Beam Me Up, Scotty
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Hello, ladies. Buenos dias. Hi there. The gall, the nerve, the audacity for it to already be August. I'm shaken. I'm standing in offense with you. I'm also Sam Sanders. I'm Saeed Jones. And I'm Zach Stafford, and you're listening to Vibe Check. Hello, August. Hello, August.

You know that song, Good Morning Heartache? It's like, good morning, August. Listen, I think I mentioned this last week. I was already complaining last week about how busy August was going to be. I'm in it. I feel it. And I'm just like, oh, Lord. Here we are. And this weather is still not quitting. Mm-hmm.

I'm a little irritated. I'm a little jumpy. I'm tired of the heat. And I was delighted to see that because I'm going to Buenos Aires for three weeks. Love. To, you know, write, read, process. Eat some empanadas. And eat some empanadas. We love those empanadas. And maybe...

And dare I say it, I enjoy your Bramante. But it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere. And it's a vibe. I need it. It's a vibe. I looked and it was like they have highs like in the 60s. And I was like, good, because girl, I cannot take this August heat. Totally. I want to talk more about our vibes, but I want to take a second. Ooh.

to talk about the show this week. We've got two big stories to talk about. The second story we tackle this week is going to be the aliens. Former government officials are up in the halls of Congress telling the Congress people they're here. I just love you. They're up in the halls. They're up in the halls, girl.

Will Smith in his suit is following them. They're here. Hallowed halls. Yes. We are turning over our alien segment to Zach to lead. He is this group's alien aficionado, expert, conspiracy theorist. Look, to be totally transparent, we're giving Zach this segment so he can leave us the fuck alone. That is true. Yeah.

weeks now it feels like though it only has been like a week it's been like a week but it feels like it's been weeks plural of Zach trying to get us to talk about aliens in the group text and Zam and I have been like girl we're busy

We are busy. The aliens are on mute. They are all over TikTok for over a year. No, thank you. I'm really excited to lead that segment just because I know a lot of our listeners are also, you know, deeply in the shadows of this world with me and just needing to be seen, to be heard, to be given a voice too. The truth is out there, honey. I just have this image of Zach undercover of night sneaking from his apartment to

to Dodger Stadium, breaking in, going to the middle of the grass, and begging the aliens to beam him up. Take me. I want you.

I want to see that. Holding a Bluetooth speaker like blasting alien superstar. Chantel, keep all of us in. That's funny because I haven't even reckoned with do I want to go with him or not. Oh, you want to go. Think about this. I would go look. I love a vacation. Don't play. Edu, that will be the second segment today. But the first segment, we're going to get serious and talk about a story that needs to be talked about. Listeners, you've probably seen the headlines already.

We're going to be speaking this episode about the tragic death of O'Shea Sibley, queer man who was murdered in Brooklyn this week just for voguing to Beyonce at a gas station.

It is the latest in a series of incidents targeting queer people just for being queer. It's not fair. It's not right. We will discuss. We must discuss. But first, I want to check in with my sisters and just see how y'all are doing. I want to hear more from you, Saeed. You're about to go to Argentina. How else is your vibe?

Yeah, I'm grateful that I'm going to get to go to Argentina. I went once in college, but I'm going for three weeks. So listeners, if you have been there recently, I hate it when people are like, yeah, I was there 20 years ago. So here's a restaurant you should go to. This discotheque is really off the chain. Okay, buddy. But if you've been to Buenos Aires recently and you have recommendations, I'll be there for three weeks. I'm going to pack a bunch of books and notebooks and my computer and

I have some ideas for some writing. And if not, I'm just happy to go and grateful to be able to take time off and have some peace. But more specifically, it's striking. Yesterday, I was on my way back from New York. I was in New York City for a poetry festival. I got to read with the wonderful Dinesh Smith yesterday. Love them. And I was on the plane, and I think I had just gotten Wi-Fi or whatever. And within about...

30 minutes of each other, I found out about O'Shea Sibley's murder. And I'm just, that feeling, and we can talk about it more, but just that feeling now where you see a picture of a black person you don't know, you know they're not a public figure, and you just intuit something bad has happened. So I see the news about O'Shea Sibley and I'm like, oh my God.

And then like 30, 40 minutes later, I'm still on the very short flight from New York to Columbus. And then I see the news about Angus Cloud, 25-year-old actor who died. You probably know him as the star of Euphoria. His character was beloved. I did not know Angus Cloud before.

But I know what it feels like to see a young person who didn't grow up in Hollywood. It was like a true discovered. There's video footage of him working as a waiter or a bartender in Brooklyn very recently. And it just seems like he's a light. Even his character on the show was often trying to protect Zendaya's character. Was often trying to really be like a big brother figure for her and to save her from herself.

And it's clear that he was struggling with mental health. He recently lost his father, according to a statement from his family. It's just these twin losses, two very different circumstances. But that's weighing on me. Hearing you talk about Angus, I'm reminded of another death that we witnessed last week of Sinead O'Connor, who was such a legend in before her time and in her death.

She finally got the vindication. Oh, she was right the whole time. She was right about the Catholic Church. She was right about gender and politics. It's so disheartening seeing these kind of tragedies.

And I just hope that, particularly for Angus and for Sinead O'Connor, that they can have peace after their passing. I think with O'Shea, what I want the most in that situation is justice. Right. Yeah. And you're right. I mean, I hate to start the episode with this litany of grief. It's okay. It's real. It's real. O'Shea Sibley.

