Here’s your week in review, in haiku.
1.
They take to the streets,
united yet divided.
Hong Kong protesters
2.
Europe was a boy’s
club until this week: Let
women lead the way
3.
Son of immigrants, father
of Chrysler, at rest.
4.
FIFA is a boy’s
club. It’s time to pay women
5.
Tanks on the Fourth? Yes!
Making parades great again,
or patriot games?
RaceAhead will back on Monday, July 8. We wish you a happy and independent holiday! We appreciate all of you.
On Point
How to be a corporate ally now that Pride is over
We’re long past the time where slapping a rainbow on your logo will pass muster with employees and customers, reports Fortune’s Natallie Rocha. But supporting the LGBTQ community can and should mean different things to different corporate cultures. Understanding why inclusion matters is the first step, says Claudia Brind-Woody, a vice president and managing director at IBM. Surveys, data collection and taking public stands are essential ¬— like the landmark Amicus brief headed to the U.S. Supreme Court asking for protections for LGBTQ workers — but not enough. Click through for an array of tactics, strategies and resources to help companies at any stage of allyship to do and be better. Please read and share. Fortune
Amazon’s facial recognition program only recognizes two genders
The system is called Rekognition, and Amazon is increasingly being used by law enforcement agencies and touted by some experts and presented to the world, as Anna Merlan and Dhruv Mehrotra in Jezebel put it “a wondrous new tool designed to keep the public safer; Amazon’s one-stop superpower for law enforcement agencies.” But Jezebel has found that Rekognition often misgenders trans and queer people and all nonbinary individuals, since the system only accommodates two genders. They tick through a list of potential harms. “What happens when you can’t use a bathroom because an AI lock thinks that you shouldn’t be there? What happens to medical research or clinical drug trials when a dataset misgenders or omits thousands of people? And what happens when a cop looks at your license and your machine predicted gender doesn’t match what they see?” What, indeed? Jezebel
Melissa Harville-Lebron is the first black woman to own a NASCAR team
“I don’t look like everybody else and we have some proving to do, but we’re just as good,” she tells CBS News. Harville-Lebron, a single mom, became interested in racing because her two (now adult) sons were fans. After nineteen years in the Department of Corrections, she decided to self-finance a team, and the three are giving it a go. In this clip, the family are long on enthusiasm and expertise, but short on sponsorship. It’s keeping them out of important races. “There’s not a lot of minorities in this sport, and we could definitely influence other people to join,” says her son Eric, who runs a construction company. CBS News
dream hampton interviews Tarana Burke
And, it’s in Playboy. hampton, the award-winning filmmaker, writer, and organizer from Detroit burst into public consciousness with her extraordinary docu-series on the life and sexual crimes of singer R. Kelly. So, she brings a powerful authority to his conversation with Tarana Burke, the Bronx-based founder of Just Be Inc., an organization meant to uplift young girls of color and the creator of the original and longstanding #MeToo campaign to combat sexual assault. Ahead lies candid talk about teen sexuality, organizing, harassment, the grooming of young, curious girls by predatory men and the terrors and tensions of life in a digital age. The story of how #MeToo was co-opted by the mostly white anti-Harvey Weinstein movement is worth understanding, too. “I felt like my life’s work had been taken overnight,” says Burke. “This is the thing I care about more than anything, more than any work I’ve done.” And then, she did the incredible. The only #MeToo guide you’ll ever need.Playboy
On Background
The return to segregated schools
This episode of “Why Is This Happening?” hosted by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, is the perfect listening fare for anyone who wants to quicken their heartrate while jogging or hiking. Nikole Hannah-Jones is an award-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times Magazine who specializes in education; she was also bussed into to a majority white school as a kid. Hayes lays out the history of segregated schools beautifully in the setup, and then they dig in. Hannah-Jones explores the phenomenon of otherwise liberally oriented white parents arguing for segregated education, and lays bare the true value of wealthy, majority white schools. It’s social capital – connections and network. “They're very clear on wanting to hoard these resources,” she says. “That they understand that going to schools with a certain social class opens doors for their kids. That resource hoarding is key to why we ever had segregation in the first place because it ensured that white Americans were getting an inordinate amount of the resources. And it's the same reason why we maintain it today."Why Is This Happening?
Learn more about the modern white supremacy movement!
Check out the American Renaissance website, the home of one of the more serious “white movement” organizations. Jared Taylor, the ever-present host, is a grandfatherly Yale grad who shares calmly articulated views and wholeheartedly believes in the revolutionary nature of the alt-right. “[O]ur movement tends to be male-oriented, but every dissident or revolutionary movement tends to be for that matter,” he says, citing Martin Luther and Lenin. “It’s only later that the people who want to change society are joined by women.” Recruiting women is the purpose of this 28-minute conversation is with Lana Lokteff, a lovely young millennial who is active in white supremacy circles. They begin with feminism – the domain of bougie-bored housewives, spinsters, minorities and ugly women. Although it’s unlikely that you’ll be persuaded by their arguments, it’s worth understanding how seriously they’re taking them – and how closely they track with “traditional” American values. American Renaissance
Turns out The Star-Spangled Banner has a racist third stanza nobody knows about
When it comes to the national anthem, the U.S. has been sitting out the third stanza for years now, as it contains some choice words about former slaves who chose to fight for their freedom alongside the British during the War of 1812. The Root does a nice job making the history accessible, particularly the attitude of the song’s author, Francis Scott Key, an aristocrat and D.C.-based city prosecutor who was in favor of sending free black folks back to Africa, while keeping all others enslaved. For more history you didn’t learn in school, check out What So Proudly We Hail, a short documentary from Emmy-nominated actor Tim Reid and journalism students from Morgan State University, who dig into the unknown history behind the third stanza. The Root
Tamara El-Waylly helps produce raceAhead.
