Soraya Nadia McDonald

@soraya.press

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cultural critic & journalist | aspiring horse lady | subscribe: soraya.press 📍Brooklyn

Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser in a scene from season 5 of "Outlander," in which he's getting his fellow Scotsmen, who are also tenant famers working land apportioned to Jamie by his buddy, the governor of North Carolina. (He wants them loyal to HIM, rather than the governor, when he inevitably turns against the governor and by extension, the British crown. A massive Celtic cross is burning behind him. He stands in a ring of people, as one man kneels and pledges his fealty to Jamie directly before joining Tryon's militia
Screenshot text from NYT: This showplace was largely built by enslaved laborers, along with freed Black people and white workers. (The lawn’s terraces were hand-dug and shaped.) Enslaved people were responsible for the essential work of supplying food (growing vegetables, butchering animals) and keeping the school clean, and generally “doing for” the white residents. But despite this intimate, daily involvement, they were kept, through Jefferson’s design, out of view as much as possible.
A photo of Glenn Youngkin at his swearing-in, dressed in a morning coat with tails, gloves, and an ascot, like a proper English toff. He's holding his hand over his heart. Photo by Anna Moneymaker, Getty Images
A screenshot of the Libby app with a result for "Ebony & Ivy" by Craig Steven Wilder
Meme of Ta-Nahesi Coates speaking on Ezra Klein's podcast asking "Was silence not an option?"
Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme
Two unimpressed cats lazing on my bed. Radamès (the black one) is a wee bit sullen because the human has been absorbed in a computer screen instead of him. Cio Cio-san (the gray one) is ... a scosh more understanding.
Kombucha girl meme, in which she displays emotions ranging from disgust to unexpected delight to no, bad idea. But maybe. Maybe?
Emily Wilson (yes THAT Emily Wilson) follows me for some reason??????!
Jon Hamm as drunk Don Draper unfortunately unraveling into Dick Whitman during a pitch in that meme scene from Mad Men.
A gif of Leo DiCaprio in Wolf of Wall Street biting his fist and rolling his eyes in ecstasy as he says "Oh my God"
Screenshot from my text: The line at 68th st is bananas!!! It's like someone posted on East Asian nerd socials. It's me and a room full of East Asian college kids. All the lines at the kiosks were 10 deep
Confused math lady meme From Wikipedia: Brazilian actress Renata Sorrah surrounded by mathematical problems, in a scene from 2004 Brazilian soap opera Senhora do Destino, where she plays Nazaré Tedesco.
Screenshot text from The City Reporter California also put a literal astrophysicist on the case, Monica Bobra. Her team at the state’s Office of Data and Innovation partnered with its Department of Social Services to make a machine-learning-powered model for cash-assistance fraud that identifies suspicious transactions. Building on that, the state figured out how to identify likely compromised cards and get cardholders to reset their pins. It also added those three little numbers typically on the backs of cards, card verification values, to guard against scamming. As of April, California has reduced reported food and cash benefit theft by 76% relative to the 2024 peak, the state said. New York, on the other hand, does not even keep data on people losing their benefits to fraud. The city and state stopped collecting claims after the federal government ceased reimbursing them in late 2024 and the U.S. Department of Agriculture said to stop accepting them. “It’s not seen as a crisis, because it’s poor people,” said Joel Berg, CEO of the advocacy group Hunger Free America. “When we define something as a crisis, we address it.” In a statement on behalf of Hochul, the governor’s office touted the chip card plans and pointed the finger at Washington, D.C. for the lack of reimbursements.
A black cat sitting on a windowsill touching his nose to the bottom of his cantilever suction cup window perch.
Olivia Pope telling her fuck-ass president boyfriend "If you want me, earn me!"
A black cat (Radamès) rubs his cheek on the cord providing support for his cardboard window cantilever, where he presides and apparently puts on shows for the neighborhood children who look up
Screenshot text from NOTUS
Dr. Evil doing "allegedly!" finger quotes
A big ole love bug of a black dog (Beamer) gazing lovingly at the camera lens.
