Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Andrea Hagan, Instructor of Criminology & Justice, Loyola University New Orleans, Loyola University New Orleans

Historically Black colleges and universities, often known as HBCUs, are well known for their deep roots in U.S. higher education and proven effectiveness at graduating Black students who go on to become professionally successful.

HBCUs are colleges and universities that were established before 1964, with the mission of educating Black Americans, though now anyone can attend.

As a criminology instructor who has spent 13 years studying the relationship between educational trajectories and criminal justice – and a Black woman who grew up in the South and attended an HBCU – I believe that HBCUs offer another often overlooked benefit.

They give young people, especially Black people, a pathway in higher education that they might not otherwise receive. By opening doors to education, jobs and mentorship, HBCUs disrupt the conditions that can cause young people – especially Black people – to get lost in the criminal justice system.

The U.S. incarcerates approximately 1.6 million people. Black Americans are locked up at five times the rate of white Americans. This disparity starts young: Black teenagers are 5.6 times more likely to be placed in juvenile detention than white teenagers, and people who are incarcerated as juveniles are nearly four times more likely to be incarcerated as adults. Overall, the vast majority of Black people are not incarcerated.

Attending a HBCU, or any other university, does not guarantee a stable financial future. And not graduating from high school or college certainly does not not mean that someone will become incarcerated.

But research shows that education, especially a college degree, is closely linked to lower crime rates. College graduates who do commit crimes reoffend at rates below 6%, while people who drop out of high school return to prison at rates around 75%.

This is why I believe HBCUs in particular have an important role to play in helping young Black people avoid this path.

Understanding HBCUs

Today, there are roughly 100 HBCUs in 19 states, as well as the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The schools are a mix of public schools and private, nonprofit colleges and universities.

HBCUs make up just 3% of the country’s colleges and universities. But their graduates include 40% of Black engineers, 50% of Black lawyers and 70% of Black doctors in the United States.

Most HBCUs are located in Southern and mid-Atlantic states – a legacy of when segregation barred Black students from attending most colleges and universities.

Many HBCUs are also located in rural Southern communities, in particular. Residents of these areas tend to live in poverty and have limited educational opportunities.

Attending a local HBCU is often one of the most practical ways these prospective students can get a degree – in part because HBCUs are often more affordable than other four-year college options.

The average annual tuition for an in-state student at a public HBCU is roughly US$7,700 per year – well below the national average, which ranges from $12,000 at public schools to $45,000 at private schools. Some public HBCUs charge as little as $1,000 in annual tuition for in-state students.

Schools like Coppin State University in Baltimore and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore also offer in-state rates to out-of-state students from places that do not have HBCUs nearby.

Despite their focus on Black students, HBCUs are increasingly diverse.

In 2022, non-Black students made up 24% of the student population at HBCUs. By comparison, 15% of non-Black students made up HBCU populations in 1976.

HBCUs also enroll low-income students, regardless of race, at three times the rate that predominantly white colleges do.

Upward mobility

Research shows completing high school reduces arrest rates by 11% to 12% for both property and violent crimes, regardless of race or economic background.

College takes this effect further.

Studies have found that college enrollment helps young people with histories of delinquency to stop committing crimes. Completing a four-year degree reduces the likelihood of criminal behavior by 43% to 48%, compared to those who started college but did not finish.

A few long-recognized reasons help explain this pattern. Education increases earning potential, making crime a riskier and less attractive option for people with a degree. Education also encourages long-term thinking, strengthens ties to employers and communities, and builds problem-solving skills that help people navigate challenges.

I have seen firsthand, through my own experiences growing up in the South and teaching students, how HBCUs can help move Black students out of poverty. These schools stand out among other colleges in terms of how effectively they graduate low-income Black students and move them into the middle class, outcomes that research links to reduced criminal behavior.

When researchers rank colleges by whether and how their students improve their socioeconomic status, income and wealth over time, more than half of the highest-performing schools are HBCUs.

Black students who attend HBCUs are 30% more likely to earn a degree than Black students who attend colleges that are not HBCUs. Black HBCU graduates are also likely to earn more money than Black non-HBCU college graduates.

This matters because poverty is one of the strongest predictors of whether someone will commit a crime.

When colleges and universities graduate students who earn middle-class incomes, they help break what researchers call the cycle of intergenerational poverty and incarceration. This pattern describes how children of incarcerated parents are six times more likely to end up in the justice system.

An ongoing money problem

Despite their benefits, HBCUs have chronically struggled with funding. In recent decades, state governments have not given Black land-grant universities – meaning public colleges originally created through federal legislation to serve Black students during segregation – at least $12.8 billion the federal government said they were owed.

Recent federal support for HBCUs has been mixed, as the Trump administration has made widespread cuts to many universities and colleges.

In April 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order renewing the White House Initiative on HBCUs, a federal effort to help support these schools. At the time, he said that Black colleges had no reason to fear cuts.

But days later, Trump’s proposed 2026 budget included $64 million in cuts to Howard University, one of the oldest HBCUs.

In September 2025, the Trump administration redirected $435 million to HBCUs by cutting funds from grant programs that had supported Hispanic-serving institutions and other colleges that have a large proportion of Hispanic or other minority students.

The context that matters

The U.S. criminal justice system disproportionately affects Black people at every stage – from arrests to incarceration. Black Americans make up about 13% of the U.S. population but account for roughly 37% of all people in U.S. jails and prisons.

According to the National Academies of Sciences, the lifetime risk of imprisonment for Black men born between 1975 and 1979, and with less than a high school education, was about 68% – meaning nearly 7 in 10 in that group experienced incarceration at least once.

I have seen firsthand that when Black students from low-income backgrounds enroll at HBCUs, they become more likely to complete a degree and achieve the kind of financial stability that research shows helps reduce the risk of becoming caught up in the criminal justice system.

Andrea Hagan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Historically Black colleges and universities do more than offer Black youths a pathway to opportunity and success – I teach criminology, and my research suggests another benefit – https://theconversation.com/historically-black-colleges-and-universities-do-more-than-offer-black-youths-a-pathway-to-opportunity-and-success-i-teach-criminology-and-my-research-suggests-another-benefit-272976

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ted Olson, Professor of Appalachian Studies and Bluegrass, Old-Time and Roots Music Studies, East Tennessee State University

The presence of Department of Homeland Security agents in Minnesota compelled many people there to use songs as a means of protest. Those songs were from secular as well as religious traditions.

On Jan. 8, 2026, the day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross killed Minneapolis resident Renée Good on Portland Avenue, an anonymous post appeared on Reddit that featured an uncredited text clearly adapted from the lyrics of a Depression-era protest song from Appalachia, “Which Side Are You On?” The Reddit text criticized the recent federal presence in Minnesota and implored Minnesotans to take a stand.

