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In the midst of the trauma and tragedy, it's worth remembering that all journalism is technically "human interest"—it just depends on which humans you're interested in. I don't know about y'all, but for some reason the combined weight of bad news about the South this week has felt particularly demoralizing. 

Human nature requires that we tell stories to help us frame and process the world. "The news," on the other hand, so often leaves us starved for that human thread. Navigating our personal politics in the wake of tragic and complicated moments in modern history can leave us feeling at once both inundated with hot takes, and completely disconnected.
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But underneath all of these words, policies, and news stories, we're all still human. We're people tasked with making decisions that feel right in response to attacks on our bodies and our communities. We're people when we're left to pick up the pieces, too. And we shouldn't rely on the news to fully capture that spirit or fulfill that need all the time.

If you've been feeling anything like I have, I hope these stories can serve as a much-needed reminder of that the un-squashable humanity behind the people and culture of the South. It's still out there. Chin up, y'all.
In portraits and letters: 'Being free is not the same as freedom'
Jason Kerzinski, Scalawag

"It's priceless yet pricey to envelope this thing we call freedom. My freedom means everything to me: the freedom to eat, the freedom to sleep and roam at any time you want to, but yet it's preciousness can easily be stripped away by an unjust system that has taken away the freedom of so many others including myself. It's useless to put so much emphasis on being free, but it's more than worth it to protect your freedom to the best of your ability from being stripped away in a flash… and it can easily be stripped away for nothing."

New Orleans Photojournalist Jason Kerzinkski set out to photograph 12 men who were released from prison after serving more than 300 combined years for crimes they didn’t commit. He traveled from Louisiana and Mississippi, documenting exonerees and freed men whose convictions were overturned with the help of the Innocence Project New Orleans.

He met men who had devoted their lives to ensuring the safety and growth of other young men in their communities, men who found peace in the small moments of life, and men who said they’d never be free until all people were free. Here, they’ve shared letters answering the question: What does freedom mean to you? [Link]
1. An Alabama woman’s neighborly vaccination campaign
Rachael DeCruz & Jeremy S. Levine, The New Yorker

When asked how she talks people into signing up to get immunized, Dorothy Oliver's answer is disarmingly simple: “I just be nice to them,” she said. “I don’t go at them saying, ‘You gotta do that.’”

A recent New York Times column argued that people who remain unvaccinated at this point can't simply be persuaded into getting the jab. A new short documentary, “The Panola Project,” pushes back on that thesis. Panola, Alabama, never had its own vaccine center. The closest options were upwards of 30 miles away, and many residents don’t have cars to get there. The film follows Oliver, a retired Black woman, and Drucilla Russ-Jackson, the local county commissioner, on the quest to arrange for a hospital to set up a pop-up site in the area—on the condition that they get at least 40 people to sign up to take the vaccine.

“I just felt like I had to do it because the government, nobody does enough in this area,” she says. “This area here is majority Black. Kind of puts you on the back burner. That’s just it. I mean, you don’t have to put nothing else with that. That’s just it. I don’t have to elaborate on that one.”
2. What is drag, anyway?
Martin Padgett, The Paris Review

"John had heard about drag before he came to Atlanta but had never seen it. He watched, rapt in curiosity at drag shows, whenever he could. He saw an acquaintance, Alan Orton, perform as Barbra Streisand, his profile a mirror image of the Broadway queen. He witnessed a man named Alan Allison blossom into womanhood as Allison. He thought he saw Pearl Bailey perform 'Hello, Dolly!' but realized it must have been a convincing illusion. He clapped along as the crowd gave the drag queens applause and money. They were quasi-​celebrities, queens of a demimonde that existed only at night, hidden under the mantle of dark. John had long held fantasies of fame. But drag? It just wasn’t what men did in Alabama."

Martin Padgett’s first book, A Night at the Sweet Gum Head, tells the story of Atlanta’s queer liberation movement through the alternating biographies of two gay men, runaway–turned–drag queen John Greenwell and activist Bill Smith. In this excerpt, an underage Greenwell sneaks into a bar and discovers drag: "[He] could stay in Huntsville and be the town queer, or he could run away and be free, so he ran."
3. Bama Rush TikTok: OOTDs, secret societies, and systemic racism
Aiyana Ishmael, Teen Vogue

"With rush going virtual last year, the first big run in-person meant a surge in content. Alabama opened the show, and its Southern belles introduced their daily outfit choices with eagerness and Southern charm. Amidst the chaos of rush week, one constant viewers could always count on was a Golden Goose sneaker appearance, Kendra Scott jewelry, and a name-check of the notorious Pants Store."

In 2020, for the tenth year in a row, the University of Alabama held the crown for had the largest Greek community in the United States at over 11,000 students. And if you're on TikTok, you've no doubt seen the seemingly endless stream of videos made by UA sorority hopefuls sporting color-coordinated outfits in colossal million-dollar mansions.

But all of the excitement surrounding #bamarush has simultaneously resurfaced Alabama’s complicity with racism in the Greek system. The university only made a formal effort to integrate the Greek system in 2013. Viewers have also quickly caught on to the school's not-so-secret secret society: The Machine, a sorority and fraternity coalition that historically has had the power to influence university politics and campus elections whose influence has continued into present-day. The organization is a branch off another branch of Yale’s Skull and Bones, and is formed solely of sororities and fraternities that are predominantly white—leading to further exclusion of people of color from experiencing opportunities on campus.
No mask mandates? One Texas school district changed its dress code instead.
This goes out to everyone who, like myself, has been wondering why the hell officials thought it'd be impossible to enforce masking in schools when girls are pulled out of class daily nationwide for wearing spaghetti straps. Spoiler alert: It's even easier to notice if someone's face is exposed when it shouldn't be than it is to their determine if their shorts are a quarter-inch below the suggested length.

While Texas school leaders decide whether to require masks, one district has apparently found a loophole to Governor Greg Abbott's ban on mandates. The board for the Paris Independent School District in northeast Texas on Tuesday night amended its dress code, adding masks to the requirements.

"The Texas Governor does not have the authority to usurp the Board of Trustees’ exclusive power and duty to govern and oversee the management of the public schools of the district," the district said in a statement. "Nothing in the Governor’s Executive Order 38 states he has suspended Chapter 11 of the Texas Education Code, and therefore the Board has elected to amend its dress code consistent with its statutory authority."
 [Link]
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