Progress is Slow. Keep Going.
A few reminders before we jump in: 1) Hit reply with your own personal favs from your Space and 2) forward the email to friends to join in!
🗞 THE NEWSSTAND
(Hint: go Incognito to fight dem paywalls).
Today thousands of Americans take a stance in the fight against racism, as individuals and companies like Estee Lauder, Nike, and JC Penny celebrate the emancipation of black enslaved people on what is called Juneteenth.
DREAMers can breathe a sigh of relief this week as the conservative Supreme Court ruled in favor of the lawsuit brought against the Trump administration for its efforts to terminate DACA that were considered ‘arbitrary and capricious.’
It was the second case this week where conservative justices of the Supreme Court sided with its liberal counterparts. The historic ruling favored now deceased Aimee Stephens, who was a transgender woman that brought a discrimination case against her former employer for firing her based on her identifying as a woman. The ruling protects LGBTQ rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which stated that no employer can discriminate on the basis of sex, nationality, race, or religion.
Former national security advisor under Donald Trump, John Bolton, releases his new memoir The Room Where It Happened, which Trump has claimed contains classified national security information and falsities. The book is said to have damning accounts of Trump for abuses of power, including politically-motivated trade agreements with President Xi Jinping of China.
Researchers from Harvard show that Americans of lower-income groups have returned to pre-coronavirus levels of spending, while those at the top of the income ladder have not, which is potentially crippling for the American economy.
As I have said in weeks past and will say again. Read, speak with friends, coworkers, and family. And definitely sign up for The Flip Side for a bipartisan view of the news.
🎧 WEEKLY MIXTAPE
The legendary Bob Dylan releases his new album Rough and Rowdy Ways. Yes, at 79 years old Dylan is still putting out hits.
We also hear from rock legend Neil Young on his Homegrown album featuring a collection of tracks long lost from the 70s, until now.
In a more current blast from the past, early 2000s indie rock group Phantom Planet who brought us the infamous O.C. anthem release their newest album Devastator.
This “Sweet Love Thing Remix” by Starslinger and LA-based singer-songwriter Marlee Quirarte is a smooth, electronic, and sexy af jam to set your weekend mood.
“Feel Good” track from Parisian duo Polo & Pan is just another proof point that the French do everything a little bit cooler.
🥃 THE CABINET
Sandy Bottoms
Whip up a pitcher and treat yourself this weekend with this summer refresher as you sit poolside, on your roof, or at the beach. Chill out. 🤙🏼
Ingredients
2 cups fresh watermelon juice
12 oz chilled white rum
3/4 cup chilled Simple Syrup
3/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 cup Peychaud’s bitters
Lime wheels, mint sprigs, and small watermelon slices, for garnish
Directions
Combine watermelon juice, chilled rum, chilled simple syrup, lime juice, and bitters in pitcher.
Stir to combine.
Fill pitcher with ice, and stir gently until outside of pitcher is cool.
Pour into rocks glasses filled with ice, and garnish each glass with a lime wheel, mint sprig, and small watermelon slice.
🎙FIRESIDE CHAT
Today is the remembrance of the emancipation of the original sin that this country was founded upon, slavery. We celebrate Juneteenth to commemorate that momentous time in American history. And while it has been over 150 years we still see the harmful policies and violence taken against black Americans, people of color, LGBTQ+, and those underrepresented minority groups in this country.
I pause for a moment of reflection to remember those millions of innocent black men, women, and children who were stripped of their human rights and systematically killed at the brutal hands of slavery. We also reflect on the millions of incarcerated black men and women in prisons for victimless crimes, the many who have suffered the effects of poverty, failed education and healthcare systems, and the inhumane psychological effects of ‘broken window’ and ‘ stop and frisk’ policing policies.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave his infamous speech that led to the emancipation of enslaved black people. It was two and a half years later when the news finally made its way to Galveston, Texas that the enslaved people had been freed.
Progress is slow.
This date came to be known as Juneteenth. Those freed black people celebrated in jubilee as they traveled to surrounding states and headed North in search of better lives. Though this proclamation set forth another struggle for black Americans in their attempt to establish themselves in American society over the next 150 years, the catalyst was set.
These past few weeks we have witnessed an awakening in our society to our past and current injustices.
Progress is slow. But it’s progress nonetheless.
In the early morning in late-June of 1969, a police raid took place at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City. Stonewall was one of several gay and lesbian bars in the community that welcomed people from all spectrums of the rainbow—the bar happened to be owned by the mafia who paid police officers to look the other way of its “deviant patrons.”
As gay Americans faced an anti-gay legal system during the 1950s and 1960s, these bars came to be known as safe havens for the gay community. Police raids were commonplace during this era in attempts to clean up the neighborhood of “sexual deviants.” But it was this particular police raid that ignited an uprising that led to decades of progress for the LGBTQ community.
Those actions that early morning were met with protestors and spontaneous acts of violence. The clash between the cops and the protestors over the coming days transformed into a massive civil rights movement.
On June 28, 1970, the one year anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, thousands of members of the LGBTQ community marched through New York into Central Park, in what is considered America's first gay pride parade.
In the coming decades, the annual gay pride parade spread to cities across the country like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago, in an effort to continue the fight for LGBTQ rights. The movement continued around the world to countries like Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.
Though the coming decades in America were met with ongoing struggles for the LGBTQ community including the outbreak of AIDS in the 1980s and early 90s, and the introduction of discriminatory policies enacted in the name of liberation such as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” under President Bill Clinton. Though this act was repealed by President Obama in 2011, over 12,000 military officers had already been discharged for refusing to hide their sexuality during those years.
In a momentous Supreme Court ruling in 2015 the United States government finally legalized gay marriage.
And this week a conservative Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in a landmark case that LGBTQ employees are subject to the same rights of all employees under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prevents employers from discriminating on employment based on race, religion, national origin or sex.
“Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear."
—Neil Gorsuch
Progress is slow, keep progressing.
The DREAM Act introduced in 2001 as legislation that would grant legal status to certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. The bill was brought to Congress several times under different versions but failed to ever pass. Those undocumented children became known as DREAMers.
Following the failure for the DREAM Act to pass in a divided Congress, then-President Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in 2012 known as DACA.
DACA prevented the deportation of and provided eligibility for work permits to DREAMers so long as these individuals continued education or obtained a degree, had not been convicted of felonies or significant misdemeanors, and did not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety. It is estimated there are 1.9 million participants in DACA in the United States.
In 2016 on the campaign trail Donald Trump made the promise to terminate the program upon entering the Oval Office. DACA participants were required to register as “unlawful citizens” and faced deportation by ICE authorities if the program were to be eliminated.
The effort to end the program was soon brought to the courts after the administration was sued for attempting to end DACA in a way that was “arbitrary and capricious.”
The Supreme Court this week ruled in favor of this lawsuit.
Progress is slow. But it’s progress nonethless. We have a long way to go in the battle for human rights, equality, and justice. But we are on our way.
We're in this together
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