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Aside from communities of color existing in what are often called “food deserts,” now we’re learning that much of the food available to Black and brown people is more akin to a “food apartheid” where fast food restaurants line the streets and marginalized people live with unhealthy and potentially poisonous menus. 

A new study uncovers that many of the restaurants available those living in underserved areas have high concentrations of an extremely dangerous class of chemicals known as phthalates—a group of chemicals used to make plastics more durable—used in everything from soaps to vinyl flooring. People are exposed to phthalates by eating and drinking foods that have contacted products containing phthalates, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The study, published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, found that when researchers visited dozens of fast food restaurants in low-income neighborhoods, they found a phthalate knowns as DnBP in 81% of the samples and another one called DEHP in 70%. And in 89% of a food samples was another non-phthalate plasticizer that is supposedly safe and is known as DEHT. 

“These results have implications for health equity since Black people in the U.S. report greater fast food consumption than other racial/ethnic groups and also face higher exposures to environmental chemicals from other sources,” authors of the study wrote.

We know that Black and brown people were disproportionately infected, hospitalized, and killed by COVID-19, and that’s directly because of the inequalities in access to healthy food across the nation as well as unequal access to health care, increased exposure to toxic chemicals, and unhealthy air, according to the U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit investigative research group focusing on transparency for public health. 

“Unhealthy food marketing aimed at youth under age 18 is a significant contributor to poor diets and diet-related diseases. Therefore, greater exposure to this marketing by Hispanic and Black children and teens, both in the media and in their communities, likely contributes to diet-related health disparities affecting communities of color, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease,” reads a report from the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, Council on Black Health. 

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I’m elated that I get an extra hour of sleep today, now that we are no longer on Daylight Saving Time here in New York. I keep saying “fall back, spring forward” to remember to set a few of the windup clocks I have in the house. Thankfully, my computer and cell phone reset themselves automatically.

For today’s Black Music Sunday, we’ll be exploring songs about time.

Whether it’s tick-tock sounds, metronomes, keeping time, doing time, two-timing lovers, the changing times, or time repeating, time in some form has been a theme in popular music and across multiple genres. So take a little of your spare time today, and give a listen.

Let’s kick this journey into time off with the Chambers Brothers.

First some background on the group, from music historian Richie Unterberger’s liner notes for the 2007 reissue of their 1968 LP, Shout. 

Many African-American soul and rock greats came from humble origins, but few came from as humble circumstances as the Chambers Brothers did. Willie, Joe, Lester, and George Chambers were just four brothers in a family also including four other brothers and five sisters. From a young age, they worked in the fields on their father George’s Mississippi farm, growing cotton and almost any form of food that could be eaten. There was time for singing, though, both in the fields and at home, as well as in church and other social occasions. According to a 1965 article in Sing Out! by folksinger Barbara Dane (whom the Chambers Brothers backed onstage and on a mid-1960s Folkways LP, Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers, reissued on CD in 2005 by DBK Works),”The little boys were sometimes asked to sing for well-to-do-whites, and the pay was…an apple. The traditional presentation of that apple was with one bite removed, so that everybody ‘kept their places.'” As demeaning as the pay was in some ways, pointed out Willie Chambers in the same story, “That was still more than the other kids had, and besides, we had enjoyed ourselves singing so much, we just didn’t worry about what we got for it.”

The family moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, both in search of a better life and to escape the harsh prejudices endured by blacks in the pre-Civil Rights Act South. At first, George, Willie, Lester, and Joe performed gospel, often in church on Sundays, and for a while their group also included singers from outside the family, like Tommy James and Oscar Reed. “What we used to do,” Joe told Goldmine in 1994, “because we had such good harmonies together, the brothers would sing all the background harmonies while we’d have other singers do the lead work. We’d just keep the harmony tight in the back. But we were always called the Chambers Brothers.”

Similar to Sly and the Family Stone, the Chambers Brothers added a white drummer, Brian Keenan, thus becoming an interracial group. Their music moved into the rock realm while still maintaining roots in Black gospel and folk through the vocals.

The Chambers Brothers made psychedelic soul history with their 1967 11-minute masterpiece, “Time Has Come Today,” which is so nice, I’m gonna post it twice. First, enjoy the studio version, from The Time Has Come album.

Here we go!

Next, let’s enjoy a live performance from The Chambers Brothers with Joshua Light Show, which aired in June 1969 on German television. The concert was filmed three months earlier at the Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt, Germany. This live version clocks in at nearly 15 minutes!

The recording of the studio version was a “very big deal,” as Steve Jennings wrote for MIX in 2013.

Through the first half of 1967, the Chambers Brothers toured relentlessly “and built up a big following around the country,” [then-23-year-old staff producer for Columbia Records named David] Rubinson says. “They would pack into a station wagon and drive from city to city and play these gigs. They’d play ‘Time Has Come Today’ live, and they developed this whole thing where it would slow down with the cowbell, and they’d have this incredible electric jam in the middle, and it would go way out there and craziness would ensue, and then they’d bring it back to the song and be done 20 minutes later. When I saw them at the Electric Circus [a hip club in NYC], it was mind-blowing; everyone went nuts over it.”

Shortly after that appearance, in early August 1967, the band went into Columbia New York’s Studio E with Rubinson and engineer Fred Catero and cut the epic psychedelic version of “Time Has Come Today” that would appear on The Time Has Come, completely live—trippy sound effects included—in just one take.[…]

Rubinson was so excited he had Clive Davis come down to the studio at midnight to hear the track, and that is what finally convinced Davis to commit to putting out a whole Chambers Brothers album. Rubinson made an edited single version of the song, eliminating the long psychedelic section, “but an engineer at KFRC in San Francisco made his own edit, which was frankly better than mine, and [Columbia released] a second single based on the KFRC edit and it swept the country, beginning in San Francisco, where it was a Number One record.” Between the single and the album version, “Time Has Come Today” was inescapable in the summer and fall of 1968.

I had the good fortune of being a member of a girl group back in the 1960s; we opened for the Chambers Brothers at the Cheetah Club in New York City, so I got to hear them, see them, and briefly get to know them. They were mesmerizing live, and though members of the group have since passed on, whenever I hear “Time Has Come Today,” I always think of what a warm and unpretentious group of brothers they were.

A younger generation of folks, even though they may not know who the Chambers Brothers were, have likely heard their iconic tune in this commercial for Hoka running shoes.

Going back a few years to 1964, it’s about time to set the record straight on some confusion about the song “Time Is On My Side,” recorded by the Queen of New Orleans soul, Irma Thomas.

Born as Irma Lee in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, in February 1941, Thomas uses the last name of a former husband, Andrew. Carol Brennan wrote an undated biography of Thomas for Musician Guide.

