Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 86

What ancient salt can tell us about life on Earth

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This article originally appeared on Massive.

Over half of Earth’s lifespan ago, more than 2 billion years before humans ever appeared, there was almost no oxygen, conditions that for us would be like trying to breathe on Mars. Like the disappearing atmosphere of Mars, Earth’s atmosphere changed over the millennia — just in the opposite direction. Instead of being lost to space over time, Earth gained oxygen — quite suddenly, in terms of the planet’s lifetime.

Scientists have narrowed the timing of this sudden rise, known as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), to around 2.3-2.4 billion years ago. But the tricky part about identifying the actual rate is that gases don’t stick in place or in time, waiting to be measured. Instead, geologists study what they can: ancient rocks that might give clues about the air they formed in. Finding the ancient evidence of this mysterious event that helped transform the Earth into the life-filled planet we know today can sometimes be tricky, sometimes leading scientists to search deep underground.

That’s exactly what happened recently, when a team of scientists drilled 1.2 miles deep into the earth on the edge of Lake Onega, in western Russia near the border with Finland. There they found miraculously preserved salts, 2 billion years old and not unlike what’s on your kitchen table. The discovery was amazing in itself, since — as you likely know if you’ve sprinkled the salt shaker over a pot of boiling water — the mineral readily dissolves in water. Somehow this sample, which formed when an ancient sea evaporated, had remained unaltered by any geologic processes that occurred after burial.

But the cores of rock, 300 meters long and about six centimeters wide, contained an extra surprise after their extraction from the Onega Parametric Hole: sulfates, or minerals containing sulfur — that yellow element that smells like rotten eggs — that only form in very oxidized environments. The team of scientists, from various universities and surveys in the US, Norway, Scotland, Estonia, Great Britain, and Russia, analyzed this mineral and the salts’ chemistries, and published their findings on March 22 in the journal Science. By using computer models to recreate what they found, they were able to identify details about the ancient ocean in which these samples formed, including just how oxidized it was.

In a press release from Princeton University, Aivo Lepland, a senior author of the study from the Geological Survey of Norway and Tallinn University of Technology, described their findings as “the strongest ever evidence” that the ancient seawater “had high sulfate concentrations reaching at least 30 percent of present-day oceanic sulfate as our estimations indicate.” The presence of sulfates means there had to have been an immense amount of oxygen — but where did all that oxygen come from?

Something drastic must have altered in as little time (geologically speaking) as 300 million years. “Instead of a trickle, it was more like a fire hose,” is the way that Clara Blättler, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton and a lead author, phrased it in the statement.

Previous scientists have noticed a possible biological link to the Great Oxidation Event: a change in the gases involved in sustaining life, evinced in preserved layers of ancient oceanic organisms. Called cyanobacteria or microbial mats, they show the first evidence of photosynthesis on Earth, and practiced the opposite of our respiration; they started to suck carbon dioxide from the air and expel oxygen in its place. But there are problems with the idea that microbes are the only source of oxygen, including that the transition to photosynthesis occurred several hundred million years before the GOE. Could that be enough to explain what Blättler and her colleagues found?

Just as biology evolves over time, the Earth, too, has changed, from the origin of its tectonic plates to their movements, which in turn can alter the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere.

Tectonic plates are unique to our planet, at least in our solar system, leading to the formation of the continents on which we live today. Like puzzle pieces of the Earth’s upper layers — albeit ones that do not quite match — the plates bump into each other, some sliding underneath another to depths where the temperature is high enough to melt it in a process called subduction. The molten rock rises, like in a lava lamp, to form volcanoes at the surface. Those volcanoes can spew gasses into the atmosphere.

In a Nature Geoscience paper last year, for example, scientists at Rice University wrote that this melting could have separated molecules of carbon and oxygen in the bodies of microbes long deceased and settled to the ocean floor as sediments on the subducting plate. This separation could have sent the carbon even deeper into the Earth, for millions or billions of years, and expelled the oxygen out from volcanoes. Could this have been the source of the GOE?

In another recent study, scientists in Australia and the US noted another connection between tectonics and biology by analyzing the content of a different element — phosphorus — that’s provided by volcanism and required for photosynthesis. This, the authors inferred, links biological to geological evolution, with another chemical supporting the idea that plate tectonics possibly induced photosynthesis during the Great Oxidation Event.

Perhaps this planet and the life it fostered worked together to make it habitable for complex organisms, us included. Microbes first emitted oxygen, but geology may have instigated the sudden surge of oxygen — seen in the formation of sulfates — that in turn promoted the growth of photosynthetic life.

Plate tectonics and biology are unique to Earth, as far as we know. Many speculate a symbioses between the two, geology and life working in tandem. This salty yet sweet surprise from Russia, more than a billion years older than any other salt, is one more step towards helping geologists understand what makes a planet habitable. It’s also a step toward understanding our own history, and the chain of cause and effect leading to human life. The next breath you take might contain oxygen that first floated into the air almost 2 billion years ago, above a sulfate-rich sea.

Watch closely: “Dear White People Vol. 2″ opens a new chapter on race

AP/Victoria Will/Netflix/Salon

A few episodes into the second season of Netflix’s “Dear White People,” dropping on Friday, the story starts to feel like some secret black history edition of “Clue.” Its omniscient narrator (Giancarlo Esposito) consistently directs the viewer to “watch closely,” before walking us through forgotten chapters of Winchester University’s history, especially as they pertain to how the fictional Ivy League university deals with race and racism in the present day.

Through this intentionally directed lens, series creator Justin Simien uses “Dear White People” to address the poisonous practice of refusing to contend with the errors and crimes that are part of our collective past. Instead, he observes, we’d rather tumble into a sort of historical amnesia that maintains the illusion of comfort while dismissing real issues of social and political inequity (Kanye, we’re looking at you).

“Keeping secrets from each other is that universal tie that binds,” Simien observed in a recent phone conversation with Salon. This idea plays out within the comedy’s second season story collage both interpersonally and in a more global sense.

The first season of “Dear White People,” is due for a wider DVD and digital release on Tuesday, May 8, and like the film that inspires the series, it largely focuses on questions of self-identity. Biting satire propels its dialogue, accompanied by a pleasing, specifically stylized visual language and both conspire to blow apart the myth that there was ever such a thing as post-racial America.

While it illustrates how differently the world looks to people living in the same space, maintaining a tight focus on a group of Winchester’s black undergrads, it also lets all viewers in on the joke.

