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      Casualties in Trump’s war on the arts: the small museums keeping local history alive

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      For the past two years, a small arts non-profit has been telling stories about the communities living alongside the Los Angeles river, one voice at a time.The organization, called Clockshop, has collected the oral histories of nearly 70 local residents, activists and elected officials. Their knowledge is compiled in a vast cultural atlas – which contains videos, an interactive map and a self-guided tour exploring the waterway and its transformation from a home for the Indigenous Tongva people to a popular, rapidly gentrifying urban space.But in April, the future of the ever-growing atlas was thrown in uncertainty, when a three-year federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the agency that supports libraries, archives and museums, was terminated 17 months early. The grant, originally for $150,000, still had $20,000 left to pay out. “There is no recourse to recover the funds still in the grant project activities,” the organization said in a post on Instagram.Now, executive director Sue Bell Yank says their mission to preserve the stories of residents ousted by gentrification could lead to “erasure of the past, of cultural self-determination, and a lack of understanding about how communities can successfully advocate for the kinds of neighborhoods we deserve”.Clockshop’s post foreshadowed an alarming message that would eventually be delivered to hundreds of other arts and cultural institutions across the US. As the Trump administration directed federal agencies to cancel grants that did not support the president’s new priorities, which focused on funding “projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity” and targeted anything broadly deemed “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion), millions of dollars dedicated to preserving local history and culture suddenly disappeared.Shortly after IMLS grants were terminated, so too were those awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). By Friday 2 May, a spreadsheet created by writer and theater director Annie Doren was being passed around the internet, aiming to catalog every organization that had lost their NEA funding. With more than 500 organizations on the list, the question shifted from who lost their funding to who didn’t.View image in fullscreenWhile organizations of all kinds were impacted, it is the small and midsized institutions that lack endowments, prominent donors, and broad outreach whose futures are particularly in jeopardy. The cuts have affected a broad swath of projects – from a documentary film-maker in Fresno making a film about a woman who has played Harriet Tubman in civil war reenactments for 30 years; to a dance performance about south-east Asian mothers in New York City, to an organization that brings films, book clubs and other cultural events to rural Montana.Rick Noguchi who runs a non-profit called California Humanities, said he has seen the 112 NEH grants it awarded across the state suspended indefinitely by the Trump administration. “There are many newer immigrant communities that don’t have deep donors and struggle with being able to find individual donors that step in to tell their stories.”‘The country is abandoning its citizens’Back in Los Angeles, the cuts have blanketed cultural institutions with feelings of anxiety and urgency. But their leaders are also fighting back, vowing to continue the work of preserving local history in spite of the administration’s threats to revoke non-profit status if they continue to champion DEI programs.The Japanese American National Museum (JANM), an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in LA’s Little Tokyo neighborhood that focuses on the history, culture and legacy of Japanese immigrants, initially lost grants that amounted to roughly $1.45m – though some have since been temporarily restored after a court order. Among those cut was a NEH landmarks of American history and culture grant, which funded a workshop helping teachers build a curriculum about the history of Japanese incarceration during the second world war. JANM CEO Ann Burroughs said that the program benefits approximately 20,000 students a year.“It was very much to ensure that the history was never forgotten,” Burroughs said about the museum’s mission and outreach. “It was also to ensure that what happened to Japanese Americans never happened to anybody else.”View image in fullscreenLos Angeles’s One Institute, which houses the largest queer archive in the world, also uses their collection to help educate others on queer history and marginalization. They lost a $15,000 NEA grant to support their upcoming annual festival in October, and now they are scrambling to hold fundraisers to keep the festival on track.Tony Valenzuela, the organization’s executive director, said that their event is important because it covers a gap in education. “Even in liberal states like California, only a fraction of students learn about the contributions of queer people to society,” Valenzuela said. “If the government abandons funding non-profits and other individuals and organizations providing a social good, this country will also be abandoning whole swaths of its citizens who greatly benefit from this work.”Another organization that was hit hard was the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), which operates the Skid Row History Museum & Archive, located just a few blocks north of the neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles. They lost four grants administered by IMLS, NEH, and California Humanities, and are unlikely to receive an NEA grant that normally keeps the organization running – a total value of nearly $144,000 dollars, or 22% of the organization’s annual budget.Like Clockshop, the LAPD’s exhibitions, public programs and archives chart the ways Skid Row has been transformed – and nearly erased – due to development and gentrification. “Not everyone sees Skid Row as a community, let alone a thriving arts community,” said Henry Apodaca, LAPD’s media archivist. “This is a critical counter narrative to popular narratives that we’ve all been inundated with when talking about Skid Row.”View image in fullscreenOne of the terminated grants was an IMLS grant for small museums, which was being used to support a project called Welcome to the Covid Hotel. The project, named for the temporary medical treatment centers that popped up in vacant hotels during the pandemic to care for unhoused people, culminated in an exhibition and a series of theatrical performances based on interviews with patients, nurses and social workers.“There’s stories of people coming in blind and getting cataract surgeries,” explains LAPD’s co-founder and artistic director, John Malpede. “Someone with gangrene needed to have his legs amputated, and it saved his life. And most people got and accepted some form of next-step housing.”Malpede’s performance is a creative way for policymakers to notice the Covid Hotels’ impact and potentially make the sites into permanent fixtures. When the grants were canceled, LAPD was still waiting on more than $38,000 to come through: money that was supposed to pay venues, crew and performers for events that took place in April, as well as upcoming performances in May and June, and a forthcoming publication. While LAPD aims to move forward with their plans, they are uncertain on how to fund it.After going public on social media, private donors have since stepped up to help the JANM and Clockshop recoup their losses. LAPD and the One Institute, however, are still looking for support. Without this funding, not only could the non-profits disband, but also the communities that have flourished as a result of their work.As Malpede warns: “It’s only because of the neighborhood standing up and using its own history that it continues to be present.” More