The story of R&B singer Irma Thomas seems the ideal candidate for a film biography, one that would pick its leading lady from the younger generation of soul divas that carry on Thomas’s legacy. “Honey, my story sounds like a black version of the Loretta Lynn story,” Thomas joked with a writer from the New Yorker once. A native of New Orleans, Thomas cut her first record while a teen single mother in the late 1950s, and went on to have a nominally successful recording career–although she never made as much money from it as those behind the scenes. The British Invasion and cataclysmic weather put her career under water in New Orleans, so she packed up her four children and moved to California, alternating performing gigs with her sales clerk job. Returning to New Orleans in the mid-1970s was the beginning of a change of fortune for Thomas, and since then she has enjoyed a successful recording career on Rounder Records as well as the support of a loyal local fan base. A celebrity in her hometown, Thomas puts her good Grammy-nominated name to use in charity work and as the proprietor of her own club.

Thomas recorded “Time Is On My Side” in 1964, but for decades, she stopped singing it live because people thought she was covering a hit by the Rolling Stones, but the truth was that the Stones were the ones doing the cover—of Irma Thomas. But as Brennan notes:

Thomas also tours extensively, and does not shy away from performing “Time Is On My Side” any longer in her well-attended club appearances. Contemporary singer Bonnie Raitt convinced her to start singing it again one night at the Hard Rock Cafe in New Orleans. “Go ahead on and sing it regardless of what people think,” Thomas recalled Raitt saying when she spoke with the Advocate. “Just sing it! You do it better than they do anyway.”

Give Thomas’ original a listen.

Thomas tells the story of how the Stones came to overshadow her performance of the song, written by Jerry Ragovoy, in this short 2019 documentary for Dutch Public Television.

For more on Thomas’ career, pay a visit to The History Makers, where you can find a series of oral histories. Be sure to check out a new film about Thomas and her music, dropping at the end of November. 

Let’s go back a couple years further in time to 1962, when doo-wop music was still popular. The Jive Five were from my old stomping grounds in Brooklyn. Michael Jack Kirby tells their story for Way Back Attack.

Eugene Pitt hailed from Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, musically influenced by his father, a gospel singer, who taught Eugene and his sisters how to harmonize; they performed gospel songs in churches until about 1950, when he entered his restless teenage years. The atmosphere of Brooklyn’s streets, with doo wop singers everywhere, stirred a desire for rhythm and blues stardom and by mid-decade he had joined a group called The Akrons with brothers Ray and Charles Murphy (father of future comedian and movie star Eddie Murphy). A little later Eugene sang with a group headed by Claude Johnson, but they separated when Johnson left for Long Island to join The Genies, the outfit that later scored a national hit with “Who’s That Knocking.”

In 1959 Pitt put together his own group, The Jive Five, with friends from the neighborhood. He and Jerome Hanna sang tenor, supported by Richard Harris, Thurmon “Billy” Prophet and bass singer Norman Johnson.

What’s always stuck in my head was the refrain of their hit “What Time Is It?”

(Tick-tock, tick-tock)
(Tick-tock, listen to the clock)
(Tick-tock, listen to the clock)

[…]

(Tick-tock, tick-tock, better hurry up)
And put my tie on
(Better hurry up)
It’s almost time
(Tick-tock, listen to the clock)
(Tick-tock, listen to the clock)

Take a listen and see if it becomes an “ear worm” for you!

Rock, soul, and doo-wop aren’t the only music genres to address time. Probably one of the greatest folk ballads of all time was written by Bob Dylan, released in 1964 as the title track of an album with the same name: The Times They Are A Changin’. It would go on to become an anthem for a generation, covered by a long list of artists.

As a point of personal preference, I’ll be honest: I love Dylan the writer, but I can’t stand to listen to him sing. I very much prefer it when other folks sing his songs. With that in mind, let’s enjoy Tracy Chapman’s version of “The Times They Are A Changin’,” performed live at the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration at Madison Square Garden, in October 1992. 

Times are indeed always changing, and my time is running out today, though I’ll have lots more in the comments section below. I’d like to close with a duet that never fails to move me emotionally. I first watched this remarkable performance when it was televised on the Patti Labelle Special in 1985.

Lauper wrote “Time After Time” in 1983; its genesis was documented in 2018, by Mike Hobart for The Financial Times.

Cyndi Lauper didn’t plan to write “Time after Time” at all. The New York-raised singer had already left the recording studio after — she thought — completing her first solo album, She’s So Unusual. Released in 1983, it went on to produce four top-five singles, and a Grammy in 1984 for best new artist. But before any of that, Lauper’s producer reckoned the album was coming in one number short, and could she please turn in another track?

She and her co-writer, keyboardist Rob Hyman, returned to the studio. Lauper flicked through a TV guide hoping that some title or other might jump out and kickstart a new song. One of them did: a listing for Time after Time, a 1979 film starring Malcolm McDowell as H.G. Wells in pursuit of Jack the Ripper, who has hijacked his time machine.

Lauper and Hyman dispensed with the film’s plot, coming up instead with a 1980s-defining romantic ballad that distilled the contradictory emotions of an unwinding relationship into four minutes of brilliantly conceived narrative pop. Here, a young woman moves on — not dumped — from a relationship that she still treasures: “If you’re lost you can look — and you will find me / time after time / if you fall I will catch you, I’ll be waiting, time after time.”

“Time After Time” went on to become a truly iconic tune; jazz trumpeter Miles Davis did a version, and new covers emerge regularly.

But what moves me in this duet is the palpable connection and care shown between LaBelle and Lauper as they hold hands and hold space for each other to show off, and as their voices come together. That deep connection was real, and persists offstage: LaBelle is godmother to Lauper’s son Declyn, and she even sang “Come What May” at Lauper’s wedding.

Get ready to have your heart soar.

I hope you’ll find some time to join me in the comments for more music on time. I also look forward (even though we’ve fallen back) to hearing some of your favorites.  

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Let’s dive right in!

Li Zhou of Vox writes about Friday night’s passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package,and the concerns of the progressive wing of the Democratic caucus about the eventual fate of Build Back Better bill.

The result was a major step forward for President Joe Biden’s agenda, but a blow to progressives who’ve long pushed for the two bills to be tied together. Progressives were able to extract a commitment from House moderates to vote for the spending measure by November 15, although that pledge came with an important caveat.

The infrastructure bill passed the House 228-206, with 13 Republicans voting in favor. The legislation was a compromise between a bipartisan group of lawmakers and includes major investments in roads, bridges, water quality, and broadband internet. It’s known as BIF — the bipartisan infrastructure framework — because members of both parties have backed it. Because it has already passed the Senate, it now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law.

[…]

The fate of the social spending bill, however, is now uncertain. Moderates are holding out for a score from the Congressional Budget Office before they move forward. And the CBO could find the spending bill would have more than the expected budget deficit impact. In that case, moderates did not say they would commit to voting for the bill, though most of the holdouts did promise to try “to resolve any discrepancies in order to pass the Build Back Better legislation.” Some could conceivably refuse to vote for it at all. In the best-case scenario, a vote on the bill isn’t expected to take place until later this month and then, should it pass, it must still get through the Senate as well.

