LA Free Press - August 8th Edition

CORSAIR

FREE PRESS STAFF: WHY WE APPEAR This Secrecy is No Accident The Youth vs Domestic Terrorism ft Maxwell Vice Climate Critics Tear DNC Draft Apart -see page 6

NOV, 16 2016 | VOLUME 112 ISSUE 05 | SANTA MONICA COLLEGE

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EDITORIAL STAFF STEVEN M. FINGER...............Co-Founder, Publisher ZACH LOWRY...........Co-Founder, Creative Director MYA TAYLOR..................................Editor-in-Chief KATIE NELSON.............................Head of Operations ERI PAPPAS .........Director of Grassroots Operations MARISA VASQUEZ .......................Managing Editor DANIEL BOWYER...........................Page Layout Editor ANDREW MCGRANAHAN..........Graphic Designer

CONTRIBUTORS

Olivia Fletcher, Chase Richardson, Lorra Toler, Eri Pappas, Madison Hoiby, Ray Gaviota AD INQUIRIES: info@losangelesfreepress.com

TAKE A READ AND PASS IT ON Why We Appear Dear Readers, We have reserved this space to tell our audience about the LA Free Press and why it appears.

As readers, hopefully, you will be concerned enough to ask — and have a right to know — if we have any political commitments or affiliations which will influence the way this paper is edited. You will perhaps also want to know why we believe a new publication is necessary in the United States and what we hope to accomplish that is different from existing publications.

If in the following we do not answer these questions to your satisfaction, or if there are other questions relating to this publication which you would like answered, please feel free to write a letter to the editor — or, if you are so inclined, an article.

FRONT COVER This front page is a reprint of Issue #264 of the Los Angeles Free Press as it was published per the date line. Only the top headlines have been updated to reflect the contemporary articles inside.

On Aug. 8, 1969 The Los Angeles Free Press published in Issue #264 the names, titles, addresses and phone numbers of 80 undercover narcotics agents across California. That list has been intentionally stricken from this reprint.

Naturally, we can’t promise to print every letter or article we receive. But when you look at this issue, and particularly at those to follow, you will notice that we are not afraid to let the writer have their say.

It is a general rule in this newspaper that if anyone has anything to say on an important issue, and can say it well and with documentation, they will have their day in print. That is why we call ourselves a Free Press.

We, of course, don’t plan to print material that will land the publisher and staff in jail for libel. But, short of that area, and those restrictions imposed by space in our columns and

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the need for journalistic integrity, we plan to print every provocative, controversial — and, yes, even irreverent article — related to the civic and cultural life of our nation.

The press in the United States has a deserved, historic reputation for being polarized in its editorial policies and reportage. Opinions and beliefs are being shared and shouted past one another, absent of the regard for how the sum of one’s life experiences has shaped those perspectives.

This is the journalistic vacuum we plan to fill. Existing as an open platform, we plan to be the place wherein people across the political spectrum can express themselves and discuss their differences. As a newspaper we feel our particular function is to provide a common space where a more accessible, colloquial and honest dialogue can occur.

A question then emerges: is the Free Press free enough to print material disagreeing with both conservative and liberal organizations? Absolutely. As a public newspaper, free of organizational commitment and corporate financial influence, we will print the shots as our writers call them (regardless of the personal opinions of the publisher) and openly invite both comments and rebuttals.

In a similar fashion, this publication is not committed to the partisan defense of any political organization, despite the political nature of staff members. We will present material, and if necessary, “knock” any political party LOSANGELESFREEPRESS.COM •

— whether it be Democratic, Republican or Socialist — if we believe they are taking stands detrimental to the interests of the community.

Does this mean this newspaper is attempting an faceless, neutral point of view? No. The staff members presently putting this publication into print certainly maintain a point of view against fascism. They, are in fact, for civil liberties and for the use of the tax dollar in a fashion which benefits the citizenry and not the pockets of exploitative corporations.

