When I was a teenager and met the first US citizens talking about Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I was confused. I knew nothing about this guy. My step mother is from Angola, grew up in Portugal, and we never spoke about the fight for civil rights.
I knew there were racists out there, but back in Switzerland I only saw the kind of punching down that is unfortunately very common: the children of Italian gastarbeiters, asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, refugees from the civil war in Yugoslavia -- it was always against the newest arrivals, the lowest station on the social ladder.
I guess that's why it took me so long to finally read the *Letter from Birmingham Jail*.
Don't just read the summary on Wikipedia. Read the actual letter.
On fedi, @llimllib@hachyderm.io said that they read it every year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. What a great idea.
And in other news, @adapalmer@wandering.shop writes about the surprising recovery of sea turtles:
How's this for some good news? Recent studies show that sea turtle populations are booming worldwide. Loggerhead nests off the northwest African coast have jumped to 35,000 in 2020 from 500 in 2008. Kemp’s ridley nests have grown to 17,000 in 2022 from 702 in 1985, and a 2023 survey discovered 150,000 green turtle nests in New Caledonia. The surprising reason: reduced consumption by humans. -- Ada Palmer, summarizing a Sea Turtles Aren’t Vanishing. In Fact They’re Thriving, by David Fickling, for Bloomberg
Sea Turtles Aren’t Vanishing. In Fact They’re Thriving
Maybe I should sign up to this site:
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