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Guests Include Stacey Abrams, Rev. William J. Barber II, Sharon Carpenter and Mustafa Santiago Ali

Nationwide, online This Earth Day, a generation of young people will come together online, via live stream, to call for a just recovery from COVID-19 in line with science and justice. Leaders of the youth climate movement will share their vision of how we can move through this time of upheaval and emerge better prepared to make the massive economic, social and policy changes needed to recover from COVID-19 and confront climate destruction.

African American youth and climate activists are at the forefront of this innovative action, planned after shelter-in-place orders forced the US Youth Climate Strike movement to change their plans for a massive national direct action on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

Earth Day Live is a three day livestream and online mobilization that aims to engage people across the U.S. in collective action to protect their climate and communities. From April 22 to April 24, the livestream will include trainings, performances, and appearances to keep people engaged, informed, and inspired. Speakers from the African American community will include:

A number of sessions will focus on issues impacting African American communities and solutions brought forward by those communities, including:

April 22, 1:30 PM EST: A story sharing session on barriers that young people of color face to entering the climate movement, led by young people of color.

April 22, 3:05 PM EST: Hip Hop performance from Frontline Detroit and Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition

April 24th, 8:35 AM EST: Two of the largest youth movements turning out voters are March for Our Lives and the Future Coalition. This panel will explore the intersection between the movement for gun violence prevention and climate justice with Thandiwe Abdullah of Black Lives Matter LA.

April 23, 7:00 PM EST: Remembering and Uplifting What Our People Have Known For Centuries, for Young Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. People of the Global South (Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands) are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. This interactive workshop will create space for young people of color to come together and support each other to heal from the ways the climate crisis is impacting us and our people back home. RSVP/Registration is required.

To record or join a session, visit earthdaylive2020.org to register.

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African American Leaders at Forefront of Earth Day Live, A Digital Mobilization to Demand Action on COVID and Climate - Milwaukee Community Journal

Montecruz Foto/Flickr

Today marks the 15th anniversary of my mothers death. I was six years old, but the faces of the first responders rushing up the stairs to my parents bedroom have never grown fuzzy in my mind. I never got the chance to thank those men, but now, more than ever, I wish I had.

In the midst of COVID-19, paramedics, first responders, nurses, and doctors are saving lives and putting themselves at risk in the name of humanity. My mother was a surgeon. Each time I watch a video of New York City erupting into applause at 7 p.m., I wish she could hear it. Around the world, the strength of medical professionals and the essential employees continuing to work is nothing short of remarkable.

Institutional failings, however, cast a shadow over the individual bravery of these women and men. As more and more cities collect data on racial disparities in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates, it has become apparent that COVID-19 is taking a staggering number of black lives. In Louisiana, black residents make up 32 percent of the population, yet account for 70 percent of the states deaths. Cities such as Chicago and D.C. and states such as Illinois and Michigan report similar tallies.

As the virus cuts short many black lives, two realities become essential to remember. First, COVID-19 did not create the systemic challenges that increase black peoples vulnerability to the disease. But now that these widespread inequalities have been brought (yet again) to mainstream attention, widespread affirmation of black life must follow.

Precarity plagues Black American life, as inadequate access to healthcare and healthy food and increased exposure to trauma and pollution take their toll. These systematic factors lead black Americans to suffer from higher rates of hypertension, asthma, diabetes, obesity many of the preconditions that increase susceptibility to the virus.

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams raised the racial issues of COVID-19 by speaking out about his own struggles with high blood pressure and heart and respiratory ailments. Discussing the disparities before they were front page news, he said, I represent that legacy of growing up poor and black in America.

These disparities do not surprise black people. Black Americans were not able to forget about these institutional barriers to health and prosperity while the rest of the country did COVID-19 is simply a newsworthy exacerbation of everyday reality. It has taken a pandemic and the disproportionate death rate of Black Americans for white people and leaders to even acknowledge the material conditions created by factors such as segregation and inadequate funding.

President Trump, the nations doctor Anthony Fauci, and Boston mayor Marty Walsh have offered statements attesting to the crisiss disproportionate effect on black lives. Fauci, who is committed to trying to return the country to normal by November, seemed resigned to the issue of Black death, stating, Its very sad. There is nothing to do about it right now

Fauci is wrong. Throwing ones hands up is not an adequate response. The need for systemic overhauls addressing the inequality of access and care is clear, and those overhauls will not come without a committed effort to reaffirm the value of Black life.