Angus Cloud, Sinead O'Connor, the actor who played Pee Wee Herman, Paul Rubens. Paul Rubens died yesterday at the age of 70. And I think he was, I mean, he was really important to me as a kid. I had lunch with my friend Marlon James yesterday and we were talking about

how wild and radical the Pee Wee Herman show was. And queer. Like Grace Jones singing Little Drummer Boy. Yeah. Herman. So yeah, it's just this, when I think of all four of these seemingly disparate people, they brought something to our lives. I didn't need to know OJ Sibley to feel that my world was brighter because there was a black queer man in Brooklyn who loved dancing and voguing.

He was here and I felt him and now I feel the loss, you know? Yes. So that's my vibe. Not great, but it's real. I hear you. Zach, what's your vibe? Vibe is similar to Saeed kind of feeling the weight of all these people passing, people that you love and you're connected to and watching them. But I'm also mixed with like a sense of

joy and I don't know some other feelings that are positive because I just got back from Mexico City. I was there for 72 hours. And I'm very, very long enough to get sick.

I am. I got sick on my way back. But yeah, between this taping and the last taping, I have left the country, gone to Mexico City, done a bunch of things and come back. So I'm home. And this trip was a trip I do every year with a group of some of my oldest friends. And we call it Black Camp. We're all black people that have known each other for years since I was like 18. These are my people. And this is our first time going to Mexico City together. And it was so beautiful. But what was so amazing about this trip was it brought me back to our trip just in January when we were together.

Oh, yeah. I was able to spend time with an amazing woman named Cecilia who runs a company called Dos Cuerpos, which you can find on Instagram. I can send it to you if you're interested. But we did a really beautiful tasting all together and got to know this woman. And she's a Mexican woman from Mexico City who was opening a small business. And I understood at the time. It was really cool. I didn't realize we were her first group of people that she hosted in this space that was like a live stream. Wow.

And she threw another dinner. This one was at the Frida and Diego studio where they made their art. It was really cool for us, but she and I had a moment afterwards and she just told me that like, you know, our trip there was so important to her because she loved us. We loved her. We played Beyonce together. We drank Maskell. We just took over her space. And she just kind of told me that it like really affirmed the business she was making. And it really affirmed her and she loves us so much. And she listens to Vibe Check now because of that. - Hi Cecilia.

It's amazing. And it just kind of made me be like, wow, you can go anywhere and find new family in this world. Like it gave me a lot of hope in that. Yeah. One, listeners, if you're hearing us and you're in Mexico City, the company's called Dos Cuerpos. We'll share it in the episode notes. Go there. Support this woman on business. They're great. They're phenomenal. But also, too, this just speaks to what I love so much about Zach and what I know all of his friends love about him. Zach is not just a connector, right?

He is a connector who is always like sharing blessings. So Zach connecting us to this tasting helps us to become a blessing for this woman's business. And in every situation and scenario, I see Zach function where he's pulling people together. He's doing it in ways that can allow strangers, friends, and new acquaintances to be blessings to each other. So thank you for that, Zach. I appreciate you for that. Thank you.

Sometimes the language is networking. And I just feel that there's not a warmth to networking. I don't think we always think of it as like as an art or as a gesture, frankly, of love. And I think the way I've gotten to see Zach reach into the ways unexpected people can connect, it does feel like an artistry. It does feel like a demonstration of like.

in our capacity to connect. Well, and it's like, Zach's not just networking. Zach is planting seeds. And they're growing and it's beautiful. And I love you, gardener. Master gardener. Thank you. It did feel like a gardening moment of, and it was something that was never done out of like, oh, I need people to know I have a friend in Mexico City. It was, I've talked to a different friend who was a woman of color and she said, you should meet this woman of color. She has this new mezcal she's doing. And like, I just love authenticity.

and whenever I enter a space it's similar to like why I love working at Grindr so much for years was that I use Grindr mostly to travel because I'd enter a city and be like who lives here who knows this place and let them lead the way for me and that's what I think about storytelling it's what I think about

art. Like I just love the authenticity of something and being able to witness it. So it was for me, you know, being in that space with her and seeing, meeting her friends from Mexico and food and learning. By the way, did y'all know Mexican wine was made illegal for 400 years because the Spaniards colonized

And the King of Spain was like, you guys are hurting our export business out of Spain. So you can't make it. And it wasn't until 1996 that Mexican wine was able to be brought back to scale. And that's why it's such a new wine. 1996. That's wild. Colonization is wild. Wild. It is wild.

What? Because she was telling us a story and I'm like, okay, so it must have come back in 1700. No, no, girl, 1996. And that's why you're seeing an emerging Mexican wine business kind of blossoming right now. It's because they were so suppressed for so many years. Wow. That's what you learn when you talk to people locally. I just assumed a lot. Love it. Not you giving us a global South vibe check 400 years into making. Not you taking us backwards, forwards. Every which way. I love it.

Sam, how are you doing? I'm doing good. I snuck away down the coast this weekend, south of LA, just to have some quiet beach time with just me in the sand and the water. You know, I've been trying to figure out how to think about grief and process grief since my mother's death a little over a month ago. And I think for a while I was very into being around people, being around my community. But I started to feel like, oh, it's time for some quiet.

