#Elie Mystal, "Conventional Bigotry," The Nation, September 21-28, 2020.
"It is important to understand that tokenism is not done to benefit minorities, not even the tokenism minorities used in the scheme. Tokenism is done for the benefit of white people, to make then feel more comfortable and less complicit in the prejudice and bias of their institutions. This is what tokenism is all about: Making sure that Black people have no choice or role in shaping the agenda of an organization while dragging tem out to thank white people for giving them an opportunity to be a part of the organization. There are legions of white people who view Black people only as criminals or charity cases, and expect Black people to be happy with what charity or clemency is given." Still, the willingness of people to debase themselves does not absolve those who profit from the debasement."
#The New Yorker, September 28, 2020.
Page 37: "But there are approximately ten thousand five hundred different voting jurisdictions, many of which have their own distinctive procedures as well." "By one accounting, there are now more than two hundred pending lawsuits about the rules for the November election."
Page 38: "About twenty per cent of the ballots from Manhattan and Queens, and nearly thirty per cent of those from Brooklyn were disqualified -- many because voters didn't sign the envelopes of the absentee ballots, or because they sealed the envelope with tape rather than with moisture."
Page 40: "High disqualification rates for mail-in votes were evident in 2020 races around the country. According to studies by the Washington 'Post' and NPR, during the primaries, mailed ballots were disqualified at a far higher rate than in 2016 -- five hundred thousand in total were deemed invalid.".
Page 41: Florida "counts mail-in ballots as they arrive,so the Election Night total may well come close to the state's final result."
#Alex Ross, "Master Pieces," The New Yorker, September 21, 2020.
"Since nationwide protests over police violence erupted, in May nd June, American culture has been engaged in an examination, however, nominal, of its relationship with racism." "As Aaron Flagg recently recounted in 'Symphony' magazine, the professionalization of the musician's unions -- a system that lingered into the nineteen-seventies -- Black musicians had to establish their own unions and formed their own ensembles." "Black performers eventually took up careers on the minstrelsy circuit, but only at the cost of playing along with white fantasies."
#Steve Coll, "The Unpopular Vote," The New Yorker, September 21, 2020.
"Between1800 and 2016, according to Alexander Keyssar, a rigorous historian of the institution [the Electoral College] members of Congress introduced more than eight hundred constitutional amendments to fix its technical problems, or to abolish it altogether."
"In the antebellum period, the College assured that slave power shaped Presidential elections, because of the notorious three-fifths compromise, which increased the electoral clout of slave states." "The jurisdictions in the compact currently have a hundred and ninety-six electoral votes among them, seventy-four short of the two hundred and seventy needed to bring the compact into effect. What this means is that if states in the compact have at least 270 electoral votes among them, they will cast their electoral votes to the candidate for the presidency who won the popular vote.
The National Popular Vote project relies mostly on the backing of Democrats and blue states, after Trump, it will not be easy to revitalize cross-party support.
#Argn Baker, "South Africa's game parks...," TIME, October 10, 2020.
Private reserves in South Africa spend hundreds of dollars a year to buy feed, breed, care for and protect their animals, money that is recouped through safari drivesand luxury accommodations. 'Spending by safari tourists is the single biggest funder of conservation in Africa,' says Kenya-based conservationist Max Graham, the founder of Space for Giants, an international charity that protects Africa's elephants, and their landscapes."
About "90% of the paying visitors come from abroad, and they cover 100% of the reserve's running costs, which amount to approximately $30,000 a month,' says Rayla Wilkens, general manager."
#Belinda Luscombe, "Down the aisle, but not across," TIME, October 10, 2020.
"On October 6, 'Matches' yearly 'Singles in America's' report noted that half its 5,000 respondents believe it is not possible to date a person of a different political persuasion, up from a third in 2012. And three-quarters of those surveyed said it was important to share their political beliefs; only half felt that way in 2017."
#Alana Abramson and Abby Vessoulis, TIME, October 10, 2020.
"Washington's economic recovery strategy: it has disproportionately helped the rich, amplifying the nation's existing wealth gap." While many workers lost their jobs, "the stock market continued to perform well, benefiting those who had enough assets before the pandemic to invest. While American billionaires saw their wealth skyrocket by $282 billion from mid-March to mid-April, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, more than 22 million Americans lost their jobs during the same time." Whereas 7% of white Americans reported being jobless in September, 10% of Hispanic Americans and 12% of Black Americans, found themselves unemployed. More than 850,000 women dropped out of the labor force...
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