Worth Reading: Protests, Riots, Racism, Violence in the US
With all of the protests, riots, and violence in the US right now, we are seeing a definite trend in newsletters topics this week as writers are attempting to analyze, understand, explain, work through emotions, grapple with the possible outcomes, and more. We thought it might be helpful to provide a roundup of some of the more insightful newsletter issues on the topic:
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Model this New York City police force (from Marginal Revolution by Tyler Cowen on Tuesday June 2, 2020). This is a very short read but asks six interesting questions around WHY there’s been such looting and rioting in Manhattan even with a police force 38,000 (!!!).
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The Current Moment (from Parent Data by Emily Oster on June 1, 2020). Emily Oster is an economist who ties together data to make actual sense out of real numbers, usually with relationship to pregnancy and parenting. In this issue, she shares compelling insights about data on people of color vs. not related to mortality in childbirth, infant mortality, preterm birth, etc -- and argues that racial inequality itself is a risk factor. She connects this to the still-unexplained, disproportionately high COVID-19 death rate for African Americans as well. Facts+data+clear interpretation+some take-away questions makes it well worth a read.
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Dust in the Light (from Stratechery by Ben Thompson on June 2, 2020). Ben takes you on a deep dive into some illustrative examples of systemic racial disparities in a city once proclaimed the “Best places to live” in America and in Minneapolis where George Flyod was killed. He also explores the impact of technology and social networks on visibility and the virality of incidences-- and how both social and legal outcomes are being affected. While this is a LONG read (~3100 words/7minutes), you’ll walk away questioning a lot more about city statistics and neighborhoods’ racial distributions.
Hope you find these pieces thought-provoking in these tumultuous times.
And if you’re interested in receiving more by those writers, you’re always welcome to subscribe to Marginal Revolution, Parent Data, or Stratechery!