Dec. 22, 2016, 2:18 a.m.
Good morning, RVA: Discrimination, bonuses, and storytellers
Good Morning, RVA
Photo by: mandolux
Good morning, RVA! It’s 42 °F, and the warmening continues! Highs today will almost reach 60 °F—on the second day of winter, even. It’s certainly not an all-time high, but it’s warm enough to make you go 🤔.
Water cooler
Yesterday, North Carolina republican lawmakers failed to repeal their discriminatory bathroom law while also forcing the city of Charlotte to weaken its anti-discrimination laws. Some background. Earlier this week, the city of Charlotte and the state struck a deal: The city would repeal Ordinance 7056 (which set off this whole thing and led to the state passing HB2), and then the state would repeal HB2. So Charlotte repealed the parts of 7056 dealing with bathrooms but not the parts “that prohibited the city from hiring contractors who discriminated against their subcontractors based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” This enraged state-level republicans who threatened to walk away from the whole deal. But even when Charlotte repealed the entire law—and let’s be clear: this now allows the city to hire contractors who discrimate against LGBTQ folks—the state failed to repeal HB2. You can read through the whole garbagey sequence in this piece at the Charlotte Observer. What a disgusting turn of events, and, I hope, an important lesson: Cities are the last line of defense and should absolutely not bargain away protections for those among us who need it! As John Sarvay said on Twitter, “it will be up to local government to maintain the integrity of our national compact.” And its up to local activists and organizers, too. What happened in North Carolina yesterday shows that these things can move incredibly fast and citizens need to be ready and organized now.
Remember when Mayor Jones gave every city employee a $250-$500 bonus (not including Richmond Public Schools employees, naturally)? The Jones administration said they found the cash in updated budget projections and that they had the authority to spend $1.4 million without involving Council. Not so fast says the City Attorney! The quote from Jon Baliles and the city attorney’s suggested means of fixing this “problem” perfectly illustrate the absolutely poisonous relationship between the mayor’s administration and the rest of the pieces of the government.
The new NPR underwriting credit voice you will now hear comes from VCU professor Choike I’Anson. His name may be familiar to you as he’s related to two awesome podcast projects: Do Over and UnMonumental. Also on the Richmond-storytellers-catching-NPR-breaks tip, local storytelling project Confessional just got invited to the second NPR Story Lab workshop!
I’m a sucker for Photos of the Year posts. Here’s one from Style Weekly.
Good folks! I’m taking tomorrow and Monday off, so you will have to do your best to survive without me for a couple of days. I know you can do it, I believe in you. If I don’t see you in person: Have a wonderful weekend, and I hope you get some time to sit in silence doing absolutely nothing. Happy holidays!
Sports!
- Rams face Louisiana Monroe tonight at 7:00 PM. You can catch the game on CBS 6.3.
- Hoos held on to beat Cal in an exciting 56–52 win.
This morning’s longread
Low Stakes Forever
In 2010, Justin Trudeau appeared on a TV series on called Great Canadian Books in which notable Canadians talk about their favourite works (this is an actual program on Book Television, an actual channel). Guests generally choose classics from the CanLit canon by authors such as Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Laurence, or W.O. Mitchell. The future prime minister picked This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall.