What emerges from the scandal—three leading Democrats and a top labor bureaucrat caught in the act of racialized scheming regarding LA's redistricting process—is a picture of a trade union leadership that is out of touch with the most basic of trade-union values: to represent the interests of all workers based on the fact that we are workers. Union leaders should not be playing racial political games.

Many have commented as well on The Bear’s commitment to reproducing details of restaurant life as if recounting an esoteric lore; the terminology, the habits, the various BOH personality tropes, sipping water out of plastic quart containers, etc.

However we must situate the phenomenon of the Bear in its proper context.