Новости за 19.06.2020

Talking about the whiteness of the media isn’t anything new but, this time, feels different. Earlier this month, Black New York Times staffers organized a public campaign to denounce a racist op-ed calling for the use of military force against protesters. The following week, staff at Bon Appétit led calls for the resignation of the magazine’s white editor in chief after a photo of him in brownface recirculated online, which incited an industry-wide reckoning over the treatment of Black people and non-Black people of color in food media. Читать дальше...

In an article published last week by The Wall Street Journal, novelist and reporter Mark Childress wrote that he wanted to spend time traveling to “the parts of the country where nobody is.” Documenting his pandemic road trip, Childress wrote that he “felt the pandemic lifting up as the civilization thinned out.”

Among the many schadenfreude-themed reality TV shows popular in America in the late 2000s, beauty pageants, particularly those involving children with capped smiles and unhinged mothers, form their own genre. On shows like Toddlers and Tiaras, the entertainment factor came from the obviousness of the con played on the moms, who frequently spent more on competition entrance fees than they took home in prize money. Not only were beauty pageants a scam, it seemed, but they were a scam pitched at... Читать дальше...

If you’re like me, once or twice in your life you have jolted awake from the edge of sleep wondering, How exactly does the government pay for the military? As we all know, the military is an expensive endeavor. In 2019, its budget was $716 billion, an increase of $80 billion over the previous year. Does the Department of Defense have a bank account with that $716 billion in it? If they do, who puts money in it, and where does that money come from? Who exactly will pay Raytheon for that sexy new air-to-air Peregrine missile? Читать дальше...

Beatriz knows that the piece of paper she was given by her employer, certifying her as a critical worker, is not what makes her essential. “I know they say now we’re essential, but we always have been, because we’ve always brought the food to people’s tables. If it wasn’t for us, right now there would be no food,” she said.

The past and present of Rikers Island can tell you a lot about the United States. Richard Riker—the owner of the island that had been in his slaveowning Dutch-German family since the 1660s—was an integral part of a kidnapping ring for selling Black people in the North back to slavery in the South under the Fugitive Slave Act. As New York City’s City Recorder, Riker would issue certificates of removal for those captured to be deported without a whisper of due process. The Riker family sold the land today known as Rikers Island in 1884... Читать дальше...