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For Nextdoor, Eliminating Racism Is No Quick Fix

Jason Tate

Jessi Hempel, writing at Backchannel:

Tolia was dining with his communications director, Kelsey Grady, when her iPhone alerted them to the story’s publication. They read the lengthy feature together. It alleged that white Oakland residents were using the “crime and safety” category of Nextdoor to report suspicious activity about their black neighbors. “Rather than bridging gaps between neighbors, Nextdoor can become a forum for paranoid racialism — the equivalent of the nosy Neighborhood Watch appointee in a gated community,” wrote Pendarvis Harshaw.

Sponsor: Bitter Pills Release ‘Night Season’ EP

Bitter Pills
Sponsored Post

After coming up as rivals in the Nashville music scene, Jordan Dickerson and Kyle Adams came together to form Bitter Pills. After years of touring in their own bands, as well as in bands such as From Indian Lakes, Artifex Pereo, and Settings, they settled into an old house just outside of Music City to write Night Season — an EP as dark as it is hopeful, and as heavy is it is catchy. The five song collection is the sum of two lifetimes worth of musical iteration. Drawing inspiration from mainstream heavy-hitters like Incubus and Nine Inch Nails, as well as beloved bands such as Thrice and Anberlin, the EP is a healthy balance of familiar sounds and boundary bending ambition.

The EP is out right now on iTunes, Apple Music, and Spotify.

Read More “Bitter Pills Release ‘Night Season’ EP”

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Andrew McMahon Asks GOP to Stop Using His Music

Andrew McMahon
Jason Tate

Andrew McMahon has asked the GOP to stop using his music at their rallies:

I have done my best to keep my politics and my platform as an entertainer separate. Honestly, it’s something I struggle with daily, but I hold that line out of respect for my fans and out of disgust for the state of American politics. I believe that today’s hyper-politicized world is a serious distortion of reality. I believe that neighbors who disagree with one another have the capacity to find common ground and regularly do. I believe the politicians we elect to represent us and the diversity of our opinions and lifestyles, are failing us by not seeking that common ground. I’ve chosen to stay publicly apolitical because there are few spaces left that have not been politicized. I have immense respect for those who use their platforms to rally people to that which they believe is right and true. Still, I feel in this climate, my greatest contribution could be to remind people as they stand side by side in a live music venue that we are not as different as our televisions and our political leaders would like us to believe. With this in mind I would appreciate it if politicians and representatives of political parties would refrain from the public use of my music as KellyAnne Conway and the GOP did today at their CPAC convention. My music is about uniting people through our common experience and is not intended as hype tracks for political dog and pony shows.

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