Aaron Blake of The Washington Post reports that Republicans are in disarray following the 13 GOP votes in favor of the BIF package.

Friday’s GOP defections were even more significant than during the last Trump impeachment, when 10 Republicans voted to impeach the president — a historically high number. And the fact that on Friday they provided the votes necessary for passage makes this even more fraught.

They were also more significant than many, including McCarthy, suggested they might be. While McCarthy previously kept his powder dry on whipping against the bill, he ultimately pushed for his members to vote against it. As recently as last week, McCarthy said, “I don’t expect few, if any, to vote for it, if it comes to the floor today.” In another interview, he was asked about the infrastructure bill and said, “It will fail.”

Circumstances change, but the defections from McCarthy’s party line were significant for the modern era; they notably included Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), whom McCarthy had made part of his whipping operation just earlier this year — the same whipping operation that failed Friday.

John Cassidy of The New Yorker writes that Friday’s positive jobs report numbers could be the beginning of good news for President Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Glenn Youngkin, the victorious Republican candidate in Virginia, used education as a culture-war wedge issue, but he also emphasized the economy, claiming that Virginia was lagging other states in recovering from the pandemic and contending that Democratic rule is throttling job growth. (Surprise, surprise: many of his claims were exaggerated.) In New Jersey, the G.O.P. gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli, who almost pulled off a shock victory, made the economy and taxes the central issue of his campaign, depicting his opponent, Phil Murphy, as an out-of-touch liberal whose big-spending policies were driving businesses from the state.

At the national level, too, there is evidence that concerns about the economy are hurting Biden and the Democrats. In an NBC News survey released last weekend, the President’s approval rating on handling the economy was at forty per cent, down from fifty-two per cent in April. Asked which party would do a better job handling the economy, the respondents to the poll gave the G.O.P. an eighteen-point advantage over the Democrats. This was the Republicans’ biggest lead in thirty years on this question from this pollster.

Rebecca Solnit, writing for The Guardian, shares the good news for progressives arising out of last Tuesday’s elections—and there’s a lot of it.

As for this week’s election, it swept in a lot of progressive mayors of color. The most prominent was Michelle Wu, who won the Boston mayor’s seat as the first woman and first person of color. Elaine O’Neal will become Durham, North Carolina’s, first Black woman mayor, and Abdullah Hammoud will become Dearborn’s first Muslim and Arab American mayor. Aftab Pureval will become Cincinnati’s first Asian American mayor. Pittsburgh elected its first Black mayor, and so did Kansas City, Kansas. Cleveland’s new mayor is also Black. New York City elected its second Black Democratic mayor, and Shahana Hanif became the first Muslim woman elected to the city council (incidentally, New York City and Virginia have about the same population). In Seattle, a moderate defeated a progressive, which you could also phrase as a Black and Asian American man defeated a Latina. A lot of queer and trans people won elections, or in the case of Virginia’s Danica Roem, the first out trans person to win a seat in a state legislature, won reelection.

In Philadelphia, Larry Krasner, who in 2017 was the first of a wave of ultra-progressive district attorneys to take office across the country, swept to a second term with 69% of the vote. “I want to congratulate him. He beat my pants off,” said his Republican rival. In Cleveland, Austin, Denver and Albany, citizens voted in police-reform measures, and while a more radical measure in Minneapolis lost, it got a good share of votes. 2021 wasn’t a great election year for Democrats but it’s not hard to argue that it wasn’t a terrible one, and either way it just wasn’t a big one, with a handful of special elections for congressional seats, some state and local stuff, and only two gubernatorial elections.

It is true that the Democratic Party is large and chaotic with a wide array of political positions among its elected officials, which is what happens when you’re a coalition imperfectly representing a wide array of voters, by class, race, and position from moderate to radical on the political spectrum. It’s also true the US is a two-party system and the alternative at present is the Republican party, which is currently a venal and utterly corrupt cult bent on many kinds of destruction. It’s the party whose last leader, with the help of many Republicans still in Congress, produced a violent coup in an attempt to steal an election.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t share Solnit’s interview with Amanda Marcotte at Salon, where Solnit points out that even George Orwell stopped to smell the roses … and even tended to them.

Renée Graham of The Boston Globe writes about why a majority of white women continue to vote Republican.

White women who vote Republican seek to maintain their privilege. This means voting against candidates who back policies that could alter the racial inequalities that keep the deck stacked in white supremacy’s favor. I’ve long suspected that some white people oppose legislation that would help all regardless of race because what they’re really against is anything that could erode their unearned power by leveling the field for historically disadvantaged groups.

It’s why 63 percent of white Alabama women voted for Roy Moore, a Republican and accused sexual predator, when he unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 2017. It’s why only 31 percent of white women in Georgia voted for Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, whose victories in that state’s two runoff elections this year gave Democrats a fragile majority in the Senate.

“The elephant in the room is white and female, and she has been standing there since 1952,” Jane Junn, a University of Southern California professor of political science and gender and sexuality studies, wrote in her essay “Hiding in Plain Sight: White Women Vote Republican.” It was published days after Trump defeated Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Like Graham (I suspect), I wish that we could retire the phraseology that voters vote “against their own best interests.” Voters can and do have multiple interests and voters can and do prioritize those interests.

Jon Allsop of Columbia Journalism Review urges caution in latching onto narratives about last Tuesday’s elections being pushed by the pundit class.

In the days since Youngkin, a Republican, beat McAuliffe, a Democrat, in Virginia’s gubernatorial election—and Phil Murphy, the incumbent Democratic governor of New Jersey, narrowly won a closer than expected race—journalists, pundits, and politicos have collectively unleashed an avalanche of analysis as to the reasons Democrats had a bad night. No single reason, of course, has unifying explanatory power; indeed, many of those listed above are perfectly compatible with one another. Different voters are motivated by different issues, and often themselves contain multitudes: a given parent, for instance, might both have been frustrated with COVID protocols in their child’s school and also receptive to the Youngkin campaign’s dog whistles around the teaching of race; the latter can be both a local grievance against a specific school or teacher and also part of an explicit, nationalized campaign to make “critical race theory” a catch-all boogeyman for the Trumpian right. To the extent that different media takes have privileged different explanations in isolation, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is, rather, how political debate tends to work in the public sphere.

Still, there are a number of reasons why we should approach debates about electoral wins and losses—and this week’s wins and losses, in particular—with care. Firstly, some of the explanations for the results appear less compatible than others, in ways that call for considered elucidation. It’s hard, for instance, to see how Biden’s actions in office have been both too progressive and not progressive enough; it’s possible that voters who instinctively think the former might have been swayed by the timelier passage of his agenda if its benefits accrued directly to them, but those benefits aren’t usually tangible overnight, and in any case, gubernatorial elections are not federal elections. It’s likewise tricky to reconcile the take that COVID has fundamentally restructured American politics with the take that there’s nothing to see here because the new president’s party almost always gets cleaned out in Virginia a year in. It makes more sense to conclude that Youngkin replicated an old political trend but for new reasons, and with the support of a shifting coalition. Disentangling what seems old and what seems new is always an urgent challenge for the press, and COVID has supercharged it.

