Inauguration dispatch
Let the games begin!!!
Hello, and welcome to a dispatch edition of The Black Cat, where I will give some brief thoughts on the inauguration and the road ahead.
Feel free to send around, email me your reflections, and follow me on Instagram at dominicmadori.
This month I’m reading: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.
This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: In A Sentimental Mood by Duke Ellington
💢From the Chatterbox💢
As it once was with covering the Trump administration, getting a word in can be tough. Each second of every day there is a new update. By the time I even send this out, its contents will be irrelevant and the people will have grasped onto the next thing dictating the granular moments of the day.
I think I have yet to process what a Trump presidency means again. I know it happened, and followed the updates on Daily Mail as it did, yet I still cannot fully comprehend what it all means. That’s perhaps because reality is now a blur and anything can happen. It is this unpredictability that has left me anxious and allured. Every day from here on out will be felt intensely. I remember that most during Trump’s first time in office, where every day had something to glue you to the screen. During the Biden years, everything was such a bore, you could go months forgetting he was even around until the summer happened when people started actually questioning ‘Wait, why isn’t he around? ‘ Trump forces you to be present — or at least it feels that way for me, working in the media.
I don’t know why I am surprised at anything, yet I am. LVMH dressing the Trump family, our new first family, our royal reigning regime. The tech barons and Lauren Sanchez smiling in the frame of power. Our celebrity class sharing photos of hope, and the little man bellowing victory from below. I wish I could see what they see and feel what they feel. But I can’t get the tune of history out of my head. In those damn books, the writers make it seem like everyone was caught off guard when societies slip, but what I’ve come to realize is that everyone was present and aware; they were complicit, too, because power is one hell of a drug. An overlooked addiction running wild in the Bay.
America. America. America. We are living through yet another quest for expansion. The Gulf of America. Greenland America. Canadian-American. The whole world is America. Economic. Imperially. Our end will come one of two ways, either we collapse inward like a poorly baked muffin, descending maybe into a civil war — or evoke a global shock and watch all of our allies turn against us, descending most definitely into another world war. Or, we win. It will come no doubt at a great expense. But at least we will win. And finally, once again, we will be winners.
Many of my friends in the African American community are not as scared as you might think. Mostly because there isn’t much to be done to us that hasn’t already happened — some of your worst fears have been our realities and still are. I do not know what will happen to everyone else. I feel trapped in an empire on the brink, or maybe like a courtier in a palace. The candles are lit dim and the attendees for the feast have just arrived. I’m not at the table because there isn’t a seat for me. I stand in the back, curious. I think I know what meal is to be served.
💫Kitty Talk💫
Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:
Vanity Fair, “Inside Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Big Business Ambitions, 5 Years After Their Royal Exit”
New York Magazine, “The Broligarchy Is Here”
The Wall Street Journal, “Los Angeles Fires Ravaged a Historic Black Neighborhood. Now Residents Wonder Who Will Return.”