And so I went down to the beach almost along the border and I spent a lot of time with episodes of Vibe Check. And I remember playing on the sand the episode Zach did with Jenna Wertham. And it was all about finding freedom in space and

blue spaces near water. And being naked. Did you get naked? And being naked. No. There was a line she said where she said, I'm trying to be a person who normalizes being free. And that was the theme of the weekend. And so I enjoyed my beach time. I enjoyed having y'all on my ears. And then there was something else Jenna said that I've just been thinking about a lot. She said, you can never turn your back on the ocean. Like, you must pay attention. And I thought a lot about that when I was out by the water. And it said, you

Also, the ocean is always asking you to listen. You have to listen to the waves. You have to listen to the sound of the water to know if you're okay in it. And something about the ocean beckoning you to listen to itself, it's also beckoning you and asking you to listen to yourself.

And so that my time along the water was just so good. And I was listening to things and hearing things in new ways. So my vibe is blue space right now. Yeah. I love that. I love it. And particularly in the year after my mom passed away, when I was living in Harlem, I would go on walks a lot.

And that was my, like, I need to be by myself. And I was, I mean, obviously New York is an island, but I was like, I was struck by how often I was drawn to water, to that blue. And, you know, it's interesting. I mean, in terms of symbolism, literary symbolism, water is often associated with mothers, with rebirth transformation. So, yeah. But there's just, there's a comfort there to do that listening. And it's so much about when I went down to the beaches with Craig for that episode, something he pointed out to me

me as we were sitting there is he brought up the real history of water and the edge of water is that we as literally people come from that moment in which our cells were like floating and existing in the water. And then one day we came to shore and we began to grow. So it does feel like

when you stand at the edge of a beach, it is a return to what Saeed just said, to be going forwards and backwards and here at the same time. That's what standing at a beach is. And you're looking out into something you can't see. And you're also feeling the back of what was, which was your walk, your home, whatever behind you. So there's something about being at the edge of a sea. And it's also like, literally we talk so much about borders and like borders are so imaginary. You know what's a real border? Land to water. Land to water is a real border. Yeah. It's amazing. Wow.

When I went down to this beach I was at, it was a steep stairwell walk down. So steps, but steep, but you could do it. But to come back up, you could either come up the steps or come this like just path that was a pretty steep like mountain hillside. And I was like, let me try the hard one. And it was very hard, but I could do it. I get up a third of the way. There are these queer men trying to get up as well on the hard path, not the step path.

And one of the men, George, in a string bikini with his boom box was struggling. And I was behind George. Oh, George was going through it. I said, George...

It's okay. I'm right behind you. So George is struggling with his music playing. He's like, you can pass me. And I was like, I'm not passing you, George. We're getting through this. And as he's trying to make it up that hill, guess what song is playing on his boom box as I'm counseling him to get up there. Padom, pa-motherfucking-dom. Oh, shit. So you literally pushed Padom up the hill. Literally. And we got up that mountain and I said to myself...

We're all just out here trying to put Dom. We're all just out here trying to put Dom. Anywho, anywho, we got to wrap this segment. I really thought you were going to be like, it was going to be Renaissance, something inspirational. I know. I was like, oh my God. Look, if you want to know, life has worn us down to the point that the three of us are finding existential resonance. Existential. And put Dom to Dom.

All right. Well, before we jump into the show, like always, we love the fan mail, the tweets, the messages, the everything that you send us. So please keep it coming on social media. And you can also email us directly at vibecheckatstitcher.com. And with that, it's time for us to jump into the show, shall we? Let's do it. All right. So let's take a breath together. We are going to talk about and remember O'Shea Sibley.

O'Shea Sibley was a 28-year-old gay black man who lived, loved, and danced in Brooklyn, New York. His friends describe him as a talented dancer. One of his friends said he was goofy. He loved to make people laugh. O'Shea was part of several dance troupes and vogued in New York's ballroom scenes.

Over the weekend on Saturday evening, O'Shea and several friends were at a gas station in Brooklyn, voguing to Beyonce's Renaissance album, At The Pump, you know, kiki-ing, living it up, having fun, enjoying their summer, when they were approached by a group of men that demanded that they stop dancing.

The aggressor started hurling anti-gay slurs at them and a back and forth between the two groups broke out. According to witness Syeda Hader, one man in particular was especially angered by O'Shea's dancing. Quote, he had a problem with them dancing and he wanted them to stop dancing. He started arguing with them and after a few fights and back and forth arguing, Syeda said this person pulled out a knife and stabbed O'Shea in the chest.

O'Shea Sibley was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. Otis Pena, one of Sibley's best friends, said in a video posted to Facebook hours after the killing, quote, they murdered him because he's gay, because he stood up for our friends. His name was O'Shea and you all killed him. You all murdered him right in front of me.

As of this recording, no arrests have been made, but they are looking for a suspect. I believe they're looking for a 17-year-old young man, which frankly, a 17-year-old being involved in perpetrating this kind of violence is another kind of tragedy that we can talk about because I think the relationship between

coming of age in a culture of toxic masculinity is absolutely connected to anti-LGBT violence. But police have said that the hate crimes unit is involved in the investigation. So that's what we know for now. There is a lot going on here. We are going to try to be obviously thoughtful and gentle. We're not trying to speculate on these details. We'd rather want to talk about how this resonates with

And what this tragedy, what it means to lose someone like O'Shea amidst the broader cultural moment we're living in. Zach, to start, you have a background, a well-documented background in covering stories like this, unfortunately. What stands out to you at this point?

