Hello, Friends. How are you? We had a full, emotional, and interesting week. There was a funeral yesterday — it was my first online funeral. We went through all of our old scrapbooks and photo albums, seeking out the photos of our friend Christopher Clark, and letters they exchanged when he and Ben were missionaries (one in Finland, one in Greece).
There was quite a bit of time spent responding to questions about my recent Twitter thread. I ended up sharing it first on Twitter, then here on Design Mom, then in my Instagram Stories, and then at the request of a few followers, I created an Instagram post of the tweets (Instagram makes it easy to share posts, but harder to share Stories, and they wanted to share it).
The Instagram post got way more attention then I was expecting — I think it’s my most liked IG post ever. It made me realize that I’ve been doing this work for 14 years and my instincts for social media are still way off sometimes. Sharing the tweets as a post hadn’t even occurred to me. Hah!
Another interesting thing this week is that the kids were back in school, and suddenly it was like: Oh yeah! This is how a work week feels. I had forgotten.
I know there are a whole lot of people who have gone from “working from home while the kids are also schooling from home” to “working from home while the kids are on summer break at home”, so our situation feels a bit unique. Most schools in the U.S. are out for the summer, but school in France ends July 5th. So our kids still have a few weeks left. School is definitely different, with a lot more safety features implemented, but the kids really enjoy being back. And the house feels so strange with only Ben Blair and me at home.
Let’s get to those links. Here are a few things I’ve wanted to share:
–Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop. Please read this essay.
-Woah. Did you see this chart on public opinion about Black Lives Matter? That is an epic shift in a short amount of time.
-“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger — that claim is so universally accepted it’s a common truism. But a team of Brown University researchers found this is false — in fact, new research suggests the opposite is true.”
-Richmond’s confederate statues were used to sell a whites-only development. “No lots can ever be sold or rented in MONUMENT AVENUE PARK to any person of African descent.”
–The fight to redefine racism.
–The Incredible Ice Formations of Lake Baikal.
-Widespread mask-wearing with higher quality masks could help mitigate a second wave.
-American’s shocking history of private prisons.
-If you are unsure about what gaslighting is, and what the purpose of it is, have a read.
-A mother was sentenced to 30 years in prison for “enabling” child abuse. The man who actually abused her child got only 2 years. This is true for a number of cases.
-“News organizations’ core value needs to be the truth, not the perception of objectivity.”
-What time do you put your kids to bed?
-AP looked at social media feeds for 217 people arrested in MN and DC and found one anarchist but multiple Trump supporters. So more profa than anti.
-A spreadsheet with over 400 videos of police violence over the last two weeks.
Here are some tweets I saved for you:
-Are we done compromising with with white supremacy?
-Please, please read this thread about a police ride-along.
-I keep laughing at this tweet.
-Dang. 2020 is out for blood.
-I don’t trust police reports.
-Have you ever wondered why there are Army bases named after Confederates?
-It doesn’t take a mathematician.
-Still mad about what was done to Hillary? This thread captures some of the why.
-This thread on wage theft will make you pull your hair out.
-Were you taught this as a kid?
I hope you have a safe and healthy weekend. I’ll meet you back here on Monday. I miss you already.
kisses,
Gabrielle
P.S. — I’m putting together a list of resources for those who want to read more about the research behind defunding and abolition. I’ll share that as soon as it’s ready — aiming for Monday.