Jonathan Watts of The Guardian offers a summary and commentary of the first week of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

Even with a stronger US presence, the global roll call remained incomplete. If this were a school register, the teacher would note that some the naughtiest kids in the climate class were all absent: Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, president of the world’s biggest deforesting nation; Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, crown prince of the world’s second biggest oil pumper; and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, president of the world’s second biggest gas producer. China’s Xi Jinping, president of the biggest coal consumer and carbon emitter, was also missing, though at least he had a sicknote owing to the Covid crisis.

India provided the biggest fillip of the high-level segment when its prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced that the country would get 50% of its electricity from renewables by 2030 and go net zero by 2070. That is three generations away, but still a big advance compared with previous plans. Along with the unveiling of Nigeria’s first carbon-neutral plan this week, countries representing more than 70% of the world’s emissions have now signed up to long-term goals.

If Cops have any value, it is in forcing those who have profited from the climate crisis to look into the eyes of the victims. But are the leaders of the US, EU and China and the CEOs of Exxon, Shell and BP still able to see? This was the question posed by Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, in an opening-day speech that brought goosebumps to many of those watching.

Stephanie Zimmerman of the Chicago Sun-Times reports on an investigation into the administration of the GI Bill, spurred by a whistleblower’s complaint.

A long-secret investigation of a whistleblower’s complaint has found widespread and longstanding problems with the federal government’s administration of the GI Bill that could be at fault for veterans and their families having been denied money they were entitled to for college.

The investigation found that, because of bad record-keeping, some vets were shortchanged on their service time — a key element in qualifying to transfer their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to their children to pay for school.

In a series of reports since 2019, the Chicago Sun-Times has documented how such bureaucratic errors led to the children of long-serving veterans losing out on Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits for college. In some cases, families were told they had to repay college money the government already paid on their behalf.

The Defense Department investigation into whistleblower Nicholas D. Griffo’s complaint was completed in January 2020. But the federal agency never released its findings. Griffo provided the report to the Sun-Times, saying he was frustrated that the government hadn’t made it public after 22 months.

Sudhakar Nuti pens for STAT a personal and intense account of his own burnout from treating patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Academy of Medicine defines burnout as “a syndrome characterized by a high degree of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and a low sense of personal accomplishment at work.” In medicine, there’s a lot of talk about burnout because it is so prevalent. It’s especially common among trainees like me, where an 80-hour workweek is the expectation. I’m supposedly among the up to 75% of trainees who experience burnout, but I find it hard to imagine that 25% of residents are feeling hunky-dory during this pandemic. And Covid-19 has only increased stress and burnout among interns, residents, and other trainees.

It’s not like vaunted medical institutions like the one I’m working for don’t know about burnout. They devise all sorts of ways to reverse exhaustion, like free dinner for a week, listening sessions, or a thank-you-for-working-during-the-pandemic Patagonia jacket, imagining my life can be fixed with an opportunity for reflection and another fleece.

There’s an underlying assumption in burnout discussions: that it can always be remedied with some notion of self-care. What’s never spoken is that burnout is the remnant of a fire. I’ve never seen a piece of charred wood and thought that some time by itself and some water will restore it to its former state. Burning can cause irreparable damage, and I haven’t heard anyone admit that about becoming burned out.

Derek Thompson of The Atlantic writes about a scientific funding program called Fast Grants—a program that arose because of the COVID-19 pandemic and that could be an alternative way to fund American scientific research.

Most scientific funding in the United States flows from federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. This funding is famously luxurious; the NIH and NSF allocate about $50 billion a year. It is also infamously laborious and slow. Scientists spend up to 40 percent of their time working on research grants rather than on research. And funding agencies sometimes take seven months (or longer) to review an application, respond, or request a resubmission. Anything we can do to accelerate the grant-application process could hugely increase the productivity of science.

The existing layers of bureaucracy have obvious costs in speed. They also have subtle costs in creativity. The NIH’s pre-grant peer-review process requires that many reviewers approve an application. This consensus-oriented style can be a check against novelty—what if one scientist sees extraordinary promise in a wacky idea but the rest of the board sees only its wackiness? The sheer amount of work required to get a grant also penalizes radical creativity. Many scientists, anticipating the turgidity and conservatism of the NIH’s approval system, apply for projects that they anticipate will appeal to the board rather than pour their energies into a truly new idea that, after a 500-day waiting period, might get rejected. This is happening in an academic industry where securing NIH funding can be make-or-break: Since the 1960s, doctoral programs have gotten longer and longer, while the share of Ph.D. holders getting tenure has declined by 40 percent.

Fast Grants aimed to solve the speed problem in several ways. Its application process was designed to take half an hour, and many funding decisions were made within a few days. This wasn’t business as usual. It was Operation Warp Speed for science.

Next, here are two stories about the continuing efforts to form a coalition government in Germany.

First, Laurenz Gehrke and Joshua Posaner write for POLITICO Europe about disagreements among the three political parties about climate change.

Coalition talks between the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP) are stuttering over climate policy, with the three sides squabbling over how far-reaching their plans should be. The dispute has prompted the Greens to call on environmental groups to ramp up pressure as global leaders meet in Glasgow for the COP26 summit.

[…]

The Greens want to bring forward Germany’s coal phaseout date from 2038 and end the sale of combustion engine vehicles by 2030. They also want to create a climate ministry that would have the right to veto any other government decision to ensure policies fall in line with the Paris climate agreement.

The Free Democrats are against such a veto, for example, as well as any bans on cars. The parties are also split over carbon pricing, with the Greens cautious on EU plans to expand the bloc’s emissions trading system — a market to buy and swap emissions allowances — to cover fuels for road transport and heating.

Next, the Der Speigel investigative reporting team of Christiana Hoffman, Konstantin von Hammerstein, Christoph Schult, Severin Weiland, and Matthias Gebauer present a fascinating and detailed behind-the-scenes look at the sausage-making of a German coalition foreign policy working group.

The working group is hammering out policy for three portfolios: foreign policy, defense and development. Very little was said about these issues during the campaign, and the exploratory talks didn’t touch on them much either, with the three parties preferring to paper over their differences. Now, though, clarity must be found on the most significant issues: Germany’s relationships with the U.S., China and Russia; the future of NATO; the German military’s overseas profile; and Germany’s role in the world.

The bickering began already with the length of the joint paper. The leaders of the three parties involved decreed that the working group could only produce a maximum of five pages in Calibri font size 11, with 1.5 line spacing. No time is allowed for renegotiations and the finished paper must be submitted by 6 p.m. next Wednesday.

