just a reading list for you today
because it's a historic inauguration day!! (plus some 'drivers license' content)
Welcome to The Breaking Point, a weekly(ish) newsletter that explores the historical legacies of injustice based on the news cycle and culture trends to understand what in the world is going on.
Today is President-elect Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day. But let’s not forget Kamala Harris, who will make history as the first ever woman and first ever Black and South Asian-American to take the second-highest seat in the United States of America.
While a new administration does suggest change, the work is not done. It will take a lot more than a new first and second family to alter the systemic injustices embedded in the very fabric of the United States.
If you were to read anything this week on President Trump’s legacy, I highly recommend reading Fabiola Cineas’s powerful Vox story entitled “The convenience of American amnesia.”
More on today’s reading list below …
Figure of the week: 400,000
The number of Americans who have died from Covid-19. NPR describes it “a once-unthinkable number,” reporting that someone now dies from the novel coronavirus every 26 seconds in the US.
Story breakers 📖
'It was degrading': Black Capitol custodial staff talk about what it felt like to clean up the mess left by violent pro-Trump white supremacists by Elvina Nawaguna and Kayla Epstein, Business Insider
Hawaii, hapas, and being “ethnically ambiguous” by Jessica Machado, Vox
How a 22-year-old L.A. native became Biden’s inauguration poet by Julia Barajas, Los Angeles Times
Donald Harris: Kamala’s Jamaican connection by Robert Samuels, The Washington Post
“No One Took Us Seriously”: Black Cops Warned About Racist Capitol Police Officers for Years by Joshua Kaplan and Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica
California households owe $1bn in water bills as affordability crisis worsens by Nina Lakhani, The Guardian
Something to listen to (besides Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license” song) 🔊
From The Fringe To The Capitol, NPR Code Switch
… plus, a list of NPR Throughline episodes relevant to this time — “From Impeachment To Capitol Attack: 'Throughline' Shows How The Past Is Never Past”
Something to watch 🎥
How One Paper Is Covering COVID-19 in the Most Under-Connected Part of the U.S. from The New Yorker
…. and some drivers license memes …
thanks for reading, and don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already. see you next week!