Daily Archives: March 21, 2022

Thursday, March 17, 2022

Raymond Two Hawks Watson, MINDSETTER

I didnt know there were anymore Indians left in Rhode Island. That ones always fun. Particularly given the fact that in the early 1900s Providence was the third largest community of American Indians in the U.S. Additionally, Rhode Island is home to a federally recognized American Indian Tribe. This isnt ancient history; this is here and now. How could they not know? It doesnt make any sense.

You dont look like an Indian. This ones even better because it shows a complete lack of understanding about what an American Indian actually is. For those who may be unaware, in American law American Indian is a political status, not a racial designation. See Morton v Mancari (1974). From this perspective, You dont look like an Indian. is equivalent to stating You dont look like a diplomat; a foreign national; a political refugee; an asylum seeker; etc . . . . Sounds outrageous, right? But apparently not right when it comes to the Indians . . . and it makes no sense.

How much Indian are you? This is definitely one of my favorites. I recall having a fantastic conversation on Facebook with a self-proclaimed English-Irishman who was adamant that I needed to take a DNA test to prove that I was an actual Narragansett. In true Two Hawks fashion, I responded that given the history that the English and the Irish have with one another, I imagined that his Irish ancestors must be rolling in their graves to hear him proudly proclaim to have English blood. He didnt like that much; I didnt much care. I dont have much of a stomach for trying to rationalize willful ignorance . . . especially when it makes no sense.

Are you federally recognized? This one is probably the most sensible. First and foremost, no Im not. Theres only one federally recognized Tribe in the State of Rhode Island, and I am not an enrolled member of it. That being said, and with all due respect, What does being federally recognized have to do with being an Indian?

True, there are over 500 Indian Tribes that have established such relationships with the Federal government. But there are also several hundreds of Tribes across the US that have established state recognition relationships instead. Does that somehow make those state-recognized Tribes less Indian than the federally recognized Indian Tribes? What about Tribes like my Tribe, the Mashapaug Nahaganset Tribe. My Tribe hasnt officially formalized any relationship with the U.S. Federal Government or the State of Rhode Island. Are we somehow less Indian than the other Indian Tribes? If youre following my logic, then Ill ask again; What does being federally recognized have to do with being an Indian?

In fact, lets go deeper. The federal recognition process was established in 1978. If we are to use federal recognition as the sole determinant for who is a real Indian, then the logical question is Who was a real Indian before the federal recognition process was established? It cant be that real Indians magically appeared in 1978 after hundreds of Indian treaties, numerous Indian Wars, a 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, and a 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act. Clearly, there had to be real Indians around before the federal recognition process was established in 1978. If so, then Im at a complete loss to understand; What does being federally recognized have to do with being an Indian? Indians were around before federal recognition was established. It makes no sense.

I share these sentiments because a bill was recently introduced into the General Assembly2022 - H 7471to create a process for Native American tribes to be recognized by the State of Rhode Island. Let me be the first to say that this is a great step in a positive direction. I take my hat off to the legislators who have taken the first step towards trying to make things right with the local Indian Tribes. That said, theres still work that needs to be done.

First, the Tribes are American Indian not Native American. As previously expressed, American Indian is a political status in American law reserved for individuals whose blood heritage predates European colonization of the Americas. Native American doesnt mean the same thing or hold the same political status in American law. Contemporarily the terms have been used interchangeably for the purposes of political correctness; but from a legal perspective, theres really no space for the two to mix. Properly, if youre going to call me anything other than an American Indian, then call me a Narragansett, from Mashapaug. But please, with all due respect given to the intentions of the act, many of the Tribes dont want to be recognized as Native American, It doesnt make any sense.

Secondly, many of the Tribes are concerned that the current bill inappropriately places the decision to determine who is a legitimate Indian Tribe at the foot of the Governor of Rhode Island. The Tribes see that as very problematic primarily because we all know how politics in Rhode Island can go. There is a real concern that even if the Tribes had faith in such a process, there would be some element of favoritism or Rhode Island political might that would eventually force its way in to muddy up the waters. Furtherand Ill just say it flat outI really dont think the Governor wants to be in the mix of trying to determine who a real Indian is in Rhode Island. Its ugly business and can even have unnamed parties stooping as low as to spread rumors that youre not actually who you say you are; that your mothers not your actual mother, that your familys not your actual family, and that you were adopted as a child . . . all in an effort to prove that youre not a real Indian; or at least not as real of an Indian as they are. SMH. With everything else going on in the State, and with people acting like that, why would the Governor want to proactively be placed in such a position? To me, it just doesnt make any sense.

Lastly, the Tribes are primarily concerned that most of the Tribes werent effectively engaged when the bill was created. Thats not to say that the legislators intentionally chose to leave any of the Tribes out. It is to say that most of the Tribes were not effectively engaged.

Well chalk it up to a general misunderstanding of the politics among the local Tribes. As a general rule of thumb, and for future reference, nobody should be looking to any one Tribe to speak as an authority for all of the Tribes that inhabit Rhode Island. Nor should anybody be looking to a nonprofit as any legitimate authority to speak on behalf of any Tribe unless you have confirmed with the Tribe itself that the nonprofit has the right to speak on its behalf. Each Tribe is an individual, autonomous entity and should beand by law must bedealt with on an individual basis and with the same care and nuance as the State deals with any of its Cities and Towns. In short, dont try to find the Indian; go and speak to the Indians. Anything else just doesnt make any sense.

Ill close my commentary this week by saying this. Governor McKee; Representatives Vella-Wilkinson, Williams, Amore, Barros, Baginski, Solomon, Kazarian, Morales, McEntee, and Marszalkowski; Rhode Islanders in general . . . the Tribes are still here (Eniskeetompoag!) and they are open to engaging with you if this is indeed a sincere effort. Please do not hesitate to proactively reach out.

Thats my three cents.

Raymond Two Hawks Watson

Watson is a civil rights leader in Rhode Island. He has an accomplished career in business. He is the founder of the Providence Cultural Equity Initiative.Watson holds a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from Union College in NY, a Master's Degree in Community Planning from the University of Rhode Island, and is a current Juris Doctorate Candidate at the Roger Williams University School of Law. Watson is also the recipient of the Rhode Island Foundations 2016 Innovation Fellowship.

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The Indians Are Coming! The Indians Are Coming! - Watson - GoLocalProv

Jeff Garlin, who had played Murray Christian Goldberg in The Goldbergs since its 2013 launch, abruptly left the ABC sitcom at the end of last year.

Garlin exited the series in December following a human resources investigation stemming from several complaints about his on-set behavior, including alleged lewd language and unwarranted touching.

In an interview with Vanity Fair prior to his departure from the show, Garlin shared that HR had come to him three years in a row to discuss his behavior.