In our town of Minneapolis,
There’s no neutrals here at home.
You’re either marching in the streets
or you kill for Kristi Noem
Which side are you on,
Oh which side are you on?
Which side are you on,
Oh which side are you on?
ICE is a bunch of killers
who hide behind a mask.
How do they get away with this?
That’s what you have to ask.
Which side are you on …

For centuries, songs have served as vehicles for expressing community responses to sociopolitical crises, whether government repression or corporate exploitation. “Which Side Are You On?” resonated with Minnesotans, in part because it has been recorded by numerous artists over the decades.

The song dates back to another societal struggle that occurred in another part of the United States during another crisis moment in American history. “Which Side Are You On?” has consoled and empowered countless people for generations during struggles in red as well as blue states. It has also inspired people to write new protest songs in the face of new crises.

Birth of a protest anthem

“Which Side Are You On?” was composed in 1931, a woman’s spontaneous response to a coal company’s effort to prevent miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, from joining the United Mine Workers of America. Those miners hoped the labor union would improve their working conditions and overturn imposed reductions to their wages.

In support of the coal company, sheriff J. H. Blair and armed deputies broke into the house of union organizer Sam Reece to apprehend him and locate evidence of union activity. Reece was in hiding elsewhere, but his wife, Florence, and their children were present. After ransacking the house, the sheriff and deputies left.

Florence tore a page out of a calendar and jotted down lyrics for an impromptu song, which she recalled setting to the melody of a Baptist hymn “I’m gonna land on the shore.” Others have observed that the melody in Florence’s song was similar to that of the traditional British ballad “Jack Monroe,” which features the haunting refrain “Lay the Lily Low.”

“Which Side Are You On?” channeled Florence’s reaction to that traumatic experience. Throughout the 1930s, she and others sang the song during labor strikes in the Appalachian coalfields, and the lyrics were included in union songbooks. Then, in 1941, the Almanac Singers, a folk supergroup featuring Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, recorded the song, and it reached many people beyond Appalachia.

Since then, a range of musicians – including Charlie Byrd; Peter, Paul and Mary; the Dropkick Murphys; Natalie Merchant; Ani DiFranco; and the Kronos Quartet – performed “Which Side Are You On?” in concert settings and for recordings. A solo live performance with a concert audience joining the chorus was a focal point of Seeger’s “Greatest Hits” album in 1967.

The Academy Award-winning documentary film “Harlan County U.S.A.” (1976) included a clip of Florence Reece singing her song during a 1973 strike. “Which Side Are You On?” was translated into other languages – a testament to its universal theme of encouraging solidarity to people confronting authoritarian power.

Protest songs of the modern era

While the American protest song tradition can be traced back to the origins of the nation, “Which Side Are You On?” served as a prototype for the modern-era protest song because of its lyrical directness. Many memorable, risk-taking protest songs were composed in the wake of, and in the spirit of, “Which Side Are You On?”

Noteworthy are numerous protest classics in the folk vein, epitomized by a sizable part of Guthrie’s repertoire, by early Bob Dylan songs like “Masters of War” (1963), “The Times They Are a-Changin’” (1964) and “Only A Pawn in Their Game” (1964), and by Phil Ochs’ mid-1960s songs of political critique, such as “Here’s to the State of Mississippi” (1965).

But protest songs have hailed from all music genres. Rock and rhythm and blues, for instance, have spawned many iconic recordings of protest music: Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” (1964), Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” (1966), Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” (1969), Edwin Starr’s “War” (1970) and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Ohio” (1970) among many others.

Blues, country, reggae and hip-hop have spawned broadly inspirational protest songs, and jazz too has yielded classic protest recordings, such as Abel Meeropol’s “Strange Fruit” (1939), popularized by Billie Holiday, and Gil Scott-Heron’s 1971 recording of the jazz-poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”

Indeed, there are so many enduring contributions to the American protest song canon that a list like Rolling Stone’s recent “100 Best Protest Songs of All Time” is only the tip of the iceberg. Regardless of the genre, effective protest songs retain their power to move and motivate people today despite having been composed in response to past situations or circumstances. And protest songs from the past are often adapted to help people more effectively respond to the crisis of the moment.

Songs for this moment

“Which Side Are You On?” was sung – and its theme invoked – in Minnesota throughout January 2026. On Jan. 24, shortly after Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti on Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey referred to the song’s title during a public address to his constituents: “Stand up for America. Recognize that your children will ask you what side you were on.” That same day, the grassroots organization 50501: Minnesota posted online an appeal to those in power: “[E]very politician and person in uniform must ask themselves one question – which side are you on?”

The next day, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz acknowledged divisions in the U.S. during a televised briefing, urging citizens in his state and across the nation to consider the choice before them: “I’ve got a question for all of you. What side do you want to be on?”

People protesting ICE and Customs and Border Protection actions in Minnesota and elsewhere have been singing “Which Side Are You On?” and other well-known protest songs, but musicians have also been writing new protest songs about the crisis. On Jan. 8, the Dropkick Murphys posted on social media a clip of “Citizen I.C.E.,” a revamped version of the group’s 2005 song “Citizen C.I.A.,” augmented by video of the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of Renée Good. On Jan. 27, British musician Billy Bragg released “City of Heroes,” which he composed in tribute to the Minneapolis protesters.

Following suit was Bruce Springsteen, a longtime champion of the protest song legacy. On Jan. 28, Springsteen released online his newly composed and recorded “Streets of Minneapolis.” Millions of people around the world heard the song and saw its accompanying video.

On Jan. 30, Springsteen made a surprise appearance at the Minneapolis club First Avenue, performing his new song at the “Defend Minnesota” benefit concert, organized by musician Tom Morello to raise funds for the families of Good and Pretti.

Making a difference

On the day Pretti was shot dead, hundreds of Minneapolis protesters attended a special service at Minneapolis’ Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church. Pastor Elizabeth MacAuley, in a televised interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, reflected on the role of song in helping people cope: “It’s been a time when it is pretty tempting to feel so disempowered. … [T]he singing resistance movement … brought out the hope and the grief and the rage and the beauty.”

Cooper asked: “Do you think song makes a difference?” MacAuley replied: “I know song makes a difference.”

Ted Olson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Which Side Are You On?’: American protest songs have emboldened social movements for generations, from coal country to Minneapolis – https://theconversation.com/which-side-are-you-on-american-protest-songs-have-emboldened-social-movements-for-generations-from-coal-country-to-minneapolis-274907

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lauren Hall, Associate professor of Political Science, Rochester Institute of Technology

When it comes to national politics, Americans are fiercely divided across a range of issues, including gun control, election security and vaccines. It’s not new for Republicans and Democrats to be at odds over issues, but things have reached a point where even the idea of compromising appears to be anathema, making it more difficult to solve thorny problems.

But things are much less heated at the local level. A survey of more than 1,400 local officials by the Carnegie Corporation and CivicPulse found that local governments are “largely insulated from the harshest effects of polarization.” Communities with fewer than 50,000 residents proved especially resilient to partisan dysfunction.

Why this difference? As a political scientist, I believe that lessons from the local level not only open a window onto how polarization works but also the dynamics and tools that can help reduce it.

Problems are more concrete

Local governments deal with concrete issues – sometimes literally, when it comes to paving roads and fixing potholes. In general, cities and counties handle day-to-day functions, such as garbage pickup, running schools and enforcing zoning rules. Addressing tangible needs keeps local leaders’ attention fixed on specific problems that call out for specific solutions, not lengthy ideological debates.

By contrast, a lot of national political conflict in the U.S. involves symbolic issues, such as debates about identity and values on topics such as race, abortion and transgender rights. These battles are often divisive, even more so than purely ideological disagreements, because they can activate tribal differences and prove more resistant to compromise.

Such arguments at the national level, or on social media, can lead to wildly inaccurate stereotypes about people with opposing views. Today’s partisans often perceive their opponents as far more extreme than they actually are, or they may stereotype them – imagining that all Republicans are wealthy, evangelical culture warriors, for instance, or conversely being convinced that all Democrats are radical urban activists. In terms of ideology, the median members of both parties, in fact, look similar.

These kinds of misperceptions can fuel hostility.

Local officials, however, live among the human beings they represent, whose complexity defies caricature. Living and interacting in the same communities leads to greater recognition of shared interests and values, according to the Carnegie/CivicPulse survey.

Meaningful interaction with others, including partisans of the opposing party, reduces prejudice about them. Local government provides a natural space where identities overlap.

People are complicated

In national U.S. politics today, large groups of individuals are divided not only by party but a variety of other factors, including race, religion, geography and social networks. When these differences align with ideology, political disagreement can feel like an existential threat.

Such differences are not always as pronounced at the local level. A neighbor who disagrees about property taxes could be the coach of your child’s soccer team. Your fellow school board member might share your concerns about curriculum but vote differently in presidential elections.

These cross-cutting connections remind us that political opponents are not a monolithic enemy but complex individuals. When people discover they have commonalities outside of politics with others holding opposing views, polarization can decrease significantly.

Finally, most local elections are technically nonpartisan. Keeping party labels off ballots allows voters to judge candidates as individuals and not merely as Republicans or Democrats.

National implications

None of this means local politics are utopian.

Like water, polarization tends to run downhill, from the national level to local contests, particularly in major cities where candidates for mayor and other office are more likely to run as partisans. Local governments also see culture war debates, notably in the area of public school instruction.

Nevertheless, the relative partisan calm of local governance suggests that polarization is not inevitable. It emerges from specific conditions that can be altered.

Polarization might be reduced by creating more opportunities for cross-partisan collaboration around concrete problems. Philanthropists and even states might invest in local journalism that covers pragmatic governance rather than partisan conflict. More cities and counties could adopt changes in election law that would de-emphasize party labels where they add little information for voters.

Aside from structural changes, individual Americans can strive to recognize that their neighbors are not the cardboard cutouts they might imagine when thinking about “the other side.” Instead, Americans can recognize that even political opponents are navigating similar landscapes of community, personal challenges and time constraints, with often similar desires to see their roads paved and their children well educated.

The conditions shaping our interactions matter enormously. If conditions change, perhaps less partisan rancor will be the result.

Lauren Hall is a Distinguished Fellow for the Study of Liberalism and a Free Society with the Institute for Humane Studies. She was previously a Pluralism Fellow with the Mercatus Center.

– ref. Local governments provide proof that polarization is not inevitable – https://theconversation.com/local-governments-provide-proof-that-polarization-is-not-inevitable-273986

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Christopher Magra, Professor of American History, University of Tennessee

This Presidents Day, I’ve been thinking about George Washington − not at his finest hour, but possibly at his worst.

In 1754, a 22-year-old Washington marched into the wilderness surrounding Pittsburgh with more ambition than sense. He volunteered to travel to the Ohio Valley on a mission to deliver a letter from Robert Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, to the commander of French troops in the Ohio territory. This military mission sparked an international war, cost him his first command and taught him lessons that would shape the American Revolution.

As a professor of early American history who has written two books on the American Revolution, I’ve learned that Washington’s time spent in the Fort Duquesne area taught him valuable lessons about frontier warfare, international diplomacy and personal resilience.

The mission to expel the French

In 1753, Dinwiddie decided to expel French fur trappers and military forces from the strategic confluence of three mighty waterways that crisscrossed the interior of the continent: the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers. This confluence is where downtown Pittsburgh now stands, but at the time it was wilderness.

King George II authorized Dinwiddie to use force, if necessary, to secure lands that Virginia was claiming as its own.

As a major in the Virginia provincial militia, Washington wanted the assignment to deliver Dinwiddie’s demand that the French retreat. He believe the assignment would secure him a British army commission.

Washington received his marching orders on Oct. 31, 1753. He traveled to Fort Le Boeuf in northwestern Pennsylvania and returned a month later with a polite but firm “no” from the French.

Dinwiddie promoted Washington from major to lieutenant colonel and ordered him to return to the Ohio River Valley in April 1754 with 160 men. Washington quickly learned that French forces of about 500 men had already constructed the formidable Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio. It was at this point that he faced his first major test as a military leader. Instead of falling back to gather more substantial reinforcements, he pushed forward. This decision reflected an aggressive, perhaps naive, brand of leadership characterized by a desire for action over caution.

Washington’s initial confidence was high. He famously wrote to his brother that there was “something charming” in the sound of whistling bullets.

The Jumonville affair and an international crisis

Perhaps the most controversial moment of Washington’s early leadership occurred on May 28, 1754, about 40 miles south of Fort Duquesne. Guided by the Seneca leader Tanacharison – known as the “Half King” – and 12 Seneca warriors, Washington and his detachment of 40 militiamen ambushed a party of 35 French Canadian militiamen led by Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville. The Jumonville affair lasted only 15 minutes, but its repercussions were global.

Ten of the French, including Jumonville, were killed. Washington’s inability to control his Native American allies – the Seneca warriors executed Jumonville – exposed a critical gap in his early leadership. He lacked the ability to manage the volatile intercultural alliances necessary for frontier warfare.

Washington also allowed one enemy soldier to escape to warn Fort Duquesne. This skirmish effectively ignited the French and Indian War, and Washington found himself at the center of a burgeoning international crisis.

Defeat at Fort Necessity

Washington then made the fateful decision to dig in and call for reinforcements instead of retreating in the face of inevitable French retaliation. Reinforcements arrived: 200 Virginia militiamen and 100 British regulars. They brought news from Dinwiddie: congratulations on Washington’s victory and his promotion to colonel.

His inexperience showed in his design of Fort Necessity. He positioned the small, circular palisade in a meadow depression, where surrounding wooded high ground allowed enemy marksmen to fire down with impunity. Worse still, Tanacharison, disillusioned with Washington’s leadership and the British failure to follow through with promised support, had already departed with his warriors weeks earlier. When the French and their Native American allies finally attacked on July 3, heavy rains flooded the shallow trenches, soaking gunpowder and leaving Washington’s men vulnerable inside their poorly designed fortification.

