- What's up you beautiful bastards?
Hope you've had a fantastic Thursday.
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show.
Buckle up, hit that Like button
otherwise we'll punch you in the throat.
And let's just jump into it.
And the first thing that we're gonna talk about today
is a story that involves Lil Nas X
and a guy by the name of Pastor Troy.
And it appears that Pastor Troy recently
got triggered by two things in fact.
One, it appears the Old Town Road singer.
And two, mozzarella sticks.
And we know that thanks to Pastor Troy
going on what some have called a homophobic rant
on Instagram posting this picture of Lil Nas X
and writing, "Welp guess I won't be winning a Grammy
if this is what I gotta wear."
"They love to push this shit on our kids."
Troy went on to describe a recent trip
that he took to Applebees with his 14 year old son
where he said they saw a quote "some punks kissing
and laughing eating mozzarella sticks."
And according to Troy the first thing
his son said was F Applebees.
He says it brought joy to his heart.
He sees it, their agenda to take the masculinity from men.
Black men especially.
Some say he makin' money.
RuPaul do too but I ain't bumpin his CD.
Integrity is priceless.
Y'all better open that third eye
and let your sons know what is real
or they ass gonna be headed down that
old town road for real.
Now that post, it got some support
but there is also a wave of massive backlash.
A number of people pointing out
that there are a lot of talent related reasons
as to why he got the Grammy and not so much
the outfit though.
Regarding the outfit Lil Nas X did respond
to posting, "Damn I look good in that pic on God!"
Lil Nas X and others also feeding the situation
mainly about Pastor Troy's reaction
when he sees gay men eating mozzarella sticks.
And as far as my reaction to this.
One, I know there are gonna be a number of people
that agree with Pastor Troy.
I grew up with a number of people
that had this kind of thinking.
I also know that a ton of people
are gonna enjoy dunking on Pastor Troy.
But really one of the main things that stands out to me
and it's more kind of a sad feeling.
Is it's just kind of a highlighting of someone
that's raising their child to be hateful.
You know that's just like seeing someone living
their live, doing something that does not affect
you in any way.
Brings them joy, it does not hurt anybody else.
That brings anger to your soul.
An idea that there's this massive gay agenda.
Like are you worried that they're trying to make
the kids gay?
Like is that what you think's happening?
'Cause the only real agenda, if you can even call it that
appears to be just allowing others to be accepted.
To make people feel less isolated
to know they're not alone.
To show the behavior of making someone feel
less than because of the way that they were born
is not appropriate.
So that's why I say to Pastor Troy and
the Pastor Troys of the world, go fuck yourself.
And I will say, and it always feels a little bit suspect
when unprompted a man decides to kind of go
on a rant like this.
I'm not saying anything, it's just you know historically
a lot of hatred has been taught.
But anyway that's the story, my reaction.
Moving on.
Then let's talk about this controversy around
a book called American Dirt which you may have heard about.
And the reason for that is that the tensions around it
sort of have hit a boiling point over the last 24 hours.
If you haven't heard of the book
it's a fictional story about a woman who flees from Mexico
with her son after the cartel kills her husband.
They become migrants heading towards the United States
in hopes so they can find safety there.
Now the books already hit shelves on January 21st.
It was widely regarded as one of the big books
to look out for in 2020.
In fact, there was so much anticipation.
It had so much buzz that it's already been optioned
for a film adaptation.
Another huge thing for this is that Oprah Winfrey
chose it for her book club, saying
in an Instagram post, "This story changed
the way to see what it means to be
a migrant in a whole new way."
But the thing is there's a major controversy now
behind who wrote this book.
Because its author Jeanine Cummins is not Mexican
or an immigrant and is mostly white.
And many believe that by having a white author tell
the story of a Mexican immigrant
they are whitewashing an incredible relevant story
and that it really should not be Cummins' story
to tell in the first place.
Now the controversy around her whiteness
contains some nuance.
In the story she wrote in the New York Times
back in 2015 she says that she is white.
She knows that she has a Puerto Rican grandmother
but says that quote "in every practical way
her family is still mostly white."