We are committed to the principles inherent in a democratic ordering of society wherein all citizens have the right to a truly free political and social life. As a newspaper of the type we have been describing, we hope to maintain the press’s historic and traditional role as the “fourth estate.” This publication hopes to add a new dimension of democratic society to American life — a truly Free Press.

There is one area of commitment we do have which we feel necessitates a statement.

We believe strongly that society should avoid attempts to impose arbitrary limitations upon the natural desire of the creative artist to explore in areas beyond the normal conventions of organized society.

We believe to stifle the artist may seem to be a defense of social standards but serves actually to narrow the horizons of civilization. With this in mind, we have and will come to the defense of the artist in most if not all the obscenity cases, as well as in all other cases where organized society

unwisely and unjustly uses its police powers against individuals or groups.

Finally, we must bring to the attention of our reader that this Free Press costs money to produce. In a time when corporate-controlled media is gutting newsrooms and censoring perspectives, our interest is in establishing a truly Free Press where individuals from any sect of society or walk of life with an opinion they wish to share can be compensated for their voice. Though some staff are presently donating their valuable time and the human response of other volunteers has been most wonderful, there are no angels. Labor — in all its forms — should be equitably rewarded.

Finally, we don't expect you to like or agree with every article in this newspaper (there is not one staff member who “likes” or “agrees” with all the pieces in this issue), but we do hope that you sympathize enough with our general objectives to give this newspaper a chance to prove itself. Ten thousand subscribers can support The Free Press. A hundred or more subscribers each week can keep the printer paid. We are asking any inhabitants of the United States who align themselves with our goals and desire a truly Free Press to sign up for a subscription today, and ask their friends to do the same.

Onwards to a freer and more just world.

In solidarity, The Staff of the Los Angeles Free Press

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THIS SECRECY IS NO ACCIDENT past five years as to exactly what this branch is up to, it’s not difficult to realize thatTrump and Wolf could warp its responsibilities and permissions when resurrecting it.There were twenty-two different components that combined to make the DHS — can you name what each of them can and cannot do?

ERI PAPPAS

CONTRIBUTING WRITER Donald Trump’s administration has taken ownership of the federal forces violently policing the streets of Portland, Oregon, throughout most of July.The troops are alleged to be members of several federal agencies; however, which agencies have been deployed, and with what permission, has not been explained. THIS SECRECY IS NO ACCIDENT.

There have been reports of officers in NewYorkCityoperatingwithsimilartactics.

A video has circulated of officers yanking Nikki Stone, an 18-year-old trans woman, out of a group of demonstrators and forcing her into an unmarked van. This sparked concerns that Trump had followed through on his threat to police other Democrat-led cities with similar occupation.

These unmarked federally deployed agents operate under unknown leadership, with unknown training, and have unknown intentions. We believe the federal troops are a blatant scare tactic, deployed through loopholes in the legal system.We recognize them as an enforcing body of an authoritarian regime, not of the American promise of a democracy.

In an official statement on Jul. 29, Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced she and the White House had come to an agreement that the unrequested federal troops would begin a “phased withdrawal” thefollowingday.Oregonstatepolicewould assume the responsibility of safekeeping Portland’s courthouse, while, presumably, protecting protesters’ First Amendment rights.

Trump has maintained his stance on the use of this force being constitutional in order to safeguard the city’s courthouse, which is federal property. Protesters have gathered there to oppose police brutality and to fight for justice for Black people in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others.

According to reports from Portland, the forces appear to have backed off. Nights

However, on Twitter, the NYPD has claimed responsibility for the arrest, stating that it was standard procedure for an individual with a warrant, like they had for Stone who allegedly destroyed police cameras earlier this month at the City Hall encampment.