The battle of Fort Necessity was a grueling, daylong engagement in the mud and rain. Approximately 700 French and Native American allies surrounded the combined force of 460 Virginian militiamen and British regulars. Despite being outnumbered and outmaneuvered, Washington maintained order among his demoralized troops. When French commander Louis Coulon de Villiers – Jumonville’s brother – offered a truce, Washington faced the most humbling moment of his young life: the necessity of surrender. His decision to capitulate was a pragmatic act of leadership that prioritized the survival of his men over personal honor.

The surrender also included a stinging lesson in the nuances of diplomacy. Because Washington could not read French, he signed a document that used the word “l’assassinat,” which translates to “assassination,” to describe Jumonville’s death. This inadvertent admission that he had ordered the assassination of a French diplomat became propaganda for the French, teaching Washington the vital importance of optics in international relations.

Lessons that forged a leader

The 1754 campaign ended in a full retreat to Virginia, and Washington resigned his commission shortly thereafter. Yet, this period was essential in transforming Washington from a man seeking personal glory into one who understood the weight of responsibility.

He learned that leadership required more than courage – it demanded understanding of terrain, cultural awareness of allies and enemies, and political acumen. The strategic importance of the Ohio River Valley, a gateway to the continental interior and vast fur-trading networks, made these lessons all the more significant.

Ultimately, the hard lessons Washington learned at the threshold of Fort Duquesne in 1754 provided the foundational experience for his later role as commander in chief of the Continental Army. The decisions he made in Pennsylvania and the Ohio wilderness, including the impulsive attack, the poor choice of defensive ground and the diplomatic oversight, were the very errors he would spend the rest of his military career correcting.

Though he did not capture Fort Duquesne in 1754, the young George Washington left the woods of Pennsylvania with a far more valuable prize: the tempered, resilient spirit of a leader who had learned from his mistakes.

Christopher Magra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How a 22-year-old George Washington learned how to lead, from a series of mistakes in the Pennsylvania wilderness – https://theconversation.com/how-a-22-year-old-george-washington-learned-how-to-lead-from-a-series-of-mistakes-in-the-pennsylvania-wilderness-274466

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Siti Nuraisyah Suwanda, Doctoral Student and Graduate Researcher in Marketing, West Virginia University

It’s February, and you grab a box of cheap Valentine’s chocolate from the grocery store on your lunch break. Later, you’re eating it at your office desk when you realize someone else is watching. Suddenly, you feel a flicker of embarrassment. You hide the box away, make a joke or quietly wish they hadn’t noticed – not because the chocolate tastes bad, but because you don’t want to be judged for choosing it.

If the scenario above feels familiar, you’re not alone. Many people experience subtle embarrassment or self-consciousness about everyday consumption choices, from eating cheap Valentine’s chocolate to accepting free lunch from a school food program or having visible tattoos.

We are social marketing researchers who study stigma in marketing. In our research, we coined the term “consumption stigma” to describe how people can be judged or looked down on by others, or by themselves, simply for using certain products – even when there’s nothing objectively wrong with them.

Living with consumption stigma

When people feel judged for what they consume, or choose not to consume, the effects can be mentally exhausting. Feeling stigmatized can quietly erode self-esteem, increase anxiety and change how people behave in everyday settings. What starts as a small moment of embarrassment can grow into a persistent concern about being seen the “wrong” way.

In reviewing 50 studies about stigma in marketing, we found that people respond to consumption stigma along a continuum. Some try to avoid stigma altogether by hiding their consumption or staying away from certain products. Others adjust their behavior to reduce the risk of being judged. At the far end of the spectrum, some people actively push back, helping to destigmatize certain forms of consumption for themselves and for others.

The research we reviewed found that to avoid stigma, people may deliberately consume more expensive or socially approved alternatives, even when those choices strain their finances. Imagine someone who switches to a premium chocolate brand at the office, not because she prefers the taste, but because she wants to avoid feeling embarrassed.

Over time, this kind of adjustment could pull people into spending patterns that are beyond their means, feeding a cycle of consumption driven more by social pressure than genuine need or enjoyment. We suggest that the ramifications can be even more stark in other contexts – for example, when a child skips a free school lunch to avoid being teased, or when a veteran turns down mental health support because they fear being judged by others.

From a business perspective, when consumers avoid or abandon products to escape stigma, companies may see declining demand that has little to do with quality or value. We suggest that if consumption stigma spreads at scale, the cumulative effect can translate into lost revenue and weakened brand value.

Understanding consumption stigma, then, isn’t just about consumer well-being; it’s also critical for businesses trying to understand why people buy, hide or walk away from certain products.

Take back the narrative

Stigma often feels powerful because it masquerades as reality. But at its core, consumption stigma is a social judgment, a shared story people tell about what certain choices supposedly say about someone. When that story goes unchallenged, stigma sticks. When it’s questioned, its power starts to fade.

One way people reduce stigma is by reclaiming the narrative around their consumption. Instead of hiding, explaining or compensating, they openly own their choices. This shift from avoidance to acceptance can strip stigma of its force.

Imagine a shopper who embraces buying cheaper store brands at the grocery store, seeing it not as a compromise but as a sign of being savvy to pay less for the same thing. When people wear their choices like armor, whether it’s cheap chocolate, secondhand clothing or specialized physical or mental health services, those choices lose their sting. When a behavior is no longer treated as something shameful, it becomes harder for others to use it as a basis for judging or looking down on people.

Of course, stigma doesn’t disappear overnight. But research shows that when enough people stop treating a behavior as something to hide, the social meaning around it begins to change. What feels embarrassing in one moment can become normalized in the next. For example, research on fashion consumption has shown how wearing a veil, once widely stigmatized in urban and secular settings, gradually became seen as ordinary and even fashionable as more women openly adopted it.

Enjoying cheap chocolate shouldn’t require justification. Cold water tastes just as good out of an unbranded travel mug as it does from a Stanley tumbler. A generic sweatshirt keeps you just as cozy as Aritzia. And yet, many people feel the need to explain, deflect or upgrade their choices to avoid being judged. Understanding consumption stigma helps explain why and underscores that these feelings aren’t personal failures, but social constructions.

Sometimes, the most effective response isn’t to consume differently, but to think differently. When people stop treating everyday choices as moral signals, they make room for a more humane – and hopefully honest – marketplace.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why eating cheap chocolate can feel embarrassing – even though no one else cares – https://theconversation.com/why-eating-cheap-chocolate-can-feel-embarrassing-even-though-no-one-else-cares-273644

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Laura E. Alexander, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Nebraska Omaha

As Christian clergy across the United States participate in ongoing protests against harsh immigration enforcement actions and further funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, many are still pondering the words of Rob Hirschfeld. On Jan. 18, 2026, Hirschfeld, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, encouraged clergy in his diocese to “prepare for a new era of martyrdom” and put their wills and affairs in order.

He asserted that “it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”

Hirschfeld’s words attracted a lot of attention, with clergy generally responding positively, though at least one priest argued that he “did not sign up to be a martyr” and had a family and church relying on him.

