#Leonard Pitts, "Even a Chauvin conviction will not vindicate America," The Albuquerque Journal, April 9, 2021. - "It's not difficult to understand why many of us believe that what happens in that courtroom will render a verdict on Chauvin, but also on the nation, in our self-appraisal land of truths held self-evident, equality under the law, liberty and justice for all. Is any of that real?" "Let's assume for a moment Chauvin is acquitted. What message does that send?" The answer is obvious. It sends the same message that has been sent for four centuries: that, for African Americans, justice remains elusive, nearly impossible, especially in cases of police wrongdoing."
"If it takes that level of violence and that level of public pressure for Chauvin to be convicted, would that really attest to the integrity of American justice toward African American people? Or would it not ultimately say pretty much the same thing an acquittal would: that for us, justice is harder; the bar higher, the road steeper, especially where allegations against the police are concerned." "All it would say is that, in a crime committed before the entire world, and with the entire world watching -- or at least a jury of 12 Americans -- could not bring itself to deny a self-evident truth. That's no inspiring affirmation off national values. Rather, it's the bare minimum common humanity demands."
#Elie Mystal, "Can Biden Fix the Courts?" The Nation, 4 . 19 - 26, 2021. ""During the next four years, he [Trump] appointed 226 judges, including three US Supreme Court justices, 54 US court of appeals judges, and 174 US district court judges." "And most progressive policies and many of the immediate goals of the Biden administration won't survive their first contact with the reality of these revamped courts." Between 1961 and 1990, Congress added one or two judges to each of the circuits approximately every decade, as well as a number of new district courts judges."
Mystal believes that Biden's nominees "should be predominately plucked from classes of unrepresented legal professionals who are routinely ignored for consideration."
"As a general rule, blue slips are like the filibuster: a tool that allows a single senator from the minority party to thwart the will of a popularly elected government."
#Melinda D. Anderson, "School's Out," Mother Jones, May + June 2021. - "Few issues this year have been as rife with division and drama as the on-again, off-again efforts of school districts to restart in-person learning." "According to a December report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 62 percent of white parents agreed that school should reopen this fall, while less than half of Black parents agreed."
"According to CDC data published in September, Black youth accounted for 29 percent of COVID-19 deaths among people under 21, twice the percentage for white youth."
"Well into November, some 60,000 New York City students were still waiting for devices to participate in remote learning."
#Tom Philpott, "Black Land Matters," Mother Jones, May + June 2021. - "By 1910, although share-cropping remained dominant, a USDA census revealed that about 219,000 Black farmers owned land." "Poverty and hunger within rural communities spiked, driving the Great Migration of Black people fleeing the agrarian South for factory jobs in the urban North and West, which in turn reinforced white political power back home."
"Black wealth from land loss could be in excess of $300 billion --." "Today, the median white family is more than 10 times wealthier than its Black counterpart."
The legislation pending in Congress, titled Justice for Black Farmers Act, would devote $8 billion annually to buying farmland and granting it to Black farmers. The goal: 20,000 grants per year through 2030, with maximum allotments of 160 acres.
#Katie Reilly, "The Lost Year," TIME, April 12/19, 2021. - "Estimates from U.S. Census Bureau surveys conducted biweekly since Aug. 19, 2020, indicate that anywhere from 7.7 million to 10 million adults canceled plans to take postsecondary classes last fall because of financial constraints related to the pandemic." "The number of students completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) also declined 9.1% by March 5, compared with this time last year, and fell more sharply at high schools serving large populations of low-income students and students of color, according to a tracker from the National College Attainment Network (NCAN)."
#Alana Semuels, "Desperate for debt forgiveness," TIME, April 12/19, 2021. - "The sheer balance of student loans in the U.S.. -- around $1.6 trillion, up from $250 billion in 2004 --has made student debt forgiveness a popular idea among politicians like senators Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer,..." "One federal income-driven repayment program bases monthly costs on a borrower's income and forgives debt after 20 years of payments." But only a mall number of the roughly 2 million people who might have been able to qualify for the program have had their loans forgiven.
ADDENDUMS:
*Elizabeth Kolbert, "Build Back Greener," The New Yorker, April 12, 2021. "In the context of the U.S. economy, a hundred billion dollars is barely a rounding error. Globally, its been estimated that replacing all existing fossil-fuel infrastructure would take at least twenty trillion dollars."
*Megan L. Ranney, "America's guns pandemic," TIME, April 12/19, 2021. - "From 2014 to 2017, death rates from gunshot wounds in the U.S. increased by approximately 20%. In 2020, preliminary reports suggest that the overall rate of gun homicides and suicide increased by 10% overall. More than 100 people died, and more than 200 were injured every single day of 2020."
No comments:
Post a Comment