Gifted campus radio host Sam White (Logan Browning) builds a brand centered on fiery polemics on racism on campus in part as a means of reconciling herself with her biracial identity, and what how her choice of lovers reflects on her blackness.

Sam’s best friend Joelle (Ashley Blaine Featherston) supports her even as she realizes she’s getting tired of playing the wing-woman to a campus celebrity.

Season 2 — officially known as “Dear White People Vol. 2” — picks up weeks after the explosive town hall that marked the end of its freshman run, the emphasis is purposefully less on each personal journey than on the way a post-Trump world forces the students to look beyond themselves.

Now the proudly “woke” Reggie (Marque Richardson) grapples with knowing his life could have ended at a campus party simply because his skin was the wrong color.  The Dean’s son Troy (Brandon P. Bell) is reconsidering his father’s blueprint for success, which emphasizes accommodation and assimilation over antagonizing the powers that be. Sam’s former bestie Coco (Antoinette Robertson) still embraces that model while Lionel (DeRon Horton) is figuring out where his place is among Winchester’s gay community, a social stratification with its own navigational challenges.

Before all of that, the first episodes of the 10-part "Vol. 2" finds Sam and Joelle contending with a social media war mounted against them by a virulently racist and unidentifiable Twitter troll that goes by the handle @AltIvyW.

AltIvyW’s escalating attacks on Sam coincide with the integration of Armstrong-Parker House, a dorm that has historically served as the nexus of black student life on campus. The trolling also emboldens the campus’ conservative students, even leading the radio station to give a timeslot to a right-wing radio show titled, in an act of aggressive appropriation, “Dear Right People.”Continuing the spirit of the show’s opening acts, each of these individual snapshots ties in with the season’s larger theme of facing buried truths head on, regardless of how uncomfortable it is to do so. Happily Simien and his writers broach these squeamish topics via sharp witticism delivered with rapid-fire certainty. The delight of “Dear White People” is that its humor hits, and hits hard, but always manages to land on its targets.

Simien spoke at length about what inspired the direction of these 10 new episodes, and what he hopes the new direction of “Dear White People” adds to the broader conversation about race and tribalism in the United States.

“I don't think we're a didactic show, but we certainly are trying to help diagnose the issues,” Simien said. “I don't think we're a prescriptive, but I certainly felt a sense of urgency to get to the heart of how things like this could happen to such surprise, in a country where few things surprise us, and continue to surprise as time has gone on.”

Let's talk about the huge kind of tonal difference between season 1 and season 2. It's obviously the second season was created when the public finally began to acknowledge that racism in America exists and our sensitivity to it had heightened. But was there any particular incident that inspired the season, or was there any particular theme you realized that you need drill down on?

Well, you know, Donald Trump won the presidency the day we stopped shooting season one. Actually, it was our last day shooting. So for me, what that did is it sort of gave me a much more heightened sense of urgency in terms of what it is the show was seeking to do. . . . It's that combined with what I felt was a very strange reaction to the press materials for the first season. We had a backlash that really superseded anything that we got from the movie, which was pretty well publicized by the time the show was coming out.

I took a moment to register that, to process it and sort of dig deeper. What I found was this sort of well of communities propped up by what we now know are bots: fake accounts or programmed accounts, which we now understand are directly from Russia, creating aggression on several different sides of the same ideological issue to sort of ramp up chaos and tension. That was very effective. It  allows a very small group of people to kind of control a very large portion of the narrative in this country. And that sort of led me down a series of rabbit holes, to what I think you can see in season two, which is an obsession with the past.

What I've found through my own research . . . is that fake news and misinformation and all of these themes are pretty well written into the country's history and DNA.  Political or historical Amnesia is pretty much required by Americans at every new sort of social juncture in our growth. We sort of have to forget that the country was born out of genocide. We have to forget, really, that even though slavery was abolished, we never sort of took any real meaningful actions to sort of prepare the country for the integration of African people into the citizenry.

It’s really kind of surprising to know how many people really thought these were issues that we even got close to solving. I mean people really do feel like it’s, ‘case closed!’ This is why it's so confusing to talk about these things. Black folks inherently know that something is wrong in this country with regards to race.  And I think a lot of white people know it, and a lot more know it now too, because of the Donald trump presidency.

But you know, there's a wall that we’ve hit because . . . you can't sort of have a conversation when you and the person you're talking to don't have the same historical context or education or understanding of how we got here. The conversation is just rhetoric, then. So part of reason the show’s tone feels different is that you’re seeing an obsession with secrets and the past, and how sick secrets can make us.

Let's go back really quickly to when you're talking about the reaction that you received the press materials. A lot of that reaction, as I recall, seemed to be about a lack of understanding about what "Dear White People" means, not only within the context of the script, but also in terms of how the show should be interpreted, who is the show speaking to and why there is this implication that issues of race need to be explained. 

With season 1, yes, there was genuinely a group of people who didn't understand the title or didn't understand where we're coming from, but what I found most interesting is that there were also a group of much more powerful people with more social capital, so to speak. David Duke, among them, who were choosing to misinterpret the title, sort of feigning outrage wasn't really genuine because they knew that it would drum up support.

People got really good at figuring out how to get people angry. You know, I remember having an exchange with one of these very popular, alt-right, leaders who has been banned from Twitter.  And I asked him, 'Why are you saying this? You don't really think this is true?' I don't remember exactly what I was saying, but that was the thrust of it.

And he responded with, 'Yeah, I know bro, but this is for the base.'  That's when the light bulb kind of went on, when I was like, oh my God, they are sort of openly and blatantly using the tools of civil rights and activism. They're using those same words like oppression, terms like ‘silencing our voice’ or ‘trying to erase our voice,’ taking those kinds of ideas but applying them to what was is ultimately a complete fiction on just about every level. Whether we're looking at the numbers, statistics, education rates, death rates, et cetera, it’s just complete B.S. and an explicit twisting of the truth.

The first season was much more character driven than this one, but this time you use each person's story to kind of delineate a particular aspect of larger issues of race and class people seem to be almost tired of talking about. So when you were writing this season, how much did you think about how to convey these ideas not only with urgency, as you say, but with clarity?

I didn't want to just sort of continue season one. I felt like we got really great reviews and it would've been really easy to just kind of rest on that and keep making the show in the same mode. But I really fought against that.

One of the reasons that it's called volume two, is that I really wanted to treat it almost like a reboot a rather than just a continuation. And what that did is in the writers room we would have these sort of dual conversations. We would be talking about the characters and where we thought they would go. And then the other dialogue we were having was, how do these sort of interpersonal relationships these kids are having, how are they affected by, if at all, what's happening on a bigger societal, macro level?