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      Jon Stewart on CNN’s Biden book: ‘Selling you a book about news they should have told you’

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      Late-night hosts rip CNN for promoting a book on Joe Biden’s health and weigh in on Donald Trump attacking Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen.Jon StewartOn the Daily Show, Jon Stewart tore into CNN anchor Jake Tapper for promoting his book Original Sin, written with Alex Thompson, on his network. The host played several clips of Tapper teasing the book, which reports on Biden’s mental decline while still in the White House. In the final clip, Tapper says: “You will not believe what we found out.”“Don’t news people have to tell you what they know when they find it out?” Stewart wondered on Monday evening. “Isn’t that the difference between news and a secret? ‘You won’t believe what we found out’ – no, that’s why I watch breaking news.”Stewart noted real breaking news on Sunday, which was confirmation from Biden’s personal team that he was diagnosed with “aggressive” prostate cancer and was considering treatment options. “Doing the story seems almost disrespectful,” said Stewart. “Can CNN thread the needle? How do you pivot from excitedly promoting your anchor’s book to somberly and respectfully promoting your anchor’s book?”Well, as one CNN staffer put it: “This was already going to be a tough week, and this makes it much harder. And that is a reference to the fact that our colleagues, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson have a book that’s set to be published on Tuesday.”“It’s so hard, it’s such a difficult time, so unfathomable in terms of the pain his family must be feeling,” Stewart mocked. “And yet, if you act now, you use the code ‘backslash tap that book’, it’s 20% off.”Jokes aside, Stewart acknowledged: “How fucking weird it is that the news is selling you a book about news they should have told you was news a year ago, for free.”“I understand the excitement over an insidious Democratic cover-up about Joe Biden’s mental decline,” he added. “The thing is though, it was a terrible cover-up, because we all fucking knew.”“There was no cover-up – poll after poll showed vast majorities of the public thought Biden was too old and too out of it to run again,” he continued. “Dean Phillips mounted an entire primary campaign because of it.”“He along with most of the public knew it was a bad idea for Biden to run. We knew it,” Stewart concluded. “And that’s what’s so hilarious about politicians. The cover-up doesn’t work when everyone knows you’re lying.”Stephen ColbertMeanwhile, Trump spent the weekend “settling back into the White House after his Mideast all-you-can-bribe buffet”, as Stephen Colbert put it on Monday’s Late Show.“He just loved it over there!” he continued. “He was having such a good time with the princes and the palaces and the marble and the gold, and the special souvenir he really wants to bring home: obedience to leaders on punishment of death.”Trump “spent this beautiful weekend viciously attacking anyone who dare defy him”, including Walmart, which recently said his tariffs were “too high” and would force the chain to raise prices. “Which means it’s going to cost you a lot more when you run out for milk, one Goodyear tire and a t-shirt that says ‘Shrek yourself before you wreck yourself,’” Colbert joked.Evidently, Trump did not like Walmart “accurately describing how he has personally affected your pocketbook”, so he posted on Truth Social: “Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain … they should as is said, ‘EAT THE TARIFFS’”Colbert broke out his Trump impression: “As is said, I make a mess, you eat it. That’s how the world works. Which reminds me – JD, there’s some hot dog stuck in my golf cleats. Get over here with your tongue and a positive attitude.”Walmart wasn’t Trump’s only target on social media this weekend. On Friday, out of nowhere, he posted: “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’”“First of all, sir, keep my best friend Taylor Swift’s name out of your filthy nugget hole,” said Colbert. “Second, it’s possible people are talking about her a little less these days because her 149-date Eras Tour ended six months ago.”But attacking Swift was “just a warm-up”, because he also went after Bruce Springsteen, after the musician called him “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous” at a concert in Manchester, England.In a rambling Truth Social post, Trump called Springsteen “highly overrated”, said he “never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics” and claimed “he is not a talented guy”.“What are you doing? Attacking Bruce is like attacking America itself!” Colbert marveled.Trump went on: “This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country.”“Pretty bold to say someone else’s skin is atrophied when your own complexion can best be described as Tandoori Catcher’s Mitt,” Colbert quipped. More

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      Win a game show, become a US citizen? We’ve entered the realm of the truly depraved | Dave Schilling

