Bailey shared the news on Instagram via a photo of herself holding two champagne flutes engraved with their names and their big day.
“The Real Housewives of Atlanta” cast member Cynthia Bailey recently announced that her wedding to fiancé Mike Hill will proceed on the original date, despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Bailey shared the news in an Instagram post on Sept. 6, in which she posted a photo of herself holding two champagne flutes. Each glass was engraved with her and Hill’s names and their October 10, 2020 wedding date.
“God’s timing, not mine. God’s will, not mine. God’s plan, not mine. God’s glory, not mine,” she wrote alongside the picture tagging her love, also adding hashtags that read, “2020″ and “CHill.”
Hill, an ESPN anchor, popped the question to Bailey last year after a year of dating. The proposal aired on the popular “Real Housewives” franchise series.
In early August, during an interview with E!’s “Daily Pop,” Bailey was asked if she was delaying her wedding plans. Her response: “That is the million-dollar question.”
In March, Bailey told Bravo that she and Hill thought they picked the perfect date.
In addition to finalizing the details of their pending wedding, the couple has also been busy learning to navigate their time in self-quarantine. Though being stuck inside together has “really tested” them at times, as Bailey told E! News, the duo remains closer than ever.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bailey and Hill will most certainly have an abbreviated guest list.
Bailey has been documenting her wedding preparation beauty routine on Instagram, where she shared that she had recently received a HydraFacial from celebrity aesthetician Jamesa Buchanan.
Bailey was previously married to Peter Thomas from 2010 until 2017. She also shares 19-year-old daughter Noelle with an ex-boyfriend, actor Leon Robinson. Hill, too, was previously married, and he co-parents daughters Ashlee and Kayla with ex-wife Cynthia Hill.
Bailey has been a part of the cast of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” since 2010.
Previously, BLACK ENTERPRISEreported on entertainment mogul Akon’s plans to create a Wakanda-like city in his home country of Senegal. This week, he announced that his company has begun to break ground on the construction of the $6 billion development project. He took to social media to unveil the first 3-D rendering of his Akon City.
“We are looking at Akon city to become the beginning of Africa’s future,” said the rapper at the special ceremony to celebrate the start of construction of the city, according to CNN. “Our idea is to build a futuristic city that incorporates all the latest technologies, cryptocurrencies, and also the future of how African society should become in the future.”
Numerous government officials attended the ceremony celebrating the new project, including the minister of tourism, Alioune Sarr, who praised the entrepreneur for making such an investment during the novel coronavirus pandemic. “At a time, in a context where national and international private investment is rare,” he said, according to CNN. “Akon, you have chosen to come to Senegal and invest $6 billion in the coming years.”
Akon’s hopes the city will bring new opportunities for the people of Senegal while also making a destination where African Americans can travel and be free from the discrimination they face in the United States.
“I wanted to build a city or a project like this that would give [African Americans] the motivation to know that there is a home back home… The system back [home in the US] treats them unfairly in so many different ways that you can never imagine and they only go through it because they feel like there is no other way,” he added.
“As you are coming from America or Europe, anywhere in the diaspora and you feel that you want to visit Africa, we want Senegal to be your first stop.”
Vox’s book critic recommends books to fit your very specific mood.
Welcome to the latest installment of Vox’s Ask a Book Critic, in which I, Vox book critic Constance Grady, provide book recommendations to suit your very specific mood: either how you’re feeling right now or how you’d like to be feeling instead.
My friends, it has been a little while since we’ve done one of these! I’ve received some concerned messages from readers who worried that the series was over for good, but I promise it is not. It will continue, just not on a weekly basis as it was for awhile.
What have you been reading in the interim? I just finished rereading Elif Batuman’s The Idiot for the Vox Book Club, and I’m delighted to find that my memory had undersold how funny it is. (The scene where Selin keeps talking about how clean the strawberries are? You’ll get it if you read it.) I am also faintly terrified that I have signed myself up for a month of discussing this book, because it is the kind of book that strongly resists discourse. But we will find our way through together!
Of course, I am aware that a person is not always in the mood to read a book about complex language games and adolescent disillusionment. That’s why this column exists: You tell me exactly what you want to read, and I will find the book for you. Let’s get started.
I’m feeling lost figuring out exactly what kind of man I want to be after transitioning. Do you have suggestions for a coming-of-age style story with a male protagonist who is already an adult?
Love this question! Just on the off chance you haven’t come across these transmasculine memoirs already, definitely pick up Daniel Lavery’s Something That May Shock and Discredit You (published under the name Daniel Mallory Ortberg), and also consider Amateur by Thomas Page McBee.
