Photo by Katy Grannan for The Atlantic

Monday, April 5 at 3 p.m. via Zoom.
Free and open to the public (see link below)
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Mis- and disinformation about the 2020 election continues across social media and fringe media outlets. These lies have spurred violence and continue to threaten our democracy. The only way to effectively win against the lies is to avoid spreading them and counter with facts. If you see a lie about elections on social media, do not engage with it. Do not comment or share, even to provide the truth. Any engagement will boost the algorithm and ensure the false post is seen by more users, which helps the disinformation spread more. Use your platforms to instill confidence in our elections and continue to celebrate the remarkable resilience of the American voters in 2020 who made their voices heard. You can use our mis- and disinformation graphic series on social media to help get out the right message.

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My Country ’Tis of Thee
By W. E. B. Du Bois
 
Of course you have faced the dilemma: it is announced, they all smirk and rise. If they are ultra, they remove their hats and look ecstatic; then they look at you. What shall you do? Noblesse oblige; you cannot be boorish, or ungracious; and too, after all it is your country and you do love its ideals if not all of its realities. Now, then, I have thought of a way out: Arise, gracefully remove your hat, and tilt your head. Then sing as follows, powerfully and with deep unction. They’ll hardly note the little changes and their feelings and your conscience will thus be saved:

My country tis of thee,
Late land of slavery,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my father’s pride
Slept where my mother died,
From every mountain side 
Let freedom ring!

My native country thee
Land of the slave set free,
Thy fame I love.
I love thy rocks and rills
And o’er thy hate which chills,
My heart with purpose thrills,
To rise above.

Let laments swell the breeze
And wring from all the trees
Sweet freedom’s song.
Let laggard tongues awake,
Let all who hear partake,
Let Southern silence quake,
The sound prolong.

Our fathers’ God to thee
Author of Liberty,
To thee we sing
Soon may our land be bright,
With Freedom’s happy light
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.
 
On February 14, 1909, the NAACP was founded. The writer, teacher, sociologist, and leader W.E.B. Du Bois was one of its founders, and in the following year he became director of the new organization. He also served as the editor of the organization’s monthly magazine, The Crisis.  

Adrienne LaFrance
“Facebook is a Doomsday Machine”
The Atlantic online
December 15, 2020

Anyone who is serious about mitigating the damage done to humankind by the social web should, of course, consider quitting Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and any other algorithmically distorted informational environments that manipulate people. But we need to adopt a broader view of what it will take to fix the brokenness of the social web. That will require challenging the logic of today’s platforms—and first and foremost challenging the very concept of megascale as a way that humans gather. If megascale is what gives Facebook its power, and what makes it dangerous, collective action against the web as it is today is necessary for change. The web’s existing logic tells us that social platforms are free in exchange for a feast of user data; that major networks are necessarily global and centralized; that moderators make the rules. None of that need be the case. We need people who dismantle these notions by building alternatives. And we need enough people to care about these other alternatives to break the spell of venture capital and mass attention that fuels megascale and creates fatalism about the web as it is now
.
I still believe the internet is good for humanity, but that’s despite the social web, not because of it. We must also find ways to repair the aspects of our society and culture that the social web has badly damaged. This will require intellectual independence, respectful debate, and the same rebellious streak that helped establish Enlightenment values centuries ago.

We may not be able to predict the future, but we do know how it is made: through flashes of rare and genuine invention, sustained by people’s time and attention. Right now, too many people are allowing algorithms and tech giants to manipulate them, and reality is slipping from our grasp as a result. This century’s Doomsday Machine is here, and humming along.

It does not have to be this way.

 
Full article available:
newsletters@theatlantic.com
 

BLK History Month
 Nikki Giovanni
 
If Black History Month is not
viable then wind does not
carry the seeds and drop them
on fertile ground
rain does not
dampen the land
and encourage the seeds
to root
sun does not
warm the earth
and kiss the seedlings
and tell them plain:
You’re As Good As Anybody Else
You’ve Got A Place Here, Too

Loretta Ross is an author, academic, and radical Black feminist who currently teaches courses on human rights and white supremacy at Smith College. She believes deeply in the value of empathetic conversation — “calling in” — versus shaming, humiliating, or publicly “calling out” those with whom we disagree (or indeed those whose views we may find appalling). But she also believes there’s a limit. Professor Ross joins Ciaran O’Connor for a wide-ranging discussion on racial politics, right wing media, and when to draw a line in the sand.
Twitter: @braverangels; @LorettaJRoss; @ciaranjoconnor

In this second part of her groundbreaking study of Black youth growing up in a White world, Dr. Tatum turns the table on the question that forms the title of the book and examines it from the perspective of of Black identity development  with respect to Black culture.
It might be significant in this context to consider the diametrically opposed ways the DC police prepared for and responded to the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer vs the largely White armed attack on the Capitol building last week. as these photos show.

