home.social

Search

1000 results for “r_data_table”

  1. My 2 cents @[email protected] ·

    A Call to Action: A Historical Response to Backlash

    Table of Contents

    1. Introduction: The Myth of Ignorance
    2. The Modern Frontline: A Direct Reaction to 2020
    3. The Historical Landscape of Reversal
    4. The Anatomy of Recovery
    5. The Strategic Playbook for the Present
    6. A Call to Action: The Power of Selective Patronage
    7. Glossary of Key Terms
    8. Bibliography

    1. Introduction: The Myth of Ignorance

    There has always been a convenient claim of ignorance, a collective posture of denial, whenever Black Americans pinpoint how we are targeted and discriminated against in this country. For generations, our systemic grievances against “the man” or “they” were met with defensive deflections: What man? Who is “they”? Why would Black people be targeted? It is an astonishing framing, posed as if slavery did not anchor this land for 250 years, followed by another century of apartheid under Jim Crow. While most will not deny the existence of the Ku Klux Klan or overt white supremacist groups, there remains a stubborn refusal to admit to a systemic, institutional assault against Black rights.

    Truthfully, even we were not always able to pinpoint the exact mechanics of the machine. We felt the harassment of the police, we felt the sting of negative narratives, and we knew we were treated poorly with diminished rights—but in our youth, we still struggled with the systemic “why.”

    Learning history changed everything for me. I have written before about the books my uncle—the first college graduate on my mother’s side of our family—placed in my hands: foundational works on Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey, Angela Davis, and Stokely Carmichael. In college, Black history courses opened my eyes to Africa and its great nations, universities, kings, and queens. After college, I joined the African Peoples Organization, where every week we sat at the feet of guest speakers, visionaries, and authors like Ivan Van Sertima, John Henrik Clarke, and Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan.

    This is how I learned the true history of my ancestors. This is how I learned all of American history, not just the sanitized, selective narratives taught in public schools. When you learn all of history, the “who” and the “why” cease to be a mystery.

    When asked, I have always been able to explain exactly what systemic racism is and give a rational answer as to why it persists. So, when I look at current events—the latest coordinated assault on the rights of African Americans—I am neither shocked nor surprised. The erosion of voting rights, aggressive gerrymandering, the aggressive dismantling of DEI initiatives in corporate America and universities, the state-sponsored censorship of Black history literature, and the deliberate defunding of the Fair Housing Act are not isolated incidents. I recognize them for what they are: the latest implementation of what scholars, civil rights organizations, and legal analysts describe as an intense, coordinated “backlash” designed to systematically dismantle policies established to advance racial equity.

    The rollbacks use a synchronized strategy: a Supreme Court ruling alters a precedent, political groups instantly scale that ruling into sweeping legislative challenges against schools and corporations, while state houses concurrently redraw maps to suppress the political power of the very communities fighting back. The data confirms that the structural floor is actively being pulled back across multiple pillars of civic and cultural life. These are interconnected, structural rollbacks.

    2. The Modern Frontline: A Direct Reaction to 2020

    To understand the precision of the current rollbacks, we must trace them directly to their catalyst: the global racial justice uprisings of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. In that cultural moment, the overall tone regarding civil rights shifted dramatically from passive acknowledgment to corporate and institutional action. Multibillion-dollar corporations pledged massive budgets to support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Elite universities pledged fair access and holistic admissions. The nation experienced a profound, collective reckoning with systemic bias.

    But history teaches us that an equal and opposite force always follows such progress. Today, that progress is being systematically undone, not through overt violence, but through sophisticated legal, cultural, and political defenses designed to sanitize the rollback under the guise of universal virtues.

    The Legal Defenses: “Colorblindness” and True Merit

    • The Rationale: Opponents argue that any corporate policy, fellowship, or admissions criteria that considers race—even to remedy centuries of documented disadvantage—is inherently discriminatory. They invoke a strict interpretation of “colorblindness,” weaponizing the civil rights era’s own language against it.
    • The Language: Public directives and legal filings argue that DEI policies “deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement… diminishing the importance of individual merit and aptitude.”
    • The Pivot: By framing DEI as a direct threat to “merit,” opponents reframe themselves as protectors of qualified individuals (often highlighting white or Asian applicants) who are allegedly bypassed by “ideological box-checking.”
    • The Reality / Impact: This strategy effectively removes critical pathways for minority advancement and professional development. By generating intense legal uncertainty, it creates a widespread chilling effect that pressures corporations and universities into quietly dismantling or sanitizing their diversity programs to avoid costly litigation.

    The Cultural Defenses: “Parental Rights” and “Age Appropriateness”

    • The Rationale: When removing Black-themed literature and censoring history curricula, the architecture avoids mentioning race entirely. Instead, the focus shifts to protecting children and defending parental authority over public education.
    • The Language: Conservative school boards and advocacy groups assert that “refusing to stock a book in a school library—especially one that includes explicit scenes or heavy themes—is not the same as banning it… Parents have both the right and the responsibility to demand that schools protect children’s innocence.”
    • The Pivot: By framing the removal of literature by authors like Toni Morrison or James Baldwin as a matter of “protecting innocence,” any resistance from educators or civil rights groups is spun as an attempt by the state to “indoctrinate” children behind parents’ backs.
    • The Reality / Impact: The actual result is the systemic erasure of Black literature, culture, and structural context from public view. It isolates young readers from diverse perspectives and aggressively polices the classroom, leaving educators fearful of teaching verified historical facts regarding systemic racism and slavery.

    The Institutional Defenses: “National Unity” vs. “Divisive Ideologies”

    • The Rationale: The justification for targeting sacred cultural institutions like the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture centers on national cohesion, claiming that focusing heavily on slavery and segregation creates unnecessary societal fractures.
    • The Language: Policy directives demand the prohibition of federal funding for programs that “degrade shared American values or divide Americans based on race,” calling instead for public spaces to exclusively reflect a “heritage of consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union.”
    • The Pivot: Curatorial adjustments—such as erasing references to systemic white supremacy during Reconstruction or removing profiles of figures like Harriet Tubman from federal portals—are defended as “content corrections” meant to remove partisan bias and restore objective, patriotic historical accuracy.
    • The Reality / Impact: This administrative overreach actively sanitizes public historical narratives of racial terror and structural oppression. By forcing top leadership out and imposing strict political oversight on exhibitions, it replaces authentic historical documentation with romanticized, nationalist propaganda.

    The Political Defenses: Preventing “Partisan Distortions”

    • The Rationale: When state legislatures redraw maps to split up historic Black communities and dilute their voting power, they exploit a major judicial loophole: partisan gerrymandering is legally permissible, while racial gerrymandering is not.
    • The Language: Lawmakers defend these aggressively altered maps by stating they are “driven entirely by partisan goals—trying to maximize seats for our political party—and that any disruption to minority voting blocks is merely an incidental byproduct of political geography.”
    • The Pivot: By labeling the surgical destruction of Black voting strength as simple, everyday partisan politics, lawmakers shield their maps from constitutional challenges in federal courts.
    • The Reality / Impact: This legal shield directly dilutes minority voting strength and cripples the core protections of the Voting Rights Act. It allows politicians to surgically carve apart concentrated Black communities—such as the recent splitting of Memphis—and scatter their voting blocks into rural, predominantly white districts, effectively suppressing their ability to elect representatives of their choice.

    The Rhetorical Shift at a Glance

    Target AreaThe Reality / ImpactThe Stated Rationale / CloakVoting Rights & MapsDilutes minority voting strength.Protecting “Party Interests” and State Sovereignty.DEI & Corporate EquityRemoves pathways for minority advancement.Restoring “Merit” and “Colorblind Fairness.”Book & Curriculum CensorshipErases Black literature and systemic context.Defending “Parental Rights” and “Age Appropriateness.”Smithsonian & NMAAHCSanitizes historical narratives of racial terror.Promoting “National Unity” and “Shared Values.”Fair Housing Act CutsLeaves minority buyers vulnerable to bias.“Fiscal Responsibility” and reducing federal waste.

    3. The Historical Landscape of Reversal

    This current moment is not an anomaly, nor is it a malfunction of American democracy. It is a continuation of a predictable cycle that has repeated since the founding of the republic. Every single peak of Black political, economic, or social progress has been met with a calculated, institutional valley of counter-mobilization—a “Redemption Cycle” designed to restore the racial status quo.

    The Historical Ledger of Progress and Backlash

    • Bacon’s Rebellion (1676) to the Slave Legislation of 1705
      • The Progress: Poor Black laborers and white indentured servants united in an interracial, populist uprising against the planter elite, demonstrating the terrifying power of cross-racial solidarity.
      • The Backlash: The elite responded by passing the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705, legally codifying hereditary chattel slavery, dividing laborers by race, and creating legal privileges for poor whites to break the multi-racial alliance.
    • Reconstruction (1865–1877) to Jim Crow
      • The Progress: The passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments led to unprecedented Black political mobilization, establishing Black electoral majorities across the South and sending Black men to Congress.
      • The Backlash: The “Redemption” era brought the immediate removal of federal troops, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan’s terrorist campaign, and the codification of Jim Crow laws (poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses) to completely disenfranchise Black voters.
    • The Great Migration & WWI to the Red Summer of 1919 and the Nadir
      • The Progress: Hundreds of thousands of Black Americans migrated to Northern cities for economic independence, while 350,000 Black soldiers served in Europe, returning home with money, mobility, and a refusal to submit to subjugation.
      • The Backlash: The Red Summer of 1919 saw white-led racial massacres detonate in over three dozen cities. Black veterans were targeted and lynched in their uniforms, coinciding with the rapid rebirth of the Second Ku Klux Klan to enforce labor dependency.
    • Parallel Wealth Accumulation to the Destruction of Black Wall Streets (1920s)
      • The Progress: Blocked from the white economy, Black communities built thriving, self-sustaining parallel economies, amassing generational wealth in enclaves like Greenwood (Tulsa, OK), Rosewood, and Ocoee, Florida.
      • The Backlash: Coordinated white mobs, frequently deputized by local law enforcement, physically liquidated these towns through arson and mass murder, explicitly destroying Black capital to enforce absolute economic dependency.
    • Brown v. Board of Education (1954) to Massive Resistance and School Closures (1950s–1960s)
      • The Progress: The Supreme Court struck down “separate but equal,” handing a monumental legal victory to the early civil rights movement and mandating public school integration.
      • The Backlash: Southern leaders organized “Massive Resistance.” Rather than integrate, entire counties (such as Prince Edward County, VA) defunded and completely shut down their public school systems for years, funneling white children into private, state-subsidized “segregation academies.”
    • The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts to Mass Incarceration
      • The Progress: The legal architecture of American apartheid was successfully dismantled by federal legislation, securing federal protection for voting, housing, and public accommodations.
      • The Backlash: The political system shifted toward the “War on Drugs” and hyper-policing. By utilizing racially disparate sentencing policies like mandatory minimums, the state constructed a system of mass incarceration that stripped millions of Black Americans of their liberty and voting rights.
    • The Election of Barack Obama (2008) to the Election of Donald Trump
      • The Progress: A multi-racial coalition successfully elected the first Black president, representing a symbolic and political breakthrough that signaled a changing American demographic landscape.
      • The Backlash: The immediate rise of populist ethno-nationalism, birtherism, and a political movement explicitly centered on “taking our country back,” culminating in a complete capture of the federal judiciary.

    The Historical Comparison Matrix

    The Catalyst (Black Progress)The Redemption Mechanism (The Backlash)The Stated Rationale GivenBacon’s RebellionSlave Codes of 1705“Maintaining public order and labor stability.”ReconstructionJim Crow Apartheid“Restoring home rule and stopping misgovernment.”WWI Service & Great MigrationThe Red Summer of 1919“Suppressing labor unrest and radical Bolshevism.”Parallel Wealth AccumulationBlack Wall Street Massacres“Protecting white womanhood / Law and order.”Brown v. Board of EducationMassive Resistance“Defending States’ Rights and parental choice.”Civil Rights Act / VRAMass Incarceration / War on Drugs“The War on Crime and restoring law and order.”Election of Barack ObamaRise of Populist Ethno-Nationalism“Taking our country back and economic protection.”

    4. The Anatomy of Recovery

    The history my uncle handed me, and the history I studied deeply, is not a chronicle of despair. It is a blueprint for survival. Black culture has never been passively crushed by these valleys; it has historically navigated them through a cyclical blueprint of recovery.

    The Operational Mechanics of Resilience

    • Institutional Repurposing (The Parallel State): When the state becomes hostile, the culture turns inward. Following Reconstruction, the Black Church expanded far beyond a spiritual sanctuary, functioning as a bank, mutual aid society, and insurer. Simultaneously, when public funds were withheld, Black communities established Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), creating a parallel pipeline of professionals who would eventually dismantle Jim Crow.
    • Spatial and Geographic Re-anchoring: When localized terror becomes absolute, migration is used as a strategic relocation of leverage. The Great Migration was not just a flight from danger; it concentrated Black voting power into critical northern congressional districts and packed Black capital into dense urban centers like Harlem and Chicago’s South Side.
    • Creative Resistance and Narrative Capture: Violent political suppression has routinely triggered an immediate explosion of artistic subversion. Following the Red Summer of 1919, the Harlem Renaissance rejected respectability politics to define an unapologetic Black aesthetic. Decades later, the Black Arts Movement established independent publishing houses and theaters, ensuring our history could not be erased by mainstream publishers.
    • The Formalization of Underground Activism: When explicit resistance is criminalized, everyday spaces are converted into subversive networks. Just as spirituals once mapped the Underground Railroad, the post-civil rights era of municipal neglect birthed Hip-Hop culture—functioning as an independent journalistic medium that broadcasted structural realities to a global audience when mainstream media refused to look.

    The Cyclical Blueprint of Recovery

    Ultimately, Black culture recovers because its survival strategy has never relied on the permanence of American political goodwill. The recovery structure is built on a foundational understanding that when the external environment becomes hostile, the internal community must become completely self-reliant. By turning inward to fortify its institutions and outward through un-ignorable creative brilliance, the culture transforms the trauma of the backlash into the fuel for the next era of progress.

    5. The Strategic Playbook for the Present

    Because the modern 2025–2026 rollback relies heavily on federal defunding, judicial manipulation, and institutional capture mechanisms, trying to “repair” the broken federal guardrails in the current political climate is a losing battle. The path forward requires accepting that the floor has been pulled back, turning inward to build fortified parallel systems, and using state and local leverage points to wait out the crest of the wave—exactly as the culture has done in every generation prior.

    Our strategy must shift immediately to three distinct fronts:

    Deep Decoupling and Private Philanthropic Enclaves

    We must intentionally decouple our cultural repositories and tracking systems from federal reliance. Following the administration’s threats to freeze federal funding for the NMAAHC, we must aggressively build independent, private endowments for Black museums and historical archives to insulate them entirely from shifting political administrations. Furthermore, as federal portals purge data on civil rights compliance, our legacy civil rights organizations must scale privately funded, independent data repositories to continue tracking systemic inequities.

    The State-Level “Firewall” Strategy

    With the Supreme Court effectively eviscerating the remaining core of the Voting Rights Act by permitting racial vote dilution under the guise of partisan maps, the federal courts are no longer our shield. The struggle has moved entirely to the state level. We must focus exclusively on passing state-level VRAs—modeled after New York and California—that outlaw minority vote dilution under state law, while pressuring state attorneys general to use state housing laws to aggressively fill the enforcement gap left by the 59% budget cuts to HUD.

    The “Underground Library” and Corporate Counter-Risk

    To defeat local book bans and anti-history curricula, we must render the physical classroom obsolete as the sole arbiter of education. We must deploy geofenced digital libraries to drop free, un-censored e-books directly to mobile devices inside censored zip codes, while resurrecting the 1964 Mississippi “Freedom School” model—establishing weekend, community-run cultural academies to teach our history directly to our youth. Concurrently, in the corporate arena, we must protect minority recruitment pipelines by shifting our language from race-conscious metrics to bulletproof socioeconomic and geographic indicators, preserving access while neutralizing legal liability.

    Summary of the Recommended Recovery Playbook

    Modern Backlash FrontThe Strategic Recovery PlaybookFederal Defunding of History / MuseumsInstitutional Decoupling: Build parallel private endowments to shield cultural repositories from political overwatch.Evisceration of the Voting Rights ActState-Level Firewalls: Abandon federal litigation; focus on state-level VRAs and local legislative organizing.Mass Book Bans & School CensorshipDigital Sovereignty & Freedom Schools: Direct-to-consumer digital distribution of literature and grassroots history academies.Corporate/DEI Litigation ThreatsStrategic Pivot: Transition corporate equity language to socioeconomic metrics to preserve minority pipelines legally.

    6. A Call to Action: The Power of Selective Patronage

    Defensive firewalls and parallel institutions are only half the battle. True resistance requires us to leverage our most potent, un-ignorable asset: our economic and cultural non-cooperation.

    The American apparatus has always valued Black culture, entertainment, and labor immensely—but only when it is compliant, quiet, and highly profitable. It is time to strip away that compliance.

    If a state participates in these structural rollbacks, it must no longer profit from our brilliance.

    • To our elite Black collegiate athletes: Avoid attending or playing for universities in states that have aggressively shut down campus DEI offices and stripped minority scholarships. Your labor generates hundreds of millions of dollars in television revenue and merchandise for these institutions. Redirect your generational talents to fortify the infrastructure of our HBCUs or states that actively protect your humanity.
    • To our prominent performers and artists: Avoid scheduling your national tours, concerts, and cultural events in Red States that are actively banning our books and censoring our history. Starve their local entertainment and tourism economies of your massive revenue.
    • To our Black organizations, fraternities, sororities, and professional networks: Avoid hosting your national conventions, galas, and conferences in hotels, stadiums, or auditoriums within hostile states. Pull your millions of convention dollars out of their tax bases and intentionally inject those resources into municipalities that have passed protective civil rights firewalls.

    I understand how difficult this is. We are engrained in this economy. It was not easy for those walking to work and school during the “Montgomery Boycott”. I know that this would be difficult for all of us but I believe we must pair this total withdrawal with an intentional “buy-cotting” movement, consciously contracting with independent, Black-owned vendors, security firms, and production companies to recirculate our capital internally. When we collectively withdraw our labor, our culture, and our dollars, we force local business owners and chambers of commerce to become the ones lobbying hostile legislatures to stop the rollbacks. History shows that the machine only pauses when its gears are choked by a lack of profitability. It is time to stop financing our own erasure.

    7. Glossary of Key Terms

    • Autarky (Economic): A state of economic self-sufficiency or independence where a community maintains parallel internal markets to survive external exclusion.
    • Backlash Momentum: A structural, reactive counter-mobilization by dominant political or racial structures specifically designed to reverse civil rights advancements.
    • Colorblind Legal Theory: A judicial philosophy asserting that all legal and corporate classifications based on race are inherently unconstitutional, intentionally disregarding historical disparities or remediation needs.
    • Cracking (Gerrymandering): A redistricting technique where a concentrated minority voting population is divided (“cracked”) across multiple districts to dilute their voting power and prevent them from electing a preferred candidate.
    • Institutional Decoupling: The deliberate process of separating community cultural, data, or financial assets from state and federal funding structures to shield them from shifting political control.
    • Nadir (of American Race Relations): The period from the end of Reconstruction (1877) through the early 20th century when racism, segregation, and racial terrorism reached their peak in the United States.
    • Redemption Era: The historical period following Reconstruction where white Southern Democrats (“Redeemers”) violently reclaimed political control of state houses and instituted Jim Crow legislation.
    • Selective Patronage: The strategic, organized application of economic boycotts and intentional spending (“buy-cotts”) to enforce political or corporate accountability.

