‘How trying to make sense of the Nolan Wells tragedy led to rampant misinformation’
Keisha N. Blain at MS NOW
In a “striking example of how misinformation can spread during a developing news story, a viral Facebook post claimed that Nolan Wells, the Black Mississippi teenager whose death after visiting a Gulf Coast island with a group of white friends remains under investigation, was related to the legendary journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells,” says Keisha N. Blain. For “many reasons, including ones related to race, history and geography, discussions about his death are especially susceptible to misinformation.”
‘Why is it so hard to ban child marriage?’
Sarah Jones at Intelligencer
Child marriage is a “fringe practice, even within the most conservative religious and cultural communities, but it is also more common than many Americans realize,” says Sarah Jones. Children “who marry are more likely to drop out of high school and face higher rates of poverty,” yet “lawmakers have dragged their feet.” Many “Republican lawmakers continue to see marriage as a solution to illicit sex or an underage pregnancy — and a way to enforce traditional values.”
‘The banality of evil in the Border Patrol’s secret anti-immigrant slur’
Gustavo Arellano at the Los Angeles Times
For “half a century, Border Patrol workers have used the onomatopoeic word” ‘tonk,’ referring to the “sound of someone getting hit, as slang for undocumented immigrants,” says Gustavo Arellano. The word is “workplace lingo showing that the banality of evil that’s la migra on its best days has transformed into something far uglier.” The “slur is so vile — predicated on violence by law enforcement, unlike ethnic jabs that insult food or culture — that it has never crossed over into mainstream English.”
‘Why are we still pretending Big Tech cares about our classrooms?’
Liz Shulman at the Chicago Tribune
The “field of education depends on human interaction, and the quality of instruction kids get should depend on an administrator’s human assessment rather than a machine’s,” says Liz Shulman. Kids “deserve protection in school. Instead, AI companies are furiously signing contracts with school districts.” If “Big Tech companies truly cared about kids and educators as they claim to, they would give money to public schools (beyond free Chromebooks and access to AI), which remain massively underfunded in practically every state.”