A gray tabby with a creamsicle belly sitting in a window sill, looking over her shoulder like one of your lil French pussies.
Ukrainian president and creator and star of "Servant of the People" Volodymyr Zelenskyy
From page 79 of Sarah J. Jackson's A SECOND SIGHT: Across generations, black media makers have exposed how narrow definitions of Liberty in the United States serve to undermine it for some while preserving it for others. They argue that Liberty is not a static inheritance, nor a gift bestowed by the state, but something that must be seized—again and again—by individuals and communities who refuse to accept conditions of unfreedom. Their second sight does not only take lessons from the past or critique the present. It also imagines a future where liberty is not the privilege of a few, but the shared condition of all, offering visions of freedom that are as aspirational as they are urgent. Running For Freedom In a 2018 episode of the Peabody Award-winning podcast, Uncivil, journalist Chenjerai Kumanyika welcomed historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar as a guest. Dunbar narrates a story about our nation's most famed founder, George Washington, almost no one was taught: the saga of Ona Judge. In the episode titled "The Fugitive," Kumanyika and Dunbar delve into the extraordinary courage of Judge, an enslaved woman who escaped from George and Martha Washington in 1796. Despite being relentlessly pursued by the most powerful man in the country, Judge was never recaptured. As the episode reveals, Washington spared no effort in his pursuit—deploying federal officials, leveraging his political influence, and using every available resource to try to reclaim her. Kumanyika underscores the deep irony at the heart of this history: "After writing some of the fundamental documents professing the American value of liberty, George Washington spent the rest of his life trying to prevent Ona Judge from attaining just that.
My black cat, Radamès, luxuriating on his fuzzy white cat tree in front of a bookshelf
Mr. Glassel and Mr. Scharpf are concerned that President Trump’s planned expansion of ICE, in particular, could make it an ideal venue for “detouring” by ambitious underperformers who could be deployed for anti-democratic purposes. The worry is especially profound given the storming of the Capitol at the end of Mr. Trump’s first term, albeit by a less organized band of loyalists. The playbook for a leader to create a loyal security service, they said, is to set up or repurpose an institution that can become a “second ladder” for career promotions, resource it generously and ensure that the barriers to getting hired there are low, signaling that it offers career opportunities to those who cannot find them elsewhere. (Cutting other government jobs or squeezing budgets can create a larger pool of potential recruits.) The leadership then signals impunity for people on that second ladder, to assure them that they won’t face consequences for wrongdoing.
Big ass trojan horse in the middle of the street on the UWS
Soraya standing in front of a big ass trojan horse in the middle of the street at an Odyssey press screening
Screenshot text from The City Reporter “Disproportionately higher rates of unemployment for Black New Yorkers is, in many ways, a constant; it’s not a new phenomenon,” said Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, an antipoverty advocacy organization. But the current rise in Black unemployment rates, Austin said, is symptomatic of a cultural rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies under the second Trump administration. “It is tied to where we are, the political climate and the acceptance that it is OK to no longer try to build greater equity and opportunity for Black people and other people of color,” she said. Labor market inequality has deepened, with the New York City metro Black-white unemployment rate gap the widest among major U.S. metro areas, at 5.6 percentage points as of the third quarter of 2025, according to the Center for New York City Affairs. Los Angeles, which had the highest Black unemployment rate at 9.6% in that quarter, had a smaller gap, with white unemployment at 5.4%, for a gap of 4.2 percentage points. Other cities, including Chicago, Dallas and Houston, had much smaller Black-white unemployment rate gaps.
Screenshot from Ruwa Romman on X. RT Ruwa: I'm a Palestinian. I don't cheer on death. But thanks for outing yourself as a bigot. OP Rachel: I'm starting to hate the Gaza people with the passion of a thousand suns. Y'all get that the average Palestinian would cheer your death?? Rachel response to Ruwa: You're running for office in Georgia, not Palestine. Ruwa response: oh you mistook this for an invitation to talk to me. It's not. Take your bigotry somewhere else. If you think you can "you're one of the good ones" me, you're mistaken. I have family who don't live here, and they have better morals and ethics
Politico screenshot text Black lawmakers and activists across the Deep South argue they have been abandoned by the Democratic Party to fight an existential crisis on their own. They say they’ve been let down by nearly all corners of the party: would be-presidential hopefuls who have flocked to early and swing states but don’t bring their megaphones elsewhere; congressional leadership focused on majority-making battlegrounds while safe Black seats are drawn out; and years of chronic underfunding that has allowed local party apparatus to wither away.
