Here’s your week in review, in haiku.
1.
Hey, Eli. Nice house
you got there. Shame if something,
like, happened to it.
2.
You got Equifax
money coming? So now look
who’s in our wallets.
3.
Ebola spreads. The
U.S. withdraws. Ferguson
rebuilds. The world sweats.
4.
King tides, a black moon
and two asteroids? Think it’s
time to take the hint?
5.
Thousand years ago:
“When they go low, we go high.”
We were all so young.
Have a cool and crime-free weekend.
On Point
Judge recommends the officer who killed Eric Garner be fired A police administrative judge has recommended that Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who used a banned chokehold in an attempt to arrest Eric Garner five years ago, be fired for his actions. The final decision now rests with New York’s police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, who is caught between public outcry and the police union who is lobbying on Pantaleo’s behalf. New York Times
Gina Torres is the first Afro-Latina to create, produce, and star in her own show The Suits star may be spinning off her badass character and taking on Chicago politics in Pearson, but Gina Torres, the Bronx raised Cuban American, is also breaking barriers in real life. She says becoming a television executive was “shockingly easy,” and has assembled a diverse team of writers who will incorporate Latinx themes and Spanish-language dialog. But she realizes this is a moment. “If I have served as an instrument for education that Latinas can look any myriad of ways, I’m happy. There’s Cameron Diaz, there’s me and everything in between.” NBC News
AOC hits the streets to encourage people to take the census Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-The Bronx and Queens) surprised passersby at the Parkchester subway station in the Bronx this week during a pop-up event to encourage people to people to participate in the census. “Our strategy is all about building trust in the community before the enumerators even come to your door,” Ocasio-Cortez told THE CITY. It’s important work. A new analysis shows that her district could be uniquely vulnerable to undercounting given the high number of foreign-born residents. The City
A ‘Black Lady Sketch Show’ is here The show debuts tonight on HBO and is the product of a whole lot of talent. It was created by Robin Thede (The Rundown with Robin Thede), executive produced by Issa Rae (Insecure), and centers on four very funny women, actor/writers: Gabrielle Dennis, Quinta Brunson, Ashley Nicole Black, and Thede herself. Wired, USA Today, Variety, and NPR all have weighed in and it sounds like the show is destined to be funny to everybody. “This is the sketch show you never knew you needed until it appears in a burst of groundbreaking comedy,” says NPR’s Eric Duggan. Wired
On Background
Saying good-bye to the communal rinse cycle The public laundromat, once a staple of urban living, is on the decline. According to the Census Bureau, the number of do-it-yourself laundry emporiums has dropped 20% since 2005. One major factor are the cities themselves: As wealthier renters relocate to cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, developers have been adding amenities like washer and dryers to their units. The trend impacts the mom-and-pop owners of coin-operated laundry facilities, which brings in some $5 billion a year… and dropping. But it also impacts the low-income residents who use them. “We have large families and you have to walk three or four blocks to go do your laundry,” says one San Francisco resident. “You also lose that sense of community. The laundromat was a family affair growing up.” CityLab
How the discovery of the Tuskegee study impacted the health of black men The full name of the study was the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male,” a 40-year experiment in torture in the name of science that has become synonymous with racist medical mistreatment. In a paper accepted by Oxford's Quarterly Journal of Economics, two researchers have found that the news of the study had a devastating effect. “We find that the disclosure of the study in 1972 is correlated with increases in medical mistrust and mortality and decreases in both outpatient and inpatient physician interactions for older black men,” say the authors. As a result, life expectancy for black men who lost faith in the medical system fell by 1.5 years. It accounted for some 35% of the life expectancy gap between black and white men in 1980. (Subscription required.) Quarterly Journal of Economics
We tend to think we’re more expert than we are and that’s a problem David Dunning is psychologist and researcher who helped co-identify the phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, a form of bias that occurs when someone doesn’t know that they are uninformed. In this op-ed piece, he attempts to break down Donald Trump’s popularity via this bias—but don’t let that put you off. When people have real gaps in knowledge but don’t see it, it has profound effects on their lives, behavior, and yes, political judgment. Below is a helpful video, suitable for sharing, that further explains how it plays out in real life. For example, when a night time talk show hosts stops you on the street and suddenly perfectly normal people cannot stop themselves from saying stupid things. “Misconceptions never really leave us, even if we know they’re wrong.” Psych2Go
Tamara El-Waylly helps produce raceAhead.