    8. Bibliography

    • Anderson, C. (2016). White rage: The unspoken truth of our racial divide. Bloomsbury Publishing.
    • Carter, K. (2026). Banned and buried: The color of censorship in American education. UIC Law Review, 59(3), 523–550.
    • Draper, F. M. T. (2025, August 21). Defending the ‘Blacksonian’ is defending America’s truth. Word In Black.
    • Franzese, P. A. (2026). Federalism and fair housing: State innovation amidst federal retrenchment. Fordham Urban Law Journal, 53(4), 971–1002.
    • Gedeon, J. (2025, August 20). Trump administration’s anti-woke campaign targets Smithsonian museums. The Guardian.
    • Grad, R. J. (2026). DEI under scrutiny: Doctrinal shifts, litigation risk, and emerging threats to civil rights law after SFFA. Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy, 21(2), 145–182.
    • Hoover, O. S. (2025). Let freedom read: Exploring Mississippi’s defiance of national book banning trends. University of San Francisco Honors College Repository, Article 1099.
    • Moseley Braun, C. (2025). Moseley Braun calls Trump ‘insane’ after assault on National Black Museum. The Chicago Crusader.
    • Pitts, M. (2026). Underruling voting rights. New Mexico Law Review, 56(1), 45–78.
    • Sherman v. Black Voters Matter Fund, No. 3:26-cv-00424 (M.D. Tenn. May 11, 2026).
    • Showkat, M. (2025). The backlash effect: How diversity, equity, and inclusion programs influence employee engagement and organizational commitment. Cogent Business & Management, 12(1), 2598192.
    • Southern Poverty Law Center. (2026, February 5). Erasing the past: The Trump administration’s attacks on history since 2025. Hatewatch.
    • The Guardian. (2026, January 8). Trump’s assault on the Smithsonian: ‘The goal is to reframe the entire culture of the US’. The Guardian.
    • Washington Post. (2026, May 15). The Smithsonian’s most contested exhibition is back on view, mostly intact. The Washington Post.
    #Backlash #Blackhistory #Blogging #Dailyprompt #History #MyTwoCents #Politics #Society #BlackHistory #education #History #politics #writing
    #backlash #blackhistory #blogging #dailyprompt #history #mytwocents
  2. wahlatlas.net @[email protected] ·

    Detaillierte Inflationsdaten für März 2026 sind jetzt verfügbar. Hier ausgewählte Positionen des Verbraucherpreisindex für Deutschland rund um #Mobilität und #Heizen, visualisiert mit #ggplot2
    Code zum Abruf der Daten per api mit dem R-Paket {restatis} einschließlich Erstellung der Grafiken
    github.com/wahlatlas/api#plot-
    Oder direkt in der Genesis Tabelle im Web das Gewünschte zusammenstellen
    www-genesis.destatis.de/datenb

    #mobilitat #heizen #ggplot2
  3. wahlatlas.net @[email protected] ·

    Detaillierte Inflationsdaten für März 2026 sind jetzt verfügbar. Hier ausgewählte Positionen des Verbraucherpreisindex für Deutschland rund um #Mobilität und #Heizen, visualisiert mit #ggplot2
    Code zum Abruf der Daten per api mit dem R-Paket {restatis} einschließlich Erstellung der Grafiken
    github.com/wahlatlas/api#plot-
    Oder direkt in der Genesis Tabelle im Web das Gewünschte zusammenstellen
    www-genesis.destatis.de/datenb

    #mobilitat #heizen #ggplot2
  4. wahlatlas.net @[email protected] ·

    Detaillierte Inflationsdaten für März 2026 sind jetzt verfügbar. Hier ausgewählte Positionen des Verbraucherpreisindex für Deutschland rund um #Mobilität und #Heizen, visualisiert mit #ggplot2
    Code zum Abruf der Daten per api mit dem R-Paket {restatis} einschließlich Erstellung der Grafiken
    github.com/wahlatlas/api#plot-
    Oder direkt in der Genesis Tabelle im Web das Gewünschte zusammenstellen
    www-genesis.destatis.de/datenb

    #mobilitat #heizen #ggplot2
  5. wahlatlas.net @[email protected] ·

    Detaillierte Inflationsdaten für März 2026 sind jetzt verfügbar. Hier ausgewählte Positionen des Verbraucherpreisindex für Deutschland rund um #Mobilität und #Heizen, visualisiert mit #ggplot2
    Code zum Abruf der Daten per api mit dem R-Paket {restatis} einschließlich Erstellung der Grafiken
    github.com/wahlatlas/api#plot-
    Oder direkt in der Genesis Tabelle im Web das Gewünschte zusammenstellen
    www-genesis.destatis.de/datenb

    #ggplot2 #heizen #mobilitat
  6. wahlatlas.net @[email protected] ·

    Detaillierte Inflationsdaten für März 2026 sind jetzt verfügbar. Hier ausgewählte Positionen des Verbraucherpreisindex für Deutschland rund um #Mobilität und #Heizen, visualisiert mit #ggplot2
    Code zum Abruf der Daten per api mit dem R-Paket {restatis} einschließlich Erstellung der Grafiken
    github.com/wahlatlas/api#plot-
    Oder direkt in der Genesis Tabelle im Web das Gewünschte zusammenstellen
    www-genesis.destatis.de/datenb

    #mobilitat #heizen #ggplot2
  7. Eugene @[email protected] ·

    New analysis published:
    “How Much Greener Is Calgary in 2025?”

    Using Sentinel-2 data (~8.5M pixels), I calculated NDVI change (ΔNDVI) between the 2024 drought and the rainy 2025 season across all Calgary communities.

    Clear spatial pattern:
    • Strong rebound in mature tree neighborhoods
    • Limited change in developing, impervious-heavy zones

    Method: R (terra, tidyverse) + QGIS
    Community boundaries: Open Calgary

    Article + interactive table: datastory.org.ua/how-much-gree

    #RemoteSensing #NDVI #OpenData #UrbanEcology #RStats #QGIS #GreennessOfCalgary

    #rstats #opendata #qgis #remotesensing #urbanecology #ndvi
  8. Eugene @[email protected] ·

    New analysis published:
    “How Much Greener Is Calgary in 2025?”

    Using Sentinel-2 data (~8.5M pixels), I calculated NDVI change (ΔNDVI) between the 2024 drought and the rainy 2025 season across all Calgary communities.

    Clear spatial pattern:
    • Strong rebound in mature tree neighborhoods
    • Limited change in developing, impervious-heavy zones

    Method: R (terra, tidyverse) + QGIS
    Community boundaries: Open Calgary

    Article + interactive table: datastory.org.ua/how-much-gree

    #RemoteSensing #NDVI #OpenData #UrbanEcology #RStats #QGIS #GreennessOfCalgary

    #rstats #opendata #qgis #remotesensing #urbanecology #ndvi
  9. Eugene @[email protected] ·

    New analysis published:
    “How Much Greener Is Calgary in 2025?”

    Using Sentinel-2 data (~8.5M pixels), I calculated NDVI change (ΔNDVI) between the 2024 drought and the rainy 2025 season across all Calgary communities.

    Clear spatial pattern:
    • Strong rebound in mature tree neighborhoods
    • Limited change in developing, impervious-heavy zones

    Method: R (terra, tidyverse) + QGIS
    Community boundaries: Open Calgary

    Article + interactive table: datastory.org.ua/how-much-gree

    #RemoteSensing #NDVI #OpenData #UrbanEcology #RStats #QGIS #GreennessOfCalgary

    #rstats #opendata #qgis #remotesensing #urbanecology #ndvi
  10. Eugene @[email protected] ·

    New analysis published:
    “How Much Greener Is Calgary in 2025?”

    Using Sentinel-2 data (~8.5M pixels), I calculated NDVI change (ΔNDVI) between the 2024 drought and the rainy 2025 season across all Calgary communities.

    Clear spatial pattern:
    • Strong rebound in mature tree neighborhoods
    • Limited change in developing, impervious-heavy zones

    Method: R (terra, tidyverse) + QGIS
    Community boundaries: Open Calgary

    Article + interactive table: datastory.org.ua/how-much-gree

    #RemoteSensing #NDVI #OpenData #UrbanEcology #RStats #QGIS #GreennessOfCalgary

    #greennessofcalgary #ndvi #urbanecology #remotesensing #qgis #opendata
  11. EASE @[email protected] ·

    🆕 Recommendations on the Use of Al in Scholarly Communication by our Peer Review Committee

    Responsible/transparent use of #LargeLanguageModels/ #GenerativeAl with links to policies & practices for:
    :orcid: Authorship
    :doi: Citations & lit review
    📊 Data collection, cleaning, analysis & interpretation
    🧑‍💻 Data/code generation
    🖼️ Tables, images & videos
    📝 Language & style editing
    ⚒️ Editorial work
    🎓 #PeerReview creation & editing
    📄 Paper creation, editing & revision
    ease.org.uk/communities/peer-r
    #AItools

    #largelanguagemodels #generativeal #peerreview #aitools
  12. My 2 cents @[email protected] ·

    Understanding The Supreme Court’s Decision: Why Voting Still Matters

    Table of Contents

    SectionFocusI. The Modern ErasureThe impact of Louisiana v. Callais and the shift to the “Intent-Based” legal standard.II. The Shield: What the VRA GuaranteedThe history of the 15th Amendment’s “Parchment Barrier” and the teeth provided by Sections 2 and 5.III. The Engine of CitizenshipA historical perspective on voting as the foundational right that protects all others.IV. The “Invisible Architecture”Defining Gerrymandering for the non-political and the mechanical theft of power.V. The Louisiana Use Case: “Cracking” the PieA deep dive into the 1/3 population reality and the Supreme Court’s rejection of the racial remedy.VI. The Domino Effect: A Shared StruggleHow the fight for Black suffrage unlocked rights for Women, the Asian American community, and LGBTQIA+ citizens.VII. The “Theocratic” ThreatExposing movements seeking to roll back the 19th Amendment and women’s individual franchise.VIII. The “Colorblind” LoopholeThe weaponization of the Reconstruction Amendments to dismantle civil rights in the name of “equality.”IX. Proof of Concept: The 2012 High-Water MarkAnalyzing the tangible, data-driven policy wins from historic 66.2% turnout.X. The Warning: The 2024 DownturnThe protection gap, policy neglect, and the self-fulfilling prophecy of voter apathy.XI. The Path Forward: Countering the CollapseState-level firewalls, New York’s VRA, and the case for Independent Commissions.XII. Conclusion: Citizenship is a MuscleA final call to action on why the ballot remains our most essential tool.XIII. Glossary of TermsDefinitions of technical legal and political concepts used in the text.XIV. BibliographySelected legal precedents, historical texts, and data sources for further research.

    I. The Modern Erasure: Louisiana v. Callais 

    We begin with a sobering reality. On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais effectively placed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) on life support. By striking down a map that created a second majority-Black district in Louisiana, the Court has shifted the legal standard from a “results-based” test to an “intent-based” one. 

    In plain English: it is no longer enough to show that a map strips a community of its power; you now have to prove the legislators had “malice” in their hearts when they drew it. This ruling grants a “presumption of good faith” to the very people drawing the lines, essentially handing the fox the keys to the hen house. 

    II. The Shield: What the Voting Rights Act Guaranteed 

    To understand what we are losing, we must remember why the VRA of 1965 was called the “Crown Jewel” of the Civil Rights Movement. Before 1965, the 15th Amendment—which prohibited federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”—was a “parchment barrier.” It was a promise with no teeth. In the Jim Crow South, States still created elaborate ways to prevent the Black community from voting. 

    The VRA changed everything by introducing: 

    • Section 5 (Pre-clearance): This forced states with a history of discrimination to seek federal approval before changing any voting rule. 
    • Section 2: This allowed citizens to sue to overturn discriminatory maps and practices like gerrymandering. 

    The Result: It transformed the American South overnight. In Mississippi alone, Black registration went from under 7% to over 60% in just two years. It was necessary because, without federal oversight, local authorities used literacy tests and poll taxes to maintain a racialized economic and social hierarchy. 

    III. The Engine of Citizenship: A History of Struggle 

    In my opinion, voting is the most powerful American right because it is the right that protects all other rights. Our voting history is a tug-of-war. From the founding—where only white male property owners held the lever—to the 19th-century taxpaying requirements, the franchise has always been restricted by those in power to prevent the “wrong people” from changing the economic status quo. When we don’t vote, we aren’t just “staying home”; we are consenting to be governed by those who do not have our interests at heart. 

    IV. Explaining the “Invisible Architecture” of Gerrymandering 

    To the average person, “gerrymandering” sounds like political jargon. In reality, it is a mechanical tool used to steal power without firing a shot. To understand it, look at the recent lawsuit in Louisiana. 

    The Louisiana Use Case 

    Louisiana’s population is roughly one-third Black. Simple math suggests that in a state with six congressional seats, Black voters should have a fair opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in at least two of them. Yet, for decades, the state was locked into a map with only one majority-Black district. 

    How does that happen? Think of the state’s voting population as a large pie. If you were to cut that pie fairly, you would have several slices where Black voters could decide the outcome. 

    V. The Tactic: “Cracking” the Pie 

    Instead of fair slices, local administrators use a tactic called “cracking.” Imagine taking a concentrated Black community—one that has enough people to form its own voting district—and slicing it into four or five thin pieces. Each of those pieces is then “absorbed” into a much larger, surrounding white district. 

    The result? The Black community’s influence is diluted to the point of invisibility. They are a minority in every single district, meaning they can never elect a representative who speaks for them. This isn’t a relic of the distant past; this is the exact “invisible architecture” used by Jim Crow administrators that the Supreme Court just gave a “green light” to continue. 

    When Louisiana was sued over this dilution, the lower courts recognized the unfairness and ordered the creation of a second majority-Black district. However, the Supreme Court has now overturned that decision. Their reasoning? They determined that race was used as the primary factor in drawing that second district. 

    Think about the absurdity of that logic: even though creating a second district was the only fair and mathematically correct decision based on a population that is one-third Black, the Court struck it down because the remedy was “about race.” Of course it was about race. The first offense—the “cracking” of the community—was explicitly about race. Therefore, any honest remedy must be about race. By blocking the cure because it mentions the disease, the Court is effectively protecting the original infection. 

    VI. The Domino Effect—Why This Affects Everyone 

    There is a dangerous misconception that the attack on the Voting Rights Act is “only a Black issue.” History tells a different story. In America, the expansion of rights for Black citizens has always been the “unlocking mechanism” for the rights of everyone else. 

    From the 15th to the 19th 

    The 15th Amendment, which technically gave Black men the right to vote in 1870, provided the legal and moral blueprint for the 19th Amendment. Suffragists like Alice Paul and Susan B. Anthony leveraged the language of the 15th Amendment to argue that “sex” should be added to the list of protected categories. Without the breakthrough of Black suffrage, the movement for women’s right to vote would have lacked its foundational legal precedent. 

    The VRA, the Asian American Community, and LGBQTIA+ Rights

    The Voting Rights Act didn’t just stay in 1965; it evolved. In 1975, the Act was expanded to protect “language minorities,” a move that was a game-changer for the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.

    • Breaking the Language Barrier: This expansion mandated bilingual ballots and oral voting assistance in jurisdictions with significant non-English speaking populations. For many Asian immigrants who had naturalized and become citizens, this was the moment the “right to vote” became a functional reality.
    • The Blueprint for Inclusion: The legal concept that the government has a functional duty to prevent discrimination against a “protected class”—whether based on race, national origin, or language—was forged in the fires of the Black struggle. This paved the way for broader civil rights protections that eventually benefited the LGBTQIA+ community as well.

    The strategy is clear: the VRA provided the legal framework to argue that a citizen’s identity should not be a barrier to their participation in American life. Today, the same lawmakers who push to dilute Black votes and restrict language assistance for Asian voters are often the ones sponsoring legislation to strip rights from the LGBTQIA+ community.

    The New Threat to Women’s Suffrage 

    Make no mistake: when they come for one, they are coming for all. We are already seeing the rise of “theocratic” movements, led by figures like Doug Wilson, who has documented ties to high-ranking officials in the current administration. Wilson and his followers openly argue for “household voting”—a return to a time when only the “head of the household” (the man) could vote, effectively stripping women of their individual franchise. By dismantling the VRA today, they are clearing the path to roll back the 19th Amendment tomorrow. 

    VIII. The “Colorblind” Loophole 

    The most insidious tactic used by the current Court is the weaponization of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. These “Reconstruction Amendments” were created explicitly to protect the newly freed Black population. However, the authors intentionally used universal language—referring to “persons” and “citizens” rather than “Black citizens”—to ensure the law would stand the test of time. 

    Dismantling Rights in the Name of “Equality” 

    Today’s legal architects are using this lack of explicit mention as a loophole. They argue that any law specifically designed to protect Black voters (like Section 2 of the VRA) is actually a form of “racial discrimination” against white voters because it “takes race into account.” 

    They are using the very amendments designed to end slavery and ensure equality to strike down the tools we use to achieve it. It is a perverse logic: claiming that the only way to stop discrimination is to stop the government from noticing when discrimination is happening. By declaring America “colorblind,” the Court is choosing to be blind to the very real, data-driven evidence of voter suppression. 

    IX. Proof of Concept—The 2012 High-Water Mark 

    For those who say voting doesn’t change anything, we look back to 2012. With a record 66.2% Black turnout, the community didn’t just “express an opinion”—they dictated the national agenda. 

    • Healthcare as a Right: That turnout protected the Affordable Care Act. The result? The Black uninsured rate dropped by one-third in four years. 
    • Bending the Arc of Justice: It gave the administration the mandate to launch “My Brother’s Keeper” and prompted the Department of Justice to end the era of mandatory minimums for low-level drug offenses, slowing the engine of mass incarceration. 
    • The Bench: It allowed for the appointment of the most diverse federal judiciary in history, seeding the courts with judges who understand the lived experience of the marginalized. 

    X. The Warning: The 2024 Downturn and Its Aftermath 

    If 2012 showed us the power of presence, 2024 showed us the cost of absence. With Black turnout dipping to 59.6%, the “protection gap” has widened. The negative effects are already surfacing: 

    • Judicial Reversal: The lack of a clear mandate has allowed for the rapid-fire dismantling of equity programs and the weakening of the VRA we see today. 
    • Policy Neglect: When turnout drops, politicians shift their focus to “likely voters”—who are often older and wealthier—leading to stagnation in policies regarding the minimum wage, student debt, and urban infrastructure. 
    • The Vicious Cycle: Low turnout in 2024 emboldened state legislatures to pass the very gerrymandered maps that make people feel their vote doesn’t matter, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of disenfranchisement. 

    XI. The Path Forward: Countering the Collapse 

    The dismantling of federal protections is a crisis, but it is not a defeat. As the federal shield dissolves, the front line of democracy has shifted to the states. We are building a firewall ourselves. 

    • The State-Level Firewall: If the U.S. Supreme Court won’t protect Section 2, the states must. New York’s own John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act (2022) restores the “pre-clearance” protections lost at the federal level. 
    • Independent Redistricting: The best way to stop gerrymandering is to take the pen away from politicians. States with Citizen-Led Commissions have proven that we can have competitive elections and fair maps when the people, not the parties, draw the lines. 
    • Reducing the “Cost” of Voting: We counter suppression with accessibility. From “Golden Day” registration to pre-registering 16-year-olds, we must make the ballot as accessible as the air we breathe. 

    XII. Conclusion: Citizenship is a Muscle 

    Voting is the key to citizenship because it is a self-correcting mechanism. The effort to eradicate the Voting Rights Act is happening because those in power know exactly how much your vote is worth. They wouldn’t work this hard to take it if it didn’t have the power to change the world. 

    The response to the Callais decision must be a surge. We must support State Voting Rights Acts (like the one we have in New York) and demand Independent Redistricting Commissions. Let’s treat the ballot like the historical treasure it is—a tool our ancestors bled for, and the only one capable of building a truly representative America for all citizens. 

    Glossary of Terms

    • Cracking: A gerrymandering technique that spreads voters of a particular group across many districts to deny them a sufficiently large voting block in any one district.
    • Packing: Concentrating as many voters of one type as possible into a single electoral district to reduce their influence in other districts.
    • Pre-clearance (Section 5): A defunct requirement of the VRA that mandated specific jurisdictions seek federal approval before changing voting laws.
    • Vote Dilution: The practice of reducing the effectiveness of a particular group’s crown voting power through redistricting or changes in election systems.
    • Standard of Intent: A legal requirement where plaintiffs must prove legislators meant to discriminate, rather than just proving the law has a discriminatory effect.
    • Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC): A body of non-politician citizens tasked with drawing district lines to prevent partisan or racial gerrymandering.
    • Theocratic Movement: Political movements (like those led by Doug Wilson) that seek to base government and law on specific religious interpretations, often targeting individual voting rights.

    Selected Bibliography & Further Reading

    Legal Precedents & Cases

    • Louisiana v. Callais, 601 U.S. ___ (2026): The Supreme Court ruling regarding the creation of Louisiana’s second majority-minority district.
    • Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013): The landmark case that struck down the VRA’s pre-clearance formula.
    • Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. ___ (2019): The ruling declaring that partisan gerrymandering claims are non-justiciable in federal courts.

    Historical & Academic Texts

    • Anderson, Carol. One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.
    • Keyssar, Alexander. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. Basic Books, 2000.
    • New York State Senate. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York (S.1046). 2022.

    Data Sources

    • U.S. Census Bureau: Current Population Survey, Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2012 & 2024.
    • The Brennan Center for Justice: The State of Voting 2026: Trends in State Voting Rights Acts.
    • MIT Election Data + Science Lab: Voter Turnout and Performance Metrics by Demographic.
    #Blogging #Dailyprompt #Gerrymandering #History #Louisianavscallais #Politics #Society #Supremecourts #Votingrights #VRA #History #news #politics
    #blogging #dailyprompt #gerrymandering #history #louisianavscallais #politics
  13. Jon Awbrey @[email protected] ·

    Sign Relations • Ennotation • Part 2
    • inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/12

    As it happens, the sign relations L_A and L_B are fully symmetric with respect to exchanging signs and interpretants, so all the data of proj_{OS} L_A is echoed unchanged in proj_{OI} L_A and all the data of proj_{OS} L_B is echoed unchanged in proj_{OI} L_B.

    Tables 5a and 5b show the ennotative components of the sign relations associated with the interpreters A and B, respectively. The rows of each Table list the ordered pairs (o, i) in the corresponding projections, Enn(L_A), Enn(L_B) ⊆ O×I.

    • Tables 5a and 5b. Ennotative Components Enn(L_A) and Enn(L_B)
    • inquiryintoinquiry.com/wp-cont

    Resources —

    Sign Relation • OEIS • MyWikiBiz • Wikiversity
    • oeis.org/wiki/Sign_relation
    • mywikibiz.com/Sign_relation
    • en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Sign_r

    Survey of Semiotics, Semiosis, Sign Relations
    • inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/05

    cc: academia.edu/community/V0rbOx
    cc: researchgate.net/post/Sign_Rel
    cc: stream.syscoi.com/2025/12/29/s

    #Peirce #Inquiry #Logic #Mathematics #RelationTheory
    #Semiosis #Semiotics #SignRelations #TriadicRelations

    #triadicrelations #signrelations #semiotics #semiosis #relationtheory #mathematics
  14. Marco Ciappelli🎙️✨:verified: :donor: @[email protected] ·

    🎉More Big News! 🎈🎈🎈

    Please join us in welcoming Beachhead Solutions as an official sponsor of ITSPmagazine.

    Beachhead Solutions provides hashtag#cloud-managed device security that enables businesses to enforce hashtag#encryption, control data access remotely, and instantly prove regulatory compliance across all endpoints—PCs, Macs, servers, phones, tablets, and USBs.

    🔗 Explore their brand page on ITSPmagazine:
    lnkd.in/gP2RfpCa

    📢 Help us spread the word—tag your team, your peers, your fellow defenders.

    Visit Beachhead Solutions Website 👉 itspm.ag/beachhead-solutions-r

    Welcome aboard, Beachhead Solutions! ✨ 👏 ✨ 👏 ✨ 👏

    — Sean Martin, CISSP & Marco Ciappelli
    #cybersecurity #infosec #infosecurity #technology,#dataprotection,#zerotrust #endpointsecurity #managedsecurity #MSPs

    #infosecurity #technology #dataprotection #zerotrust #endpointsecurity #managedsecurity
  15. Marco Ciappelli🎙️✨:verified: :donor: @[email protected] ·

    🎉More Big News! 🎈🎈🎈

    Please join us in welcoming Beachhead Solutions as an official sponsor of ITSPmagazine.

    Beachhead Solutions provides hashtag#cloud-managed device security that enables businesses to enforce hashtag#encryption, control data access remotely, and instantly prove regulatory compliance across all endpoints—PCs, Macs, servers, phones, tablets, and USBs.

    🔗 Explore their brand page on ITSPmagazine:
    lnkd.in/gP2RfpCa

    📢 Help us spread the word—tag your team, your peers, your fellow defenders.

    Visit Beachhead Solutions Website 👉 itspm.ag/beachhead-solutions-r

    Welcome aboard, Beachhead Solutions! ✨ 👏 ✨ 👏 ✨ 👏

    — Sean Martin, CISSP & Marco Ciappelli
    #cybersecurity #infosec #infosecurity #technology,#dataprotection,#zerotrust #endpointsecurity #managedsecurity #MSPs

    #infosecurity #technology #dataprotection #zerotrust #endpointsecurity #managedsecurity
  16. Marco Ciappelli🎙️✨:verified: :donor: @[email protected] ·

    🎉More Big News! 🎈🎈🎈

    Please join us in welcoming Beachhead Solutions as an official sponsor of ITSPmagazine.

    Beachhead Solutions provides hashtag#cloud-managed device security that enables businesses to enforce hashtag#encryption, control data access remotely, and instantly prove regulatory compliance across all endpoints—PCs, Macs, servers, phones, tablets, and USBs.

    🔗 Explore their brand page on ITSPmagazine:
    lnkd.in/gP2RfpCa

    📢 Help us spread the word—tag your team, your peers, your fellow defenders.

    Visit Beachhead Solutions Website 👉 itspm.ag/beachhead-solutions-r

    Welcome aboard, Beachhead Solutions! ✨ 👏 ✨ 👏 ✨ 👏

    — Sean Martin, CISSP & Marco Ciappelli
    #cybersecurity #infosec #infosecurity #technology,#dataprotection,#zerotrust #endpointsecurity #managedsecurity #MSPs

    #infosecurity #technology #dataprotection #zerotrust #endpointsecurity #managedsecurity
  17. Marco Ciappelli🎙️✨:verified: :donor: @[email protected] ·

    🎉More Big News! 🎈🎈🎈

    Please join us in welcoming Beachhead Solutions as an official sponsor of ITSPmagazine.

    Beachhead Solutions provides hashtag#cloud-managed device security that enables businesses to enforce hashtag#encryption, control data access remotely, and instantly prove regulatory compliance across all endpoints—PCs, Macs, servers, phones, tablets, and USBs.

    🔗 Explore their brand page on ITSPmagazine:
    lnkd.in/gP2RfpCa

    📢 Help us spread the word—tag your team, your peers, your fellow defenders.

    Visit Beachhead Solutions Website 👉 itspm.ag/beachhead-solutions-r

    Welcome aboard, Beachhead Solutions! ✨ 👏 ✨ 👏 ✨ 👏

    — Sean Martin, CISSP & Marco Ciappelli
    #cybersecurity #infosec #infosecurity #technology,#dataprotection,#zerotrust #endpointsecurity #managedsecurity #MSPs

    #infosec #cybersecurity #msps #managedsecurity #endpointsecurity #zerotrust
  18. Marco Ciappelli🎙️✨:verified: :donor: @[email protected] ·

    🎉More Big News! 🎈🎈🎈

    Please join us in welcoming Beachhead Solutions as an official sponsor of ITSPmagazine.

    Beachhead Solutions provides hashtag#cloud-managed device security that enables businesses to enforce hashtag#encryption, control data access remotely, and instantly prove regulatory compliance across all endpoints—PCs, Macs, servers, phones, tablets, and USBs.

    🔗 Explore their brand page on ITSPmagazine:
    lnkd.in/gP2RfpCa

    📢 Help us spread the word—tag your team, your peers, your fellow defenders.

    Visit Beachhead Solutions Website 👉 itspm.ag/beachhead-solutions-r

    Welcome aboard, Beachhead Solutions! ✨ 👏 ✨ 👏 ✨ 👏

    — Sean Martin, CISSP & Marco Ciappelli
    #cybersecurity #infosec #infosecurity #technology,#dataprotection,#zerotrust #endpointsecurity #managedsecurity #MSPs

    #infosecurity #technology #dataprotection #zerotrust #endpointsecurity #managedsecurity
  19. Joseph Lim :mastodon: @[email protected] ·

    #Drugcrisis deepens our #economic woes
    "urine testing suggests tt actual number of #amphetamine users cld exceed 5 million, or 7.6% of population. With the cost of an amphetamine tablet ~30 baht, drugs hv become increasingly accessible to low-income earners, driving the # of users even higher. >95% of #drugaddicts in #Thailand r btw 15-59 yrs old.. Alarmingly, #government lacks baseline data on number of #drug #addicts, as no statistics r available fr any official agency"
    bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinio

    #drugcrisis #economic #amphetamine #drugaddicts #thailand #government
  20. Joseph Lim :mastodon: @[email protected] ·

    #Drugcrisis deepens our #economic woes
    "urine testing suggests tt actual number of #amphetamine users cld exceed 5 million, or 7.6% of population. With the cost of an amphetamine tablet ~30 baht, drugs hv become increasingly accessible to low-income earners, driving the # of users even higher. >95% of #drugaddicts in #Thailand r btw 15-59 yrs old.. Alarmingly, #government lacks baseline data on number of #drug #addicts, as no statistics r available fr any official agency"
    bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinio

    #drugcrisis #economic #amphetamine #drugaddicts #thailand #government
  21. Joseph Lim :mastodon: @[email protected] ·

    #Drugcrisis deepens our #economic woes
    "urine testing suggests tt actual number of #amphetamine users cld exceed 5 million, or 7.6% of population. With the cost of an amphetamine tablet ~30 baht, drugs hv become increasingly accessible to low-income earners, driving the # of users even higher. >95% of #drugaddicts in #Thailand r btw 15-59 yrs old.. Alarmingly, #government lacks baseline data on number of #drug #addicts, as no statistics r available fr any official agency"
    bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinio

    #addicts #drug #government #thailand #drugaddicts #amphetamine
  22. Joseph Lim :mastodon: @[email protected] ·

    #Drugcrisis deepens our #economic woes
    "urine testing suggests tt actual number of #amphetamine users cld exceed 5 million, or 7.6% of population. With the cost of an amphetamine tablet ~30 baht, drugs hv become increasingly accessible to low-income earners, driving the # of users even higher. >95% of #drugaddicts in #Thailand r btw 15-59 yrs old.. Alarmingly, #government lacks baseline data on number of #drug #addicts, as no statistics r available fr any official agency"
    bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinio

    #drugcrisis #economic #amphetamine #drugaddicts #thailand #government
  23. Joana de Castro Arnaud @[email protected] ·

    #AdventOfCode #AoC

    I completed #Day08 of #AdventOfCode2023.

    Part 1:
    - Difficulty: 3/10
    - Workout: 2/10

    Part 2:
    - Difficulty: 3/10
    - Workout: 5/10

    Part 1 was a straight simulation: instructions given, parse and table moves, loop for following instructions. Barely a half-hour of work.

    Part 2 extends from one start point to several; it just means a list of places mapping to a list of places, instead of place mapping to place.

    Brute force, like in part 1, turned out to be not viable: 1.8e9 iterations, and nothing. I tried to find repeatable sequences of places, starting with each place and instruction position, but the volume of data generated was getting too big.

    I had to resort to r/AdventOfCode for tips. At once, I found: closed cycles and LCM. It was enough. I quickly found --Z to --Z cycles, and their periods; all multiples of the same number. A quick implementation of GCD, then LCM(a, b) = a * b / GCD(a, b), reduce list of periods by LCM, and done.

    Total time, programming and wasting CPU: about 7 hours.

    #adventofcode2023 #day08 #aoc #adventofcode
  24. jik @[email protected] ·

    Synology Drive Client for Linux has a data-loss bug Synology refuses to fix; here’s a workaround

    [As of January 14, 2026, this data-loss bug in Synology Drive still is not fixed in version 4.0.2-17886, which on Linux is inexplicably numbered as version 8.0.2-17886. It has been over five years since I reported the issue to Synology. The workaround described below still works.]

    I use GnuCash to track my finances. I run GnuCash on three different computers: two Linux and one Mac. For a long time I was using a shell-script wrapper to sync my GnuCash data file between the computers when launching GnuCash, but I recently decided to store the file on my Synology NAS and synchronize it between computers using Synology Drive Client.

    Unfortunately, I quickly noticed a significant problem: when I edited my GnuCash data on Mac, it was successfully synchronized onto the NAS as soon as I saved it, but when I edited on Linux, it wasn’t. Then, the next time I edited and saved on Mac, Linux decided there was a conflict between the edited version it had and the updated version sent over from the Mac, so it uploaded its conflicting version onto the NAS, and suddenly I was faced with two different, divergent versions of my GnuCash data file. I then had to merge these by hand, figuring out all the changes in both files from their common ancestor and merging them into one file to avoid losing data. Even worse, if I edited on Linux 1, then edited on Linux 2, then edited on the Mac, I was ending up with three conflicting versions of the data file, with three different sets of changes. Oy!

    The root cause of this is actually quite straightforward: on Linux, when a hard link is created within a Drive Client folder, the client does not notice the hard link or upload the file to the NAS. When GnuCash saves a modified data file on Linux, it first saves the file under a temporary file name, then deletes the older version of the file with its “real” file name, then creates a hard link from that name to the temporary file, then deletes the temporary file.

    The macOS version of Drive Client does not have this bug. The Linux version of the Dropbox Client does not have this bug.

    I reported this problem to Synology Support. Even after I explained to them exactly what the problem is and even explained to them how to reproduce it easily, they refused to acknowledge that the behavior is incorrect or commit to fixing it.

    To work around this issue, I wrote a Python script which scrapes the list of sync directories from the Drive Client SQLite database, sets up watchers for files created within those directories, and every time it detects that a file has been created, it updates the timestamp on the file, which tricks Drive Client into noticing the file and synchronizing it to the NAS.

    The script is below.

    For what it’s worth, in January 2023, I had a conversation with a helpful and competent Synology support engineer, in which I believe I have successfully convinced Synology that there is a bug here that they should fix, and they claim they’ve put it into the queue to be fixed as resources permit. So maybe we’ll get a fix at some point, but as of September 2025 we haven’t yet.

    #!/usr/bin/env python3

import argparse
import inotify.adapters
import logging
import logging.handlers
import os
import requests
import signal
import sqlite3
import stat
import sys
import threading
import time

sys_db_path = os.path.expanduser('~/.SynologyDrive/data/db/sys.sqlite')
# The file should be modified at least this often (seconds) or something is
# wrong and we shouldn't update the canary.
sys_db_max_idle = 120

logger = None
resetting = False
last_crash = None
watchers = {}
watcher_tests = {}


class TaskWatcher(object):
    def __init__(self, task):
        self.task = task
        path = task
        if path.endswith(os.path.sep):
            path = os.path.dirname(path)
        logger.info(f'Starting watcher {id(self):x} for {path}')
        self.path = path
        self.synology_dir = os.path.join(self.path,
                                         '.SynologyWorkingDirectory')
        self.obsolete = False
        self.thread = threading.Thread(target=self.watch, daemon=True)
        self.thread.start()

    def clean_tree(self):
        base = os.path.join(self.path, '.SynologyWorkingDirectory')
        prefix = base + os.path.sep
        # This is naughty because we are accessing private attributes inside
        # the Inotify object. Hopefully they won't change the internal
        # structure of the code!
        for watch in list(self.inotify.inotify._Inotify__watches.keys()):
            if watch == base or watch.startswith(prefix):
                self.inotify.inotify.remove_watch(watch)
                logger.debug(f'Removed watch {watch}')

    def watch(self):
        global watcher_tests

        self.inotify = inotify.adapters.InotifyTree(self.path)
        self.clean_tree()

        while not self.obsolete:
            for event in self.inotify.event_gen(
                    yield_nones=False, timeout_s=1):
                self.clean_tree()
                (_, type_names, path, filename) = event
                logger.debug(f'event: type_names={type_names}, path={path}, '
                             f'filename={filename}')
                if path == self.synology_dir:
                    continue
                if 'IN_CREATE' not in type_names:
                    continue
                full_path = os.path.join(path, filename)
                try:
                    stat_obj = os.stat(full_path, follow_symlinks=False)
                except Exception:
                    continue
                if not stat.S_ISREG(stat_obj.st_mode):
                    continue
                if self.task in watcher_tests and \
                   watcher_tests[self.task][0] == filename:
                    logger.info(f'Got event for test file {full_path}')
                    os.unlink(full_path)
                    watcher_tests.pop(self.task)
                    continue
                logger.info('Touching {}'.format(full_path))
                try:
                    os.utime(full_path, times=(stat_obj.st_mtime,
                                               stat_obj.st_mtime))
                except Exception as e:
                    logger.info('Failed to touch {} ({}), continuing'.format(
                        full_path, e))
        logger.info(f'Exiting obsolete watcher {id(self):x} for {self.path}')

    def wait(self):
        self.thread.join()

    def is_alive(self):
        return self.thread.is_alive()


def find_tasks():
    conn = sqlite3.connect(sys_db_path)
    cursor = conn.cursor()
    cursor.execute('SELECT sync_folder from session_table')
    return list(r[0] for r in cursor)


def start_watchers():
    global resetting, watchers

    db_warned = False
    while True:
        if not db_warned:
            logger.info(f'{"Resetting" if resetting else "Scanning"} tasks.')
        try:
            tasks = find_tasks()
        except Exception as e:
            if not db_warned:
                logger.error(f'Failed to open {sys_db_path} ({e}), '
                             f'sleeping and retrying until success')
                db_warned = True
            time.sleep(5)
            continue
        if db_warned:
            logger.info(f'Successfully opened {sys_db_path}')
            db_warned = False
        new_watchers = {}
        for task in tasks:
            if not resetting and task in watchers:
                new_watchers[task] = watchers.pop(task)
            else:
                new_watchers[task] = TaskWatcher(task)
        for task, watcher in watchers.items():
            logger.info(f'Telling watcher {id(watcher):x} for {task} to exit')
            watcher.obsolete = True
        resetting = False
        watchers = new_watchers
        return


def resurrect_watchers():
    global resetting, watchers, last_crash

    crash_time = None

    for p, w in watchers.items():
        if not w.is_alive():
            logger.error(f'Watcher {id(w):x} for {p} crashed')
            crash_time = time.time()
    if crash_time:
        if last_crash and crash_time - last_crash < 5:
            raise Exception('Watchers are crashing too quickly, aborting')
        last_crash = crash_time
        logger.error('Resetting all watchers because of crashed threads')
        resetting = True
        start_watchers()


def watch_tasks():
    global resetting, watcher_tests

    start_watchers()
    start_time = 0
    db_warned = False
    while True:
        # I use 62 seconds here because in my experience Synology Drive updates
        # the file every 60 seconds, perhaps 61 at the outside, so waiting 62
        # seconds should be long enough for it to do it. If not, no harm done,
        # there's no harm in creating a new watcher for it.
        if time.time() - start_time >= 62:
            # If we didn't do a rescan during the previous pass through the
            # loop, then perhaps something is wrong with the inotify watcher?
            # Let's throw our old one away and start over just to be safe.
            # One way this could happen: if the user deletes and recreates
            # their ~/.SynologyDrive directory!
            if not db_warned:
                logger.info(f'Creating watcher for {sys_db_path}')
            i = inotify.adapters.Inotify()
            try:
                i.add_watch(sys_db_path)
            except Exception as e:
                if not db_warned:
                    logger.info(f'Failed to watch {sys_db_path} ({e}), '
                                f'will delay and keep retrying')
                    db_warned = True
                time.sleep(5)
                continue
            start_time = time.time()
            if db_warned:
                logger.info(f'Successfully watched {sys_db_path}')
                db_warned = False

        if resetting:
            start_watchers()
        else:
            resurrect_watchers()

        for task, test in [(task, test) for task, test in watcher_tests.items()
                           if time.time() - test[1] > 2]:
            watcher_tests.pop(task)
            full_path = os.path.join(task, test[0])
            logger.error(f'No event for test file {full_path} after 2 seconds')
            os.unlink(full_path)

        for event in i.event_gen(yield_nones=False, timeout_s=1):
            (_, type_names, path, filename) = event
            if 'IN_MODIFY' not in type_names:
                continue
            start_watchers()
            start_time = time.time()


def maintain_canary(url, stable_interval):
    unstable_interval = 1
    last_problem = ''
    interval = 0
    while True:
        time.sleep(interval)
        interval = stable_interval
        stat_obj = os.stat(sys_db_path)
        delta = int(time.time() - stat_obj.st_mtime)
        if delta > sys_db_max_idle:
            interval = unstable_interval
            if last_problem != 'idle':
                last_problem = 'idle'
                logger.error(f'{sys_db_path} unmodified in {delta}s; '
                             f'not triggering canary')
            continue
        elif last_problem == 'idle':
            last_problem = ''
            logger.info(f'{sys_db_path} modifications resumed; '
                        f'triggering canary')
        try:
            response = requests.get(url, timeout=5)
            response.raise_for_status()
            logger.debug(f'Successfully fetched {url}')
            last_problem = ''
        except Exception as e:
            new_problem = False
            # It's gross to test for this using a string operation like this,
            # but the root cause of the failure is buried so deep in a stack of
            # nested exceptions that doing it this way is less gross than any
            # of the alternatives.
            if 'Temporary failure in name resolution' in str(e) or \
               'Name or service not known' in str(e):
                if last_problem != 'dns':
                    last_problem = 'dns'
                    new_problem = True
                    logger.error(f'DNS failure fetching {url}')
            else:
                if last_problem != 'fetch':
                    last_problem = 'fetch'
                    new_problem = True
                    logger.exception(f'Failed to fetch {url}')
            interval = unstable_interval
            if new_problem:
                logger.error('Sleeping briefly and retrying until success')


def parse_args():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
        description='Work around Synology Drive data loss bug')
    parser.add_argument('--canary-url', action='store', help='URL to fetch '
                        'periodically as proof of life')
    parser.add_argument('--canary-interval', type=int, action='store',
                        default=300, help='How frequently (seconds) to  fetch '
                        'canary URL (default 300)')
    return parser.parse_args()


def toggle_debug(signum, frame):
    debugging = logger.level == logging.DEBUG
    logger.info(f'Changing log level to {"INFO" if debugging else "DEBUG"} '
                f'in response to signal')
    logger.setLevel(logging.INFO if debugging else logging.DEBUG)


def reset_watchers(signum, frame):
    global resetting
    logger.info('Queueing watcher reset in response to signal')
    resetting = True


def test_watchers(signum, frame):
    global watcher_tests

    filename1 = f'testfile1.{os.getpid()}'
    filename2 = f'testfile2.{os.getpid()}'
    for task in watchers.keys():
        watcher_tests[task] = (filename2, time.time())
        path1 = os.path.join(task, filename1)
        path2 = os.path.join(task, filename2)
        with open(path1, 'w') as f:
            print("foo", file=f)
        os.link(path1, path2)
        os.unlink(path1)
        logger.info(f'Waiting for event for test file {path2}')


def main():
    global logger
    logger = logging.getLogger(os.path.basename(sys.argv[0]))
    logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)
    handler = logging.handlers.SysLogHandler(address='/dev/log')
    logger.addHandler(handler)
    signal.signal(signal.SIGUSR1, toggle_debug)
    signal.signal(signal.SIGUSR2, reset_watchers)
    signal.signal(signal.SIGPWR, test_watchers)

    args = parse_args()
    if args.canary_url:
        canary_thread = threading.Thread(
            target=maintain_canary, daemon=True,
            args=(args.canary_url, args.canary_interval))
        canary_thread.start()
    watch_tasks()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

    Note that the script depends on some non-standard modules you’ll have to install from your OS package manager or PyPI.

    Here’s the trivial systemd unit file I use to run the script on my Linux computers (obviously, you’ll have to change the path for to wherever you put the script) as a systemd user service when I log in (if you don’t understand what that means, perhaps you shouldn’t be trying to run this script with systemd 😉 ):

    [Unit]
Description=Force hard-linked files to sync to Synology Drive

[Service]
Type=exec
ExecStart=/home/jik/bin/synology-inotify.py

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

    Perhaps this will be useful to someone other than me! If so, post a comment or email me and let me know.

    #Synology #SynologyDrive
    #synology #synologydrive
  25. My 2 cents @[email protected] ·

    The High Cost of Racism: The $16 Trillion Drain on the American Dream

    Table of Contents

    1. Introduction: The Historical Blueprint
    2. The Architecture of Exclusion: The $16 Trillion Drain
    3. The Modern Purge: A Coordinated Regression
    4. Dismantling the Narratives and the Current Evidence of Exclusion
    5. The Consequences of Removing Gaurdrails
    6. The “Buy-In” Trap and the Elite Escape
    7. Glossary of Terms
    8. Bibliography

    Introduction: The Historical Blueprint

    My daughter graduated with a Juris Doctorate Degree from Howard University Law School this weekend. She will now begin to prepare for the Bar exam which she will take in July. While the Bar is now a standard rite of passage for every law graduate, its history reveals a deeper story of how “access” has been managed in America.

    For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many states utilized a system known as Diploma Privilege, allowing graduates of approved law schools to be admitted to the bar automatically. The logic was that the three years of rigorous study and testing required for a Juris Doctor (JD) were a better measure of competence than a single, one-day exam. The shift toward the mandatory Bar Exam was not an accidental evolution; it was a tool of “professional protectionism.” As law schools became more diverse between the 1870s and 1920s, —as more Black Americans and immigrants began attending law schools —elite legal organizations pushed for standardized written exams to act as a secondary “gatekeeper.”

    While the Bar is a settled part of the legal landscape today, it stands as a historical blueprint for a much larger, more destructive economic policy: the practice of moving the goalposts just as a new group of Americans begins to thrive.

    The Architecture of Exclusion: The $16 Trillion Drain

    When we discuss the current “War on Black America,” we must understand it as a policy of intentional economic shrinkage. Economists at Citigroup have calculated that racial gaps in wages, housing, and education have cost the U.S. $16 trillion over the last two decades alone. This is “Ghost GDP”—wealth that was never allowed to be created and jobs that were never filled.

    The Entrepreneurship Gap ($13 Trillion)

    Denying capital to Black entrepreneurs doesn’t just hurt the business owner; it stunts national growth.

    • The Mechanism: When the system makes it harder for a Black business owner to secure a startup loan or venture capital, that business either never opens or remains small.
    • The Cost to All: This represents a loss of roughly 6.1 million potential jobs that could have been filled by Americans of all races. Furthermore, it represents billions in lost corporate tax revenue that could have funded critical national infrastructure.

    The Housing Equity Gap ($218 Billion)

    Housing is the primary vehicle for American wealth accumulation, yet discriminatory lending and the historical “valuation gap”—where homes in Black neighborhoods are appraised for less than identical homes in white neighborhoods—have cost the economy hundreds of billions.

    • The Mechanism: Lower home equity means Black families have less collateral to take out “seed money” for education or new business ventures.
    • The Cost to All: Real estate is a massive driver of GDP. When an entire segment of the market is suppressed, the “velocity of money” slows down. Lower values lead to lower local tax bases, resulting in underfunded schools and roads for the entire municipality.

    The Wage & Education Gap ($2.7 Trillion)

    Discrimination in hiring and “hurdles” placed in front of higher education drain the labor market’s potential.

    • The Mechanism: When a talented individual is underemployed, the economy loses the high-value output they would have produced.
    • The Cost to All: Lower wages result in lower consumer spending. The “Average American” business—from grocery stores to car dealerships—suffers because a significant portion of the population has less disposable income to circulate back into the economy.

    The Medical Gap ($1.2 Trillion)

    Systemic bias and disinvestment in Black health outcomes generate massive inefficiencies in the national healthcare spend. A study by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation found that health inequities cost the U.S. approximately $42 billion in lost productivity and $93 billion in excess medical costs annually. Over two decades, this adds over $1.2 trillion to that $16 trillion gap.

    • The Mechanism: Medical technology (like pulse oximeters) and diagnostic algorithms often default to “race-corrected” standards that delay treatment for Black patients. Additionally, the refusal to expand Medicaid in Southern states creates financial instability for regional health systems.
    • The Cost to All: Health inequities cost the U.S. roughly $93 billion in excess medical costs annually. This disinvestment leads to the closure of rural hospitals, creating “healthcare deserts” that leave white and Black families alike hours away from emergency care.

    The Modern “Purge”: A Coordinated Regression

    Today, we are witnessing a coordinated effort to revert to an era of restricted access. These current policies are administrative hurdles designed to exclude, which will inevitably hamper the entire economy:

    • Mass Removal of Black Federal Leadership: The summary dismissal of Black officials at the NTSB, NLRB, and Federal Reserve removes institutional knowledge that ensures labor safety and financial stability for every citizen.
    • Abolishing DEI in Federal Contracting: This intentionally shrinks the pool of competition for government projects, leading to higher costs and lower quality for the American taxpayer.
    • Gutting the Fair Housing Act: Rescinding “Disparate Impact” and AFFH rules doesn’t just promote segregation; it destabilizes the housing market and destroys property values for the middle class.
    • The SAFE Act Documentation Trap: Framed as a security measure, this act creates a hurdle that ensnares millions of Americans—including married women who have changed their names and rural poor whites who lack passports.

    Dismantling the Narratives: The Myth of the “Lower Class”

    To gain public buy-in for these policies, a series of economic myths were perpetrated to convince the general population that Black advancement is a “zero-sum game.” History and data tell a different story.

    Myth 1: “Black Neighbors Decrease Property Values”

    • The Evidence: Property values didn’t drop because of Black residents; they dropped because of “Blockbusting.” Real estate agents triggered “white flight” by stoking racial fears, buying homes at a discount from panicked white sellers, then reselling them at markups to Black families.
    • The Reality: Brookings Institution studies show homes in Black neighborhoods are undervalued by an average of $48,000 due to appraisal bias, not maintenance. This “stolen equity” drains the entire local tax base.

    Myth 2: “The DEI Hire vs. The Qualified Candidate”

    • The Evidence: A McKinsey & Company study found that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians.
    • The Reality: Diversity is about widening the search. Including Black professionals ensures you have the “best of the best” from the entire population, rather than just the best of a limited group.

    Myth 3: “Black Americans Can’t Maintain Property or Positions”

    • The Evidence: The $13 trillion entrepreneurship gap exists despite Black women being the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S.
    • The Reality: Past “failures” were often legislated, such as “Contract Sales” in the 1950s where Black families could lose a home for one missed payment, or “last hired, first fired” labor policies.

    The Myth of the “Level Playing Field”: Current Evidence of Exclusion

    The most dangerous narrative in modern America is the belief that civil rights protections are “outdated relics” of a bygone era. This belief suggests that the playing field is now level and that active oversight is a “special favor” rather than a necessity. However, 2026 economic data reveals that when these guardrails are removed, the gap doesn’t stay closed—it immediately begins to widen, draining the national GDP.

    1. The Lending & Housing Barrier (2025-2026 Data)

    • The Denial Gap: According to the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, Black-owned firms are less than half as likely as white-owned businesses with comparable credit profiles to receive full financing. Black-owned firms face a denial rate of 39%, compared to just 18% for white-owned firms.
    • The Mortgage Tax: 2024-2025 HMDA data shows that Black and Latino borrowers are disproportionately steered into non-conventional, higher-cost mortgages. On average, Black borrowers pay $256 more in loan fees and higher interest rates than white borrowers with similar qualifications.
    • The Appraisal Gap: A 2026 Brookings Institution report confirms that homes in Black-majority neighborhoods remain undervalued by an average of 23% ($48,000) compared to similar homes in white neighborhoods. This results in a cumulative loss of $156 billion in equity—wealth that cannot be used to start businesses or fund education.

    2. The Employment & Hiring Filter

    • The “Resume Tax”: 2026 workforce studies show that white candidates are still 2.1 times more likely to receive an interview callback than Black candidates with identical resumes. A massive study of 83,000 applications to Fortune 500 companies found that “black-sounding names” consistently received fewer callbacks.
    • The Leadership Ceiling: While Black Americans make up 13.4% of the population, they hold only 2% of executive roles in major corporations. This isn’t a “pipeline problem”; it’s a “gatekeeping problem.”
    • Workplace Discrimination: As of 2026, 41% of Black workers report experiencing racial discrimination on the job, compared to only 8% of white workers. This environment leads to higher turnover, costing U.S. businesses billions in recruitment and retraining fees every year.

    3. The Documentation Trap: The SAVE Act (2026)

    The current push for the SAVE Act is framed as a “neutral” security measure, but it serves as a modern version of the literacy test.

    • The Impact: Data from the Brennan Center shows that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to the specific birth certificates or passports required by the act.
    • The Victims: Roughly half of all Americans do not own a passport. This hurdle disproportionately impacts young voters, voters of color, and millions of women whose current legal names do not match their birth certificates—forcing them to pay a “time and money tax” just to exercise a fundamental right.

    The fact that these disparities persisted despite existing guardrails reveals two fundamental truths about the American economy: first, the “default” setting of our institutions is still calibrated for exclusion; and second, the current guardrails were only partially successful because they were frequently underfunded or bypassed.

    When we remove these remaining protections, we aren’t returning to a “fair” market—we are accelerating a downward economic spiral that affects the entire nation.

    1. The Acceleration of “Risk-Based” Discrimination

    Without the Disparate Impact rule or Fair Housing oversight, businesses and banks often pivot to “algorithmic bias.”

    • What happens: Banks and insurance companies use “proxy data” (like zip codes, education levels, or social networks) to determine risk.
    • The Result: Because our neighborhoods are still historically segregated, these “neutral” algorithms automatically charge Black families more or deny them access entirely. Without guardrails, this isn’t called discrimination; it’s called “market efficiency,” yet it still drains trillions from the potential GDP.

    2. The Collapse of the “Common Good”

    Historically, when protections for Black Americans are removed, the public services they protect are usually the next to go.

    • What happens: This is the “Drained Pool” phenomenon. If the government decides it no longer wants to ensure that a service (like high-quality public education or transit) is accessible to Black citizens, it often stops investing in that service for everyone.
    • The Result: The middle class is forced to pay for private alternatives. We see this today in the shift from free public colleges to high-interest student loans. The guardrails didn’t just protect Black students; they protected the idea of education as a public right.

    3. The Institutional “Brain Drain”

    Removing protections like Equal Employment Oversight and the removal of Black federal leadership creates a talent vacuum.

    • What happens: Positions of power are filled based on “cultural fit” or political loyalty rather than merit and experience.
    • The Result: This leads to Institutional Incompetence. When the NTSB or the Federal Reserve loses its most experienced experts because they were part of a “targeted” demographic, the quality of government oversight drops for every citizen. We lose the “eyes and ears” that prevent financial crashes and infrastructure failures.

    4. The Shrinking of the “National Pie”

    If the guardrails were already struggling to close a $16 trillion gap, removing them entirely is like taking the brakes off a car parked on a steep hill.

    • The Short-Term View: The “winners” feel a sense of psychological victory or a slight temporary increase in their “slice” of the pie.
    • The Long-Term Reality: The total size of the “pie” (the GDP) shrinks. Innovation slows down because fewer people can afford to invent. Housing markets stagnate because fewer people can afford to buy. The national debt rises because the tax base is smaller.

    The Final Result: A “Two-Tier” Economy

    Without guardrails, America solidifies into a permanent Two-Tier Economy:

    1. The Elite Tier: The ultra-wealthy who can buy their own “guardrails” (private security, private schools, private health care).
    2. The Survival Tier: Everyone else—white, Black, and Brown—who is left to compete for the scraps of a stagnant economy, hampered by high debt, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of legal recourse.

    The guardrails weren’t a “gift” to Black America; they were the last line of defense for the American Middle Class. Removing them doesn’t make us “free”; it makes the entire nation more vulnerable to the $16 trillion drain that has already cost us two decades of progress.

    How does this perspective on “guardrails as market stabilizers” fit with your article’s warning about the “Elite Escape”?

    The “Buy-In” Trap and the Elite Escape

    These narratives were successful because they gave the white middle class a false sense of security, suggesting their status was safe as long as a “lower class” existed beneath them. However, while white Americans were busy guarding the “gate,” the floor of the American economy was being hollowed out. The same systems that suppressed Black wages eventually suppressed white wages.

    We must move past the myth that these policies only affect the “targeted” group. When you “drain the pool” to keep certain people from swimming, eventually the entire community is left standing in the dirt. The only ones who escape this drain are the ultra-wealthy, who can “buy” the access being stripped from the public.

    In a hyper-competitive global economy, discrimination is a luxury we can no longer afford. Every policy that creates an unnecessary hurdle for a Howard Law grad is a policy that makes America too weak and too poor to lead. We are sacrificing the size of the national “pie” to ensure the slices are handed out to a preferred few, leaving everyone else with nothing but the crumbs of a $16 trillion loss.

