It has been over 100 days since Joe Biden’s inauguration into the White House as the 46th president of the United States of America. In the span of Biden’s presidency so far, a lot of changes have been made which anges from policy reversals, overturning Trump’s policies, to taking executive actions to further his own presidential agenda.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Please consider my generation and future generations, and know that we’re worried about our future on this planet, and we’re looking for adults to help,” said the 10-year old veganism activist Genesis Butler passionately near the conclusion of her TEDx speech. This inspiring speech took place in 2017, titled “A 10-year old’s vision for healing the planet.” In the summer of 2021, four years after the delivery of her TEDx talk, Genesis’s arguments for animal protection have only grown more compelling and inspiring for the younger generation to hear.
Every June, millions of people part of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies gather to celebrate the existence and beauty of different forms of love and connection. This month of wholesome, deserving support was initiated to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, and soon turned into a movement to push forward the idea of equality of all people regardless of race, sex, or sexual orientation.
In March of 2021, it was revealed that Facebook had plans to make a version of Instagram for children under 13. Currently, Instagram does not allow children under 13 to use the platform, but many simply lie about their age in order to gain access to the platform. Facebook says that this new site will provide a safe place for kids to interact away from content on Instagram that may be inappropriate for young children. The site will include parental supervision and not display ads.
The Olympics have been in the news recently, but not because of the world-class athletes participating. Several organizations related to the Olympic Games have come under fire for actions widely seen as racist, especially to women of color.
With the availability of media giving us insights from and about people across the globe, awareness about LGBTQ+ is getting better every day, but are our institutions doing anything to aid the children that are coming out every day? Are institutions even doing anything to at least try and understand and educate children about gender and sexuality?
Demand for online delivery has increased as quarantine suddenly struck society, and popular online retailer Amazon is no stranger to that fact. According to an employee tally at one delivery center, Amazon has been processing from 10% to 40% more packages than normal for this time of year. The company’s website had 639,330,722 visits for the week of March 9, according to data from Comscore, up 32% from the year earlier. This has put employees and workers there under immense strain as they try to process orders as quickly as possible.
Imagine looking at the current events as though you are looking through a glass dome. Imagine trying to speak and everyone looks at you as if you are talking in someone else’s voice. To simultaneously speak for both sides and yet be voiceless; this is what it feels like to be a white-passing Black person.
The second wave of COVID-19 has caused tremendous damage in India. In June of 2020, India had reported 10,000 COVID-19 cases and began adding around 35,000 more cases every day after that. Then, in February 2021, cases in India were rising by 22,000 daily. However, this only worsened after the second COVID-19 wave intensified causing nearly a daily average of 89,000 cases daily.
According to the Women in Law and Development in Africa, over 2.5 billion women and girls around the world are affected by discriminatory laws. These discriminatory laws can range anywhere from restrictions on marriage, citizenship, and applying for jobs. Even today, men and women are held to different standards, which often hold women and girls back.