A federal agent stands guard in front of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in downtown Portland, Oregon. Tear gas and ‘less lethal’ munitions were used against protesters shortly after midnight on July 25th. (Photo By: Jake Borden)

have seen peaceful protests, monitored by state police without altercation. However, Trump tweeted on Jul. 31, “Homeland security is not leaving Portland until local police complete cleanup ofAnarchists and Agitators!”Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf told Fox News that federal troops would remain until the courthouse is “safe and secure.”

So we can suspect that the troops are still present (a possibility further enforced by the governor’s unspecific “phased with-

drawal”), and are waiting for protesters to become comfortable with less violent state police before resuming their aggressive tactics.

Video footage has repeatedly shown camouflaged troops escalating their use of force without apparent justification.Agents nightly combated protesters with tear gas, munitions, and batons, and grabbed people off the streets and took them to unmarked whitevanswithoutproperarrestprocedures.

Cops Gone Wild

This Article Was Originally Printed in 1969

MYA C TAYLOR

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

America’s police forces are much more uptight than they used to be. Six short years ago Jack Ruby walked right up to a crowd of 75 cops in the basement of the Dallas PD, pulled out a gun and fired into their midst, killing the man they were supposedly guarding. Anyone who tried that today would be shot dead in his tracks, unless it was part of the script.

Both Ivan Goldman and Mike Rothmiller, co-authors of the New YorkTimesandLosAngelesTimes bestselling book “L.A. Secret Police,” spoke to the Los Angeles Free Press about their concerns on recent police misconduct.

Goldman believes the Los AngelesPoliceDepartment(LAPD) has had a long history of being racist, militaristic and serving as an occupying force in minority areas but, as society socially advances, he argues that the LAPD was worse 30 years ago than it is now.

In Los Angeles and elsewhere police have organized themselves into an effective political force to fight off police review boards and all threats to department autonomy.

Attempts to return police control to the community have proven feeble compared to police counter attacks. Swinish propaganda defeated New York’s police review board in a 1965 election and, since then, the Bircher slogan “support your local police” has become part of normal political rhetoric.

AlthoughGoldmanbelievesthat close attention should be paid to police departments, he urges the public to increase their vigilance to include Sheriff's departments too.

VERY RECENTLY: LAPD The first police brutality indictment in recent years was returned against officer J. R. Salyer of foothill division by the County Grand Jury. Salyer has already served a 30day suspension for assault with a deadly weapon on a prisoner in his custody. His victim is suing the city for $100,000.

“Thecountycommissionershave very little oversight over the sheriff and this guy [Alex] Villanueva, he’s a dangerous guy,” Goldman said.

Goldman acknowledged that thoughSheriffVillanuevawasvoted in by “well meaning liberals,” the powerVillanuevahasoverthepolice unions may lead to protections against brutality.

Protestors confront members of the Palmdale Sheriff’s Station during a protest outside of their office building in Palmdale, California on June 20th, 2020.

(Photo: Zach Lowry / Redux Pictures)

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I’m less worried about what’s unlawful (part of me still trusts, for some reason, that someone somewhere in the justice system will do something about this) about the secret police and am more worried about what is, somehow, lawful about this administration’s exercise of the darkest and most authoritarian practices of law enforcement.

Cops Gone Unchanged

RAY GAVIOTA

The mother of Donald Lee Oughten, the handicapped youth, who was caught in a crossfire between two triggerhappy cops, has filed suit for $1 million. The coroner’s finding of “justifiable homicide” cast new doubts upon administrative juggling of the coroner’s office. Such a verdict makes people question the meaning of “law enforcement” and raises the question that should have been asked as soon as the first Kennedy was shotJust who is doing the crime in the streets?

The harrowing force practices aside, what’s striking about the happenings in Portland is that the Trump administration has found a way for it to be legal, or close enough to it for lawmakers not to have grounds for immediate counteraction.Take, for example, one of the agencies with troops purportedly on the ground: the Federal Protective Service. Its most recent public report was released, notably, in 2015. The report states the agency’s responsibilities include “protecting U.S. government facilities.” Without any public update in the

The message here: we are watching, and we will getcha. That the onus is on NYPD, rather than federal agents, does not offer much consolation. Police departments are so “obnoxious,” to put it mildly and to quote Governor Cuomo’s press conference statement, that their norm is an emulation of the paramilitary practices of Portland’s secret police.

