By Rachel Poser
Read the full article from The New York Times Magazine here.
“Padilla is wary of colleagues who cite the radical uses of classics as a way to forestall change; he believes that such examples have been outmatched by the field’s long alliance with the forces of dominance and oppression. Classics and whiteness are the bones and sinew of the same body; they grew strong together, and they may have to die together.”
By Bruce Jackson
Read the full article from First of the Month here.
“Bernie’s mittens. In that photo, surrounded by people in skin-tight black leather gloves, he wears a that look as if they’d been made from wool salvaged from an old sweater. The fingers he was relentlessly jabbing at every camera lens or audience when he spoke are wrapped in those mittens. Those fingers, for the first time since we’ve known him, are quiet. Bernie’s face mask: when addressing an audience, he never talked. He barked. A former Congressional colleague refers to him as ‘the scold.’ You can’t scold from behind a mask. Behind the mask, the barking scold was silent.”
By Harrison Mantas
Read the full article from Poynter here.
“Fact-checkers in Ukraine, Germany and India were already contending with the spread of mis- and disinformation on the encrypted messaging app Telegram. Then the app’s popularity got a huge boost in early 2021 following the deplatforming of former U.S. President Donald Trump, and the proliferation of misinformation about rival messaging platform WhatsApp’s changing terms of service.”
Watch the Center for Urban Studies founder and executive director, Henry-Louis Taylor, Jr. in a discussion, along with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, hosted by the African-American Resource Center here.
From DemocracyNow!
Read the full story from DemocracyNow! here.
“Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, co-executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center, says Biden’s executive orders are ‘a step forward’ and credits social movements who have been pressuring the administration to act. ‘This is not just because of his good graces,’ Henderson says. ‘This is because movement made it possible that racial equity be something that is prioritized in the executive branch of our government.'”
By Fola Akinnibi, Sarah Holder, and Christopher Cannon
Read the full article from Bloomberg CityLab, here.
Disparities in policing came into full view on Jan. 6 as a predominantly white mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to overturn the results of the presidential election. Videos emerged of officers appearing to open barricades for rioters, offering a stark contrast to scenes from summer protests, where largely peaceful demonstrators were met at times with brutal force. Police budgets will expand this year even in cities like Atlanta, Omaha and Phoenix, where Democrats picked up more votes in the 2020 presidential race versus 2016. Out of 42 major cities where Democrats gained share, 24 increased police spending for fiscal 2021, while 18 made cuts.
By Deidre McPhillips
Read the full article from CNN, here.
In the past seven days, about 914,000 doses have been administered daily. If vaccination continues at this same rate, every adult in the US could be fully vaccinated by summer 2022, according to a CNN analysis. If vaccination picks up to 1 million shots per day, in line with Biden’s promise, that timeline could bump up to spring 2022. To fully vaccinate all adults in the US by the end of the year, the pace would have to increase to about 1.3 million doses administered per day.
By Theresa Waldrop
Read the full article from CNN, here.
The CDC said Friday that nearly 1.6 million more doses of the vaccines have been administered, bringing the total of doses given to more than 19 million. And 1 million new shots were reported in the previous 24-hour period, according to changes in CDC data from Wednesday morning to Thursday morning. That was only the second time a one-day increase rose above 1 million. The number of administered doses reported this week also was 22% higher than last week. While vaccinations are taking off, more states are complaining that they don’t have enough vaccine. New York will run out of Covid-19 vaccine doses Friday after using 97% of the first doses it received, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
By Chris Cillizza
Read the full article from CNN, here.
What made Trump’s argument so potent, politically speaking, is that he wasn’t just calling out the elites. He was saying that Average Joes needed to rise up and actually show them how wrong they were — that voting him for him was the best way to express their anger and frustration with the condescension of their alleged bettors. Donald Trump offered himself up as a collective middle finger to the elites. And he won.
By Joe Buscaino
Read the full article from Bloomberg CityLab, here.
While most of the last 10 months have been devoted to our immediate duty to protect our residents from the spread of Covid-19, it has also given us an important opportunity to examine the future of our hometowns, including how to address the systemic challenges that predated — and are now exacerbated by — the pandemic. Whether it’s ensuring our cities are built to meet the needs of all our residents, providing help for working families struggling to support their households, or eradicating persistent inequities in our civic institutions, the challenges before us have been thrown into sharp relief.