    The Conclusion: Why “Maintenance” Matters

    Dismantling these protections isn’t “moving past racism”—it is removing the fire code from a building that is still catching fire.

    If we allow these gaps to persist, we are effectively choosing a $16 trillion poorer America. We are choosing a system where talent is ignored, property is undervalued, and the “velocity of money” is intentionally throttled. The data proves that these programs aren’t about “helping Black people get ahead”; they are about ensuring that the American economy doesn’t leave $16 trillion on the table because of a bias we can no longer afford to ignore.

    Glossary of Terms

    • AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing): A legal requirement under the Fair Housing Act for HUD grantees to take meaningful actions to overcome patterns of segregation.
    • Algorithmic Bias: When automated systems or data proxies (like zip codes) replicate human prejudice in lending or hiring.
    • Blockbusting: A business process of U.S. real estate agents and building developers to convince white property owners to sell their houses at low prices, which they did by promoting fear in those house owners that racial minorities would soon be moving into the neighborhood.
    • Contract Sales: An exploitative real estate practice where a buyer makes an installment purchase, but the seller holds the deed until the final payment is made.
    • Diploma Privilege: A method for admitting law school graduates to the bar without requiring them to pass a separate bar examination.
    • Disparate Impact: A legal doctrine under the Fair Housing Act that allows for challenges to practices that have a disproportionately adverse effect on minorities, even if there was no discriminatory intent.
    • Drained Pool Phenomenon: The historical trend of public resources being shut down or defunded for everyone once they are forced to integrate.
    • Ghost GDP: The potential economic output and wealth creation that is lost due to systemic inefficiencies, such as racial gaps in lending or employment.
    • Healthcare Desert: A region where residents have little to no access to nearby healthcare facilities, often resulting from the closure of rural or safety-net hospitals.
    • Medical Weathering: The theory that the cumulative effect of social and economic adversity (including racism) leads to early health deterioration and advanced biological aging.
    • Velocity of Money: The rate at which money is exchanged from one transaction to another and how much a unit of currency is used in a given period.

    Bibliography

    • Brennan Center for Justice. (2026). The Documentation Trap: How the SAVE Act Impacts the Working Class.
    • Brookings Institution. (2018). The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods.
    • Citigroup. (2020). Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S.
    • Federal Reserve. (2025). Small Business Credit Survey: Minority-Owned Firm Financing Gaps.
    • McKinsey & Company. (2015). Why Diversity Matters.
    • Maddow, R. / MS NOW. (2026). Report on the Targeted Removal of Black Federal Leadership.
    • National Academy of Medicine. (2023). The Impact of Physician Diversity on National Health Outcomes.
    • New England Journal of Medicine. (2020). Hidden in Plain Sight – Reconsidering the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms.
    • U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Historical Archives on Disparate Impact and AFFH rulings.
    • W.K. Kellogg Foundation. (2018). The Business Case for Racial Equity: A Strategy for Growth.
    • Xen Yadah Tzu. (2026). Digital Commentary on Architectural and Policy Exclusion.
    #AmericanDream #Blogging #Dailyprompt #EconomicJustice #History #HowardLaw #PolicyMatters #Politics #Society #The16TrillionDrain #economy #History #news #politics #racism
    #americandream #blogging #dailyprompt #economicjustice #history #howardlaw
  26. My 2 cents @[email protected] ·

    The High Cost of Racism: The $16 Trillion Drain on the American Dream

    Table of Contents

    1. Introduction: The Historical Blueprint
    2. The Architecture of Exclusion: The $16 Trillion Drain
    3. The Modern Purge: A Coordinated Regression
    4. Dismantling the Narratives and the Current Evidence of Exclusion
    5. The Consequences of Removing Gaurdrails
    6. The “Buy-In” Trap and the Elite Escape
    7. Glossary of Terms
    8. Bibliography

    Introduction: The Historical Blueprint

    My daughter graduated with a Juris Doctorate Degree from Howard University Law School this weekend. She will now begin to prepare for the Bar exam which she will take in July. While the Bar is now a standard rite of passage for every law graduate, its history reveals a deeper story of how “access” has been managed in America.

    For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many states utilized a system known as Diploma Privilege, allowing graduates of approved law schools to be admitted to the bar automatically. The logic was that the three years of rigorous study and testing required for a Juris Doctor (JD) were a better measure of competence than a single, one-day exam. The shift toward the mandatory Bar Exam was not an accidental evolution; it was a tool of “professional protectionism.” As law schools became more diverse between the 1870s and 1920s, —as more Black Americans and immigrants began attending law schools —elite legal organizations pushed for standardized written exams to act as a secondary “gatekeeper.”

    While the Bar is a settled part of the legal landscape today, it stands as a historical blueprint for a much larger, more destructive economic policy: the practice of moving the goalposts just as a new group of Americans begins to thrive.

    The Architecture of Exclusion: The $16 Trillion Drain

    When we discuss the current “War on Black America,” we must understand it as a policy of intentional economic shrinkage. Economists at Citigroup have calculated that racial gaps in wages, housing, and education have cost the U.S. $16 trillion over the last two decades alone. This is “Ghost GDP”—wealth that was never allowed to be created and jobs that were never filled.

    The Entrepreneurship Gap ($13 Trillion)

    Denying capital to Black entrepreneurs doesn’t just hurt the business owner; it stunts national growth.

    • The Mechanism: When the system makes it harder for a Black business owner to secure a startup loan or venture capital, that business either never opens or remains small.
    • The Cost to All: This represents a loss of roughly 6.1 million potential jobs that could have been filled by Americans of all races. Furthermore, it represents billions in lost corporate tax revenue that could have funded critical national infrastructure.

    The Housing Equity Gap ($218 Billion)

    Housing is the primary vehicle for American wealth accumulation, yet discriminatory lending and the historical “valuation gap”—where homes in Black neighborhoods are appraised for less than identical homes in white neighborhoods—have cost the economy hundreds of billions.

    • The Mechanism: Lower home equity means Black families have less collateral to take out “seed money” for education or new business ventures.
    • The Cost to All: Real estate is a massive driver of GDP. When an entire segment of the market is suppressed, the “velocity of money” slows down. Lower values lead to lower local tax bases, resulting in underfunded schools and roads for the entire municipality.

    The Wage & Education Gap ($2.7 Trillion)

    Discrimination in hiring and “hurdles” placed in front of higher education drain the labor market’s potential.

    • The Mechanism: When a talented individual is underemployed, the economy loses the high-value output they would have produced.
    • The Cost to All: Lower wages result in lower consumer spending. The “Average American” business—from grocery stores to car dealerships—suffers because a significant portion of the population has less disposable income to circulate back into the economy.

    The Medical Gap ($1.2 Trillion)

    Systemic bias and disinvestment in Black health outcomes generate massive inefficiencies in the national healthcare spend. A study by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation found that health inequities cost the U.S. approximately $42 billion in lost productivity and $93 billion in excess medical costs annually. Over two decades, this adds over $1.2 trillion to that $16 trillion gap.

    • The Mechanism: Medical technology (like pulse oximeters) and diagnostic algorithms often default to “race-corrected” standards that delay treatment for Black patients. Additionally, the refusal to expand Medicaid in Southern states creates financial instability for regional health systems.
    • The Cost to All: Health inequities cost the U.S. roughly $93 billion in excess medical costs annually. This disinvestment leads to the closure of rural hospitals, creating “healthcare deserts” that leave white and Black families alike hours away from emergency care.

    The Modern “Purge”: A Coordinated Regression

    Today, we are witnessing a coordinated effort to revert to an era of restricted access. These current policies are administrative hurdles designed to exclude, which will inevitably hamper the entire economy:

    • Mass Removal of Black Federal Leadership: The summary dismissal of Black officials at the NTSB, NLRB, and Federal Reserve removes institutional knowledge that ensures labor safety and financial stability for every citizen.
    • Abolishing DEI in Federal Contracting: This intentionally shrinks the pool of competition for government projects, leading to higher costs and lower quality for the American taxpayer.
    • Gutting the Fair Housing Act: Rescinding “Disparate Impact” and AFFH rules doesn’t just promote segregation; it destabilizes the housing market and destroys property values for the middle class.
    • The SAFE Act Documentation Trap: Framed as a security measure, this act creates a hurdle that ensnares millions of Americans—including married women who have changed their names and rural poor whites who lack passports.

    Dismantling the Narratives: The Myth of the “Lower Class”

    To gain public buy-in for these policies, a series of economic myths were perpetrated to convince the general population that Black advancement is a “zero-sum game.” History and data tell a different story.

    Myth 1: “Black Neighbors Decrease Property Values”

    • The Evidence: Property values didn’t drop because of Black residents; they dropped because of “Blockbusting.” Real estate agents triggered “white flight” by stoking racial fears, buying homes at a discount from panicked white sellers, then reselling them at markups to Black families.
    • The Reality: Brookings Institution studies show homes in Black neighborhoods are undervalued by an average of $48,000 due to appraisal bias, not maintenance. This “stolen equity” drains the entire local tax base.

    Myth 2: “The DEI Hire vs. The Qualified Candidate”

    • The Evidence: A McKinsey & Company study found that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians.
    • The Reality: Diversity is about widening the search. Including Black professionals ensures you have the “best of the best” from the entire population, rather than just the best of a limited group.

    Myth 3: “Black Americans Can’t Maintain Property or Positions”

    • The Evidence: The $13 trillion entrepreneurship gap exists despite Black women being the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S.
    • The Reality: Past “failures” were often legislated, such as “Contract Sales” in the 1950s where Black families could lose a home for one missed payment, or “last hired, first fired” labor policies.

    The Myth of the “Level Playing Field”: Current Evidence of Exclusion

    The most dangerous narrative in modern America is the belief that civil rights protections are “outdated relics” of a bygone era. This belief suggests that the playing field is now level and that active oversight is a “special favor” rather than a necessity. However, 2026 economic data reveals that when these guardrails are removed, the gap doesn’t stay closed—it immediately begins to widen, draining the national GDP.

    1. The Lending & Housing Barrier (2025-2026 Data)

    • The Denial Gap: According to the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, Black-owned firms are less than half as likely as white-owned businesses with comparable credit profiles to receive full financing. Black-owned firms face a denial rate of 39%, compared to just 18% for white-owned firms.
    • The Mortgage Tax: 2024-2025 HMDA data shows that Black and Latino borrowers are disproportionately steered into non-conventional, higher-cost mortgages. On average, Black borrowers pay $256 more in loan fees and higher interest rates than white borrowers with similar qualifications.
    • The Appraisal Gap: A 2026 Brookings Institution report confirms that homes in Black-majority neighborhoods remain undervalued by an average of 23% ($48,000) compared to similar homes in white neighborhoods. This results in a cumulative loss of $156 billion in equity—wealth that cannot be used to start businesses or fund education.

    2. The Employment & Hiring Filter

    • The “Resume Tax”: 2026 workforce studies show that white candidates are still 2.1 times more likely to receive an interview callback than Black candidates with identical resumes. A massive study of 83,000 applications to Fortune 500 companies found that “black-sounding names” consistently received fewer callbacks.
    • The Leadership Ceiling: While Black Americans make up 13.4% of the population, they hold only 2% of executive roles in major corporations. This isn’t a “pipeline problem”; it’s a “gatekeeping problem.”
    • Workplace Discrimination: As of 2026, 41% of Black workers report experiencing racial discrimination on the job, compared to only 8% of white workers. This environment leads to higher turnover, costing U.S. businesses billions in recruitment and retraining fees every year.

    3. The Documentation Trap: The SAVE Act (2026)

    The current push for the SAVE Act is framed as a “neutral” security measure, but it serves as a modern version of the literacy test.

    • The Impact: Data from the Brennan Center shows that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to the specific birth certificates or passports required by the act.
    • The Victims: Roughly half of all Americans do not own a passport. This hurdle disproportionately impacts young voters, voters of color, and millions of women whose current legal names do not match their birth certificates—forcing them to pay a “time and money tax” just to exercise a fundamental right.

    The fact that these disparities persisted despite existing guardrails reveals two fundamental truths about the American economy: first, the “default” setting of our institutions is still calibrated for exclusion; and second, the current guardrails were only partially successful because they were frequently underfunded or bypassed.

    When we remove these remaining protections, we aren’t returning to a “fair” market—we are accelerating a downward economic spiral that affects the entire nation.

    1. The Acceleration of “Risk-Based” Discrimination

    Without the Disparate Impact rule or Fair Housing oversight, businesses and banks often pivot to “algorithmic bias.”

    • What happens: Banks and insurance companies use “proxy data” (like zip codes, education levels, or social networks) to determine risk.
    • The Result: Because our neighborhoods are still historically segregated, these “neutral” algorithms automatically charge Black families more or deny them access entirely. Without guardrails, this isn’t called discrimination; it’s called “market efficiency,” yet it still drains trillions from the potential GDP.

    2. The Collapse of the “Common Good”

    Historically, when protections for Black Americans are removed, the public services they protect are usually the next to go.

    • What happens: This is the “Drained Pool” phenomenon. If the government decides it no longer wants to ensure that a service (like high-quality public education or transit) is accessible to Black citizens, it often stops investing in that service for everyone.
    • The Result: The middle class is forced to pay for private alternatives. We see this today in the shift from free public colleges to high-interest student loans. The guardrails didn’t just protect Black students; they protected the idea of education as a public right.

    3. The Institutional “Brain Drain”

    Removing protections like Equal Employment Oversight and the removal of Black federal leadership creates a talent vacuum.

    • What happens: Positions of power are filled based on “cultural fit” or political loyalty rather than merit and experience.
    • The Result: This leads to Institutional Incompetence. When the NTSB or the Federal Reserve loses its most experienced experts because they were part of a “targeted” demographic, the quality of government oversight drops for every citizen. We lose the “eyes and ears” that prevent financial crashes and infrastructure failures.

    4. The Shrinking of the “National Pie”

    If the guardrails were already struggling to close a $16 trillion gap, removing them entirely is like taking the brakes off a car parked on a steep hill.

    • The Short-Term View: The “winners” feel a sense of psychological victory or a slight temporary increase in their “slice” of the pie.
    • The Long-Term Reality: The total size of the “pie” (the GDP) shrinks. Innovation slows down because fewer people can afford to invent. Housing markets stagnate because fewer people can afford to buy. The national debt rises because the tax base is smaller.

    The Final Result: A “Two-Tier” Economy

    Without guardrails, America solidifies into a permanent Two-Tier Economy:

    1. The Elite Tier: The ultra-wealthy who can buy their own “guardrails” (private security, private schools, private health care).
    2. The Survival Tier: Everyone else—white, Black, and Brown—who is left to compete for the scraps of a stagnant economy, hampered by high debt, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of legal recourse.

    The guardrails weren’t a “gift” to Black America; they were the last line of defense for the American Middle Class. Removing them doesn’t make us “free”; it makes the entire nation more vulnerable to the $16 trillion drain that has already cost us two decades of progress.

    How does this perspective on “guardrails as market stabilizers” fit with your article’s warning about the “Elite Escape”?

    The “Buy-In” Trap and the Elite Escape

    These narratives were successful because they gave the white middle class a false sense of security, suggesting their status was safe as long as a “lower class” existed beneath them. However, while white Americans were busy guarding the “gate,” the floor of the American economy was being hollowed out. The same systems that suppressed Black wages eventually suppressed white wages.

    We must move past the myth that these policies only affect the “targeted” group. When you “drain the pool” to keep certain people from swimming, eventually the entire community is left standing in the dirt. The only ones who escape this drain are the ultra-wealthy, who can “buy” the access being stripped from the public.

    In a hyper-competitive global economy, discrimination is a luxury we can no longer afford. Every policy that creates an unnecessary hurdle for a Howard Law grad is a policy that makes America too weak and too poor to lead. We are sacrificing the size of the national “pie” to ensure the slices are handed out to a preferred few, leaving everyone else with nothing but the crumbs of a $16 trillion loss.

    The Conclusion: Why “Maintenance” Matters

    Dismantling these protections isn’t “moving past racism”—it is removing the fire code from a building that is still catching fire.

    If we allow these gaps to persist, we are effectively choosing a $16 trillion poorer America. We are choosing a system where talent is ignored, property is undervalued, and the “velocity of money” is intentionally throttled. The data proves that these programs aren’t about “helping Black people get ahead”; they are about ensuring that the American economy doesn’t leave $16 trillion on the table because of a bias we can no longer afford to ignore.

    Glossary of Terms

    • AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing): A legal requirement under the Fair Housing Act for HUD grantees to take meaningful actions to overcome patterns of segregation.
    • Algorithmic Bias: When automated systems or data proxies (like zip codes) replicate human prejudice in lending or hiring.
    • Blockbusting: A business process of U.S. real estate agents and building developers to convince white property owners to sell their houses at low prices, which they did by promoting fear in those house owners that racial minorities would soon be moving into the neighborhood.
    • Contract Sales: An exploitative real estate practice where a buyer makes an installment purchase, but the seller holds the deed until the final payment is made.
    • Diploma Privilege: A method for admitting law school graduates to the bar without requiring them to pass a separate bar examination.
    • Disparate Impact: A legal doctrine under the Fair Housing Act that allows for challenges to practices that have a disproportionately adverse effect on minorities, even if there was no discriminatory intent.
    • Drained Pool Phenomenon: The historical trend of public resources being shut down or defunded for everyone once they are forced to integrate.
    • Ghost GDP: The potential economic output and wealth creation that is lost due to systemic inefficiencies, such as racial gaps in lending or employment.
    • Healthcare Desert: A region where residents have little to no access to nearby healthcare facilities, often resulting from the closure of rural or safety-net hospitals.
    • Medical Weathering: The theory that the cumulative effect of social and economic adversity (including racism) leads to early health deterioration and advanced biological aging.
    • Velocity of Money: The rate at which money is exchanged from one transaction to another and how much a unit of currency is used in a given period.

    Bibliography

    • Brennan Center for Justice. (2026). The Documentation Trap: How the SAVE Act Impacts the Working Class.
    • Brookings Institution. (2018). The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods.
    • Citigroup. (2020). Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S.
    • Federal Reserve. (2025). Small Business Credit Survey: Minority-Owned Firm Financing Gaps.
    • McKinsey & Company. (2015). Why Diversity Matters.
    • Maddow, R. / MS NOW. (2026). Report on the Targeted Removal of Black Federal Leadership.
    • National Academy of Medicine. (2023). The Impact of Physician Diversity on National Health Outcomes.
    • New England Journal of Medicine. (2020). Hidden in Plain Sight – Reconsidering the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms.
    • U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Historical Archives on Disparate Impact and AFFH rulings.
    • W.K. Kellogg Foundation. (2018). The Business Case for Racial Equity: A Strategy for Growth.
    • Xen Yadah Tzu. (2026). Digital Commentary on Architectural and Policy Exclusion.
    #AmericanDream #Blogging #Dailyprompt #EconomicJustice #History #HowardLaw #PolicyMatters #Politics #Society #The16TrillionDrain #economy #History #news #politics #racism
    #americandream #blogging #dailyprompt #economicjustice #history #howardlaw
  27. My 2 cents @[email protected] ·

    The High Cost of Racism: The $16 Trillion Drain on the American Dream

    Table of Contents

    1. Introduction: The Historical Blueprint
    2. The Architecture of Exclusion: The $16 Trillion Drain
    3. The Modern Purge: A Coordinated Regression
    4. Dismantling the Narratives and the Current Evidence of Exclusion
    5. The Consequences of Removing Gaurdrails
    6. The “Buy-In” Trap and the Elite Escape
    7. Glossary of Terms
    8. Bibliography

    Introduction: The Historical Blueprint

    My daughter graduated with a Juris Doctorate Degree from Howard University Law School this weekend. She will now begin to prepare for the Bar exam which she will take in July. While the Bar is now a standard rite of passage for every law graduate, its history reveals a deeper story of how “access” has been managed in America.