So there's that larger idea of selective amnesia, and then there are the smaller ideas of, how does Joelle really feel about Reggie (Marque Richardson)? Or how are Sam and Gabe (John Patrick Amedori) really keeping their true feelings close to the chest even as they interact with each other and interact with each other's friends? It just felt like an interesting to explore this theme among everybody, and season 2 is a product of those conversations and that exploration.

Recently I was asked to talk about 'Roseanne' and whether it will be a show like plays a role in healing America, or that speaks to subjects in America that are concerning us all and unite us all. Now, no signal show could possibly bear the weight of, you know, helping us to achieve world peace. Still,  I'm curious to hear your take on how and whether 'Dear White People' has been co-opted to kind of serve a purpose similar to that, and whether you kind of intended it to serve that purpose.

Well, I'm a Buddhist and — not to make this religious in any way, shape or form — but the reason I'm a Buddhist is because they do believe that when you work really hard to find something closer to an enlightenment moment for yourself, that's kind of the only way and best way of changing the world. So I do have my eye on really big things like that. I don't think I can achieve that with a television show. But honestly, the process of making this show requires me to get clearer and clearer and clearer about the issues that I'm dealing with and the issues that I'm talking about. That's the only way I'll have something new to say. I have no interest in sort of saying the same thing over and over again, season after season.

So it's a clarifying process for me, which in turn makes the show better and allows the audiences to, ideally, have new epiphanies or at the very least just be able to see aspects of their lives reflected in a surprising way. I think that's a really healing thing that's often underestimated about story. There is something very powerful to the fact that so many people showed up to see 'Black Panther.' Audiences [members] who are black saw themselves in really, really mainstream cultural conversations. And audience members who maybe never really could relate to aspects of blackness viewed it in a way that now, they can. They got some insight into, you know, just how human it is and just how, you know, similar to their own experience, the black experience can be. People were able to relate over things that were very much about race.

Whether or not we leave the theater ideologically complete and we immediately have the answers or not, just that sort of shared experience of empathy is very, very powerful. And you know, whether or not it's on a small scale or a big scale, I've seen [entertainment] move the needle. Like when you look back at history, um, you know, movements, it's not president and kings. It’s the people. The people are moved by the stories that they see.  And if that's all I do, I'm very happy, you know.

Where do rural LGBT farmers go for advice, or a friendly ear? They call the “Landline”

Matt Houghton

There’s a quiet, gripping drama to listening in on the UK helpline set up by a chaplain for gay farmers that is featured in “Landline.” But don’t worry about the voyeuristic ethics; the conversations and visual are recreations, with the collaboration of the callers themselves, by director Matt Houghton.

Houghton spoke with Salon about his signature, lyrical approach that blends fiction and nonfiction in his depiction of a rarely heard community: LGBTQ farmers who live in small, often intolerant, communities.

How'd you get the idea to make this film?

I have always been drawn to ideas surrounding shared experience. Speaking to a good friend Rupert Williams one evening, we got talking about what it was like for him growing up in a farming family as a gay man and the unique sense of isolation that he felt. As we researched further, we began to understand the extent to which being an LGBTQ farmer was so heavily wrapped up in ideas of identity. Keith Ineson’s helpline seemed a unique lens through which to explore these ideas. Over the course of about a year, we collected stories and experiences from LGBTQ farmers who have at one time or another called the helpline. A series of recorded telephone conversations emerged as the emotional center of the film.

I'm not sure I've seen anything else quite like it; can you think of other documentaries that use phone calls and reconstructed visuals in at least a similar way?

Thanks! I’ll definitely take that as a compliment! I wouldn’t say there were any specific films that I had in mind when I was establishing the style and framing device of “Landline” but I am very interested in documentaries that push the form. I work in both documentary and scripted film and in recent years I have become increasingly interested in making films that experiment with story structure and that blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. A lot like my previous short, “Dear Araucaria,” the idea with “Landline” was that the structure of the film itself is influenced by the subject matter. I loved the idea of making a film that in some ways felt like being on the end of a phone, listening to these stories. We wanted to create an active conversation where the stories of a group of individuals compound and react with each other to paint a broader picture. To me, it’s defined by its intimacy but in depicting the very personal, my hope is that it poses questions about much broader ideas surrounding community, family and masculinity. It’s an experiential take on the documentary form with the helpline at its center.

Were those the actual recorded conversations from the helpline?

No, for obvious reasons the helpline conversations aren’t recorded. The testimony in the film is from a series of telephone conversations that I did with people who had called the helpline in the past. They were fairly long (often well over an hour) and quite free-flowing. From these, we found the stories and moments that we felt resonated most poignantly. The film hangs totally on the honesty and openness of our contributors. Without their generosity, it wouldn’t have been possible.

Can you tell me a bit about the chaplain who set up the helpline?

In 2010, Keith Ineson, a chaplain from the north of England, set up the helpline. After seeing many from this world struggling with their sexuality, often finding it hard to come out and suffering feelings of loneliness and isolation, the helpline was there to offer a friendly ear. In the years since, Keith has provided support to hundreds of LGBTQ+ farmers who often had nowhere else to turn, as well as establishing a support network of social groups.

How have local communities responded to the helpline and to the film?

We’ve had an incredible response from not only local communities in the UK but also in rural areas all over the world. The film ran as part of the British Council and BFI Flair’s #FiveFilms4Freedom campaign which made it available to watch in every country in the world, including those where LGBTQ+ rights are extremely restricted or where it’s illegal. It was seen almost half a million times in twelve days and we had some amazing responses from people in places that we never would have dreamed would get to see the film.

The helpline has been running for the best part of a decade and it’s made a huge difference to countless people and communities. Alongside the helpline, Keith has set up a number of social groups, Facebooks groups — both public and anonymous — and continues to foster a safe environment for those struggling. As part of the project, we’re also raising funds to help Keith continue to run the helpline. In the longer term, Keith hopes that the helpline is not needed but until then, he wants to raise awareness and support the community through the work that he does.

What are you working on now?

In a couple of months, my experimental short "Hands Up, Chin Down" is premiering at a great film festival that I’m really excited about. As well as that, I’m currently in the edit on an observational documentary being made with “The Guardian” that’s due for release next month. In the longer term, I’m also in the research phase on two shorts and a feature project but unfortunately I can’t say too much about them right now. What I can say is that, to varying degrees, they all take some of the experimental approach applied in “Landline.”

