raceAhead: Five Breaking News Haikus

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FOLLOW subscribe SHARE February 8, 2019 Here’s your week in review, in haiku.   1. Does a nipple count if nobody wants to see it? UnSuper Bowl   2. Let's just throw the keys to the state of Virginia to Stacey Abrams   3. "I regret wearing blackface in the past." Liam Neeson: "Hold my beer."   4. Democracy dies in dick pics! Bezos prime time: Exposing Pecker. (h/t @xeni)   I would like to speak to the manager: This Black History Month sucks.   Enjoy your own beautiful face this weekend. . On Point Come on Virginia, stop with the hate Imagine being a Virginia citizen, concerned about the recent news about your governor, lieutenant governor, and your attorney general. So, you exercise your right to peaceful protest. You show up. You bring a sign. You speak your mind. And then you find out that the sergeant tapped to "monitor" the protests appears to be part of an active white supremacist group! He's on leave pending an official investigation . Then, you find out that your state Senate Majority Leader, Tommy Norment, did not appear in blackface in a yearbook. Instead, he was the managing editor of the 1968 edition of the yearbook for the Virginia Military Academy that is filled with racist photos. Come for the blackface, stay for the N-word, Asian slurs, and Jew jokes. Pilot Online Gucci is forced to apologize for a blackface sweater Just click through. You have to see it to believe it. CBS News The pope admits the clergy has a history of sexually abusing nuns At any other time in history, this story would have dominated headlines worldwide. Now, it ends up below the fold. But if the pope's assessment is accurate, it is truly shocking news. Speaking to reporters on a tour of the Middle East, Pope Francis says that priests and bishops have abused nuns, and admitted that the church was working on the scandal. "Pope Benedict had the courage to dissolve a female congregation which was at a certain level, because this slavery of women had entered it—slavery, even to the point of sexual slavery—on the part of clerics or the founder," he said. BBC Women are better at leading countries with diverse populations than men Two researchers, one from the Liautaud Graduate School of Business at the University of Illinois, the other from Columbia Business School, conducted research that built on the data showing companies with gender-balanced senior leadership financially outpace their peers. Would nation-states with diverse populations see similar benefits? It's an interesting twist on an important leadership question, and the findings were stark. Not only were women-led diverse countries more likely to have faster-growing economies, "In particular, the countries in the highest quartile of racial/ethnic diversity benefited the most." HBR . On Background Adventures in VR while transgender A.E. Osworth identifies as trans and non-binary, and has long worn a hat that says "Gender is a Galaxy." "[I] plot my own existence somewhere outside male or female, somewhere else altogether," they say. For them, having a body has been a struggle, filled with moments of dysphoria, disassociation, and disconnect. But their experience with virtual reality has been a gender adventure. Visiting VR World, an arcade where anyone can try on new virtual reality experiences, they asked for games they could play in a body not their own. "It felt like role play, which is how I wish gender felt, how I think it should feel," they said. "I felt able to try this on like a costume." Quartz One great day in Harlem Sixty years ago, 58 jazz legends gathered in front of a Harlem townhouse at 17 East 126th Street, for what would become one of the most iconic photos of the jazz age. Count Basie, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonius Monk, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, and Sonny Rollins were all in attendance, along with the many people who played behind them, and plenty of neighborhood kids. Only two musicians survive, and one, 90-year-old tenor sax man Benny Golson, still performs. "I remember it like it was 24 hours ago," Golson told CBS News. "I remember everything about it." CBS News Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock believe in you Here's an open letter we could really use: A rallying cry from two jazz greats for courage through art-making. "As an artist, creator and dreamer of this world, we ask you not to be discouraged by what you see but to use your own lives, and by extension your art, as vehicles for the construction of peace," they write. They offer 10 steps to better think about creation in a time of turmoil. I loved number 10: "Live in a constant state of wonder." Nest HQ . . Quote I went through two rather difficult redistrictings, the first in '64 where I was put in the same district with a guy by the name of John Lesinski, Jr. I'd voted for the Civil Rights Bill in '64; he voted against that in the firm expectation he'd be in Congress as long as he wanted to be because of that vote. In a very nasty primary in which that was a major issue, we beat him rather decisively…We asked a question: why is it that a white American citizen should be able to vote and a black American citizen should not? We campaigned like hell.  —John D. Dingell, Jr. . EMAIL Ellen McGirt subscribe share: . This message has been sent to you because you are currently subscribed to raceAhead Unsubscribe here Please read our Privacy Policy, or copy and paste this link into your browser: http://www.fortune.com/privacy FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. 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