Some Green Party working group members, though, are rebelling against these parameters. It is impossible, they say, to outline the policy of three cabinet portfolios on just five pages. The SPD, meanwhile, has held firm. “It’s not going to change,” says an SPD member involved in the negotiations. “You can complain all you want, but it won’t help.”

Finally, while I frequently disagree with The New York Times columnist John McWhorter’s more political takes on language and linguistics, when he leans more into the linguistics side of the spectrum, he’s a wonderful read. Granted, the line between politics and linguistics can sometimes be so thin as to not even be recognizable. 

All of this is to say that McWhorter put his foot in this column on the evolution of the English language.

[B]ecause English doesn’t have the long lists of endings that some languages have, it can seem as if our language’s grammar is kind of dull. But there’s so much that we just aren’t trained to see. In Cantonese, for example, there are lots of particles that you place at the end of a sentence to convey countless degrees of sentiment. “Nei hai gam jat faan uk kei?” means just “You’re returning home today?” But “Nei hai gam jat faan uk kei gaa?” can lend a note of displeasure, as in “You’re returning home today? Seriously?”

English doesn’t have as much as Cantonese by way of particles like this. But think about what the “be” in “Don’t be telling me you can’t make it” means — that same skeptical note. Similar is “go and” if we say, for example, “Now he’s going to go and shut it all down.” It conveys disapproval of what’s about to happen, even though by itself “go and” means no such thing (nor does “be”). In terms of marking the passive, the way we’re taught is with forms of “be”: “He was included.” But what about the one with “get”? “He got hurt,” “He got laid off,” “He got hit.” English has a neutral passive — and a special passive that you use for something negative or unexpected. Note how saying, “In the battle he was hurt” sounds more clinical and less real than saying that “he got hurt,” because “be” elides that getting hurt was something bad that came as a surprise.

I also hear English as having all kinds of coded ways to throw shade, of a kind that learners could be taught just as carefully as they are taught something as straightforward as putting an “s” on a verb in the third person singular. These aren’t idioms in the sense of “call it a day” or “on the ball”; they’re grammar. Black English has even more such constructions, using the otherwise neutral verb “come”: “He come saying nobody knew until today” implies that you’re not happy with him. Black English even has a future perfect of disapproval: “I’ll be done left if she tries getting here late again.” (I owe this observation about this construction to the linguist and poet Alysia Harris.)

If The New York Times Magazine were to revive William Safire’s “On Language” column with McWhorter as the columnist, I’d put up with McWhorter’s occasionally wretched political opinions, tbh.

Everyone have a great day!

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Everyone is a storyteller. Every day, we relate different stories to different audiences with different objectives. How we frame the story, the voice we use, and what details we include all contribute greatly to how audiences respond. Commiserating with a neighbor about our street flooding due to a leaf-blocked storm drain, for example, or calling Comcast about an internet connection that drops randomly, both involve telling our stories in search of a particular outcome. Ideally, we’d not bring the same type of outrage and mutual suffering about the flooded street to the Comcast dilemma; we want good results.

Whenever we write, we bring ourselves into the story whether we mean to or not—our word choices reflect our experiences and speech habits. Intentionally including yourself in a story adds depth and perspective that can set your writing apart—no one else has your biography and perspective. Two of the stories rescued this week illustrate the value of using life experiences to humanize issues and grab the audience’s attention.

We are hard-wired to seek out stories: They can move us to tears, change attitudes, and inspire actions. At the core of our writing on Daily Kos is our desire to reach an audience with our message and deliver on the promise of “news you can do something about.”

As this week’s elections drive essential and necessary discussions about messaging, it’s worth exploring how we frame our stories.

In the Community Writing Workshop, managing editor Jessica Sutherland reminds us that writing is, at its core, storytelling. She offers guidelines to strengthen story appeal and reader engagement.

Ask yourself: Who is your audience? Who are you trying to reach? What do you want them to do with your information? Informing is more than saying, “Hey, this happened.” You must tell readers why it matters. An action item won’t always be tangible—volunteer, sign a petition, join a march—your story may simply motivate readers to do better in their everyday lives, which was the goal of Sutherland’s recent, highly personalized story that bookended her own experiences with a horrific story of child abuse. To encourage people to embrace a change and understand the stakes, it’s crucial to be clear about what matters, and share your excitement.

Human impact resonates deeply, so let your story convey not just facts but an experience, too—something the audience shares with you. It helps to be conversational when breaking down hard concepts. Adding an anecdote can increase impact, so don’t be afraid to link an issue to lived experiences. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg connected the political to the personal this fall when he highlighted the importance of family leave for parents of any gender.

That being said, don’t feel obligated to expose your deepest secrets or vulnerabilities.

Two of this week’s rescued stories used the Community members’ personal lives to give context and vibrancy to their messages, with very different styles and degrees of self-reveal.

• Citisven’s deals with the extreme weather resulting from climate change, how this is now playing out in his country of origin, and the consequences in “Now that Germans are at risk of drowning, we are all balancing in the same lifeboat.” 
• Ultrageek’s story details the personal consequences they’ve experienced due to laws that marginalize certain types of people, and then goes beyond the personal to warn readers in “So what happens when your community illegalizes you?”

How different these two stories would have been without the authors’ personal experiences flavoring the presentation of facts. Perhaps Citisven’s information would have read like any other climate disaster recitation; as for Ubergeek’s story, the horrors might have been dismissed as just another list without the author’s personal attachment and intensity.

There’s nothing like someone who has been there, done that, and paid the price to convince us that a given problem is real and might land in our laps next, or change our lives. This personal urgency motivates audiences to care and to do something. For writers on Daily Kos, that is usually our goal.

10 STORIES FROM 1 PM PDT OCT. 29 TO 1 PM PDT NOV. 5, 2021

Community Spotlight’s mission is to ensure that the best stories from the Daily Kos Community receive the attention they deserve. We encourage members who write excellent stories with original views to keep writing by promoting their work.

Good news: You don’t have to search to find our rescued stories! The nightly News Roundup, an Open Thread published six days a week at 7:30 PM PDT, includes links to each day’s rescued stories.

Reminder: The numbers in parentheses after each author’s name indicate the year they joined Daily Kos, how many stories they’ve published, and how many we’ve rescued.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 81: The Kyoto Protocol by agramante (2009-95-9)

As with any international treaty, the Kyoto Protocol is massive and complex. Agramante explains exactly what it was set up to accomplish, and who the 37 key original treaty nations were. Carbon trading is also presented as a mechanism for reducing emissions, involving cooperation between nations (cap and trade).

ClimateBrief: Now that Germans are at risk of drowning, we are all balancing in the same lifeboat by citisven (209-302-56)

This essay examines the impacts of the climate crisis, particularly the psychological and social impacts, in the writer’s native Germany. In their discussions with friends, this summer’s flooding in the country has, in part, knocked them out of their “Heile Welt,” a German term for an innately wholesome, orderly and unflappable world. As climate change becomes the primary topic of conversation, citisven states it’s a gamechanger when it comes to a collective wake-up call for action.