A radiant Lupita N'yongo in a silver mesh sheath dress with a side arm opening that reveals she don't need no side arm because her body is the weapon, okay? Okay. (Photo is from Harper's Bazaar US insta carousel and they did not include a photographer credit. Boo hiss on that)
An empty bowl that previously held 5 pounds of potato salad
A selfie of Soraya in a big sun hat, sunglasses, and a halterneck green dress with white polka dots. She's holding a big bowl of potato salad.
A photo of Soraya from behind, as she photographs the Mona Lisa with zero other people around her. Not AI!
A black cat, annoyed at off-year turnout, sitting on his cardboard window seat above an I VOTED 2026 sticker.
Atlantic screenshot text Other than perhaps Donald Trump, it’s difficult to argue anyone has been more successful at this than Musk. Musk excels not because he can’t stop winning, but because he understands that, in the financialized logic of our age, winning is less important than the perception that you will win. Speculation beats fundamentals. One way to look at Musk’s personal brand is as somebody who has borrowed obsessively against his own reputation, each loan used to invest in and service the debt of the last, until it becomes impossible to follow the money. One of the things that makes Elon Musk so valuable is how valuable he is.
A selfie of Soraya in a white blouse, jeans and sandals, leaning against a brick building. She's wearing oversized bug eye sunglasses and a shirt curly black bob.
A selfie of Soraya in big round iris apfel style tortoise shell shades and a white line blouse amidst her natural habitat (summertime Brooklyn)
Close up of my mini panther, Radamès, just doing his best, ok!
A close up shot of a gray tabby queen, a star, an absolutely iconic diva.
Event flyer text: Justin Ellis Soraya McDonald Jun 16 @ 7pm McNally Jackson Seaport
Maya Rudolph in the scene from Bridesmaids (2011) in which she squats and shits uncontrollably in the middle of the street while wearing a very poufy expensive wedding dress. Her character's guts were also introduced to a hostile pathogen.
Soraya in an MTA station rocking orange, blue and white because KNICKS IN FIVE
A still from Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis Two women in abayas are accosting a young girl who is in wearing a top that reads "PUNK IS NOT DED"
NYT screenshot text Because the world’s largest tech firms are headquartered in California, the state has generally become a petri dish for A.I. experiments in education. In early August, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed education agreements with Nvidia, Adobe, Google, IBM and Microsoft; each company agreed to provide free A.I. resources to California schools. The goal is to create the “A.I. work force of the future” by training high school, community college and C.S.U. students to use the technology. In this spirit, C.S.U.’s A.I. Initiative has been marketed as simple progress — a way to ensure that the state’s working-class students are buoyed by the A.I. economy rather than left behind. After all, many students in the C.S.U. system are first-generation immigrants or the first in their families to go to college; roughly half identify as Hispanic, and many commute to campus and work alongside their studies. With A.I.’s looming reorganization of the job market, many of these students might graduate into jobs that will no longer exist in five years. Already, recent reports estimate that roughly 40 percent of recent college graduates nationwide are underemployed.
NYT screenshot text: On Saturday evening, she also released a lengthy direct-to-camera video acknowledging that the couple had faced challenges, but saying that “our marriage counselor helps, my personal counselor helps, Graham’s personal counselor helps, and we work on our mental health every day.” “No marriage is perfect, and I don’t want a perfect marriage,” Ms. Gertner said. “I want my marriage, and I want to be married to Graham.”
A gray tabby who would not be moved by her obnoxious brother bleps in satisfaction. She's sitting on a cardboard bed suction cupped to the window enjoying the sunshine. A slightly curled black tail is visible in the foreground of the window sill, stomping off after failing to convince her to move.