Other clergy have willingly faced arrest for their advocacy on behalf of immigrants, seeing it as a moral calling. Rev. Karen Larson was arrested while protesting at the Minneapolis airport. She stated that when people are being separated from their families and taken to unknown detention centers, “this is our call” to protest on their behalf.

As a scholar of religious ethics, I am interested in how Christian clergy and thinkers consider personal risk when they feel called to engage in social action.

Ethics of risk

There are many examples of Christian leaders who have taken on risks out of a religious and moral obligation to provide spiritual care for people in need or advocate for oppressed communities.

Most data on the risks that clergy face in their roles as religious leaders comes from studies of religious leaders in institutional settings, such as hospitals or prisons.

Scholarship on clergy and chaplains in medical settings points to a professional obligation to take on risks. Similar to medical providers who often see risking exposure to infection as part of their professional responsibility, many clergy and chaplains in medical settings understand their vocation to include such a risk.

Questions about professional risks became particularly acute during the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis, when researchers were uncertain exactly how the disease was spread and caregivers feared they might acquire HIV through their bedside work.

In her memoir about chaplaincy with HIV patients, Audrey Elisa Kerr notes that Riverside Church in New York continued to organize funerals, ministries and support groups for HIV/AIDS patients despite “terror” in the wider community about contagion.

As a chaplain herself, Kerr says this story of “radical hospitality” inspired her to set aside her own fears and embrace her professional role caring for people who were ill and dying.

Priests and nuns of the Catholic Church who cared for HIV/AIDS patients in the 1980s risked both the fear of contagion and the disapproval of their bishops and communities, since many of the people they cared for were men who had sex with men.

Some felt, however, that they must care for those at the margins as part of their role in the church or their monastic order. Sister Carol of the Hospital Sisters of Saint Francis felt that it was simply her moral duty as a sister to “go where she was needed,” despite potential risk.

Examination of the ethical obligations of chaplains and clergy ramped up during the COVID-19 pandemic when at least some priest, pastors and hospital chaplains felt an obligation to continue visiting patients for spiritual care.

In a reflection from 2020, Rev. David Hottinger, then working at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, noted that chaplains “felt privileged” to use their professional skills, even though they took on extra risk because they did not always have access to adequate protective equipment.

Risks in other institutional settings are not such a matter of life and death. Because of their professional preaching function, however, clergy in church settings do accept the risk of alienating church members when they feel religiously called to speak about social issues. Rev. Teri McDowell Ott has written about taking risks when discussing LGBTQ+ inclusion and starting a prison ministry.

Risk-taking during social protest

For many clergy, religious and ethical obligations extend beyond their work in institutions like churches and hospitals and include their witness in public life.

Many feel an obligation to preach on issues of moral importance, even topics that are considered controversial and might elicit strong disagreement. It is common for priests and pastors in conservative churches to include messages against legalized abortion in their sermons.

Tom Ascol of the Center for Baptist Leadership urged Baptist pastors to preach about abortion in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.

Rev. Leah Schade, a Lutheran minister and scholar, has argued that since 2017, mainline pastors have preached more often on issues like racism, environmental justice or gun violence. Schade says pastors are inspired to speak more bluntly about social issues because of their religious concern for people who are at risk of harm from injustice or government policies.

Some clergy view their moral obligations as going beyond preaching and leading them to on-the-ground advocacy and protest. Rev. Brandy Daniels of the Disciples of Christ denomination examines these obligations in an article on her participation in a group of interfaith clergy in Portland, Oregon. The group was convened by a local rabbi and supported protesters for racial justice in Portland in 2017. In Daniels’ analysis, clergy took on the risk of staying in the middle of protests and facing a violent police response in order to “bear moral witness,” something they were both empowered and obligated to do as religious leaders.

Risking their lives

There are more extreme cases in which clergy who challenged government leaders or policies were killed for their words and actions of protest.

In a well-known historical example, Bishop Oscar Romero, canonized as a martyred saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 2018, was assassinated in 1980 after speaking out against human rights violations against poor and Indigenous communities committed by the government of El Salvador. Romero viewed himself, in his priestly role, as a representative of God who was obliged to “give voice to the voiceless.”

During recent protests against ICE in Minneapolis and elsewhere, many clergy risked arrest and bodily harm. Rev. Kenny Callaghan, a Metropolitan Community Church pastor, who says that ICE agents in Minneapolis pointed a gun in his face and handcuffed him as he tried to help a woman they were questioning, said, “It’s in my DNA; I have to speak up for marginalized people.”

On Jan. 23, 2026, over 100 clergy were arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport as they protested and prayed against ICE actions. Rev. Mariah Furness Tollgaard said that she and others accepted being arrested as a way of demonstrating public support for migrants who are afraid to leave their homes.

In Chicago, ministers have been hit with projectiles and violently arrested. Presbyterian pastor David Black was shot in the head with a pepper spray projectile while protesting outside an immigration detention center in October 2025.

The clergy have told reporters that they feel a particular call to be out in public and to protect and support their vulnerable neighbors against ICE raids, at a time when families are afraid to go to school or work and U.S. citizens have been swept up in enforcement tactics as well.

As I see it, for these and many Christian clergy and ethicists, the call to ministry includes an obligation to express their values of care for vulnerable neighbors precisely through a public willingness to accept personal risk.

Laura E. Alexander receives funding from the Mellon Foundation for research on immigration and religion and was previously a fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute. She is independently affiliated with the Nebraska Alliance for Thriving Communities.

– ref. Why Christian clergy see risk as part of their moral calling – https://theconversation.com/why-christian-clergy-see-risk-as-part-of-their-moral-calling-274820

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Dan Kennedy, Professor of Journalism, Northeastern University

The Washington Post’s evisceration at the hands of its billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, didn’t have to happen.

Following months of speculation, the Post cut at least 300 of its 800 journalists on Feb. 4, 2026, drastically reducing its international, local and sports coverage and eliminating its photo department and stand-alone book review section. The downsizing followed several decisions by Bezos that drove away hundreds of thousands of subscribers, from killing the Post’s endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris just before the 2024 election to announcing that the editorial pages would henceforth be dedicated to “personal liberties and free markets.”

But though those moves inflicted considerable damage, the paper had been floundering ever since Donald Trump’s first presidential term, when Bezos proudly added the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” to its nameplate and the paper achieved both growth and profitability.

While its principal rival, The New York Times, successfully pivoted by rolling out ancillary products such as games, a cooking app and a consumer guide, the Post lost momentum – and was then pushed off a cliff as Bezos, in my view, started placing a higher value on peace with Trump than on making sure that democracy didn’t die in darkness.

I’m a journalism professor and the author of three books about the future of news. I tracked Bezos’ stewardship of the Post during better times in my 2018 book, “The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century.” And I’ve been watching in horror over the past several years as he’s dismantled much of what he built.

The Times, as the nation’s leading newspaper, is unique, and the extent to which other publishers can learn from its example is limited. But if Bezos ever decides he wants to take journalism seriously again, then he might take a look at a handful of large regional papers that have charted a route to sustainability against the strong headwinds that continue to buffet the news business.