I think what has really shook me this morning reviewing everything, and I tried to watch everything. I watched the Friends 15-minute long Facebook video, which is just heartbreaking when you understand that this was literally just mere hours after he was pronounced dead. And that's Otis Payne, yeah. Otis Payne, yes. And I watched the surveillance footage, which I've become so numb to. And I would say that the best friend talking hit me more.

than the surveillance footage. I think we've all become accustomed to surveillance footage on news channels at night. Kind of distance yourself. You're like watching something that feels produced like a movie. But the video of a friend crying is so heart-wrenching. So take care if you want to watch that. But you can just read a lot of it. But

What this incident has really affirmed is that hate crimes, the architecture of a hate crime, are pretty consistent a lot. And the reason why we call them hate crimes is really still important to me, at least, because they're always really symbolic and they're meant to send a shockwave through a community, whether conscious or unconsciously. What really is kind of really mundane about this specific incident is that it happens in public in front of a lot of people. I think people assume that

because there's cameras, because it's at a gas station, because people are watching, that means that person won't do something really violent. But it's usually the opposite, especially when dealing with men, especially young men who are dealing with issues of masculinity, of needing to be heard, or needing to assert themselves in public. And when you watch the tapes, you do see kind of, it feels very West Side Story. There's a group of black queer men who are very happy and dancing, minding their own business,

And it's kind of like what we've all done as kids. I remember playing music at the gas station and dancing. And a group of men who were walking out of the store who see them and being like, because they make them uncomfortable, they need to police them or tell them to calm down 'cause they're looking too happy and too joyful.

And in that moment, you have the group of friends, and I've been in that group of friends, where I'm like, you know what? I have my sisters with me. It'd be like if I was with y'all. I'm going to push back. I'm not going to take this shit. And in that moment of tension, you see people fighting for their lives. I mean, to quote Saeed Jones is that, you know, you see a lot of their own histories and lives kind of smashing up against each other. A group of straight men who've been told that men are supposed to be the certain way and do a certain thing being offered evidence that you don't have to be that.

way to be happy and to be joyful. And that I think is like kind of the beginning of this hate crime moment. And, and of course, like we know what happens next, that he stabs him. And it's because that O'Shea wouldn't just, you know, stop being gay, stop being queer. And, and, and it just is really sad to see that like, this is really about how dangerous certain people see queer joy in public being.

And that's like the constant violence we're seeing is that when we as queer people, especially black queer people, have the audacity to take up space in public and we don't calm it down, that we are then killed because of it. And that's kind of like the basis here. No matter how we, if hate crime charges arrive or not, that's what happened. O'Shea was there, joyful, happy, free, and someone decided he shouldn't be anymore, which is a very long black history of America. Yeah.

I keep thinking about how eternal this kind of incident feels. And I say eternal because there's so many quotes around this story that feel like they could have been uttered 50 years ago. News outlets talked with one of O'Shea's neighbors, a gay elder in his neighborhood called Breckenbauer Hamilton.

And he talked to news outlets about how just that week and even the morning of his death, he had been warning O'Shea to be careful as a black queer man out in the world, even in New York City. He said, quote, you have to be careful how you present yourself. We have to live stifled. We live here in a community where we have to pretend to be somebody else.

That's something queer elders were telling queer youth 50 years ago, 100 years ago. And hearing that breaks my heart so much because you're just like, how much progress has actually been made? And then you think about the age of the alleged perpetrator, 17 years old. This idea that the bigotry is dying out, that's not true. It's not true.

It's not true at all. And when you unpack the numbers around these kind of incidents, we've talked about this before. They're not on the decline. They're on the rise. There's a study from the UCLA School of Law at the Williams Institute there. And they found that LGBT people are nine times more likely than non-LGBT people to be victims of hate crimes. And LGBT violent hate crime victims are more likely to be younger victims.

to have a relationship to the assailant and have an assailant who was white. All of the studies that we see show that these incidences are increasing. There were two big studies from earlier this summer from GLAAD, from the ADL, saying it's all on the march and it's tied directly in many cases to our political rhetoric that is targeting queer people. And what just disheartens me so much is how this story feels like it could have been ripped out of the 80s or the 60s or the 40s

And it just feels like we're stuck and it breaks my heart. Yeah, it's interesting that this episode earlier in when Zach was talking about Mexico and colonization and this 400-year narrative and the sense of us living...

backward and forward in time and it's hard to even stay in one moment. I want to talk about that because O'Shea and his friends were at a gas station, summertime. It was hot as hell this weekend, I got to tell you. Which is why they were shirtless when you see the video. Everybody was outside. They're dancing to Renaissance on Saturday night in Brooklyn. That same night, Beyonce is on stage at the Renaissance tour like

50 miles away at MetLife Stadium, literally like in New Jersey, right across the water. And so at the precise moment that O'Shea and his friends are endangered and one of them loses their lives for dancing, for daring to be black queer people enjoyed, embracing, saying, you won't break my soul.

We literally have thousands of people in a stadium, you know, voguing, cheering, embracing house. And also another moment in time that we are in a summer where someone like a black elder like Kevin Avians, who was such an important part of the Renaissance album, is able to see Beyonce on stage in Philly. And we have that beautiful image of a black queer elder.

living to see this moment. The same summer when a black queer youth loses his life for also celebrating. It's just...

This sense of – and Christina Sharpe writes so much about this, that being black, like we live in the wake. We live in the wake of all of these histories and certainly enslavement is one of them. But as black queer people, there are other wakes that we are kind of moving behind. It's just the sense of being pulled back and forth. And this is a theme that we've talked about on this show before.

We are more likely than ever before to see queerness on screen, to hear it in our music. The biggest pop star of our time, Beyonce, made an album that is decidedly queer. But I feel like representation and visibility, it doesn't mean freedom, it doesn't mean safety.