But in an interview about this book
she says that she is Latin ex while still adding
that she felt unqualified to write this story because
it is not her lived experience.
In fact, in her author's note she says
"I wished someone slightly browner than me would write it."
Now also in that note she says that her husband
came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant
but there she does not specify that the country
that he came to the States from was Ireland
which is obviously a different migration experience
than someone trying to cross the Mexican US border.
So with that a lot of people thought
that with this book coming out Cummins
was sort of changing the narrative of her racial identity
and her relationship to immigration.
But still the story was being pushed
by its publishers as one of the most important books
for our times and a new American classic.
But as far as when the backlash got really crazy
you know a lot of that involved Oprah.
You had Oprah announcing her book club book.
You had Gina Rodriguez and Salma Hayek
promoting the selection.
And all three of them ended up getting slammed.
Though it is worth noting that both
Gina and Salma deleted their posts.
Salma actually apologized for promoting the book
without reading it.
Among those criticizing the book
you had the likes of Esmeralda Bermudez
who is notably an immigrant herself.
Her family came by foot from El Salvador
to the United States and in the LA Times
she wrote about her take on American Dirt
saying what made me cringe was immediately realizing
that this book was not written
for people like me, for immigrants.
It was written for everyone else.
To enchant them.
Take them on a wild border crossing ride.
Make them feel all fuzzy inside about the immigrant plight.
All unfortunately with the worst stereotypes, fixations
and inaccuracies about Latinos.
Many also started sharing a review written by
Miriam M. Gerba back in December
after she write an advanced copy of American Dirt
In there she said that the novel
and Cummins appropriated works by people of color slapped
a coat of mayonnaise on the story to make it
more palatable to American taste buds
and repackage the story for colorblind consumption.
With others also believed in some of the promotion
for the novel was insensitive.
Though it is important to note here
some have defended the book.
Sandra Cisneros, the Mexican American author
of the acclaimed The House on Mango Street spoke
to MPR about the book saying that
it could reach an audience who quote
"Maybe is undecided about issues at the border."
"It's going to be someone who wants to be entertained
and the story is gong to enter like
a Trojan horse and change minds."
"And it's going to change minds
that perhaps I can't change."
Now as far as any other fallout and reactions
we saw Oprah pertaining to Instagram
on the book club's account.
- I spent the past few days listening
to members of the Latinix community
to get a greater understanding of their concerns.
And I hear them, I do.
So what I wanna do I bring people together
from all sides to talk about this book.
And who gets to publish what stories.
- I still get a lot of people calling for Oprah
to remove this book from her book club.
Their whole petitions with writers signing.
Though at this time it does appear
that the book has remained on Oprah's Book Club.
And we all saw Flatiron Books which published American Dirt
canceling the book tour of the novel over safety concerns.
In a statement they said the discussion around this book
has exposed deep inadequacies in how we
at Flatiron Books address issues of representation
both in the books we publish and in the teams
that work on them.
Also adding that they regret they rolled everything out
including promotion of it as a definitive story
about the migrant experience.
Talking about Cummins' husband being
an undocumented immigrant without noting
that he was from Ireland and in using
some insensitive concepts when promoting the book.
In regarding the cancellation, they said
this was based on specific threats to booksellers
and the author we believe there exists
real peril to their safety.
And so now instead of the book
to where they say they will be hosting Town Hall meetings
where Cummins can talk about the points being made
about her book so the conversation can still continue.
And ultimately that's where we are with this story
and as far as an opinion I think for me it's hard.
Because I think sure, there are probably
a number of people that are angry.
That it's like it's this white woman writing
a story that she has no connection to whatsoever.
But that feels like a small part of the anger.
It feels kind of like two things.
One, people feel like she misrepresented herself
or specifically her husband.
Which is a situation where you have
to kinda project intent, right?
Was a kind of a fumbling of the situation
or was it done on purpose?
And secondly a big chunk of the anger seems
to be focused on the actual content in the book.
The stereotypes.
At this point I have not read the book
so I can't comment on it but that's also
part of the reason these controversies usually lead
to the books doing better.
While there's a "controversy" it's also
a ton of free promotion.
Like this is going to shock you
I don't track Oprah's Book Club.