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      I guess Republicans really love game shows. Just a few days after Fox aired its “isn’t Trump wild” guessing game, What Did I Miss, it was revealed that the TV producer Rob Worsoff has pitched the United States Department of Homeland Security on a series premise he calls The American, which would give immigrants a chance to compete in a series of challenges for the prize of US citizenship. The actual process of winning citizenship is obviously too boring to film. Filling out an N-400 form? Snore. A written exam? I’d rather watch a dog eat grass. Skip all that and give us an obstacle course instead.People have stupid ideas all the time. My child thought it would be fun to squeeze lemon juice in his hot chocolate. He took one sip, almost barfed on the table, then begged me to order him another, lemon-less beverage. Stupid ideas are great, because most of them are harmless. “Oh, I ate a large bug off the ground. Whoops.” The only stupid ideas that are a problem are the ones where the actual government considers cosigning them. The DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin was asked by Time magazine what the status of Worsoff’s pitch was and responded via email that it “has not received approval or rejection by staff”.Gotta really think this one through, I guess. Something like this must be thoroughly vetted by serious people. How cruel is this one, exactly? How desirable is the bloodthirsty demo for advertisers these days? Can we sell a presenting sponsorship? And is this for streaming or broadcast? Can we get Chris Hardwick to host? These are all vital questions to consider before making a decision in show business.Such an idea would be eye-rollingly low-class in normal times, but as the Trump administration attempts to ramp up deportations and to do away with the constitutional right of citizenship by birth (and federal courts bravely fight back), this dumb concept travels at warp speed to the dimension of the truly depraved. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services website takes great pains to describe the process of becoming an American as solemn and full of responsibility. Step 10 of the site’s “10 Steps to Naturalization” is “Understanding U.S. Citizenship”. It states: “Citizenship is the common thread that connects all Americans. Check out this list of some of the most important rights and responsibilities that all citizens – both Americans by birth and by choice – should exercise, honor, and respect.”Yes, but what if you had to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar first?To make his pitch even more appealing to the bigwigs in Washington, Worsoff suggested a few choice ideas for challenges that correspond to the most stereotypical aspects of life in America’s 50 states. A pizza-making contest for New York, a rocket-launching challenge for Florida, and a “gold rush challenge” for California. Nothing says “vital skills for living in 2025” like panning for gold in a pair of tattered Levi’s 501s. Perhaps Levi’s will sponsor the segment. Gosh, this thing pays for itself.But why stop there? Maybe a Breaking Bad-themed meth-making challenge for New Mexico. Polygamy challenge for Utah? How efficiently can you operate a turn-of-the-20th-century steel mill in Pennsylvania? Can you safely land a plane at Newark airport? For Washington state, you just have to answer trivia questions about Seattle inaccuracies in the sitcom Frasier. The possibilities for inanity are significant.In order to advance to the next round of this bottomless pit of human misery, contestants would be subjected to a vote, which Worsoff described as “like a presidential election”. Oh, how fun. Can you contest the results of that vote, too? Worsoff said in an CNN interview that his idea is “not like the Hunger Games”. Mostly because the costume budget isn’t as high.The Democratic opposition in Congress has, naturally, lined up to publicly condemn such a grotesque notion. The New York congressman Jerry Nadler said on X (formerly known as a useful platform for conversation) that “human lives are not game show props.”A nice sentiment, but I must be the bearer of bad news. Human lives have been game show props since the invention of the form. In 2005, Fox (why is it always Fox?) aired a reality show called Who’s Your Daddy, where a woman had to guess which of eight men was her real father. If she guessed correctly, she’d win both an awkward conversation and $100,000. Presumably the cash prize would go directly to her therapy bills. Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise, while not a game show (the real winners are the viewers, I suppose) is a reality universe where women frequently abuse alcohol to the detriment of their own lives and the lives of others around them. If human lives are not props in these shows, are they even entertaining to the masses?An idea like The American, then, is the natural extension of the genre, taking someone’s desperation, fear, and overwhelming desire and squeezing all the drama possible out of it. Worsoff told CNN that he had pitched this idea to previous Democratic administrations, but weirdly, we never heard about it back then. It’s only now that such a concept feels enough in line with the zeitgeist of immigration paranoia that Worsoff felt emboldened to speak freely about it.He said: “I’m putting a face to immigration. This is a great celebration of America.” Yes, it is a celebration of America. Specifically our worst impulses: the desire to make everything a game and revel in the bread-and-circuses spectacle of life and death, but to cloak it in nobility and charity. Worsoff continued: “I’m very fortunate and lucky and honored to be an American. And I want everybody to understand the process.”At no point did I think that a pizza-making contest was part of the process.

      Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist More

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      ‘Love, hope, community and resistance’: ACLU to unveil 9,000 sq ft quilt for trans rights

