Hello, my little chili babies.
Did you enjoy winter’s last labored gasp? Six inches of heavy, wet snow in mid-March really is an unnecessarily cruel meteorological bitch-slap. And on the day of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, no less. Shout-out to you intrepid warriors who didn’t let the snow deter you from heading downtown to celebrate the patron saint of luck, rising roads and green beer.
Let’s get to it.
1. Because of course …
You may recall from last week’s edition that JFK, Jr. is running for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat and by “JFK, Jr.,” I mean … this scammer:
As I told you, Vincent Fusca is a Pittsburgher. I mean, we don’t claim him, but yeah, he’s from here. Apparently for a long time he owned a clothing shop in Station Square, I’m told. And have you ever checked out his Twitter account with over 125,000 followers? Here’s a glimpse:
Worst. Dr. Seuss. Book. Ever.
Anyway! In addition to being a … wait … let me get out my old-timey slang thesaurus and find the perfect descriptor for him. Please hold. Ah, here we go. [Ahem] A mythomaniacal glory-grabbing brain-boiled hammered-down runt. In addition to all that, he apparently caused a 2020 traffic crash on Route 22 that killed an elderly man.
A three-vehicle crash last month on Route 22 in Salem that killed an 81-year-old man remains under investigation, according to state police.
According to a report released this week, Abernathy said the crash occurred as Vincent E. Fusca, 68, of Pittsburgh was driving a 2012 Ford passenger van eastbound in the left lane and approached a traffic signal at the intersection.
“(Fusca) was travelling at a speed where he was unable to stop for traffic stopped at the light,” Abernathy wrote.
Yes, that means Vincent Fusca allegedly committed vehicular homicide, and that he’s 70 years old today.
Were he living, JFK, Jr. would be 61 …
… and he would look like a god and you know it.
(h/t @eamon2tweet on Twitter)
2. Well, that’s … troublesome
Hold onto your boobies:
An invasive species of spider the size of a child's hand is expected to “colonize” the entire East Coast this spring by parachuting down from the sky
Did … did we stumble into a SyFy movie story pitch meeting? What in the fresh forking hellish horror?
Before we start reading the Book of Revelation to see what it says about plagues and general doom, let’s remain calm and see what’s what.
“The size of a child’s hand?” Is this an official unit of measure? Is it a large child? A two-year-old? A fifteen-year-old? Can you literally just pick out a random size-varied object and call it a unit of measure? How big, really, are these spiders? Not huge, righ—?
Well, that’s … that’s pretty big. But I’m sure they’re not actually parachuting down out of—
They fanned out across the state using their webs as tiny, terrifying parachutes to travel with the wind.
Well, they probably don’t have, like, fangs or anythin—
their fangs are too small to break human skin.
Well, they started in Georgia. They probably won’t make it this far nort—
it isn't certain how far north the spiders will travel, but they may make it as far north as D.C. or even Delaware.
For years now, in light of our bonkers existence of volcanoes and pandemics and floods and cicadas, I have joked, “What’s next?” I’d say things like, “It’s all fun and games until it starts raining bloodfire.” Or, “You think this is bad? Wait until the rivers of scorpions come for us.” What a jokester I am. And yet, here we are. In 2022. And a real, actual, factual thing I can say to you is this: “Watch out for invasive fanged spiders the size of small jackfruit parachuting from the sky to land on your face and colonize your hair.”
It’s all fun and games until the tarantula-squid show up.
3. All is well …
For those of you who read my Carnegie thesis from last week’s edition, or who have any understanding at all of the Gilded Age robber barons (yes, Carnegie included), you’ll love this. A history teacher tasked her students with coming up with memes about the topics they studied and what these kids came up with for the Gilded Age is not only spot-on, but hilarious:
Andrew Carnegie playing UNO in a hoodie is my favorite. My teen daughter is a huge history nerd like me and a few months ago she sent me this meme she made after learning about Carnegie, unaware my thesis was about him:
Hahah. The next generation gives me such hope. Teach them real, honest history and watch how they change the world.
4. Good news!
I have some really fantastic news! Ready?
Systemic racism ended in 1965! It doesn’t exist in 2022. There’s no such thing! It’s a complete myth along the lines of “a Pittsburgher who knows how to zipper merge onto the Parkway” and “a Wendy Bell brain cell.”
Don’t believe me? Here’s a transcript from the recent Norwin School Board meeting (video here and here):
Board member Alex Detschelt:
“The policy we are trying to propose is that any systemic racism or discussion thereof post-1965 would not be permitted because systemic racism past 1965 has ended.”
Board member Shawna Ilagan, after saying she thinks people don’t understand what systemic racism is, goes on to prove she doesn’t understand what systemic racism is, which is a special style of idiot dance, if I’ve ever seen one. She said:
“There is no evidence today that our social order or our American systems are racist against anybody of color, okay? And you can go to a courtroom in Pittsburgh — you can go to a courtroom in Pittsburgh — I’ve been there! — you can go to a courtroom— you can see a Black criminal, you can see a Black lawyer, and you can see a Black judge. So what was the difference?! Your life choices. So this current systemic racism thing is a poisonous analogy — I’ve said it and I’ll just keep saying it — and it needs to stop.”
