Marissa Evans on what is lost for women when retail stores close…
Retail work has often been the proverbial trope in television shows to illustrate women seeking independence or something to “shake up their routine” beyond things like childcare, cooking, and cleaning. But the closure of stores amid the pandemic is not just a matter of communities losing jobs. It’s also women losing opportunities to have a chance at independence, economic freedom, increasing their earning potential, and supporting themselves and their families.
On Sept. 28, 2017, in Texas, the A's were playing their first road series after Maxwell had begun kneeling. The sniper jokes felt too real to be funny, and soon Maxwell began interpreting them another way: In the event of an attack on him, his teammates were telling him nobody would have his back. By this point, it hadn't been lost on him that none of his Black teammates or other Black players in the league had joined in the protest or even offered robust verbal protection. He was alone. "It is much easier being Black when there are other Black people around you," Maxwell says. "There was no one. People are saying what they should have done. They're saying it now, but no one was saying anything then."
Former Minneapolis mayor Betsy Hodges on white liberals getting in the way of progress…
Whatever else you want to say about police officers, they know — whether they articulate it neatly or not — that we are asking them to step into a breach left by our bad policies. The creation of more-just systems won’t guarantee the prevention of atrocities. But the status quo in cities, created by white liberals, invites brutal policing.