Happy Juneteenth! 

I know many of you will be enjoying this federal holiday in the U.S. today. I’m headed to a friend’s cookout right after I send this newsletter out. But Juneteenth isn’t just a convenient holdover from “Woke 1.0,” as some people are joking online. It’s the oldest recorded celebration for the end of slavery in the U.S., and it was established as a federal holiday in 2021 in response to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Many Americans will still get the day off today, but it hasn’t stopped a broader political and cultural backlash to that summer of protests against racist police violence.

That’s not the only kind of backsliding we’ve seen in the years since 2021, which brings me to the article I read this week that infuriated me. It’s part of a genre that has emerged in the wake of #MeToo, a justice movement that also started much earlier than people think and was originally by and for Black Americans.

Since 2017, #MeToo became defined by journalistic exposés and social media callouts that brought forward claims of sexual violence and abuse against celebrity men. Then came the retaliation. I’ve written about Depp v. Heard and defamation suits, disappearing rights to bodily autonomy, and viral DARVO campaigns. Another category is the “cancelled” celebrity “comeback” profile, where a journalist tries their hardest to craft a redemption arc for a guy who did nothing to deserve it. The latest iteration of this was so forced, I felt I had to call it out.