There’s no evidence racism exists in our social order? Whew. I need all the minutes. I need a lifetime. An age. An eternity. To calm myself down because this stuff isn’t opinion and you might be sitting there saying, “It is SO an opinion!” and I am sitting here armed with a literal binder-full of scholarly research and peer-reviewed data that proves the existence of systemic racism beyond a shadow of a doubt in education, medical care, policing and more.
But this is the paradoxical age in which we live. All this data. All this information. Full of scientific methodologies and honest data evaluation. And people just rely on how they FEEL. Or what they BELIEVE. They go to sleep at night on the soft pillow of their willful ignorance, under the comforting weighted blanket of their selective blindness.
Excuse my language, but to these people who continue to hide from facts behind their feelings, I say this: fuck your feelings. It’s so easy to define systemic racism merely as DISCRIMINATORY LAWS, which is what these two are doing, but it goes beyond that. It goes deep deep down to ancestral roots. It goes all the way down to how our present is still impacted by the codified racism of the past. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away; it just makes things shittier for longer for lots of human beings. Christians out there, please hear me: Ignoring it is the opposite of love. Claiming it doesn’t exist rather than attempting to learn why you might be wrong is the opposite of selflessness. Closing your eyes, ears and heart is the opposite of empathy.
Implicit bias, systemic racism, institutional racism — they all exist. They’re all linked. They’ve all been proven with data, especially here in Pittsburgh. They will never go away unless they are actively addressed. Claiming systemic racism no longer exists is like performing a mastectomy on a patient and then not bothering to treat the cancer that spread to the rest of the body, claiming instead that the cancer merely no longer exists.
I know how these people think — these Ilagans and these Detschelts. It goes like this: “If people of color would just work harder and make better choices, the income, education, health and policing gaps wouldn’t exist.” Some of you right now are reading that and agreeing with the sentiment. What I’m trying to get you to understand is that DATA proves that a chunk of it is COMPLETELY out of the hands of people of color in America because of systemic racism and implicit bias. The playing field isn’t level. It has never been level, not even with affirmative action programs, diversity hiring measures and inclusion programs attempting to address it. Why? Well, let me put it in the most general of medical terms: Just because you treat a patient FIRST or MORE OFTEN doesn’t mean you’ll treat that patient WELL or BEST or MOST EFFECTIVELY and sometimes you might not even be aware that you’re providing these different levels of care. Get it? Because it goes so far down, so deep that the bandaids won’t work. Only true systemic change will. That starts young. In the schools. In our homes.
Rather than share links to these peer-reviewed academic research studies I used for my research (mine were accessed through my school’s library, but you can go to Google Scholar and type in “systemic racism in America” if you’d like to really get deep into it), here’s a quick video series that can help put it all into context for you, if you aren’t informed and want to throw off that blanket of blindness under which you’ve ensconced yourself. Here’s the first video, but check the others out as well because they really get into the government side of things too:
Why bother allowing our children to learn in schools of systemic racism’s existence (schools, I’ll remind you, where Black children are more quickly referred for punishment but more slowly referred for interventions and gifted programs than their white peers)?
That’s easy. Because if you don’t teach it, you are actively discounting the lived experiences of children of color who will be impacted by systemic racism their whole lives. Because if you don’t teach children it exists, instead of wonderful children capable of dragging the Robber Barons for filth, or capable of gaining a true understanding of how the failed Reconstruction played a huge part in our modern systemic racism, like these kids:
… you eventually wind up with ignorant adults like Alex Detschelt and Shawna Ilagan, who are — wait. Let me refer to my slang thesaurus again so I can describe them accurately using slang from the 1940s and 50s. Ok, here we go. [Ahem] … a darnationed anvil chorus of boobery-peddling, stump-jumping yazzihampers on the southern ends of northbound horses.
A bunch of years ago, I got rid of my pillow and I threw off my blanket and I opened myself up to learning if what I FELT was TRUE and I discovered two things: facts and love. While reading my “scathing” thesis, an acquaintance on Twitter said something along the lines of Pittsburgh slept on the radicalization of Virginia Montanez. It was meant, I think, as a compliment. Sure. Fine. Let’s call it radical. Just understand that what I have become is radical love.
What the Alex Detschelts and Shawna Ilagans have become is not worth our time.
5. The RumChata done got her
Please take a moment to read this GLORIOUS obituary for a local woman.
A few snippets:
Linda L. Bailey, 72 passed away peacefully at her home in bed on March 8, 2022. It is believed it was caused from drinking too much Rum Chata to help her cure her illness.
She left behind a h*** of a lot of stuff to her son and daughter who have no idea what to do with all of it.
So, if you're looking for a lot of antiques, furniture, a 2021 Buick Enclave with 5,000 miles, and a ton of shoes and purses, you should wait the appropriate amount of time and get in touch. Tomorrow would be fine.
And it gets better. Go read it.
Pour one out for Linda L. Bailey. May she enjoy the great QVC in the sky.
6. And that’s all I have. Talk to your kids about systemic racism, implicit bias and institutional racism. If you don’t know enough to talk to them about it, educate yourself. Don’t ever vote for anyone who denies what science and history have proven over and over again. Put your feelings away and pick up some facts and don’t even squint while you read them.
Eyes open. Ears open. Hearts open.
Stay safe, come see my band The Radicalization of Virginia Montanez, and as always, direct any complaints to …
Press 2 for “We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.”