When asked what HR had brought to him, Garlin said, I am sorry to tell you that there really is no big story. Unless you want to do a story about political correctness.

There is no story, the actor reiterated. And Im saying that in all sincerity, because thats the thing that has me confused. Even with [series producer] Sonywe have a difference of opinion, Sony and myself. Okay. My opinion is, I have my process about how Im funny, in terms of the scene and what I have to do. They feel that it makes for a quote unsafe workspace. Now, mind you, my silliness making an unsafe workspaceI dont understand how that is. And Im on a comedy show. I am always a kind and thoughtful person. I make mistakes, sure. But my comedy is about easing peoples pain. Why would I ever want to cause pain in anybody for a laugh? Thats bullying. Thats just uncalled for.

While Garlin refused to specify any of his allegedly problematic on-set behavior during his interview with Vanity Fair, Deadline reported that the actor retaliated after a female camera assistant who made an HR complaint. According to the trade publication, Garlins frequent use of the word vagina to try and get a laugh out of the crew disturbed the camera assistant, which led the latter to make a complaint to HR.

After the actor found out, he reportedly put his hands around her and kept saying vagina in her face over and over again, read a portion of Deadlines report.

Despite Garlins departure from the show, his character, Murray, remains a part of the shows ongoing season 9. Though Garlin has not filmed any new episodes, the sitcom has been using the actors body double in order to film his incomplete scenes, and superimposing his face during post-production.

This move, however, led to some criticism online, including a tweet from journalist Noel Murray, which prompted a response from The Goldbergs star McLendon-Covey.

They should either cancel The Goldbergs or kill off Jeff Garlins character because the workarounds theyve been using this season aint working, Murray tweeted on Monday, alongside a Goldbergs clip in which Garlins superimposed face and pre-recorded dialogue are particularly obvious.

McLendon-Covey, who plays Beverly Goldberg in the sitcom, replied to Murrays tweet, writing: Thanks for the great suggestion Noel! This season threw us for a loop because a.) its hard to incorporate someone who doesnt want to be there and wants to leave mid-scene, and b.) we werent about to re-write the 2nd half of the season. Were doing our best.

The Goldbergs season 9 airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Though season 9s episode count was recently upped from 18 to 22 half-hour installments, the Adam F. Goldberg-created comedy has yet to be renewed for a season 10.

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Why did Jeff Garlin leave The Goldbergs? - GEEKSPIN

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Vladimir Putin this week called for the "purification" of the motherland, urging his fellow Russians to spit out like gnats those who dare oppose him. If Putins war crimes against the Ukrainian people were not enough, this chilling speech should convince his remaining fans to look elsewhere for a savior.

The Russian president took to the airwaves of Russia on Wednesday a bitter, and possibly beaten, man. Hunched over his microphone, he unleashed a tirade the likes of which has not been heard in Europe since Hitler or Stalin. Maudlin in parts, vengeful in others, the Russian tyrant played the last card left to him, that of an emotionally unhinged national savior.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law legislation that could punish journalists with up to 15 years in prison for reporting so-called "fake" news about his military invasion of Ukraine. (Yuri Kochetkov/Pool)

"The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouths," Putinsnarled. "I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to respond to any challenges."

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It was the darkest in a series of increasingly dark speeches the would-be Slavic Fhrer has given since he invaded Ukraine without cause and started shelling civilians indiscriminately, unleashing what someWestern leaders sayare war crimes. His outburst has demonstrated to many that his invasion of the much-smaller neighbor may not be going as well for him on the battlefield as he had planned, as a united Ukraine rises to rebuff the invading Russians.

The world must turn from Putin now, no matter what he does from this point on, even if he abandons Ukraine immediately and lets all the nations he has invaded since coming to powerGeorgia, Moldova, and of course, Ukrainelive in peace. We know from the experience that appeasement begets only more global carnage.

PUTIN LIKENS OPPONENTS TO 'GNATS,' SIGNALING NEW REPRESSION

Putins speech veered from audience to audience. At times, it seemed aimed at everyday Russians, threatening them not to protest his war. At others, he directed himself at the West and those of his countrymen who may want Russia to become more like the West.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov looks on as he gives an annual press conference on Russian diplomacy in 2021, in Moscow on January 14, 2022. (Photo by DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images)

"The West will try to rely on the so-called fifth column, on national traitors, on those who earn money here with us but live there. And I mean 'live there' not even in the geographical sense of the word, but according to their thoughts, their slavish consciousness," Putinsaid. "Such people, who by their very nature are mentally located there and not here, are not with our people, not with Russia."

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As always, Putin displayed an eerie understanding of the Wests weak points, mocking Russians who oppose his bloody invasion of neighboring Ukraine as people who "cannot live without oysters and gender freedom."

Such salvosappealing to Russian values and denigrating of Western wokenessare strategic, and not just for domestic consumption. Amplified by his propaganda apparatus in the West, such as Sputnik Radio and RT media platforms, they have earned the Russian dictator misguided supporters in the West. One well-known example is the French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, whohas describedPutin as the "last resistance fighter against the storm of political correctness."

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Leftists, too, have bought Russias attacks on the West, or at least welcomed his money. In France itself, the communist leader Jean-Luc Melenchonhas saidthat Putins Russia is "not an enemy," and that the United States must stop trying to "annex Ukraine to NATO." In Spain, too, the communist Podemos party, a member of the ruling coalition,has stopped the shipmentof weapons to the Ukrainians.

Now that Putin has demonstrated himself to be this unhinged, perhaps the extremists he has bought in the West will start looking for a new lodestar or money bag.

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Putin does his best Stalin in threat to 'cleanse' Russia - Fox News

In his 1966 essay Unnameable Objects, Unspeakable Crimes, James Baldwin offered a searing explanation of why and how people in the US so vigorously dismiss the reality of racism. Baldwins essay, which is still depressingly relevant today, examines the deep need within the American soul to assuage white Americans discomfort with racisma need that, in turn, becomes a sort of load-bearing psychosis that perpetuates our collective inability to come to terms with our own history, let alone heal its still-festering wounds. That inability to come to terms hurts everyone, even white people who imagine themselves as historys perennial protagonists.

People who imagine history flatters them, as it does indeed since they wrote it, are impaled on their history like a butterfly on a pin and become incapable of seeing or changing themselves or the world, Baldwin writes. This is the place in which it seems to me most white Americans find themselves. They are dimly or vividly aware that the history they fed themselves is mainly a lie, but they do not know how to release themselves from it, and they suffer enormously from the resulting personal incoherence.

History is not supposed to make us feel comfortable. History is supposed to cause serious reflection on how the past continues to influence the present.