    For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many states utilized a system known as Diploma Privilege, allowing graduates of approved law schools to be admitted to the bar automatically. The logic was that the three years of rigorous study and testing required for a Juris Doctor (JD) were a better measure of competence than a single, one-day exam. The shift toward the mandatory Bar Exam was not an accidental evolution; it was a tool of “professional protectionism.” As law schools became more diverse between the 1870s and 1920s, —as more Black Americans and immigrants began attending law schools —elite legal organizations pushed for standardized written exams to act as a secondary “gatekeeper.”

    While the Bar is a settled part of the legal landscape today, it stands as a historical blueprint for a much larger, more destructive economic policy: the practice of moving the goalposts just as a new group of Americans begins to thrive.

    The Architecture of Exclusion: The $16 Trillion Drain

    When we discuss the current “War on Black America,” we must understand it as a policy of intentional economic shrinkage. Economists at Citigroup have calculated that racial gaps in wages, housing, and education have cost the U.S. $16 trillion over the last two decades alone. This is “Ghost GDP”—wealth that was never allowed to be created and jobs that were never filled.

    The Entrepreneurship Gap ($13 Trillion)

    Denying capital to Black entrepreneurs doesn’t just hurt the business owner; it stunts national growth.

    • The Mechanism: When the system makes it harder for a Black business owner to secure a startup loan or venture capital, that business either never opens or remains small.
    • The Cost to All: This represents a loss of roughly 6.1 million potential jobs that could have been filled by Americans of all races. Furthermore, it represents billions in lost corporate tax revenue that could have funded critical national infrastructure.

    The Housing Equity Gap ($218 Billion)

    Housing is the primary vehicle for American wealth accumulation, yet discriminatory lending and the historical “valuation gap”—where homes in Black neighborhoods are appraised for less than identical homes in white neighborhoods—have cost the economy hundreds of billions.

    • The Mechanism: Lower home equity means Black families have less collateral to take out “seed money” for education or new business ventures.
    • The Cost to All: Real estate is a massive driver of GDP. When an entire segment of the market is suppressed, the “velocity of money” slows down. Lower values lead to lower local tax bases, resulting in underfunded schools and roads for the entire municipality.

    The Wage & Education Gap ($2.7 Trillion)

    Discrimination in hiring and “hurdles” placed in front of higher education drain the labor market’s potential.

    • The Mechanism: When a talented individual is underemployed, the economy loses the high-value output they would have produced.
    • The Cost to All: Lower wages result in lower consumer spending. The “Average American” business—from grocery stores to car dealerships—suffers because a significant portion of the population has less disposable income to circulate back into the economy.

    The Medical Gap ($1.2 Trillion)

    Systemic bias and disinvestment in Black health outcomes generate massive inefficiencies in the national healthcare spend. A study by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation found that health inequities cost the U.S. approximately $42 billion in lost productivity and $93 billion in excess medical costs annually. Over two decades, this adds over $1.2 trillion to that $16 trillion gap.

    • The Mechanism: Medical technology (like pulse oximeters) and diagnostic algorithms often default to “race-corrected” standards that delay treatment for Black patients. Additionally, the refusal to expand Medicaid in Southern states creates financial instability for regional health systems.
    • The Cost to All: Health inequities cost the U.S. roughly $93 billion in excess medical costs annually. This disinvestment leads to the closure of rural hospitals, creating “healthcare deserts” that leave white and Black families alike hours away from emergency care.

    The Modern “Purge”: A Coordinated Regression

    Today, we are witnessing a coordinated effort to revert to an era of restricted access. These current policies are administrative hurdles designed to exclude, which will inevitably hamper the entire economy:

    • Mass Removal of Black Federal Leadership: The summary dismissal of Black officials at the NTSB, NLRB, and Federal Reserve removes institutional knowledge that ensures labor safety and financial stability for every citizen.
    • Abolishing DEI in Federal Contracting: This intentionally shrinks the pool of competition for government projects, leading to higher costs and lower quality for the American taxpayer.
    • Gutting the Fair Housing Act: Rescinding “Disparate Impact” and AFFH rules doesn’t just promote segregation; it destabilizes the housing market and destroys property values for the middle class.
    • The SAFE Act Documentation Trap: Framed as a security measure, this act creates a hurdle that ensnares millions of Americans—including married women who have changed their names and rural poor whites who lack passports.

    Dismantling the Narratives: The Myth of the “Lower Class”

    To gain public buy-in for these policies, a series of economic myths were perpetrated to convince the general population that Black advancement is a “zero-sum game.” History and data tell a different story.

    Myth 1: “Black Neighbors Decrease Property Values”

    • The Evidence: Property values didn’t drop because of Black residents; they dropped because of “Blockbusting.” Real estate agents triggered “white flight” by stoking racial fears, buying homes at a discount from panicked white sellers, then reselling them at markups to Black families.
    • The Reality: Brookings Institution studies show homes in Black neighborhoods are undervalued by an average of $48,000 due to appraisal bias, not maintenance. This “stolen equity” drains the entire local tax base.

    Myth 2: “The DEI Hire vs. The Qualified Candidate”

    • The Evidence: A McKinsey & Company study found that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians.
    • The Reality: Diversity is about widening the search. Including Black professionals ensures you have the “best of the best” from the entire population, rather than just the best of a limited group.

    Myth 3: “Black Americans Can’t Maintain Property or Positions”

    • The Evidence: The $13 trillion entrepreneurship gap exists despite Black women being the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S.
    • The Reality: Past “failures” were often legislated, such as “Contract Sales” in the 1950s where Black families could lose a home for one missed payment, or “last hired, first fired” labor policies.

    The Myth of the “Level Playing Field”: Current Evidence of Exclusion

    The most dangerous narrative in modern America is the belief that civil rights protections are “outdated relics” of a bygone era. This belief suggests that the playing field is now level and that active oversight is a “special favor” rather than a necessity. However, 2026 economic data reveals that when these guardrails are removed, the gap doesn’t stay closed—it immediately begins to widen, draining the national GDP.

    1. The Lending & Housing Barrier (2025-2026 Data)

    • The Denial Gap: According to the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, Black-owned firms are less than half as likely as white-owned businesses with comparable credit profiles to receive full financing. Black-owned firms face a denial rate of 39%, compared to just 18% for white-owned firms.
    • The Mortgage Tax: 2024-2025 HMDA data shows that Black and Latino borrowers are disproportionately steered into non-conventional, higher-cost mortgages. On average, Black borrowers pay $256 more in loan fees and higher interest rates than white borrowers with similar qualifications.
    • The Appraisal Gap: A 2026 Brookings Institution report confirms that homes in Black-majority neighborhoods remain undervalued by an average of 23% ($48,000) compared to similar homes in white neighborhoods. This results in a cumulative loss of $156 billion in equity—wealth that cannot be used to start businesses or fund education.

    2. The Employment & Hiring Filter

    • The “Resume Tax”: 2026 workforce studies show that white candidates are still 2.1 times more likely to receive an interview callback than Black candidates with identical resumes. A massive study of 83,000 applications to Fortune 500 companies found that “black-sounding names” consistently received fewer callbacks.
    • The Leadership Ceiling: While Black Americans make up 13.4% of the population, they hold only 2% of executive roles in major corporations. This isn’t a “pipeline problem”; it’s a “gatekeeping problem.”
    • Workplace Discrimination: As of 2026, 41% of Black workers report experiencing racial discrimination on the job, compared to only 8% of white workers. This environment leads to higher turnover, costing U.S. businesses billions in recruitment and retraining fees every year.

    3. The Documentation Trap: The SAVE Act (2026)

    The current push for the SAVE Act is framed as a “neutral” security measure, but it serves as a modern version of the literacy test.

    • The Impact: Data from the Brennan Center shows that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to the specific birth certificates or passports required by the act.
    • The Victims: Roughly half of all Americans do not own a passport. This hurdle disproportionately impacts young voters, voters of color, and millions of women whose current legal names do not match their birth certificates—forcing them to pay a “time and money tax” just to exercise a fundamental right.

    The fact that these disparities persisted despite existing guardrails reveals two fundamental truths about the American economy: first, the “default” setting of our institutions is still calibrated for exclusion; and second, the current guardrails were only partially successful because they were frequently underfunded or bypassed.

    When we remove these remaining protections, we aren’t returning to a “fair” market—we are accelerating a downward economic spiral that affects the entire nation.

    1. The Acceleration of “Risk-Based” Discrimination

    Without the Disparate Impact rule or Fair Housing oversight, businesses and banks often pivot to “algorithmic bias.”

    • What happens: Banks and insurance companies use “proxy data” (like zip codes, education levels, or social networks) to determine risk.
    • The Result: Because our neighborhoods are still historically segregated, these “neutral” algorithms automatically charge Black families more or deny them access entirely. Without guardrails, this isn’t called discrimination; it’s called “market efficiency,” yet it still drains trillions from the potential GDP.

    2. The Collapse of the “Common Good”

    Historically, when protections for Black Americans are removed, the public services they protect are usually the next to go.

    • What happens: This is the “Drained Pool” phenomenon. If the government decides it no longer wants to ensure that a service (like high-quality public education or transit) is accessible to Black citizens, it often stops investing in that service for everyone.
    • The Result: The middle class is forced to pay for private alternatives. We see this today in the shift from free public colleges to high-interest student loans. The guardrails didn’t just protect Black students; they protected the idea of education as a public right.

    3. The Institutional “Brain Drain”

    Removing protections like Equal Employment Oversight and the removal of Black federal leadership creates a talent vacuum.

    • What happens: Positions of power are filled based on “cultural fit” or political loyalty rather than merit and experience.
    • The Result: This leads to Institutional Incompetence. When the NTSB or the Federal Reserve loses its most experienced experts because they were part of a “targeted” demographic, the quality of government oversight drops for every citizen. We lose the “eyes and ears” that prevent financial crashes and infrastructure failures.

    4. The Shrinking of the “National Pie”

    If the guardrails were already struggling to close a $16 trillion gap, removing them entirely is like taking the brakes off a car parked on a steep hill.

    • The Short-Term View: The “winners” feel a sense of psychological victory or a slight temporary increase in their “slice” of the pie.
    • The Long-Term Reality: The total size of the “pie” (the GDP) shrinks. Innovation slows down because fewer people can afford to invent. Housing markets stagnate because fewer people can afford to buy. The national debt rises because the tax base is smaller.

    The Final Result: A “Two-Tier” Economy

    Without guardrails, America solidifies into a permanent Two-Tier Economy:

    1. The Elite Tier: The ultra-wealthy who can buy their own “guardrails” (private security, private schools, private health care).
    2. The Survival Tier: Everyone else—white, Black, and Brown—who is left to compete for the scraps of a stagnant economy, hampered by high debt, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of legal recourse.

    The guardrails weren’t a “gift” to Black America; they were the last line of defense for the American Middle Class. Removing them doesn’t make us “free”; it makes the entire nation more vulnerable to the $16 trillion drain that has already cost us two decades of progress.

    How does this perspective on “guardrails as market stabilizers” fit with your article’s warning about the “Elite Escape”?

    The “Buy-In” Trap and the Elite Escape

    These narratives were successful because they gave the white middle class a false sense of security, suggesting their status was safe as long as a “lower class” existed beneath them. However, while white Americans were busy guarding the “gate,” the floor of the American economy was being hollowed out. The same systems that suppressed Black wages eventually suppressed white wages.

    We must move past the myth that these policies only affect the “targeted” group. When you “drain the pool” to keep certain people from swimming, eventually the entire community is left standing in the dirt. The only ones who escape this drain are the ultra-wealthy, who can “buy” the access being stripped from the public.

    In a hyper-competitive global economy, discrimination is a luxury we can no longer afford. Every policy that creates an unnecessary hurdle for a Howard Law grad is a policy that makes America too weak and too poor to lead. We are sacrificing the size of the national “pie” to ensure the slices are handed out to a preferred few, leaving everyone else with nothing but the crumbs of a $16 trillion loss.

    The Conclusion: Why “Maintenance” Matters

    Dismantling these protections isn’t “moving past racism”—it is removing the fire code from a building that is still catching fire.

    If we allow these gaps to persist, we are effectively choosing a $16 trillion poorer America. We are choosing a system where talent is ignored, property is undervalued, and the “velocity of money” is intentionally throttled. The data proves that these programs aren’t about “helping Black people get ahead”; they are about ensuring that the American economy doesn’t leave $16 trillion on the table because of a bias we can no longer afford to ignore.

    Glossary of Terms

    • AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing): A legal requirement under the Fair Housing Act for HUD grantees to take meaningful actions to overcome patterns of segregation.
    • Algorithmic Bias: When automated systems or data proxies (like zip codes) replicate human prejudice in lending or hiring.
    • Blockbusting: A business process of U.S. real estate agents and building developers to convince white property owners to sell their houses at low prices, which they did by promoting fear in those house owners that racial minorities would soon be moving into the neighborhood.
    • Contract Sales: An exploitative real estate practice where a buyer makes an installment purchase, but the seller holds the deed until the final payment is made.
    • Diploma Privilege: A method for admitting law school graduates to the bar without requiring them to pass a separate bar examination.
    • Disparate Impact: A legal doctrine under the Fair Housing Act that allows for challenges to practices that have a disproportionately adverse effect on minorities, even if there was no discriminatory intent.
    • Drained Pool Phenomenon: The historical trend of public resources being shut down or defunded for everyone once they are forced to integrate.
    • Ghost GDP: The potential economic output and wealth creation that is lost due to systemic inefficiencies, such as racial gaps in lending or employment.
    • Healthcare Desert: A region where residents have little to no access to nearby healthcare facilities, often resulting from the closure of rural or safety-net hospitals.
    • Medical Weathering: The theory that the cumulative effect of social and economic adversity (including racism) leads to early health deterioration and advanced biological aging.
    • Velocity of Money: The rate at which money is exchanged from one transaction to another and how much a unit of currency is used in a given period.

    Bibliography

    • Brennan Center for Justice. (2026). The Documentation Trap: How the SAVE Act Impacts the Working Class.
    • Brookings Institution. (2018). The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods.
    • Citigroup. (2020). Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S.
    • Federal Reserve. (2025). Small Business Credit Survey: Minority-Owned Firm Financing Gaps.
    • McKinsey & Company. (2015). Why Diversity Matters.
    • Maddow, R. / MS NOW. (2026). Report on the Targeted Removal of Black Federal Leadership.
    • National Academy of Medicine. (2023). The Impact of Physician Diversity on National Health Outcomes.
    • New England Journal of Medicine. (2020). Hidden in Plain Sight – Reconsidering the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms.
    • U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Historical Archives on Disparate Impact and AFFH rulings.
    • W.K. Kellogg Foundation. (2018). The Business Case for Racial Equity: A Strategy for Growth.
    • Xen Yadah Tzu. (2026). Digital Commentary on Architectural and Policy Exclusion.
    #AmericanDream #Blogging #Dailyprompt #EconomicJustice #History #HowardLaw #PolicyMatters #Politics #Society #The16TrillionDrain #economy #History #news #politics #racism
    #americandream #blogging #dailyprompt #economicjustice #history #howardlaw
  28. My 2 cents @[email protected] ·

    The High Cost of Racism: The $16 Trillion Drain on the American Dream

    Table of Contents

    1. Introduction: The Historical Blueprint
    2. The Architecture of Exclusion: The $16 Trillion Drain
    3. The Modern Purge: A Coordinated Regression
    4. Dismantling the Narratives and the Current Evidence of Exclusion
    5. The Consequences of Removing Gaurdrails
    6. The “Buy-In” Trap and the Elite Escape
    7. Glossary of Terms
    8. Bibliography

    Introduction: The Historical Blueprint

    My daughter graduated with a Juris Doctorate Degree from Howard University Law School this weekend. She will now begin to prepare for the Bar exam which she will take in July. While the Bar is now a standard rite of passage for every law graduate, its history reveals a deeper story of how “access” has been managed in America.

    For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many states utilized a system known as Diploma Privilege, allowing graduates of approved law schools to be admitted to the bar automatically. The logic was that the three years of rigorous study and testing required for a Juris Doctor (JD) were a better measure of competence than a single, one-day exam. The shift toward the mandatory Bar Exam was not an accidental evolution; it was a tool of “professional protectionism.” As law schools became more diverse between the 1870s and 1920s, —as more Black Americans and immigrants began attending law schools —elite legal organizations pushed for standardized written exams to act as a secondary “gatekeeper.”

    While the Bar is a settled part of the legal landscape today, it stands as a historical blueprint for a much larger, more destructive economic policy: the practice of moving the goalposts just as a new group of Americans begins to thrive.

    The Architecture of Exclusion: The $16 Trillion Drain

    When we discuss the current “War on Black America,” we must understand it as a policy of intentional economic shrinkage. Economists at Citigroup have calculated that racial gaps in wages, housing, and education have cost the U.S. $16 trillion over the last two decades alone. This is “Ghost GDP”—wealth that was never allowed to be created and jobs that were never filled.

    The Entrepreneurship Gap ($13 Trillion)

    Denying capital to Black entrepreneurs doesn’t just hurt the business owner; it stunts national growth.

    • The Mechanism: When the system makes it harder for a Black business owner to secure a startup loan or venture capital, that business either never opens or remains small.
    • The Cost to All: This represents a loss of roughly 6.1 million potential jobs that could have been filled by Americans of all races. Furthermore, it represents billions in lost corporate tax revenue that could have funded critical national infrastructure.

    The Housing Equity Gap ($218 Billion)

    Housing is the primary vehicle for American wealth accumulation, yet discriminatory lending and the historical “valuation gap”—where homes in Black neighborhoods are appraised for less than identical homes in white neighborhoods—have cost the economy hundreds of billions.

    • The Mechanism: Lower home equity means Black families have less collateral to take out “seed money” for education or new business ventures.
    • The Cost to All: Real estate is a massive driver of GDP. When an entire segment of the market is suppressed, the “velocity of money” slows down. Lower values lead to lower local tax bases, resulting in underfunded schools and roads for the entire municipality.

    The Wage & Education Gap ($2.7 Trillion)

    Discrimination in hiring and “hurdles” placed in front of higher education drain the labor market’s potential.

    • The Mechanism: When a talented individual is underemployed, the economy loses the high-value output they would have produced.
    • The Cost to All: Lower wages result in lower consumer spending. The “Average American” business—from grocery stores to car dealerships—suffers because a significant portion of the population has less disposable income to circulate back into the economy.

    The Medical Gap ($1.2 Trillion)

    Systemic bias and disinvestment in Black health outcomes generate massive inefficiencies in the national healthcare spend. A study by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation found that health inequities cost the U.S. approximately $42 billion in lost productivity and $93 billion in excess medical costs annually. Over two decades, this adds over $1.2 trillion to that $16 trillion gap.