And I'm really hoping that out of this conversation about O'Shea's tragic death, we can look at how queer people and allies can take visibility and representation and say, we need more. We want more. We must have more because otherwise we die. It cannot just be the visibility.

We're not free, we're not safe, and we're not getting safer. And the violence has nothing to do with us. The reason why representation is a trap, to quote Ziya Jones, is that it requires that all the weight and the lift come on the person that has been oppressed to somehow wiggle up and then create joy and create entertainment and still survive.

what we're seeing happen today with so many groups. I mean, you have the rise of Laverne Cox and then years later, we're now in this trans moment where Laverne Cox is literally crying on Instagram lives 'cause she's like, "What is going on? The world feels like it's so far behind than when I became famous." And the issue in all this is that these young people were probably like looking at their elder, Beckenbauer, Hamilton, being like, "Girl, what are you talking about? Beyonce's playing down the street.

House music's on the radio. I watch Drag Race. Exactly. Drag Race is one of the biggest shows in the world. And he's like, no, no, no. I know. I've lived. I've lived through this. It does come back. It does hit you again. And he was right. And that's the sadness here is that no matter how big music gets around queerness, no matter how big all these things happen, we still haven't dealt with the real issue, which is straight men are in crisis and need to do that work together. That's not for us to do.

'cause we're just trying to live, we're just trying to dance. It's these straight men dealing with their own masculinity issues, all this other stuff is for them to fix. So I think like people are looking at what should they do from here. It's don't call people that look like Saeed Jones and Sam Sanders and Zach Stafford, talk to the people who are perpetuating these things, have those conversations. - Yes, well, and like there are, I know a lot of women listen to this show. I know a lot of mothers and fathers listen to this show.

This is a conversation about how we're raising our kids as well. Yes. This child was 17 who did this. And I think that a lot of times people think that doing the work for you on your own is enough and that's allyship. Real allyship is catching the bad actors in your tribe, in your family, in your neighborhood, in your home. Are you raising hate in your home? Are you allowing hate in your home? What are we all doing to...

To see this stuff as soon as it starts to even rear its head and say, no, hey, not here. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. This child, a 17 year old child had parents who probably said, well, how do we allow for that? You allow for it by not looking for it, by not being aware at the ways in which even the youngest amongst us can be infected by this anti-queer hate.

We haven't really talked about it on the show, but on Twitter, particularly black Twitter, there's been a lot going on in the last two weeks between a comedian, and we don't need to get into the details, but a lot of black anti-trans sentiment that has endangered the lives of a lot of people we know and actually care very much about, friends like Raquel Willis. Angelica Ross was speaking about it. Angelica Ross, T.S. Madison. They're coming for all of us.

If you don't think that the lives of trans people and their danger is not connected to yours, if you don't think the lives and the endangerment of people like O'Shea, if you don't think the violence against people with uteruses and what's going on with the push to take away the rights of people who deserve reproductive justice, it's all connected and we are all imperiled.

And just because someone doesn't look, live like you, baby, do not assume. Do not assume that is not your business, that that is not your mandate to stand up. And I just, we're just seeing it across the board. And it's just so clear to me.

That whether it is about your right to abortion, your right to healthcare as a trans person, your right to be able to dance. Also, mind you, for a very long time in this country, it was literally illegal for people to dance with a person of the same gender, right? There's a whole history.

of the relationship between dance and anti-LGBT law. This is all connected. And I think we need to step out of ourselves for a moment and start connecting the dots because as long as we hesitate to do so, or even worse, as long as we turn on one another in an attempt to eke out a little bit more power for ourselves and this white supremacist hierarchy, the more this kind of violence is going to happen. Yeah. I do want to make sure before we close this segment,

To just honor O'Shea and speak to the beauty of his life. You know, I've been looking around finding some clips of him dancing. It's beautiful. His life story was one of promise. He had recently moved to Brooklyn from Philly for more auditions, for more opportunities.

He was on his way up. So I also want to make sure that we use this time to remind people to spend even just a few minutes thinking about O'Shea and his life and his beauty. And O'Shea, I didn't know you, but I love you.

And if you are a person that, you know, in these moments is like, I don't know what to do, but I'm going to do something. You want to give money to somewhere. A group that is really great to give money to is the Anti-Violence Project in New York City. They kind of do all this anti-violence work, whether it's domestic violence or, you know, hate crime based violence. Consistent, good work for years. They're maybe not always drawing attention to themselves, but I really trust them. I really trust them.

Okay, we're going to take a break, take a breath, but don't go away. We'll be right back and we're going to change it up and talk about aliens. Maybe they'll save us. Maybe they'll save us. Maybe they won't. Maybe. Maybe.

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Welcome back, Earthlings. It's now time for... Wait, what makes you think I'm an Earthling, dear Zach? Girl, we know. You are of Texas, okay? But for everyone else that considers themselves of this world, meaning of Earth, I have some news for you that you've been probably hearing, and we're going to settle some scores really quickly and give you some facts, and then we're going to talk about what this all means and why we all maybe don't care about this thing that's happening. So,

If you are a person in the US, you probably have heard lately that aliens exist because news last week seemed to make that true, I guess. And the reason why is because three military veterans testified in Congress during a highly anticipated hearing on UFOs. Highly anticipated, I should define as if you're probably a person on the right or a person whose TikTok looks like me, because it feels like a lot of the left in America didn't even know this was happening.