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      “It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t anxious,” Abdool Corlette said while discussing his latest project with the American Civil Liberties Union, Freedom to Be. An award-winning film-maker and head of brand at the ACLU, Corlette has been working for nearly two years with hundreds of trans people across the country to create a 9,000 sq ft quilt, composed of 258 panels that are packed with responses to the question: what does freedom mean to you?Corlette is anxious because Freedom to Be is all about trans joy and trans freedom, and it will make a defiant stand for both on 17 May in Washington DC in spite of the war that Donald Trump has waged against the trans community since his inauguration.“We have been doing everything we can to create contingency plans to make sure we have every scenario accounted for,” Corlette said. “This is what keeps me up at night, making sure our guests are safe.”This was not the celebration that Corlette had hoped for. When Freedom to Be kicked off in September 2023, it was focused more around combating the tsunami of anti-trans legislation that has taken over statehouses since 2020, as well as the related wave of anti-trans rhetoric that has seeded the ground for such legislation. The first two prongs of the campaign have already occurred: with the first, Corlette helped tell the stories of trans kids whose lives had been transformed by gender-affirming medical care, and with the second he spearheaded a rally on the steps of the supreme court on 4 December 2024, in conjunction with oral arguments in the case of United States v Skrmetti. The eventual ruling on that case will decide on the legality of bans against gender-affirming care for trans minors.The third prong of Freedom to Be happens this weekend as part of WorldPride, an annual global celebration of the LGBTQ+ community that just happens to occur in DC this year. The festivities will play out during the upswing of one of the most virulently anti-queer governments in US history, and, already, attenders from all over the world have pulled out, as have many of the event’s corporate sponsors.View image in fullscreenIn spite of the potentially dangerous situation, Corlette is hoping that the trans community will be able to find joy as he publicly displays the completed quilt. “I want someone who is feeling heavy to walk into that space and see that across the United States there’s 9,000 sq ft of messages of love, hope, community and resistance,” Corlette said. “Joy is what I want to blanket that day.”Lee Blinder, founding executive director of Trans Maryland, took part in helping create some of those messages that Corlette hopes trans people and their allies will see in DC. On 9 February this year, less than three weeks into the Trump administration, Blinder walked into a local queer bar to host more than 100 members of the trans community in creating squares for the quilt. According to Blinder, coming together to make the quilt instilled hope amid the onslaught against trans people that filled Trump’s first weeks in office. “People walked into that room feeling extraordinarily grateful to be there,” Blinder said. “There were these gorgeous multicolored sewing machines; there was so much thought and intention that went into the event. Multiple people came up to me and said, ‘We’re so grateful that y’all had this event. This is what I needed.’ It was really nice to be there and take time out of that impossible week.”Blinder’s comments speak to the power of being in community, even when confronted by the profound threats to basic human rights and bodily autonomy posed by the Trump administration and Republican-led state governments. It is a power Blinder is quite familiar with, as for years they have led Trans Maryland in hosting weekly trans support groups and organizing a program in which trans people help each other with name and gender marker changes. “It’s trans people who have been through the process helping other community members,” they told me.View image in fullscreenBlinder plans to be in DC for the unveiling of the Freedom to Be quilt, and they are extremely thrilled to be participating. “I’m really excited to see it all stitched together in person,” they said. “I saw all the quilt squares stacked there [in the bar] after everyone had made them – there’s this pool table in the space, and they’d lay them out there where we could see a little bit of the vision of how they would all come together.”Blinder echoed many who have posed art as an important element in fighting back against the Trump administration and other anti-LGBTQ+ governments. In particular, they see the way that art can bring together communities, while also opening minds and hearts, as integral to pushing back against authoritarian political movements. “The process of creating art has been a longstanding element of resistance for the trans and queer community,” they said. “It’s a key component with the resistance against fascism – it’s played a key role in the past, and I think it will continue to play a significant role in the resistance as it is right now.”According to Corlette, working with trans people at a particularly dangerous time for the community has been a powerful and often painful experience, as he has built personal relationships with individuals who have been harmed by repressive governmental policies. “Individuals who were storytellers in the first part of this campaign have had to pick up and leave their home states for fear of safety for their own bodies,” he said. “That’s what makes it so personal.”View image in fullscreenCorlette hopes that Freedom to Be will not just reach trans people and their allies but also connect with anyone who is feeling demoralized amid the authoritarian ambitions of the Trump administration. “No matter how daunting this fight is, hope has not been lost,” he said. “If the most marginalized community in the country is remaining in the fight, everyone else should be as well.”Ultimately, Corlette sees Freedom to Be as continuing a legacy of transformative community action taken by the queer community in support of itself. For him, spreading stories and joy while giving the community ways to be together is what’s most important. “This monument is a direct descendant of the Aids memorial quilt,” he said. “We wanted to really be in the legacy of those who came before us, to use art and advocacy to not only memorialize but to create pockets of joy for communities to tell their stories and come together to celebrate their existence.” More

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      Lord Buffalo drummer removed from plane and detained by US border control