I did not know that this book existed.
Now I, you, so many others know that it's a thing.
It's a part of an ongoing conversation.
There is a debate and you know, curiosity
can and often will lead to sales.
But anyway that's the story, some of my thoughts
and of course I pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts about this whole situation?
Also for my readers out there, have you read this book?
What are your thoughts?
But from that I wanna share some stuff.
I love today and today and awesome
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If you didn't know, Audible is an amazing platform
that has the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet.
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And the first bit of awesome today
is a little announcement and tease.
You know everybody's since I launched Beautiful Bastard.
We always sell the pomades, beard oils, candles.
There have been a number of requests.
Things like variety packs which we now have.
But also requests of different products.
And one of the biggest ones was shampoos and conditioners.
And now we finally.
(singing)
Have them.
I organized this horribly.
All natural, ethically sourced, cruelty free.
Vegan friendly shampoos and conditioners
that actually do the job.
They have no parabens, sulfates, silicons, glutens
or harsh detergents.
It is color safe.
It's also made my hair less oily.
It is less dandruffed.
Overall it's softer.
And I say it's a tease because technically
it's not actually available to you until next week
but before then I am planning to give some away.
Including on a certain phone number.
Apparently this is how I tell secrets.
But yeah, be on the lookout for that.
Then we got 73 questions with Greta Gerwig.
We had 4V Ferrari sound editors breaking down
their sound mixing process.
Bon Appetite gave us Brad making dry aged steak.
We got brand new Road Rocket videos
if you're craving more news.
Hot Ones gave us some more Truth or Dab.
Binging with Babish gave us Chilis.
We have James Gordon addressing that
carpool karaoke scandal.
If you wanna see the full versions
of everything I just shared, the Secret Link of the Day
really anything all links is always at
the description link down below.
And then let's talk about the latest updates
around the Coronavirus.
You know we've been seeing almost constant updates
with the numbers, how many people are dead
and how many people have been infected.
And this morning according to Chinese officials
the death toll had risen to 170.
The number of cases also continuing to increase
as of this morning that number jumped to
more than 8200 cases reported world wide.
And you know with this story we have also seen
a number of updates from around the world.
Who?
The World Health Organization has just declared
the situation a global health emergency
with its biggest concern being countries
with weaker healthcare systems that are ill prepared
to deal with he virus.
Just this morning Russian officials announced that
the country was closing its southern border with China.
Also in China the viruses were reportedly spread
through every region in the country.
And there of course are some cities
like that of Wuhan where the virus was first seen
they remain on lockdown to try to prevent
the spread of the virus.
In the US CDC This Morning announced
that there are now six cases of the Coronavirus
in the country.
Right and when we're seeing big headlines about
the first human to human transmission in the United States.
But there one, we already knew that people
could give it to one another, it just
hadn't happened here yet.
And two, this case actually just involves
a woman who gave it to her husband.
They said after she reportedly went to Wuhan
and contracted the virus.
But also as kind of an aside
we also saw odd headlines this morning
with Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross saying.
- Every American's heart has to go out
to the victims of the Coronavirus.
So I don't wanna talk about a victory lab
over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease.
But the fact is, it does give businesses
yet another thing to consider when they go through
their review of their supply chain.
So I think it will help to accelerate
the return of jobs to North America.
Some to US.
Probably some to Mexico as well.
- So that is an interesting angle to be looking at.
There's also an interesting story involving
the Coronavirus and Italy or rather
kind of just off of Italy.
We're seeing reports now that thousands aboard
a cruise ship aren't being allowed to leave that ship.
That's because one Chinese woman on that ship
came down with a fever reportedly
she's also experiencing respiratory problems.
Both of which are symptoms of the Coronavirus
where there are very real fears that
she might have contracted it.
So when the ship docked this morning
passengers were told that they could not leave.
And reportedly there's about a 6000 passengers
and 1000 crew members aboard this ship unable to leave.
Meanwhile that woman and her husband
who has not shown symptoms of the virus
were both placed in isolation.
Right, so as medical staff worked to figure out
what was causing the woman's symptoms
we saw people waiting on decks and halls
with their luggage all waiting for the announcement
of when they could leave.