And I know this because I was at a brunch with a bunch of LA people. And I mentioned that there was a big congressional hearing happening last week about aliens. And they thought I was insane. Oh, girl, that's just because you're in LA. You could be like, have you heard of books? And they'll be like, what? See now? At brunch in LA. Okay. I have two books on my table right now.

I read words. Okay, fair. People in LA may not be paying attention to this. The literacy is out there. That's true. Okay.

- God, okay, let me get through these facts real quick. So last Wednesday there was a hearing and there was one former Air Force intelligence officer who claimed that the US government has been operating a multi-decade reverse engineering program of recovered vessels. He also said that the US has recovered non-human biologics from alleged crash sites and that the US is concealing this program for many, many years. - Stop, you're saying.

A retired government official is like, they don't just know the motherfuckers is out there, bitch. We got the bodies. There's something about the phrase non-human biologics is pretty. Yes. So, yes. So you're right. They're saying that we have the bodies. There have been rumors from the same person through a news nation interview that these bodies may have been alive at one point and that the program exists. Hmm.

because we are reverse engineering. Zach, first of all, Zach is never going to be able to get through this. No. Also, it's because Sam sounds like an African-American cat just slowly in the background. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Anywho, go ahead, Zach. We're trying to hold it together. Okay, I'm going to say a few more things and then give it to you all. So he made all these statements, pretty much that like, we got a bunch of labs, we're building alien crafts, and no one's been talking about it, and he needs to whistleblow it. Everything he said was secondhand. There was nothing he saw personally. It was all things he said he heard around the office, all these things. The

the Pentagon has denied this fervently. They're like, this is not real. This girl is crazy. Pretty much every other witness and lawmaker has been like, yeah, there's no clear evidence any of this exists, but we just want to talk about it.

Yeah. So that's where I want to go with this. It's like, it's hit a fever pitch. You know, this year is the year we've all forgotten. The Chinese balloons happened just months ago. You ain't forgotten. You ain't forgotten. Girl, I was out here watching. But, you know, UFOs have continued to pop up in the zeitgeist a lot. And it's also happening as the world is quite literally on fire. So what do you think, Syed?

Before I get to how I feel about this, what's interesting, like you said, it's like a retired veteran. He's sharing like secondhand. He doesn't have any evidence that he can show himself. How did this hearing happen? Like which elected official made this happen? This is a very good question.

A lot of them. Democrats and Republicans, right? Both sides. Yeah, it was bipartisan. So a lot of like, even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in this committee and she welcomed this conversation too. So it's a pretty bipartisan thing. The reasons why, according to AOC, is that...

programs like this fit under that huge military defense bill that is very not audited. We have no idea how people are spending money. We don't know where it's going, how it's being used. So there is a theory that the Democrats can use aliens to penetrate this budget and understand why are we giving more money to this than anything else? AOC said, stop the alien budget, less the universal pre-K. Yeah, she's like, universal pre-K. She's like, let's fund this earth, not all these other earths.

So it's become a big thing. And, you know, the right's really obsessed with it. And some of it has to do with the fact that, you know, Donald Trump is the person that did green light Space Force, you know, famously. See, so I totally missed this. I didn't realize that this has become like a cause of the right. Oh, huge. Because I'm not paying much attention to the alien stuff. It's a huge thing. And, you know, and I think I kind of want to get into that about like, what is it about current?

currently we're living in a moment where there's very real things happening. Climate change, we're hitting a climate boil. Things are falling apart. People can't even dance in a gas station. But we do see a large part of this country looking to the skies. Elon Musk famously, SpaceX building out there. The right is obsessed with space programs, funding them, aliens. What do you think about this moment in which we're having this existential crisis of Earth?

I'm not shocked, just like, damn, that says something. The fact that these UFO hearings happened in the halls of Congress, sanctioned by both parties, and you had pretty credible former government employees saying, yeah, girl, there's proof. The fact that it wasn't the biggest, most trending story for days after those hearings says something about the state of the American psyche. We are too tired to care.

We are too tired to care. Life has exhausted us. Trump exhausted us. Pandemic exhausted us. This weird economy exhausted us. We're tired. And even when they're like, yeah, we got the receipts. The aliens are here. Everyone's like, okay, why?

Yeah. I mean, just during our break, I looked at my phone and I saw a news story from The Guardian because in Wisconsin, Republicans are trying to roll back the alcohol service age so teens can serve alcohol. What? Which would mean that 14-year-olds—

Would be able to serve alcohol. And then I'm also struck about a CNN story I saw over the weekend, you know, because what's the heat dome and all of that stuff that's been, you know, just wreaking havoc for weeks now, actually. And in cities like Phoenix, Arizona, people were having to check themselves into the emergency room from just like literally falling on the ground, coming in contact with the ground because the cement is just slimy.

so hot. And then meanwhile, we don't have the Beyonce visuals. You know what I'm trying to say? I'm trying to say.

is that there is a lot of clear and present danger, you know, and, and, but, but for real though, right. And I guess for me with like aliens and it's interesting, but it almost feels actually very, and it's interesting whether we're talking about out in space or deep, deep sea, when we were all ourselves included, very much intrigued and obsessed with that submersible. Um,

Look, if I worked in government, if I was a scientist, if I studied astronomy, it'd be very different. But I don't. So at best for Saeed Jones, this is entertainment. This is a distraction. Like it has no real impact on my life and my work. And so I'm just like, you know what? It's hard enough for me to keep up with like the rollout of violence against people with uteruses in this country right now. I'm trying to follow like ballot issue one in the state of Ohio. You know what I mean?