Listen in on the unusual "Landline," which has become a lifeline for many LGBTQ farmers, streaming on Salon Premium, our new ad-free, content-rich app.

Reading this in the app already? Go back to the main menu and select "SalonTV" to find Salon Films and Salon original shows.

The Black Codes never went away — they just became the “Black Tax”

AP/Getty/Salon

The "Black Tax" is a term my friends and I jokingly throw around from time to time. It's basically shorthand for how African Americans have to work ten times as hard as white people do to get the same things. But there’s a lot of truth in this joke — the Black Tax is very real. A good example would be the fact that doesn’t have an Academy Award, but has two.

Look at the last two presidents. Imagine if Barack Obama had said women should be grabbed by the p***y, if he had lusted over or flirted with the idea of dating his own daughters, hidden his taxes, trashed his staffers on Twitter, skipped reading his presidential briefings, was accused of cheating with a porn star and having his attorney pay her off while Michelle was pregnant, and called Meryl Streep overrated, all while being a black guy in office.

“Barack who?” is probably what we would all be saying right now. Obama had to be beyond squeaky clean to become and stay president for eight years. Everything was perfect about the dude, from his credit to his teeth.

There's also the matter of our biased court system and our underfunded schools, along with every other potential barrier to success that comes with having black skin. But acknowledging all of this can instantly earn you the title of conspiracy theorist.

“This is America!” various Uncle Toms have said to me over the years. “Any hardworking person can achieve whatever they want.” And then they start talking about bootstraps.

The problem with the people who go off on those respectability tirades is their inability to imagine another person’s situation. They’re grossly shortsighted, only able to see their own successes and to use them as a measure when judging others, no matter where that other person comes from.

It's a failure to fully appreciate history to repeat a platitude like “slavery was so long ago!” when the Emancipation Proclamation was a mere 155 years ago, and blacks were enslaved in this land for well over 400 years.

After slavery came the Black Codes­, a set of laws passed in many states during 1865 and 1866 that placed limitations on black freedom. Some of the laws prohibited black people from owing firearms, voting, gathering in groups of worship and learning to read and write. And then Jim Crow, or separate but equal laws, dominated until the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.

In theory, this all sounds like old news. We did elect that black president with the perfect teeth, and he served two terms, which means that equality is finally real, right? Wrong. It is 2018 and Emile Wickham went out to celebrate his birthday at Hong Shing, a popular Chinese restaurant in Toronto. After he and his friends ordered, they were instructed to pay their tab before they ate. The server lied, saying this was a new policy, it wasn’t. Wickham and his friends were the only people in the restaurant instructed to pay —and they were also the only two black patrons.

Going out for dinner and having to pay before you eat is a Black Tax.

Wickham isn't alone. Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson were waiting for a friend in a Philadelphia Starbucks before they ordered,­ and the store manager called the police on them. They were arrested for trespassing. How do you get arrested for trespassing in a public place? That’s a Black Tax: the inability to enjoy a latte or an americano while being a negro.

These stories happen over and over again and unfortunately, not enough of them go viral. I honestly feel like that's the only remedy for racism; it's not foolproof, but right now it's all we have.

The other day I sat alone at the bar of the restaurant across the street from where I work. A nervous server made me two horrible mixed drinks­­. I didn’t complain, I just watched the Cavs game and waited for my ride. The melted ice made the second drink taste a little better.

“Can I get my check please?” I asked. She nodded, but then ran off to wait on another table.

“D, how doing, my man?” said a squared-faced guy who was dressed like a coach as he approached me. “It’s been a long minute since the last time I saw you!”

I had no idea who he was. I just smiled and said, "Wassup, champ?"

He flopped on a stool two chairs down from mine, screamed out his order, and started spilling everything to me — his jobs, his baby mothers, his record label and the secret business­­ that he wasn’t ready to let me in on. Dude had the timing and facial expressions of seasoned stand-up comedian. I couldn’t stop laughing, but it was time for me to go.

The waitress came back and filled his drink order. “Can I get my check please?” I asked again. “I gotta roll.”

She walked over with the leather booklet, I extended my arm and she bypassed it, placing the bill on the table. I didn’t complain; some don’t like to directly hand other people objects. And then I looked at the bill­­. Not only did she put the food and drink ordered by this dude who I barely knew on my tab, but she included an 18 percent gratuity.

“Um, excuse me,” I said, waving in her direction. “I didn’t come here with this guy. Why is his stuff on my bill? He didn’t even get his food yet.”

“Oh, I saw you talking to him” she blushed. “I thought you guys were a party.”

“But he's like two stools down," I said. "Anyway, what's this 18 percent gratuity about?”

“That’s our new policy,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to do it, but I have to.”

I didn’t believe a word this lady said, but she saved me some money. Her added tip was $6, when I probably would’ve slipped her $10.

I asked the other guys at work about a new included gratuity policy, and of course none of them have heard of it. They are white. I am black. And that is a real life tax.

Human “sea nomads” may have evolved to be the world’s elite divers

AP

This article was originally published by Scientific American.

When a human is submerged in water, within seconds the body begins to reflexively adjust. The heart rate slows; blood vessels in the extremities tighten, diverting blood flow to vital organs. And, crucially, the spleen constricts, expelling a precious reserve of oxygenated red blood cells into the bloodstream. All of this extends the time we can go without gasping.

Now a new study suggests some seafaring people may have evolved over thousands of years to push the limits of typical dive responses even further. Genetic changes have allowed one population in Southeast Asia to grow plus-size spleens that may enhance their breath-holding capabilities, according to an international research team’s analysis. Some scientists have likened these evolutionary adaptations to the ones that have allowed Tibetans to thrive at high elevations.

The new study dealt with people who are often locally called “Sea Nomads” and live among the islands and coastlines of Southeast Asia. “Traditionally, they live on houseboats and come to land only occasionally,” says Melissa Ilardo, a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Utah and first author on the study. “They have a reputation for being incredible divers, and for their connection to the sea. I went diving with them, and their abilities are just unreal.”

Among the Bajau — one group of people who live on houseboats in the waterways around and between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia — divers have been recorded holding their breath for over five minutes while hunting for fish or shellfish. In comparison, average people might be able to stay underwater for one to two minutes, and world-class free divers can hold their breath in competitive settings for up to three or close to four and a half minutes.