    • The Mechanism: Medical technology (like pulse oximeters) and diagnostic algorithms often default to “race-corrected” standards that delay treatment for Black patients. Additionally, the refusal to expand Medicaid in Southern states creates financial instability for regional health systems.
    • The Cost to All: Health inequities cost the U.S. roughly $93 billion in excess medical costs annually. This disinvestment leads to the closure of rural hospitals, creating “healthcare deserts” that leave white and Black families alike hours away from emergency care.

    The Modern “Purge”: A Coordinated Regression

    Today, we are witnessing a coordinated effort to revert to an era of restricted access. These current policies are administrative hurdles designed to exclude, which will inevitably hamper the entire economy:

    • Mass Removal of Black Federal Leadership: The summary dismissal of Black officials at the NTSB, NLRB, and Federal Reserve removes institutional knowledge that ensures labor safety and financial stability for every citizen.
    • Abolishing DEI in Federal Contracting: This intentionally shrinks the pool of competition for government projects, leading to higher costs and lower quality for the American taxpayer.
    • Gutting the Fair Housing Act: Rescinding “Disparate Impact” and AFFH rules doesn’t just promote segregation; it destabilizes the housing market and destroys property values for the middle class.
    • The SAFE Act Documentation Trap: Framed as a security measure, this act creates a hurdle that ensnares millions of Americans—including married women who have changed their names and rural poor whites who lack passports.

    Dismantling the Narratives: The Myth of the “Lower Class”

    To gain public buy-in for these policies, a series of economic myths were perpetrated to convince the general population that Black advancement is a “zero-sum game.” History and data tell a different story.

    Myth 1: “Black Neighbors Decrease Property Values”

    • The Evidence: Property values didn’t drop because of Black residents; they dropped because of “Blockbusting.” Real estate agents triggered “white flight” by stoking racial fears, buying homes at a discount from panicked white sellers, then reselling them at markups to Black families.
    • The Reality: Brookings Institution studies show homes in Black neighborhoods are undervalued by an average of $48,000 due to appraisal bias, not maintenance. This “stolen equity” drains the entire local tax base.

    Myth 2: “The DEI Hire vs. The Qualified Candidate”

    • The Evidence: A McKinsey & Company study found that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians.
    • The Reality: Diversity is about widening the search. Including Black professionals ensures you have the “best of the best” from the entire population, rather than just the best of a limited group.

    Myth 3: “Black Americans Can’t Maintain Property or Positions”

    • The Evidence: The $13 trillion entrepreneurship gap exists despite Black women being the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S.
    • The Reality: Past “failures” were often legislated, such as “Contract Sales” in the 1950s where Black families could lose a home for one missed payment, or “last hired, first fired” labor policies.

    The Myth of the “Level Playing Field”: Current Evidence of Exclusion

    The most dangerous narrative in modern America is the belief that civil rights protections are “outdated relics” of a bygone era. This belief suggests that the playing field is now level and that active oversight is a “special favor” rather than a necessity. However, 2026 economic data reveals that when these guardrails are removed, the gap doesn’t stay closed—it immediately begins to widen, draining the national GDP.

    1. The Lending & Housing Barrier (2025-2026 Data)

    • The Denial Gap: According to the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, Black-owned firms are less than half as likely as white-owned businesses with comparable credit profiles to receive full financing. Black-owned firms face a denial rate of 39%, compared to just 18% for white-owned firms.
    • The Mortgage Tax: 2024-2025 HMDA data shows that Black and Latino borrowers are disproportionately steered into non-conventional, higher-cost mortgages. On average, Black borrowers pay $256 more in loan fees and higher interest rates than white borrowers with similar qualifications.
    • The Appraisal Gap: A 2026 Brookings Institution report confirms that homes in Black-majority neighborhoods remain undervalued by an average of 23% ($48,000) compared to similar homes in white neighborhoods. This results in a cumulative loss of $156 billion in equity—wealth that cannot be used to start businesses or fund education.

    2. The Employment & Hiring Filter

    • The “Resume Tax”: 2026 workforce studies show that white candidates are still 2.1 times more likely to receive an interview callback than Black candidates with identical resumes. A massive study of 83,000 applications to Fortune 500 companies found that “black-sounding names” consistently received fewer callbacks.
    • The Leadership Ceiling: While Black Americans make up 13.4% of the population, they hold only 2% of executive roles in major corporations. This isn’t a “pipeline problem”; it’s a “gatekeeping problem.”
    • Workplace Discrimination: As of 2026, 41% of Black workers report experiencing racial discrimination on the job, compared to only 8% of white workers. This environment leads to higher turnover, costing U.S. businesses billions in recruitment and retraining fees every year.

    3. The Documentation Trap: The SAVE Act (2026)

    The current push for the SAVE Act is framed as a “neutral” security measure, but it serves as a modern version of the literacy test.

    • The Impact: Data from the Brennan Center shows that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to the specific birth certificates or passports required by the act.
    • The Victims: Roughly half of all Americans do not own a passport. This hurdle disproportionately impacts young voters, voters of color, and millions of women whose current legal names do not match their birth certificates—forcing them to pay a “time and money tax” just to exercise a fundamental right.

    The fact that these disparities persisted despite existing guardrails reveals two fundamental truths about the American economy: first, the “default” setting of our institutions is still calibrated for exclusion; and second, the current guardrails were only partially successful because they were frequently underfunded or bypassed.

    When we remove these remaining protections, we aren’t returning to a “fair” market—we are accelerating a downward economic spiral that affects the entire nation.

    1. The Acceleration of “Risk-Based” Discrimination

    Without the Disparate Impact rule or Fair Housing oversight, businesses and banks often pivot to “algorithmic bias.”

    • What happens: Banks and insurance companies use “proxy data” (like zip codes, education levels, or social networks) to determine risk.
    • The Result: Because our neighborhoods are still historically segregated, these “neutral” algorithms automatically charge Black families more or deny them access entirely. Without guardrails, this isn’t called discrimination; it’s called “market efficiency,” yet it still drains trillions from the potential GDP.

    2. The Collapse of the “Common Good”

    Historically, when protections for Black Americans are removed, the public services they protect are usually the next to go.

    • What happens: This is the “Drained Pool” phenomenon. If the government decides it no longer wants to ensure that a service (like high-quality public education or transit) is accessible to Black citizens, it often stops investing in that service for everyone.
    • The Result: The middle class is forced to pay for private alternatives. We see this today in the shift from free public colleges to high-interest student loans. The guardrails didn’t just protect Black students; they protected the idea of education as a public right.

    3. The Institutional “Brain Drain”

    Removing protections like Equal Employment Oversight and the removal of Black federal leadership creates a talent vacuum.

    • What happens: Positions of power are filled based on “cultural fit” or political loyalty rather than merit and experience.
    • The Result: This leads to Institutional Incompetence. When the NTSB or the Federal Reserve loses its most experienced experts because they were part of a “targeted” demographic, the quality of government oversight drops for every citizen. We lose the “eyes and ears” that prevent financial crashes and infrastructure failures.

    4. The Shrinking of the “National Pie”

    If the guardrails were already struggling to close a $16 trillion gap, removing them entirely is like taking the brakes off a car parked on a steep hill.

    • The Short-Term View: The “winners” feel a sense of psychological victory or a slight temporary increase in their “slice” of the pie.
    • The Long-Term Reality: The total size of the “pie” (the GDP) shrinks. Innovation slows down because fewer people can afford to invent. Housing markets stagnate because fewer people can afford to buy. The national debt rises because the tax base is smaller.

    The Final Result: A “Two-Tier” Economy

    Without guardrails, America solidifies into a permanent Two-Tier Economy:

    1. The Elite Tier: The ultra-wealthy who can buy their own “guardrails” (private security, private schools, private health care).
    2. The Survival Tier: Everyone else—white, Black, and Brown—who is left to compete for the scraps of a stagnant economy, hampered by high debt, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of legal recourse.

    The guardrails weren’t a “gift” to Black America; they were the last line of defense for the American Middle Class. Removing them doesn’t make us “free”; it makes the entire nation more vulnerable to the $16 trillion drain that has already cost us two decades of progress.

    How does this perspective on “guardrails as market stabilizers” fit with your article’s warning about the “Elite Escape”?

    The “Buy-In” Trap and the Elite Escape

    These narratives were successful because they gave the white middle class a false sense of security, suggesting their status was safe as long as a “lower class” existed beneath them. However, while white Americans were busy guarding the “gate,” the floor of the American economy was being hollowed out. The same systems that suppressed Black wages eventually suppressed white wages.

    We must move past the myth that these policies only affect the “targeted” group. When you “drain the pool” to keep certain people from swimming, eventually the entire community is left standing in the dirt. The only ones who escape this drain are the ultra-wealthy, who can “buy” the access being stripped from the public.

    In a hyper-competitive global economy, discrimination is a luxury we can no longer afford. Every policy that creates an unnecessary hurdle for a Howard Law grad is a policy that makes America too weak and too poor to lead. We are sacrificing the size of the national “pie” to ensure the slices are handed out to a preferred few, leaving everyone else with nothing but the crumbs of a $16 trillion loss.

    The Conclusion: Why “Maintenance” Matters

    Dismantling these protections isn’t “moving past racism”—it is removing the fire code from a building that is still catching fire.

    If we allow these gaps to persist, we are effectively choosing a $16 trillion poorer America. We are choosing a system where talent is ignored, property is undervalued, and the “velocity of money” is intentionally throttled. The data proves that these programs aren’t about “helping Black people get ahead”; they are about ensuring that the American economy doesn’t leave $16 trillion on the table because of a bias we can no longer afford to ignore.

    Glossary of Terms

    • AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing): A legal requirement under the Fair Housing Act for HUD grantees to take meaningful actions to overcome patterns of segregation.
    • Algorithmic Bias: When automated systems or data proxies (like zip codes) replicate human prejudice in lending or hiring.
    • Blockbusting: A business process of U.S. real estate agents and building developers to convince white property owners to sell their houses at low prices, which they did by promoting fear in those house owners that racial minorities would soon be moving into the neighborhood.
    • Contract Sales: An exploitative real estate practice where a buyer makes an installment purchase, but the seller holds the deed until the final payment is made.
    • Diploma Privilege: A method for admitting law school graduates to the bar without requiring them to pass a separate bar examination.
    • Disparate Impact: A legal doctrine under the Fair Housing Act that allows for challenges to practices that have a disproportionately adverse effect on minorities, even if there was no discriminatory intent.
    • Drained Pool Phenomenon: The historical trend of public resources being shut down or defunded for everyone once they are forced to integrate.
    • Ghost GDP: The potential economic output and wealth creation that is lost due to systemic inefficiencies, such as racial gaps in lending or employment.
    • Healthcare Desert: A region where residents have little to no access to nearby healthcare facilities, often resulting from the closure of rural or safety-net hospitals.
    • Medical Weathering: The theory that the cumulative effect of social and economic adversity (including racism) leads to early health deterioration and advanced biological aging.
    • Velocity of Money: The rate at which money is exchanged from one transaction to another and how much a unit of currency is used in a given period.

    Bibliography

    • Brennan Center for Justice. (2026). The Documentation Trap: How the SAVE Act Impacts the Working Class.
    • Brookings Institution. (2018). The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods.
    • Citigroup. (2020). Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S.
    • Federal Reserve. (2025). Small Business Credit Survey: Minority-Owned Firm Financing Gaps.
    • McKinsey & Company. (2015). Why Diversity Matters.
    • Maddow, R. / MS NOW. (2026). Report on the Targeted Removal of Black Federal Leadership.
    • National Academy of Medicine. (2023). The Impact of Physician Diversity on National Health Outcomes.
    • New England Journal of Medicine. (2020). Hidden in Plain Sight – Reconsidering the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms.
    • U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Historical Archives on Disparate Impact and AFFH rulings.
    • W.K. Kellogg Foundation. (2018). The Business Case for Racial Equity: A Strategy for Growth.
    • Xen Yadah Tzu. (2026). Digital Commentary on Architectural and Policy Exclusion.
    #AmericanDream #Blogging #Dailyprompt #EconomicJustice #History #HowardLaw #PolicyMatters #Politics #Society #The16TrillionDrain #economy #History #news #politics #racism
    #racism #news #economy #the16trilliondrain #society #politics
  29. My 2 cents @[email protected] ·

    The High Cost of Racism: The $16 Trillion Drain on the American Dream

    Table of Contents

    1. Introduction: The Historical Blueprint
    2. The Architecture of Exclusion: The $16 Trillion Drain
    3. The Modern Purge: A Coordinated Regression
    4. Dismantling the Narratives and the Current Evidence of Exclusion
    5. The Consequences of Removing Gaurdrails
    6. The “Buy-In” Trap and the Elite Escape
    7. Glossary of Terms
    8. Bibliography

    Introduction: The Historical Blueprint

    My daughter graduated with a Juris Doctorate Degree from Howard University Law School this weekend. She will now begin to prepare for the Bar exam which she will take in July. While the Bar is now a standard rite of passage for every law graduate, its history reveals a deeper story of how “access” has been managed in America.

    For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many states utilized a system known as Diploma Privilege, allowing graduates of approved law schools to be admitted to the bar automatically. The logic was that the three years of rigorous study and testing required for a Juris Doctor (JD) were a better measure of competence than a single, one-day exam. The shift toward the mandatory Bar Exam was not an accidental evolution; it was a tool of “professional protectionism.” As law schools became more diverse between the 1870s and 1920s, —as more Black Americans and immigrants began attending law schools —elite legal organizations pushed for standardized written exams to act as a secondary “gatekeeper.”

    While the Bar is a settled part of the legal landscape today, it stands as a historical blueprint for a much larger, more destructive economic policy: the practice of moving the goalposts just as a new group of Americans begins to thrive.

    The Architecture of Exclusion: The $16 Trillion Drain

    When we discuss the current “War on Black America,” we must understand it as a policy of intentional economic shrinkage. Economists at Citigroup have calculated that racial gaps in wages, housing, and education have cost the U.S. $16 trillion over the last two decades alone. This is “Ghost GDP”—wealth that was never allowed to be created and jobs that were never filled.

    The Entrepreneurship Gap ($13 Trillion)

    Denying capital to Black entrepreneurs doesn’t just hurt the business owner; it stunts national growth.

    • The Mechanism: When the system makes it harder for a Black business owner to secure a startup loan or venture capital, that business either never opens or remains small.
    • The Cost to All: This represents a loss of roughly 6.1 million potential jobs that could have been filled by Americans of all races. Furthermore, it represents billions in lost corporate tax revenue that could have funded critical national infrastructure.

    The Housing Equity Gap ($218 Billion)

    Housing is the primary vehicle for American wealth accumulation, yet discriminatory lending and the historical “valuation gap”—where homes in Black neighborhoods are appraised for less than identical homes in white neighborhoods—have cost the economy hundreds of billions.

    • The Mechanism: Lower home equity means Black families have less collateral to take out “seed money” for education or new business ventures.
    • The Cost to All: Real estate is a massive driver of GDP. When an entire segment of the market is suppressed, the “velocity of money” slows down. Lower values lead to lower local tax bases, resulting in underfunded schools and roads for the entire municipality.

    The Wage & Education Gap ($2.7 Trillion)

    Discrimination in hiring and “hurdles” placed in front of higher education drain the labor market’s potential.

    • The Mechanism: When a talented individual is underemployed, the economy loses the high-value output they would have produced.
    • The Cost to All: Lower wages result in lower consumer spending. The “Average American” business—from grocery stores to car dealerships—suffers because a significant portion of the population has less disposable income to circulate back into the economy.

    The Medical Gap ($1.2 Trillion)

    Systemic bias and disinvestment in Black health outcomes generate massive inefficiencies in the national healthcare spend. A study by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation found that health inequities cost the U.S. approximately $42 billion in lost productivity and $93 billion in excess medical costs annually. Over two decades, this adds over $1.2 trillion to that $16 trillion gap.

    • The Mechanism: Medical technology (like pulse oximeters) and diagnostic algorithms often default to “race-corrected” standards that delay treatment for Black patients. Additionally, the refusal to expand Medicaid in Southern states creates financial instability for regional health systems.
    • The Cost to All: Health inequities cost the U.S. roughly $93 billion in excess medical costs annually. This disinvestment leads to the closure of rural hospitals, creating “healthcare deserts” that leave white and Black families alike hours away from emergency care.

    The Modern “Purge”: A Coordinated Regression

    Today, we are witnessing a coordinated effort to revert to an era of restricted access. These current policies are administrative hurdles designed to exclude, which will inevitably hamper the entire economy:

    • Mass Removal of Black Federal Leadership: The summary dismissal of Black officials at the NTSB, NLRB, and Federal Reserve removes institutional knowledge that ensures labor safety and financial stability for every citizen.
    • Abolishing DEI in Federal Contracting: This intentionally shrinks the pool of competition for government projects, leading to higher costs and lower quality for the American taxpayer.
    • Gutting the Fair Housing Act: Rescinding “Disparate Impact” and AFFH rules doesn’t just promote segregation; it destabilizes the housing market and destroys property values for the middle class.
    • The SAFE Act Documentation Trap: Framed as a security measure, this act creates a hurdle that ensnares millions of Americans—including married women who have changed their names and rural poor whites who lack passports.

    Dismantling the Narratives: The Myth of the “Lower Class”

    To gain public buy-in for these policies, a series of economic myths were perpetrated to convince the general population that Black advancement is a “zero-sum game.” History and data tell a different story.

    Myth 1: “Black Neighbors Decrease Property Values”

    • The Evidence: Property values didn’t drop because of Black residents; they dropped because of “Blockbusting.” Real estate agents triggered “white flight” by stoking racial fears, buying homes at a discount from panicked white sellers, then reselling them at markups to Black families.
    • The Reality: Brookings Institution studies show homes in Black neighborhoods are undervalued by an average of $48,000 due to appraisal bias, not maintenance. This “stolen equity” drains the entire local tax base.

    Myth 2: “The DEI Hire vs. The Qualified Candidate”

    • The Evidence: A McKinsey & Company study found that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians.
    • The Reality: Diversity is about widening the search. Including Black professionals ensures you have the “best of the best” from the entire population, rather than just the best of a limited group.

    Myth 3: “Black Americans Can’t Maintain Property or Positions”

    • The Evidence: The $13 trillion entrepreneurship gap exists despite Black women being the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S.
    • The Reality: Past “failures” were often legislated, such as “Contract Sales” in the 1950s where Black families could lose a home for one missed payment, or “last hired, first fired” labor policies.

    The Myth of the “Level Playing Field”: Current Evidence of Exclusion

    The most dangerous narrative in modern America is the belief that civil rights protections are “outdated relics” of a bygone era. This belief suggests that the playing field is now level and that active oversight is a “special favor” rather than a necessity. However, 2026 economic data reveals that when these guardrails are removed, the gap doesn’t stay closed—it immediately begins to widen, draining the national GDP.

    1. The Lending & Housing Barrier (2025-2026 Data)

    • The Denial Gap: According to the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, Black-owned firms are less than half as likely as white-owned businesses with comparable credit profiles to receive full financing. Black-owned firms face a denial rate of 39%, compared to just 18% for white-owned firms.
    • The Mortgage Tax: 2024-2025 HMDA data shows that Black and Latino borrowers are disproportionately steered into non-conventional, higher-cost mortgages. On average, Black borrowers pay $256 more in loan fees and higher interest rates than white borrowers with similar qualifications.
    • The Appraisal Gap: A 2026 Brookings Institution report confirms that homes in Black-majority neighborhoods remain undervalued by an average of 23% ($48,000) compared to similar homes in white neighborhoods. This results in a cumulative loss of $156 billion in equity—wealth that cannot be used to start businesses or fund education.

