Everything you missed at Ms. this week.
Ms. Weekly Digest | May 30, 2020

Here at Ms., our team is continuing to report through this global health crisis, doing what we can to keep you informed and up-to-date on some of the most underreported issues of the pandemic. If you’ve enjoyed the Ms. Weekly Digest, we ask that you consider supporting our work to bring you substantive, unique reporting—we can’t do it without you.

Dear John,

Each week when I sit down to write this letter, I consider the conversations I hope to begin between myself, our team and the Ms. community. And what else is there to say this week, except this: any remaining illusions that we live in a country of equality and justice for all can no longer stand. Injustice is woven into the threads of our society, and we must do the work to remake our world into one that is truly just for all.

As I write this, protests have broken out across the country, in response to George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police and ongoing police brutality against Black members of our communities. Some have, sadly, turned violent. If we do not speak up, take action, and hold ourselves and our communities accountable, things will only get worse, and nothing will change.

Here at Ms., we are working on an important new series on police brutality exploring how the under-representation of women in policing is exacerbating the crisis of deadly violence by police. Studies over the past 50 years have shown that women officers rely less on physical force, possess better communication skills than their male counterparts, but most importantly, have proven to be better at defusing potentially violent confrontations before those encounters turn deadly. Yet, as the debate rages over what to do about police use of deadly force, a critical way to reduce police violence and improve police relations with communities has been wholly ignored: having equal numbers of women and men in police ranks and who represent the diversity of the communities they serve.

This is but one of the ways that I—and Ms.—can take action to challenge and change the patriarchal and racist structures built into so many of our institutions. I hope that you will contemplate how you can do the same. As Angela Davis wrote, “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be antiracist.” If not now, when? If not us, who?

This week, we also saw the number of Americans who have died from Covid-19 cross the 100,000 mark. As we pause to mourn these lives lost, our team will continue to report on the disproportionate impact this global health crisis has had on women—and especially women of color. And the ways in which we can hold those responsible for a botched crisis response accountable.

We featured feminist artist Susan Silton and her new project MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY! this week. In it, she offers something productive to do with the collective grief we are feeling for the many loved ones we’ve lost—an opportunity “to register not just our outraged voices, but the voices of those who are no longer able to speak.”

I will leave you with a quote I am holding in my heart and mind, from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Let us not be silent.

BY ROXY SZAL | The U.S. passed 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus this week. They were our neighbors, friends, family, loved ones and so much more. They are more than just a number. With her project MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!, artist Susan Silton is offering up something productive to do with our collective grief—"to register not just our outraged voices, but the voices of those who are no longer able to speak."

BY JANELL HOBSON | "Right now, we are facing a re-organization of power, in which those in power have a clear and coordinated agenda to continue to disenfranchise and marginalize and otherwise disempower the various communities that are the engines for this country."

BY ABBY J. LEIBMAN & LIZA LIEBERMAN | Nearly three months into this unprecedented crisis, we still face more questions than answers. Why are policymakers hesitating to use every tool at their disposal to ensure that all Americans can feed themselves and their families?

BY CARRIE N. BAKER | Norma McCorvey (AKA Jane Roe in the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade) was paid for her anti-abortion activism. Her story is just one more example of the long-standing pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy in the anti-abortion movement.

BY ROXY SZAL | "It’s important that we don’t ease up on the protective measures," Dr. Rekha Murthy, an infection prevention specialist at Cedars Sinai, told Ms. "We are not out of the woods. This is still a crucial time."

BY DIANE EIKENBERRY | The unprecedented threat of COVID-19 has left one particular group of children uniquely vulnerable: migrant and asylum-seeking children, especially those at the U.S. border with Mexico.

BY CYNTHIA RICHIE TERRELL | Our friend, Cynthia Terrell, founder and executive director of RepresentWomen, is back with another installment of her weekly column, rounding up some of her favorite stories about women’s representation in the news this week.

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