More people should read Baldwinwhile they still can. After all, the same existential incoherence that he describes is currently manifesting in the meltdown that Republicans in Florida and elsewhere are having over anythingwith even a whiff of a connection to anti-racism or Critical Race Theory (CRT). For many on the right, much like political correctness and affirmative action did in bygone days, CRT has become a catch-all term to describe a perceived anti-American cultural conspiracy to make white people feel bad about themselvesand their backlash has been fierce.

That backlash is the driving force behind two current legislative efforts in Florida, the Stop WOKE Act and Dont Say Gay state bill, both of which have now passed the state House and Senate and are headed to Gov. Ron DeSantiss desk. Rather than taking responsibility for and reckoning with Floridas abhorrent history of racism and discrimination toward the LGBTQ community, Florida is about to pass these two bills, which are shaping up to become the next chapter in that history.

The Florida Board of Education already passed a rule in June 2021 banning the teaching of CRT in Florida public schools, but the Stop WOKE Act takes this manufactured panic even further. Once signed into law, it will grant parents the right to sue schools and teachers for teaching material that causes discomfort for students. Opponents of the legislation have expressed grave concerns that it will lead to further whitewashing of history and literature courses while driving educators to McCarthy-esque levels of self-censorship.

While claims that CRT is anti-American and discriminates against white people are laughable to anyone who has even a rudimentary understanding of what CRT is and how it fits into the broader field of scholarly inquiry, the cultural hysteria stoked by these claims will nevertheless enable the sinister airbrushing of American history. Moreover, the manufactured outrage over CRT, initially led by conservative think-tank fellow and anti-evolution advocate Christopher Rufo, has been a grossly effective means for conservatives to rile up the Republican voter base and fundraise ahead of the midterm elections.

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Kimberl Crenshaw, a law professor at UCLA and Columbia University, co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, and one of the scholars who developed the legal academic framework of Critical Race Theory, summed up CRT thusly: Critical race theory is based on the premise that race is socially constructed, yet it is real through social constructions.

The idea that anti-racism is racism against white people has got to be the oldest talking point in their playbook. There is not a thing happening today that we have not seen before.

This means that even if race as a biologically, culturally, or existentially determinative category is a socially constructed fiction, the world we live in, which has been built by people who believe that fiction, and which reinforces a social order in which the fiction is accepted as truth, makes it real. Along with other critical academic disciplines and subdisciplines, CRT pushes us to study the societal dynamics by which these fictions are socially constructed and by which these social constructions become enshrined in law, government policy, housing policy, etc. To study such questions is not anti-American, Crenshaw argues; its to better know what America is, how it came to be what it is, and where, why, and for whom it is falling short of its promises.

We need to pay attention to what has happened in this country and how what has happened is continuing to create differential outcomes, so that we can become the democratic republic we say we are, Crenshaw asserted in a separate interview.

She added that the conservative backlash against Critical Race Theory in particular and anti-racism more broadly is the newest iteration of a historically tried and true tactic often deployed to thwart struggles for racial justice and equity. The idea that anti-racism is racism against white people has got to be the oldest talking point in their playbook. There is not a thing happening today that we have not seen before, including the ascendance of racial demagoguery on the anti-democratic, authoritarian, and nationalist impulses of a population mobilized through the discourse of aggrievement.

Conservative dark money groups are pouring millions of dollars into ad campaigns against Critical Race Theory being taught in schools, and Super PACs and conservative political campaigns are milking the issue for all its worth ahead of this years election cycle.

The panic has already prompted some of the most ardent conservative voices to try to stifle training courses and lectures that dont even include Critical Race Theory.

In one local battle, conservative parent groups in Brevard County have accused the countys school district of using a training program focused on social and emotional learning that they claim is CRT in disguise, citing a 2020 blog post on anti-racism from the training companys website. In the uproar over Brevard County Public Schools, the vice president of conservative group Parents Defending Education claimed that social and emotional learning is a Trojan horse to bring critical race theory and LGBTQ+ curriculum to the classrooma mask-off comment if ever there was one.

In another instance, Dr. Michael Butler, a history professor at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, had a lecture on civil rights history that he was supposed to deliver to Osceola County teachers canceled in January in response to allegations that the lecture would relate to Critical Race Theory.

The only indication that I have [of] why our seminar was targeted, was because of the topic of the long civil rights movement. According to the district, this topic raises red flags with the committee and the committee had to vet the materials, but didnt have time to meet before the Saturday it was to take place, said Dr. Butler in an interview with The Real News. History is not supposed to make us feel comfortable. History is supposed to cause serious reflection on how the past continues to influence the present.

This demonstrates the very real concerns that teachers have in public schools about whether they will be allowed to do their jobs without being scrutinized constantly by unqualified outsiders, because thats whats really at stake.

The committee was put together by the Osceola County School District Superintendent in response to concerns from Gov. DeSantis over Critical Race Theory. Dr. Butler said the district was afraid that state funds would be punitively withheld in response to the presentation, even though no one from the county ever asked to see the presentation itself. The chilling effect of the Stop WOKE Act being introduced in the Florida legislature was already taking hold.

Dr. Butlers lecture was on the history of the civil rights movement, not just in the mid-20th century, but stretching back to the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling. It also incorporated Dr. Butlers own research on economic civil rights activism in Pensacola, Florida. He noted that he had never encountered this kind of censorship throughout his entire academic career. Even though hes received much more support than hate mail over the incident, he noted the issue has instilled fear in public educators around the state and among his history students who are now apprehensive about entering public education in Florida after they graduate. He characterized the issue as an example of how the march toward totalitarianism in politicians includes heavy doses of instilled professional fear and intellectual censorship.

These are the real-life consequences of political grandstanding, because CRT was not part of the presentation. CRT is not taught in the public school system. Theres no evidence that has ever been produced that this is actually happening, added Dr. Butler. This demonstrates the very real concerns that teachers have in public schools about whether they will be allowed to do their jobs without being scrutinized constantly by unqualified outsiders, because thats whats really at stake.

One of the difficulties with navigating the culture war panic over CRT is acknowledging that the anger and opposition expressed by many average citizens may be genuinely and deeply felt, even if the pundits, politicians, and consultants stoking and stage-managing said panic are doing so for deeply cynical and hypocritical reasons. One need only look at past comments from the high-profile purveyors of anti-CRT sentimentwho claim that CRT is itself racist and frequently paint themselves or their allies as victims of woke mobs whenever they face public backlash for their commentsto see that they may not be the best arbiters of what is and isnt racist. Exhibit A: Ben Shapiro.