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      The Texas-based rock band Lord Buffalo has cancelled its European tour after its drummer, Yamal Said, was detained by US Customs and Border Protection on Monday.Said was removed from a plane en route to the band’s summer tour and has had no contact with his bandmates for two days, according to a message posted to the band’s Instagram account. Said is a Mexican citizen but a legal permanent resident of the United States, holder of a green card and resident of Austin since the 1980s, according to the Austin Chronicle.“We are heartbroken to announce we have to cancel our upcoming European tour,” the band wrote on Instagram on Wednesday. “Our drummer, Yamal Said, who is a Mexican citizen and lawful permanent resident of the United States (green card holder) was forcibly removed from our flight to Europe by Customs and Border Patrol [sic] at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Monday May 12. He has not been released, and we have been unable to contact him. We are currently working with an immigration lawyer to find out more information and to attempt to secure his release.“We are devastated to cancel this tour,” the statement continued, “but we are focusing all of our energy and resources on Yamal’s safety and freedom.”An update to the statement on Wednesday afternoon thanked fans for their support, and said Said had “secured the legal representation he needs”.“We are waiting to hear what comes next,” they added. “We want to reiterate that we truly don’t know what’s going on. We have more questions than answers, but we will keep you posted as much as we can. At this time the family asks for privacy as they navigate the situation.”According to the Chronicle, Said is a longtime staple of the music scene in Austin. He formerly played with the band the Black and works as a music instructor for the Texas School for the Blind.The heavy psychedelic-Americana quartet were to embark on an eight-date European tour in support of their latest album Holus Bolus. The tour, alongside the Swedish band Orsak:Oslo, was scheduled to begin on 15 May in the Netherlands and wrap the following Friday in Iceland.In their own statement, Orsak:Oslo, who will continue with the tour, wrote: “No one should be pulled off a plane and jailed for simply trying to travel and make art with their band. We won’t pretend to understand the full complexity of the situation, but this should not happen anywhere.”Said’s arrest comes amid a broader crackdown on immigration and border entry from the Trump administration, which has included searching phones for text messages critical of Donald Trump. In the four months since the US president took office, several professional musicians have had issues leaving or entering the US.In March, members of the British punk band UK Subs said they were denied entry and detained in the US, reportedly due to incorrect visas and a reason agents were unwilling to disclose. Bassist Alan Gibbs, who was sent back to the UK along with bandmates Marc Carrey and Stefan Häublein, speculated on social media “whether my frequent, and less than flattering, public comments regarding their president and his administration played a role – or perhaps I’m simply succumbing to paranoia”.Additionally Bells Larsen, a trans singer-songwriter based in Montreal, told the Guardian that he was canceling a tour because he could not apply for a visa under new US citizenship and immigration services policies that do not recognize transgender identities. The British singer FKA twigs cancelled several North American dates of her Eusexa tour because of unspecified visa issues. And Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, of the Polish rock band Trupa Trupa told NPR that visa delays forced him and his band to miss out on several North American performance opportunities.The Guardian has reached out to Lord Buffalo’s representatives for comment. More

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      Michelle Obama 2.0 – the reinvention of the former first lady

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      Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week, I review Michelle Obama’s new podcast, IMO, which is surprising in the ways it breaks with the Michelle of the past.I came to sneer – and stayed to cheerView image in fullscreenFirst, a disclaimer: I had never fully bought into the Michelle Obama hype. I felt her now legendary line “When they go low, we go high” encapsulated a troubling and complacent form of respectability politics, in which Black people have to maintain coolness and grace under fire to be taken seriously. As the first lady, Michelle often seemed like a sanitising presence, wheeled out so that her national treasure status could serve as a smokescreen to obscure more honest and damning assessments of Barack Obama’s political record.Also, I am not a huge fan of the celebrity podcast genre, which is a vehicle for high-profile figures to chat to their friends in return for huge pay packets. So I was sceptical when Michelle’s podcast was launched in March. Yet when I listened to it, I was immediately charmed and hooked. In truth, I came to sneer and stayed to cheer. She is honest, reflective and vulnerable in ways that are profoundly resonant of a universal Black female experience, something that her icon status had rarely spoken to previously. The irony is that just as Michelle is finding her voice, her popularity appears to be falling – the podcast received poor ratings on launch, though it’s arguably the best thing she’s ever done.A great orator has the conversation of her lifeView image in fullscreenThe most arresting thing about IMO, despite the genuinely interesting high-profile Black guests such as Keke Palmer and the Wayans brothers, is Obama herself. She has always been one of the great orators in US politics – one of the superpowers that made her and Barack, another impressive public speaker, such a compelling couple on the world stage. In her podcast, Michelle uses this talent to reflect on her life and the challenges of ageing, losing her parents and the constant demands placed upon her.The fact that she co-hosts the show with her brother, Craig Robinson – a genial and down-to-earth foil for her confessions – gives the podcast such an intimate air that you feel like you’re in the presence of everyday people, not celebrities. I found myself listening not to hear any snippets of political gossip or insight into the Obamas’ lifestyle, but to receive some exceptionally articulated wisdom from an older Black woman who has seen a lot and gone through milestones we will all experience.She is also funny. Her account of how differently men and women socialise is familiar and hilarious. Michelle describes catching up with her female friends as a “multiday event”, something that leaves Barack perplexed as to why it takes two days for a basic meetup.There is pathos and uncertainty, too. In a recent episode, Michelle talks about the death of her mother, who lived in the White House during the Obamas’ tenure. Michelle says that, at 61, only now does she feel that she has finally become an adult, having had to reckon with her own mortality after the loss of her parents. The former first lady has revealed that she is in therapy, and that she is still trying to navigate this phase of her life.And, in a striking segment, she speaks with barely restrained annoyance about her reasons for not attending Trump’s inauguration, an absence that triggered divorce rumours that have been swirling for months. She says “it took everything in [her] power” to choose what was right for her in that moment. Yet that decision was met with “ridicule” because people couldn’t believe she was saying no to the inauguration for any other reason than she just did not want to be there – they had to “assume my marriage was falling apart”. Oof. It caught my breath.Beyond Black Girl Magicskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenThis Michelle is worlds away from the Michelle of the 2010s. The publishing juggernaut and icon of Black social mobility, who rose to first lady from a bungalow in the south side of Chicago, was the product of a particular moment in feminist and racial discourse.The start of that decade brought the rise of Black Girl Magic, a cultural movement that focused on the exceptional achievements and power of Black women. It intersected with Black Joy, which moved away from defining the Black experience primarily through racism and struggle. Both unfolded against the backdrop of “lean in” feminism, which glorified hard graft, corporate success and having it all. The result was the marketing of women such as Michelle to promote popular narratives of inspiration and empowerment.That energy has since dissipated, losing steam culturally and overtaken by more urgent battles. The gains of the Black Lives Matter movement triggered a rightwing backlash against diversity and inclusion that is spearheaded by Trump. Now the Obamas seem like relics of a naively optimistic and complacent time.‘We got out of the White House alive – but what happened to me?’View image in fullscreenBut all that change and disappointment seems to have freed Michelle from the expectation that she should project graceful power and guru-like wisdom at all times. The podcast may not be the runaway hit it might have been 10 years ago, but that speaks to its authenticity and refreshing lack of a cynical big marketing campaign. Michelle is not trying to catch a moment – she even looks different. Gone is the silk-pressed hair, the minimalist jewellery and the pencil dresses. She now embraces boho braids, long colourful nails and bold gold jewellery. In an episode of IMO, she asks herself: “What happened that eight years that we were in the White House? We got out alive; I hope we made the country proud. But what happened to me?” There is so much urgency in her voice. And though her high-octane political experience may not be relatable to the average person, that question is one that I and many women of a certain age are asking as we emerge, blinking into the light, from the tunnel of navigating racism, establishing careers against the odds and having families. What happened to me?To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here. More

