Top 10 Essential Reads for June
As we enter a summer of phased social distancing, the fight for racial justice and police reform has joined COVID-19 in leading the headlines. At Fenton, we’re working hard to support our clients on all fronts as we—as an organization and as individuals—take time to self-reflect and make sure we are doing everything we can to be active and supportive allies.
June is also Pride Month, and we haven’t forgotten the history of the movement and what this month represents for the LGBTQ+ community. So, with all of this in mind, Fenton’s Reading List this month is an exploration of intersectionality within the current news cycle.
We’ve been reading a little bit of everything and trying to dig deeper into how anti-racism and Black Lives Matter, Pride, voting in upcoming elections, and COVID-19 can all intersect and coalesce. Once we find those common threads, we can start to strategize how to drive change and create solutions.
- The People Who Undermine Progressive Prosecutors. Over the past several years as police violence has become more visible, one of the key goals of people fighting for change has been to shift how the public views prosecutors and how prosecutors do their jobs.
By Rashad Robinson, The New York Times - Cities Grew Safer. Police Budgets Kept Growing. In Boston, Los Angeles and Milwaukee, about one in every 10 dollars of local government spending goes to the police. In Minneapolis, it’s about one in every 20 dollars.
By Emily Badger and Quoctrung Bui, The New York Times - How Pride Is Going into the Future and Back to Its Roots in 2020. Even as festivals go mostly virtual and face budget shortfalls thanks to COVID-19, many organizers feel that Black Lives Matter protests have returned Pride to its participatory origins.
By Mikelle Street, GQ - A California teen started an anti-racism book club with an Instagram post. She expected 15 people. Hundreds signed up. Sasha Ronaghi never expected her idea for an anti-racism media club to go viral.
By Elinor Aspegren, USAToday - How to Make Sure Your Anti-Racism Work Is a Lifelong Endeavor. A Boston University sociologist offers tips on how to sustain your activism work for the long haul—not just while the topic is hot.
By Tessa Yannone, Boston Magazine - ‘No Evidence’ Black Lives Matter Protests Caused COVID-19 Spike: Study. A study using data from Black Lives Matters protests across 315 of America’s largest cities found “no evidence” in the following two and a half weeks that they caused a spike in the number of new COVID-19 cases.
By Shane Croucher, Newsweek - What Is Owed: Without Economic Justice, There Can Be No True Equality. If true justice and equality are ever to be achieved in the United States, the country must finally take seriously what it owes black Americans.
By Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times Magazine - Michelle Obama Wants You to Remember the Impact of a Single Vote. Former First Lady and When We All Vote co-chair Michelle Obama talks to writer and producer Shonda Rhimes about why voting matters—maybe now more than ever.
By Shonda Rhimes, Harper’s Bazaar - First, They Saved Lives. Now, Nurses Want To Save America. Americans want a better healthcare system. Who knows it better than a nurse?
By Rebecca Nelson, Elle - Coronavirus Could Change LGBT+ Pride Forever–What Digital Prides Teach Us. Pride month is fundamentally different in 2020 and will be remembered as the year Pride finally embraced digital.
By Jamie Wareham, Forbes