I, Racist | Those People
This is why I don’t like the story of the good samaritan. Everyone likes to think of themselves as the person who sees someone beaten and bloodied and helps him out. That’s too easy.
If I could re-write that story, I’d rewrite it from the perspective of Black America. What if the person wasn’t beaten and bloody? What if it wasn’t so obvious? What if they were just systematically challenged in a thousand small ways that actually made it easier for you to succeed in life?
I’m always wary of posting anything that could be deemed “too political” or “too controversial” here, not because I oppose talking about politics or controversial issues but just because this isn’t really that kind of blog. But I read this article several weeks ago and have thought about it many times since. It is very much worth a read.
Entrepreneurs don’t have a special gene for risk — they come from families with money | Quartz
But what often gets lost in these conversations is that the most common shared trait among entrepreneurs is access to financial capital—family money, an inheritance, or a pedigree and connections that allow for access to financial stability. While it seems that entrepreneurs tend to have an admirable penchant for risk, it’s usually that access to money which allows them to take risks.
This is totally in the same vein as the article I posted last week about how coming from a more economically secure family may allow people the freedom to pursue less “useful” college majors. Our society tends to paint entrepreneurs as bold risk-takers who scrimp and scrounge and live with nothing before making it big, and while there is certainly truth to that, it does us all a disservice to forget that there may be other factors as well.
Why You Shouldn’t Be Buying Your Sunscreen in America | Racked
The Food and Drug Administration regulates sunscreens as over-the-counter drugs, making the process for ingredient approval cumbersome. Eight new OTC sunscreen ingredients have been pending in the FDA’s queue for more than a decade, while countries in Europe and Asia have been enjoying the same ingredients for years and are constantly introducing innovative new options.
Chalk this up as something I never thought about — how something seemingly innocuous like sunscreen can vary greatly depending on location and government. This article made me want to try a couple of the brands that aren’t available in the US to see whether I really notice a difference. (The biggest factor that often leads me to falsely convince myself that I don’t need sunscreen is that it feels so icky and greasy. If I could somehow have sunscreen permanently infused into my skin, or take a sunscreen pill, I totally would. Someone get on that idea.)
100 Years That Changed a City | Houstonia
I really enjoyed this photo essay about Houston’s history.