Its also worth noting that even the political figureheads stoking and benefiting from anti-CRT hysteria, like DeSantis, have a less-than-sterling record of making racist dog-whistle comments in public. In 2018, for instance, DeSantis infamously claimed that his Democratic opponent in the Florida gubernatorial race, Andrew Gillum, who is Black, would monkey up the economy if elected.

Then, in a truly Trumpian display of defensive gaslighting, DeSantis spokesperson Stephen Lawson claimed that Ron DeSantis was obviously talking about Florida not making the wrong decision to embrace the socialist policies that Andrew Gillum espouses. To characterize it as anything else is absurd. This is not a one-off, either; DeSantiss Press Secretary Christina Pushaw recently caused an uproar by suggesting on social media that neo-Nazi demonstrators in Orlando may have been there as part of a false-flag operation. After taking his time to respond to public outcry over the demonstrations, DeSantis suggested that the outcry was itself a political attack against him manufactured by Democrats.

The anti-CRT panic has also been endlessly amplified by Fox News. Outrage over Critical Race Theory and the invocation of the politics of racial resentment have been gifts that keep on giving for Fox News, with its obsessive coverage taking off in the summer of 2020 but, curiously (or not so curiously), dropping significantly after the Virginia gubernatorial race in the fall of 2021. As the 2022 midterm elections approach, one can expect that this coverage will increase once again.

Florida Republicans have an abysmal record when it comes to supporting and funding public education, opting instead to push for school choice and school privatization. The recent focus on Critical Race Theory, much like the cultural backlash to Brown v. Board of Education, has become yet another avenue through which elected officials can levy attacks on the institution of public education as well as teachers, unions, and the students and communities that will be negatively impacted by the broad censorship they are advocating for.

Racism systemically lives on in Florida and around the US through the violence of mass, police brutality, racist voter disenfranchisement laws, racial disparities in pay, economic security, occupational segregation, education, and the list goes on.

If Florida Republicans actually cared about helping students, the state wouldnt rank 43rd in the nation in per-pupil spending, while ranking just one spot from last place (which is occupied by New York) in terms of wealth inequality. Rather than address Floridas ranking as the third-worst state in the US in regards to average teacher pay or the crumbling infrastructure of public schools, Florida has pushed to defund school districts that did not adhere to DeSantis ban on masks during the coronavirus pandemic and currently funds vouchers to pay for students to attend private schools, expanding funds for these vouchers by $200 million in 2021.

This, again, is not an aberration. It is, rather, a continuation of the dark side of Floridian history, which the state is currently working to erase from public memory. In 1808, for instance, when the US slave trade was abolished, Florida became a hotbed for the illegal slave trade as ships would unload slaves near Jacksonville to be transported and sold into Georgia.

Black people were more likely to be lynched in the state of Florida than in any other state from 1877 to 1950.

In January 1923, the town of Rosewood, Florida, was destroyed by a white mob and the Black residents were massacred.

In the 1950s and 60s, the expansion of Interstate 95 in Miami, Florida, displaced thousands of Black residents. Florida was also a hotbed of Jim Crow segregation laws, with 19 laws passed up until 1967, and the state imposed some of the harshest penalties on record.

Majority-Black towns like Tallevast, Florida, have long suffered from the effects of environmental racism and industrial poisoning.

Before the LA riots that took place in response to the acquittal of the police officers who brutalized Rodney King in 1991, there were riots in Miami in 1980 in response to the acquittal of police officers who beat Arthur McDuffie to death. Then another police murder incited a similar response in Miami in 1989.

In many ways, the 2012 murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, inspired the Black Lives Matter movement.

Racism systemically lives on in Florida and around the US through the violence of mass, police brutality, racist voter disenfranchisement laws, racial disparities in pay, economic security, occupational segregation, education, and the list goes on.

Florida has previously passed anti-trans legislation as well, and several transgender women have been brutally murdered in the state. Now Florida Republicans are pursuing more anti-LGBTQ+ policies, including an amendment to the Dont Say Gay bill that would require outing teen LGBTQ students, reminiscent of the Johns Committee in the 1950s that sought to out and terrorize LGBTQ people throughout Florida, with an emphasis on teachers and students. The Dont Say Gay bill passed Floridas House with majority Republican support on Feb. 24 and passed the Senate on March 8.

Florida is also now being subjected to nationwide efforts led by anti-LGBTQ groups to ban books about sexual orientation and gender identity. These same groups are pushing more anti-trans legislative efforts, such as a bill to criminalize health care providers who provide gender-affirming medical care to minors, and a bill to allow healthcare insurers and providers to deny care to LGBTQ+ patients.

The oppression and censorship inherent in these policy efforts led by DeSantis, who is trying to position himself as a right-wing culture war leader amid rumors that he will be in contention for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is part of a long record of racism and anti-LGBTQ efforts in Florida. And it is setting dangerous precedents for similar efforts and legislation across the US.

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Florida's racist and anti-LGBTQ bills are already having a chilling effect - The Real News Network

Just after dawn on Sept. 7, 2020, along a well-trodden path of the West Humber Trail in Toronto, a jogger saw something that stopped them in their tracks.

Laying along the side of the trail, under a bridge, was the body of Rampreet Singh. Cops happened upon a grizzly scene: Singh had been attacked in his sleeping bag and stabbed repeatedly. He was likely attacked while he was still fast asleep.

Five days later, police would be called again, to a mosque just a few blocks away. On Sept. 12, cops arrived at the mosque, just a 10-minute drive from where Singhs body was found. Outside the front doors, they found Mohamed-Aslim Zafis with his throat slit.

The Canadian cops worried that the two slayings might be connected. Fears abounded in the community that someone was targeting men of color. Authorities acknowledged that the attacks may have been the work of a serial killer.

Then police caught a break a week later, arresting 34-year-old Guilherme Von Neutegem for Zafis killing.

On Instagram, he uploaded a photo of a shrine he appears to have built. At the center is a Sonnenrad, a type of swastika.

But, more than a year later, as Von Neutegem awaits trial, his case has garnered scant attention. What happened to Singh remains unclear. What may have provoked the vicious attacks remains unexplained.

Clues in Von Neutegems online life, however, point towards a little-known cult: a neo-Nazi satanist religion that has ensnared a significant and loyal following. The movement, the Order of Nine Angles, proselytizes a coming race war, with some texts even instructing its followers to accelerate the violence through random human sacrifices.

Von Neutegem is not the first follower of the Order to be accused of acts of violence. Experts worry he wont be the last.

On the left, Mohamed-Aslim Zafis. On the right, Rampreet Singh.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Toronto Police

The West Humber Trail is a haven of seclusion in the otherwise industrial and bustling Etobicoke neighborhood, in the west end of Toronto.

