2021
May
19
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

May 19, 2021
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Noelle Swan
Weekly Editor

Mavis Rudof was just 13 when she realized what she wanted to do with her life. 

It was June 11, 2019, and she watched from the courtroom gallery as her public-defender father argued for the freedom of Darrell Jones, a Black man who had been convicted of murder by an all-white jury in 1986. When the jury, this time with two Black jurors, came back with a not-guilty verdict, she knew.

“I got into the car with my dad after the verdict ... and was like ‘this is the work I need to do,’” she recalls. 

I met Mavis when she was a student in my preschool classroom. When I caught up with her a year ago, cellphone footage of George Floyd’s death had just emerged and Mavis could no longer wait to add her voice to calls for racial justice. She joined protests and solidified her resolve to “obstruct the injustice that we are living in right now,” as she told me at the time.

A year later, former police officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted of Mr. Floyd’s murder. In Mavis’ view, “tremendous change” is still needed. “Our first police officers were slave patrols,” she says. “That says a lot about how our systems have been built.”

At a societal level, she says the verdict opened “a window of possibility for changes. It showed that convictions can happen.”

These hopes have been buoyed by the public discussions of justice, privilege, and racial equity over the past year. “White people need to be forced to think about these issues,” she argues. “Black people live it every day.” 

Her advice to white people wanting to better understand these issues? “Listen to people of color. And learn. ... If race is hard to talk about, then you are probably having the right kind of conversations.”


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

A deeper look

Ann Hermes/Staff
Ruhel Islam (standing), a restaurateur, works with a friend to build a stage in a community garden on the site of his former Gandhi Mahal restaurant, which was burned down in May 2020 following the killing of George Floyd.

A neighborhood in Minneapolis, heavily damaged during protests a year ago, is trying to rebuild in a way that embodies ideals of diversity and equality, potentially offering a new model for urban redevelopment.

Patterns

Tracing global connections

It has been over 20 years since the U.S. was last involved in a serious effort to resolve the Palestinian issue. The current fighting between Israel and Hamas might – just possibly – prompt Washington to try again.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Students in teacher Carina Tsuneta’s third to fifth grade class draw the sun during a lesson on the solar system at Grace Preparatory Academy on May 10, 2021, in Needham, Massachusetts. Grace Prep students spend two days in class and three days being taught at home by parents using lesson plans provided by teachers.

With interest in hybrid home schooling on the rise, many parents are emphasizing a new priority for their children’s education: flexibility.

French society is increasingly diverse, and its publishing industry is having to stretch itself to reflect this diversity in new titles and a broader literary conversation. 

Points of Progress

What's going right

In this week’s progress roundup, careful planning for the needs of people and the natural world benefits all. One study says that armed conflicts are rare in places where natural resources are well managed.


The Monitor's View

Reuters
Colombians in Bogota take part in a May 19 protest demanding government tackle poverty, police violence, and inequalities in healthcare and education.

Anti-government protests in Colombia have now entered their fourth week, which is unusual enough for one of Latin America’s stronger democracies. The numbers are also atypically big, with tens of thousands on the streets at a time in most cities. Another notable is the range of voices, from urban youth to rural poor. And the number of their complaints spans from corruption to police brutality to a proposed tax hike that first triggered the protests.

Most remarkable, however, may be a popular demand for the new style of politics.

“What seems to be ruled out is the continuity of the politics of hatred and polarization that have characterized Colombia in the past several years,” writes Mauricio Cárdenas, a former finance minister, in Americas Quarterly. “Governing from one side of the political spectrum is a recipe for disaster.”

Colombians see a disconnect between their daily problems and politics marked by divisiveness and acrimony. “They are telling the traditional politicians that they are ready to replace them in order to make the country more democratic, less corrupt, less unequal,” states Mr. Cárdenas.

Before the protests began April 28, many people already had high expectations of political reconciliation. In 2016, the government entered a peace pact with the country’s largest rebel group, the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The agreement promised to bring the rebels into politics and end a half-century of war. But slow implementation of the pact is now one of the protesters’ grievances.

With elections due in 2022, public opinion has shifted against the conservative president, Iván Duque. He is trying to reach out to youth but his popularity has only fallen. “We are looking at a citizenship that is more committed and involved,” said political analyst Laura Gil in a YouTube forum.

Among Latin American countries, Colombia ranks relatively high in its capability to combat the No. 1 complaint of the protesters – corruption. It has a high level of civil society, investigative journalism, and education, according to Transparency International. Now, protester Miguel Morales told BBC, “We need to make good choices in next year’s election.” By the size and duration of the protests, the choice seems to have been made.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Turning to God, divine Love, for inspiration and guidance brings greater wisdom, peace, and joy to parenting efforts.


A message of love

Amit Dave/Reuters
Women carry their belongings after salvaging them from their damaged workplaces at a fishing harbor following Cyclone Tauktae in Jafrabad in the western state of Gujarat in India, May 19, 2021. The cyclone was the strongest ever recorded to hit the country's west coast.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Come back tomorrow when chief culture writer Stephen Humphries interviews an author who believes no conflict is unsolvable, for the next installment of The Respect Project.

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