Browsed by
Category: Society

The U.S. has opposite systems of justice – one for white people, one for people of color

The U.S. has opposite systems of justice – one for white people, one for people of color

Paul Butler writes: On Friday the CNN journalist Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television as he covered protests of police brutality in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Jimenez identifies as African American and Hispanic, and when the cops confronted him, he did just what minority parents tell their kids to do. Jimenez cooperated; he was respectful, deferential even. He said: “We can move back to where you like … We are getting out of your way … Wherever you want us, we…

Read More Read More

Police violence escalates unrest across America

Police violence escalates unrest across America

Slate reports: The ongoing protests following the killing of George Floyd were caught up in violence again on Saturday, as police all over the country tear-gassed protesters, drove vehicles through crowds, opened fire with nonlethal rounds on journalists or people on their own property, and in at least one instance, pushed over an elderly man who was walking away with a cane. Here are some of the ways law enforcement officers escalated the national unrest. Share widely: National guard and…

Read More Read More

Police are deliberately targeting journalists during George Floyd protests

Police are deliberately targeting journalists during George Floyd protests

Bellingcat reports: Bellingcat has identified and collected multiple instances of US law enforcement deliberately targeting journalists during the protests against the killing of George Floyd. The arrest of a CNN crew in Minneapolis while broadcasting live on air on May 29th was a shocking event, especially in a country with such strong protections on freedom of speech. However as of the time of writing we have identified at least 50 separate incidents where journalists have been attacked by law enforcement….

Read More Read More

Will protests spark new outbreaks of Covid-19?

Will protests spark new outbreaks of Covid-19?

The Daily Beast reports: The word “unprecedented” has been used ad nauseam in recent months, but when public health authorities tried on Sunday to predict the potentially catastrophic effect of nationwide police brutality protests amid a deadly pandemic, it seemed hard to find a suitable alternative. After months of diligent social distancing to curb COVID-19 transmission, Americans in major cities all over the country took to the streets in huge crowds this week to protest the death of George Floyd—and…

Read More Read More

Gripped by a pandemic, unemployment and outrage at the police, America plunges into crisis

Gripped by a pandemic, unemployment and outrage at the police, America plunges into crisis

The Washington Post reports: A global pandemic has now killed more than 100,000 Americans and left 40 million unemployed in its wake. Protests — some of them violent — have once again erupted in spots across the country over police killings of black Americans. President Trump, meanwhile, is waging a war against Twitter, attacking his political rivals, criticizing a voting practice he himself uses and suggesting that looters could be shot. America’s persistent political dysfunction and racial inequality were laid…

Read More Read More

Far-right extremists are hoping to turn the George Floyd protests into a new civil war

Far-right extremists are hoping to turn the George Floyd protests into a new civil war

Vice News reports: Far-right extremists are showing up, with guns, to the protests against police brutality that have exploded across the country. Others are egging on the violence from behind their computers, urging followers to carry out acts of violence against black protesters with the goal of sparking a “race war.” Their presence makes an uneasy addition to the escalating unrest, which was triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who was choked to death by a…

Read More Read More

White supremacy as the economic engine of American history

White supremacy as the economic engine of American history

Nicholas Lemann writes: Before the Civil War, Southern slaveholders used to claim that their labor system was more humane than “wage slavery” in the factories of the industrializing North. They didn’t win that argument, but the idea took root that the South, during and after slavery, did not have a true capitalist economy. In 1930, twelve Southern writers (all white men) published a collection of essays, titled “I’ll Take My Stand,” that opened with a declaration that they “all tend…

Read More Read More

Half of newly diagnosed coronavirus cases in Washington State are in people under 40

Half of newly diagnosed coronavirus cases in Washington State are in people under 40

Seattle Times reports: Half of new coronavirus infections in Washington are now occurring in people under the age of 40, a marked shift from earlier in the epidemic when more than two-thirds of those testing positive were in older age groups. A new analysis finds that by early May, 39% of confirmed cases statewide were among people age 20 to 39, while those 19 and younger accounted for 11%. The trend is concerning and should be kept in mind as…

Read More Read More

America’s ‘persistent pandemic is racism’