5 good examples

Perhaps the most important difference between these papers and the Post – and the hundreds of other shrinking media outlets owned by corporate chains and hedge funds – is that they are rooted in the communities they cover. Whether owned by wealthy people or run by nonprofits, they place service to their city and region above extracting the last smidgen of revenue they can squeeze out.

Although I could add a few to this list, I am mentioning five large regional newspapers as examples of how it’s possible to succeed despite the long-term decline in the economics of journalism.

These papers have an array of ownership models.

The Boston Globe and The Minnesota Star Tribune, both for-profits, were bought in recent years by the billionaire owners of sports teams.

The Seattle Times, another for-profit, has belonged to the same family since 1896.

The Philadelphia Inquirer was acquired by a billionaire and donated to a nonprofit foundation in 2016, making it a leading example of a hybrid for-profit and nonprofit model.

The Salt Lake Tribune, which a billionaire bought from the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, was converted to a pure nonprofit – the first such paper to undergo such a transition.

Also known as major metropolitan dailies, these papers are all smaller than they were during the heyday of the 1970s and ’80s. Although the for-profit papers are privately owned and do not publish financial results, I’ve learned through years of reporting that the generous profit margins that once characterized newspapers have all but disappeared. Still, these papers have maintained substantial staffs and are their regions’ leading, though not sole, news providers.

Common themes

It’s hard to identify specific reasons why these papers have succeeded, but a few themes emerge.

The Boston Globe and The Minnesota Star Tribune, for instance, have both expanded into other geographic areas. The Globe has moved into Rhode Island and New Hampshire – with more to come in 2026.

Similarly, the Strib, as The Minnesota Star Tribune is known, now covers news across Minnesota, well beyond its base in the Twin Cities.

The Globe has also balanced experimentation with attention to the basics.

Not long after John and Linda Henry bought the Globe in 2013, they started a separate digital publication called Crux, which covered the Catholic Church. It failed to attract advertisers, and the Globe spun it off; Crux continues under different ownership.

Meanwhile, another Globe-owned startup, Stat, which covers health and medicine, grew into a successful venture during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As for the basics, the Globe charges a premium for its journalism – as much as $36 a month for a digital-only subscription. And though paid digital circulation has stalled over the past year at about 260,000, that’s considerably more than most papers in its weight class.

The Star Tribune, owned by sports mogul Glen Taylor, unveiled a new, paywall-free breaking-news blog in the midst of the sometimes deadly immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The paper also offers unlimited gift links, so that paid subscribers can share stories with others, as well as a family subscription plan.
And it has a nonprofit fund to which donors can make tax-deductible contributions to support the paper’s journalism.

By the way, the idea of setting up a separate nonprofit arm was pioneered by The Seattle Times, although it has become increasingly common.

The Seattle Times recently handed off management of the paper to Ryan Blethen, who represents the fifth generation of his family to serve as publisher. In contrast to formerly family-owned papers such as the Courier Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, and The Des Moines Register, whose large families forced their sale two generations ago, The Seattle Times has actually become more independent: In 2024, the Times bought out Chatham Asset Management, a private equity firm that had controlled 49.5% of the paper.

Chatham also owns the McClatchy chain of newspapers, which includes well-known dailies such as the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee.

Nonprofit ownership

In addition to the for-profit model, two other ownership structures have shown promise.

In 2016, H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest donated The Philadelphia Inquirer, which he and a partner had bought just two years earlier, to a nonprofit that was renamed the Lenfest Institute following his death in 2018.

The Inquirer itself is a for-profit public benefit corporation, a designation that eases the standard corporate requirement that it maximize earnings, while the nonprofit helps support journalism at the Inquirer and other news organizations.

The paper has thrived under the new arrangement, with the publisher, Elizabeth Hughes, writing recently that the model could be used to revive the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, on the opposite end of Pennsylvania.

The Post-Gazette’s owners, citing mounting losses, have announced that the paper will shut down in May.

And though The Salt Lake Tribune is the first – and, still, the only – metro daily to embrace a pure nonprofit model, it stands as an intriguing idea that could be emulated elsewhere.

Billionaire owner Paul Huntsman converted the paper to a nonprofit in 2019 after buying it from Alden three years earlier. Executive editor Lauren Gustus said recently that the Tribune is expanding both the size of its news staff and its coverage area, and it’s dropping its paywall in favor of voluntary payments. That’s similar to how nonprofit public radio and television stations support themselves.

A poster boy for decline

The past two decades have not been kind to the newspaper business. More than 3,500 U.S. papers have closed in that period, according to the most recent State of Local News report from Northwestern University’s Medill School. By destroying The Washington Post, the very institution he had previously done so much to build up, Jeff Bezos has transformed himself into the poster boy for that decline.

Yet here and there, in communities across the country, newspapers are reinventing themselves.

There are no easy fixes. But perseverance, innovation and a relentless focus on serving the public are the keys to success, regardless of ownership structure or geography. Bezos could learn from these models.

Dan Kennedy is the co-leader of the What Works: The Future of Local News project at Northeastern University. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of CommonWealth Beacon, a digital news outlet that covers state politics and public policy in Massachusetts. Kennedy is also on the board of the Local Journalism Project, the nonprofit arm of The Provincetown Independent, which is organized as a for-profit public benefit corporation.

– ref. As Jeff Bezos dismantles The Washington Post, 5 regional papers chart a course for survival – https://theconversation.com/as-jeff-bezos-dismantles-the-washington-post-5-regional-papers-chart-a-course-for-survival-275289

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Susan H. Kamei, Adjunct Professor of History and Affiliated Faculty, USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Cultures, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

With a stroke of a presidential pen, the lives of Izumi Taniguchi, Minoru Tajii, Homei Iseyama and Peggy Yorita irreparably changed on Feb. 19, 1942. On that day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which set in motion their wartime incarceration along with other people of Japanese ancestry who were forcibly removed from their homes in parts of California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona.

To cope with their fear, anger and loss in the turbulent times, they would have to dig deep into their emotional reservoirs of resolve and ingenuity.

Without bringing charges against them or providing any evidence of disloyalty, the U.S. government detained legal Japanese immigrants and their American-born descendants in desolate inland locations during and after World War II, simply because of their ethnicity. Nearly 127,000 people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated between 1942 and 1947, according to Duncan Ryȗken Williams, director of The Irei Project, which is compiling a comprehensive list of those detained. My grandparents, parents and their families were among them.

As I describe in my book “When Can We Go Back to America? Voices of Japanese American Incarceration during World War II,” they boarded livestock trucks and World War I-era trains guarded by armed U.S. soldiers for destinations that were not disclosed to them. They could only take what they could carry and what they had within themselves.

When the Japanese Americans arrived at temporary detention facilities, euphemistically called “assembly centers,” hastily constructed on fairgrounds, racetracks and other government property, they were shocked to be body-searched, fingerprinted and interrogated. Thousands discovered their living quarters were animal pens or horse stalls. The ones considered lucky were assigned to poorly built barracks. The barracks had only cots, bare light bulbs hanging from the ceilings, and pot belly stoves in the corners; the interiors lacked any partitions.