“Police unions are not like other unions,” he said. “They want good pay and benefits for their members, but sometimes they want their members to get away with murder or assault.”

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Rothermiller, a former LAPD officer and current author, agrees that close attention should be given to federal agencies to prevent abuse of authority. In particular, Rothmiller expressed concern over spying tactics utilized by the LAPD and the FBI. He argues both agencies have a history of spying on politicians (frequently), then coming up with excuses if misconduct is unveiled.

He believes that investigating a politician can be justified and even sometimes necessary, but notes oftentimes law officials play “a very cautious word game to keep an investigation going,” even after discovering exonerating evidence.

BothRothmillerandGoldman’s concerns are not groundless. Earlier last month, criminal charges were filedagainstthreeLosAngelesPolice Department (LAPD) officers who were accused of falsifying records.

Theofficers,BraxtonShaw,Michael Coblentz and Nicolas Martinez allegedlytamperedwithfieldinterview cardswhichfalselyportrayedpeople asgangmembers.AccordingtoThe LA Times, the District Attorney's officeconfirmedthemisconducthas affected over 750 defendants.

“Wealwayshearaboutgoodcops and bad cops. The problem is, that when you have a bad cop do something awful and you have three or four good cops who witness it, the odds are pretty good that those good cops will lie on behalf of the bad cop. So my question is, how good are those good cops?” says Ivan Goldman.

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GESTURES OF WAR

GESTURES OF PEACE Thousands of demonstrators surround officers from the San Francisco Police Department during a march across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California on June 6th, 2020.

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Tens of thousands of protestors flood Sunset Boulevard during the Pride x Black Lives Matter march in Los Angeles, California, on June 14th, 2020.

(Photo: Zach Lowry / Redux Pictures)

ZACH LOWRY

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

IG: @zach.lowry George Floyd’s death sparked global outrage after his plea for air was ignored by Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, who knelt on his neck for over eight minutes and forty-six seconds.

“I can’t breathe,” he gasped.

Bystanders documented his death as they stood in horror as the policemen would not shift their weight off of Floyd’s body.

Organizations such as Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives are leading protests to ask California state and respective city officials to recognize the systemic racism that has caused the disproportionate killings of Black men and women -- specifically, but not limited to, that which is found in the state’s police departments. Between 2016 and 2018, California police killed a total of 475 people by use of a firearm or an alternative method. During that time, Black Californians made up 6.5 percent of the state’s population; 15.2 percent of their communities were killed by police, according to data found by CalMatters.

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Alexa Feiner holds a mirror up to an officer from the Palmdale Sheriff’s Department to reflect his militarized appearance during a demonstration in Palmdale, California on June 20th, 2020.

(Photo: Zach Lowry / Redux Pictures)

The following images were captured during a variety of protests and community activations across California between June and July 2020. I spent eight weeks traveling up and down the state in order to better understand the depth of the revolution and how communities -- both large and small, both rural and urban -- were organizing, protesting, and changing. I wish to present these images not as an encapsulation of a singular moment, feeling, or period in time, but as evidence of a dynamic experience in constant evolution and revolution.

The movement for racial justice has led waves of people to sacrifice their safety from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and take to the streets to speak out against racism and systemic inequality. As we move into the latter half of 2020, let us remember the surge of this summer’s momentum and envision the more just future to come.

To view the full series, go to http://www.zachlowry.work/

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Community leader Isabel Flax leads a march against the death of Robert Fuller in Palmdale, California, on June 13th, 2020.

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Trauma within Black Bodies

Climate Critics Tear DNC Draft Apart MADISON HOIBY

CONTRIBUTING WRITER Following a recent resurgence in climate activism, a leaked Democratic National Committee Platform Draft is receiving mixed reviews for its approach to the climate crisis.

