Senior editor @ProPublica. Former @WashingtonPost deputy health editor, race & econ reporter, @BostonGlobe national politics. Follow me @tracyjan.bsky.social
Oct 3, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
.@washingtonpost reporters spent the past year examining the nation’s crisis of premature death, with the U.S. falling far behind peer nations.
The result: a harrowing series shedding light on the roles chronic diseases, food & politics play our deaths
washingtonpost.com/health/interac…
Chronic illnesses such as heart disease & diabetes are the greatest threat, killing far more people between 35 and 64 every year than opioids & guns, @washingtonpost found.
By @JoelAchenbach @dtkeating @lauriemcginley2 @akjohnson1922 @jaheezus
After being denied an abortion, a Florida mother watched her baby die.
Baby Milo lived 99 minutes.
@FrancesSSellers returns to Lakeland for Milo's funeral and learns the impact Florida’s new abortion law has on one family as they struggle to carry on washingtonpost.com/health/interac…
The day before Milo was born, the Dorberts sat down with their 4 y.o. Kaiden to explain that the baby’s body had stopped working. He would not come home. Instead, they would all meet as angels some day. Kaiden burst into tears, telling them that he did not want to be an angel.
Jan 22, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Professor Marvin Dunn is intent on defying the governor — even if it comes at a personal cost. A heroic educator who refuses to whitewash history.
washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01…
On a recent afternoon, he gathered students and their parents at the cemetery and told them about the Rev. Josh J. Baskin and five other Black Floridians hanged by a White mob from an oak tree in 1916 after an accusation over a stolen hog sparked two days of terror.
"Women of childbearing age in this country have grown up under Roe and have never known a world in which they cannot control their own lives and futures in this way."
washingtonpost.com/nation/interac…
Sitting below a poster that explained how the different kinds of birth control prevent pregnancy, the 18-year-old, said that because Mississippi teaches only abstinence in public schools, no one explained to her how to prevent pregnancy if she had sex.
.@SingletaryM on how Sony Pictures Television “mucked up”what should have been a progressive hiring decision for one of the best gigs in television. washingtonpost.com/business/2021/…
Whether it’s conscious or unconscious, women and minorities are often shut out of positions because of their differences from the decision-makers in charge of hiring.
Aug 23, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
After George Floyd's death, big business pledged nearly $50 billion for racial justice. Where did the money go?
* 90 percent are loans & investments to address the racial wealth gap
washingtonpost.com/business/inter…
* A tiny fraction of the commitments offered by America’s 50 biggest companies went to organizations focused specifically on criminal justice reform, the cause that sent millions into the streets protesting Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer.
Texas Democrats staged a dramatic walkout late Sunday night to block passage of a restrictive voting bill that would have been one of the most stringent in the nation, forcing Republicans to abruptly adjourn without taking a vote on the measure. washingtonpost.com/politics/texas…
.@AmyEGardner explains how the Texas voting bill would have created hurdles for voters of color
This is what white supremacy leads to: the destruction of Black lives and Black wealth, the impact of which reverberates a century after the #TulsaMassacre
Let us never forget. washingtonpost.com/business/2021/…
This is Brenda Nails-Alford. Her grandparents owned Nails Brothers, a shoe and record store in Tulsa’s historically Black Greenwood district in the early 1900s. It was torched during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
(📸: @joshua_lott )
Jan 7, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
It's reassuring to overhear our son's 3rd gr teacher devote the a.m. to addressing the insurrection at the Capitol & patiently, painstakingly answering every last one of the children's many questions. I imagine how much harder this is for educators in some parts of the country.
Taking the time to process history, understanding media & separating fact from opinion is so much more important than anything else they could be learning right now.
Jan 7, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Read @PhilipRucker’s account of the day democracy was breached, the pandemonium a natural culmination of what Trump & complaint Republicans have wrought on the nation they swore an oath to protect.
washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
Since his first presidential campaign, Trump has instigated his supporters to express their political views through physical demonstration and violence, and he has declined time and again to repudiate the actions of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other extremists.
“Fight for Trump!” they chanted. And they let Confederate flags fly on the Capitol steps & inside its hallowed halls, making it plain just how they define the man & the real Americans for whom they claim to be standing firm. washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01…
Trump supporters did as they were told.