Radamès, the captain of the Egyptian guard, faces the Egyptian princess Amneris in a scene from a Metropolitan Opera production of "Aida." Amneris is standing facing the camera atop steps to a tomb. She's flanked by a chorus of attendants, courtiers, and priests in white to her left and right. Radamès faces Amneris, his back to the camera, wearing a gilded cape.
A gray tabby nestled on a suspended cardboard window perch. You can see her reflection in the window. Below her is a black cat who is pissy because his efforts to dislodge her by sitting on her face and then hovering over her have failed. He is unhappy because Judge Mom will not make the gray tabby move.
The taskforce was launched last September by Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, following an executive order by Trump, who cited the persistently high rate of violent crime in Memphis. Lee promptly activated the national guard and flooded his state’s second-largest city with more than 2,000 state and federal police officers. The US marshals service declined to comment on the ACLU’s allegations that agents and officers have targeted activists attempting to monitor the taskforce. Gadyaces S Serralta, director of the service, chairs the taskforce. ‘Taken away my peace’ Hunter Demster, lead litigant in the case, alleged that police officers surveilled his home, and the homes of other activists who had been trying to observe the taskforce’s activities. He described an alleged incident in which a masked agent driving an unmarked black Ford Expedition sped up and swerved toward him while he was standing near a grassy median. The vehicle turned sharply as it approached, missing him by two inches, he said in his declaration. In another alleged incident, an agent Demster had not previously met addressed him by name from the loudspeaker of a truck. “When I am home alone and I hear a branch snap, my heart drops,” Demster said in his declaration. “The presence of these unmarked vehicles outside my home gives me a scary, uneasy feeling that has taken away my peace inside my own home.” The six plaintiffs in the lawsuit offered meticulous documentation to support their allegations of retaliation by the taskforce. US Customs and Border Protection revoked the decade-long Global Entry expedited border screening program status of James West, a retired anesthesiologist, less than a month after he began photographing the activities of the taskforce, according to his declaration. The official email notification stated he no longer met requirements because he may be “subject to a law enforcement investigation” or was suspected of “conduct related to terrorism”.
Gaurdian screenshot text: “Before Figures came along,” Jackson said, “Sewell was representing all Black people in the state of Alabama because we basically had no representation.” The cost of erasure Figures won his seat in 2024 – a direct product of the supreme court decision in Allen v Milligan a year earlier that ordered Alabama to draw a second majority-Black district. It was the first time since Reconstruction that Alabama had sent two Black members to Congress simultaneously. In his first term, Figures secured nearly $19m in community project funds, much of it going to rural counties that had never before received a direct federal appropriation. He has elevated the crisis of the district’s potential medical desert – where 22 of 26 rural hospitals are rated at immediate risk of closure, where residents in some counties wait more than 45 minutes for an ambulance and where a baby can only be delivered in two of 13 counties. Figures said he was only just beginning to get more attention on the long list of needs in rural south Alabama. “We have to give voters a reason to go vote and believe in how we will look out for their communities and their needs,” Figures said. “It’s beyond just saying we will get them healthcare. The healthcare argument looks a lot different when you don’t have a hospital.”
The cover of the June 2026 issue of The Atlantic
A screenshot of an episode of "Our Ancestors Were Messy." Episode: Nora Holt: The Lives and Loves of Harlem's Legendary Blonde Bombshell
A stack of books on a black desk: Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement Blackness in Opera And So I Sing The Tenth Muse: a historical study of the opera libretto
A photo of a curly haired black woman (Sarah) holding up a copy of her book, A SECOND SIGHT, in front of her face. She's wearing a white blouse with tiny black polka dots and is standing in front of a black and white African mudcloth wall hanging.
Radamès the Opera Kitty, caught mid blep. He's black and sitting on a black and white blanket. Behind him is a multicolor chair upholstery (teal, white, yellow, magenta) in an African mudcloth pattern. A small shelf of orange books sits behind him.
A gray tabby walking toward the camera
Emily Blunt and Tom's ex-wife Giselle Bundchen in a still from The Devil Wears Prada, in which Giselle is peering, horrified, over her glasses.