There is so much to be done. Insisting that we are literally counted, as Julia and Shannon Chaffers 22 did in a recent column calling on officials to collect data on racial demographics, is one way to start, one way for Black people to assert their voices in this time where the historical and societal devaluation of Black lives is again evident. Yet solely collecting and analyzing data does no justice to the humanity of those who have lost their lives.

My mom passed away from melanoma. With radiant skin darker than mine, her chances of developing skin cancer were low. Her death was an anomaly as was much of her life. She went to Yale when she was 16 and became one of the first black woman surgical residents at Brigham and Womens Hospital. She was also one of the first surgeons to take maternity leave. In one sense, she fought marginalization in all aspects of her life, running up against the intersecting walls of racism and sexism in education, the medical field, and our white neighborhood. Yet, defying the odds even in death allowed her a certain kind of dignity. She is not reduced to a statistic, as statistics do not represent her story.

The black people who have died from COVID-19 deserve dignity and visibility as individuals, not only as numbers. Ronda Hatch of Chicago, Lawrence Riley of Milwaukee, and Leilani Jordan of Washington D.C. are among the thousands of black people who have died. They were mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, and brothers. Undoubtably some were poor, some LGBTQ+, some undocumented. The data matters. Hopefully it helps us address the institutional difficulties many of them faced. But their lives as lived matter even more. We may not be able to capture all of their stories, but by reviving the conviction of the Black Lives Matter movement, we can approach reports on the disproportionate toll of black people dying with a sense of regard for the person lost and the community grieving them.

In addition to statistics, we must invest in black life. Any action insisting Black people matter is necessary because it directly contradicts the logic of white supremacy that allowed Black communities to become so drastically underserved in the first place.

Supporting ones community by providing grocery services to those affected by limited food pantry hours like Melody McCurtis and Danell Cross are doing in Milwaukee is another way of rejecting the pervasive myth of the dispensability of black life. We need more individuals and institutions to reject this myth.

The first person I had to say goodbye to was the first person who knew me in this world. Ten years after my mom passed, a classmate of mine, Casey Dunne, died. Less than two years later, during my first week at Princeton, one of my best friends, McCrae Williams, died. I think of them all each day. Their deaths were all statistical outliers, due to rare ailments or freak accidents. Lying outside the realm of statistical possibility, Ive often asked why them?

No one could give me an answer. For years, I thought this made it all worse. As I think of the thousands of Black people mourning loved ones now, I doubt pointing to institutional disregard and devaluation provides them with any solace. But by addressing and changing those systemic patterns, we can help prevent others from enduring the same treatment.

Death has punctuated many eras of my life. Ive spent lots of my life grieving. It is a lonely process only now made lonelier that ceremonies commemorating it are not possible, and neither are the daily routines of work and school that carry us through it. Despite the heartbreak felt in the worldwide diffusion of death, we cannot diffuse responsibility as to why certain people are dying at disproportionately higher rates than others.

We must call the disparity what it is institutional racism and double down on our efforts to express to the families and communities disproportionately affected that their lives matter, despite the overwhelming evidence that American society does not agree. Black lives matter today as I mourn my mother, and families and communities mourn the over 130,930 people lost to COVID-19 worldwide. Black lives matter always.

Rachel Kennedy is a junior from Dedham, Mass. She can be reached at rk19@princeton.edu.

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Black Lives Matter: It must be said - The Daily Princetonian

The coronavirus pandemic arrived after years of raw video footage of unarmed African-Americans being shot or beaten by police officers gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. A 2019 study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that African-Americans, and black men in particular, were much more likely than their white peers to be killed by the police.

It is unclear how many profiling incidents there have been since the C.D.C. issued its recommendation earlier this month. Melanye Price, a political-science professor at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black university in Texas, said the pandemic and the C.D.C.s mask recommendation, however well-intentioned, could put African-Americans at greater risk.

I think in the end we are asking a lot from people who are asked to be safe by putting these masks or bandannas on, Ms. Price said. If somebody called the police on them, they could lose their life over policing before the coronavirus could ever get to them.

Kevin Gaines, the Julian Bond professor of civil rights and social justice at the University of Virginia, said the recent episodes of racial profiling were not surprising.

Black people are profiled by police on a regular basis, Mr. Gaines said. And actually, the problem, at least recently, has become even larger than that.

Some black men modify how they dress in order to appear less threatening to others, Mr. Gaines said, adding that the behavior is a product of a segregated society. Many whites are just uncomfortable encountering many black people, pandemic or no pandemic, masks or no masks, and those fears may manifest in ways that lead to profiling, he said.

You would think, Mr. Gaines said, that people would understand, with the context of the pandemic, why the masks are needed and why its important for everyone.