The path is particularly popular with joggers out for a run before heading to work. Many of those who frequented the path in the early morning hours recognized Singh. He had been living under a bridge for months. Those who trekked the path told local news that he was a friendly guy. Some had even taken to delivering him food on their morning walk to work.

When the Toronto Police Service homicide squad were called after the jogger found Singhs body, it was clear the slaying wouldnt be an open-and-shut case. While conflicts between those who sleep rough in Toronto can turn violent, Singh was bedding down far away from the populated encampments closer to downtown. Whats more, there was little evidence of a struggle or a robbery. He kept to himself, one officer told the media in the weeks after Singhs death.

Singh had fallen on hard times, but he wasnt the type to provoke a fight. He had trained as a chemical engineer in his native India, before emigrating to Canada. For a time he had a well-paying job at a plastic factory, and a modest apartment in a rooming house.

He was a simple guy, Randy Welch, who worked with Singh years before his death, told The Daily Beast.

But Singh quit his job abruptly around 2012. In the meantime, Torontos housing market has exploded. Many of those rooming houses were knocked down or converted into high-priced condos. The citys homeless population remains underserved, and often ignored, many struggling with undiagnosed or under-treated mental health issues. Thats where Singh ended up: on the streets.

Welch is sympathetic: The Toronto streets are brutal, he said.

For a time, Singh had been staying closer to downtown, where he accessed services from a support center. He was struggling, but he just always wanted to do good, Kimberly Curry, an outreach worker, told the Toronto Star. She recalled arriving at the center one day to find that, behind the center, Singh had set up a little encampment for himself and a friendcomplete with fresh vegetables for them to eat. It was like a little house he had set up outside, she told the Star.

It glorifies Hitler and promises to endow its followers with the magic power to provoke a race war.

His slaying had the hallmarks of being targeted and deliberate. Officers were left struggling to answer a basic question: Why would anyone want to kill him?

When Welch saw his friends face on the news, he says, It took me awhile to recognize him. Singh had clearly had a rough few years since he and Welch had been coworkers. Still, Welch thought, why would anyone want to kill him?

A similar thought ran through the minds of members of Torontos Muslim community on the evening of Sept. 12.

That evening, Zafis had ducked inside his mosque for evening prayers. Afterwards, he walked outside and took up his perch in a plain white lawn chair, facing the mosques parking lot. The 58-year-old was there to make sure worshippers washed their hands, kept their masks on, and stayed the requisite six feet from each other inside, complying with the provinces COVID-19 restrictions. In the weeks before, Zafis had been volunteering in the mosque food bank. He would take the lead to hand it out to those who are in need, recalls Omar Farouk, president of the mosque. Farouk says Zafis, an immigrant from Guyana, was always the first to raise his hand to volunteer.

On that warm September evening, Zafis stationed himself just below the white and green sign for the International Muslim Organization of Toronto. He sat with a book in his lap, his back turned to the red brick building.

Zafis didnt turn his head, at first, when a figure walked up the path towards the mosques front doors. He only shifted in the plastic chair when the figure was behind him. He craned his neck to see who it was. But the hooded figure walked on, into the darkness. Zafis returned to his reading.

The figure only made it a few paces beyond Zafis before doubling back, walking a long arc, past the front doors of the mosque, slowly creeping back from where he or she came, almost as though they were pacing. Deliberating.

Then, the figure stopped. The security footage from the mosque is grainy, but they clearly turned their head towards Zafis. They reached into the pocket and pulled something out, making their way towards the mosque caretaker. Quickly, without Zafis turning, they crouched behind the 58-year-old and reached their arm around his neck.

The figure then bolted into the darkness, with only a dim glowperhaps of a cellphonevisible.

Zafis stood up from his chair, wobbly. He stumbled forward, then collapsed, rolling onto his back.

The security camera footage that showed his killing wouldnt be shared with the public until a month after his murder, but police knew full well the weight of what they were watching. Whoever killed Zafis had showed up to the mosque that night with a knife in their backpack. They had skulked in the darkness, but killed Zafis under a bright street light, in full view of the parking lot.

The killings looked similar: random, brutal stabbings. Both in the same neighborhood. Both attacks on men of color. Toronto police didnt link the two slayings, but acknowledged they couldnt exclude that possibility.

The city didnt need to hold its breath for a suspect for long. On Sept. 18, police arrested 34-year-old Guilherme Von Neutegem and charged him with first-degree murder for the death of Zafis.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Instagram

Guilherme Von Neutegem grew up in southern Brazil, the son of a Seventh-day Adventist pastor.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is not far from the Protestant mainstream; its theology differs, mostly, in its belief that there is no hell.

But those who knew Von Neutegem in Brazil say he wasnt interested in the church. One of Von Neutegems former classmates, who did not wish to be named, recalls getting on fairly well with him. But he was, she wrote, estranhostrange.

She told The Daily Beast that he had an interest in peculiar things. He was smart, and well-versed in technology, but not terribly social.

Around 2004, Von Neutegem left Brazil. Moving around was fairly common for his family, as the church believes strongly in missionary work. Von Neutegems father would move to churches throughout the United States and Canada.

Much of the family ended up in Toronto in the early 2010s. Von Neutegems parents made a point of helping new Brazilian immigrants to the city acclimatize to their new home. Thats how Von Neutegem met his future wife.

Friends who knew the Von Neutegems say they were the epitome of happiness. They were the most amazing supportive and caring parents, a friend of the family told The Daily Beast.

The only point of contention appeared to be Von Neutegems rejection of his parents faith. He seemed more taken with esoteric philosophy than Christianity. That made his parents a little sad, the friend said. But, they said, his parents always respected him, even though they wished he could be on the same path as theirs.

He wanted Combat 18 to be his own personal army. He wanted to bring the United Kingdom to the brink.

Von Neutegem enrolled in a local college in 2014, studying psychology. A year later, he married his girlfriend. According to an online listing, he began a holistic medicine practise, seemingly operating out of his condo. The whole family appeared close: Facebook albums show Von Neutegem, his wife, parents, and brother traveling together to Niagara Falls, on a skiing trip to Alberta, and enjoying dinner together.

Von Neutegems friends lost touch with him in the years that followed. His marriage ended abruptly, and his ex-wife returned to Brazil, as did his parents. The happy family vacations on his social media pages were steadily replaced with esoteric religious imagery and increasingly reactionary political opinions.

The Liberal trend of political correctness and flirtation with utopian socialism and globalism will inevitably give way to an authoritarian type of world Government, Von Neutegem tweeted in 2019.

As the pandemic hit, in the spring of 2020, Von Neutegems politics turned even more conspiratorial. He warned that the coronavirus pandemic was a global propaganda campaign to build a World Government. The same month, on Facebook, he posted a meme comparing 5G cellphone service to the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings.

