A vintage photo of African-American bikers from the story “Soul on Bikes & Black Chrome: The History of Black America’s Motorcycle Culture” at salvedgeyard.com.
An interesting read as we go into Asheville Beer Week (aka, not so much different from All Weeks in Asheville). The question that brought me to this article is: Why is Asheville’s beer scene (aka, outside of medical, probably its largest industry) not welcoming to or inclusive of people of color?
• “There Are Almost No Black People Brewing Craft Beer. Here’s Why.” by Dave Infante in Thrillist: “[The post-Prohibition] consolidation of most beer brewing in the US into very large corporations probably hurt all sorts of minorities who would have potentially owned breweries.”
To put this next piece context, I came to this story after being seriously annoyed by 45’s comment that an investigation into his Russian ties are a witch hunt. Witches, historically, were women healers and leaders who were persecuted for their independence and for the ways they sought to provide for their families and communities (doing what the governing bodies of their times would not). Witch hunts were systematic murders to stop the power of women. A white man of significant privilege and power aligning his predicament with that of “witches” (many of whom didn’t even identify as such), is tone-deaf and insidious. Here’s a story about a legitimate witch hunt in the 21st century. And be warned, it’s hard to take.
• “Witch hunt: Africa’s hidden war on women” by Witch hunt: Africa’s hidden war on women in The Independent: “These women are frightening anomalies here: they have a flicker of financial independence denied to all other females. It has to be stopped.”
• “Chelsea Manning’s Lawyer Knows How to Fight Transgender Discrimination—He’s Lived It” by Samantha Michaels in Mother Jones: “If you can’t go to the bathroom, you can’t go to school or have a job. … You can’t go to the movies or a restaurant. This is really a question of whether or not as a society we’re going to let trans people participate and be part of our social fabric.”
• Transcript of New Orleans Mayor Landrieu’s address on Confederate monuments in The Pulse: “In the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.”