Five Breaking News Haikus (+1)

 

1.

World’s got ninety-nine

problems, but stanning Kanye

ain’t one. No Chance, right?

 

2.

Macron’s magic spell:

Tree-planting, hand-shaking man

of Trumpian dreams

 

3.

Teachers march. Trump tweets.

Markets skid. Cosby shrieks. “Cat

memes now, please” sighs World.

 

4.

Twitter taps her foot:

“R. Kelly — right over there!”

Waiting to exhale

 

5.

North and South as one.

No more nukes or abuse; no

more Dennis Rodman.

 

+1

Cosby is guilty

But I loved his show so much.

How did we get here?

 

Thanks to “T.K.,” a devoted raceAhead reader, for this submission.

 

Have a drama-free weekend!

On Point

Bill Cosby found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assaultA jury outside of Philadelphia found Cosby guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004, at an incident that occurred at his suburban Philadelphia home. You can find more details on the trial and his possible sentence here. Now click below to read one of the first stories to expose Cosby’s chilling behavior, published in Philadelphia magazine way back in 2006. It begins, however, with a full account of Cosby’s traveling “shame” show, in which he would berate black audiences for failing to lift themselves up by their own damn bootstraps and make them pay for the privilege. It was the first serious look at Constand’s allegations and the cognitive dissonance of the two Cosbys. “It’s a crazy game Americans in particular seem to play, the way we need to believe desperately in our heroes — we want Bill Cosby to be as sweet as Cliff, to be as noble as his desire to lift up his people,” says writer Robert Huber.Philadelphia Magazine

Colleges that don't require standardized tests graduate more low-income students

A new study confirms that when colleges and universities are “test optional,” meaning that they don’t require students to submit SAT or ACT scores, they attract, admit and graduate a more diverse student body, including low income and first-generation students. Over 1,000 colleges don’t require test scores, and that number is growing every year. "Our research clearly demonstrates that these students graduate often at a higher rate," says the co-author of Defining Access: How Test-Optional Works. Click through for the response to the “lowering the bar,” concern.

NPR

No black Britons accepted for civil service posts despite a record number of applicants

The civil service fast stream, which aims to recruit people into government positions, had a record number of people of Caribbean heritage apply in 2016, yet none were selected. This is the first time in five years that no one from this cohort made the cut. One minister called the finding “shocking,” and said it suggested “a deep-rooted racial bias” in the system. Studies also found that applicants from private schools tended to make the cut in large numbers.

Huffington Post UK

A new ruling extends age discrimination protections to applicants as well as employees

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday, that job applicants and not just current employees, can sue employers for alleged age discrimination. The original case, brought by then 60-year-old Dale Kleber, filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2016 after one job advertisement asked for seven years maximum legal experience. “They expressed concerns with an older person being less likely to take supervision from someone that’s younger than they are,” Kleber says the company responded to the suit.

Law.com

Lezley McSpadden, Michael Brown’s mother, considers a run for Ferguson City Council

She made the announcement during a panel discussion on her son, the police and the Movement for Black Lives, at Harvard University this week. She was prompted to share her thoughts by her attorney, Benjamin Crump, who is also the attorney for the families of Trayvon Martin and Stephon Clark. “We have to get behind people who look like us and get them in these elected seats so that they can really do what’s right by the community,” she added. “And I’m going to start with me by running for Ferguson City Council.”

St. Louis Today

 

The Woke Leader

A newspaper atones for its complicity in racial violence

The Montgomery Advertiser, the Alabama city’s hometown paper, has been producing extraordinary reporting to accompany the opening of the new memorial to racial violence. But now, they turn the mirror back to themselves. “[T]he Montgomery Advertiser recognizes its own shameful place in the history of these dastardly, murderous deeds,” write the editors. “The Advertiser was careless in how it covered mob violence and the terror foisted upon African-Americans from Reconstruction through the 1950s. We dehumanized human beings. Too often we characterized lynching victims as guilty before proven so and often assumed they committed the crime.”

Montgomery Advertiser

Want to change your workplace culture? Make it fairer

Marco Alvera, the CEO of Snam, Europe’s largest natural gas utility, talks about what he learned about workplace culture when he left a U.S. investment bank to join the Italian-based oil company. Unlike in the U.S., salaries were fixed, there were no bonus schemes, and jobs were set for life. Alvera was at a loss for how to motivate employees, until he realized that they were doing outstanding work without the carrot or the stick. “These guys were working in a company where they didn't need to worry about short-term results,” he says. “They knew they were valued for what they were trying to do, not the outcome. They were valued as human beings. They were part of a community. Whatever happened, the company would stand by them.” This, he says, is workplace fairness. Click through for his prescription, and prepare to hire your first Chief Fairness Officer.

TED

Making every body feel welcome

Imagine a gym for every body: gender neutral locker rooms, unintimidating work out spaces, sliding scale membership fees, Spanish language instruction, subtle accommodations for people with physical limitations. This is the vision of Everybody, a new gym in Los Angeles that aims to take the aggression out of fitness. “In most gyms, there is this nauseating sense of upper class, white, heterosexual energy that is not welcoming for a lot of people,” says co-founder Sam Rypinski. “We are hoping to be an antidote to that."

Allure

Quote

You just never know when and where to bite, blow, kiss, pat or rub. Women should come with directions.Bill Cosby