Black Lives Matter:
Trump had law enforcement clear protesters from Lafayette Square so he could pose for a photo op. This incredible video timeline, compiled mostly from protesters’ cell phone footage, shows how the crackdown unfolded. (Washington Post, ~13 min.)
Wesley Lowery, a black journalist who’s been covering the Black Lives Matter movement since police killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, explains why George Floyd’s death was the breaking point. (The Atlantic, ~22 min.)
Rumors of antifa protests are proliferating in small towns across America, prompting activist right-wingers to respond to the “threats” with arms at the ready. But what’s really going on here? (BuzzFeed News, ~12 min.)
The week before George Floyd was killed, a black journalist and her family hit the road in an RV, which “seems so clearly and unequivocally a white man’s sport.” (Essence, ~10 min.)
“The weight of white guilt in the workplace is too damn heavy.” (Level, ~5 min.)
The phrase Black Lives Matter doesn’t quite translate into American Sign Language, and it turns out that white and black signers interpret the phrase very differently. I can’t stop thinking about this piece. (Los Angeles Times, ~10 min.)
John Lewis will never lose hope. (New York Magazine, ~17 min.)
In January, 17-year-old Avi Schiffmann built from scratch what became the world’s No. 1 pandemic database. Now he’s created a second tracker with a singular goal: help activists find local protests. (MIT Technology Review, ~8 min.)
As BLM protests have surged across the country, so has the uneasiness that black people feel on the neighborhood app Nextdoor. (The Verge, ~11 min.)
“This is a very strange time to be a black-owned business.” (HuffPost, ~7 min.)
Images from the protests of the past two weeks are all the more striking when paired with words from the struggle for racial equality and justice spanning the past 100 years. This photo essay will give you chills. (Washington Post, ~7 min.)
Portland, Ore., on June 2. (Andrew Wallner, Washington Post)
COVID19:
Looks like we’ll all be wearing masks for the foreseeable future. But what does that mean for society? (Vox, ~16 min.)
Inside “Hotel Corona,” where 180 Israelis and Palestinians, sick with coronavirus and quarantined together at a hotel in Jerusalem, formed unlikely friendships. (NPR, ~7 min., audio version available)
How do you weigh the urgency of marching for racial justice against the urgency of stopping the pandemic? (The Nation, ~8 min.)
Welcome to the Hatch, an Oakland bar whose owner is willing to try anything to keep his 16 employees afloat during the lockdown. (New York Times, ~18 min.)
The pandemic may be the biggest psychological experiment in history. Scientists who study resilience are on the case. (Scientific American, ~16 min.)
The best of the rest:
A terrific postmortem with Fiona Hill, whose November congressional testimony in the Trump impeachment inquiry captivated a nation. (The Guardian, ~14 min.)
Behind the scenes at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the only publication in the world focused on both nuclear devastation and the climate crisis, and which is known for its annual Doomsday Clock. (Columbia Journalism Review, ~19 min.)
You think our protests are large? Hong Kong’s are a whole different story, and this is the first piece that really helped me understand what’s happening there. (The Guardian, ~25 min.)
The wild story of Kelly Agnew, a brash ultramarathon newcomer whose quick success was too good to be true — and whose downfall hinged on a Porta-Potty. (Sports Illustrated, ~21 min.)
Meet Makeda Davis, a 40-year-old single mom who spent 7 years in jail after a bar fight, and who let a reporter document her first year outside prison as she worked to piece her life back together. (Marie Claire, ~21 min.)
A brutal story of how big corporations screwed the little guy, except this time it’s in my own backyard, right here in Oregon’s timber country. (The Oregonian + OPB + ProPublica, 21 min.)
Short and sweet and ... sheep. Trust me, this is great. (New York Times, ~5 min.)
If you read one thing this week:
A gorgeous profile of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown, whose poems lean hard into tough topics including cops, disease, blackness, and addiction. (Bitter Southerner, ~22 min.)
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Thanks for reading.
Kirsten