our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, daughters, and friends.
Of course, I also wanted Grace to feel 100 percent comfortable in the more intimate and/or scantily clad moments, though I think she would’ve been fine either way.
What was surprising and really disheartening was the difficulty in finding highly skilled, experienced crew members — particularly sound recordists — who are female. In documentary filmmaking, quality sound is essential. I did manage to meet and hire a couple great female sound recordists throughout production, but they’re scarce, even in a big production city like Chicago. I would love to see that change in the years ahead. I think female filmmakers and crew members have a responsibility to mentor and foster a new generation of talented women in this field.
My editor Katie Wrobel and I formed a very close relationship throughout the life of the film. She, too, is a breast cancer survivor, not to mention a crazy talented editor with a strong sense of story and artistry. The process of editing the film was therapeutic for me, as I had to think critically about my own experience as a survivor. I had many long conversations with Katie about bodies and feelings and everything else not fit for print. I don’t think I would’ve been able to go there with a male editor.
Has the film been used by cancer survivor groups? Who's seen it so far?
The film has really been embraced by both the medical community and survivor groups. So far, we’ve shown it at the Young Survival Coalition’s national conference, to physicians and students at Northwestern Medicine’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and to several survivor groups and wellness centers. We’re continuing the film’s rollout with a Chicagoland Tour, with the support of organizations like the Chicago Media Project, Women in Film, and UN Women. The film has also partnered with Public Good. Click here to learn more about supporting survivors and helping them thrive.
We’re getting tons of requests to screen the film around the country, which is really exciting. Salon readers can actually request a screening in their city by emailing gracedocumentary@third-stage.com.
What are you working on now?
I’ve spent more than a decade working on docs as a producer, but this is actually my first big project in the director’s chair. I’d love to direct another project, when the timing and topic align, but in the meantime, I’m busy producing two other feature docs.
The first, "No Small Matter," presents the far-reaching impacts of high-quality care and education for young children. It’s exciting to see the film just weeks away from completion after 4-plus years in production! As the mom of two kids under the age of five, this project’s also pretty personal.
The second film, "The Road Up," is about to head into edit. It tells the story of three struggling Chicagoans who make the journey from rock bottom to gainful employment, helped by an inspired teacher with a surprising past. It’s a raw and revealing portrait of unequal opportunity and how extraordinarily difficult it is for people to change longstanding, toxic behavior when society, and their pasts, are working against them in every way. It’s a story that’s both deeply specific to Chicago, yet hugely resonant nationally.
Get to know an incredible woman, “Grace,” as she embarks on a new sense of self. Watch "Grace" on Salon Premium, our new ad-free, content-rich app.
Reading this in the app already? Go back to the main menu and select "SalonTV" to find Salon Films and Salon original shows.
“Stories Untold”: Why you haven’t heard from these Parkland survivors
YouTube
If your only image of the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school is one of the student activists propelled by the media to the center of the March For Our Lives and Never Again gun violence movement, then you would probably imagine the school to be overwhelmingly white. Save Cuban-American Emma González, the most-recognizable faces since suspect Nikolas Cruz sprayed bullets into the Parkland, Florida school on Feb. 14, killing 17 and injuring many more all look similar.
New @TIME cover: The school shooting generation has had enough https://t.co/GQJ9HnJv8W pic.twitter.com/foJoWcUoe6
— Dan Hirschhorn (@DanH_TIME) March 22, 2018
Now, students of color at Parkland are seeking to show the full picture. Stoneman Douglas student Carlitos Rodriguez and friends started the online campaign "Stories Untold" – a Twitter account and its own hashtag – that aims to amplify the underrepresented voices and stories impacted by gun violence. This includes the students of color at the Parkland school, as well those in the less affluent, less white communities in Florida who are impacted by gun violence at disproportionate rates.
This is an open invitation for those who have been a victim of gun violence. Don’t let your voice be silenced, you can now share your story #StoriesUntold pic.twitter.com/dVn99eyJ85
— Stories Untold (@StoriesUntoldUS) April 2, 2018
"Our school is very diverse, and the media is not representing us," Rodriguez told HuffPost, adding that nearly 40 percent of Stoneman Douglas’ students are not white. He continued, "We want to represent the minorities that are not in the media: the Latinos, African-Americans, Asians. Our voices are very powerful."
Since it's launch on April 2, the "Stories Untold" Twitter account has provided a platform for more Parkland students to disclose for the very first time the horror they witnessed on Feb. 14, including personal accounts from those who were injured that day.
I know that it is late but I can’t keep my story in anymore. Hi my name is Elissa Castellanos I’m a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas and this is my untold story of Valentine’s Day. #MSDStrong #StoriesUntold pic.twitter.com/4MW9FFQfi9
— Elissa // MSDSTRONG (@ElissaFails) April 4, 2018
february 14th, 2018. pic.twitter.com/FV3NF3LCA1
— isa (@isabelchequer) April 5, 2018
In one video, Stories Untold follows Venezuelan-American student Anthony Borges, 15, and his return to Stoneman Douglas since recovering from five gun shot wounds.
https://twitter.com/StoriesUntoldUS/s...
This critique of the one-dimensional mainstream coverage of the Parkland shooting is far from new. Campaigns similar to Stories Untold continue to sprout up, as the same story continues to repeat itself. During an interview with Axios, when survivor David Hogg was asked about the media's biggest mistake was when covering the student activism at Parkland, he replied: "Not giving black students a voice . . . My school is about 25 percent black, but the way we're covered doesn't reflect that."
