Politics and Prosecco

09/25/2026

Simply Put: Regret is not accountability. Compassion does not require amnesia.

09/24/2026

What happens when privilege puts on the costume of solidarity? Hannah Gann. Rachel Dolezal. Different stories, same uncomfortable question: what happens when white women borrow marginalized identities and use those identities to claim credibility, community, or moral authority?

This isn’t just about lying about being Black or Palestinian. It’s about power. Because privilege can walk into the room disguised as justice. It can learn the language of oppression, invoke “community” and “harm,” and position itself as an authority on struggles it does not actually live.

That tension is at the heart of today’s Politics & Prosecco substack: “The Borrowed Skin of Progressivism.” This is exactly why Cloak & State exists, to examine power, money, culture, and influence without looking away from the uncomfortable parts. Read it on Substack. Join the founding list. We’re not just watching the culture. We’re reading the room.

09/22/2026

THANK YOU.

Yesterday, I opened the doors to Cloak & State. In our first 24 hours, you responded with:

4,050 views
248 shares and reposts
20 new followers
43 Founding List members

These are more than numbers. They represent people who believe there is room, and a need for sharper conversations about power, money, culture and society.

Thank you for watching, sharing, joining and helping carry this vision forward. We are building something meaningful, and we are only getting started.

The full publication debuts November 10.

Join the Founding List at www.cloakandstate.com.

Jacquetta Van Zandt
Founder & Publisher
Cloak & State

09/21/2026

For the past year, I have been quietly turning a dream into a company.

Today, I am proud to introduce Cloak & State—an independent media company examining POWER. MONEY. CULTURE. SOCIETY. through the lens that connects them all: influence.

Cloak & State will tell the stories behind the headlines, examine who holds power, follow where the money moves, and explore the people and institutions shaping our culture and society.

And Politics & Prosecco is coming with me—returning as a signature Cloak & State franchise with the bold, candid political commentary you already know.

This is about more than launching a magazine. It is about building an institution.

Because the goal was never simply to build a successful magazine. The goal is to build the company that a successful magazine makes possible.

Cloak & State officially launches November 10.

Visit cloakandstate.com to join the Founding List. If you believe in independent voices and thoughtful storytelling, please watch, share, and help me introduce Cloak & State to the world.

We’re just getting started.

09/18/2026

5 things I’d tell 26-year-old Jacquetta

1. Stop chasing. Start choosing.
Your energy is expensive. Spend it accordingly. 💋

2. You’re not behind. You’re just not on their timeline.
Your life isn’t a group project. Take your time. Take the scenic route. Take up space.

3. Bet on yourself before you have the receipts.
The woman you want to become is built every time you choose courage over comfort.

4. Never make yourself smaller to keep someone comfortable.
You are not “too much.” You were just handing out VIP access to people who belonged in the general admission section. 😂

5. Make your life so good you stop auditioning for someone else’s.
But the real flex? Waking up obsessed with the life YOU created

09/16/2026

For all my sistahs out here buidling: This one is for you!

At some point, the question changes.

You stop asking, Where do I belong?
You begin asking, What should exist?

For years, I understood ambition as access: the right position, the right title and, eventually, a seat at the right table. But what happens when the seat is no longer large enough for the vision?

Today’s Politics & Prosecco is about the shift from seeking a position inside someone else’s institution to imagining an institution of your own and the quiet, disciplined work required to build a new chapter before anyone else can see it.

Lately, I have been thinking deeply about the places where power, money, culture and society meet and what kind of room those conversations deserve.

I am not ready to tell you everything I am building. But I am ready to let you see the blueprint.

Read “The Politics of the Next Chapter” and subscribe to Politics & Prosecco on Substack. The next conversation is already taking shape.

Read and subscribe at the link in my IG Story

09/14/2026

There is something about the Lindsay Clancy trial that we need to discuss and it is bigger than one verdict.

White women are often allowed to become the martyrs of movements when systems fail them.

Black women become monsters when those same systems fail us.

Let me be clear: this is not an argument against compassion for Lindsay Clancy or against taking postpartum psychosis seriously.

It is about who receives that compassion and who does not.

Because before Lindsay Clancy, there was Latarsha Sanders: a Black mother whose defense also centered on severe psychosis.

Same district attorney’s office.

Same judge.

But Sanders’s jury was denied thousands of pages of psychiatric records. She was convicted and sentenced to life without parole before the state’s highest court overturned those convictions and ordered a new trial.

Then there is Clancy’s lone holdout, the only Black juror, who has now become the villain of a story America had already decided should end with a white woman receiving mercy.

So, why does everything have to be about race?

Because race is already in the room.

My new Politics & Prosecco Substack article (Link in IG story), “The Mercy Gap,” examines who gets to be seen as sick, who gets labeled dangerous, and why white women so often become the sympathetic faces of systems that have quietly failed Black women for generations.

Follow Politics & Prosecco, subscribe to my Substack, and read the full article today.

Because mercy that depends upon race is not mercy.

It is privilege dressed up as empathy.

09/09/2026

I oppose the center-running bus lane on Blue Hill Avenue but I also believe residents deserve better than a false choice between this design and no investment.

Blue Hill Avenue needs faster buses, safer streets, protected businesses, and real investment. But after decades of broken promises, the community should have meaningful power in shaping what happens next.

Opposition also needs to be grounded in reality: pulling $80 million from a Black neighborhood isn’t a transportation strategy, and an unfunded Orange Line extension isn’t an immediate alternative.

My position: invest in Blue Hill Avenue, improve transit, protect the community, and give residents a real voice.

Read my full take on Politics & Prosecco Substack. Full Link in IG story

Until the next pour, Stay dangerous, dah’ling. 🖤

09/07/2026

09/03/2026

There are some moments in life you don’t fully understand until much later.

I met Gloria Steinem at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. I knew her work and what she represented, but I didn’t expect her warmth, kindness, or genuine curiosity about me.

She asked me questions, listened, and then said words I have carried ever since:

“Black women have been on the front lines of the feminist movement long before I came on the scene. Never forget that, and tell your girlfriends.”

Then she hugged me and said, “The torch is yours.”

I didn’t know then how deeply those words would shape me. That was the moment I realized I was a Black feminist and that this identity carried both a history and a responsibility.

What I remember most is that Gloria didn’t ask me to follow her. She reminded me that Black women had always been carrying the torch, and then she placed it in my hands.

This photograph sits in my office as a reminder of that conversation, that hug, and what true allyship can look like: listening, making room, honoring those who came before, and knowing when it’s time to pass the torch.

Thank you, Gloria, for that moment. I will never forget it.

Rest now. 🖤
The torch is ours.