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She summed up the economic legacy of Black Americans in one history lesson and Monopoly metaphor

She summed up the economic legacy of Black Americans in one history lesson and Monopoly metaphor

As the U.S. enters its third week of protests over racial injustice and police brutality, some Americans still don't fully understand the "why" behind them. Some are still under the impression that the protests are about justice for George Floyd, but that's only part of it. Some think they're about police brutality, but that's just part of it too.

The fact that so many Americans don't understand the scope of the problem at the heart of these protests, or why they are playing out the way they are, is a symptom of the problem itself.

With a quick history lesson and Monopoly metaphor, Kimberly Latrice Jones powerfully explained a crucial element of what we're seeing in a video that has gone viral on social media—the economic element that is often overlooked or not well understood by those outside of the group impacted by our nation's economic history. This element gives important context to some of what we're seeing, in addition to painting the bigger picture within which these protests are happening.

Watch:


If you're unfamiliar with Jones' reference to Tulsa and Rosewood, here's some additional education.

Tulsa's Black Wall Street massacre of 1921:

Tulsa's Black Wall Street massacrewww.youtube.com

And a brief overview of the Rosewood massacre:

Jan. 5, 1923 - Rosewood, Fla., Destroyed by White Mobwww.youtube.com

The horrible truth is that most Americans don't know our own history, especially when it comes to race. So much of what we learn about racism in our history is couched in problematic language that favors white sensibilities or is completely omitted. How many of us learned that the Confederate states didn't just want to keep slavery for economic reasons, but because they believed that God intended for Black people to be subservient to the white race and that it was wrong to believe otherwise? How many of us learned about Black Wall Street in school, much less voter suppression, redlining and other ways Black Americans have been systematically oppressed in modern history beyond Jim Crow?

How many of us have truly internalized the fact that the massive exploitation of Black bodies over hundreds of years required massive violence to carry out, and that the only way for that exploitation and violence to continue was to legitimize it by creating a massive, dehumanizing justification for it—thus the enduring legacy of anti-blackness that permeates not only our history but so much of our current society?

Yes, some progress has been made. But every step forward has been fought for tooth and nail, and every advancement has been met with resistance and resentment by far too many fellow Americans. Until we get that, until our nation truly comes to terms with the depth and breadth of the injustices being called out and decides to take real, concrete steps toward restoration, reconciliation and reparation, we're going to keep finding ourselves at this same crossroads.

Of all of the powerful points Jones made in that video, perhaps one should give us the most pause: America is lucky that black people are just looking for equality and not revenge. She is right, because the scope of that payback would be mighty indeed.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

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Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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