Emma González, too, has often called for expanding the narrative, expressing the need for the gun control debate to address gun violence in all of its forms and to acknowledge that communities of color who are most impacted. In a moment of solidarity and understanding, she invited students from the West and South sides of Chicago into her gated community in Florida to learn about their lives, work and the many movements against gun violence happening there.
But for some Stoneman Douglas students, this underscored the problem. "It hurts, because they went all the way to Chicago to hear these voices when we’re right here," Mei-Ling Ho-Shing, a 17-year-old black student at Stoneman Douglas, told HuffPost. "We go to school with you every day."
Several black students from Stoneman Douglas held a press conference on March 28 to broadcast their concerns, among them the new danger that they specifically face at school as the result of an increased police presence and whether police violence is being properly included in the March For Our Lives movement. Most importantly, they expressed desire to be recognized and heard.
Tyah-Amoy a Marjorie Stoneman Douglas student said conversations about gun violence have to include police violence. She asked, the same people who showed up for #MarchForOurLives--will they show up for #StephonClark? #AltonSterling? #SandraBland? pic.twitter.com/QIhvy9gYHD
— Nadege C. Green (@NadegeGreen) March 28, 2018
"We feel like people within the movement have definitely addressed racial disparity, but haven't adequately taken action to counteract that racial disparity," Tyah Roberts, a 17-year-old junior, told Refinery29. "We're not trying to form any rift in the movement. We're not trying to form a separate group. We are proudly representing Never Again," she added. "We're just trying to ensure our voices do not get lost in the movement, as we feel we have before this press conference."
Even if the movement's frontrunners are addressing the racial disparities related to gun violence, the media's coverage of the issue remains glaring. In 2014, the New York Times described Mike Brown — who was unarmed, gunned down on a Ferguson street by a police officer, his lifeless body left in the street for hours — in part as: "Michael Brown, 18, due to be buried on Monday, was no angel." Similarly, when young activists filled the streets to protest the seemingly always unpunished killings of black men, women and children — which are often caught on camera — in Black Lives Matter rallies across the country in Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago and New York, the FBI's counterterrorism division labeled them as "Black Identity Extremists" and a threat to national security.
In Florida in 2013, young black activists who were part of the Dream Defenders, were so outraged by the killing of teenager Trayvon Martin that they occupied the state capitol for 31 days. They protested Martin's killing, as well as the Stand Your Ground law, which made the civilian shooting legal. Gov. Rick Scott refused to call a special session to address the situation. Yet, three weeks after the Parkland shooting, whose victims were mostly white, Scott signed a $400 million school safety and gun reform bill.
"This Never Again movement very personally affects me. But I have been following Black Lives Matter since Trayvon Martin, and I just want to make sure those two things intersect," Roberts told Refinery29 after the black Parkland students' press conference, "so that these black parents and black students feel like they're a part of this movement and push for change, too."
The black Parkland students say this movement does not intend to undercut the gun reform movement and all of its momentum, but rather to expand it so that its leadership and vision truly reflects the diverse lives who are impacted. And while many of the Parkland student activists have demonstrated a degree of understanding that race and oppression are at the core of any conversation about gun violence, it's clear that, for some Parkland students, this type of inclusivity is foreign.
A week before the Valentine's Day massacre and during a Black History Month show at Stoneman Douglas, a black student attempted to read a one-page response to a letter that ran in the student paper titled "All Lives Matter," according to WLRN. The letter reportedly called the Black Lives Matter movement "ridiculous," saying "they seem to be good for nothing but creating mistrust between civilians and police." But before the student could finish reading her response defending Black Lives Matter and underscoring the urgency of addressing police killings against black bodies, a teacher cut off the microphone and told her to leave the stage.
A spokesperson from Broward County Public School later told WLRN that the statement was unapproved and "due to the potential for disruption and breach in protocol, the student was asked to stop and leave the stage."
The mass attention and celebrity donations for March For Our Lives has continued to emphasize how America perceives victimhood and violence. But for this image to finally reflect reality, the Parkland activists must go beyond publicly acknowledging their privilege and criticizing the media's double standards, and as Ho-Shing told HuffPost, "share the mic."
In addition to their black and brown peers at Stoneman Douglas, this includes the activists at the forefront of ongoing movements against gun violence in Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles. It is certainly an uphill battle, but it remains an important one if the Never Again activists truly want to embody and practice the inclusivity that they orate.
"The Black Lives Matter movement has been addressing this topic since the murder of Trayvon Martin, since 2012," Roberts told Refinery29. "Yet we’ve never seen this kind of support for our cause. And we surely do not feel that the lives or voices of minorities are as valued as our white counterparts."
There's much work to do.
On Mueller’s orders, FBI raids office of Trump attorney Michael Cohen
Getty/Alex Wong/AP/Andrew Harnik/Evan Vucci
FBI agents on Monday raided the office of Michael D. Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney, seizing records related to a range of topics — including payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary,” the New York Times reported.
Monday's search did not appear to be directly related to Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, but likely resulted from information Mueller had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York, the Times said.
“Today the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients,” Stephen Ryan, Michael Cohen's lawyer, said. “I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.”
Ryan said his client has cooperated with authorities and turned over thousands of documents to congressional investigators looking into the Russian probe.
As Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Cohen first became a subject of interest in the special counsel's investigation in 2016 -- but his role in the Stormy Daniels saga could mean the scope of Mueller's investigation is expanding. Cohen recently revealed that he paid $130,000 to adult-film actress, Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006.