National Guard Defending the Lincoln Memorial During BLM Protest 2020 .   Source:  frontpagelive.com

  The Lies We Tell Ourselves About Race
January 10, 2021   10:00 AM ET
Sam Sanders is a correspondent and host of the NPR podcast It's Been a Minute With Sam Sanders. The show's latest episode, "The Capitol, Mobbed," is available for streaming here
 
There is a lie some Americans tell themselves when America is on its worst behavior: "This isn't America!" or "This isn't who we are!" or "We're better than this!"
You heard versions of this lie again this past week after armed insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on urging from President Trump, attempting to undo the results of last November's election.
Even in the halls of Congress, after the broken glass was cleared and U.S. senators and representatives were allowed back into their chambers from undisclosed locations, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska came back to this refrain: "Our kids need to know that this isn't what America is."
We are a country built on fabrication, nostalgia and euphemism. And every time America shows the worst of itself, all the contradictions collapse into the lie I've heard nonstop for the last several years: "This isn't who we are."
In the final weeks of Donald Trump's presidency, we are still collectively struggling over whether to treat his term and the reaction to it as an aberration or as a continuation of an American way of life. So much of it feels unprecedented: the emergence of the Trump-led Twitter news cycle, the abandonment of political norms we thought were etched in stone, the seemingly never-ending protest movements sprouting up in reaction to it all.
It all feels new. But it is not.
The images from the Capitol this past week made that clear: a noose hanging outside the building. Inside, insurrectionists carrying a Confederate flag. Members of the mob wearing T-shirts that read "Civil War."
Our current troubles — and our current administration — are both just the latest chapters in America's ongoing battle over race.
Trump's presidency has always been about race and reacting to a nation more diverse than it has ever been. We've been reminded of that time and again since he announced his candidacy. So how can anyone still say, "This is not who we are"? Why do we continue to hear that same lie as the worst of America rears its head?
Once you see it as such, it all makes a lot more sense. Remember, Trump began his ascent to political power on a racist lie: birtherism. He launched his campaign for the presidency calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists. His first major policy initiative was travel restrictions on Muslim-majority nations that felt a lot like a travel ban on people with darker skin. His supporters cited "economic anxiety" as their motivation, but they were driven by racial animus. Former KKK leader David Duke endorsed Trump twice for president.
Trump's presidency has always been about race and reacting to a nation more diverse than it has ever been. We've been reminded of that time and again since he announced his candidacy. So how can anyone still say, "This is not who we are"? Why do we continue to hear that same lie as the worst of America rears its head?
I see glimpses of who we are every day and, at the same time, a deep discomfort with that reality. That lie permeates my industry, the media. There would have been a time, several years ago, where if I had attempted to write this essay using words like "racist" or "lie," I would have been told to rewrite it. Urged to soften the tone. To maybe not make it all about race. This is not an indictment of NPR; the entire industry did it. Much of the industry still do.
Even this past week, there was hand-wringing about what to call the rioters storming the U.S. Capitol and how to describe their insurrection.
But I'd be wrong to say it's only the media that nurtures the lie. Our audiences do as well.
As a Black NPR host, I am often talking to mostly white audiences about race. By and large, listeners are happy to go where those conversations lead, but regularly, a loud minority shows that it actually wants no part of such discussions. Listeners send emails wondering whether I ever talk about anything but race. Others suggest I may actually have it all wrong, invoking some version of "not all white people."
A recent example came after an interview with an Asian American author, tracing the long history of discrimination against Asians in this country. Several white listeners wondered why other groups just didn't "work hard" the way their own white ancestors did. And then another listener wrote they didn't consider themselves "the least bit racist," but called all Asians "manipulative and dishonest."
The lie is all around us. So when weeks like the one we just experienced happen, some yell the lie even louder, to our detriment. What would happen if we decided to be more honest about race the next time our nation found itself at a racial flashpoint? What might be lost? What might be gained?
It's hard to know, because I've never seen us, collectively, do it before. But I know that history only yells louder each time we refuse to listen. And no lie, no matter how often it's told, can keep the truth at bay.

