"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

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Diana Solomon-Glover is librettist to Is This America?, an operatic performance about Fanny Lou Hamer, presented and commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera and performed at a retired oil tanker in Brooklyn Harbor. Is This America? previews the full opera, This Little Light of Mine, which will be presented in full in the coming year.

Ms. Solomon-Glover asks deeper questions about our country, the vote and where we are today.
Click the video below, and enjoy!
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Kristina Flanagan