Immediately they scavenged wood from vegetable crates and construction debris they found nearby to create privacy within the barracks units and to make furniture and other household furnishings. Displaced from their livelihoods, education and social structure, with nothing to do, they also quickly organized a wide range of activities, including sports, as well as arts and crafts of all kinds. Their resourcefulness born out of necessity converged with the Japanese aesthetic to make functional items beautiful as they sought to make their temporary quarters more livable.

When the prisoners were transferred to long-term detention facilities run by the War Relocation Authority later in 1942, they brought with them what Delphine Hirasuna, an author and descendant of people who had been incarcerated during the war, calls the “art of gaman.” “Gaman” is a Japanese word meaning the dignity and grace to bear the seemingly unbearable. With this philosophy, they created objects of both utility and beauty.

Finding beauty in branches, rocks and shells

At the Gila River and Poston camps located on tribal land in the Mojave Desert, incarcerees found that desert wood could be carved, filed and polished to make partitions, household objects and works of art.

Armed soldiers guarded the barbed-wire perimeters from lookout towers, but as the war wore on, the incarcerees were allowed to venture beyond the camp fences. Izumi Taniguchi, then 16 years old from Contra Costa County, California, recalled getting permission to walk outside the Gila River camp boundaries to while away the time.

He remembered, that some people used the ironwood for sculpting. Minoru Tajii, then 18 years old from El Centro, California, held at the Poston camp, described ironwood as “an oil-rich wood, so when you polish it up it comes out very nice, so we go out and find that and bring it back.”

The Poston “sculptoring department” advertised in the camp newsletter “Poston Chronicle” on Jan. 20, 1943, that “anyone with ironwood wishing to learn how to make figures and notions may bring their materials to the department, 44-13-D, and work under the guidance of sculptoring teachers.”

Homei Iseyama, from Oakland, California, became known for the exquisite teapots, teacups, candy dishes and calligraphy inkwells he carved out of slate stones he found around the Topaz, Utah, camp. Born in 1890, he attended Waseda University in Tokyo before immigrating to the United States in 1914 with dreams of attending art school.

At the Tule Lake camp, located on an ancient lake bed, the incarcerees discovered thick veins of shells that provided material for making art and jewelry. Fusako “Peggy” Nishimura Yorita got very involved in making shell jewelry. As digging for shells became a popular and competitive pastime for the Tule Lake incarcerees, Yorita enlisted her two teenagers and friends to help dig waist-deep holes at sunrise and sift the sand with homemade wire sieves.

A 33-year-old single mother, Yorita sold her shell jewelry to make a little money. She also enjoyed the creative endeavor. She recalled: “I was just making new things all the time. And to me, it … was … a wonderful outlet.”

As the incarcerees were allowed to leave the camps, they were given $25 and a one-way bus or train ticket to wherever they were going to rebuild their lives. Many took with them their handcrafted objects, reminders of how they overcame the physical and mental harshness of their detention years.

When my mother entrusted to me the fragile small tansu chest that her father made for her in camp out of crate wood, she told me that her father had felt sorry for her that she didn’t have anyplace to store her belongings. To improve the appearance of the wood, my grandfather placed a hotplate on the pieces to deepen the grain. My mother appreciated the care he took to carve traditional Japanese scenes onto the panels with a pen knife. She said the chest represented to her the depth of her father’s love.

Eight decades after Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, researchers are delving into the traumatic intergenerational impact that the incarceration has had on the camp survivors and their descendants. Memorials such as The Irei Project seek to restore dignity to those who suffered unconstitutional injustices. On Feb. 19, known annually as the Day of Remembrance, Americans can honor them by appreciating their “art of gaman,” testaments to their resilient spirit as they found and created beauty in their wartime environments.

The Mellon Foundation has provided funding to the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture, which is one of Susan Kamei’s academic affiliations. Duncan Ryuken Williams is the director of the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture. She is a researcher for The Irei Project and is a member and volunteer of the Japanese American National Museum.

– ref. Held captive in their own country during World War II, Japanese Americans used nature to cope with their unjustified imprisonment – https://theconversation.com/held-captive-in-their-own-country-during-world-war-ii-japanese-americans-used-nature-to-cope-with-their-unjustified-imprisonment-272989

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Melissa Chim, Scholarly Communications Librarian, Excelsior University

Ahh, Valentine’s Day: the perfect moment to tell your sweetheart how much you love them with a thoughtful card.

But what about people in your life you don’t like so much? Why is there no Hallmark card telling them to get lost?

The Victorians had just the thing: a cruel and mocking version of the traditional Valentine’s Day card. Later coined “vinegar valentines” by 21st-century art collectors and dealers, such cards were usually referred to as mock or mocking valentines during the Victorian era.

Such cards were meant to shock, offend and upset their recipients. Not surprisingly, as with real Valentine’s Day cards, senders often chose to remain anonymous.

Vinegar valentines are what we historians like to call ephemera, that is, materials that are usually not meant to last a long time.

It’s hard to imagine a recipient of a vinegar valentine wanting to keep it lovingly in a frame, and many have been lost to time. But luckily, some vinegar valentines have survived and have been preserved in the collections of many historical institutions, such as Brighton and Hove Museums and the New York Public Library.

One jab at obnoxious sales ladies reads:

“As you wait upon the women

With disgust upon your face

The way you snap and bark at them

One would think you owned the place”

There is even a card for the pretentious poet who pretends to make a living with his art:

“Behold this pale little poet

With a finger at forehead to show it

But the way he gets scads

Is by writing soap ads

But he wants nobody to know it!”

The anonymous nature of the vinegar valentine meant that anyone could be an unwitting recipient. Some cards could poke gentle fun, but others could have quite dangerous results.

In 1885, a resident in the U.K. city of Birmingham, William Chance, was charged with the attempted murder of his estranged wife after he received a vinegar valentine from her. He shot her in the neck, and she was sent to the hospital.

‘Pompous, vain and conceited’

But who could be disliked so much that they would receive a vinegar valentine?

The poor, old and ugly were convenient targets. Unmarried men and women might also receive a vicious rejection from potential partners.

A Feb. 9, 1877, article from the Newcastle Courant notes that “it is the pompous, the vain and conceited, the pretentious and ostentatious who are generally selected as butts for valentine wit.”

Sending such a valentine was a way for ordinary people to enforce social norms disguised as a joke. It was also a way to feel powerful over an already vulnerable person, even if the sender was vulnerable themselves.

Vinegar valentines emerged as a sour offshoot of the cultural ascendancy of Valentine’s Day itself. While rooted in an ancient Roman fertility ceremony, the day was turned into a celebration of love by the Victorians.

The first Valentine’s Day cards in the early 1800s were often made by hand. With the rise of industrialization, by the 1840s and 1850s most cards were produced in factories. These regular Valentine’s Day cards were often decorated with lace and romantic images.