Draft glossary of redistricting terminology by Alonso del Arte (2015-931-46)

Although glossaries used as references when discussing redistricting exist, there isn’t much of anything from a progressive perspective. Alonso del Arte remedies that oversight by listing nine from the National Conference on State Legislatures, and providing context for the casual reader wanting information on this crucial part of our democracy.

A rundown of Japan’s 2021 general elections by ArkDem14 (2006-185-18)

Election campaigns in Japan are boring affairs when compared to the United States. Politicians spend no time talking about policy or political issues, instead making vague statements about abstract issues like “Japan’s future.” ArkDem14 takes us inside the current campaign, and highlights those policy and political issues not being mentioned on the trail.

The Language of the Night: The plentiful house of Piranesi by DrLori (2010-251-114)

DrLori reviews Piranesi, Susanna Clarke’s long awaited follow-up to her 2004 novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. The new novel is stylistically quite different and not what anyone expected. The review can’t say much about the plot because it would destroy the mystery and pacing of the narrative. Nonetheless, the book is evocative and not what it seems to be.

Trickle-down necronomics by Sollace (2021-5-4)

In the second rescued book review of the week, Sollace reviews Jonathan Metzl’s book Dying of Whiteness, which examines the detrimental effects of Republican policies on Republican voters (and everyone else). There is a summary of state-specific policy details: Missouri on guns, Tennessee on health care, and Kansas on public education; Sollace also posits an additional section could be added about vaccine resistance and prolonging the pandemic for political gain.

So what happens when your community illegalizes you? by ultrageek (2003-519-6) Rescued to Recommended

Ultrageek recaps the realities of being considered abnormal, noting that “when I was a kid … I was illegal in 37 states.” We are reminded that seemingly innocuous rights, ranging from who one can have sex with to buying groceries, are ultimately voted on by the electorate. The fundamental question posed: “What rights can be taken away before someone says, ‘that’s it; that’s the floor; you can’t make things any worse for these people?’”

The political realignment that conjoined religion, racists, and the GOP by vjr7121 (2017-202-28)

In this examination of the connections between religious extremism, racism, and the Republican Party,Vjr7121 traces the history of this malevolent mixture from its beginnings in the Southern Strategy to the looming end of Roe v. Wade. They make an argument for looking past Nixon and Trump, and to the underlying movements that supported them.” Republicans have managed to turn two court rulings into their now-perfected politics of grievance. Is it any wonder that the GOP has descended into an anti-democratic movement that rejects lawful elections?”

Replacing 50% of coal and+gas with solar and+wind electrical generation by RustyRobot (2020-28-3)

This analysis of our current coal and gas generation examines the feasibility of replacing half of it with solar and wind. The author examines coal/gas generation since autumn 2018, notes the seasonal changes in production, and then compares that to actual solar/wind generation. Other issues taken into consideration are no energy storage requirements and attempting to meet demand, given the constraints due to seasonal fluctuations in solar/wind generation.

Some further thoughts about Democratic ‘messaging’ by GrafZeppelin127 (2009-287-50)

By dissecting the main elements comprising political messaging, and how the Republican and Democratic parties execute these, GrafZeppelin127 explores the assertion that Democrats are not good at messaging. Also involved is the media, and how Republicans benefit from outside sources. “Do Democrats need their own glossary … of boilerplate slogans that are not toxic bullshit, to tout their own achievements, and appeal to voters’ sense of solidarity and compassion? Do they need to start appealing to selfishness and cruelty instead, and develop language to frame their own agenda that way?”

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I grew up in northeast Wisconsin, about 40 miles outside of Green Bay. So, naturally, I’m a Packers fan.

You might say Packers fandom is part of my DNA. So, in a way, anti-vaxxers are right. The vaccine—or at least one gormless Green Bay goober’s decision to reject it—has changed my DNA, and not in a cool X-Men way or anything. I’m not ready to hop o’er Big Muddy to become a Minnesota Vikings fan, because that feels like a betrayal, but my green-and-gold glad rags are looking far less lustrous at the moment.

Everyone—simply everyone—is piling on Aaron Rodgers right now. Let me get in line, as I fear we haven’t stomped his guts out quite thoroughly enough yet.

Friday on the The Pat McAfee Show, which sounds like the kind of place cowards scurry to when they don’t want to be challenged by people who actually know what they’re talking about, Rodgers trotted out loads of mealy MAGA bromides about personal preferences, “woke” mobs, worthless “research,” and oh-so-scary cancel culture to justify his decision to remain unvaccinated—and then lie about it to the media. What did I hear? “I don’t give a shit about anyone, especially the people I came into contact with who didn’t know my true vaccination status.”

I’ve had it with this pandemic. We all have. So when a remarkable vaccine came out that showed every potential to essentially end it—at least in the United States—the sense of relief was palpable. Unfortunately, because of people like Rodgers, untold thousands of Americans have died unnecessarily while armchair quarterbacks infectious disease experts have dithered and done their own “research.”

All these Facebook Ph.D.s have put us behind the 8-ball, endangering their fellow citizens, stunting our economic recovery, and dividing an already fraught nation in some truly frightening ways. I don’t care if I ever see Aaron Rodgers in a Packers uniform again. In fact, I hope I don’t—but that’s hardly up to me.

Personal choice is a great thing, and it’s part and parcel of an abiding American virtue. Freedom is precious, yes. But that includes the freedom to live in a safe and sane society. We’ve lost that amid a rancid stew of selfishness and fake liberty.

You don’t have the right to drive drunk, to wave a loaded gun around at a concert, or to spread your freedom phlegm to unwitting reporters who are just doing their jobs. You also have no right to lie to the people you’re endangering with your daft decisions. If you want to live dangerously, go skydiving, climb Mt. Everest, or bet on the Packers to win the NFC Championship. I prefer to stay alive and solvent, and that’s my choice. 

So, yes, I’m canceling you, Aaron. I’d already soured on you after you took a giant, radioactive shit on your teammates during the offseason. Please allow me the privilege and pleasure of putting that last nail in your cancel culture casket. It goes in surprisingly easily, honestly. Must be soft wood. And, to be clear, I’m talking about the casket now—not your flippin’ head. 

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story asserted that Rodgers lied about his vaccination status to the NFL; while Rodgers did state to the media in August that “yeah, I’ve been immunized” in response to a direct question asking if he’d been vaccinated, the League asserts that he was known to be unvaccinated despite seeking a vaccine exemption.
 

Oh, hey there! To celebrate the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s defenestration, three of Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s e-books are available at a discount! Get Goodbye, Asshat, Dear F*cking Moron, and Dear Pr*sident A**clown now as part of this Amazon Countdown deal. Look back on Trump’s awful reign of error—and laugh!