Previously, a crew filming for the BBC documentary series Human Planet recorded a Bajau hunter during dives, and noted his heart rate plummeted to a mere 30 beats per minute. (The diving reflex in most humans only drops the heart rate to perhaps 50 beats per minute in a healthy adult.) “They’ve been observed diving over 70 meters with only a weight belt and a set of goggles,” Ilardo says. “If they’re just collecting shellfish at 10 meters, they could spend all day doing these shallow dives. We were diving at one point and [a Bajau friend] looked down and saw a large clam. He dropped another 15 meters in an instant and grabbed it. It’s pretty remarkable.”

Ilardo, an evolutionary geneticist, wanted to know if the Bajau’s abilities were a result of being trained from birth or if they evolved to be elite divers over generations of marine living. So she asked the Bajau, along with the Saluan — a genetically similar group of farmers — to let her sequence their genomes and measure the size of their spleens. A larger spleen may store greater amounts of oxygenated red blood cells, allowing divers to remain submerged longer. “I had a portable ultrasound machine. I brought it to the villages, and people would come and let me measure their spleens,” she says. 43 Bajau and 33 Saluan participated in the study, which was published in Cell on Thursday.

The Bajau had significantly larger spleens than the nondiving Saluan, says Rasmus Nielsen, a computational biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior author on the study. “We found the Bajau had 50 percent larger spleen size,” he says. But among the Bajau themselves, divers had only slightly larger spleens (roughly 10 percent larger) than those who eschewed the traditional diving lifestyle, he notes. That surprising finding raised the possibility that the reason for the Bajau’s larger spleens was genetic — not from a lifetime of underwater training.

Next, the researchers scoured the Bajau genome for signs of natural selection and found 25 gene variants that seemed unique to this population. When Ilardo and colleagues cross-referenced what the involved genes do, they discovered a few of them seem to be related to breath-holding and oxygen deprivation. “[That] was absolutely thrilling when we saw all of these genes that were under selection that had potential relevance for diving,” Ilardo says.

One of the genes the team identified is called PDE10A. “We know that this gene controls thyroid hormone levels, and we know that controls spleen size,” Nielsen says. Just under half of the Bajau carry the version of this gene that is associated with larger spleen, compared with 6 percent of the Saluan and 3 percent of Han Chinese (a population chosen for comparison because they are not closely related to either group), he says. Two other genes that the analysis suggested had evolved in the Bajau were BDKRB2,which controls blood vessel constriction in the extremities, and FAM178B,which helps regulate carbon dioxide balance in the blood. Both could be important for oxygen conservation and breath-holding ability underwater, according to the researchers.

The new study offers a stunning example of human genetic diversity and adaptation to the underwater environment, says Anna Di Rienzo, a human population geneticist at the University of Chicago who was not involved with the research. “This is obviously a very big piece of work, a very substantial piece of work,” she says. “I thought it was a really fascinating story of populations that live in very different and extreme environments.”

But Di Rienzo says researchers will need to do extensive follow-up work to understand how the 25 genetic variations the team identified are functioning differently in the Bajau. They still “need to figure out more precisely how the genes they suggest actually affect the physiology, and actually affect the ability to do these dives,” she says. Currently, Ilardo and her colleagues only know these genes are different in the Bajau. It remains unclear what most of these genes actually do that would confer a diving advantage.

Part of that research will require returning to the Bajau and Saluan communities, and collecting more physiological measurements beyond spleen size — such as levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the blood, says Cynthia Beall, an evolutionary anthropologist at Case Western Reserve University who did not work on the study. “Their hypothesis is reasonable just as a beginning, but before making all of these biological stories, there’s some data that are obtainable,” Beall says. “Like how does their blood oxygen saturation fall over the course of an average dive? Their heart rate?” These data would help show how much stress Bajau divers’ bodies are under when hunting, and might elucidate how their specialized genetics translates to underwater prowess.

Ilardo and Nielsen agree, and plan to go back to Indonesia to continue studying the Bajau. Eventually, they say, this work may help unearth fresh clues about how different people respond to oxygen deprivation — critical knowledge in medical settings like surgery.

Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Getty/AP/Salon

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which runs the Oscars, voted to expel Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski from its membership ranks, the organization revealed on Thursday.

"The board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy’s values of respect for human dignity," the organization said in a statement.

Citing its new "standards of conduct" taken up in the aftermath of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein that sent a fault line through Tinseltown, the Academy's board of governors voted to expel the pair of powerful Hollywood men at its meeting on Tuesday, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Weinstein, who was expelled last year from the film organization, was only the second person to be removed in the Academy's long history. It recently celebrated its 90th anniversary in March.

Cosby, who was found guilty of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand last week, was never honored by the Oscars. But one week following his conviction, the action the Academy took against the comedian and actor was swift, especially when compared to Polanski.

Polanski, a five-time Oscar nominee, will reportedly be allowed to keep his 2003 Academy Award for directing "The Pianist." When he won, the director had already fled the U.S. 25 years earlier after pleading guilty to statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. Polanski, who has since been living in France, has been honored by the Academy three times since his 1977 plea deal.

Both Cosby and Polanski have faced sexual misconduct allegations by numerous accusers.

The expulsions point to the work of #MeToo – and to a watershed cultural moment where individuals and institutions are finally being held accountable to allegations of perpetrating sexual violence. Separating the artist from the person is no longer a sufficient excuse for prioritizing a sexual predator over victims of abuse.

On social media, many Twitter users questioned the length of time that it took for the Academy to respond, particularly in the case of Polanski.

Roman Polanski: HEY! WHAT DID I DO???

Random passerby whispers in his ear

Roman Polanski: Oh yeah. https://t.co/RQPd0wBM7N

— W. Kamau Bell (@wkamaubell) May 3, 2018

Hell yeah, @TheAcademy has expelled Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski. Took y’all long enough, though. pic.twitter.com/lkCypndVaq

— BitchMedia (@BitchMedia) May 3, 2018

Clearly didn't want to rush their decision: Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski expelled from Academy https://t.co/HExe0pMn4a

— Margaret Casely-Hayford (@MCaselyHayford) May 3, 2018

Roman Polanski should have been expelled along time ago! Even before he was APPLAUDED at the Oscars years ago. You are not fooling anyone Hollywood! #ThursdayThoughts https://t.co/qPSGhWUw6m

— OyVeyDiosMio (@Truthseeker126) May 3, 2018

Meanwhile, others wondered if Woody Allen would be next.

https://twitter.com/SantaInc/status/9...