The leaked 2020 platform surpasses its 2016 antecedent by length, but critiques from climate scientists suggest bigger isn’t always better. Although the new draft has strong suits, like transitioning the American agriculture sector to netzero emissions, it fails to address cutting down fossil fuel production and use within the U.S., two (of many) leading contributors to global climate change.

The platform’s focus on climate is heavily influenced by the Biden-Sanders task force, established on July 8, but it seemingly tunes out progressive recommendations from the DNC, like converting all United States electricity, transportation, and building sectors to 100% renewable energy by 2030 and banning fracking and crude exports.

However, sections of the draft concentrated on environmental justice succeeded in gaining support from climate activists. The draft included promises of investment into clean and wastewater infrastructure, sustainable and regenerative agriculture, and clean energy generation and distribution for communities, particularly those of Indigenous peoples.

The draft also shared plans to establish an environmental justice fund to combat legacy pollution and noted current

health risks disproportionately affect people of color, low-income, and Indigenous communities. The platform also mentioned efforts to invest in sustainable infrastructure and energyefficient public housing, as well as retrofitting buildings and improving energy access.

In addition to environmental-justice goals, the platform mentioned swapping out school buses across the country with zero emission alternatives, weatherproofing energy systems in various municipal buildings, and working towards making the U.S. agriculture sector reach netzero emissions by 2050.

However, with promises like these, many skeptics claim there must be measurable numbers and statistics to track true progress.

“The platform should be more clear and accountable,” Daniel Aldana Cohen, a University of Pennsylvania sociologist, stated in an article by the Earther. “... it needs to be more ambitious on grant programs to retrofit low-income tenants’ homes, because no market incentive program will ever reach those units.”

The 2020 draft, which was sent to approximately 200 party delegates on Tuesday, July 21, will be reviewed and amended in time for the Democratic Party Convention in mid-August. During that time, party officials can tweak the platform to better address the climate movement.

To review the entire 2020 Democratic Party Platform draft, visit DemConvention.com.

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How the experiences of poverty and racism can have a detrimental impact to the mental and physical health of African Americans across a lifetime.

LORRA TOLER

CONTRIBUTING WRITER Trauma changes our physiology.

Exposure to early adversity affects the developing brains and bodies of children. It has the ability to affect brain structure and function development, the immune system, the hormone system, and the way DNA is read and transcribed. Trauma activates our bodies stress response system regulating our fight-or-flight response. According to Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, when the human body is threatened, it prepares to respond by increasing its heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormones, like cortisol.

However, when the system is overactivated through adverse experiences, it goes from being adaptive and lifesaving to maladaptive and health damaging. According to a TED Talk given by Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris, children are especially sensitive because their bodies are just developing. Stress responses of this nature can occur when a child experiences strong, frequent, and/or prolonged adversity like the accumulated burdens of family economic hardship and racism, two common traumatic experiences African Americans may face from a young age.

This type of over-activation of the stress response system can disrupt the development of the brain and other organs,

as well as increase the risk for mental and physical health issues well into one’s adult years.

Dr. Harris studied the impact of childhood trauma on individuals over their lifespan and found it dramatically increases the risk for developing seven out of the ten leading causes of death in the United States and can potentially reduce life expectancy by 20 years. This led to an adverse childhood experience research study, which asked adults about exposure to experiences and correlated scores to health outcomes.

About 67 percent of the sampled population had at least one adverse experience. The higher amounts of adverse experiences in childhood, the greater the likelihood of developmental delays and later health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, substance abuse, and depression.

Poverty is one example of an adverse childhood experience that African Americans face because of the environment the child is forced to grow up in.

The way genes are expressed depends partly on the environment the individual is exposed to.