He followed conservative politicians and media in Canada and further afield. On Twitter, he followed and liked Varg Vikernes, a Norwegian black metal musician convicted of numerous arsons of churches and the killing of a former associate, and Red Ice TV, an online media outlet suspended by YouTube for hate speech.

Its clear that Von Neutegem had tilted towards openly antisemitic and extremist political and media figures in the years before his arrest. But one particular fixation became more pronounced.

A second bomb exploded in a predominantly immigrant community near Whitechapel. Days later, a third bomb went off inside one of Sohos oldest gay bars.

His most recent upload to his YouTube page, from January 2020, was titled Chant (ONA). In it, Von Neutegem lilts over an atonal drone. The grainy black-and-white footage hovers over a candle-lit shrine, panning up to a six-pointed stara heptagram.

Researchers with Anti-Hate Canada were quick to note the significance, writing in a blog post shortly after Von Neutegems arrest: The Order of the 9 Angles is a neo-Nazi death cult and its believers are told to carry out murders to establish a satanic empire. Its training manual says, to cull humans is to be the ONA.

On Facebook, Von Neutegem had joined multiple groups advertising themselves as covensor nexionsof the Order of Nine Angles (O9A or ONA). On Pinterest, he hoarded O9A symbolism and followed other influencers from the movement. On Instagram, he uploaded a photo of a shrine he appears to have built; at its center is a Sonnenrad, a type of swastika.

The banner image for Von Neutegems YouTube page features two Nordic runesone of which was made infamous on the uniforms of Hitlers Waffen-SS a stylized swastika, and a wooden-handled dagger.

Someone who had been close with Von Neutegem, up until the years before his arrest, cant say what led him towards these extremist positions. I have no clue. I mean it. I dont understand either. Nobody does. Only he knows what drove him into these ideas, they wrote to The Daily Beast, while declining to be interviewed.

At the time of his arrest, Von Neutegem was living in a recently completed luxury condo building in Etobicoke, in Torontos West Endthree-and-a-half miles from the mosque where Zafis was stabbed. A city bus, which stops in front of Von Neutegems building, could have taken him to there in about 20 minutes.

A list of essays in a manuscript entitled O9A for Beginners.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

Unlike the thicket of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups and movements that have sprung up in recent years, birthed on far-right social media pages and secretive members-only chat rooms, O9A dates back to a pre-digital age. Despite its three decades of existence, understanding anything concrete about the Order can prove challenging.

What is abundantly clear is that the O9A preaches a violent, reactionary, and hateful ideology. It glorifies Hitler and promises to endow its followers with the magic power to provoke a race war.

The O9A mythology claims it was founded in the 1960s, as a marriage of three obscure satanic temples. For decades, it had no particular public presence. By the late 1980s, however, a new leader took over to, as one O9A text reads, make the teachings known on a large scaleAnton Long. Massive tomes of literature, which makes up the core of the Order of Nine Angles philosophy and religious doctrine, are attributed to Long. Yet Long is a ghost: virtually non-existent, beyond his affiliation with O9A.

Almost every researcher who has studied O9A accepts that Long is a nom de plume. While the name may have been used by multiple key figures in the pseudo-religious cult, there is considerable evidence to suggest Long is, at least primarily, an Englishman named David Myatta longtime far-right agitator who had been involved with neo-Nazi organizations as far back as the 1960s and was once dubbed The Most Evil Nazi in Britain.

Proving, without a doubt, that the two men are one and the same is frustratingly difficult, but there is ample evidence to back up the claim. Long and Myatt often use similar concepts and esoteric language, they both share a publisher, and their biographies share core details. Despite that, Myatt has denied being Long. Many followers of O9A, however, believe they are one and the same. Such is a fairly common paradox of the Order: Things are true, false, and neither at the same time.

My main intent was to spread fear, resentment and hatred throughout this country.

There are plenty of circumstantial clues that Myatt might, in fact, be Long. Their voluminous writings are remarkably similar in length, style, and density. Plenty of Longs essays are on Myatts website, right next to those that carry his name. When Jacob Senholt, a masters student, penned an extensive thesis on Myatt and the O9A in 2009, he concluded that the small pile of hints and references pointing to Myatt and Long being one and the same should be enough to warrant such a connection.

Unlike Long, Myatt isnt hard to find. His personal website boasts a grainy picture of himin a gray three-piece suit, a black tie, a crisp white shirtstanding in front of an altar, near a tall candle and a stained glass window. Next to his name is the ancient Greek phrase pathei mathos, or, learning through suffering. Von Neutegem had saved similar photos of Myatt to his Pinterest page.

Large parts of Myatts website are inscrutable. His essays carry titles like concerning and in the Corpus Hermeticum, and make inscrutably dense arguments. (In essence, empathy and pathei-mathos lead us away from the abstractions we have constructed and manufactured and which abstractions we often tend to impose) There is a whole section for his poetry, which is simplistic by contrast (The Sun, the city, to wear such sadness down/For I am only one among the many.)

The Englishman had been on watchdog radars for some time, including Nick Lowles, a longtime contributor to Searchlight, an anti-fascist magazine devoted to exposing the English far right.

Lowles says Myatt had essentially dropped off the radar in the 1970s, and reappeared on the scene in the 1990s, as a senior figure in notorious neo-Nazi group Combat 18. Myatt had grand ambitions, Lowles says. He wanted Combat 18 to be his own personal army. He wanted to bring the United Kingdom to the brink. Myatt wanted to instigate a race war, Lowles says.

But Myatt was an awkward theorist amongst the rough-and-ready jackboots. These people werent really big readers, Lowles says. That led to a clash between Myatts fantasy and the reality of the British hard-right.

The group seemed more interested in heavy drinking and street brawls. Internal politics led to one member stabbing another in the throat. That largely precipitated the end of Combat 18, as its members were arrested in droves in the late 1990s. Myatt lost what he hoped would be his, as Lowles phrases it, personal army.

One of his most infamous texts is a lengthy defense of suicide bombings, published to his blog in 2003.

In 1998, Myatt had decamped to the English countryside, where he set up a spiritual successor to Combat 18: the National Socialist Movement. It would become more of an intellectual movement than rowdy beer-hall politics.

Revolution means struggle, he wrote around that time. It means war. It means certain tactics have to be employed, and a great revolutionary movement organized which is primarily composed of those prepared to fight, prepared to get their hands dirty and perhaps spill some blood.

With his new profile, Lowles and Searchlight began to wonder what Myatt had been doing in those decades prior. They began to suspect that Myatt had a hand in founding the Order of Nine Angles.