A White House official says President Trump has been watching reports of the FBI raiding Cohen's office on television, reported CNN's senior White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He also reports the president knew about the raid before it broke in the New York Times and on TV, citing the White House official, but notes that it's unclear if Trump has spoken to Cohen.
"This is war," conservative commentator Bill Kristol said of the FBI raiding Cohen's office on CNN. He continued, "[The raid] shows that we are very close now to the end game," regarding special counsel Mueller's investigation.
Earlier Monday, Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, filed a renewed motion to depose President Trump and Cohen. Avenatti shared the documents on Twitter. "Here is the renewed motion we just filed seeking to depose Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, as well as an expedited jury trial,” Avenatti tweeted.
On Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked and called Avenatti’s initial attempt to depose President Trump premature.
The renewed motion file says that Daniels case calls for a deposition of Trump and Cohen for no more than two hours as well as 10 requests for production of documents directed at Trump and Cohen. The motion “centers on a dispute concerning whether a settlement agreement, containing a mutual release and terms of non-disclosure, was ever formed between the parties.” In addition, Avenatti is seeking an expedited trial to determine the validity of a non-disclosure agreement signed by Daniels and Trump, which he claims is not valid because Trump did not sign it.
Avenatti said the questions he wants to ask include whether Trump is "David Dennison" or "DD," as referenced in the agreement, whether Trump knew about the agreement, whether he "truly did not know about the $130,000 payment," whether the payment was made with Trump's money, what was Cohen's role, according to CNN. Avennati also wants to know if "Mr. Trump personally in an effort to silence Plaintiff in order to benefit his presidential campaign by preventing voters from hearing Plaintiff speak publicly."
Also last week, President Trump responded publicly for the first time to questions about the $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels.
While speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One following an appearance in West Virginia, Trump was asked if he knew about the $130,000 payment, which Michael Cohen arranged for Daniels.
“No,” Trump responded.
“The mask was strong”: Junot Díaz reveals he was raped as a child
Getty/Mark Wilson
In an harrowing essay for The New Yorker, Pulitzer-Prize winning author Junot Díaz author reveals how he was raped at 8 years and describes the lifetime of trauma that has since followed him.
"It f**ked up my childhood. It f**ked up my adolescence. It f**ked up my whole life," Díaz writes. "More than being Dominican, more than being an immigrant, more, even, than being of African descent, my rape defined me. I spent more energy running from it than I did living."
Though he often describes sexual violence in his work, Díaz explains the shame from his childhood experience made him afraid to open up about his abuse directly. He describes his life-long efforts of trying to overcome the traumatic experiences, describing several failed suicide attempts, disturbing nightmares, failed relationships, and a lifetime of struggling with telling even those closest to him.
"The mask was strong," Díaz says, referring to his desperate attempts to cover up for his trauma. "But as any Freudian will tell you trauma is stronger than any mask."
"It felt good to be behind the mask. It felt like home," he continues.
Díaz addresses his essay to a fan he met in line at a book signing who had brought up the abuse mentioned in his fiction and asked Diaz if he had experienced it himself. The author was unable to respond in the moment, but writes in response, "Yes, it happened to me ... I never told anyone what happened, but today I'm telling you. And anyone else who cares to listen."
Díaz also talks about the hard work in therapy that has brought him to this moment. He says he has decided to speak openly about his experience now, because he can't keep hiding behind the same mask as before. "In Spanish we say that when a child is born it is given the light. And that’s what it feels like to say the words," he writes. "Like I’m being given a second chance at the light."
Díaz recently finished up the tour for his debut children's book "Islandborn," which has earned rave reviews. It's a picture book centered on the immigrant experience and how to discover family roots.
The author recently visited Salon to talk about his new project, the publishing industry and what he has in store for the near future.
"I've always writing about the lives of young people," he told Salon's D. Watkins. "I wanted to write something that would not fill a huge absence in literature, but would also be useful for children."
Unlike Diaz's previous projects, "Islandborn" is neither an essay collection or a novel. Speaking about his writing process this time around, he said, "Young people, as you know, they're not buying a lot of our bullshit."
"Most children learn the most about their expectations of the world when they read kids books," Díaz said. "If they're reading kids books where it's all [about white people], they're getting some delusion."
You can watch his interview with Salon about the book here.
Lusting after celebrity men in the #TimesUp era: It’s complicated
Getty/AP
Celebrity crushes. We all get them. But these days, our fantasy baes are becoming increasingly problematic.
As hosts of BUST Magazine’s women’s pop culture podcast "Poptarts," my co-host Callie Watts and I are more likely to be discussing the latest harassment allegations being made against an actor than his latest film. And over time, we’ve found that this constant grind has taken its toll on our overall enjoyment of the media we consume. We needed to give our vicarious libidos a jumpstart, so we invited Bim Adewunmi and Nichole Perkins, hosts of "Thirst Aid Kit" — Buzzfeed’s hilarious podcast devoted to women “lusting out loud” — over to our studio to remind us that there are still, in fact, men in Hollywood worthy of our affections.
Not surprisingly, as authorities on famous men, Adewunmi and Perkins have also had a tough time figuring out who to enthusiastically endorse in the #TimesUp era. “We’ve had to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we are attracted to men in this age where it seems like everything they do is shit,” Perkins told us. “It’s hard, but we try to create a place for people to enjoy the fact that they are going to be attracted to whomever they’re going to be attracted to. That being said, there are a lot of people we’ve had to take off our [lust] list because something has come out about something they did. It’s hard, because we feel like, Ugh! Why can’t you just act right?”
