“You are who I love, you who stands at the courthouse with the sign that reads NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE” – Aracelis Girmay, “You Are Who I Love” Discomfort Liberalism assesses solidarity as an abstract concept rather than a strongly-held moral value. In this framework, unity is reduced to a comforting idea that focuses only … Read more
George Floyd died on Monday, May 25. He was known among his family and friends for his compassionate character and “beautiful spirit.” However, he died in a matter of minutes at the hands of Derek Chauvin, an officer with the Minneapolis Police Department. Since then, protests have erupted across the country, demanding justice for Black … Read more
Smriti Mundhra is a film producer and director who specializes in observational documentaries. She won the Albert Maysles New Documentary Director Award at the Tribeca Film Festival for “A Suitable Girl” (2018), a nuanced dive into the lives of three young women in India, and received an Academy Awards nomination for “St. Louis Superman” (2019), … Read more
By now, you’ve seen or heard the word “privilege” in myriad contexts: trumpeted from megaphones at city protests, stamped across aesthetically pleasing Instagram infographics, italicized and bolded in op-eds. In the context of recent race relations, the notion of “privilege” has been widely discussed and viewed as an exclusively White phenomenon that runs rampant in … Read more
As the coronavirus ravages communities around the world, essential workers continue risking their lives to perform the services that sustain our very lives. They clean our streets, keep us fed, and nurse us back to health. Praised by politicians, glorified by CEOs, and celebrated by celebrities and consumers alike, essential workers have been likened to heroes throughout the pandemic. Such recognition … Read more
TikTok perfectly encapsulates the zeitgeist of 2020. The video-sharing social network from Beijing-based ByteDance is the perfected form of previous social media trends: Vine’s snappiness, Instagram’s infinite scroll, and Reddit’s niche subsets. Now that quarantine has locked us away with phones as our constant companions, we suddenly have extra free hours that TikTok, like a … Read more
On Monday, July 6, Harvard announced that it will be transitioning to an online-only educational format for the Fall 2020 semester, and, despite Harvard’s pledge to opt for a medium density plan, promising to bring up to 40% of undergraduates back on campus, students will learn remotely whether or not they live in Cambridge. While … Read more
As we continue to investigate the linkages between the anti-corruption and climate change movements, it would be naive to not consider illegal logging. The world’s greatest forests suffer at the hands of some of the world’s largest economies, all hungry for resources without care for their origins. Beyond providing refuge for enormous amounts of biodiversity and serving as the … Read more
“Avatar the Last Airbender” is my favorite show of all time, and I’m not alone. Water, Earth, Fire, Air: The Fire Nation wants to conquer the rest, and only the Avatar, a 12-year-old boy named Aang, can master all four elements and save the world. The show is so popular that it topped Netflix charts … Read more
Clare Rewcastle Brown is an investigative journalist and founder of the Sarawak Report. She was a whistleblower in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, which saw billions of dollars siphoned from governments into private bank accounts and shell companies to fund extravagant parties, major Hollywood productions and forge relationships with some of the world’s most famous … Read more