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      Arts groups for people of color steel themselves after Trump’s NEA cuts: ‘They poked the bear’

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      Summertime at the Upijata Scissor-Tail Swallow Arts Company, an artistic program located on Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, is usually bustling. The arts community center, created to help combat high youth suicide rates on the reservation, would normally offer twice-a-week classes to enrolled students. Traditional artists – quilters or beadworkers – would be paid to teach interested participants. It was all a part of Upijata’s mission to emotionally and economically support the vulnerable community, the poorest reservation in the US.But this year Upijata will have to significantly reduce its programming. Classes will now only be held monthly. Instead of hosting 20 students for workshops, Upijata will only be able to accommodate six. The cuts at Upijata come after a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was rescinded last week. The funding, the first time Upijata has received an NEA award since being founded in 2019, made up about half of the company’s budget.Upijata is one of hundreds of groups facing severe budget deficits after the Trump administration swiftly cut millions of dollars in NEA grants. Now, arts organizations nationwide, such as Portland Center Stage and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, are scrambling to cover the shortfall. Groups specifically catering to marginalized communities are also caught in the fallout.“We’re [building] a community where we’re creating a sense of belonging to combat the suicide rates,” said Upijata’s executive director, Shannon Beshears. “If we cannot be that sense of belonging, because we don’t have the consistency, the ability to impact our participants’ lives in a positive way decreases dramatically.”An email sent out to grant recipients on 2 May said that the NEA would “focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President”, several outlets reported. Recipients of rescinded grants were given only seven days to appeal the decision. Several top officials at the NEA have since resigned from the agency following the grant terminations. The NEA did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.Projects being prioritized by the Trump administration instead include initiatives that “elevate the Nation’s HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, [and] empower houses of worship to serve communities”, among others.Grant terminations have affected artistic programming in every corner of the US, and organization administrators have taken to social media to share their shock and outrage. Many of the funded projects are already underway. In the interim, institutions have launched emergency funding campaigns, urging community members to donate. Others say they are appealing to other streams of donation, including private philanthropists. Many have filed appeals with the NEA to have their grants restored. Several of the funded programs are also the signature projects for impacted organizations, such as the annual Uptown Shakespeare in the Park initiative for the Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH) in New York City.CTH, known for its contemporary takes on Shakespeare classics and Greek tragedies, was only a month out from rehearsals for their production of Memon, a new play about an Ethiopian king who fought with the city of Troy, when they received news that their $60,000 grant had been cancelled. “They sort of signaled that they were going to do something like this a couple of months ago,” said CTH’s producing artistic director, Ty Jones. “Did I think they would follow through? No, I didn’t.”The production is a part of the theatre’s annual Uptown Shakespeare in the Park festival, which sees about 2,000 attendees a performance. The event generates foot traffic for local businesses. Representatives from New York City’s department of health and mental hygiene also provide community members with onsite services, including blood pressure checks and social service references.In Philadelphia, the advocacy group Asian Americans United (AAU) lost a $25,000 grant meant to support their annual mid-Autumn festival ahead of the event’s 30-year anniversary in October. The event was first founded by local youth who couldn’t be with their families for the mid-Autumn celebration, said AAU’s executive director, Vivian Chang. The festival has since grown substantially, exposing upwards of 8,000 attendees annually to more than 100 local performers.“For a lot of people, it’s a very accessible way to reach a new audience. These aren’t groups that will be on a super mainstream stage, or maybe they’re performing an art form that’s undervalued,” said Chang. “Where do they get to celebrate this? Where do they get to display? The festival is one of the few places for that.”For many organizations catering to disenfranchised groups, the alleged reprioritization is especially frustrating and contradictory. Upijata, for example, works with tribal groups and theoretically should be considered eligible under the NEA’s newly outlined goals, which include projects that “support Tribal communities”. “They said supporting tribal communities [in their new priorities], but in their effort to prioritize supporting tribal communities, they are directly taking funding from them,” said Beshears. “It feels like there is so much back and forth, so much dishonesty.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMany affected organizations were not surprised to see the Trump administration’s attack on funding. Prior to last week’s cuts, the NEA was ordered to require grant applicants not to promote “gender ideology”, as a part of a broader executive order.The National Queer Theater (NQT), a non-profit theater based in Brooklyn, New York, had a $20,000 grant rescinded for its Criminal Queerness Festival, a showcase featuring work by queer artists from countries where queerness is criminalized or censored. The group joined a lawsuit in March with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to sue the NEA over its anti-LGBTQ+ policy. As for the latest NEA cuts, NQT’s artistic director, Adam Odsess-Rubin, said he and staff members are “upset by the NEA cuts, but I can’t say we’re surprised”.“These cuts are part of the larger story of how Elon Musk and Doge have tried to gut the federal government and really focused on eliminating any programs they see as potentially counter to this administration’s priorities,” said Odsess-Rubin. “That includes any programming related to LGBTQ+ issues, any programming focused on Black and brown communities, as well as programming around climate change or healthcare”.Many groups are hopeful that they’ll be able to close the gaps in funding, especially given outcry from the community. But questions of how to handle attacks on the arts in a long-term capacity remain.CTH ultimately decided not to request an appeal, instead opting to focus on future actions against NEA attacks. The theatre hopes to work with the other organizations who have also seen their funds stopped, possibly through legal means.In the meantime, CTH is moving ahead with their Memon production and is confident their community will help them raise $60,000 by June. “I’m one of these crazy people that believes that the power of people is stronger than the people in power,” said Jones. “I don’t fear these people. If anything, they poked the bear. It’s a spark that’s put a flame in motion.” More