Much Applause to the academy.. how about Woody Allen as well? https://t.co/rTnclQWn04 via @HuffPostEnt

— Wolftrakker (@Wolftrakker67) May 3, 2018

Kanye wins over the right: Breitbart wants him to write, “Fox & Friends” and Roseanne cheer him on

AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta/Evan Agostini

Alex Jones may have been trolling the world when he falsely promised an appearance on his Infowars program by Kanye West this week, but the hip-hop star has certainely morphed into an unlikely hero for right-wing media in recent days.

Though he has an album coming out next month, the next lines Kanye West drops could be on Breitbart, if the alt-right website has a choice. In an interview with TheWrap, Alex Marlow, the editor-in-chief of the conservative website, said he would happily collaborate with the rapper.

"Absolutely we’d publish Kanye or interview him on our national radio shows on SiriusXM or in print," Marlow said. "Kanye is one of the few people in public life — or non-public life, for that matter — who appears to be 'fully realized,'" Marlow added. "In other words, he gives off the impression that he thinks what he wants and does what he wants without preoccupation with the judgment of others."

Marlow added that the rapper’s recent endorsement of President Donald Trump seems legitimate.

"It doesn’t look like a PR stunt since the impulse to boycott people who disagree politically is a tactic used overwhelmingly by the left compared to the right," he said. "So Kanye probably stands to lose far more fans than he stands to gain by taking a high-profile pro-Trump stance."

Since his comeback to Twitter last month, the rapper and designer has been sharing news about upcoming music releases, philosophical musings and advice and polarizing political views, beginning by praising conservative commentator Candance Owens on April 21.

I love the way Candace Owens thinks

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 21, 2018

Since expressing his admiration for Owens, Kanye has emerged as a vocal and passionate Trump supporter — and President Donald Trump and conservative news outlets have welcomed the Chicago rapper with open arms to their team.

my MAGA hat is signed

Is Donald Trump a threat to Jews?

Getty/Chris Kleponis

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

Earlier this month, a lifetime ago in the Trump administration, an art dealer named Todd Brassner burned to death in a fire at Trump Tower. (The building did not have a sprinkler system on its residential floors because its eponymous owner refused to install one, citing its prohibitive cost). According to the New York Daily News, real estate mogul Trump was less than enamored of Brassner, reportedly referring to his tenant as "that crazy Jew." The scandal barely registered with the American public, but it offered yet another reminder that the Oval Office is still oozing with anti-Semitism, even after the departures of white nationalists like Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka.

Bigots and bullies have grown emboldened. The Anti-Defamation League tallied 1,986 anti-Semitic attacks in 2017, up 57 percent over the year prior. Schools proved the most common place for these incidents; 457 were perpetrated against children grades K-12. American Jews have not faced the kind of overt persecution that Muslims, African Americans and Latinos have since Trump assumed office, but as Jonathan Weisman warns in his new book, now is no time for diffidence or retreat.

One part memoir, two parts sociological study, "(((Semitism)))" explores what it means to be Jewish in Trump's America, with all of its inherent possibilities and dangers. (The triple parentheses allude to the so-called alt-right's method of marking Jews on social media for online harassment). Days ahead of a neo-Nazi rally in Newnan, Ga., AlterNet spoke with Weisman over the phone about the rising tide of white nationalism, American Jewish organizations' singular obsession with Israel and the need for Jews across the country to form broad coalitions. The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jacob Sugarman: You yourself acknowledge that there are other religious and ethnic groups who are even more imperiled by Trump's presidency than American Jews. Why do you think it's important to explore the wave of anti-Semitism his run for office and subsequent election appear to have triggered?

Jonathan Weisman: When white nationalists talk about so-called white genocide, they imagine that white human beings, specifically white men, are being supplanted and driven out by brown people: African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims and immigrants more generally. But their mythology also tells them that these brown people are inferior beings, so they summon the Jews as the cause of their demise, the answer to the question, "How could this be happening to us?" It's the Jews, they believe, who are the puppet masters, pulling the strings of the ethnic hordes. You can't separate one group from another, we're all in this together.

The American Jewish community also has a certain amount of power and resources to bear in this fight. If a Jew stands up and screams, "Anti-Semitism," the response is often, "You're just being parochial. There are other people who have it far worse than you. What are you doing?" That's why it's so essential we form alliances with Muslim Americans, immigrants, Latinos and African Americans to denounce all forms of bigotry.

Sugarman: Does Trump pose a unique threat to Jews, or is he simply channeling hatreds that have always been present in American society?

Weisman: I'm not sure I'd call it a unique threat because the globe goes through spasms of nationalism, and these spasms tend to be bad for Jews. The rise of white nationalism is international, and Trump is proof that it has arrived at the shores of the United States. If you look at [Viktor] Orban's Hungary, or what's happening in Poland, or the last elections in Italy, or Golden Dawn in Greece, you have to think that the virus is spreading. Things are demonstrably worse in Europe than they are in the U.S., but we're at a dangerous moment in history.

Sugarman: I'm glad you brought up Hungary and Poland. Has Trump's victory rekindled anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe?

Weisman: Absolutely. There's no question that the white nationalists in Europe look at the president as a kindred spirit. They feel they have some momentum, and with Trump in the Oval Office, they no longer have to fear the United States as a bulwark against their movement.

Sugarman: If we can wind back the clock two years, why do you think American Jewish organizations were so tepid in their response to Trump's presidential campaign? Did they fail to recognize the threat he posed?

Weisman: Over the last 20 years, whether they're liberal outfits like J Street and New Israel Fund or conservative groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition and AIPAC, mainstream Jewish organizations have become obsessed with Israel. To an extent it's understandable, because at least for now, support for Israel may be the one thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on. You're not going to get into trouble with potential donors or supporters by focusing on the Israeli cause. But this focus has come almost at the exclusion of domestic politics in the United States. Few realize that the white nationalist movement actually emerged in the later Bush years, after the public had soured on the Iraq War and later with the collapse of the financial system. Conservatives were looking for a new rallying cry. Most people, virtually everybody, ignored the alt-right for eight years. And during that time, American Jews were basically arguing about Israel.

Sugarman: How did the concern of these organizations become so blinkered, and do you believe it has affected their commitment to social justice?

Weisman: Money is obviously a big part of it, but it's also complacency. The United States from 1960 to 2016 felt like it was on slow but steady trajectory toward a more pluralistic, inclusive and tolerant society. I think these organizations were completely blindsided by this latest surge of nationalism. They had been looking for a cause to rally behind, and Israel offered an obvious one.