Compare this, the storming of the US Capitol, to the military response to Black Lives Matter protesters over the summer.
Oct 18, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Read @ianshapira’s dive into relentless racism at Virginia Military Institute, the nation’s oldest state-supported military college whose cadets fought for the slaveholding South during the Civil War & whose leaders still celebrate that history. wapo.st/3562JQ0
“I wake up everyday wondering, ‘Why am I still here?’ ” said William Bunton, 20, a Black senior from Portsmouth, Va.
Aug 1, 2020 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Minority entrepreneurs were reclaiming their communities — then the pandemic came.
Grateful to @philip_cheung & @clareramirez_ for elevating this story about a new gentrification crisis hitting ethnic enclaves with their gorgeous photos & elegant design. washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…
Joe Ward-Wallace, a newly retired Los Angeles firefighter, opened @SouthLACafe in Nov, part of a renaissance of Black-owned cafes. “It was a tactic for cultural preservation. We were on an upward swing right before covid to reclaim our community.”
To the St. Michaels police officer who saw a Black man, an Asian woman & their Blasian kid stopped on the sidewalk in your quaint downtown to chat with a white couple on bikes: what made you see this scene and feel compelled to pull your cruiser over and ask: “Is everything ok?”
You moved along after the white woman assured you that yes, everything was fine.
The truth is, everything WAS fine until you chose to pull over.
Did you think we were in danger?
Did you think they were?
Apr 9, 2020 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: Two black men say they were kicked out of Walmart for wearing protective masks. Others worry it will happen to them.
Wellesley professor @M_P_Jeffries: “Black folks can’t even wear hooded sweatshirts without being accused of being criminals.”
washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…
Kip Diggs, a Nashville entrepreneur: “As an African American man, I have to be cognizant of the things I do and where I go, so appearances matter. I have pink, lime green, Carolina blue so I don’t look menacing. I want to take a lot of that stigma and risk out as best I can.”
Apr 5, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“We are scared about the virus. We are scared about ICE. We are scared about almost everything right now.”
They cook, clean and care for Americans. Undocumented workers among those hit first — and worst — by the coronavirus shutdown. washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…
The collapse of the U.S. economy has exposed the extreme vulnerabilities of millions of undocumented workers who are disproportionately employed in industries undergoing mass layoffs as well as high-risk jobs that keep society running while many Americans self-isolate at home.
Feb 24, 2020 • 11 tweets • 16 min read
.@WhipClyburn proposed a race-neutral anti-poverty program a decade ago. Presidential candidates recast it as compensation for slavery.
washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…@WhipClyburn Clyburn's program, known as 10-20-30, allocates 10% of funding from any given federal program to counties where 20 percent of the population has lived below the poverty line for 30 years. That includes the rural, Southern "Black Belt" as well as white communities in Appalachia.
Nov 2, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Among the reasons Sean Doolittle is not visiting the Trump WH on Mon: “I feel very strongly about his issues on race relations,” he said, listing the Fair Housing Act, the Central Park Five & Trump’s comments following a white supremacist rally in 2017. washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/11…
Doolittle’s wife has two mothers who are very involved in the LGBTQ community.
“I want to show support for them. I think that’s an important part of allyship, and I don’t want to turn my back on them,” he said.
Jun 14, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Nearly 400 active-duty and retired law enforcement officers from across the United States are members of Confederate, anti-Islam, misogynistic or anti-government militia groups on Facebook, a @reveal investigation found. revealnews.org/article/inside…
These cops have worked at every level of American law enforcement, from tiny, rural sheriff’s departments to the largest agencies in the country, such as the LAPD & NYPD. They work in jails and schools and airports, on boats and trains and in patrol cars.
May 20, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Racism don’t care if ur the nation’s wealthiest black person. At a NYC dinner w/senior Wall Street types, incl a high-level investment bank exec, Smith moved to pick up the check, but the senior banker stopped him. “I can’t have a black guy buy me dinner.” forbes.com/sites/nathanva…
He was also the 2nd largest private donor to @NMAAHC, after Oprah. washingtonpost.com/national/who-i…
Joe Ward-Wallace, a newly retired Los Angeles firefighter, opened @SouthLACafe in Nov, part of a renaissance of Black-owned cafes. “It was a tactic for cultural preservation. We were on an upward swing right before covid to reclaim our community.”
