The "Work Friend" advice column has a new columnist, Roxanne Gay!

They seem to cycle through columnists pretty rapidly, and on purpose - I think they only sign on for six or eight columns or so. Anyway, I thought you'd all appreciate her first column:

Is It Safe to Keep Employing a Cleaner? Wrong Question, Lady

( I'm copying this in full because paywalls )

Emailed poem of the day

I look at the world

By Langston Hughes


I look at the world
From awakening eyes in a black face—
And this is what I see:
This fenced-off narrow space
Assigned to me.

I look then at the silly walls
Through dark eyes in a dark face—
And this is what I know:
That all these walls oppression builds
Will have to go!

I look at my own body
With eyes no longer blind—
And I see that my own hands can make
The world that's in my mind.
Then let us hurry, comrades,
The road to find.

George Floyd death: New charges for all four sacked officers

The charge against Derek Chauvin has been elevated to second-degree murder, court documents show.

The other three officers face counts of aiding and abetting murder, the documents state.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52915019

One of my neighbors has their flag upside down.

They weren't out, so I didn't ask if they were sending a message about police brutality, or something else, or if they were just remarkably careless.

I have a number of links from marshallprojectemail_feed, and rather than linking to each one individually I thought it was easier to link to their lists. If you're at all interested in the subject of prison reform in America, or the related subjects of policing, police brutality, immigration and ICE, or occasionally poverty then you should either subscribe to the feed or sign up to get the same things sent to your email.

https://mailchi.mp/themarshallproject/pp5byt7jqr

https://mailchi.mp/themarshallproject/vhoiqeia1q

Additionally, minoanmiss has a specific letter writing suggestion which I will copy in full:

To a professional who teaches police to be violent, specifically. One of the major proponents of training police to 'shoot first and ask questions later/never' is William J. Lewinski, whose Force Science Institute conducts trainings all over the US in justifying police violence. Perhaps people should point out to him and his organization their part in the deaths of countless people, including George Floyd and Brianna Taylor.

https://www.forcescience.org/contact/

NYT article https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to-shoot-first-and-he-will-answer-questions-later.html

If you're already sending one such note, you may as well copy it and send it to your local police department. Police officers in the US have actually been fired for successfully de-escalating situations involving unarmed people rather than going in guns blazing.

Finally, from Teen Vogue, which continues to knock it out of the park, How to Safely and Ethically Film Police Misconduct. (Safety tips include social distancing!)