| The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes |
[25 Jun 2015|04:41pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/06/animated_interactive_of_the_history_of_the_atlantic_slave_trade.html Usually, when we say “American slavery” or the “American slave trade,” we mean the American colonies or, later, the United States. But as we discussed in Episode 2 of Slate’s History of American Slavery Academy, relative to the entire slave trade, North America was a bit player. From the trade’s beginning in the 16th century to its conclusion in the 19th, slave merchants brought the vast majority of enslaved Africans to two places: the Caribbean and Brazil. Of the more than 10 million enslaved Africans to eventually reach the Western Hemisphere, just 388,747—less than 4 percent of the total—came to North America. This was dwarfed by the 1.3 million brought to Spanish Central America, the 4 million brought to British, French, Dutch, and Danish holdings in the Caribbean, and the 4.8 million brought to Brazil.
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| The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes |
[25 Jun 2015|05:35pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/06/animated_interactive_of_the_history_of_the_atlantic_slave_trade.html Usually, when we say “American slavery” or the “American slave trade,” we mean the American colonies or, later, the United States. But as we discussed in Episode 2 of Slate’s History of American Slavery Academy, relative to the entire slave trade, North America was a bit player. From the trade’s beginning in the 16th century to its conclusion in the 19th, slave merchants brought the vast majority of enslaved Africans to two places: the Caribbean and Brazil. Of the more than 10 million enslaved Africans to eventually reach the Western Hemisphere, just 388,747—less than 4 percent of the total—came to North America. This was dwarfed by the 1.3 million brought to Spanish Central America, the 4 million brought to British, French, Dutch, and Danish holdings in the Caribbean, and the 4.8 million brought to Brazil.
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| The Confederate Flag Doesn’t Belong in a Museum |
[25 Jun 2015|06:12pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2015/06/confederate_flag_it_doesn_t_belong_at_the_south_carolina_capitol_it_doesn.html In the aftermath of the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, that claimed the lives of nine parishioners at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, politicians from both sides of the aisle have called for the Confederate flag that flies on the grounds of the South Carolina state Capitol to come down. A common theme of these calls to lower the flag has been the suggestion that this symbol of America’s racist past belongs not on a flagpole on public land but in a museum. Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders, Jeb Bush and President Obama all have called for the flag to be retired to a museum.
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| The Unvarnished Nerd |
[25 Jun 2015|06:19pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/mr_robot_on_usa_finally_hollywood_created_a_realistic_hacker_character.html Real misfits—disturbing, unappealing, unlovable misfits—make for poor Hollywood protagonists. It takes some faith to inject a genuinely alienating hero into a film or TV show. But ever since the broader world of tech has gained a whiff of cool over the past decade or so, Hollywood’s portrayals of hackers, programmers, and other screen-strapped geeks have tended to sugarcoat the frequently unvarnished and even unappealing aspects of a culture that prides itself on not caring about the mainstream. I’m not bemoaning the lack of shy nerds with hearts of gold here, but of awkward and even abrasive characters who talk too loudly, can’t follow conversational cues, transgress boundaries obliviously, and harbor conspiracy theories or other unappealing ideas—like a lot of actual hackers out there. We forget that people detest savant types for reasons beyond their smarts, and a lack of social graces is one of them.
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| Conservatives Should Be Happy About Losing King v. Burwell |
[25 Jun 2015|07:34pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/king_v_burwell_why_the_conservatives_should_be_happy_about_losing_the_affordable.html The Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell ruling comes as a relief to Obamacare’s defenders. But it should also come as a relief to those who want to see it repealed and replaced. I happen to believe that the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell were right on the merits. Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent makes more sense to me than Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion. As a political matter, however, King v. Burwell would have left Obamacare’s opponents in an extremely precarious position for the simple reason that conservatives in Congress had failed to coalesce around a coherent post-King strategy in the months preceding the decision.
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| Supreme Court Breakfast Table |
[25 Jun 2015|08:26pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_breakfast_table/features/2015/scotus_roundup/supreme_court_2015_john_roberts_ruling_in_king_v_burwell.html Justice Antonin Scalia’s most significant legacy on the Supreme Court has not been in any area of constitutional law but with respect to statutory interpretation. His campaign against legislative purposivism—the theory that statutes should be construed to reflect the legislature’s purpose, or intent, to oversimplify things—and his commitment to formal, textualist modes of interpretation have had a profound effect on how litigants brief and argue cases to the court. (For those of you too young to recall how things used to be done, I’d offer as Exhibit A the fantastic 1979 brief my colleague Michael Gottesman filed in Steelworkers v. Weber, which included fully 50 pages of detailed, subtle exposition on the complex history and context of the 1964 Civil Rights Act—a narrative that the court largely embraced in its surprising decision in the case. No serious SCOTUS advocate in this generation—including Michael—would think of doing anything remotely similar today.)
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| “That’s Why We Do What We Do” |
[25 Jun 2015|09:13pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/obama_s_king_v_burwell_win_how_the_president_s_health_care_victory_affects.html When President Obama heralded the Supreme Court victory for the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, he circled back to his fundamental vision of politics. “That’s when America soars, when we look out for one another, when we take care of each other,” he said. “That’s why we do what we do. That’s the whole point of public service.” President Obama has faced a series of existential threats to his health care law, from the original votes, to the elections of 2010, 2012, and 2014, to the two Supreme Court cases. Whenever he’s found himself in one of these moments, he’s returned to the wellspring of his public service, to the idea that Americans are at their finest when they’re protecting one another. Perhaps his most compelling expression of the idea came in the pitch he made five years ago on the eve of the ACA vote, in what remains the most emotional pitch the president has ever made for the legislation. He quoted Lincoln: “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.” In other words, it might be politically risky, but politicians had to be true to themselves, and to the people they’d pledged to serve.
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| Supreme Court Breakfast Table |
[25 Jun 2015|09:59pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_breakfast_table/features/2015/scotus_roundup/supreme_court_2015_the_court_acknowledges_unconscious_prejudice.html Thursday’s blockbuster opinion in the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project case will be primarily and justly remembered for interpreting the Fair Housing Act to include a disparate-impact cause of action. In anti-discrimination law, “disparate treatment” requires an intent to discriminate, while “disparate impact” can allow a plaintiff to win even in the absence of discriminatory intent. For instance, if an entity has a policy that disproportionately affects a protected group, it has to justify that disparity even in the absence of any allegation of discriminatory intent. If it cannot produce such a justification, it will lose. As many progressives have already noted, this interpretation of the FHA is a big win, as discriminatory intent is often difficult to prove.
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