Brain structures that are tied to processes critical for learning and educational functioning are vulnerable

to the environmental circumstances of poverty, such as elevated life stressors, less caregiving support, limited stimulation, and nutrition. This trauma can contribute to intellectual deficits in development and have a lasting effect on an individual across a lifetime.

Racism is another example of an adverse childhood experience that can have a lasting, traumatizing effect on the mental and physical health of African Americans. The unfortunate effect of structural racism is that it has a violent impact on black communities, including insufficient access to nutritious food options, poorer education systems, and insufficient quality healthcare or even access to healthcare at all.

Nancy Krieger, professor of social epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, discussed the relationship between racism and black infant mortality, finding that the mortality rate among black infants in the U.S. is more than twice that of white infants.

Evidence suggests that a key factor may be traumatic stress among black mothers caused by racial discrimination.

Years of dealing with discrimination and other stressful effects of racism, while living in poor, segregated neighborhoods, can lead to a physical, mental, and emotional toll taken on the body, prompting biological changes in women that can affect the health of their children.

A Case For Reparations OLIVIA FLETCHER

CONTRIBUTING WRITER Would you still consider Olympic gold medalist, Michael Phelps, in such high regard if he only won each race due to a head start? I doubt it. What makes Olympic races so special is each countries' competitors' equal opportunity to win. Americans would be outraged if another athlete won an Olympic race due to a head start. Nobody would take the Olympics seriously because it would be blatantly unfair. If head starts are clearly recognized as unfair in sports, then why do we so easily view life head starts as fair and just?

The head start I'm drawing parallel to is the generational wealth white people continue to benefit from while black people remain miles away in the race for the "American Dream." For example, data shows that black people are less likely to own homes, graduate colleges, and have a lower median household income than white people. It’s no secret that home ownership and a college degree are important to build generational wealth.

However, black people are still

disproportionately disadvantaged in comparison to white people when it comes to acquiring both.

Many people call for justice through means of reparations, defined by Oxford languages as “the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged.”.

A common rebuttal to reparations is that it's too late for it to be considered, noting the current generation of humanity isn’t directly responsible for slavery.

However, this ignores recent issues like Jim Crow Laws and Redlining which are still affecting the black community today.

In addition to black people being financially disadvantaged, bias (both conscious and unconscious) negatively affects the chances black people have at succeeding, and thus, their right to the pursuit of happiness. According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, “one out of every three Black boys born today can expect to be sentenced to prison, compared 1 out 6 Latino boys; one out of 17 white boys.”.

The Urban Institute found “the gap between the black and white homeownership rates in the United States has increased to its highest level in 50 years, from 28.1 percentage points in 2010 to 30.1 percentage points in 2017.” If nothing is done about this, then the inequality gap will only continue to increase. Reparations could help resolve this issue and many more. I, along with others, argue that reparations are the most plausible way of helping the black community obtain an equal shot at the American Dream.

The winner of the 2020 election will make a significant difference on how the US handles reparations. Joe Biden is willing to look into the study reparations while President Trump announced he “does not see it happening.”. Other candidates like Marianne Williamson, who dropped out of the election on Jan. 10, advocated for completely skipping the study and proposed reparations of up to $500 billion be made to the descendants of slaves.

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White people have inherited

generational wealth from their ancestors at the expense of black people inheriting poverty. It is our duty as citizens of a country that prides itself on equal op-

portunity, to ensure each person has an equal shot at theAmerican Dream. A fair shot that starts when disadvantaged citizens receive reparations.

A protestor raises a sign reading ‘STOP KILLING US,’ during a protest in Pershing Square, downtown Los Angeles, on Juneteenth, 2020 (Photo: Zach Lowry / Redux Pictures)

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The Youth vs. Domestic Terrorism ft. Maxwell Vice CHASE RICHARDSON CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Maxwell Vice, founder of Ice Vice Magazine, sits in the center of his baby blue room with walls covered by paintings, sketches, and polaroids of his personal artwork. Behind the scenes, polaroids of his part-time modeling gigs can be seen taped up beside his bed.