Adewunmi agreed. “Fans and listeners have said, ‘You have to do an episode on X,’ and we’re just like, ‘Uh, cool story, but we’re not going to, because we’ve heard this stuff about him.’ There are stories that have been swimming around for years and many of those people we just don’t fancy anymore. But sometimes, you hear something about someone you actively fancy, and it’s like, Oh for fuck’s sake!"
"In terms of our podcast, we won’t do an episode about anyone we don’t fancy, so that has to be the starting point. And in selecting the people that we actually end up featuring on the show [like Tom Hiddleston, Chris Evans, Colin Farrell, Mahershala Ali, Keanu Reeves, and John Cho] we do go through a rigorous checklist," she said. "People think that just because you’re in a studio chatting about hot dudes that you don’t really do any research, and it’s like, ‘No, no. We do actual work. This is a job.’”
“We are two straight black women and talking about lust and desire and sexuality and all these expressions of humanity is not something that has traditionally been given to black women,” Adewunmi continued. “So when we walk into the studio and we present our thoughts and our ideas and our analysis, what we are very careful not to do is to carry the burdens of all women everywhere. We are not every woman — contrary to the Chaka Khan song. But we are two women with a very specific set of attributes. We are straight, we are cis, we are black, and to be honest, there aren’t that many of us doing this sort of thing in any arena, let alone on a podcast with a platform like Buzzfeed. Sometimes we’ll say, ‘This is our favorite thing,’ and if some listeners don’t agree, we’ll just say, ‘Let us live our lives. Let us say what we want to say. Let us fancy who we fancy.’ We’re trying to find a happy medium where we talk about someone we fancy that hopefully other people fancy and then it’s a beautiful thing.”
“We can’t be all things to everybody,” explained Perkins. “But getting back to doing what we do in this age of #MeToo and holding men accountable for their actions, we’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing and hopefully people will enjoy it and it will feel like a break. The news is so heavy, even just scrolling through Twitter, the headlines can ruin your day. So we hope that hearing women giggle about Oscar Isaac’s hair will brighten your day a little bit. We’re not trying to tell you who to like, we’re just trying to help you approach whoever you like with the same enthusiasm that we have.”
Listen to the rest of our discussion about lusting after celebs:
Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play and on BUST's website.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder: No more free water bottles for Flint
AP/Carlos Osorio
The GOP's attitude towards Flint, Michigan's water crisis goes a little something like this: Get over it, or at the very least, move along, there's nothing more to see here.
On Friday the state's Republican Governor Rick Snyder, who appointed officials who made the decision nearly four years ago to switch Flint's water source, announced the state would no longer provide Flint residents with free bottled water.
"I have said all along that ensuring the quality of the water in Flint and helping the people and the city move forward were a top priority for me and my team," Snyder said in a statement. "We have worked diligently to restore the water quality and the scientific data now proves the water system is stable and the need for bottled water has ended."
The state said the city's water quality has tested "below action levels of the federal Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) for nearly two years." As a result, Michigan's four remaining distribution centers (PODs) will no longer supply residents with free bottled water where they have picked up cases since January 2016.
The announcement was immediately met with outrage from residents and was criticized by the city's mayor, Karen Weaver, who stated she only found out about Snyder's decision moments before it was made public. "I know this is not the situation any of us want to be in," she said in a statement.
It continued, "We did not cause the man-made water disaster, therefore adequate resources should continue being provided until the problem is fixed and all the lead and galvanized pipes have been replaced. I will be contacting the Governor’s office immediately to express the insensitivity of the decision he made today and to make sure he is aware of the additional needs that I have requested for the residents of Flint."
Soon after the announcement was made, cars lined up at the state's PODs as many residents began to panic.
"This weekend the lines are so long, it’s unreal," Joyce Wilson, a 62-year-old Flint resident told The New York Times. "It’s like all of a sudden, panic has set in."
For many families in Flint, it's been 1,446 days since they had clean, safe water. Gov. Rick Snyder set off this crisis when he cut corners to pay for his tax breaks to the ultra-rich. Now he's abandoning these communities again. https://t.co/8kogfontWd
— Rep. Keith Ellison (@keithellison) April 9, 2018
Yesterday they announced they are closing all the water distribution pods in Flint...this was the line at the pod I went to soon as it opened this afternoon...and once the water runs out it's over for free water smh #FlintWaterCrisis #Flint pic.twitter.com/tRjs2IOCc2
— LMarieJ (@Lu_Lu_Marie) April 7, 2018
"Normally we give out whatever a family wants," Bill Guarles, a deacon of the First Trinity Missionary Baptist Church told NBC News. "But now we may have to limit that until more supplies come in." The church has handed out bottled water to residents for the past three years.
He continued, "The country thinks that the water is fine, but the residents and the city of Flint do not trust what's being said."
Despite what the state has said, there's good reason to believe the water is not safe for residents to use, and could still be contaminated from unsafe amounts of lead. It's been over 1,400 days since the city home to nearly 100,000 have had safe and clean water.
The Times explained:
Although state officials said Flint’s water supply met federal standards, the water can still pick up lead when it flows through the thousands of lead or galvanized steel lines that remain in the city.
Flint is working with contractors to replace all of the affected lines by 2020. Just over 6,200 have been replaced so far, said Steve Branch, the acting city administrator. An estimated 12,000 could remain.
