🏗 Good morning, RVA: 532↗️ • 30↗️; more monuments coming down; and a peaceful protest

Good morning, RVA! It’s 70 °F, and today will be hot. Expect highs in the mid 90s and Feels Like temperatures even higher. If you’ve got to go outside for some reason, wear a hat and remember to hydrate! Expect similar hot—and mostly rain-free—weather over the holiday weekend.

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 532↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 30↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 51↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 25, Henrico: 12, and Richmond: 14). Since this pandemic began, 235 people have died in the Richmond region. So you can see everything in on place, I put together the graphs of new reported positive cases, new deaths, and new hospitalizations plus their seven-day averages here. New positive cases have stuck right around 500 for the past couple weeks, while deaths have increased, and hospitalizations have bounced around a bit. According to VDH the Commonwealth’s percent posititivity is on the rise since about a week ago, but they just reported a ton of tests (increasing the denominator) a couple days back so that could change. When taken together…I’m not sure what to make of all that. Virginia is certainly not in the same dire straights as our Southern neighbors: Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida all reported more than 1,500 new coronavirus cases yesterday. In fact, Florida became the first state to report over 10,000 new cases in a single day since New York back on April 15th. I don’t know what keeps Virginia from slipping off of its 500-cases-per-day plateau, but, like, keep doing whatever it is we’re doing! If you’re hanging out this weekend, please, please keep your distance and your masks on.

The Mayor’s march down Monument Avenue continues, and yesterday saw the removal of the Maury statue (his globe still remains) and two Confederate memorial cannons from the median of Monument that I’d totally forgot existed. It requires, admittedly, an immense amount of privilege and a massive lack of curiosity to live in a place and just plain forget about its monuments to white supremacy. I had a chance to ride past the now-empty Jackson plinth, and the statue’s absence is striking (see above). The statue took up a building-sized spot in the intersection and now that it’s gone, the space feels open and airy. Getting rid of that plinth—even though it looks pretty rad and definitely serves as an arresting reminder for what we allowed to stand for 100 years—should be at the top of the City’s list. After we work our way through he State’s dumb and required monument process, the Department of Public Works should redesign that intersection to make it way safer for folks trying to walk, roll, or ride on through.

As for protests, VPM’s Coleman Jennings and the Commonwealth Time’s Eduardo Acevedo tagged along with a Marcus-David Peters march and vigil. About 100 people marched from the Jefferson Hotel, where Peters worked part time, to Chamberlayne’s I-95 on-ramp, where Peters was killed by a Richmond police officer. Bike marshals blocked vehicles from getting on the highway, the Virginia State Police showed up, the two groups talked, and then…both eventually dispersed. In fact, police blocked further traffic from heading towards protestors, and protestors packed up and left after a bit. I don’t know what the two groups talked about or agreed upon, but I hope that last night marks a permanent shift in the way the Virginia State Police choose to respond to our ongoing protests against police violence. It was a small moment, but it feels like progress.

Related, or conversely, Whittney Evans, also at VPM, dives into some of the history of complaints, lawsuits, and possible legal chicanery at the Richmond Police Department. That’s a lot of not great stuff in the not-so-distant past of the department, and we’ll have to wait and see how the new chief takes the increased scrutiny and demands to, quite literally, strip his budget.

The Virginia Employment Commission’s new unemployment insurance claims numbers are out, and, for the week ending June 27th, 398,669 people filed for unemployment insurance. This is down just 2,203 from the previous week, and, I think, this is the first time in a few months that the number of initial claims has gone up (31,955 compared to 25,293). I have no idea if this is a season trend, a blip in the data, or what. Also, check out this PDF of demographic data for unemployment insurance claims. Since April, Black folks have made up a increasingly larger and large percentage of claims.

It’s been a while, but you should check out RPS Superintendent Kamras’s newsletter from yesterday, because he’s got pictures from inside the new River City Middle School that’s being built on the Southside. This is your meals tax dollars at work! Celebrate it!

This seems significant: FedEx has asked Washington’s football team to change their name and Nike has apparently pulled their merchandise from its online store?

This morning’s longread

Schools: What’s it Going to Take?

As we plunge into Phase Three and inch toward this fall’s school year, I’m starting to read up on what smart people think about kids and coronavirus. Emily Oster, who just wrote this piece in the Atlantic that I haven’t read yet, has a good newsletter that’s definitely worth a subscription.

With all this as background, I have been thinking a lot about the practical. I’ve been doing this with my parenting person hat on, but also as part of my real job. Universities need to reopen, too, and I sit on one of the committees thinking about this at Brown. So I’m steeped in it, at least enough to organize some of my thoughts. Let’s start by assuming we all have two main goals. Goal #1: protecting safety of kids and staff (teachers, sure, but also cafeteria workers, janitorial staff, coaches and everyone else) and the broader public. Goal #2: if at all possible having kids in classrooms in some way more or less full time. The question then, is: What’s it going to take to do that? I have some thoughts, starting with the big picture and moving to the details.

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This morning’s Instagram