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How the hell did Republican Louie Gohmert of Texas ever become a member of the House of Representatives? Did he collect the most Froot Loops box tops in his district? Did our reptilian alien overlords take a sudden liking to him halfway through eating his brain? Did he run against a seagull crapping in a bag of Ruffles? 

I really want to know, because something here just isn’t right. God forbid he ever need a brain transplant, because krill don’t live very long outside of water. I’d suggest he get a vasectomy to protect us from the creeping contagion of his corn nuts, but his doctor would almost certainly give him one of those acrylic head cones to keep him from licking his stitches, and you simply can’t brook such lurid spectacles on the House floor.

So instead you get this:

GOHMERT: “We can’t produce synthetic fibers, so much of the carpets and rugs we have—synthetic. The toothbrush, you wouldn’t have the modern-day toothbrush, and I realize that, yes, there are people that have used bark off certain trees to brush their teeth. I get that, but I kind of like having a modern-day toothbrush myself. You wouldn’t have that without fossil fuel, particularly natural gas.”

Okay, then. I have questions.

1. Who the fuck is brushing their teeth with bark?
2. Assuming this is actually happening somewhere in the real world, doesn’t that argue for the family-friendly social safety net provisions in President Biden’s Build Back Better plan? Hey, Biden might even want to lead with that during his next speech in support of the BBB. “Americans brushing their teeth with trees? Outrageous! Pass this bill!”

Oh, but Mr. Science wasn’t done. Oh, no. Not by a long shot:

GOHMERT: “The Trump years, we have been producing 1.3% less carbon dioxide. And we can debate about what that does to the environment, whether it makes the temperature warmer. I’ve read where experts have said if you’ve got a choice between the temperature getting slightly warmer or slightly colder, you want warmer because if it’s getting slightly colder that means there’s less time for crops to grow. If it’s slightly warmer, not too much warmer, then you got more time for crops to grow, you’ve got more food, and you have fewer people starving.”

He’s read that, huh? Where? The highly respected New England Journal of Things Pulled From Louie Gohmert’s Ass at 3 AM on a Tuesday in the Waco ER? 

If you want to convince someone to support measures to combat climate change—well, yes, you can tell them about melting icecaps and emaciated polar bears and whatnot, but perhaps the best argument in favor of urgent action is that Louie Gohmert is against it.

Clearly, Republicans are not sending their best people, now are they?

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

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by Juliana Clark

This story was originally published at Prism.

From an early age, Joel Velasquez knew that Texas A&M University was his dream school, drawn by the university’s sizable student population, traditions, and leadership opportunities. Being a prospective first-generation college student reliant on financial aid programs, he heavily considered in-state public universities for the reduced tuition costs which “just seemed more realistic,” he said. But when Velasquez learned his parents wouldn’t be able to provide any financial support, he turned down his acceptance to Texas A&M University and enrolled in Trinity Valley Community College because doing so would mean taking on a lower level of debt.

Velasquez’s situation is far from unique. For Black, Indigenous, and other students of color, community colleges are a common choice to continue their education and obtain a degree to increase their chances of building a stable career while carrying less tuition debt. In fact, community colleges serve a disproportionately larger number of students who identify as part of a racial and/or ethnic minority than four-year institutions according to the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University’s Teachers College. This also makes students like Velasquez more vulnerable to the impact of policies that reinforce or increase inequities in public education, including those that determine how community college districts are shaped.

The lack of information about how state policies affect the way community college districts are drawn is concerning, given the highly detrimental effects that geographic boundaries of school districts can have on students of color, including exacerbating disparities in resource allocation, which can restrict educators’ ability to effectively engage with their students. Diminished teacher engagement and a lack of resources can trigger cascading effects such as fewer students achieving bachelor’s degrees, lower engagement in the workforce, and reduced earning capacity. Furthermore, attending a diverse educational setting fosters a sense of safety among students of color, which can increase their ability to concentrate on and excel in their studies.  

However, more researchers are beginning to pay attention to community college districting policies. Dominique J. Baker, an assistant associate professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University, is part of a handful of scholars committed to holding this bracket of public education accountable. She spent months deciphering the political and legal processes governing the creation of community college service areas, including how districts intersect with racial segregation. Her preliminary findings were recently published by the Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis, using her home state of Texas as its case study to provide clearer direction on which aspects of these policymaking processes require further examination. While the study didn’t reveal any “smoking gun” pointing to direct manipulation of district boundaries along racial lines, it did indicate some areas of concern about how districts could be altered to the detriment of students who currently rely on the accessibility of their community colleges.

More critically, the uniqueness of Baker’s study points to a lack of widespread understanding that access to community college depends as much on human choices, biases, and errors as four-year institutions—the way those factors can raise or lower barriers to education just happen to look different. The assumption that community college districts and their access to state funding and resources exists in a permanent state puts the educational and professional futures of BIPOC, low income, and other students who depend on community colleges at the mercy of political whims. Without a better understanding of how community college districts can be redrawn, students, communities, and advocates are left ill-equipped to spot warning signs and fight to have a more influential say in determining the future of an oft-overlooked avenue that many depend on to build a more secure and prosperous life.

A pathway to success

BIPOC students are more likely to lack sufficient resources to attend four-year colleges, leaving two-year colleges looking like a more affordable path to post-secondary education. Students of color are also less likely to expect their families to financially contribute to their education, a metric used by education experts to indicate high financial need. Black and Latinx students as a whole are more likely than their white counterparts to pay for either all or some of their own college education.

These financial barriers create an education system where adults of color have a lower average rate of educational achievement than white adults. For example, in California, roughly 50% of K-12 students identify as Latinx, but approximately only 10% of Latinx adults obtain a baccalaureate. Increasing these rates of achievement by providing more avenues to obtain a college degree can help bolster BIPOC adults’ overall earning potential, which could be life-changing for many. The median annual earnings of full-time employees increase by approximately $7,000 from a high school degree to an associate’s degree and by nearly $19,000 from an associate’s to a bachelor’s.

While community college isn’t always a cost-effective solution to borrowing upward of six figures to satisfy private and public university tuition rates, they still play a key role in lowering barriers for low-income and other marginalized students. Additionally, community college programs are often a better fit for students’ needs and lifestyles than four-year institutions. Community college students tend to be much older than students at four-year colleges—the average age of community college students is 28. They’re more likely to be the head of their household, providing for dependents, and are often juggling multiple responsibilities and obligations along with their studies. This is the case for Velasquez, who works approximately 30 hours per week in addition to his class load and leadership responsibilities. As a result, community college students’ average timeline for obtaining a bachelors degree also tends to be much longer, more uncertain, and involve unpredictable costs.

The reality is that students who attend community colleges tend to have different needs and priorities than their counterparts at four-year institutions. And their ability to obtain a degree that would increase their chances to land a stable career depends heavily on how their college is able to access the resources of its district. This is why it’s vital to have a better understanding about how those districts are created and who benefits from those boundaries.

A case study for community college practices

State policies for creating community college districts vary widely across the nation. Moreover, while a large number of studies have analyzed patterns in how districts serving K-12 students are shaped, there’s been little research into the policies dictating district boundaries in post-secondary institutions—specifically, those that determine the location and creation of community colleges. Depending on an individual state’s policies, some community college districts could be more vulnerable than others to racial gerrymandering, in which district boundaries are manipulated to exclude certain racial groups.

Baker’s interest in community colleges and the effects of racial gerrymandering was piqued after reading an article by Inside Higher Ed columnist Matt Reed, vice president of academic affairs at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, New Jersey, about a failed attempt by the Texas independent school district Barbers Hill to reduce the minimum population necessary in the state Education Code to establish a community college. If the bills had passed, the district’s sole community college would have been faced with a potential competitor and fewer available resources to provide for their students.

“My first thought, ‘This is wild! Wait, what actually goes into the creation of [community college] districts?’” Baker said in a Twitter post.

Baker chose Texas for the case study because as one of the most populous states with a racially diverse population, it offered a wealth of potential data. In August, the U.S. Census Bureau rated the Longhorn State with a diversity index of 67%, surpassing New York. With 82 community colleges statewide, over 700,000 students enroll in classes annually, 70% of whom are people of color. Additionally, Texas had the highest number of community college students among bachelor’s degree earners at 75% during the 2015-2016 school year.

While every state has a different legislature dictating the creation of junior college districts, Texas is an atypical example. Unlike other states, its criteria for creating districts is available to the public through its Education Code, which reveals the numerous political actors involved in the process including the Commissioner of Higher Education and School Board. This document also outlines the specific boundaries for each district according to the counties and independent school districts served.

Secondly, its districts have two geographic layers: the service area, in which two-year institutions are designated to offer an affordable education, and the taxing district, in which certain colleges offer discounted tuition. For example, Alvin Community College has a $50 difference between the cost of tuition for one credit hour depending on the student’s status as an in-district or out-of-district resident within the context of these two geographic layers. This reduced rate is especially vital for community college students who are consistently paying for their education and its related costs out of pocket. A study from 2020 found that reduced tuition prices at a local community college in Michigan led to an increase in its enrollment. Plus, academics also have found that overall, undergraduate students are more likely to attend institutions close to where they live. With the way these districts are structured, racial gerrymandering could be even more detrimental to low-income students looking to attend an in-district college.

Because service areas and taxing districts are tied to boundaries that can be subject to gerrymandering, Baker and her team positioned them in a framework similar to voter exchange, a practice in which legislators distort the shapes of districts to “exchange” voters living nearby for voters living much further away. The team measured the compactness of districts because the more compact or dense the district is, the higher the likelihood that gerrymandering was present in the drawing of its political boundaries. Their results presented conflicting evidence, which isn’t uncommon in evaluating district compactness. Ultimately, they found that three community college districts—Alvin, Hill, and Wharton—had fewer Black residents in their district versus in their local environment, which is the area surrounding each person in a district. The team didn’t have access to the actual locations of residents, so the researchers worked on the understanding that individuals lived in the middle of their census block group. The same was true for the Latinx population present in the Lone Star and Trinity Valley districts. Wharton County was the only district to exhibit evidence of gerrymandering by using both older and newer forms of measuring compactness.

Accessible education can’t be taken for granted

The issue with detecting racial gerrymandering as a whole is that there isn’t one definitive way of quantifying it. Not only are there multiple measurements of compactness, there isn’t a universally recognized threshold.

“Generally speaking, we don’t have a clear measure where we say, if the number is five, gerrymandered. If the number is 4.9, not gerrymandered,” Baker said.

The data did indicate enough of a possibility that some of the districts in Texas may exhibit racial gerrymandering to merit concern. Additionally, since 40% of districts in Texas provide reduced tuition for their student residents, how political boundaries are shaped likely has a strong role in affecting students’ school choice. Further studies may produce more detailed information about how racial gerrymandering would affect access to community colleges and how to prevent it.

While there wasn’t a clear pattern across districts, that wasn’t necessarily the point of this study for Baker. Her hope is that researchers, policymakers, and the public begin to understand that community college districts are created by people who are equally as vulnerable to being influenced by social and political actors as anyone else. Education scholars, the electorate, and state officials need to acknowledge this before they can begin focusing on ways that they can each make this system more equitable, which may involve district redrawing. At minimum, the students who rely on community colleges deserve to have their interests looked out for and protected proactively, rather than taking their current availability for granted.

“This is something we need to take seriously [and] pay attention to,” Baker said. “If we do not question and analyze how these boundaries are created, we risk allowing resources to be distributed in an inequitable manner.”

Juliana Clark (she/her) is a freelance journalist and audio producer. She is interested in promoting equity through her reporting and a progressive feminist perspective through her arts and entertainment criticism.

Prism is a BIPOC-led non-profit news outlet that centers the people, places, and issues currently underreported by national media. We’re committed to producing the kind of journalism that treats Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and other invisibilized groups as the experts on our own lived experiences, our resilience, and our fights for justice. Sign up for our email list to get our stories in your inbox, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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Around 2,000 health care workers at South Buffalo Mercy Hospital have been on strike since Oct. 1. Now, they have a tentative agreement and picket lines are suspended while the workers vote whether to ratify the contract. The continuing John Deere strike is a reminder that workers sometimes vote down agreements that their union leaders bring them, but the Communications Workers of America hailed the tentative deal as a win, and from the summary the union offered, it looks like one.

Not only did the workers beat back efforts to cut their health care benefits and get a significant raise over the course of the contract, but they won safe staffing ratios for the first time, with the new staffing levels to be fully implemented by January 1, 2023. That’s a significant advance for the workers and, of course, it’s also a win for patients who will be guaranteed care from workers who aren’t stretched across too many patients.

● FedEx is fiercely non-union. UPS workers are unionized. Guess which of the delivery companies is having labor shortage problems. Yep, the one that keeps its wages low and turnover high.

● Teachers strike against a “heartless” school board in President Biden’s hometown, Barbara Madeloni reports.

The union has been without a contract for four years. In the last two years, they have lost 100 colleagues, either because the positions were cut or because educators have left, fed up with the board’s disinvestment in the schools.

The cuts to librarians, related arts classes, and music especially impact the students who need them most, who are least likely to have access to these activities through their families. “We are a very diverse community,” said high school English teacher Adam McCormick. “There is a wide range of socioeconomic levels. The school district has to provide opportunities for students. And they haven’t. Opportunities for students are more and more limited.”

● The New Orleans city council has passed responsible contractor requirements, two years after the Hard Rock collapse that killed three workers.

● IATSE workers will vote on whether to ratify their proposed contract starting November 12, with results coming November 15.

● Hamilton Nolan writes, Mississippi believes it can be organized. Does anybody else? 

● Important:

●