“I just moved here like at the beginning of quarantine,” he laughed.

His rented room located in Ridgewood, Queens also functions as a personal studio where he is free to express his frustrations surrounding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Los Angeles Free Press reporter, Chase Richardson, had a chance to sit down and talk to the New York native, performer, photographer, and all-around artist, Maxwell Vice, about how he uses multiple platforms to be politically active and help represent young queer people of color (QPOC). Besides publishing his bi-annual, all-inclusive, ICE VICE magazine, he also protests regularly and encourages others to be active in their community.

Maxwell Vice: “Originally, [Ice Vice Magazine] was made to highlight queer youth, youth of color and city youth, specifically; but now I’ve been taking my own photography on film and being out there on my own so that I can write my own narrative, the real narrative... So many different news outlets try to interview us, but when they give us our time on [the broadcast], it’s just for two seconds right after the weather report and it’s just us saying, like, “Black Lives

Matter” and they move on, but it’s not us talking to the cameras and talking about what we want to change and what people can do to help.”

Los Angeles Free Press: Do you think that that insufficient representation in the media has an impact on the reception of the Black Lives Matter movement to those who may not rely on or consume social media?

Vice: “Yeah, my parents told me that it's dangerous out there, and they see what happens, but it's just because of so much misrepresentation in the media.

[Media] is almost used as another form of domestic terrorism...against [Black Lives Matter]. My mom was like, ‘I can’t handle seeing you out there, being rubber bulleted, tear-gassed and beat up.’And, yes, that is something that does happen, but that’s not even remotely every day, or every march… Back in the day, my dad and my mom were out there protesting, almost in the same parallels that we are, against police brutality, against government funding just going to outrageous things, my dad was one of the people boycotting the missile funding, back in the 90s in Bushwick, so they kind of understand” LAFP: So, considering the state of the world, civil unrest and COVID-19, how has that affected your mental health?

Would you say your mental state and your art are intertwined?

Vice: “Definitely. During the quarantine, if I wasn’t making art, I was drowning.

These are all self-portraits I did during quarantine, every single one of them. There were days where I just couldn't be in my body anymore. So I had

to get it out. It’s shifted my art drastically. Before it would be finding another artist, then us thinking up a fun, cool concept, but now it’s like, ‘How can we use our art to get a huge message across that we are in pain?’”

Vice refers to his art as “aggressive queerness,” an esthetic that was mirrored in the unreleased short film. He encourages other youth in the queer community to “nourish their queerness” and strives to be the representation that

QPOC needs in today's society.

We conclude the interview by rolling up a blunt and watching music videos from Amy Winehouse - Frank. Thank you, Maxwell Vice for the interview!

Vice: “When I’m not protesting, I’m home making art.

If I’m not making art, I’m resting. For the first time in my life there’s nothing to do.

It’s just making art, and it’s just [promoting] change, and that’s what God gave us time to focus on. With the protests, I had a lot of anxiety about going out at first, because I was home for four months. I didn’t see what was out there, all I saw was the media. I’m small, I’m queer, I’m brown, If I go out there, with these cops, I’m susceptible.”

LAFP: “How do you decompress and get some normalcy? I know how protesting can be exhausting mentally and physically. You really have to have those days off.”

Vice: “Yeah, sometimes after protesting, My friends and I go to the beach for a day and get a mental rehabilitation day in, or come [back to Vice’s apartment] and watch a horror movie, or go out and just play music on a speaker and dance.”

Vice produced a short film recently that represented the rollercoaster of emotions he (and we all) felt during quarantine. A series of dates were projected onto Vice, who appears in full makeup, as he vogued through flashing lights and visual effects. He donned various changing expressions on his face, and concluded the video with a clip of himself in a full face of dramatic makeup, bright purple wig, and what seemed to be a white dress.

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Photo Courtesy of Maxwell Vice

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