Columbus and the "Great Man" of History | COMMENTARY
By Raven L. BlackEarlier this year, on Indigenous Peoples Day, the ever-tiresome Florida governor Ron DeSantis issued a characteristically tone-deaf proclamation honoring Christopher Columbus. The proclamation is a transparent exercise in culture warfare designed to score DeSantis some easy points among his right-wing base. At times, each sentence appears calculated to provoke the maximum offense from forward-thinking liberals such as myself, undoubtedly so that DeSantis can luxuriate in the ensuing outrage. But I have no intention of taking the bait. In fact, I admit to having not read the entire proclamation. But here, for context, is a bitter taste of the proclamation... [Read More]
The Death of the Last "Great Compromise" | COMMENTARY
By Raven L. BlackShelby Foote was a popular historian of the Civil War who passed away in 2005. A charming, genteel Southerner and a compelling storyteller best known for his memorable appearance in Ken Burns' 1990 documentary The Civil War, it gives me no pleasure to speak ill of him. What's more, Foote didn't indulge in overt Confederate apologia, like many proponents of the "Lost Cause" mythos. He was not a revisionist historian; he acknowledged the evil of slavery and the racism of the antebellum South. But the interpretation of Civil War history that Foote helped to popularize—which he termed "the Great Compromise"—was arguably even more pernicious... [Read More]
On Steven Crowder and Trans Suicide | COMMENTARY
By Raven L. BlackAlleged comedian Steven Crowder, host of the eponymously-named podcast Louder with Crowder on YouTube, where he is known for his hateful and bilious remarks about seemingly everyone in America who isn't a straight, white, cisgender man, recently used his considerable platform to raise awareness of the ghastly suicide rate among transgender persons, with all of the sensitivity you'd expect from a grown man who makes his living as a professional schoolyard bully. The frightened-eyed Crowder, who radiates sexual inadequacy with his characteristic underarm holster, asserted that 42% of trans people attempt suicide, and claimed this demonstrates a "mental proclivity towards extreme behavior." The 42% figure and similar statistics are often cited by conservative commentators... [Read More]
I'm Not Mad at Dave Chappelle, Just Disappointed | COMMENTARY
By Raven L. Black"Gender is a fact," Dave Chappelle sagely intones, like a world-weary voice of reason, in his latest comedy special on Netflix, The Closer. I considered spending half of this article discoursing on why this statement is wrong, but I've decided simply to treat it as self-evidently wrong, because this is 2021 and there's no excuse not to know better. If you're still confusing sex and gender—as Chappelle seemingly is—I suggest Googling the difference. I think we're beyond the point in the transgender discourse when everyone should be responsible for educating themselves about the social scientific consensus on gender before opining on the topic in front of an audience of millions... [Read More]
We Are Failing Uncontacted Peoples | COMMENTARY
By Raven L. BlackImagine you're marooned on an island. You've scraped together enough food and water to survive, but you have a toothache. You need to see a dentist soon. You see planes fly above you, and ships sail past. They see you, but they don't stop to help. They're worried they might infect you with Covid-19. And they see you have plenty of food and water; in fact, your diet of wild berries and turtles is probably healthier than the dollar menu at MacDonald's, they reason. And for all they know, you chose to live on an island. Who are they to judge your way of life?
It seems fanciful, but now imagine you're a Sentinel Islander, and suddenly it's not so far-fetched... [Read More]
Playing God With Mosquitoes | COMMENTARY
By Raven L. BlackMeet OX5034. He's a genetically-modified Aedes aegypti mosquito. Next year, 750 million of him will be released in the Florida Keys, according to a plan approved this week by Monroe county authorities. OX5034 carries a sort of "self destruct" gene that is passed on to female offspring, causing them to die in the larval stage. This effectively eradicates the mosquito within just a few generations—previous field tests have reduced the Aedes aegypti population by 80% in the Cayman Islands and 95% in the Brazilian city of Jakobina.
Genetically-modified mosquitoes like OX5034 may conceivably give us the power to make Aedes aegypti and other disease-carrying mosquitoes extinct. But is this "playing god"? [Read More]
Climate Change Denial And You | COMMENTARY
By Raven L. Black1.5° Celsius (2.6° Fahrenheit) doesn't sound like very much, but in the climate change discourse, it is everything. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its authoritative report of 2018, estimated that, in order to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change—extreme weather events, mosquito-borne diseases, flooding, famine, war—global temperature rise must be limited to no more than 1.5° C by the end of the century, and in order to do this, we must reduce net CO₂ emissions by 45% in the next ten years, and reduce them to net zero by 2050. This, according to the report, "would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society." [Read More]
"Here's How the Pandemic Finally Ends"
By Elizabeth Ralph, Politico"What if We Stopped Pretending?"
By Jonathan Franzen, The New Yorker"Inside Poland's 'LGBT-Free Zones'"
By Lucy Ash, BBC News"Cultural Appropriation Is, In Fact, Indefensible"
By K. Tempest Bradford, NPR"Last Survivor: The Story of the 'World's Loneliest Man'"
By Vicky Baker, BBC News"A Letter on Justice and Open Debate"
Harper's Magazine