Dr. Beverly Tatum kick -started the public conversation about race and racism in America with her groundbreaking 1996 study of  racial identity development in "Why Are All l the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?"  Now reissued, with Dr. Tatum's concise yet comprehensive summary of "the race issue" as it stands 20 years later, couldn't be more timely.  Bottom line:  Now more than ever we need to have this conversation.  What are your take-aways from your reading (or re-reading) of the Introduction and Part I of this book?

Below are a couple of videos of Dr. Tatum talking about the critical need for conversations about race in America, no matter how difficult ,  painful and uncomfortable. 

Next week we welcome comments about Part II.

WHAT IS OWED (concluding section)
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
NY Times June 30, 2020
If black lives are to truly matter in America, this nation must move beyond slogans and symbolism. Citizens don’t inherit just the glory of their nation, but its wrongs too. A truly great country does not ignore or excuse its sins. It confronts them and then works to make them right. If we are to be redeemed, if we are to live up to the magnificent ideals upon which we were founded, we must do what is just.
 It is time for this country to pay its debt. It is time for reparations.
(Nikole Hannah-Jones is a staff writer for the magazine. In 2020, she won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary for her essay about black Americans and democracy. She is the creator of The 1619 Project, which won the National Magazine Award for public interest and a George Polk special award this year. She is also a 2017 MacArthur fellow.)
The push for reparations includes active efforts from Indigenous people, New Mexicans whose land grant rights from the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo have been ignored, and the descendants of the African slaves throughout the US.
Below are links to several information sources on reparations efforts by all three groups. What are your thoughts on these causes?

 

As we come to the end of this fraught year, I’m thinking about how we as Americans can make 2021 a truly “new year.” Can we recognize past and present injustices and start repairing hurts? What does it mean to “make amends”? And finally, what is justice? This TED Radio Talk explores these questions in historical, social and personal contexts, and suggests some possible paths forward.  What can we do locally, individually or as a group? Let me know what you think.
Stephanie
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"Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious."

Post your comments here on a weekly basis starting Jan 4 as follows: 

Week of Jan 4:  Introductions and Part I
Week of Jan 11: Part II
Weekof Jan 18:  Part III
Week of Jan 25: Part IV
Week of Feb 1: Part V and Conclusion ("Continuing the Conversation")

New edition available now in hardback, paperback, audiobook and ebook.

COVID Vaccine Distribution: Issues of Efficacy & Equity
Excerpt from New Yorker interview 12.4.20 with Dr.Atul Gawande, author on “Being Mortal”
Interviewed by David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker
 
After health-care workers and nursing homes, who gets the vaccine next? It’s almost like some terrible philosophical, moral, ethical conundrum that philosophers are faced with all the time. What are your discussions like when it comes to those next levels?
There are eighty-seven million essential workers who are at heightened risk of exposure. They are, say, meatpackers who are exposed to co-workers, or grocery-store workers or bus drivers who are exposed. You’ll be able to go to your local pharmacy and get a vaccine, but what they need to know is, how do they identify who’s the bus driver and who’s not?
Will the government be able to guarantee us that wealthy people, connected people, won’t be able to jump the line?
I think this is one of the critical tests—and an opportunity. The chance to prove that the system is not rigged should not be underestimated. It’s hard. Think about it. The bus drivers never came before the bankers before. You’re going to have Zoom workers who want to go back to normal, and I cannot blame the number of people who will say, You know, thank God I can finally not be in fear. Let me get the vaccine. What do you mean, I have to wait five months? I can imagine a million ways [of jumping the line], people paying someone twenty-five hundred bucks to get your work I.D. tag. This is all about rallying people together. It can’t just be about the rules. It has to be about how we all understand this and work together to say, These are the folks most at risk. They make our subways work. They make our buses work. They get our food supply to us. They make it possible for me to go grocery shopping, and I’ll just have to wait three or four months for my turn.
What do you think?
Irene

Click here to read the entire article.

Mandatory Voting?
It is suggested in Our Common Purpose: amacad.org, Strategy 2: Empower Voters, “that voting in federal elections be a requirement of citizenship, just as jury service is in the states.” Australia requires mandatory attendance at the polls allowing “none of the above” as a vote. Voting turnout increased to 90% from a low of 50% before the mandate.

What, in your opinion, are the pros and cons to the United States adopting a version of the Australian system of mandatory attendance at the polls?
Kelly Davis