MSNBC Can't Cancel Our Joy

MSNBC canceled Joy Reid's show because ... you know.

My Aunt Marvell has the Holy Ghost.

If you are Black — even if you weren’t raised in a church where ushers have a fainting protocol and a designated tambourine player sets the shouting music tempo — you know what that phrase means. Whether it’s called “the anointing” or being “saved and sanctified,” having the Holy Ghost describes someone who embodies a uniquely Black manifestation of African spirituality that even predates Jesus Christ.

Whatever it is, Marvell Clyburn has it in abundance.

Aside from Donald Trump and parents who “need to put a hat on that baby’s head,” my 80-year-old aunt never has a bad word to say about anyone. When people try to take advantage of her, she will simply “pray for those who spitefully use” her. And in the rare case that anyone challenges her lord and savior-based lifestyle, Aunt Marvell will resist the African-American urge to clap back. Instead, she usually responds with a traditional African-American saying that also predates Christianity:

“As for me and my house …”

In Black households, the expression serves as a declaration of belief and a punctuation mark that can end any conversation. “As for me and my house” has settled some of the most heated disputes in African America — from putting salt on grits to interracial dating. It’s not just a Southern thing or Christian. Even my Muslim cousins from New Jersey immediately understood my Aunt Marvell’s dress code after she told them: “I don’t care if your mama, your imam or Muhammad Ali himself said you can wear flip-flops to the mosque … As for me and my house, we wear church shoes to the sancturerrry.”

So when I received an urgent call from my Aunt Marvell on Sunday, I knew she wanted to know about the devilment that had befallen the first lady of my Aunt Marvell’s sancturerry:

Joy Reid.

“Joy Reid’s evening news show on MSNBC is being canceled,” the New York Times reported on Sunday. A few hours later, Reid confirmed the news during a tearful farewell with colleagues, friends and her fans.

Let me get this out of the way: I won’t even attempt to be objective about Joy Reid. She is not just a friend and a respected colleague; among the women who love me, Joy Reid is in the Holy Trinity of Black women you better not mess with (along with Michelle Obama and Keke Palmer). In fact, when my Aunt Marvell saw a picture of her grandson sitting on the porch with Joy Reid, I thought I was going to have to call a certified usher, because she almost fainted.

Every night at 7 p.m., Reid channeled the sentiments of my aunts, sisters, mothers and hundreds of thousands of other Black women whose perspectives are excluded by even the most liberal mainstream media outlets. To be fair, Reid wasn’t even the only host at MSNBC who shared Black women’s collective hatred for Donald Trump (I truly believe Lawrence O’Donnell would punch Trump in the throat if he had the opportunity). But Reid didn’t just call it like she saw it; she was not afraid to say it like Black women wanted to say it.

The fact that Trump also hates Joy Reid might be her praiseworthy accomplishment. That’s why it was so sweet of the Bull Connor of presidents to take time out of his busy schedule fucking up America, to give Joy this beautiful parting gift.

Truth Social

If you make the devil mad, you’re probably doing God’s will. ( I’m pretty sure that’s in the Bible. If it‘s not, it should be.)

Although the Times noted that ReidOut’s cancellation was “part of a far-reaching programming overhaul orchestrated by Rebecca Kutler, the network’s new president,” the decision is also part of an industrywide trend of corporations capitulating to the Trump administration’s resegregation movement. Yet, for some reason, the Times journalist who broke the news about Reid didn’t feel the need to mention his own reporting that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr recently opened an investigation into MSNBC’s parent company for “promoting invidious forms of DEI.”​​ The FCC investigation comes weeks after Comcast announced it would spin off MSNBC “after shareholder and regulatory approval.”

“In his first week in office, President Trump issued an Executive Order that will end the radical and wasteful DEI programs that have spread across the federal government,” read Carr’s letter to Comcast. “I am starting this broader effort with Comcast and NBCUniversal for two reasons. First, as noted above, there is substantial evidence that your companies are still engaging in the promotion of DEI. Second, your companies cover a range of sectors regulated by the FCC—from cable to high-speed Internet and from broadcast TV stations to MVNO wireless offerings.”

It’s also possible that Reid is the casualty of a “programming overhaul.” Aside from public statements from the most powerful man on the planet, the fact that other corporations like Target and Walmart responded to similar segregationist threats by throwing Black employees under the bus, Comcast’s need to comply with FCC overseers and what the same network did when Melissa Harris-Perry and Tiffany Cross made white people mad, there’s absolutely no proof that race had anything to do with MSNBC’s decision.

Of course, the people who loudly claim they “don’t see race” are the same ones who can never see racism. They “don’t see color,” but they have the ability to spot DEI everywhere Black people exist. To them, the fact that NBCUniversal also gave Lester Holt, Ayman Moyheldin, Katie Phang and Jonathan Capehart their walking papers today has nothing to do with race. Then again, white people have always believed they have the anointing.

This is not a lament over the lack of diversity in mainstream media. Black people will always find a way to find the truth. I am not worried about Joy Reid’s future. There are thousands of Black people who will follow her wherever she lands next. As the Bible notes, the prayers of Black women availeth much.

But as someone who is neither saved nor sanctified, I am not compelled to pray for those who spitefully use us. I hope their baldheaded babies lose their bonnets, their ushers refuse to fan their fainting grandmothers and Sister Wilma stomps on their toes while shouting in stilettos. I share the sentiment of Black people everywhere and the most devout women walking the face of the earth when I say:

As for me and my Aunt Marvell’s house …

God Damn MSNBC.

And I know she has the Holy Ghost.