    2. The Employment & Hiring Filter

    • The “Resume Tax”: 2026 workforce studies show that white candidates are still 2.1 times more likely to receive an interview callback than Black candidates with identical resumes. A massive study of 83,000 applications to Fortune 500 companies found that “black-sounding names” consistently received fewer callbacks.
    • The Leadership Ceiling: While Black Americans make up 13.4% of the population, they hold only 2% of executive roles in major corporations. This isn’t a “pipeline problem”; it’s a “gatekeeping problem.”
    • Workplace Discrimination: As of 2026, 41% of Black workers report experiencing racial discrimination on the job, compared to only 8% of white workers. This environment leads to higher turnover, costing U.S. businesses billions in recruitment and retraining fees every year.

    3. The Documentation Trap: The SAVE Act (2026)

    The current push for the SAVE Act is framed as a “neutral” security measure, but it serves as a modern version of the literacy test.

    • The Impact: Data from the Brennan Center shows that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to the specific birth certificates or passports required by the act.
    • The Victims: Roughly half of all Americans do not own a passport. This hurdle disproportionately impacts young voters, voters of color, and millions of women whose current legal names do not match their birth certificates—forcing them to pay a “time and money tax” just to exercise a fundamental right.

    The fact that these disparities persisted despite existing guardrails reveals two fundamental truths about the American economy: first, the “default” setting of our institutions is still calibrated for exclusion; and second, the current guardrails were only partially successful because they were frequently underfunded or bypassed.

    When we remove these remaining protections, we aren’t returning to a “fair” market—we are accelerating a downward economic spiral that affects the entire nation.

    1. The Acceleration of “Risk-Based” Discrimination

    Without the Disparate Impact rule or Fair Housing oversight, businesses and banks often pivot to “algorithmic bias.”

    • What happens: Banks and insurance companies use “proxy data” (like zip codes, education levels, or social networks) to determine risk.
    • The Result: Because our neighborhoods are still historically segregated, these “neutral” algorithms automatically charge Black families more or deny them access entirely. Without guardrails, this isn’t called discrimination; it’s called “market efficiency,” yet it still drains trillions from the potential GDP.

    2. The Collapse of the “Common Good”

    Historically, when protections for Black Americans are removed, the public services they protect are usually the next to go.

    • What happens: This is the “Drained Pool” phenomenon. If the government decides it no longer wants to ensure that a service (like high-quality public education or transit) is accessible to Black citizens, it often stops investing in that service for everyone.
    • The Result: The middle class is forced to pay for private alternatives. We see this today in the shift from free public colleges to high-interest student loans. The guardrails didn’t just protect Black students; they protected the idea of education as a public right.

    3. The Institutional “Brain Drain”

    Removing protections like Equal Employment Oversight and the removal of Black federal leadership creates a talent vacuum.

    • What happens: Positions of power are filled based on “cultural fit” or political loyalty rather than merit and experience.
    • The Result: This leads to Institutional Incompetence. When the NTSB or the Federal Reserve loses its most experienced experts because they were part of a “targeted” demographic, the quality of government oversight drops for every citizen. We lose the “eyes and ears” that prevent financial crashes and infrastructure failures.

    4. The Shrinking of the “National Pie”

    If the guardrails were already struggling to close a $16 trillion gap, removing them entirely is like taking the brakes off a car parked on a steep hill.

    • The Short-Term View: The “winners” feel a sense of psychological victory or a slight temporary increase in their “slice” of the pie.
    • The Long-Term Reality: The total size of the “pie” (the GDP) shrinks. Innovation slows down because fewer people can afford to invent. Housing markets stagnate because fewer people can afford to buy. The national debt rises because the tax base is smaller.

    The Final Result: A “Two-Tier” Economy

    Without guardrails, America solidifies into a permanent Two-Tier Economy:

    1. The Elite Tier: The ultra-wealthy who can buy their own “guardrails” (private security, private schools, private health care).
    2. The Survival Tier: Everyone else—white, Black, and Brown—who is left to compete for the scraps of a stagnant economy, hampered by high debt, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of legal recourse.

    The guardrails weren’t a “gift” to Black America; they were the last line of defense for the American Middle Class. Removing them doesn’t make us “free”; it makes the entire nation more vulnerable to the $16 trillion drain that has already cost us two decades of progress.

    How does this perspective on “guardrails as market stabilizers” fit with your article’s warning about the “Elite Escape”?

    The “Buy-In” Trap and the Elite Escape

    These narratives were successful because they gave the white middle class a false sense of security, suggesting their status was safe as long as a “lower class” existed beneath them. However, while white Americans were busy guarding the “gate,” the floor of the American economy was being hollowed out. The same systems that suppressed Black wages eventually suppressed white wages.

    We must move past the myth that these policies only affect the “targeted” group. When you “drain the pool” to keep certain people from swimming, eventually the entire community is left standing in the dirt. The only ones who escape this drain are the ultra-wealthy, who can “buy” the access being stripped from the public.

    In a hyper-competitive global economy, discrimination is a luxury we can no longer afford. Every policy that creates an unnecessary hurdle for a Howard Law grad is a policy that makes America too weak and too poor to lead. We are sacrificing the size of the national “pie” to ensure the slices are handed out to a preferred few, leaving everyone else with nothing but the crumbs of a $16 trillion loss.

    The Conclusion: Why “Maintenance” Matters

    Dismantling these protections isn’t “moving past racism”—it is removing the fire code from a building that is still catching fire.

    If we allow these gaps to persist, we are effectively choosing a $16 trillion poorer America. We are choosing a system where talent is ignored, property is undervalued, and the “velocity of money” is intentionally throttled. The data proves that these programs aren’t about “helping Black people get ahead”; they are about ensuring that the American economy doesn’t leave $16 trillion on the table because of a bias we can no longer afford to ignore.

    Glossary of Terms

    • AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing): A legal requirement under the Fair Housing Act for HUD grantees to take meaningful actions to overcome patterns of segregation.
    • Algorithmic Bias: When automated systems or data proxies (like zip codes) replicate human prejudice in lending or hiring.
    • Blockbusting: A business process of U.S. real estate agents and building developers to convince white property owners to sell their houses at low prices, which they did by promoting fear in those house owners that racial minorities would soon be moving into the neighborhood.
    • Contract Sales: An exploitative real estate practice where a buyer makes an installment purchase, but the seller holds the deed until the final payment is made.
    • Diploma Privilege: A method for admitting law school graduates to the bar without requiring them to pass a separate bar examination.
    • Disparate Impact: A legal doctrine under the Fair Housing Act that allows for challenges to practices that have a disproportionately adverse effect on minorities, even if there was no discriminatory intent.
    • Drained Pool Phenomenon: The historical trend of public resources being shut down or defunded for everyone once they are forced to integrate.
    • Ghost GDP: The potential economic output and wealth creation that is lost due to systemic inefficiencies, such as racial gaps in lending or employment.
    • Healthcare Desert: A region where residents have little to no access to nearby healthcare facilities, often resulting from the closure of rural or safety-net hospitals.
    • Medical Weathering: The theory that the cumulative effect of social and economic adversity (including racism) leads to early health deterioration and advanced biological aging.
    • Velocity of Money: The rate at which money is exchanged from one transaction to another and how much a unit of currency is used in a given period.

    Bibliography

    • Brennan Center for Justice. (2026). The Documentation Trap: How the SAVE Act Impacts the Working Class.
    • Brookings Institution. (2018). The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods.
    • Citigroup. (2020). Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S.
    • Federal Reserve. (2025). Small Business Credit Survey: Minority-Owned Firm Financing Gaps.
    • McKinsey & Company. (2015). Why Diversity Matters.
    • Maddow, R. / MS NOW. (2026). Report on the Targeted Removal of Black Federal Leadership.
    • National Academy of Medicine. (2023). The Impact of Physician Diversity on National Health Outcomes.
    • New England Journal of Medicine. (2020). Hidden in Plain Sight – Reconsidering the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms.
    • U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Historical Archives on Disparate Impact and AFFH rulings.
    • W.K. Kellogg Foundation. (2018). The Business Case for Racial Equity: A Strategy for Growth.
    • Xen Yadah Tzu. (2026). Digital Commentary on Architectural and Policy Exclusion.
    #AmericanDream #Blogging #Dailyprompt #EconomicJustice #History #HowardLaw #PolicyMatters #Politics #Society #The16TrillionDrain #economy #History #news #politics #racism
    #americandream #blogging #dailyprompt #economicjustice #history #howardlaw
  30. (Roughly) Daily @[email protected] ·

    “They are strange times, times of beginnings and endings. Dangerous and powerful. And we feel it even if we don’t know what it is.”*…

    Back in 2019, (R)D considered a piece from the remarkable Freeman Dyson on what the biotech revolution could mean (itself further to thoughts in an earlier piece of his). Those thoughts popped back into my mind when I read Quentin Hardy‘s recent recounting of his lunch with a friend…

    We’re at an outdoor table in Mission Bay, the wet tech hotspot of San Francisco, home to Biopharma, Biotech, and Techbio research labs, known and emerging, plus big hospitals and research outfits.

    Across from my salad and his sandwich, Ashlee sweeps his arm in a big arc across Long Bridge Street, towards all the residential and mixed-use buildings.

    “There’s dozens of tiny labs up there,” he says, “somebody’s got a mouse, they’re doing something – growing organs, playing with neurons, injecting them with a virus to change their genetics. All kinds of weird shit. It’s wild, man.”

    “All kinds of weird shit” and Ashlee have been intimates for years. They have been good to each other. We met around the time computers started moving from the closet to the cloud, and we both wrote about dirt-cheap satellites, and how cell phone guts were ending up in strange places, changing our world with cheap drones and voluminous data. Back when everything really started changing.

    I went to Google to write about how those really big data sets and massive amounts of cloud computation were enabling Artificial Intelligence. Ashlee wrote the first biography of Elon Musk, which took him into Musk’s interests in non-governmental rocketry and neural implants. For many years Bloomberg paid him to do a show called Hello World, where he covered Doomsday preppers, fake meat, Nigerian hackers, and all kinds of strange things. All the creative journalists were jealous of him, not least because they couldn’t touch his talent for finding and admiring this abundance of exotic invention.

    He now has his own show, Core Memory, which has unsurpassed reporting on all sorts of cutting-edge robotics, life reprogrammers, amateur space stations, body hackers, and new materials manufacturers. Highly recommended.

    Back to his current interests. “I know this guy who’s harvesting rat neurons,” he says, “he talks about using them to power data centers.”…

    … We start talking about biohacking and self-medication, all the people shooting up peptides, and the places around town where the kids are mixing their AI with their biohacking, and all the quasi-legal stuff people are doing, growing new human and animal parts.

    On one level, they’re just following the “lots of data, lots of compute” model, only into the infinitely more complex wet world. Just as enough people posted tagged photos online to enable Fei Fei Li to make and exploit ImageNet, a major milestone in the creation of image-recognition AI, so these new hackers hope to tag, track, remix and scan enough biological data to remake biological understanding. And capability.

    I’ve got my kale and he’s got his meat, partly liberated from the bread. Some of the fun in hanging out with Ashlee is the way we can free-associate over years of covering this kind of stuff, knowing that some things blow up and some things don’t work out, good ideas go down while the mad and the lucky are proclaimed geniuses. In other words, we get to bullshit about the weird shit.

    “Maybe it’s going to turn into some kind of ghost gun thing, where people take drugs and perform genetic procedures that are legal on their own and turn it into some kind of illegal treatment,” I say. “You’ll go on a luxury cruise into international waters to get your genetic makeup altered, or blend two different animals into a third. Like ‘The Floating Offshore Platform of Dr. Moreau,’” after the H.G. Wells’ story about a mad scientist making human-animal hybrids…

    … But we’re also talking about Biology, that most intimate and complex of sciences, being colonized by a trend we’ve seen elsewhere in tech for years: Prices fall far enough to change the rules of access, newcomers hack the system in defiance of the old standards and business models. Oceans of new data turn up, changing the entire process of understanding.

    We’ve seen it happen in enough places to know the pattern. Open source Linux, cheap and attractive enough for all kinds of people to improve it for free, wiped out the old computer server industry. WiFi was open source too, so the price was right and interest surged.

    The tech doesn’t have to be open source, or free, either. Economic cycles play a part. When the Internet bubble burst, space companies like Iridium and Globalstar, Rotary Rocket and Kistler, crashed. Lots of cheap talent and parts hit the market, which enabled Elon to do Space X. I once did a story about how entertainment in Africa changed after the price of satellite dishes fell below $200, and the tech moved from expatriate compounds to local bars.

    The cost of biological experimentation is on a far crazier decline, giving Ashlee a lot of material. Twenty-three years after the first human genome was sequenced at a cost of $2.7 billion, a “complete genetic engineering home lab,” with a refurbished DNA sequencing machine and a “Bioengineering 101 Course” can be yours for $2500. Neurotechnology tools are available for sale or rent, so you can try neural implants at home. China is spinning up dozens of brain-computer interface startups.

    “They’ve got a city in China that’s just doing brain technology stuff,” says Ashlee. When I lived in Asia 30 years ago, cities in China were famous for specializing in things like athletic socks and bras, wiping out the competition worldwide by cranking out more stuff more cheaply than anyone else. Now that the abundance of data and the cheapness of commute have kicked off the AI revolution, they have turned to brain tech. I pick at my kale.

    Of course, just because the prices are a fraction of what they used to be, and these new hackers are descending on San Francisco, Cambridge, Miami, and who knows where else, it doesn’t mean breakthroughs are at hand. Biology is a lot more complex than electronics – a lot. Perhaps even more important, the new AI technology that people hope will enable all kinds of bio breakthroughs requires enormous amounts of data. The data set has to be huge, it has to be gathered in a single place the AI can access, and perhaps most critically of all, it has to be standardized to the highest quality…

    … The biohackers face a big quality issue too. The Nobel Prize-winning protein information made use of some of the cleanest data possible, and Waymo came out of Alphabet’s cutting-edge sensor- and data-analysis labs. The guy in some converted Apartment 3G doing the thing with the iguana liver, the woman in the co-working space with the rat pituitary, they’re probably not going to bring the same magic.

    “Yeah, but they’re not the only ones doing this,” says Ashlee. “I just had on Jennifer Doudna.” Doudna, who won a Nobel prize for her work on gene editing, now runs the Innovative Genomics Institute, a place rigorously pursuing this knowledge following traditional standards. She makes a couple of excellent points in Ashlee’s interview. She thinks a lot of the gunslinger biohackers will find biology much more complex and problematic than they think. At the same time, she expects a lot of the regulatory hurdles to new ways of doing things will become familiar over time, lowering the steps and costs of bringing out new drugs and treatments.

    These lower costs will make more things possible, and attract more innovation. This will drive crazy a health and insurance industry built around high costs. If history is any guide, the incumbents won’t surrender their high-cost businesses without a fight. That may be one reason why Doudna thinks that big genetic alterations, will show up in agriculture first…

    … Which, apparently, at this point isn’t weird enough. “I’ve got to catch up with this university researcher I met at a party,” he says, pushing away his plate. “She’s working on transplanting the personality of one animal, like a dolphin, to another, like a cow.”

    “You mean, like you get a cow that wants to body surf in the wake of a tourist boat?”

    He nods. “I know. Weird shit, right?”

    I barely know what to do with this one, but I’m still in my “Dr. Moreau” zone.

    “So maybe someday, instead of capital punishment, a convicted murder will receive the personality of a Labrador Retriever?”

    “Could be,” he says. “Who knows what people do with this stuff.”

    “Has there ever been a time when people were creating a future this weird, when people were going to live in ways they couldn’t even recognize?”

    “I dunno,” he says. “Explorer times?”

    “I mean yeah, maybe for the Aztecs at first, when they saw the Conquistadors on their horses and thought it was some new kind of hybrid god/animal. But pretty soon the Spanish guys got off their horses and just started messing up the city and killing people. Pretty much like the Aztecs had been doing for a couple of generations. Business as usual.”

    “I feel you,” he says. “Hey, I got to go. There’s some guys in Argentina who have this satellite and space tug that went off course. It’s like 50 million kilometers from Earth, but they think they can bring it back.” Weird stuff…

    Biohacking in SF, where Dr. Moreau’s a piker, & humanoid robots are a happy delusion. Eminently worth reading in full: “Kale Salad with Ash.”

    For more on the dizzying pace of experimentation (this time, in AI), pair with “Agent Claw.”

    [Image above: source]

    * “At such times the universe gets a little closer to us. They are strange times, times of beginnings and endings. Dangerous and powerful. And we feel it even if we don’t know what it is. These times are not necessarily good, and not necessarily bad. In fact, what they are depends on what we are.” – Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

    ###

    As we FAFO, we might recall that it was on this date in 1897 that the Indiana State House of Representatives passed Bill No.246 which gave pi the exact value of 3.2– a nice, round– and wrong– number.

    Hoosier Dr. Edwin J. Goodwin, M.D, a mathematics enthusiast, satisfied himself that he’d succeeded in “squaring the circle.”  Hoping to share with his home state the fame that would surely be forthcoming, Dr. Goodwin drafted legislation that would make Indiana the first to declare the value of pi as law, and convinced Representative Taylor I. Record, a farmer and lumber merchant, to introduce it.  As an incentive, Dr. Goodwin, who planned to copyright his “discovery,” offered in the bill to make it available to Indiana textbooks at no cost.

    It seems likely that few members of the House understood the bill (many said so during the debate), crammed as it was with 19th century mathematical jargon.  Indeed, as Peter Beckmann wrote in his History of Pi, the bill contained “hair-raising statements which not only contradict elementary geometry, but also appear to contradict each other.”  (Full text of the bill here.)  Still, it sailed through the House.

    As it happened, Professor Clarence Abiathar Waldo, the head of the Purdue University Mathematics Department and author of a book titled Manual of Descriptive Geometry, was in the Statehouse lobbying for the University’s budget appropriation as the final debate and vote were underway. He was astonished to find the General Assembly debating mathematical legislation.  Naturally, he listened in… and he was horrified.

    On February 11 the legislation was introduced in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Temperance, which reported the bill favorably the next day, and sent it to the Senate floor for debate.

    But Professor Waldo had “coached” (as he later put it) a number of key Senators on the bill, so this time its reception was different.  According to an Indianapolis News report of February 13,

    …the bill was brought up and made fun of. The Senators made bad puns about it, ridiculed it and laughed over it. The fun lasted half an hour. Senator Hubbell said that it was not meet for the Senate, which was costing the State $250 a day, to waste its time in such frivolity. He said that in reading the leading newspapers of Chicago and the East, he found that the Indiana State Legislature had laid itself open to ridicule by the action already taken on the bill. He thought consideration of such a propostion was not dignified or worthy of the Senate. He moved the indefinite postponement of the bill, and the motion carried.

    As one watches state governments around the U.S. enacting similarly nonsensical, unscientific legislation (e.g., here… perhaps legislators went to school on this), one might be forgiven for wondering “Where’s Waldo?”

     source

    #biohacking #ClarenceWaldo #culture #FreemanDyson #history #Indiana #Mathematics #pi #QuentinHardy #Science #Technology
    #biohacking #clarencewaldo #culture #freemandyson #history #indiana
Next page