SDM Magazine Issue #19 Winter 2017 by Swagga Digital Magazine

LOOK GREAT ❇ DRESS SHARP ❇ LIVE WELL

Introduction

saisonnier Vêtements d'hiver

❋ FASHION JANUARY - MARCH 2017

LIFESTYLES

Music&Art

THE ULTIMATE ASSAULT ON OBAMACARE

Culture pop En couleur vivante

✛

HOW DONALD TRUMP WINS BY LOSING

A QUESTION OF DIVERSITY

19 ISSUE

Culture

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ISSUE NO. 19/VOL 5 USD:$16.00

SHADES OF WINTER VEIN & CLOTH PERSONAL STYLE

WINTER 2017

DISPLAY UNTIL JANUARY 2017

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EDITOR’S NOTE

This publication is dedicated to my mom whose courage, strength, tenacity and love has been a rock for me in the production of this magazine. There are so many people who are instrumental in the production of this publication, and I could not possibly name them all in this writing but I just want to thank all of you and you know who you are, for assisting me with its continued prodction. Many thanks to all of the wonderful and talented models, photographers, MUA’s, and Hair Stylists and Stylists. Reproduction of any material within this publication in whole or in part is, prohibted without expressed consent of publisher. The publisher assumes no responsibility to any party of the information, claims or ads herein to include errors, inaccuracies or omissions. By advertising the advertisers agree to indemnify the Publisher against all claims relating to or resulting from saidadvertisements and or promotional material. Ron Fulcher Editor-In-Chief

COPYRIGHT ©2009-2016 SDM PUBLISHING ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reproduction in whole or in part without the permission of SDM The Magazine is prohibited. SDM The Magazine does not accept and cannot be held responsible for any kind of unsolicted materials. Published Quarterly, Four (4) Times a year. Available in Print, Mobile, and available for download to Apple, Android, Ipad and Tablets. Visit our website at www.swaggadigitalmagazine.com Need to send a email to the EDITOR: sdm_magazine@yahoo.com. For subscription information email us at: sdm_magazine@yahoo.com Printed in the USA, MAIL P.O. Box 3138 Oakland, California 94609 CALL 1.213.986.8351 CUSTOMER SERVICE: sdm_magazine@yahoo.com CONNECT WITH US EMAIL SDM_MAGAZINE@YAHOO.COM SOCIAL MEDIA: facebook/swaggadigitalmagazine, instagram/@swaggadigitalmag twitter/@blackberryron snapchat/@SWAGGADIGITALMAG Visit Issuu.Com,Blur.com and Magcloud.com Digital Newstands to download our digital version to IPAD, TABLET, IPHONE or your Andriod Device

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M D EDITOR’S NOTE

VOLUME V, NO. 19 | WINTER ISSUE

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WWW.SWAGGADIGITALMAGAZINE.COM EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | RON FULCHER

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INTRODUCING SABIAN ZAKORY QUESADA

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PROMOTION

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PHOTO BY: VINCENT GOTTI

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TABLE OF CONTENTS QUICK READS 60 HOW DONALD TRUMP WINS BY LOSING WRITTEN BY: TIM WUM 64 A QUESTION OF DIVERSITY WRITTEN WORDS: RON FULCHER A QUESTION OF CULTURE 66 THE ULTIMATE ASSAULT ON OBAMACARE MYTH OR TRUTH

FEATURES 11 ON THE COVER SPLASH OF WINTER RED MODEL: SABIAN ZAKORY QUESADA STYLIST: MARIO B PHOTOGRAPHER ASSISTANT: CARLOS VONTEEÊ¼AGO ART DIRECTOR: MARIO B PRODUCTIONS PHOTOGRAPHER: RON FULCHER 32 SPLASH OF WINTER FASHION WINTER COLLECTION LEE RICKIE COLLECTION STYLIST: RICKIE LEE PHOTOGRAPHER: RON FULCHER