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      in US Politics

      Maren Morris: ‘I never said I’m leaving country music’

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      The year 2023 was a tough one for Maren Morris. The country singer, then 33, reached the end of her tour for her third studio album, Humble Quest, and the end of her rope with the conservative politics of country music industry. Her marriage to fellow country singer-songwriter Ryan Hurd, with whom she shares a young son, fell apart. That summer, her future professional life in question and her personal life imploding, she found herself in the UK touring with the Chicks – three fellow trailblazing, outspoken female artists in a male-oriented music scene who, 20 years earlier, got infamously blacklisted from country radio for daring to criticize George W Bush during a concert at Shepherd’s Bush.“It couldn’t have been a better musical hero backdrop for everything in my life crumbling,” Morris, a five-time Country Music Association Awards winner for such hits as The Bones, tells me in early April. The Chicks, of course, spun the hard-earned wisdom of the outsider’s high road into Grammy gold with 2006’s Taking the Long Way, an album of righteous anger burned to peace. “Any woman who has faced any sort of professional adversity or feeling that betrayal from a community – they just have the perfect album and attitude for it,” says Morris, with typical forthrightness.Morris, too, went her own way that summer. By September, the Texas native – one of the few big country stars willing to call out peers for, say, anti-trans comments, excusing away a video of Morgan Wallen saying the N-word, or general refusal to reckon with racism, homophobia and sexism in Nashville – publicly distanced herself from the industry where she started a decade earlier as a scrappy songwriter. “I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “But it’s burning itself down without my help.” She released the two-track EP The Bridge, signifying her move to Columbia from the label’s Nashville division, with a music video that seemed to call out the racial vigilantism suggested by country star Jason Aldean’s Try That in a Small Town. A month later, she filed for divorce from Hurd after five years of marriage.Two years of turmoil later, at 35, Morris can see a clearer picture. “I tried everything I could to make that part of myself work,” she says of her marriage. “I tried everything I could to make the part of myself within mainstream country work. And I think I was just growing apart from all of it.”Things are much brighter these days, though we have escaped the scorching afternoon sun at Coachella’s record-hot first weekend for an air-conditioned trailer to discuss what emerged from the ashes: Dreamsicle, a honey-hued album of reckoning and healing, out this week. In person, Morris is poised and thoughtful, more circumspect than her past burn-it-down comments would suggest. True to her decade-plus career blurring the line between country and pop, she is dressed somewhere between Nashville and California – crochet halter top, denim cut-offs, cowboy boots, multicolor silk headscarf set. She’s in town for some coveted Coachella guest spots – revisiting her breakout country hit My Church with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, performing her feature on Zedd’s inescapable 2018 party staple The Middle. And also, of course, to take in some wide-ranging sets, from Clairo to Charli xcx – with whom she shares, if nothing else, a career-long interest in the catharsis that is being loud while driving fast; her Grammy-winning single My Church, released in 2016, likened belting in the car to a religious experience, neatly twisting Nashville’s penchant for nostalgic faith into secular gospel.As a debut, My Church evinced Morris’s independent streak, though she came up through the country music system. Raised on 90s female country-pop stars such as Shania Twain, the Chicks and LeAnn Rimes, she had no other plan than to become a singer. Relentless touring as a teen around the state, plus failed auditions for nearly every talent show – American Idol, The Voice, America’s Got Talent, Nashville Star – cemented her country-pop sensibility and vocal chops, if not a route out of Texas. On the advice of Kacey Musgraves, a friend from the Texas honky-tonk circuit, Morris moved to Nashville in 2013 to work as a songwriter for the likes of Kelly Clarkson; she met Hurd the same year, when they co-wrote Last Turn Home for Tim McGraw.This was the height of so-called “bro country”, the prevalent sound of Solo cups, tailgates, cut-off jeans and nameless girls, almost all performed by white male artists occasionally inflected by hip-hop. As an aspiring solo artist, Morris was “deeply respectful to the machine” of Nashville, she told the New York Times Popcast in 2023. Her 2016 debut, Hero, emerged out of a period of questioning who she was writing for, then penning tracks for herself and posting them on Spotify, where she gained enough traction that country’s gatekeepers scrambled to sign her.View image in fullscreenHero immediately shot to No 1 on the country charts and solidified Morris’s precarious outsider-insider status as a new type of Nashville artist – musically voracious, open-minded and social media-literate, where she was unwilling to mince words on racial justice, abortion rights or respect for queer people. With a chameleonic and expansive voice, able to sustain torrential belt, delicate falsetto and a sharp turn of phrase, Morris moved seamlessly between genres and savvy collaborations, duetting with Taylor Swift, Alicia Keys, Hozier, Brothers