The damage caused by the Flint water crisis, and the GOP's relentless efforts to slash taxes and save the state money have left residents desperate for a viable, long-term solution.
Some facts.
-it’s been well over 1500 days since Flint could drink its water.
-20,000 pipes still need to be replaced. That will take years.
-the rationale is Flint water is testing “better than other places.” But 3,000 cities already had worse water. So....
this is trash. https://t.co/105MhXry80
— Brittany Packnett (@MsPackyetti) April 7, 2018
Conservatives are raging at the Atlantic — and themselves — over columnist Kevin Williamson’s firing
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As a news story, the Atlantic’s announcement last Thursday that it had parted ways with the recently hired right-wing columnist Kevin Williamson is of far less national significance than the number of essays it has inspired. The world’s trash dumps are filled with the words of “indispensable” writers, after all.
More noteworthy than the episode itself has been the reaction from Williamson’s fellow conservative intellectuals, most of whom have raged against the venerable magazine and the mainstream press at large for his termination. More interestingly, a smaller and more radical faction has been using the incident as a cudgel to bash fellow conservatives who continue to oppose President Donald Trump.
All of this began late last month after left-leaning activists unearthed several Twitter posts by Williamson from September 2014, in which the former National Review writer stated that he opposed abortion “in all circumstances” and that he believed women who had the procedure should be charged with murder. Although generally opposed to capital punishment, Williamson wrote that he believed that in jurisdictions where wanton killing qualified for the death penalty, women who terminated their pregnancies should be treated just the same. “I have hanging more in mind,” he wrote. (Perhaps meaning he preferred that to less gruesome methods.)
At the time he posted these remark, Williamson’s Twitter quip provoked modest outrage, including from one abortion opponent who said she was “appalled.”
With Williamson having since moved on to a bigger media platform, however, his four-year-old tweets provoked considerably more ire. Despite a chorus of protests against Williamson’s hiring from pro-choice activists and journalists, Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg initially defended his new writer in an internal memo, on the grounds that he always tried to give people “second chances” to exhibit better behavior. He specifically commended Williamson for having canceled his Twitter account before starting his new job.
Goldberg soon reversed course, however, after the progressive group Media Matters republished a National Review podcast recorded the day after Williamson’s Twitter abortion controversy in which he defended treating abortion as a capital crime, in jurisdictions where such sentences existed.
“I would totally go with treating it like any other crime up to and including hanging — which kind of, as I said, I’m kind of squishy about capital punishment in general, but I’ve got a soft spot for hanging as a form of capital punishment,” Williamson said, adding, “if the state is going to do violence, let’s make it violence.” He added that he believed abortion was “worse than your typical murder. I mean, it’s absolutely premeditated.”
Despite this fulsome defense of his original Twitter remark, Williamson told a conservative student audience at Hillsdale College several months later (in March of 2015) that he would prefer to imprison women who had abortions, in his ideal future society where the procedure was criminalized.
“This is an example of intellectual dishonesty that social media empowers,” Williamson said in response to an audience question about the earlier incident. “Often you hear people say [that] people don’t really think of abortion as murder because if they did, they would view it the same way as conventional homicide cases. It is comparable to a situation where people get 20 years in prison. I meant a point of comparison, not that I think women who have abortions actually should be hanged. The people that wrote that, they’re familiar with my work and know that in most cases of capital punishment, I’m not much of a fan of it, but, of course, they wrote it as though I believe that.”
Shortly after Media Matters released the podcast excerpt, Goldberg sent a second staff memo in which he announced that he had fired Williamson. He also denounced the National Review alumnus for using “callous and violent” words and alleged that Williamson had misrepresented his beliefs.
“The language he used in this podcast — and in my conversations with him in recent days — made it clear that the original tweet did, in fact, represent his carefully considered views," Goldberg wrote. "The tweet was not merely an impulsive, decontextualized, heat-of-the-moment post, as Kevin had explained it.”
Goldberg did not mention Williamson’s Hillsdale speech, so we can only wonder what significance he gave it (assuming was even aware of that event).
What's especially remarkable is that so many of the conservative reproaches directed against the Atlantic after Williamson’s sacking have failed to mention those Hillsdale comments as well. Almost all the right-wing responses seem to have ignored Goldberg’s accusation that Williamson had deceived him in order to get the Atlantic gig.
Instead of asserting that Williamson didn't really believe women should be executed for having abortions, many conservatives seemed to assume that he did -- but that the Atlantic should have kept him on regardless.
“Kevin Williamson was ‘let go’ from a publication that just couldn’t handle someone with such fierce anti-abortion views. He wasn’t punished for his fanciful views about legal consequences connected to abortion,” Red State blogger Kimberly Ross wrote.
New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz argued that Williamson’s specific beliefs were immaterial. The real issue was, in Markowicz's view, that centrist or nonpartisan journalists are somehow obligated to countenance any conservative opinion, no matter how offensive or controversial.
“In truth, Williamson’s comments are besides the point,” she wrote in a Sunday piece. “The message couldn’t be clearer: Conservatives are unwelcome in the mainstream media.”
Erick Erickson, a Christian nationalist who has repeatedly sought to kick secular and more moderate conservatives out of the Republican Party, argued on Twitter that the Williamson sacking was illustrative of left-wing intolerance:
“Kevin Williamson’s firing is a reminder that there are two Americas and one side will stop at nothing to silence the other,” Erickson wrote. “This is not about a bad tweet or a bad view. It is about the left wanting a monopoly on the public square so none can be exposed to competing ideas.”