Can I tell you one point, though, that makes me be like, oh, we got to ask some more questions like AOC get on the case. And that is the issue. You know, she's like she's on it with that red lip. Go, girl. The finances of it all. There's a really good NBC news story that covers all of this. But there's one chunk that made me be like, oh, damn, if I can read it for y'all, I would like to. Yeah, this is courtesy of NBC News, all about those UFO hearings in Congress.

I'm going to read a few graphs for you. David Grush, a former U.S. intelligence official, told the panel that he is absolutely, quote, certain that the federal government is in possession of UAPs. Citing interviews, he said he conducted with 40 witnesses over a four-year period. The former official said he led Defense Department efforts to analyze reported UAP sightings and was informed of a multi-decade Pentagon program that endeavored to collect UAPs

and reconstruct crashed UAPs. Asked by Jared Moskowitz, Democrat of Florida, how such a program is funded, Grush claimed that the effort is, quote, above congressional oversight and bankrolled by a, quote, misappropriation of funds. Moskowitz then asked, quote, does that mean that there is money in the budget that is set to go to a program, but it doesn't and it goes to something else?

Yes, I have specific knowledge of that, Grush said, though he did not provide more details, claiming the information remains classified. So aliens or not, aliens be damned. I want to know what the hell's going on with my money. Where is my money? I mean, you know, since we don't have a white millennial age man that we can pull in to quote the wire, I'll do it for him. Do it.

Follow the money and you don't know where the hell you'll end up. I mean, it is. Well, and I guarantee you, it's not just the research being funded through secret money. I bet you.

If you dig far enough, companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are getting paid off this shit too. Yeah. And what also why this backs into a military industrial complex is that the technologies being used to research aliens or unidentified flying objects is weapons technology.

UFOs are also airplanes that Russia's deployed that we don't know what they are. This is a way to funnel money into looking at other countries as well. So they're right to kind of shake this down and be like, what's going on? Because there's a lot of earmarked money going to probably five companies that all of these congressional leaders or certain powers that be have shareholders inside of. And also keep in mind,

This is the same country and the same government that cut food subsidies and programs for poor folks after COVID because they said, we don't got the money. There's money out there to, you know, look up Spongebob in the sky, yet y'all can't, like...

Please do not mention Spongebob. Listen, me and Ariana Grande are shaking right now. Please do not. But no, no, this is really, and I just realized I literally have a poster of Ariana Grande right next to my desk. Listen, take it down. It's bad juju. She wrecks homes. She wrecks homes. It's been a rough week for us. I love that girl. I love the vocals. She is putting me through it. I wouldn't trust her around any man that I know.

And look, that's the issue. We're not here for that. I can't have aliens stressing me out. I got this little Italian diva over here wreaking havoc on my psyche. Meanwhile, Beyonce is talking about you're the visuals. There's a lot going on that I am already worried about. To say nothing of the legitimate off

things in the world like just in the even if you want to pick the silly stuff to have like a conspiracy theory about between Ariana Grande and the Beyonce visuals I am booked and busy my dance card is full but I will say I will say I'm glad we talked about this because I honestly had

not thought about how this is also a money story, a military defense story. And so I guess I would just say like, if this is actually the gambit that like Congress people that I think have some kind of sense, like AOC, for example, are trying to make

I think I want them to be a little bit louder. They need to be a little bit louder about the case that they're actually making because otherwise this is the issue. And I don't think this is totally like a media literacy. People aren't reading the news. It's just people are busy.

You know what I mean? If something, if you see a headline about something that you don't immediately understand as being important and impactful, you might just scan, you might just see like the headline or the little, you know what I mean? And I feel like the way this has been framed is,

When I've seen news about the alien stuff, it's just like a silly lark. It's not, wait a minute, this could actually expose like a lot of really important stuff. Listen, you want to win reelection, Joe Biden? You campaign on two planks, constitutionally codifying the right to abortion and figuring out what the hell's going on with these aliens. You make those your planks, you're going to win. You're going to win.

All right, y'all. It's time for us to take a quick break. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.

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All right, listeners, we are back. And before we end the show, as we always do, we want to share some things that have been helping us keep our vibes right. Some recommendations. Zach, I hear you're going to talk about a movie. I am. Well, it's a movie I've already talked about it here before, but now I'm bringing it up because you can now see it. The movie is Kokomo City by Dee Smith.

It is a documentary that lit up Sundance this past January. And it is so on time right now with everything we're talking about. But if you've forgotten, the movie is made by black trans women and it's about black trans women and it's about sex work and the people that engage in the sex work around them.

And the movie's so funny. It's so brilliant. And sadly, during the rollout of this film, one of the subjects that you get to meet in the film was sadly murdered in Atlanta, which kind of proves the thesis of the movie, which is that black trans women are under attack as they're just trying to live and survive in America right now. They can't even survive long enough to see films about their experiences made to the screen.

But it's a really, I think it's one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. So well done. And I hope it gets the Oscar for the best documentary, honestly. I think it could, actually. It's very good. But it's out now. Okay. I want it. Yes. Saeed, what about you?

