Monday, April 14

Journalism

Columbus Day Is Being Abandon In Favor Of Indigenous Peoples Day In Some Places
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Journalism

Columbus Day Is Being Abandon In Favor Of Indigenous Peoples Day In Some Places

Increasingly, Columbus Day is giving people pause. More and more towns and cities across the country are electing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day as an alternative to – or in addition to – the day intended to honor Columbus’ voyages. Critics of the change see it as just another example of political correctness run amok – another flash point of the culture wars. As a scholar of Native American history – and a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina – I know the story is more complex than that. The growing recognition and celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day actually represents the fruits of a concerted, decades-long effort to recognize the role of indigenous people in the nation’s history. Why Columbus? Columbus Day is a relatively new federal holiday. In 1892, a joint congre...
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Mostly White Male Judges Appointed By Trump Buck 30-Year Trend Of Increasing Diversity In The Courts
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Journalism, POLITICS

Mostly White Male Judges Appointed By Trump Buck 30-Year Trend Of Increasing Diversity In The Courts

In nominating Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Donald Trump fulfilled his pledge to put another woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. But most of the 218 judges Trump has so far appointed to the federal judiciary – with the steadfast collaboration of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – are not women or judges of color. Our study on judicial diversity, which ended in July 2020, shows that Trump-appointed judges are 85% white and 76% men – the least diverse group of federal judges seen since Ronald Reagan. This bucks a 30-year historical trend of increasing diversity on the bench, our research shows. Using data from the Federal Judicial Center, we collected demographic information on all lower court judges and their predecessors dating back to t...
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Here’s How Companies Can Prevent Women From Losing Decades Of Workplace Progress Due To COVID-19
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BUSINESS, Journalism

Here’s How Companies Can Prevent Women From Losing Decades Of Workplace Progress Due To COVID-19

American women have made strides in the workplace over the past half-century in terms of earnings, employment and careers – in no small part thanks to the efforts of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The COVID-19 pandemic risks undoing many of these gains in a matter of months. Without concrete action, I believe a generation of women may never fully recover. One group of women who are at particular risk are those in professional fields. While fortunate enough to have quality jobs, many are being forced by the increased demands of child care to reduce working hours – or to stop working altogether. Mothers have always handled more of a household’s child care than fathers have, but it has become further lopsided since lockdowns began earlier this year. As a result, more than one in fou...
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Your child’s vaccines: What you need to know about catching up during the COVID-19 pandemic
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COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS, Journalism

Your child’s vaccines: What you need to know about catching up during the COVID-19 pandemic

This spring, after stay-at-home orders were announced and schools shut down across the nation, many families stopped going to their pediatrician. As a result, kids have fallen behind on important childhood vaccinations. Vaccination rates declined starkly after mid-March, with up to 60% reductions in some areas of the country. Nationwide, vaccination rates dropped by 22% among Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program recipients under 2. Now that kids are coming back to pediatricians like me, many parents have questions about catching up. Why is it a problem that my child is behind on vaccines? Vaccines protect your child from serious communicable diseases including brain infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections and, in the case of the HPV and hepatitis B vaccines, even some t...
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Homes are flooding outside FEMA’s 100-year flood zones, and racial inequality is showing through
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IN OTHER NEWS, Journalism

Homes are flooding outside FEMA’s 100-year flood zones, and racial inequality is showing through

When hurricanes and other extreme storms unleash downpours like Tropical Storm Beta has been doing in the South, the floodwater doesn’t always stay within the government’s flood risk zones. New research suggests that nearly twice as many properties are at risk from a 100-year flood today than the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood maps indicate. Unfortunately, many of the people living in those properties have no idea that their homes are at risk until the floodwaters rise. I am a sociologist who works on disaster vulnerability. In a new study, I looked at the makeup of communities in Houston that aren’t in the 100-year flood zone, but that still flood. What I found tells a story of racial disparities in the city. Research in other cities has shown similar flooding problems in ...
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Black Voters Know Climate Justice Is Racial Justice
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Journalism, POLITICS

Black Voters Know Climate Justice Is Racial Justice

It’s not only been a summer season (now autumn) of a deadly pandemic, toxic politics, and social unrest, but the nation has been rocked by a nonstop series of environmental calamities triggered by the human-pressed climate crisis. Hurricane Sally was a destructive slow-moving mix of high winds and epic flooding battering the Gulf Coast and other parts of the South. That was after Hurricane Laura and ahead of an unprecedented number of cyclones forming in the Atlantic for what’s building up into one of the most active—if not the most active—hurricane season on record. The entire West Coast is either, literally, on fire or under a blanket of choking smoke from said fire. This summer was the fourth hottest on record, with nights no longer cooler and city neighborhoods burning up because of l...
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Climate Issues At The Forefront Of The 2020 Elections
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Journalism, POLITICS

Climate Issues At The Forefront Of The 2020 Elections

After decades on the political periphery, the climate movement is entering the mainstream in 2020, with young leaders at the fore. The Sunrise Movement now includes more than 400 local groups educating and advocating for political action on climate change. Countless students around the world have clearly communicated what’s at stake for their futures, notably Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who just finished her yearlong school strike for climate. Youth activists have been praised for their flexible, big-picture thinking and ability to harness social media to deliver political wins, as Sunrise recently did for U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s primary campaign. They necessarily challenge the status quo. “Every social movement in the U.S. that has been successful has always had strong youth and stude...
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Trump’s appeals to white anxiety are not ‘dog whistles’ – they’re racism
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Journalism, POLITICS

Trump’s appeals to white anxiety are not ‘dog whistles’ – they’re racism

President Donald Trump’s rhetoric is often referred to as “dog whistle politics.” In politician speak, a dog whistle is language that conveys a particular meaning to a group of potential supporters. The targeted group hears the “whistle” because of its shared cultural reference, but others cannot. In 2018, The Washington Post wrote that “perhaps no one has sent more dog whistles than President Trump.” When Trump this year planned a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma – the site of one of the worst acts of racial terror in U.S. history – on the Black holiday of Juneteenth, the media called the rally a “racist dog whistle.” That suggests that white nationalists would view the timing as an overture, while others would miss the date’s racism. Journalists have also referred to Trump calling COVID-19 “t...
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Why Americans are buying more guns than ever
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Journalism

Why Americans are buying more guns than ever

Americans have been on a record gun-buying spree in recent months. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial justice, the gun industry’s trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, estimates that gun sales from March through July were 8.5 million. This is 94% higher the same period in 2019. Firearms industry consultants estimate July sales alone were 2.0 million units, an increase of 136% over July 2019. These estimates are based on the number of background checks conducted by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The FBI reported that eight of the weeks in this period are in the top 10 highest weeks since the agency began collecting data in 1998. Gun sales typically have seasonal cycles, with more guns being sold in winter months, and increase...
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Trump Assumes Voting By Mail Favors Democrats
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Journalism

Trump Assumes Voting By Mail Favors Democrats

President Trump’s plan to destroy democracy was on full display last week, as he made the  U.S. Postal Service his new battlefield, with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy leading the charge. This is coming at the worst possible time for the health of our nation, because mail-in voting is expected to surge in November as Americans stay home to avoid the COVID-19 pandemic. And for many Americans, especially those in rural communities and people (including 330,000 veterans) who receive their medication by mail, the post office is a lifeline. The reason for Trump’s action is clear: He assumes voting by mail favors Democrats (many absentee voters traditionally are seniors, who have been one of Trump’s more supportive demographics). He believes he can only “win” reelection if he makes it impossib...
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