tired and basic, basically tired.

(via bsky)

In case anyone hasn't heard, the cyclospora outbreak affecting tons of people in the US right now is coming from Taylor Farms produce. Best to stay away from bagged lettuce and prepared salads completely right now, but especially the ones mentioned in the screenshot:

Taylor Farms Earthbound Farms Little Salad Bar (Aldi) Marketside (Walmart) Kroger House Brand Target private label greens Costco salads and greens etc Trader Joe's chopped salad kits and fresh produce Fast food: McDonalds, Taco Bell, (Yum! Brands), Chipotle, Subway, Pizza Hut, KFC, Olive Garden, Top Golf, Red Lobster, Burger King, etc.

This is not the first time I've heard about a Taylor Farms foodborne illness outbreak. I stopped eating their salads after reading a description of the conditions in their facilities. Doesn't sound like they've improved anything.

In 1989, the British medical journal The Lancet showed how papers reporting that cocaine harmed babies' behavior were more likely to be accepted for publication than those showing no harm, even when the latter described better-designed studies. In 1992, a Journal of the American Medical Association editorial condemned the "rush to judgment" about cocaine's long-term effects on children, calling the evidence "far too slim".

But the harm has been done. The imaginary crack baby epidemic remains real in the minds of most Americans, providing yet another exemplar of African-American "bad mothering." In 1989, the Los Angeles Times wrote of how "Parents Who Can't Say 'No' Are Creating a Generation of Misery"; The Washington Post told us "For Pregnant Addict, Crack Comes First"; and a New York Times headline showcased an awkward amalgam of sympathy and cost consciousness: "Crack's Tiniest, Costliest Victims."

The myth of the crack baby also helped to fuel criminal prosecutions against pregnant drug abusers, three-fourths of which have been filed against women of color."

Now, Americans associate crack with Blacks, and crack users' infants, dubbed "crack babies," are always portrayed as Black. During eighteen years as a news and science editor at metropolitan dailies and national magazines, I have never seen a published photograph of a white crack baby. The putative harms done to crack babies were first popularized in graphic detail in 1989 by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer who warned,

"The inner city crack epidemic is now giving birth to the newest horror: a bio-underclass, a generation of physically damaged cocaine babies whose biological inferiority is stamped at birth." These infants, he claimed, constitute a "race of (sub) human drones [whose] future is closed to them from day one. Theirs will be a life of certain suffering, of probable deviance, of permanent inferiority.... the dead babies may be the lucky ones."

By "inner city", Krauthammer meant, of course, "Black". Douglas Besharov of the American Enterprise Institute, who coined the phrase "bio-underclass", did not shy from the racial label: "This is not stuff that Head Start can fix. This is permanent brain damage. Whether it is 5% or 15% of the Black community, it is there."

Krauthammer's column triggered a cascade of national headlines describing these infants as born addicted to crack and neurologically damaged to the point where they constituted a permanent army of inferiority- miniature Golems who could never be human."

"I feel like my penis/my Manhood as a symbol is smaller than Black man's" becomes "Black men have oversized penises and are sexually insatiable beasts."

"I am sexually attracted to, fetishizing, and feel entitled to Black women's bodies" becomes "well she's asking for it, look at how she looks, Black women are always more openly sexual."

"I am afraid of approaching Black men" becomes "Black men are a threat."

"I am afraid of approaching Black women" becomes "Black women are always angry."

"I am not smart enough/not qualifed enough/can't beat my white counterparts professionally" becomes "DEI and affirmative action are letting those Blacks steal my position in school/jobs!"

None of this is OK and none of this is normal. I do not want us to grow numb to Black grief and Black bodies being discarded like strange fruit.