VOLUME 5 ISSUE 19

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EDITORIAL 28 BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS MUST READS BOOKS IN PRINT I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO: JAMES BALDWIN HILL HARPER: THE WEALTH CURE THRILLER: JAMES PATTERSON BITTER SWEET LOVE: MICHAEL FAUDET 40 VEIN & CLOTH WINTER IN NEW YORK CITY A MODELÊ¼S PROSPECTIVE ART DIRECTOR: VEIN & CLOTH PHOTOGRAPHER: LILLIAN SNELLING

FEATURES 48 ROOTS: A POEM BY PHARAOH SADDIQ CULTURE WORDS BY: PHARAOH SADDIQ 36 A TOUCH OF SPRING PREVIEW OF SPRING ISSUE HIGHLIGHTED WITH FASHION IN BLACK & WHITE STYLIST: PHAROAHBRAND HAIR/MAKEUP: JACQUELYN VASSAR 54 POP CULTURE: IN LIVING COLOR PERSONAL STYLE WITH BLONDE HAIR MIXED WITH FASHION A SPLASH OF WINTER & SPRING PHOTOGRAPHER: RON FULCHER

B00 B00 B00

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0KS 0KS 0KS

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30 SDM MAGAZINE WINTER ISSUE Raoul Peck is a filmmaker acclaimed for his historical,political, and artistic work. Born in Haiti, he grew up in Congo, France, Germany, and the United States. His body of work includes the films The Man by the Shore (Competition, Cannes 1993); Lumumba (Cannes 2000, HBO); and Sometimes in April (2005, HBO). He is currently chairman of the French national film school, La Femis, and recently completed his next feature film, The Young Karl Marx (2017). To compose his stunning documentary film, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO, acclaimed filmmaker Raoul Peck mined James Baldwin’s published and unpublished oeuvre, selecting passages from his books, essays, letters, notes, and interviews that are every bit as incisive and pertinent now as they have ever been. Weaving these texts together, Peck brilliantly imagines the book that Baldwin never wrote. In his final years, Baldwin had envisioned a book about his three assassinated friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. His deeply personal notes for the project have never been published before. Peck’s film uses them to jump through time, juxtaposing Baldwin’s private words with his public statements, in a blazing examination of the tragic history of race in America.

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Ifilm, AM NOT YOUR Raoul Peck mined James NEGRO o,’shis compose stunning documentary acclaimed filmmaker Baldwin published and unpublished oeuvre, selecting passages from his books, essays, letters, notes, and Peck interviews as incisive that and are pertinent every bit that now astexts they have ever been. Weaving these together, brilliantly imagines the book Baldwin never wrote. his final years, Baldwin had envisioned a book about his In three ers, assassinated Malcolm X, friends: and Medgar Ev Peck Martin Luther King, Jr. His deeply personal notes project ’shave film never uses them been published jump before. time, private juxtaposing words with his public statements, in a for the blazing f-1’sthe examination tragic o ofto race in through America. Go tNotes on Tell I Baldwin James Baldwin was ahistory (1924 novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, Mountain critic, and the author more than twenty books. Hissocial first novel, h Fire e987) Next of n Native So ,aT appeared inthe 1953 toofexcellent reviews, and is essay collections and Time were bestsellers made him an influential figure the civil rights movement. Baldwin spent many in France, where he moved to that escape the racism and homophobia of thehears United States. He died inin 1987.

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winter shades of

LEE RICKIE COLLECTION

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SEE EYEWEAR

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A Taste of Spring

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PROMOTION

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Vein & Cloth Photography by Lillian Snelling

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Roots by Pharaoh Saddiq the stem of institutionalization grows many branches that never bloom flowers; for these branches forget they have roots to help them bloom. all i see are strange trees that bear strange fruit: fruit with red and blue colors; fruit that are rotten bearing crippling seeds; and fruit with gunshots bleeding their juices. so i say to the trees in the forest of ghettos soiled with 40 acres of a rotten dream and in the urban jungles where pigs are predators… i say “remember your roots! roots of newton panthers nourished by the dreams of a king. remember your roots so you may use them to bloom flowers and not strange fruit.”

CULTURE

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Culture pop En couleur vivante

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PROMOTION

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How Donald Trump Wins by Losing

I By TIM WUM

t is impossible not to watch: Every day of the Trump administration seemingly brings another plot twist, a new initiative, outlandish attack or bizarre reversal. Not since wartime has news been so riveting — and with the president fighting so many “enemies,” it is actually not unlike war coverage. The nonstop media coverage cannot be faulted for being uncritical: It is, instead, a detailed assessment of the wins and losses of a wild presidency. Yet is it possible that the media, and many viewers, are using the wrong metrics of success?

Traditionally, politicians have measured “success” or “failure” by public approval or the achievement of political goals. But these may be the wrong ways to assess a president who, in his heart, seems interested in a different metric: attention, or less colloquially, “mindshare.” While he may prefer winning to losing, he can still win by losing. For what really matters are the contests themselves — the creation of an absorbing spectacle that dominates headlines, grabs audiences and creates a world in which every conversation revolves around Mr. Trump and his doings. By this standard, Mr. Trump is not just winning, but crushing it. A centerpiece is the media strategy of “continual warfare” that has characterized the presidency. Since assuming office, Mr. Trump has waged war on intelligence agencies, immigrants from Muslim countries, the federal judiciary, “professional protesters,” Barack Obama, Mexico, Australia and, above all, the media, the very “enemy of the people.” Every politician picks fights. But by any traditional measure it would be

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folly to pick so many fights at once, and those battles have already yielded some spectacular defeats that have cheered his opponents. Yet the warfare makes sense in so far as it gives the president what he really wants: a role in which he can fully employ his naturally abrasive energies to generate a riveting spectacle. As George Orwell put it, “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.” Beyond the combat, another key to the addictive nature of Trump-news is its unpredictable, erratic nature. A single day might include some random attacks, followed by a surprise policy reversal, like Tuesday’s promised compromise on undocumented immigrants, followed immediately by something shockingly normal, like his scripted address to Congress, which, illogically and unexpectedly, made no reference whatsoever to the earlier proposal. These kinds of random and rambling sequences create what behavioral scientists call a “variable reward schedule,” a key addictive ingredient in things like slot machines, social media and the Kardashian family. You don’t have to like it to get hooked, and the result is to keep the whole country, and much of the world, entranced, as if to a disco tune that has implanted itself in the global consciousness and will not go away. Indeed, a good sign that Mr. Trump is winning by his own terms is just how many of your private conversations somehow turn to him, compelled by the irresistible force of addictive media. START FOLLOWING

If Mr. Trump is winning the contest for mindshare, the more important question is whether he’s really winning — whether the fixation on attention is an astute assessment of where the real power lies in our times, or just the superficial and maybe uncontrollable pursuit of attention for its own sake. One possibility is that, for this presidency, whether anything is

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four (or maybe two, or maybe eight) years of riveting developments and a blowout finale, the administration will be gone, leaving little in its wake, beyond the memories, occasional cast reunions and “where are they now” columns. The careless execution of some of the early initiatives supports the idea that this president views the trouble of actually following through as inessential. “Victory” can always be claimed anyhow, especially when facts are just props, deployed for dramatic effect. But alternatively, and as painful as it may be to admit, the strategy may actually be a winning media strategy in 2017. Outsiders may think that the White House gets all the attention it wants, but even the Executive Office faces tough competition when trying to reach a highly-distracted citizenry. Gone are the days where the president could turn to the radio for a fireside chat and expect, as Franklin Roosevelt did, 60 million listeners. President Obama also delivered a weekly radio address — but most radio stations declined to carry it, and online it clocked fewer clicks than some viral cat photos. While Mr. Obama’s big televised speeches were widely watched, many of his policy initiatives were poorly covered, being worthy but not particularly newsworthy. Barack Obama was a celebrity, but by contemporary media standards, just too well-mannered and predictable to grab huge attention. Mr. Trump, to state the obvious, does not have that problem. Indeed, he has demonstrated that he can hold a news conference consisting of little more than shouting at his enemies for an hour and still dominate national headlines. Consequently, the Trump circus — thanksPHOTO: largely ALAN BREZANto Twitter and intense media coverage — has more of the nation paying more attention to the president than at any time in decades, and maybe since Roosevelt himself. The achievement is even more impressive given that Roosevelt had a built-in advantage: He was battling the Great Depression, then the Third Reich and the Japanese empire. Mr. Trump somehow draws similar attention fighting “bad hombres” from Mexico, immigrants from places like Sudan and Somalia and CNN.

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While Mr. Trump’s methods are of our time, the goal of dominating mindshare is a classic strategy of influence, because the sheer volume of messaging allows the leader to transform minds, construct alternative realities and begin changing the rules of the game itself. As the philosopher, Jacques Ellul wrote of propaganda, to be effective, it needs to be “total,” meaning that as much of the population as possible must be continuously exposed. Though we don’t have a state-run media, we do live in a society in which the president’s face and messages are sufficiently omnipresent to give Mao or Lenin a run for their money. When is the last time you went a day without seeing the “great leader”? While the strategy — like an annoying advertisement — may be surprisingly effective, it may also hint at this president’s greatest weakness. If Mr. Trump is immune to ordinary defeats or criticism, he does, of course, have a desperate fear of being ignored. As the presidency progresses it may prove as much a slave to the ratings as any TV network. So, if the public is bored by the Affordable Care Act (without Mr. Obama, there’s no “opponent”), might Mr. Trump lose interest and start a new battle somewhere else? Being hitched to the twin necessities of constant warfare and the public’s limited attention span may yield a series of unfinished projects that ultimately amount to little. It also suggests that Mr. Trump’s eventual downfall may be less like Richard Nixon’s than Paris Hilton’s. To live by attention is to die by it as well, and he may end up less a victim of political defeat than of waning interest, the final fate of every act. !

PHOTO: CRYSTAL CLEAR PHOTOGRAPHY

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A QUESTION OF DIVERSITY

fter the nation’s first black president, we now have a white president with the whitest and the most male dominated cabinet since Ronald Reagan’s. His administration immediately made it a priority to deport undocumented immigrants and to deny people from certain Muslimmajority nations entry into the United States, decisions that caused tremendous blowback. What President Trump doesn’t seem to have considered is that diversity doesn’t just sound nice, it has tangible value. Social scientists find that homogeneous groups like his cabinet can be less creative and insightful than diverse ones. They are more prone to groupthink and less likely to question faulty assumptions. What’s true of groups is also true for individuals. A small but growing body of research suggests that multiracial people are more open-minded and creative. Here, it’s worth remembering that Barack Obama, son of a Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, wasn’t only the nation’s first black president, he was also its first biracial president. His multitudinous self was, I like to think, part of what made him great — part of what inspired him when he proclaimed that there wasn’t a red or blue America, but a United States of America. As a person of color, myself — — I can attest that being a person of color, makes it harder to fall back on the tribal identities that have guided so much of my human history, and that are now resurgent. Your background pushes you to construct a worldview that transcends the tribal. You’re also accustomed to the idea of having several selves, and of trying to forge them into something whole. That task of selfcreation isn’t unique to biracial people; it’s a defining experience of modernity. Once the old stories about God and tribe — the framing that historically gave our lives context — become inadequate, on!

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what do we base our identities? How do we give our lives meaning and purpose? President Trump has answered this challenge by reaching backward — vowing to wall off America and invoking a whiter, more homogeneous country. This approach is likely to fail for the simple reason that much of the strength and creativity of America, and modernity generally, stems from diversity. And the answers to a host of problems we face may lie in more mixing, not less. Consider this: By 3 months of age, biracial infants recognize faces more quickly than their monoracial peers, suggesting that their facial perception abilities are more developed. Kristin Pauker, a psychologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and one of the researchers who performed this study, likens this flexibility to bilingualism. Early on, infants who hear only Japanese, say, will lose the ability to distinguish L’s from R’s. But if they also hear English, they’ll continue to hear the sounds as separate. So, it is with recognizing faces, Dr. Pauker says. Kids naturally learn to recognize kin from non-kin, in-group from out-group. But because they’re exposed to more human variation, the in-group for multiracial children seems to be larger. This may pay off in important ways later. In a 2015 study, Sarah Gaither, an assistant professor at Duke, found that when she reminded multiracial participants of their mixed heritage, they scored higher in a series of word association games and other tests that measure creative problem solving. When she reminded monoracial people about their heritage, however, their performance didn’t improve. Somehow, having multiple selves enhanced mental flexibility.

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THE ULTIMATE ASSAULT ON OBAMACARE

n contrast, in the Republican formulation, the size of the tax credits is coupled only to the age of the recipient; older Americans get more, on the principle that the cost of insurance is higher for those of more advanced years.

The problem is that while the A.C.A. uses government funds to cap the percentage of income that each person must spend to pay for a robust health care plan, the Republican approach would almost certainly provide millions of individuals and families with less than the cost of quality insurance. In fairness, President Trump has not yet provided details of how he would like to see the replacement crafted. But the House Republican leadership has been circulating a draft of their ideas for helping those without employer-based health insurance, and it is not a pretty picture. As the chart below shows, lower income Americans of all ages and older ones in middle income brackets would receive materially less in government support under the Republican proposal than they are currently getting through Obamacare. Meanwhile, higher income earners â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who currently get no subsidies â&#x20AC;&#x201D; would find themselves with a windfall. Why on earth should these folks get a handout of $2,000 to $4,000 a year? !

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And it could get even worse. Although a small minority, a group of highly conservative House members, known as the Freedom Caucus, are opposed to the credits, in part because of their budgetary cost. They favor providing tax deductions instead. But while a tax credit returns money on a dollar-for-dollar basis, a tax deduction only yields a percentage equal to an individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tax rate. A filer who pays the maximum 39.6 percent rate would thus receive $396 for each $1,000 of tax deductions. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still more harsh is that someone who pays the lowest rate of 10 percent would get only $100 in this example. And to !

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even get that, a tax payer would have to itemize his deductions, which many people down the income scale donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not the only problem with the Republican approach. The A.C.A. varies the level of subsidy based on the cost of insurance in different cities and states; the size of the tax credits under the House plan are uniform across the country. Photo

And the increase in tax credits for older Americans in the Republican construct is significantly smaller than the increase!

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in health insurance premiums for these individuals. While the draft House plan doubles the size of the tax credit between ages 27 and 60, the same legislation would allow premiums to be five times as high for older adults as for younger people. Lastly, the Republicans would provide for their tax credits to increase each year by inflation plus one percentage point. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s far less than the historic rate at which premiums have risen. As a result, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that by 2022, the average benefit received by someone buying insurance on the exchanges would be 41 percent lower under the House plan than under Obamacare. START FOLLOWING

The tax credits are by no means the only problem with the vision outlined Tuesday by the president. Mr. Trump said that those with pre-existing conditions would continue to be guaranteed coverage. But without the Obamacare requirement that all Americans purchase coverage, the insurance companies will probably not receive enough premium dollars from healthy individuals to be able to pay the medical bills of those with pre-existing conditions. He also hinted at support for another feature of the House plan, providing states with a fixed amount of funding for Medicaid rather than meeting all the needs of those who qualify, as is the case at present. That will surely force states to reduce their Medicaid benefits. Remember that about half of the more than 20 million Americans that have become insured under the A.C.A. receive their coverage through Medicaid. !

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Last â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and perhaps most controversial â&#x20AC;&#x201D; is the debate over whether every insurance plan needs to provide adequate minimum benefits, such as prenatal care and mental health services. President Obama said yes; President Trump says no. The advantages of the Obama approach are relatively obvious; Mr. Trump argues that for Americans with limited resources, having some insurance is better than having none and perhaps also better than forcing families to allocate more precious dollars than they would like to health coverage. In essence, Mr. Trump is arguing that it would be better to let them pay less and so get less.

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ITS MY LIFE

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SDM itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more than a magazine its a lifestyle......

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Hair & Makeup Jacquelyn Vassar Wardrobe Stylist PharoahBrand Model: Ashley Salais Photo: Ron Fulcher

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