Several right-wing writers with more radical views persuasion couldn’t help but gloat at Williamson's firing, since he has long been among Donald Trump’s fiercest critics on the political right. Kurt Schlichter, a Townhall.com columnist, used the occasion to poke at Williamson and to hawk his novel about liberals provoking a second civil war.
So, did the liberal consensus of today that someone should be stripped of his livelihood because he dissents from liberal dogma make you more or less likely to disarm and leave those same liberals with a monopoly on the use of force? #2A
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) April 6, 2018
Never Trump, the public humiliation of Kevin Williamson demonstrates the indisputable fact...
You can side with the left and hope to be allowed to exist as a domesticates lap dog like David Brooks or Bret Stephens...
Or you can accept this is an existential fight and join us.
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) April 5, 2018
The anonymous pro-Trump blogger who calls himself “Ace” took a similar line, arguing that "we're in a cold civil war" and that anti-Trump conservatives ought to wise up and unite with the president against the political left:
“Oh well. Guess you're stuck with us, cucks. Looks like the Cool Kids you admire you so much don’t admire you enough to let you sit at their table for longer than a few minutes,” he wrote in a lengthy post which mocked Williamson and other anti-Trump conservatives as foolish naïfs.
Among the very few right-leaning bloggers or columnists who apparently noticed Williamson’s speech to the Hillsdale students was James Joyner, a security studies professor at Marine Corps University. He argued that Williamson’s views on abortion are not as radical as many believe, but that his trollish behavior completely contradicts the Atlantic’s stated goal of forwarding high-level intellectual discussion:
I don’t see him having been fired for the “thought crime” of believing abortion is murder or even that it’s heinous enough an act to merit capital punishment but rather for having delivered that message in a particularly flippant, callous manner — and for giving his editor the idea that a long-ago tweet on the subject was a lark rather than his considered view.
Having now spent a lot more time with Williamson’s thinking on this issue than it reasonably deserved, I’m of the view that his views on the issue are perfectly within the bounds of acceptable discourse and yet am more convinced than ever that he’s intellectually and temperamentally unsuited for the pages of The Atlantic. ...
Argumentation without the intent to persuade is masturbation, not journalism.
Williamson himself has remained silent since his termination. That situation is unlikely to last long, however, as John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary, announced that his conservative magazine would soon publish a piece from the fired Atlantic scrivener:
I'm excited to announce we will be publishing an article by Kevin Williamson in the next issue of @Commentary.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) April 5, 2018
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Calls for change in handling abuse allegations at top conservation group
Information provided to Mongabay shows a history of employees at CI who feel twice victimized — first by what they describe as “bullying and harassment,” and a second time by consequences if they report up.
Although CI advertises myriad policies about workplace ethics and protections, many say they are still afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation.
Staff also say that they are crippled by uncertainty about privacy rights and fear possibly destroying their careers or being branded a “troublemaker.” Despite that, staff have found ways to tell management time and again that not enough is being done to protect people in their organization.
There are two versions of the story, and both of them are true. In one version, Conservation International (CI) is an idealistic, energetic and challenging place to work and grow if you want to help save the planet. The pay is on the high side for comparable non-profits or global conservation organizations. It’s also prestigious: its CEO dines with world leaders, its board includes movie stars, and it just announced a partnership with NASA and legendary grunge band Pearl Jam. It gets funding from USAID, the National Science Foundation, NOAA and the U.S. Department of State.
In the other version of the story, current and former employees of one of the largest environmental non-profits in the world say the organization is not adequately addressing allegations of workplace bullying and harassment that stretch back years.
“I was told once that women can’t budget, I was called stupid in front of colleagues and harassed to the point of tears during meetings,” current staffer Rebecca* said. She also said she has faced professional retaliation, even while receiving outstanding performance reviews and trying to solve workplace problems from within the CI system.
She said in her several years at CI, which took her to multiple country offices, she also witnessed other colleagues suffer or advocate similarly. “I could have tried to find a lawyer, but I didn’t want money to stay quiet, I wanted things to change,” she said.
In a months-long investigation that unearthed information spanning nearly two decades, Mongabay conducted more than half a dozen extensive background interviews with current and former CI staff about their experiences with the organization. We also analyzed over 150 pages of public and private documents, and more than a dozen videos. The records show that years of staff complaints of bullying, sexual harassment and abusive behavior by management have not led to significant or effective changes in institutional practices. Documents provided to Mongabay also show that numerous individuals within executive leadership, upper-level management, and legal and human resources departments have long been well aware of the complaints.
Rebecca said that although she loves her mission-driven work at the non-profit, she can’t reconcile that with the negative aspects. “I can’t shake the other experience I’ve had at CI — the years of bullying and verbal abuse. We say we’re working for human well-being and then the human well-being within our organization is lacking.”
A river from healthy forest area meeting a river downstream from logging sites near Sabah Malaysia. Photo by Mongabay.
Rebecca said her work ethic was questioned when she was “too exhausted from working overtime to even think clearly.” She said she was propositioned for sex by a country director from one of CI’s South American offices “in front of a CI board member who didn’t even flinch.” She said she’s also witnessed and personally experienced male managers joking about oral sex and pornography, and asking probing, personal questions about relationship and marital status.
Erin* is a former CI staffer who worked at CI over 10 years ago with a small team that was eventually almost completely dissolved.