Sugarman: At the risk of falling into the same trap, do American Jews have a responsibility to speak out against the recent violence on the Gaza border?

Weisman: You have to understand that Jews in their late teens and early 20s have grown up experiencing nothing but Likud politics, with no exposure to hope in the Middle East. They don't know an Israel with a Labor or a centrist government. They don't remember the Oslo Accord, and they certainly don't remember the Camp David Accord. On their left, they have the BDS movement, and on their right they have their elders telling them, "Part of your Judaism is bound to your fealty to Israel."

I believe very strongly that if love of Israel is a prerequisite to Jewish identity in this country, then we're going to lose an entire generation. It's probably the biggest threat facing the American Jewish community today—that drift of young Jews away from Judaism because of the demands that Israel puts on them. Jews should be able to embrace their religion and their identity without having to answer to the latest atrocity in Gaza.

Sugarman: Why do you think anti-Semitism and militant Zionism have proven so compatible? At least superficially, Likudniks and an administration that has featured the likes of Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka would appear to make for strange bedfellows.

Weisman: I think the more you study alt-right ideology, the less strange it appears. Unlike the kind of anti-Semitism that you see emerging in the British Labour Party or on the French left, the alt-right is not especially anti-Zionist. They view Israel as a model ethno-state for their own country. There's no incompatibility with white nationalism because they believe Jews have a place to go and should go there.

Sugarman: I have to push back a little bit here. Are you really suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party is rife with anti-Semitism?

Weisman: I wouldn't go so far as to call him an anti-Semite himself, but absolutely, I think anti-Semitism is a real problem in the Labour Party and that Corbyn has been especially reluctant to confront it.

Sugarman: How did Gamergate presage the 2016 election, and why does misogyny so often serve as a gateway drug for overt racism and anti-Semitism?

Weisman: For most of the decade, members of the alt-right talked to themselves in their own little online ghettos at the National Policy Institute and Taki's Magazine, and then at the Daily Stormer, Stormfront and other neo-nazi publications. Gamergate showed that they could spread their ideology in the chat rooms of 4chan and 8chan, the comment sections of YouTube and eventually on Twitter — that through doxxing, trolling and other tactics, the web could be weaponized. And remember, there was a bridge from one movement to the other. One of the great orchestrators of Gamergate was Milo Yiannopolous, who parlayed his notoriety into an editing gig at Breitbart and later emerged as a celebrity on the alt-right.

I talked to Zoë Quinn, and she believes that Gamergate was like a signal flare to white nationalists. They said to themselves, "Oh my God, we can do that too." And it took very little time for the harrassment campaign to turn anti-Semitic, because Quinn's boyfriend was a Yeshiva-educated Jew. Before long, trolls were threatening her with rape and posting photo-shopped images of her covered in semen.

The entire episode was a trial run for Trump's presidential bid. All of the abuse heaped on Quinn, Brianna Wu and other women video game designers was redirected not just at political journalists on the campaign trail, but the Jews of Whitefish, Montana. (The National Policy Institute is based in Whitefish, as is the mother of alt-right founder, Richard Spencer). As for why misogyny leads to anti-Semitism, I think feelings of sexual frustration or humiliation can be a powerful source of hatred. And hate breeds hate, right?

Sugarman: Donald Trump won't be president forever, even if he wishes he could be, so what hope do we have of mending the hole his political ascent has torn in the social fabric? You advocate for American Jews to assume their place in the public square, but given how insular our media consumption has become, are we sure one still exists?

Weisman: You know, I actually think it does. I've been doing a lot of traveling to promote the book, and everywhere I go, I'm asked, "What can we do?" I'm a journalist; I'm not a social activist or a community organizer, so my answers are limited. But I think that there's a desire out there to build alliances, and you're seeing it now. I recently spoke to a Jewish organization on Long Island, and its first instinct after a swastika was found scrawled on a local synagogue was to form an interfaith coalition against bigotry. People understand we cannot be a series of atomized organizations standing up for ourselves. I believe we'll remember the age of Trump as a re-emergence of activism on a very local level.

Samantha Bee blasts journalists: “Calling Sanders a liar isn’t an insult — it’s her job description”

YouTube/Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

After several prominent female journalists, including New York Times White House Correspondent Maggie Haberman, took issue with comedian Michelle Wolf's racy joke referencing White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders' eye makeup — and more accurately, her dishonesty — at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday, Samantha Bee decided that "maybe we need to remind people what feminism is about."

That @PressSec sat and absorbed intense criticism of her physical appearance, her job performance, and so forth, instead of walking out, on national television, was impressive.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 29, 2018

"That [Sanders] sat and absorbed intense criticism of her physical appearance, her job performance and so forth, instead of walking out, on national TV, was impressive," tweeted Haberman.

And Haberman wasn't the only prominent member of the media who pledged support for the White House press secretary. Several big-name female journalists, including MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell and Mika Brzezinski, who called Wolf's jokes "not funny," also followed suit. The anchors both declared that Wolf owed Sanders an apology.

Apology is owed to @PressSec and others grossly insulted ny Michelle Wolf at White House Correspondents Assoc dinner which started with uplifting heartfelt speech by @margarettalev - comedian was worst since Imus insulted Clinton’s

— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) April 29, 2018

Watching a wife and mother be humiliated on national television for her looks is deplorable. I have experienced insults about my appearance from the president. All women have a duty to unite when these attacks happen and the WHCA owes Sarah an apology.

— Mika Brzezinski (@morningmika) April 29, 2018

But the host of TBS' "Full Frontal" was having none of it.

"Oh, Mika, very clever to say we can’t make fun of women’s appearances on the same day you wore that hideous goddamn scarf," Bee joked. She then spent the rest of her opening monologue criticizing Sanders' dishonesty during her tenure in the Trump administration, and explained why it is so preposterous for members of the media, of all people, to come to her defense.

"Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a f**king liar! Goodnight, everyone!" Bee exclaimed. "OK, fine. Look, calling Sanders a liar isn’t an insult — it’s her job description. Feminism doesn’t mean you can never make jokes about another woman — ever. If it did, then I couldn’t say that Mika clearly stole her scarf off of Steven Tyler’s microphone stand. And Sarah Sanders is very good at her job."

"But, if the press thinks being called a liar is a huge insult, maybe they should be mad at Sarah herself, since she calls them liars constantly," the "Full Frontal" host continued. "I’m not saying Sarah Sanders doesn’t deserve the protection of feminism. She does, though she's not a feminist, which you can tell from the way she throws other women to the wolves on her boss' behalf."