America’s ‘persistent pandemic is racism’

USA Today reports: Headline after headline, the same story: a black American dead. George Floyd, after a police officer knelt on his neck. Ahmaud Arbery, while on a jog in Georgia. Breonna Taylor, while police raided her Louisville, Kentucky, home. And the ones before: Eric Garner, who couldn’t breathe. Philando Castile, in the car with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter. Trayvon Martin, only a boy. Scores of killings answered with acquittals. Now, as a pandemic rages, African Americans in…

Read More Read More

The murder of George Floyd

The murder of George Floyd

Steve Almond writes: On Monday, police in Minneapolis were called to the scene of an alleged check forgery. They detained the suspect, a 46-year-old African American security guard named George Floyd, and eventually forced him onto the ground. Police claim Floyd resisted arrest, though explosive video footage from a nearby restaurant calls that claim into question. Three officers then held Floyd’s body down, while one kneeled on his neck for several minutes. Because the entirety of the incident was filmed,…

Read More Read More

The Central Park bird watcher, that incident and his feelings on the woman’s fate

The Central Park bird watcher, that incident and his feelings on the woman’s fate

The New York Times reports: His binoculars around his neck, Christian Cooper, an avid birder, was back in his happy place on Wednesday: Central Park during migration season. He was trying to focus on the olive-sided flycatchers and red-bellied woodpeckers — not on what had happened there two days earlier. That was when Mr. Cooper, who is black, asked a white woman to put her dog on a leash. When she did not, he began filming. In response, the woman…

Read More Read More

We’re not in this together: How the American aristocracy insulates itself from the pain of the pandemic

We’re not in this together: How the American aristocracy insulates itself from the pain of the pandemic

Ginia Bellafante writes: When the visual history of the pandemic is winnowed down to its defining images, we’ll be struck again by the glare of disparity — the pictures of mobile morgues and long lines at food banks next to those of people who seem to be riding out the crisis on a wave of rhubarb cocktail infusions and early evening beach walks. On the one side, the pervasive physical and economic toll; on the other, the chic home gyms…

Read More Read More

‘We’re not in this together’: Anand Giridharadas on how inequality has shaped the impact of the pandemic in America

‘We’re not in this together’: Anand Giridharadas on how inequality has shaped the impact of the pandemic in America

  The pandemic has prompted many to reflect on how the world works and, importantly, for whom it works. This is at the heart of a new program on Vice TV called “Seat at the Table,” hosted by best-selling author Anand Giridharadas. He has made a career of questioning the seat of power and money in America, and explains to Hari Sreenivasan why society must adapt or fail.

Learning from the Covid-19 failure — before the next pandemic

Learning from the Covid-19 failure — before the next pandemic

Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker write: Time is running out to prepare for the next pandemic. We must act now with decisiveness and purpose. Someday, after the next pandemic has come and gone, a commission much like the 9/11 Commission will be charged with determining how well government, business, and public health leaders prepared the world for the catastrophe when they had clear warning. What will be the verdict?” That is from the concluding paragraph of an essay entitled…

Read More Read More

No one has the right to spread disease

No one has the right to spread disease

Graham Mooney writes: So far, COVID-19 has killed more than 90,000 Americans—at least that’s the official count. More than 1.5 million have been infected, and every day another 25,000 or so test positive. Despite this, across the country there is an increasing push to ease social-distancing restrictions. Florida, Wisconsin, and many other states are moving to reopen. Most public-health experts say it is too soon, and that easing restrictions will lead to a spike in transmissions. Many of the people…

Read More Read More

How Bolinas mounted one of the most advanced coronavirus-testing efforts in America

How Bolinas mounted one of the most advanced coronavirus-testing efforts in America

Nathan Heller writes: This winter … the coronavirus brought a wave of social change from which Bolinas [a tiny hippie enclave north of San Francisco] could not flee. On January 11th, China reported its first death caused by covid-19; on January 21st, a resident of Washington State, who had travelled to Wuhan, became the first confirmed case in the United States; and, by mid-February, fatalities spanned the world. On March 16th, a group of counties across the Bay Area declared…

Read More Read More