In terms of novels, I think a solid bet for you is going to be quest novels, because the hero is often an adult and generally the thing that he finds at the end turns out to be what kind of person he is. Sean Stewart’s Perfect Circle is a great option here, and I’d also throw in Possession (dual protagonists, a whole lot of thinking about how what we grow up believing we want from life is not in fact what we want as adults).
This is also the kind of thing the classics are actually great for in a way a lot of contemporary novels won’t be. So often contemporary novels in which a man tries to find his identity have assholes as main characters, because contemporary literary fiction is too steeped in irony to handle this question with the sincerity it deserves. I’m thinking Daniel Deronda, and honestly War and Peace, which is in large part devoted to Pierre trying to work out what kind of man he is and what kind of man he wants to be.
I’ve read Eve Babitz’s books during quarantine and am looking for something similar. She writes about things I love to read about — the 1960s, LA, love, sex, fame, and parties, but she’s also super smart, witty, and literary. I’ve already read Joan Didion.
Try Bill Cunningham’s memoir Fashion Climbing for glamour and parties, Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair Diaries for name-dropping with literary flair, and maybe some Cookie Mueller for all around fabulousness.
I have a long-running search for books that have a strong sense of place and I’m always sort of drawn to the mountain west. My favorite book is The Winter of Our Discontent. I love Steinbeck when he kept the story reasonably tight. So I’d love other thoughts on writers along those lines.
My friend, this is a list crying out for some Annie Proulx! Her most famous story has mountain right there in the title, and all of her stuff is very intimately, richly grounded in the natural landscape. Plus, there is no one on the planet who writes a more devastatingly tight sentence than her.
I need something that’s exactly like The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
To be completely honest here, I have to admit that The Kingkiller Chronicles are not my jam (no man is allowed to complain to me about Mary Sues until Rothfuss atones for Kvothe), but I do love a good sword-and-sorcery fantasy. A great option for you would be Ellen Kushner’s Riverside series, starting with Swordspoint — velvety prose, intricate worldbuilding and incredibly rich, compelling characters. It always makes me crave rich hot chocolate in an immaculate porcelain cup.
For something like Hitchhiker, my go-to recs are Terry Pratchett and Jasper Fforde. If you have already read them, consider Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles. She’s American so her comedic sensibility is different, but she does similar riffs on genre tropes and her books are all extremely lovable.
I really enjoyed Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White and The Moonstone. I loved the fun plots, the distinctive characters, and the shifting narratives. Would love recommendations for anything similar!
Oh trust, I love a Victorian thriller. So Collins actually had a protégé named Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and scholars sometimes call them respectively the king and queen of the sensation novel. Try starting with Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret — there’s bigamy and murder and a scheming social striver who is technically the villain but whom I personally always root for.
I would also maybe consider trying George Gissing, who is an interesting writer because he veers back and forth so sharply between social realism and an extremely heightened world where characters are always throwing acid in each other’s faces and running away cackling. This is maybe because the details of Gissing’s real life read like a pulp novel and he legitimately did not seem to understand the difference between the two genres — his first wife was a prostitute, his second wife was eventually committed to an insane asylum, it just gets wilder from there — but it makes for a very compelling reading experience.
I’m looking for a good erotic novel in the vein of Lust, Caution by Eileen Chang.
Try Silk by Alessandro Baricco. The prose is so delicate and precise it feels tactile.
If you’d like me to recommend a book for you, email me at constance.grady@vox.com with the subject line “Ask a Book Critic.” The more specific your mood, the better!
Help keep Vox free for all
Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what’s happening in the news, from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is, quite possibly, the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers, your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work, and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world. Contribute today from as little as $3.
Joey Gibson (right), founder of Patriot Prayer, rallies supporters outside Vancouver City Hall during a protest against the Washington state mask mandate on June 26. | Karen Ducey/Getty Images
Patriot Prayer has one purpose — to fight the left.
The victim of Saturday’s shooting, identified by the group’s founder Joey Gibson as Aaron “Jay” Danielson, was 39 years old. He died after a pro-Trump truck caravan advertised on Facebook wound its way through the city on Saturday night, which protesters then attempted to disrupt.
Danielson, a native Portlander, was wearing a hat emblazoned with the Patriot Prayer logo when he was killed. In an interview with Reason Magazine’s Nancy Rommelmann, Gibson, who described Danielson as a good friend, said the truck caravan “wasn’t even a Patriot Prayer thing.”
Ted Warren/AP
Michael Reinoehl, 48, was killed as a federal task force attempted to apprehend him in Lacey, Washington. Reinoehl was the prime suspect in the killing of 39-year-old Aaron “Jay” Danielson.
What a “Patriot Prayer thing” is — and what Patriot Prayer is, exactly — depends on whom you ask. The group described itself on its Facebook page as an organization based on “encouraging the country to fight for freedom at a local level using faith in God to guide us in the right direction.”
That fight has often been physical. Patriot Prayer members have dedicated themselves to fighting antifa and leftist groups in cities across the Pacific Northwest, including Portland. Brutal street fights between the two groups, often captured on video posted online by observers and members, have taken place since 2017. Gibson, its leader, has been indicted on a felony rioting charge.
The group, founded in 2016, has also had close associations with far-right groups like the Proud Boys and with white supremacists. A man who murdered two people on a train in May 2017 had previously attended a Patriot Prayer event, giving fascist salutes and yelling racist slurs. (Gibson said in an interview with the Guardian that the man had “nothing to do with” Patriot Prayer.)
The group’s goals seem, at best, amorphous. But their enemy is not: They want to fight the left, and win.
Patriot Prayer’s origin story: Trump, Jesus and anti-leftism
The story of Patriot Prayer begins in 2016, when Gibson, a half-Japanese Vancouver, Washington, resident and a former football coach who makes a living flipping houses, formed the group in reaction to the rise of left-wing activist groups in the Pacific Northwest — with the intention of confronting those groups. I contacted Gibson for an interview, but he did not respond.
Before Patriot Prayer, Gibson was a prominent supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential run, and spoke at Trump rallies in Washington state. At a rally on October 2, 2016, he railed against culture war touchstones (transgender rights, for example) while saying that Trump will “slim” down Washington “just how you run a business.”
“Humans are beautiful creatures with hearts that just glow,” he said. “When we don’t have people with boots on our necks, we can do amazing things.”
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Joey Gibson of Patriot Prayer leads protesters through the streets of Portland, Oregon, on August 17, 2019.
He also ran for the US Senate in 2018 as a “libertarian”-leaning Republican who wanted to abolish the IRS and spoke at anti-Covid-19 shutdown rallies across the Pacific Northwest.
But what Gibson claims about himself, and about Patriot Prayer, differs significantly from what he and the group have actually said and done.
In an interview with professors Daniel Martinez HoSang and Joseph E. Lowndes for the 2019 book Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity, Gibson said his influences were Jesus Christ and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “with him preaching love and peace and nonviolent resistance. A lot of stuff that he did is stuff that I have been trying to do.”
He decried mass incarceration and denounced mandatory minimum sentencing to HoSang and Lowndes: “It’s been completely disruptive to the Black community. Do we really need to put all these people in a jail cell and take away their freedoms because they have an addiction? It’s crazy to me.”
But as HoSang and Lowndes note, Gibson’s descriptions of his influences and inspirations don’t match the group’s activities.
Lowndes described Patriot Prayer as a “kind of far-right gang or crew” that participated in a “broad range of identifiably right-wing causes,” like anti-feminism and anti-communism. For example, in 2018, Patriot Prayer took part in a #HimToo rally aimed as a reaction to the Me Too movement against sexual assault. Led by Patriot Prayer member Haley Adams (who declared that “men are under attack in the US”), attendees decried a supposed rise in false rape allegations they deemed to be tied to the Me Too movement.
To be clear, Patriot Prayer is not explicitly a white nationalist group, Lowndes said. Its members, like the Proud Boys, “pride themselves on being multiracial.” But he added that Patriot Prayer is “definitely far-right, if not openly fascist”: “Members celebrate Latin American far-right regimes, wear shirts that read ‘RWDS’ (for right-wing death squads), [and] claim to be defending the nation against communists and anarchists in their attacks.”
That was clear at an August 2018 Patriot Prayer rally, where Patriot Prayer member Tusitala “Tiny” Toese and others wore shirts that said “PINOCHET WAS RIGHT” (referring to the late Chilean dictator) on the front, with “RWDS” on the sleeve and “Make communists afraid of rotary aircraft again” on the back — a reference to so-called “death flights” used by far-right military forces in Argentina and Chile during the 1970s and 1980s, where victims were hurled from helicopters into rivers or the open sea.
Forgot to post this earlier: I asked Proud Boy/Patriot Prayer member Tusitala ‘Tiny’ Toese about his PINOCHET WAS RIGHT t-shirt.
“Didn’t Pinochet kill like 35,000 people?” I asked him.
If Patriot Prayer has a unifying characteristic, it is avowed and strenuous anti-leftism, with “left” interpreted broadly by the group. Sometimes that means protesting cities with “sanctuary” policies for unauthorized immigrants or holding rallies to protest stay-at-home orders aimed at stemming the tide of the coronavirus pandemic.
The group’s laser focus on the city of Portland is because of the city’s left-leaning reputation. Gibson lives in Vancouver, Washington, and few members of the group interviewed in 2018 actually lived in Oregon. (Patriot Prayer often uses Facebook to recruit attendees to events in Portland and other left-leaning cities.)
In a 2018 interview with conspiracy theorist and Infowars founder Alex Jones, Gibson said his reasoning for focusing on Portland was because of the city’s “darkness”:
Portland is one of the worst cities in this country. It’s full of so much darkness. That’s why I’m so motivated to go there. If we don’t bring all of this hate onto the streets from antifa and communists, well, people won’t see it. I’m happy to go down there and stand up for freedom and stand up for God.
But the real motivation for Patriot Prayer’s activities in Portland seems to center largely on generating a reaction. In Portland and in other left-leaning cities, Patriot Prayer is likely to find the two things the group seemingly desires: a physical confrontation with protesters, including anti-fascist and anarchist groups, and a sympathetic reception from right-leaning viewers watching the action at home across the United States. (That has allegedly even included Portland police officers, who have been accused of overlooking the group’s violence while targeting counterprotesters.)
For example, in 2017 the group showed up at a protest of a store in Portland that sold Confederate flag memorabilia, acting, in their words, as “antifa watchers” and arguing with attendees about the Civil War. At a “Free Alex Jones” protest in Austin, Texas, in September 2018, Patriot Prayer members walked to a street festival, where Toese and others screamed obscenities at a group of young people wearing Obama hats. (Police eventually restrained Toese.)
In a January interview with journalist Sergio Olmos, a Patriot Prayer member said that without the opposition the group receives in Portland and elsewhere, Patriot Prayer would receive no attention whatsoever.
“Nobody would pay attention to us” without antifa, he said. “In liberal Portland we would be a couple of crazies, nutcases carrying a flag. We wouldn’t have a platform. We’d have been like four or five guys waving flags over an overpass. They’re the ones that made us famous.”
But Patriot Prayer is also perfectly able to generate violence on its own. Gibson was charged with starting a riot at a bar where anti-fascists were drinking following May Day celebrations in 2019, a fight allegedly instigated by Patriot Prayer members.
Patriot Prayer has a “close affinity” with right-wing militia groups
Because of Patriot Prayer’s anti-leftist perspective, Lowndes told me that the group has developed a “close affinity” with right-wing militia groups who share their disdain for the left, like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. The Three Percenters’ name stems from the historically inaccurate claim that just 3 percent of Americans fought against the British during the Revolutionary War, and is used by the group’s founder to refer to the supposed “three percent” of “gun owners who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act.”
Gibson “claims only to support vague principles, like ‘freedom’ and ‘law and order,’ but he’s made a clearly defined enemy in anti-fascists and the left more broadly,” Cassie Miller, senior research analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, told me. “This has created space for groups and individuals across the political right to join Gibson’s rallies. ... Anyone who wants to confront the left appears welcome at Patriot Prayer events, no matter their other beliefs.”
Karen Ducey/Getty Images
A right-wing demonstration organized by Patriot Prayer supporting gun rights and free speech held in Portland, Oregon, on August 4, 2018.
That welcome has extended to white nationalist individuals and organizations, despite Gibson’s purported disavowals of their ideology. Leftist groups like Rose City Antifa have compiled lengthy lists of white nationalists and white supremacists linked to Patriot Prayer and even invited to speak at Patriot Prayer events. As HoSang and Lowndes note in their book, Patriot Prayer events in 2017 and 2018 “drew members of white-supremacist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and Identity Evropa, and featured racist speakers and renowned streetfighters.”
Most infamously, on April 29, 2017, Jeremy Christian, the man who killed two people on a train in May 2017, attended a Patriot Prayer-led “free speech” event held in Portland. According to reporting by the Willamette Weekly, “He carried a baseball bat. He threw Nazi salutes and shouted racial slurs in a Burger King parking lot.”
While some attendees of the rally wanted him to stay (arguing that the right to unpopular speech was part of the point), he was eventually asked to leave the rally. In video of the rally, you can see Christian, wearing a Revolutionary War-era flag as a cape, being told by another rally attendee, “Dude, you’re giving the Nazi sign and you’re saying the n-word, so please go away.”