An industry of insults

By the mid-1800s, both Britain and the United States entered into what one historian calls “Valentine’s mania.”

The earliest vinegar valentines were sheets of paper folded like a letter. And to add insult to injury, before the availability of prepaid postage, the recipient had to pay to receive their letter.

Many printers offered vinegar valentines alongside the more traditionally positive and ornate cards. Even the firm Raphael Tuck & Sons, “Publishers to Their Majesties the King and Queen of England,” joined the vinegar valentine craze.

Vinegar valentines made their way across the pond to the United States in the mid-1800s. Some American printers made their own vinegar valentines; others, such as A.S Jordan, imported them from Britain.

During the American Civil War, these cards became a medium to express anger and frustration. If you supported the Union, you could send the following message to an unlucky secessionist from the South:

“You are the man who chuckles when the news

Comes o’er the wires and tells of sad disaster,

Pirates on sea succeeding-burning ships and crews,

Rebels on land marauding, thicker, aye, and faster

You are the two faced villain, though not very bold,

Who would barter your country for might or for gold.”

Votes and valentines

As vinegar valentines continued to be produced throughout the early 1900s, a new target became very popular – the suffragette.

Women fighting for the right to vote were seen by their detractors as unfeminine, and vinegar valentines were a cheap and convenient medium to enforce gender roles. In such cards, suffragettes were usually depicted as ugly spinsters or abusive, lazy wives. One card warns, “A vote from me you will not get, I don’t want a preaching suffragette.” Similarly, another card says:

“You may think it fun poor Cupid to snub,

With the hand of a Suffragette.

But he’s cunning and smart, aye, there’s the rub,

Revenge is the trap he will set.”

There were even cards made for anti-suffragist women looking to secure a husband. One card plaintively proclaims, “In these wild days of suffragette drays, I’m sure you’d ne’er overlook a girl who can’t be militant, but simply loves to cook.”

There were also pro-suffrage Valentine’s Day cards. One card defiantly asks, “And you think you can keep women silent politically? It can’t be did!”

Cupid as a troll

Vinegar valentines continued to be popular through the Golden Age of picture postcards in the early 1900s. They declined in popularity after World War I. This may be due to a decline in card giving overall, or a cultural shift away from “lowbrow” humor. But they never fully went away.

The spirit of the vinegar valentine saw a second revival in the 1950s with the rise of the comic postcard.

And the effects of vinegar valentines can still be seen, and felt, today. Anonymous internet trolls keep up the sniping spirit so prevalent in the Victorian era. Today’s vinegar valentines are extremely online. They are just as spiteful, but the difference is they are emphatically not restricted to one particular day in February.

Melissa Chim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Valentine’s Day cards too sugary sweet for you? Return to the 19th-century custom of the spicy ‘vinegar valentine’ – https://theconversation.com/valentines-day-cards-too-sugary-sweet-for-you-return-to-the-19th-century-custom-of-the-spicy-vinegar-valentine-273995

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kevin Omland, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

We humans have long viewed ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution. People label other species as “primitive” or “ancient” and use terms like “higher” and “lower” animals.

This anthropocentric perspective was entrenched in 1866, when German scientist Ernst Haeckel drew one of the first trees of life. He placed “Man,” clearly labeled, at the top. This illustration helped establish the popular view that we are the ultimate goal of evolution.

Modern evolutionary biology and genomics debunk that flawed perspective, showing there is no hierarchy in evolution. All species alive today, from chimpanzees to bacteria, are cousins that each have equally long lineages, rather than ancestors or descendants.

Unfortunately, these outdated notions remain prevalent in scientific journals and science journalism. In my new book, “Understanding the Tree of Life,” I explore why it is fundamentally misleading to view any current species as primitive, ancient or simple. As an evolutionary biologist, I offer an alternative view that emphasizes evolution’s complex, nonhierarchical, interconnected history.

Not primitive, just different

Egg-laying mammals, the monotremes, are frequently labeled the most “primitive” living mammals. This category includes the platypus and four species of echidnas. Indeed, their egg-laying is an ancient characteristic shared with reptiles.

But platypuses also have many unique recent adaptations that make them well suited to their lifestyle: They have webbed feet for swimming and a bill with specialized electroreceptors that detect prey in the mud. Males have spurs with venom that they can use to defend themselves against rivals. If you take a platypus’s view, they’re the pinnacle of evolution for their specific ecological niche.

Echidnas may seem primitive, especially because they lack a capability that humans have – giving birth to live young. Yet they possess many extraordinary traits that humans lack. Echidnas are known for their outer covering of protective spines. They also have powerful claws for digging, a sensitive beak and a long sticky tongue, all of which they use foraging for ants and termites. In a head-to-head competition foraging for prey in a termite mound, an echidna would easily outperform any human.

Other mammals native to Australia also turn up on lists of primitive mammals, such as many species of marsupials – pouched mammals, including kangaroos, koalas and wombats. These species generally give birth to small, minimally developed young that move to the mother’s pouch where they complete development. Pouch development may seem inferior to the human way, but it does have advantages. For example, kangaroos can simultaneously nurture young at three stages of development.

Evolutionary tree appearance depends on focus

Marsupials such as opossums, or monotremes such as the platypus, are often shown at the bottom or left side of an evolutionary tree. However, that does not mean that they are older, more primitive or less evolved.

Evolutionary trees – what scientists call phylogenies – show cousin relationships. Just as your second or third cousin is no more primitive than you are, it is misleading to think of a koala or echidna as primitive because of where they are depicted on these trees.

When scientists and journalists choose which species to include in the evolutionary trees in their publications, it can influence how the public perceives these species. But species shown lower on the page are not “lower” on some evolutionary scale.

Rather, they are placed there because the focus of many of those trees is on placental mammals, such as humans, other primates, carnivores, rodents and so on. When the focus is on placental mammals, it makes sense to include one or two species of marsupials as comparisons for reference.

In contrast, in a tree focused on marsupials, one or two placental mammals could be included at the bottom of the page for comparison.

Why understanding the tree of life matters

Viewing humans as the goal of evolution leads to a misunderstanding of the entire evolutionary process. Since evolution is the conceptual foundation for all biology, this flawed perspective can hinder all biological and biomedical science.

Mastering a modern understanding of evolutionary trees is crucial to advances in fields ranging from animal behavior and physiology to conservation and biomedicine. For example, because rhesus monkeys are much more closely related to us than are capuchins, rhesus monkeys are generally better subjects for preliminary tests of human vaccines. Opossums, incorrectly considered to be primitive, are a great species for providing a broader framework for studies of neurobiology and aging because they are distantly related to us, not because they are lower or more ancestral.

Grasping the profound reality that humans are not the pinnacle of evolution, but one branch among many, is foundational for all modern biology. Understanding the tree of life is central to fully embracing the shared modern status of all animals, from platypuses to people.

Kevin Omland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. No animal alive today is ‘primitive’ – why are so many still labeled that way? – https://theconversation.com/no-animal-alive-today-is-primitive-why-are-so-many-still-labeled-that-way-266208