Link:
For Black Men, Fear That Masks to Protect from Covid-19 Will Invite Racial Profiling - The New York Times

For students at the University of Vermont, knowledge knows no bounds. Near or far from campus, they study everything from the most complex micro-ecosystems on the planet to the biggest threats to democracy today; they're engaged year-round, day and night, all in pursuit of knowledge. As this academic year enters its final stretch, we take a look at some of the most exciting research projects UVM students have worked on this year.

Want more? Hundreds of student research projects from every discipline are ready to discover at the Virtual Student Research Conference. Engage with student researchers online from Thursday, April 16, to Thursday, April 23.

According to animal science student Jamie Burke 20, pictured above, the inside of a cows stomach contains one of the most complex micro-ecosystems in the world. She would know, as shes helped create and sustain six artificial cow rumens in Professor Sabrina Greenwoods lab in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

To better understand how introducing amino acid supplements into a cows diet might ultimately improve health and nutrition properties in dairy products, Burkewith guidance from professor Jana Kraftfed and maintained fermenters that mimicked the activity that takes place inside a cow's stomach.She and the research team in Krafts lab specifically analyzed the branched-chain fatty acids (BCFA) in protozoal cell membranes in the artificial rumen ferment.

But they had one hiccup: in a real rumen, most protozoa like to attach to the rumen wall; in an artificial rumen, that hospitable surface doesnt exist. So, Burke 3D printed a filter for the ferment. This 3D-printed support can serve as a model for all continuous culture fermenter systems to promote protozoa retention, maintain fluid flow, and allow for better comparisons of protozoa numbers in different systems, she says.

Preparing for a weekend ahead, Danielle Allen makes sure the cells she's growing in the Thali lab for her HIV research will stay "happy and healthy" until Monday when she returns. (Video: Rachel Leslie)

Viruses are absolutely fascinating, says molecular genetics senior Danielle Allen, who is conducting research on the spread of HIV at the cellular level in Professor Markus Thalis lab at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Allens research is focused on one of the relevant host proteins, EWI-2, active in cell fusion, which can occur when a viral protein in an HIV-infected cell binds to a surface protein on an uninfected cell. EWI-2 is also an active component in other biological functions, including cancer metastasis, sperm-egg fusion and muscle regeneration. But while it is a known fusion inhibitor, the proteins mechanism of fusion inhibition is not well understood.

Thats where Allen set her sights. Using fluorescence microscopy, she determined optimal transfection conditions for EWI-2 mutant plasmids to obtain equal surface expression of each EWI-2. Allen also designed a new fusion assay system that could be used for future fusion assays to further characterize EWI-2s mechanism of fusion inhibition.

By understanding these proteins involved in HIV transmission, we might be able to develop better treatments for HIV, which is really important since the current treatments are intense and there isnt a cure, says Allen. Ive learned a lot of different techniques that I didnt know beforeeverything from growing DNA in E. coli to isolating the DNA, transfecting HeLa cells, a lot of stuff with florescence microscopy and staining cells with antibodiesa lot of stuff you just dont really have time to learn in lectures in undergraduate teaching labs.

Political science and history double major Jason Goldfarb. (Photo: Sally McCay)

Jason Goldfarb 20 grew up hearing about the ways social media connected the world, exposing truths in the Arab Spring and elevating causes like the Black Lives Matter movement. But headlines of Russian propagandists and Cambridge Analytica following the 2016 U.S. election prompted Goldfarb to wonder: is social media helping or harming us? In the seniors thesis project for the College of Arts and Sciences, Scrolling Alone: The Impact of Social Media on American Democracy, he outlines a disturbing finding: Although there is potential for social media to live up to its promise of connecting the world, the present platforms harm civic discourse, Goldfarb says.

A double major in political science and history, his research considers technology through both lenses, drawing parallels between Facebook and other revolutionary technologies throughout time. Think of the automobile, notes Goldfarb. It democratized transportation, revolutionized warfare, and changed the way in which cities are designed. Social media, he argues, has similarly transformed much of todays world, stoking polarization, encouraging distraction, and eroding privacy. The paper was published in the Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Policy and Society in late 2019. Under the guidance of Dr. Amani Whitfield and Professor Bob Pepperman Taylor, its my proudest accomplishment at UVM.

Anthropology major Rose Lillpopp. (Photo: Sally McCay)

From University Row to upscale private events, it seems like food trucks can be found everywhere these days. Though lauded as an entrepreneurial feat for the past decade, College of Arts and Sciences anthropology student Rose Lillpopp 20 says that food trucks have historical roots and repercussions in the street food vending industry that run deep. Her research digs into the positive and negative influences food trucks have on our foodways and social relationships, and grapples with topics like immigration, identity, race, class and public policy.

