Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon thundershowers with a high of eighty-seven. Sunrise is 5:29 AM and sunset 8:31 PM, for 15h 02m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 94.9% of its visible disk illuminated.Today is the nine hundred seventy-eighth day.
It’s Bastille Day.
Recommended for reading in full:
Journalist Justin King concludes outrage over a black actress in a remake of The Little Mermaid is absurd:
See also from Paquette Danielle, Africa celebrated black mermaids long before Disney and #NotMyAriel.
Isabela Zaluska reports Blacks arrested for pot possession at four times the rate of whites in Wisconsin (‘Gov. Tony Evers’ decriminalization proposal focuses on decreasing racial disparities in arrests; experts point to policing practices as the main issue’):
In fact, in 2018, blacks were four times as likely to be arrested as whites for marijuana possession in Wisconsin, a Wisconsin Watch review shows. Experts point to policing practices and the racial history behind marijuana prohibition as leading to arrest disparities.
….
In April, Rep. Melissa Sargent, D-Madison, unveiled a bill to fully legalize marijuana in Wisconsin. This is her fourth time introducing the bill. In this version, Sargent hopes to address racial disparities in the enforcement of Wisconsin’s marijuana laws by broadening the availability of expungement and releasing people incarcerated for low-level nonviolent marijuana offenses.
Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the United States, according to the Brookings Institution, which found that nearly 80% of blacks would have to move to another neighborhood in the city to achieve full integration.
In Milwaukee, blacks made up 72% of “small-scale” marijuana possession arrests but 39% of the population between 2012 and 2015, according to research by the Public Policy Forum, a nonprofit, independent research organization. The Milwaukee-based group defined “small scale” as possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana.
The same research found whites made up 12% of the arrests but 37% of the city’s population.
“The impact of being a person of color in our communities just makes it harder to live,” Sargent said.
(I’m a white non-smoker. Arresting Wisconsinites for marijuana possession is a wasteful policy for taxpayers but an entrenched employment and spending program for law enforcement.)