O9A was hardly a major movement at this point, but it had a loyal following who ordered its texts through the mailliterature that echoed Myatts other groups. This work aims to provide a brief guide to the strategy and tactics National-Socialists need in order to create a revolution and create a National-Socialist State, one O9A from the time read. Some were written under the pseudonym Godric Redbeard (Myatt boasted a bushy ginger beard around then) while others carried Anton Longs name.

In 1998, Lowles, the anti-racist researcher, decided to reach out to Myatt. I just rang him up, Lowles says. It was March 20 when they met for lunch at a pub in a small farming town. Both men had been secretly taping the conversation; one of their recordings has since found its way online.

You obviously say youve never had any connections with the Order of Nine Angles, Lowles tells Myatt, at the beginning of the recording.

What do you mean by the Order of Nine Angles? Myatt replies, clearly feigning ignorance. Do you think its a group, or do you think its one person?

In the conversation, Lowles reveals that he has evidence showing Myatt owned and operated three post office boxes connected with O9A, dating back to the 1980s. While Myatt admits he checked the mail boxes, he danced around on the question of his own involvement, insisting only that I have tried to use, or convert, people who had been involved with various occult groups for national socialism.

Ive never been involved, Myatt told Lowles.

He lied through his teeth, Lowles told The Daily Beast, pointing to significant evidence establishing that, even if he is not the sole leader of the group, Myatt has been intimately involved in the organization for years. (In 2020, the National Counterterrorism Center assessed the likelihood that Myatt being the leader of O9A as probable.)

Over lunch, Lowles recalled, Myatt reached into his coat and produced a SS dagger, like Hitlers stormtroopers carriedand pulled out an envelope. He gave me a letter with an invitation to a duel, Lowles recalls, laughing.

Lowles declined.

In April 1999, as Lowles toiled away on his expose of the enigmatic extremist, London was shocked by a nail bomb attack in Brixton Market, in a predominantly Black neighborhood. A week later, a second bomb exploded in a predominantly immigrant community near Whitechapel. Days later, a third bomb went off inside one of Sohos oldest gay bars.

All told, three died and some 140 were injured in the attacks.

Combat 18, though it was essentially defunct, claimed responsibility for the attacks. As did a tiny, relatively unknown neo-Nazi group, the White Wolvesa group with virtually no footprint, beyond a pamphlet proclaiming: We do not believe that we alone can win the Race War, but we can start it.

Nothing short of a new war, spurred by an attack on his unit, would be good enough. He wanted a mascala mass casualty event.

Not long after the last attack, police arrested 22-year-old David Copeland, charging him with three counts of first-degree murder.

Copeland was a member and organizer of Myatts National Socialist Movement and would tell investigators that my main intent was to spread fear, resentment and hatred throughout this country. He would claim to be a member of the mysterious White Wolves. A jury would later convict him of three counts of murder, refusing to accept his plea of manslaughter.

In the melee after Copelands arrest, it was becoming increasingly clear that all roads led back to Myatt. He had led the National Socialist Movement. Police linked the White Wolves to a senior figure in Combat 18. Searchlight contended their violent call to arms was written, at least in part, by Myatt.

Searchlight pointed to another pamphlet that Myatt was happy to put his name to, issued before the attacks: A Practical Guide to The Strategy and Tactics of Revolution. The leaflet read that a practical strategy to follow now in regard to assassination is to target and kill several soft targets over the next year or two. On the topic of bombing campaigns, he advises the simplest way to begin is with fertilizer/sugar bombs, or simple nail-bombs.

When Searchlights expos finally came in 2000, it laid out Myatts entire past properly for the first time: from his younger years, as a rough-and-tumble skinhead; to his role as the brain trust of Combat 18; to leading the National Socialist Movement; and finally his alleged senior role in the Order of Nine Angles.

The paper called him the theoretician of terror.

Myatt wasnt just a local extremist, Lowles wrote, but a leading figure in an international neo-Nazi satanist movement which had grandiose ambitions.

Lowles suspected that Myatt had re-emerged under his real name in the 90s to try and put his philosophies in action through groups like Combat 18.

Myatt, in 2003, himself wrote that, I conceived a plan to use or if necessary create secret Occult-type groups with several aims, he wrote, under his own name. Recruiting members, he said, would help spread the idea of a world-wide revolution and world-wide National-Socialist renaissance. He continued: In pursuit of these covert aims I infiltrated several already existing Occult-type groups and created a new one.

But Myatts plans had been seriously wrecked by the police investigation into Copelands terror campaign. His marriage ended in divorce. He had been outed as one of the U.K.s most prolific extremists. And he was no closer to inciting his race war.

And so, Myatt writes in his autobiography, I began to seriously study Islam.

An old photo of David Myatt overlays an illustration of David Myatt. To the right of him, a stylized image of his work entitled A Practical Guide to The Strategy and Tactics of Revolution.

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Suspect in Grisly Mosque Murder Was Obsessed With 'Race War' Group - The Daily Beast

Whatever you do, do it carefully, Alma warns Reynolds Woodcock in Paul Thomas Andersons Phantom Thread. Throughout the film, the young woman proves herself to be more confident, more self-assured, and more dangerous than shed let on in that hotel restaurant where she and the older fashion designer first met. She ends up shaping the narrative of their love story, to the point that shes the one telling it to the audience while Reynolds is yet again sick in bed. She tames him, and creates a cyclical, almost predictable structure for their life together.

The love story in Licorice Pizza is the antidote to Phantom Thread and its toxic yet expertly concocted romance. One of the first things Alana (Alana Haim) tells Gary (Cooper Hoffman) is, Youre never going to remember me. She begins their relationship full of doubtabout both herself and himand those feelings only occasionally fade away. Yet theirs isnt even a classic tale of first resisting and then succumbing to love; rather, it repeats that structure over and over again, like a video game that takes you back to the beginning every time you fail. In writing Licorice Pizza, PTA lets go of the calculated, fat-free structure with which he approached Phantom Thread or even There Will Be Blood. He embraces his characters differences fully, without offering either an ever-after solution (as with the scheduled poisoning of Reynolds) or an absolute end (the death and destruction around Daniel Plainview). It is his most romantic film yet; a movie that cleverly reinvents the romantic comedy; a script that more than deserves the nod for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars.

Many of the scenes that 25-year-old Alana and 15-year-old Gary share are moments of disconnection. Their meet-cute begins with hostility as Alana rejects Garys advances, and ends with Alana still rolling her eyes, albeit with a smile on her face. PTA doesnt shy away from the discomfort that Alana feels being flirted with by a cocky teenage boyshe finds Gary almost offensive and plain weird. They also seem to approach life very differently: Hes highly ambitious and confident about his prospects, while she almost entirely avoids thinking about the future. Yet Gary has decided: He is really, really into Alana, and the way she maintains her integrity and doesnt try to protect his feelings when he continuously hits on her only makes him like her more.

