Simone Biles and the Power of ‘No’
Kurt Streeter, writing for The New York Times:
Biles is the greatest, most decorated gymnast of all time. She won four gold medals in Rio five years ago and was expected to take home at least three more in Tokyo. But by saying “no,” bowing out this week, and standing up for her well-being in a sports world that commodifies athletes and prizes winning at all costs, she surpasses all of those achievements in importance.
Biles has thrown a wrench in the system. What that “no” says is really this: Enough is enough.
See also: 9 Great Responses to Use If You Hear Simone Biles Slander
Democratic Leaders Are Betraying Black Voters
Adam Serwer for The Atlantic:
If the Democratic Party is not upholding a racist double standard with its inaction, it is at least acquiescing to one. The targeted constituencies must treat every election cycle as though their fundamental rights are on the line, listen to Democratic leaders compare the voting restrictions targeting their right to the franchise as “the new Jim Crow,” and then watch those same leaders do nothing with the power they are given except tell them to simply out-organize those attempting to deprive them of their right to vote.
Mandela’s Dream for South Africa Is in Ruins
Robin Wright for The New Yorker:
This month, South Africa witnessed the worst violence since the end of the apartheid era. More than three hundred and thirty died over a week of escalating tensions. Forty thousand businesses—including stores, banks, factories, and post offices—were vandalized or burned; damage to the economy was estimated in the billions of dollars. The government eventually had to deploy twenty-five thousand troops to contain the violence in the provinces around Durban, the largest port in sub-Saharan Africa, and then Johannesburg, the financial hub, and Pretoria, the administrative capital.
Home schooling exploded among Black, Asian and Latino students. But it wasn’t just the pandemic.
Moriah Balingit and Kate Rabinowitz, reporting for The Washington Post:
As the new school year approaches, millions of parents are eager to deliver their children back to teachers and put remote schooling — which wrought anger, frustration and financial turmoil for parents who needed to return to work — behind them. But for other parents, particularly parents of color, the pandemic and last summer’s national reckoning over race prompted them to pull their children from traditional schools entirely, moves that helped fuel an explosion in popularity of home schooling.
SZA On Making New Music and Practicing Self-Love
Eni Subair interviews SZA for Vogue:
“I use the anniversary of CTRL as an opportunity to cry and reflect every year,” says singer-songwriter SZA, 30, of her four-time Grammy-nominated debut album, which she released in 2017. “I never imagined I’d make it this far.” It’s this candor and vulnerability that fans love and, ultimately, it’s fueled the Missouri-born, New Jersey-raised star’s musical growth and distinctive ethereal sound, keeping her high in the charts four years on.
How the Super Soaker’s inventor made a big splash
CBS Sunday Morning:
When inventor Lonnie Johnson took a simple squirt gun and ramped it WAY up, he had no idea what a hit it would be. Since the early 1990s, the Super Soaker has soaked up more than $1 billion in toy sales. But Johnson hasn’t stopped there. Correspondent Mo Rocca reports on how Johnson, a former engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, continues to make a big splash.
Khari Turner at Ross-Sutton Gallery
Interview’s Juliana Ukiomogbe speaks with the artist about his new exhibition, Breathing Water into Air:
The show features twelve paintings, all created in the depths of the pandemic, which seamlessly blend abstraction with figuration and, most notably, water with ink. The artist collects water in his travels—from the Senegalese coast to the Hudson river—and brings it back to his studio, where he mixes it with colored inks. […] As a result, his work seethes with textures, producing endless permutations of vein- or root-like ridges and liquid swirls through his manipulation of materials.
Thanks for reading. See you next week.