And as far as when that will come according to
the telegraph test results are expected to come later today.
But if that woman is infected with the virus
everyone on board could be quarantined for up to two weeks.
However we are also seeing reports from
the Washington Post that 1143 passengers who planned
to get off of this stop would be allowed to leave.
Though notably here it did not specify when.
So right now we're kind of waiting and everyone's in limbo.
And literally as we're finishing this show today
we saw an update from the Italian health ministry
confirming that the woman's test came back negative.
She actually has the flu but according to CNN
we still don't know when passengers
will be let off the ship.
Also around this whole outbreak
there's actually another point that I wanna hit on.
Kind of like with Tuesday where I talked about the flu
and how deadly this season has been.
I wanna put this outbreak into perspective.
Especially since as of this morning we're seeing reports
that it has surpassed the early 2000s outbreak
of SARS on China.
Right, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
which is also caused by a Coronavirus.
And that virus infected nearly 8100 people
from November 2002 to August 2003.
Right, and by comparison the first case
of this new Corona virus occurred on New Year's Eve.
The numbers looked kinda scary.
Are you looking at the difference
of nine months to one month?
Now here's the thing with that.
There are a few differences.
All the findings with SARS was that it was really
only contagious once people showed symptoms.
Right, they had a fever, they were coughing.
However with this new Coronavirus
China's National Health Commission
has said that it can actually spread during
the incubation phase.
Which is the period where you're infected
but might not know yet because you aren't
showing any symptoms which is also why
you're seeing kind of the two week quarantines and such.
And why the number of cases have accelerated so fast
because you don't even know you have it.
But this morning you also had a lot
of media outlets talking about this new virus
overtaking SARS record.
Some giving context by mentioning that incubation phase.
Other major outlets just skipping over that completely
with salacious headlines.
Also a number of outlets not mentioning
that this is so much less deadly than SARS was.
Right, when you look at headlines like that
maybe you're like well this is some sort of super virus.
But just knowing about that incubation phase part
could change the question and also prevention.
All right it's part of the reason it's spreading so fast
because people just don't know they have it
and can't catch it early.
But with all of this and the number of cases.
The cruise ship, the SARS comparison
we're also seeing a ton of fear and xenophobia.
So much so that we're now seeing doctors
trying to better educate people as we see
the constant updates, these scary headlines.
I mean yesterday we saw Dr. Mike over on his channel
posting a whole video about this situation
telling people to be alert, not anxious.
Also urging people to make sure they're getting information
from reputable places like the CBC
and the World Health Organization.
With this we see Dr. Mike posing a question
that I think a lot of people probably had
when they first heard this story.
- Now you may be wondering to yourself
is this a dangerous virus?
Well the answer is it depends.
It can become severe in about 20% of cases
leading to pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Leading to ventilation or even death in some circumstances.
For those of you who are living in the US
this is certainly a potential threat
we should be on the lookout for.
With all the international travel
that goes on in the world today
it's very easy to spread a virus
from one country to another.
That being said with only five cases here in the US
with zero deaths thus far, this is not a crisis
and not a reason to panic.
There's been many headlines in media
that are trying to scare you into panicking
'cause it urges you to click.
And when you click they earn money.
Do not fall for this.
- And so I think with the situation the main key points.
Alert, not anxious.
Caution.
And I think that's something that we kinda
just have to remember, repeat.
Because in a situation like this
it's very easy for feelings to take over.
Because much like this virus an unwarranted level
of fear and panic can spread very easily
if not properly managed.
But with that said of course I'd love
to know your thoughts on the story at hand
both with the Coronavirus and the coverage
we've seen with it.
And that is where I'm gonna end today's show.
Thanks again for watching my little daily news show.
I love having you.
And remember, if you're looking for more to watch
you can check out yesterday's Philip DeFranco Show.
Maybe you missed it, you wanna catch up.
Or check out my brand new podcast with Gus Johnson.
Click or tap right there to watch either of those right now.
But with that said of course as always
my name is Philip DeFranco.
You've just been filled in.
I love yo faces and I'll see you next time.
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