In addition to sampling the menus of dozens of food trucks, Lillpopp developed relationships with vendors and customers she interviewed about how a vendors authenticity or legitimacy is earned, how their brands are perceived and what customers convey about themselves when they order in public spaces.

For example, Customers patronizing a vegan truck versus a wagyu beef truck are claiming different identities that come with various moral or economic prestige, she explains. Because food trucks have been under-researched and taken for granted, this conflicted history is erased by the fallacy that the gourmet food truck is unattached to these less privileged forms of vending.

Business student Mateo Florez. (Photo: Sally McCay)

While much about the use and effects of e-cigarettes remain unknown, entrepreneurship and marketing student Mateo Florez 20 is searching for answers about why these vaping products are so popular among college students.

For his Grossman School of Business research, he collected data from 750 undergraduate students about their basic demographics, substance use and preferences to run a statistical analysis technique, called a conjoint analysis. Ultimately, the analysis will provide insight on the relative value each respondent places on certain attributes of vapingincluding social context while vaping, substance effect from vaping and health risksand will be able to establish a possible correlation between demographics and e-cigarette use.

E-cigarettes have exploded in popularity during the past couple years, and understanding more about the driving forces behind e-cigarette consumption can provide both policymakers and consumers better insight into the root causes of this trend, he says.

Hannah Sheehy (center) teaches fellow student research assistants about a new rubric she developed to measure the quality of the childrens storytelling. (Video: Janet Franz)

Not all research endeavors result in storybook endings, but for the families that Hannah Sheehy and Provost Patty Prelock collaborated with for a study about Theory of Mind (ToM)the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others, one of the primary challenges of autism spectrum disorder (ASD)its been just that.

As a research team coordinator for Prelocks study, Sheehy,a communication sciences and disorders senior in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, assisted three families with ASD children throughout a six-week reading intervention program designed to help bolster their students ToM. The intervention program incorporated parent-led stories and picture books with ToM elements such as visual perspective-taking and emotion recognition, and included scripts to help parents further facilitate discussion with their child about the stories. Sheehy collected and analyzed the data from the program and found that each child improved not only their ToM score, but their own language complexity and story coherence abilities as well.

Pointing out a characters facial expression or asking the child how they think a character is feeling helped the children understand peoples emotions and become stronger storytellers themselves, which is an important social skill, says Sheehy. Ive loved seeing how the study empowers parents to incorporate simple book-reading strategies that scaffold their childs ToM development into their everyday lives and conversations.

Business student Michael Chan. (Photo: Sally McCay)

Recognizing the increasing demand for sustainable and socially responsible businesses and products,Michael Chanwas curious about how that trend found its way into local communities. A double major in business and environmental sciences, Chans research looked to an unexpected source for answers: marginalized small business owners. Small businesses are key change agents in their communitys transformation toward a more sustainable future, he says.

Chan conducted personal interviews with local entrepreneurs of varying genders, geographic locations, races, industries and sizes about how they started and grew their businesses. He then analyzed major trends among their experiences by applying constructivist grounded theory to their narratives. What he noticed was that, despite their identity and industry differences, major themes of family, resilience and care for others emerged, connecting identity groups.

Storytelling is a powerful tool in changing the world around us, Chan says. When it comes to building a more sustainable and socially responsible future, his findings indicate that connecting to the experiences of those deemed other in our communities will increase awareness of our individual purchasing power.

Medical Laboratory Science major Sierra Walters maintains cancer cell lines for genetic experiments. Her work contributes to a project investigating the alterations of a gene associated with lung cancer, the leading cause of worldwide cancer-related mortality. (Video: Janet Franz)

How to tell if a malignant tumor will be responsive to treatment? In her time at UVM, senior Sierra Walters has worked to help researchers better answer that question. Specifically, a team working with College of Nursing and Health Sciences professor Paula Deming and Larner College of Medicine professor David Seward is taking a closer look at a protein, STK11, thats been implicated in certain types of lung cancer and can equate to a poor prognosis. The big picture to this project is to study how different genetic variations in the STK11 gene alter the proteins function, explains Walters, with the hope of someday aiding doctors and labs profiling the tumors of lung cancer patients. Im so grateful to have gotten involved in this project so early in my college career, says Walters, a medical laboratory science major in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. While the research is on pause during remote instruction, the team still meets weekly. And her time at UVM isnt done; after graduation, Walters will pursue her masters, and work in the microbiology department at UVM Medical Center. Having a hands-on job where Im constantly trying new things and working with other students in the lab helped prepare me for the future.