Bee then praised Sanders' intelligence and savviness when it comes to lying to the press, before comparing her to a "public-relations dementor, sucking the energy out of the White House press until they can’t really fight back, turning them into tragic journalistic husks called Maggie Habermans."

"Seriously, the press, why are you defending this lady?" Bee asked. “She is not your friend!"

Bee explained that Sanders may be easy to defend, because she isn’t a "loudmouth" like Anthony Scaramucci, an "attention vampire" like Kellyanne Conway or an "actual vampire" like Stephen Miller. Yet "she's dangerous, because she’s such a good soldier in the Trump army," the comedian declared.

“So, I salute you, Sarah Huckabee Sanders,” Bee concluded. "You’ve outlasted every man who’s had your job — and almost any other job in the Trump White House — to become one of the most powerful women in the nation. You are a hell of a role model for little girls everywhere, who are smart, and hardworking and completely evil."

Sanders is currently facing heat after Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and newest member of President Donald Trump's legal team, admitted to Fox News' Sean Hannity Wednesday night on live TV that the president knew about a $130,000 hush payment made by his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. Giuliani said that Trump personally reimbursed Cohen for the "perfectly legal" payment, and his first TV appearance in his buzzed-about new role thus seemed to only cause more headaches for a faltering White House.

Prior to Wednesday, Trump and Sanders had both denied having any knowledge of the hush payment.

On March 7, the press secretary specifically denied that the president had any knowledge about the transaction. Sanders said, "I've had conversations with the president about this . ..  There is no knowledge of any payments from the president and he's denied all of those allegations."

In the wake of Giuliani’s comments on Fox News, Sanders refused to answer questions Thursday morning about the false statements made to the media about the Daniels case.

Toiling over a “puddle of blood”: Why these warehouse workers are standing up to abuses

AP

This article originally appeared in In These Times.

TENNESSEE — Fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lent his support to the historic Memphis sanitation workers’ strike. Today, the safe working conditions that strikers fought for in 1968 remain elusive for low-wage workers in one Memphis warehouse.

Workers at the XPO Logistics warehouse in Memphis announced in early April that they had filed a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging rampant abuse, including sexual harassment. On April 3, workers held a rally with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) to coincide with the filing of the EEOC complaint.

The complaint was triggered by an XPO worker’s death that co-workers attribute to company policies which restrict workers from leaving the job. In October 2017, Linda Neal, 58, died at work after passing out on the job. Workers allege that a supervisor denied Neal being given CPR by a co-worker. Medical reports confirmed that Neal died of a heart attack caused by cardiovascular disease.

XPO Logistics, based in Connecticut, has warehouses across the country and a market value of nearly $9 billion. The company provides transportation, delivery and logistics for Verizon, Ikea, Home Depot and other retailers. The Memphis warehouse has more than 300 permanent employees and more than 400 temporary workers.

Lakeisha Nelson, who has worked for XPO since 2014 and was close to Neal, tells In These Times, “[Neal] was a mother figure to a lot of us, and we had to become family in that building. We had to work over the puddle of blood that was left behind the next morning, and that hurt me to my core.”

Nelson believes company policy played a role in Neal’s death, recalling that an XPO supervisor would not allow Neal to leave work when she expressed she was feeling ill.

“She told them she wasn’t feeling well and this was just XPO’s policy,” says Nelson. “I don’t blame the supervisor, he was just doing his job. This is what he has to do in order to keep his job — don’t let anyone go home.”

“The only thing that’s important to XPO is them making money, and if it takes our lives to get their money, then our lives are expendable,” says Nelson. “And they tell us all, if you don’t like the way we do things, find another job. It’s very, very easy to get fired there.”

Staff workers have filed multiple complaints regarding safety hazards and dangerous working conditions, but little has been done by management to address them, according to Nelson.

Nelson says the building and ceiling are caving in while workers face harsh temperatures inside that fluctuate with the weather, and that sweaters are only allowed if they are purchased through the company.

The forgotten women of #MeToo

Sexual harassment at the company is another issue that has gone unsolved, despite attempts to get Human Resources involved, according to Nelson.

The warehouse has a history of sexual harassment. In 2015, New Breed Logistics, which was acquired by XPO in 2014, lost a $1.5 million dollar suit after a male supervisor sexually harassed three female temporary workers who were then terminated for refusing his advances.

Elizabeth Gedmark is a senior staff attorney for A Better Balance, an organization that promotes paid leave and other family-friendly policies, and which is supporting the Memphis warehouse workers. She says that low-wage workers are particularly at risk of harassment.

“The notion that you can just quit and leave your job when you’re faced with sexual harassment or discrimination does not apply to a low-wage worker needing to get by living paycheck to paycheck,” Gedmark tells In These Times. “If she does file a complaint, she faces a very real likelihood of retaliation.

“They’re very much a part of the global #MeToo movement that’s not just about movie stars or wealthy women, it’s really about these women being put front and center, the hard-working, average women who too often go unnoticed.”

Next steps

Restrictive scheduling and time-off policies are also affecting XPO workers’ personal lives. Nelson claims that workers often do not know when their shift will end and have little to no notice of overtime.

Elizabeth Howley, 38, is the operational administrator for the Memphis warehouse and has been at the company for six years. Howley has also expressed concerns over poor working conditions, claiming workers have been forced to deal with bugs, snakes and other creatures infesting the workplace. But, she says, the strict hours are what have most driven emotional stress in her personal life.

Howley says that most of the women working at the warehouse are single mothers, and being separated from their families and children for long periods have taken a toll on them. When Howley’s oldest son dropped out of high school, she says, she was unable to get out of work to help get him back into school.

“I’ve lost so much time with my children in the past five or six years being with this company and it hurts because my kids are in need of me and I can’t be there for them,” Howley tells In These Times. “I had to apologize, saying ‘I’m sorry, son, I don’t have PTO time to get you back into school.’”

The Memphis XPO warehouse workers are currently working with IBT to address these issues and improve the safety conditions and end the harassment that continues in their workplace. They are in the early stages of organizing, and IBT General President James P. Hoffa has pledged to back them in their union drive. They have also earned the support of civil and women’s rights groups such as the NAACP and National Women’s Law Center.

"Maybe by exposing XPO and the conditions that they make these workers work under will bring about a change,” Felicia Walker, an international organizer for IBT, tells In These Times. “These are human beings, not animals. There are laws to protect animals from that treatment, what about humans?”