Erin said she initially went to work for the organization because its mission aligned with her personal and professional ideals and goals. That proved to be a more complex alignment than she’d realized, particularly given CI’s diverse spectrum of workplaces around the world.
“You have different social norms in different places,” she said. “There’s a culture of fear. People don’t speak out that much.”
So information continues to get passed around through the organization’s grapevine, along with experienced advice on how to deal with the most difficult characters. Former staff also remain in close touch with some of their ex-colleagues and are trusted sounding boards.
“Everyone at CI has their favorite anecdote about harassment and bullying that they share over drinks when prompted,” Rebecca said. “You often hear at happy hours that people are being treated badly, the work expectations are unreasonable, their work is being insulted in front of other people, they are being told they aren’t good enough. They are being told inappropriate comments about women or people of other nationalities.”
Many point to career and financial pressures as major factors in deciding whether or not to speak up, though. “Employees continue to keep quiet for fear of retribution or blacklisting in the industry,” Rebecca said.
That’s a reaction shared by every current or former CI staffer who came forward to be interviewed for this story: not one of them would agree to use their real name on the record. That includes those who said they “had only positive experiences” while at CI. The most-cited reason was fear of negative professional repercussions.
Mongabay also combed over five dozen employee evaluations on popular employment review sites Glassdoor.com and Indeed.com in search of repetitive scenarios that either aligned with positive and negative accounts of staff we spoke to, or threw the veracity of those accounts into question. There were no major variations from the more than half a dozen accounts we gathered of both positive and negative experiences.
In an email, a Glassdoor spokesperson explained that the process to moderate the more than 80 reviews posted about CI on the website involves a multi-step evaluation before publication. Anonymity is protected under Glassdoor’s privacy policy and community guidelines.
CI does frequently promote various avenues to make complaints, including its Ethics Hotline, legal and human resources departments, and even executive-level management. The hotline is a phone number and email run by third-party corporation Navex.
The non-profit also requires staff to report any issues that violate its policies on sexual harassment and other workplace ethics. How many actually put that requirement into practice is unclear.
“I meticulously documented things,” Rebecca said. “I submitted things through the ethics hotline … I spoke to a lot of people. They just saw this as 100 small incidents. The end result is that it was not appropriately addressed.”
Her decision to speak out also made her more aware of what was happening with others.
“The more I reported harassment, and the more I talked to HR, the more I realized I wasn’t the only one,” she said. “There are countless individuals that have been known [as] toxic bullies that eventually just left because they got a better offer from somewhere else or retired out.”
Now she and other CI staffers say they want their organization to provide more robust management, human resources and sexual harassment training, greater confidentiality protections, and a more standardized chain of command for reporting up. They also want a consistent practice of using outside third-party investigations in serious cases, and for protections to extend to field staff and those who work with their partner organizations globally.
‘It was emotional abuse’
On more than one occasion, a manager with allegations of abuse or harassment against them at CI has been let go, though complaints don’t seem to be the main factor when managers facing allegations are fired. More often than not it’s been left up to the employee who is complaining to pick a path: fight or flight.
Multiple former and current staffers who have gone through CI’s complaint process more than once told Mongabay they spent years repeatedly discussing their issues with everyone from a human resources representative to a member of the executive team. Meetings were set up. Confidences were established. Recommendations were given. But problems continued for those staffers and others.
Former CI staffer Tom* worked for the non-profit full-time for more than two years before he quit in early 2015 because of what he describes as an “emotionally abusive supervisor.”
“She left a trail of destruction behind her,” Tom said, adding that his supervisor’s reputation was well known and he was warned from day one on her team. “So many people came up to me and said, ‘I advise you to start looking for another job right now because you have no idea what mistake you’ve made.’”
The warnings proved true, he said, and over a period of about a year he went to human resources four times looking for help.
Tom added that he believes many other people made complaints about the same supervisor around the same time. About six months into his position, he got an unexpected promotion and raise. It seemed things were looking up and the problems had been resolved.
Then an approved vacation request for a few days off turned into a nightmare, he said, as his supervisor demanded, “You need to be available to me while on vacation.” He said the moment his vacation began, his manager began to frantically call and email, asking him to complete an urgent assignment. Then HR began to call and email. Nowhere near a computer at the time and with a fading cellphone battery, he started receiving frantic messages that the vacation had to be canceled to finish “an important task.” Tom made a detour to respond. He was stunned to find his boss was asking him to make a title slide for a PowerPoint presentation.
“Everybody knew,” Tom said, adding that the situation for him became a matter of surviving toxic doses of manipulation. “It was, in a way, an abuse of power. You know you’re in a situation where someone abuses power, and you start wondering, ‘Is it something I did wrong? Am I making the project fail? Am I not working hard enough?’”
The final straw was an assignment that dropped into his lap with a one-month deadline just two weeks before his winter vacation. He said he had to work over the holidays to finish on time, all while HR continued to advise him to get another job. Within less than two months of finishing that assignment — he said he was exhausted, depressed and at his wit’s end — he finally quit. After he left, a majority of his colleagues from his team also quit independently of one another.
“Many, many people have come before me,” Tom said. “It was never about performance, it was emotional abuse.”
Finding skeletons in the closet
Today, CI works with more than 2,000 in-country partners, according to its website. Its annual budget is hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to tax filings.
Yet staff say that over time, they feel that things like management training and protecting employees has taken a backseat to funding pressures. CI partners financially and programmatically with some of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world, but complaints of employee mistreatment at Conservation International have persisted for years.