Writing for this piece contributed by Kaitie Catania, Andrea Estey, Janet Franz and Rachel Leslie. Photos by Josh Brown and Sally McCay. Videos by Janet Franz and Rachel Leslie.

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The Pursuit of Knowledge | UVM Today | The - UVM News

A scene from the music video for New Orders Singularity(via YouTube)For the quarantined sheeple, its as if rock n roll, punk, and hip-hop never happened.

History comes back to provoke us in New Orders Singularity music video, which debuted in 2016 but has found fresh popularity. Its new viral status owes to deep quarantine viewing. Confined spectators respond to the videos depiction of isolation, seclusion, and, finally, rebellion as captured in footage from West Berlin prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The actions shown in Singularity provide a strong contrast to the daily 7 p.m.ritual by self-imprisoned New Yorkers who crack open their apartment windows to clap, bang pots and pans, and cheer. The ceremony, supposedly intended to encourage the citys first responders, lasts only twice as long as a New York minute shorter than Singularity itself (4:13). This timid, self-conscious group activity has inspired appreciation of Singularitys nostalgia for genuine rebellion.

The Twitterverse is aroused by envy. New Order, the distinguished British dance-pop-synth band, had commissioned the Singularity video from designer Damian Hale, an expert in live-concert visuals, who compiled clips from B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West Berlin 19791989. That film was a fact-based chronicle of British music producer Mark Reeders experiences in Europes post-punk scene; its records frenzy, tumult, and chaos. More than a celebration of youthful uprising, it specifically exhibits live-wire reaction to silence and social obedience a marked contrast to Americas orderly sequestration during the COVID-19 quarantine.

Singularitys appeal raises questions about Millennial compliance so different from punk-era rebellion during this emergency. Does it set the stage for socialist dictatorship as newly ambitious mayors and governors, along with the hotly emboldened news media, control citizens behavior through fear? Singularitys images of dissent and unrest, edited to New Orders elegant dance beats, salute fearlessness and abandon by a generation that distrusted politicians and establishment media. Mark Reeder and his punk-culture cohorts sought to express their own sense of liberty. Scenes of close-quarters dancing and sex flout the seriousness of social-distancing. Repeated shots of various, vintage, flipped fingers seem aimed at 21st-century acquiescence itself.

Punk culture disregarded the maudlin fear of danger and embraced it an outrageous, unexpected expanse of FDRs idea that theres nothing to fear but fear itself, which COVID-19 politicians dont dare repeat. So Singularity commemorates fearlessness, and in doing so, it shames that 7 p.m.pseudo-civility. Compared with New Orders scenes of disorderly conduct, the polite clapping and cheering come from people in New Yorks most liberal, Hillary-supporting districts (from my neighborhood perspective, the nervously cracked windows are in swanky brownstones) that share a pampered sense of what resistance really means. Unlike those radicals in Berlins anti-Stasi youth subculture, the Manhattan noisemakers seem at a loss about what to do with themselves; they may well be of the ADD generation, former Ritalin kids who are now cautious homeowners and urban stakeholders.

The protests in Singularity havent yet happened in the U.S., tensely considering the reopening of the economy, but the fever of fed-upness (a better term than the now discredited resistance) indicates some underlying exasperation such as is inchoately expressed by the 7 p.m.bourgeois ritual. Singularity throws images of liberation back at a nation of sheeple. Baaing people. Applauding people. They really seem to be congratulating themselves for their own helplessness, for upholding government edicts during the clampdown, keeping quiet, and waiting all day for that brief moment when they can pretend to appreciate other peoples sacrifice. The typical liberal impulse is to mistake self-congratulation for altruism. A populace that disguises its own lack of self-awareness as gratitude demonstrates the essence of conformity and surrender.

This meek, docile applauding at 7 p.m. suggests a dire transformation of the American spirit. Its as if rock n roll, punk, and hip-hop never happened.

Some skeptics have asked: Wheres that rebel spirit? Wheres Antifa now to protest the confining of the indigent and shut-in, in the interest of justice the first steps toward fascism? Where are the Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movements when the republics freedom and liberty need to be restored, as those Cold War Berliners desired?

The popularity of New Orders Singularity offers a last hope against restrictions that are not entirely based on science but come from the fiat of leaders who claim to know whats best.The song Singularity mourns the loss of camaraderie, while the video supplies virtual, vicarious protest. Its a reminder of the punk ethic buried inside.

Originally posted here:
Rebellion, New OrderStyle: What Happened to It? - National Review