The following month, Christian (who had a long history of mental illness) stabbed two men to death and wounded another after the three men tried to stop Christian from harassing two young Black women on a Portland MAX train. He had been screaming at the women to “go back to Saudi Arabia” and saying that “colored people” had ruined Portland before the three men stepped in.
Gibson disavowed Christian after the murders, saying he had nothing to do with Patriot Prayer. But in a January interview with Olmos, he said that Christian had been a Bernie Sanders supporter, adding, “Jeremy Christian is not a racist,” before asking Olmos to name one racist thing Gibson had ever said. A few days after the murders, Gibson organized another rally, saying in an interview, “There is no way that we will stop. It is even more important that we come out with a strong message of love.”
A memorial rally, and removal from Facebook
On September 5, a memorial was held for Danielson in Vancouver, Washington. Attendees, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “Justice for J,” prayed together and listened to remarks made by Gibson, who told the crowd that anyone who started violence in Danielson’s memory was not associated with Patriot Prayer.
One day earlier, Facebook removed Patriot Prayer’s page from the site, as well as Gibson’s Instagram page, as part of an effort described by a Facebook spokesperson as “part of our ongoing efforts to remove Violent Social Militias from our platform.” In response, Gibson said in a statement, “Antifa groups murdered my friend while he was walking home, and instead of the multibillion dollar company banning Portland antifa pages they ban Patriot Prayer, Joey Gibson, and several other grandmas that are admins.”
Patriot Prayer has long attempted to straddle two sides of a political demarcation that exists in Portland and far beyond. The group purports to eschew violence while welcoming violent members and allies into its gatherings, and alleges to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and MLK Jr. while making friends with white nationalists and anti-government militia groups. Danielson’s killing wasn’t the fault of Joey Gibson or Patriot Prayer. But his death was part of a longstanding battle between the group, its allies, and the far-left activists they loathe, one with tragically real consequences.
Help keep Vox free for all
Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what’s happening in the news, from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is, quite possibly, the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers, your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work, and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world. Contribute today from as little as $3.
In the immediate aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police officers, white America experienced a reckoning of sorts. Record labels apologized for historically exploiting Black artists, cities painted murals in recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement, racists got outed, institutions …
Who are you?
-
Ever since I saw the first preview of the movie, Overcomer, I wanted to see
it. I was ready. Pumped. The release month was etched in my mind. When the
time...
7 Networking Tips to Meet Your Career Goals
-
Building your network is vital no matter where you are in your career
journey. For first-time job seekers, networking can help you gain
opportunities in ...
Why 2024 Is A Great Time to Take An Alaska Cruise
-
Alaska is unlike any other cruise destination. Given its history, culture,
geography and wildlife…it’s a real learning experience. Here are some of
the mos...
Master the Art of Asking Epic Travel Questions!
-
I’m blessed to have built a career in travel journalism over the last 12
years. Putting myself in the position to field hundreds of questions weekly
acro...
5 Tips to Know Before Arriving in Iceland
-
Reykjavik, Iceland, isn’t just a city full of snow and extremely cold
weather, but a city with some of mother nature’s most gorgeous landscapes
and attra...
Coconut Oil Supplements – How Helpful are They?
-
What are Coconut Oil Supplements? Even though coconut oil has been used in
the health and beauty industry for decades, it has recently been taking the
wo...
Master the Art of Asking Epic Travel Questions!
-
I’m blessed to have built a career in travel journalism over the last 12
years. Putting myself in the position to field hundreds of questions weekly
acro...
RV tire blowout part 4 – final
-
Recap – We had a major tire blowout on I-75 in Florida on our way back to
Georgia. I spent the night at Camping World’s parking lot. Drove back to
Georgia....
What We’re Reading | 2021 Staff Favorites
-
2021 is coming to a close. We laughed, we cried, and we read through the
chaos of living through another year of the pandemic. In honor of another
amazing ...
Everyday Life With Crypto: 5 Unique Gift Ideas
-
This year crypto is more than a buzzword! With over 18465 cryptocurrencies
already making their movements in the market, investors are getting
innovative...
Amanda Northrop/Vox
Joey Gibson (right), founder of Patriot Prayer, rallies supporters outside Vancouver City Hall during a protest against the Washington state mask mandate on June 26. | Karen Ducey/Getty Images
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21858047/AP_20248198669134.jpg)
Ted Warren/AP
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21858065/GettyImages_1162239605.jpg)
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21858076/GettyImages_1010935560.jpg)
Karen Ducey/Getty Images