Osborne and EDM artist Zedd – not to mention the Highwomen, a supergroup with Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby that served as a triumphant, rootsy rebuttal to the country manosphere.Dreamsicle has that all in the rearview, instead preoccupied with present-tense mess given a rose-gold tint familiar to Morris’s ouevre. The album, named for the “perfectly fickle” sweet treat that definitionally cannot last, builds on her longstanding pop-lite sensibilities and stable of collaborators – Greg Kurstin, Jack Antonoff and Julia Michaels, among others – with the roving focus and intensity of someone in the thick of a breakup, broadly construed. “I’m not shying away from the elements of divorce on the record, but I think it’s so much bigger than that,” she says, lightly buffeted by the bass of Coachella’s early sets. “That’s a part of me and will be forever, but it’s not a defining characteristic of me. It’s how you put yourself back together.” Dreamsicle skips through those stops and starts – there is getting by with the help of your friends (grand bouquet), the awkwardness of the morning after with someone new (bed no breakfast), the moment of devastating clarity (this is how a woman leaves), the horniness of the newly liberated (push me over), and the overwhelmed freak-out (cut!).What there is not is any direct jab at Hurd, with whom she co-parents their five-year-old son, Hayes, in Nashville. “We had this amazing love and we do in a different way now,” she says with the tranquility of the therapized. “Now we’re partners in a different sense. We have to be really good, on the same page as much as we can, as co-parents.”Morris also seems intent on distancing herself from the story distancing herself from country music, describing the initial LA Times headline – “Maren Morris is getting the hell out of country music: ‘I’ve said everything I can say’” – as “really unfortunate”.“I never said I’m leaving country music, because that’s not really how I feel at all,” she explains calmly. “You hear country music on this album. You can’t just intentionally take the parts away. There would be nothing left of the sound of me. Because it’s just there. It’s in my bones and it’s in the way I write.”The story “caused a ton of unnecessary drama for me from that community because I was already sort of on the outs. I’m not backtracking what I said, I just never said that,” she adds, noting that she’s lived in Nashville for 12 years – “it’s not going to be some tussle that’s going to make me change my address.” Yes, she moved label divisions, no longer does the country radio circuit, nor submits her music to the CMA or ACM awards, but “I live in Nashville and I work with all my same friends,” she says. “It would be strange to be like: ‘This music isn’t me anymore.’ That makes me feel like I’m shitting on the music I’ve already put out, and that’s not how I feel at all.”“The fans that I’ve made and the communities those fans have made through being a fan of my music is so important to me,” she continues, “so to ever come out of my mouth saying: ‘I’m leaving you behind’ – I’d never be so reckless and stupid.” When I ask what she wished the conversation would have been, a representative interjects – the focus, it’s clear, is onwards and upwards. But Morris clarifies that that was just two years ago, “very much inside the storm that was still brewing” v the “more zoomed-out, healed phase” now. “If you dive deep enough, or if you just listen to the album, it’s very clear that I haven’t left anything behind.”View image in fullscreenMorris may not be up for directly challenging Nashville today, but she is clear on the values it should have, and what history is remembered. We’re in the Cowboy Carter era, where pre-existing mainstream stars from Beyoncé to Chappell Roan, Lana Del Rey to Post Malone, are taking on steel guitars and banjos. “It’s great when people come in and obviously have such a deep respect for the lore and the roots of country music, which people of color started,” Morris says. “Beyoncé telling the history of that in a correct way was so important.” Cowboy Carter’s collaborators, including Shaboozey, Rhiannon Giddens, Linda Martell, Brittney Spencer, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and others, “felt like this amazing melting pot of country music”, she adds. “That’s what it should be.”For a genre, and a country, often so focused on invoking a fictional past, Morris offers a different tradition – the many collaborations between Ray Charles and Nelson, a favorite of hers growing up in Texas and evidence of country music’s multi-racial, genre-porous past. “It’s like, do people remember that that happened? That listen to mainstream country music now?” she wonders. “We’ve been doing this for a very long time. Or at least, really badass artists have.”She offers others – Kris Kristofferson, an army man who advocated for veterans’ aid; Johnny Cash, performing for incarcerated people; Parton’s Imagination Library and status as a gay icon. “These people are famous for this long and this globally for a reason, and it’s not just because they’re from the south,” she says. “It’s because they have an identity and they stand up for the marginalized. They were real outlaws.“If there’s any crisis [in country music], I think it’s that the people that have an issue with any of that forget that their heroes were talking about that stuff before they were born.” And with that, along with one more nod to an album of past heartache – “I hope [audiences] hear themselves in it, whether it’s a past self or who they want to be,” she says – we’re out of trailer, back into the light.

      Dreamsicle is out now More