1. Death of a Young Black Journalist
“The most basic instinct of a local reporter is to take the importance of her neighbors as a given. In a community like Anacostia—where more than ninety per cent of residents are African-American, one in two kids lives below the poverty line, and incarceration and unemployment rates are among the nation’s highest—this is another way of saying that black lives matter.”
2. Dear NBC, BBC, CNN, and Others: Mugshots Are for Criminals, Not for Their Victims
“Using a mugshot that has no relevance to the circumstances in which Sam DuBose was killed—up against a fully-uniformed photo of his accused killer—suggests that DuBose did something criminal to instigate the cop in his shooting. As yesterday’s grand jury decision confirms, this is blatantly not true. It warps the real story: a cop who allegedly killed an innocent man for no good reason.”
3. We Need to Talk About Feminism and Vocal Fry
“The clash here is not between anti-feminists and feminists. At its heart, the conflict over vocal fry is a clashing of feminist ideologies. … Wolf suggests that young women’s voices aren’t authoritative enough, and implies that they’re somehow squandering all the hard feminist work that came before them. But what’s really happening is a generational shift, both in feminism and in the workplace.”
4. U.S. Prisons Hold 10 Times as Mentally Ill as State Psychiatric Hospitals
According to a new report released by the Treatment Advocacy Center, the conditions of mentally ill prisoners often deteriorate more while incarcerated.
5. WATCH: New Key & Peele Skit Imagines a World Where We Glorify Teachers Like We Do Athletes
Unmasking the sheer absurdity and contingency of our athletic obsession, “TeachingCenter” shatters the world we take for granted. Above all, it helps us to tangibly imagine our ideals. It really might be possible to obsess over teachers the way we do athletes. Why not?
6. Moving Beyond Suspicion, Muslims and Evangelicals Seek Common Ground
Despite Islamophobic headline-grabbing rhetoric from evangelical personalities like Franklin Graham, another wave of evangelical leaders is working with Muslim leaders to practice what they preach. “Personally, I don’t see differences as a reason for us to remain separated – to not like or love one another.”
7. Man’s Lawsuit Against Ferguson Police for Wrongful Arrest, Assault Reinstated
Six years since the incident, a Missouri man will be able to sue the Ferguson Police Department for claims he was severely beaten during an arrest — one that resulted in a charge for “destruction of property for bleeding on officers’ uniforms.”
“While military chaplains are noncombatants and don’t carry weapons, they still follow those they serve directly into harm’s way. … From the Army alone, nearly 300 chaplains have died while on deployment, and eight chaplains have received the Medal of Honor.”
9. How Mass Incarceration Takes a Toll on the Environment
According to the report at CityLab, given the surge in prison populations — amounting to more than 5,000 federal prisons, jails, and detention centers — and the overcrowding of those facilities, the situation poses “serious health concerns for the inmates, officers, and nearby communities. Many also produce waste and pollution far beyond local and federal standards …”
10. Amnesty International: Central Africa Rebels Force Muslims to Abandon Faith
“Some Muslims living outside the protection of United Nations forces in the country’s west have been coerced to convert to Christianity, the London-based rights group said Friday in a report. The fighters, known as anti-balaka, have also banned reconstruction of an estimated 400 mosques destroyed in two years of upheaval, as well as the wearing of traditional Muslim clothing, it said.”
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