I think I briefly mentioned writer Christina Sharp earlier in this episode. And so I wanted to recommend a book I'm reading of hers right now. The title is In the Wake on Blackness and Being. If you've read work by writers like

Frank B. Wilderson, who wrote Afro-Pressimism, or Sadia Hartman. This is very much a writer in conversation with them. And so The Wake, it's really interesting because it's nonfiction. It's kind of philosophical, historical, kind of bringing different ideas together. She has a wonderful, I would say like a poet's level attention to language. And so she uses the idea of the wake, which is an interesting word because it has so many meanings. So a wake can be the pathway

behind a ship that we see in the water as I mentioned earlier in the episode it's kind of like in the wake of history when you have a wake after someone passes away you're keeping watch with the dead or arguably you're defending the dead which is an interesting idea right and then wake also means coming to consciousness so there's even a resonance to woke that word we keep hearing kind of thrown around and so

To keep it concisely, Saidiya Hartman argued that black people in the United States, we're living in the afterlife of slavery. That was a concept that Saidiya Hartman brought to us. And so Christina Sharpe takes it even further because she's like, think about the Atlantic Ocean and its history regarded to the transatlantic slave trade. And so we're living in the wake of the slave ships. And so it's just really beautiful. It's challenging. It's like, you know, there are paragraphs where I have to like stop,

reread. I love it. There's such rigor, but she's really compassionate and she thinks a lot about how being a black person in academia, really trying to do your job well, you're often in tensions with like the white structures of academia. So how do you, you know, how do you cite your sources and follow like the expected norms of your industry when so much of that was written by colonizers? And at one point she says, how can we blacken our knowledge?

How can we blacken our knowledge? You know what I mean? That. Yeah. And just like just with a few words in the middle of a paragraph, she'll say something that like just totally shakes me down. So it's a wonderful book. Again, it's In the Wake on blackness and being. I can't recommend it enough. And if you want a full circle moment, In the Wake is written by Christina Sharp. Christina Sharp was the subject of a really big New York Magazine profile just a few months ago. Yay!

I Jenna Wertham. Right. Full circle. Also, and I said it earlier that Jenna episode was Zach. The two of y'all talking together, um,

sounded like soft waves in the ocean. It was so beautiful. I think I sent it to you, Zach, but I haven't told Sam, but my aunt Janet, she loves the show and she was like, this conversation between Zach and Jenna is just so moving. It flowed. Thank you. Really beautiful. Sam, what's keeping your vibe right this week? I have a recommendation. I have been looking for music and books and movies and words that talk beautifully about grief and

And I've been playing a lot the last few days. The latest album from an artist I mentioned before. Her name is Caroline Rose. And the album is called The Art of Forgetting. Y'all, this is a breakup album for the ages. Every song is about heartache. Check it out.

But my favorite one, at least lyrically right now, is a song called The Kiss. I want to read just a few lines of it because it's haunting and it's truly new modern scripture for me. The song goes, Nothing on the street tonight, it's emptiness. And heaven knows I've seen it all before. Nothing on the street tonight but a burning heart that's reaching out and ready to explode.

Nothing on the street tonight but a melody. And I listen out with one ear to the wall. Cause damn, you know that I would tear this city up if I could just get myself out the door.

Caroline went through it. And this album rips you apart in the most beautiful way. I cannot recommend this enough. I'm excited about this album because you recommended her, I think, previous album. Previous album, which is much more upbeat. And that was my introduction to her. And I was like, okay, Caroline Rose. All right. No. What is it? The Art of Forgetting? The Art of Forgetting. And the whole album is just about one of the worst breakups she's ever experienced in her life. And the interludes are

are old voicemails of her ailing grandmother who later died. Jesus. Get ready to get wrecked. But goddamn. But this is one of the few episodes where, as you all have both spoken, I've ordered Christina Sharpe's book. And I've also saved this on my Spotify. I just did the same thing on Spotify. I did it on Spotify.

Listen, I was on the beach this weekend playing Caroline Rose and crying. And then on the beach, ordered it on vinyl because I was like, I want it on the record too, baby. It'd be like that. I need it all. The art of forgetting. Listeners, I'm telling you, you've never heard a breakup album like this. It's so good. So that listeners, let us know what you're feeling this week. What's helping you get your vibe? Check in with us at vibecheckatstitcher.com.

What an episode. Thank you, listeners, for doing this work with us because that's the thing about Vibe Check. We're going to give you the highs and the lows. We're going to talk about the grief and the heartbreak, but I hope we always also leave you feeling empowered and gotten to laugh with us as well. So thank you again for tuning in to this week's episode. If you love the show, why wouldn't you? And of course you want to support us. You're not an ally. You're a co-conspirator. Please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform and tell a friend or three friends.

Huge thank you to our producers, Chantel Holder, engineers Sam Kiefer and Brennan Burns, and Marcus Humphrey for our theme music and sound design. Also, special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda Management and Production. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Don't forget, you can always email us, vibecheckatstitcher.com, vibecheckatstitcher.com. We read those emails, every single one. Also, stay in touch on Instagram, on Twitter.

threads on whatever new platform these rich tech bros are creating. Find us. I am at Sam Sanders. Zach is at Zach Staff, Z-A-C-H-S-T-A-F-F. Saeed is at The Ferocity, T-H-E-F-E-R-O-C-I-T-Y. If you post about us or the show, use the hashtag VibeCheckPod.

Till next time, keep on being an alien superstar. We'll see you next week, unless the aliens get us first. Bye. Bye. Stitcher. What kind of day is it? It's a White Claw Day. Light and refreshing tasting. Uniquely cold-weight filtered. There's an iconic flavor for everyone. Come on, grab a pack. White Claw. Grab life by the claw. Please drink responsibly. Hearts also with flavor. White Claw's also works Chicago, Illinois.

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