ASK Musings

Racism

“Recall how cartoonist Mark Knight rendered Serena Williams with Sambo-like lips throwing a temper tantrum in a tutu after she defended what she, one of the greatest athletes of all time, deemed bad referee calls during a 2018 U.S. Open upset. Former First Lady Michelle Obama was routinely drawn as masculine and equated with being an ape in a trope planted in the American psyche by the likes of venerated Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, an investor in the burgeoning 18th century business of trading Africans into enslavement.” When They (Don’t) See Us (by Deborah Douglas via Medium)

“I started writing because every single day I was living a half-life. I started writing because I was tired of taking in every racist joke, every insult, every assumption. I was tired of hearing the locks on people’s cars click down as I walked past theirs in a grocery store parking lot. I was tired of worrying about my brother’s safety when he went on tour. I was tired of worrying that I might die at each traffic stop. I was tired of seeing Black body after Black body lying in the street like so much garbage after an encounter with police. And I was so very tired of being silent through it all. Silence was not helping me. It was killing me.” The Thing About Safety (by Ijeoma Oluo via Medium)

Democracy

“State officials, however, confirmed at least two other machines in Calhoun County also “jumped.” One voter reported similarly voting for Waller but having the machine change his vote to Reeves. Though state officials only confirmed problems with three machines in two counties, the Waller campaign told the Ledger that it received reports of the same issue in Leflore, Lamar, Pearl River, Lincoln, Washington, Forrest and Scott counties. Reeves won the runoff with about 54 percent of the vote, The Associated Press reported.” Voters say touchscreen machines switched their votes in nine Mississippi counties (by Igor Derysh for Salon)

General Ridiculousness

“Are we to believe that arguing for the murder of a quarter of the female population is “flippant,” but calling Stephens a bedbug is an offense worthy of censure? This is someone who mocked sexual assault survivors for wanting a break room with counselors during a debate on rape culture, a writer who questioned the “moral proportion” of firing sexual harassers. Is targeting a professor’s job for a barely seen quip morally proportional? Are high-profile columnists more deserving of a “safe space?”” The Unbearable Fragility of Bret Stephens (by Jessica Valenti via Medium)

Trans Issues

“Shortcomings in the technology used by the TSA and insufficient training of the agency’s staff have made transgender and gender nonconforming travelers particularly vulnerable to invasive searches at airport checkpoints, interviews and a review of documents and data shows. The TSA says that it is committed to treating all travelers equally and respectfully. But while the agency has known about the problems for several years, it still struggles to ensure the fair treatment of transgender and gender nonconforming people.” When Transgender Travelers Walk Into Scanners, Invasive Searches Sometimes Wait on the Other Side (by Lucas Waldron and Brenda Medina for ProPublica)