“CI-HQ needs sexual harassment training!” wrote one employee in October 2010 to CI’s online anonymous suggestion box. “I have witnessed and heard about multiple instances of harassing behavior in the last six months. None of the individuals (all women in their 20s) who experienced this harassment were comfortable approaching anyone in a position of authority about it. The training … should be made mandatory here.”
The response to the complaint of harassment was simply: “We currently have no plans to institute training on this topic but will consider doing so if we have reports of harassment at CI.”
In 2012, a suggestion to create an ombudsman position as a neutral third party to address issues was not taken up, but CI did conduct its first staff survey that year. In the second and most recent staff survey, in 2014, a total of 630 people responded. The survey results show that 40 percent of respondents didn’t think workplace rules were being applied equally to everyone. Areas of top concern included accountability and “fear of speaking up.”
Beyond that, some say that CI continues to make unacceptable allowances for cultural and gender differences in their diverse organization.
“We need to be equitable and fair, both within our external programming and internally,” said Amanda*, a longtime CI staffer in management at HQ. “To me the most tangible way is to … do some sort of mandatory workshop that is self-reflective and begins to shift the culture.”
In the summer of 2017, CI did host a Gender Summit near its U.S. headquarters over a period of several days, but it was focused on gender-related issues in programming. However, an after-report summary written by the 14 attendees included a suggestion about gender issues in CI’s workplace. The suggestion stemmed from a discussion that took place within the group during the summit and particularly focused on stories from South Africa, Peru and Bolivia, according to CI field staffers who attended.
“If we don’t walk the walk, we can’t talk the talk,” they wrote. “Unfortunately, there are still many inequities and work cultures at CI that are not equally supportive of women and men, and other social groups.”
They also noted that “there still remains prominent issues within field offices and headquarters that impede the realization of the internal culture we desire. This is a red flag issue that should be prioritized within CI’s HR department and among leadership.” The report noted an intention to bring “some of the main issues and recommendations” to executive management in a letter. The letter was never sent, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Fast-forward to today: There has been little significant institution-wide training for sexual or other harassment, or for bullying and abuse. There are discussions and promises from the top that a new survey and some kind of training are on their way this year, and CI confirmed to Mongabay that a minimum two-hour sexual harassment training is required within the first year of employment. The spokesperson also said that during management events, such as the annual week-long internal training, it includes the topics of sexual harassment and what it describes as “other ethics matters.” It said both CI staff trainers and external experts are used.
In the meantime, an array of issues persists for both men and women, and sources told Mongabay that there is a fear associated with reporting up, even with anonymity or having true confidentiality when dealing with a complaint. Staff that have used the oft-advertised anonymous Ethics Hotline say that in their experience, any report there can, and sometimes does, get passed around among different relevant individuals.
“I think a lot of people … don’t trust it [the hotline]. So in theory you call this number and it works in multiple languages,” Amanda said. “I think in practice … people just don’t trust it or understand where the complaint is going.”
However, according to a former upper-level manager within the HR department at CI who departed earlier this year and asked not to be identified, the anonymous option on the hotline is trustworthy.
For Amanda, she believes that a fear of power plays a role in not reporting up.
“When you’re looking at the breakdown in field programs, most women are in the lower, entry and mid-level positions,” Amanda said. “And in the discussions I’ve had with a number of them there’s limited opportunity for advancement and there can be issues of bullying or not being respected in part because of their gender.”
Nonetheless, she and many others at CI remain optimistic. CI’s staffing numbers do reflect the strong presence of women within the organization. According to the most recent information provided by the non-profit, women make up half of their global staff, and over half of CI’s 17 senior vice presidents are women.
“I have hopes that this new leadership will take a more proactive approach than the last one did. But we’ll have to see,” Amanda said.
Responses from CI’s new leadership
Current took the reins from co-founder Peter Seligmann, who had served as CEO since the organization’s founding in 1987, last May. He was joined by new president Jennifer Morris and executive vice president Sebastian Troëng.
The problems are widespread enough that Sanjayan has weighed in on the issue more than once during his first nine months at the helm of CI. In fact, he has personally offered to field complaints, and sources say he has gotten quietly involved multiple times, but they haven’t yet seen any broader change beyond their personal cases.
He’s also publicly encouraged discussion and often reiterated CI’s strict policies and avenues for reporting issues.
During an all-staff meeting on Oct. 30, 2017, Sanjayan, Morris and Troëng briefly addressed a question about harassment and gender equality in the workplace. Sanjayan said the HR department knows “it’s time to do a refresher on inclusion and make sure there’s absolute clarity.”
The next day, during a Women’s Network meeting, sources say Sanjayan showed up unannounced to ask women there if the #metoo movement is relevant to CI. The Women’s Network is a professional networking and support group within CI that was founded in 2010. Opened to men in mid-2017, it is run and populated largely by about 200 mid-level female staff, most of whom have little or no institutional power.
In a written response to Mongabay, CI spokesperson Jenny Parker said that the non-profit wants to be part of the “global conversation underway” about issues of harassment and abuse and that executive leadership is committed to reinforcing “our core workplace values, which do not tolerate harassment of any kind.”
Parker added that CI does enforce its policies for inappropriate behavior. “Every complaint of harassment, bullying, or any other inappropriate behavior is taken seriously, investigated thoroughly, and dealt with promptly,” Parker said. She added that any new information would “warrant review and any necessary action.”
* Current and former CI staffers interviewed for this story asked that their names and other identifying details not be used out of concern over negative professional repercussions.
