“Investing a single dollar in Confederate monuments is essentially investing dollars in racism."

View this email in your browser ([link removed])
[link removed]
Projections by Dustin Klein and Alex Criqui alter a statue of Confederate commander Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va,. on a night in July 2020. Photo by Brian Palmer for Reveal


** Challenging history
------------------------------------------------------------

When reporters Brian Palmer and Seth Freed Wessler toured the historic Mississippi home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, they heard a lot of disturbing takes on history:

Slavery was good and bad.

He was a benevolent slave holder.

He took care of his slaves and treated them like family. He loved them.

These came straight from a tour guide and the executive director of the site, which received $21 million in public dollars between 2007 and 2016.

On this week’s episode ([link removed]) , we partnered with Type Investigations to uncover the continued costs of the Confederacy. In the last decade alone, Palmer and Freed Wessler found that American taxpayers have spent at least $40 million on Confederate monuments and groups that perpetuate racist ideology.

“Investing a single dollar in Confederate monuments is essentially investing dollars in racism and slavery and White supremacy,” scholar and author Ibram X. Kendi says in the episode.

Since the murder of George Floyd last year, roughly 160 Confederate monuments and symbols have come down. Palmer and Freed Wessler explore how sites and statues honoring the Confederacy were created to influence Americans’ understanding of our country.

“These places are set up to feed on people’s ignorance and make them feel comfortable about America’s violent and racist past, comfortable with a false history of America, one that honors the Confederacy and everything it stood for,” says Palmer, who has spent years photographing ([link removed]) Confederate monuments around the country.

Listen to the podcast: Monumental lies ([link removed])

(This show is an update from a 2020 episode that was based on reporting originally broadcast Dec. 8, 2018 ([link removed]) .)


**
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------

The truth won’t reveal itself. Help us deliver the stories that make a difference. Donate today ([link removed]) .
Donate ([link removed])


** Debunking vaccine conspiracies … one family group chat at a time
------------------------------------------------------------
[link removed]
Illustration by Tyler Comrie/The Verge

In order to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, President Joe Biden set the goal of getting 70% of American adults vaccinated before the Fourth of July. That date is now less than two weeks away, and the vaccination rate is inching upward – 62% of people over age 12 in the United States have gotten at least one dose. One of the big factors that’s holding people back: misinformation. A May poll ([link removed]) showed that half of people who said they would not get the vaccine believed the conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 vaccines contain a tiny microchip.

Reporter Ike Sriskandarajah ran into this myth in his own family. He spent months digging into the origins of the vaccine microchip conspiracy theory ([link removed]) , tracking its convoluted path from a Reddit forum with Bill Gates to a poorly titled article on a Swedish biohacking website to the rest of the world.

Last week, Ike saw a surprising message in his family’s group chat: An uncle in Sri Lanka shared a conspiracy theory meme ([link removed]) about Gates building an army of “vaccinated robots.” Luckily, Ike’s mom jumped in on the thread and shared his reporting tracing the origin of this myth. His uncle’s reply? “Thanks for keeping us informed.”

We’ll count that as a win.
Read Ike’s reporting and share it with your family, too: Where did the microchip vaccine conspiracy theory come from anyway? ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------


** Reveal Recommends
------------------------------------------------------------

Claire Mullen is a sound designer who makes the sound shine on Reveal episodes.

Reading: “Las Malas ([link removed]) ” by Camila Sosa Villada. This semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of a young transgender woman in Córdoba, Argentina, who finds love, camaraderie and her first sense of belonging in the mystical pink, plant-filled house of the matriarch of trans sex workers, La Tía Encarna. It’s a heartbreaking, beautiful, funny and ultimately inspiring book about being human in an often cruel world.

Listening: By the team that makes Radio Ambulante ([link removed]) , the Spanish-language podcast El Hilo ([link removed]) takes deep dives into what makes headlines throughout Latin America. It's the same great narrative storytelling as Radio Ambulante, but with a specific focus on contemporary news stories.

Watching: Everything on Another Gaze ([link removed]) 's free streaming service Another Screen ([link removed]) . Another Gaze is a feminist film journal, and it began a free online streaming platform shortly after the pandemic began. It curates series of films that are available for a limited time, like the works of Italian documentary filmmaker Cecilia Mangini, the documentaries of Marguerite Duras and films from over 20 Palestinian female filmmakers. I love being able to watch films that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to find.

Follow Claire’s work on Twitter at @_clairemullen ([link removed]) .
------------------------------------------------------------

This newsletter is written by Sarah Mirk. Have any feedback or ideas? Send them my way. (mailto:[email protected]?subject=weekly%20reveal%20feedback)

============================================================
** Twitter ([link removed])
** Facebook ([link removed])
** Website ([link removed])
Copyright © 2021 The Center for Investigative Reporting, All rights reserved.
You're on this list because you signed up for The Weekly Reveal newsletter.

Our mailing address is:
The Center for Investigative Reporting
1400 65th St., Suite 200
Emeryville, CA 94608
USA
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
.