The sea of differences that separate Alana and Gary render their relationship wholly nontraditional. (To repeat: They meet at a high school, where only one of them is enrolled.) And although some argue that opposites attract, the way Gary and Alana bicker and push themselves away from each other doesnt support that claim. Yet what emerges through their clashes is something deeper and more meaningful: Together, in a very messy way, they figure out who they are as individuals. With Gary, the lost young adult Alana finds some agency and discovers that she can put herself out there: She becomes an entrepreneur, reveals her acting talent, successfully backs a truck down a winding hill in Los Angeles, and realizes how dangerous the world of adults can be. Gary, too, becomes a fuller person. As Alana entertains dalliances with other men throughout the movie, Gary is forced to learn about restraint and letting others make their own decisions, something that the hustler and seducer in him has a hard time with. His biggest lesson comes when he stops himself from touching her breast when shes not lookinga scene that PTA writes as a comical yet meaningful moment of suspense through which Gary grows up. In fact, their entire relationship exists in this realm of suspense and uncertainty: They have no clear direction together, they dont know what they are to one another, Alana often finds Gary very annoying, and although he brings the idea of fate into the picture, confusion seems to be the real guiding principle.

PTA has always had a particularly keen eye for historical and cultural context, and in Licorice Pizza, California in the early 1970s is the backbone of the relationship between the two protagonists. The films excellent soundtrack helps re-create the sense of freedom and softer morals that defined the decade, and on the face of it, it almost feels as though PTA wanted to challenge contemporary political correctness by setting his film in that time and featuring a relationship with an age gap, overt racism, homophobia, and police brutality. Yet his writing makes it clear that hes not simply nostalgic for a past erasomething much subtler and more complicated is at play.

The illegality of Alana and Garys relationship is only the most superficial way in which the different, confusing, and sometimes backward mentality of the time influences the story. Garys scamming attitude and song and dance man act echo more loudly how powerful liberal capitalism and commercial entertainment were at the timeand how they shaped men in particular. He expects everything to be available to him, be it money, accolades, or girls. In that way, hes not too dissimilar from Jerry Frick (John Michael Higgins), the American man opening a Japanese restaurant and using a horribly offensive Japanese accent when addressing his immigrant wives; or from Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper), a swaggering, violent buffoon who cant stop talking about how hes dating Barbra Streisand. They all feel entitled and PTA frames their racism, misogyny, and sense of superiority as consequences of that. In contrast, the writer-director signals Alanas difficulty in navigating this sexually liberated yet macho world subtly and overtly. When the school photographer slaps her on her behind after shes met Gary and she barely registers it, PTA isnt trying to make a grand statement about feminism, but rather highlight how casually absurd a womans experience could be: In the 70s, flirting and affection could so swiftly be succeeded by unrestrained degradation.

In their encounter, Alana and Gary confront their opposing places in society directly. When Alana struggles to sell a waterbed to a customer on the phone, Gary suggests she talk sexier, which she proceeds to do successfully despite her simmering anger toward him. In turn, Gary becomes possessive and annoyed that she can so easily flirt with a customer. He indirectly discovers what misogyny and objectification are and how they can affect him, too. Every big clash that separates them is, in fact, due to their preconceived ideas of what society has told them they should want and deserve. After Gary has a fling with a more age-appropriate girl, Alana gives acting a real chance, both to spite Gary and to satisfy her own shaky ambitions. She also accepts an invite to go out with an older, respected actor she meets at an audition, Jack Holden (Sean Penn), and parades their flirtation in front of Gary, at the restaurant she knows is his second home. In that moment, shes also trying to fit into one of the roles available to ambitious women at the time: that of the ingenue whom older men can project their twisted and self-aggrandizing ideals onto, and whose success is dependent on men. After Holden tells her she reminds him of Grace Kelly, he proceeds to talk at her about his past cinematic glory, not even acknowledging Alana when she asks, Are these lines or is this real? Guided by PTAs writing, Haim performs both the role of the mindless sex object and that of the confused and dismissed woman perfectly, switching from one to the other as naturally as many women have learned to do. And while Alana feels the pain of limiting herself to an idea, across the room, Gary is going through his own realization. An actor himself, he usually behaves similarly to Holden when he visits this bar; he probably aspires to be Holden. Yet on this evening, all he can see is how far hes pushed his friend away; how shes not being true to herself because of him.

PTA manages to delicately weave this complex social context with romance because while Alana and Garys different positions in the world keep driving them apart, what brings them back together cant be reduced to circumstances or ambitions. To put it simply, they remain together because they realize that they care about each other. Calling them soul mates might seem counterintuitive, but the way PTA portrays their connection as based on a kind of care that allows them both to grow gives new meaning to the expression. When Jack Holden rides off on his bike and ignores the fact that hes let Alana fall behind, Gary sprints to her aid, worried only about her safety. In such moments, when they both notice their feelings for each other, PTA makes the world that has so profoundly shaped them fall away. In slow motion, they come together and remain speechless, as though neither they nor PTA have a good word for what they are sharing. What follows these suspended moments is pure glee, in which the director writes the characters going against the current, running against the flow of the crowd or through the city to find each other. Weve seen these kinds of romantic chases before, but PTA deepens their meaning by making them about breaking free from not only ones environment, but also from ones preconceived ideas of what they want and need.

In the 2004 romantic comedy Along Came Polly, Ben Stiller plays Reuben, a risk-assessment expert whose presumptions about adult life and relationships are shaken when he meets the wild and freewheeling Polly (Jennifer Aniston)shes the Gary to his Alana, making him uncomfortable in an often salutary way. Stillers best friend Sandy, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is an exchild actor still living off the glory he achieved as a kid, convinced of his own dubious coolness. And yeah, it may be a stretch to imagine Licorice Pizza as a prequel to Along Came Polly and Cooper Hoffman as playing the younger Sandy, but the parallels and differences between the two films are notable and telling in regard to PTAs writing. At the end of Along Came Polly, Reuben learns to loosen up and Polly gets her life more organizedthey both shape-shift a little while accepting the others peculiarities. In Licorice Pizza, after Alana and Gary make up one last time (in the time frame of the film at least), it isnt long before Gary is making her roll her eyes once again. PTA doesnt promise us they will be happy together forever after or that they will even get all that used to each others annoying tendencies. It seems highly unlikely that either of them will ever fundamentally change. But Alana and Gary do exchange a kiss, a sign that perhaps, somehow, they will always care for each other.

Manuela Lazic is a French writer based in London who primarily covers film.

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Theres More Than Just Whats on the Page in Licorice Pizza - The Ringer