Friday, June 26, 2020

'White lives don't matter' Cambridge academic has post 'deleted by Twitter'




'White lives don't matter' Cambridge academic has post 'deleted by Twitter'



Dr Priyamvada Gopal sparked a backlash after tweeting: "White Lives Don't Matter". (Churchill College Cambridge)
Dr Priyamvada Gopal sparked a backlash after tweeting: "White Lives Don't Matter". (Churchill College Cambridge)
A controversial tweet by a Cambridge University professor saying ‘White lives don’t matter’ has been deleted by Twitter, she has claimed.
Professor Priyamvada Gopal, a fellow of Churchill College, sparked a backlash after she posted the tweet saying: “I’ll say it again. White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives.”
Since posting, the professor has received death threats and abuse, while a petition was launched demanding that she be fired by Cambridge University.
It comes after a banner reading ‘White Lives Matter’ was flown over the Etihad Stadium in Manchester just after kick-off between Manchester City and Burnley on Monday night, sparking a police investigation.

A controversial tweet by Dr Priyamvada Gopal has been deleted by Twitter, she has confirmed. (SWNS)
A controversial tweet by Dr Priyamvada Gopal has been deleted by Twitter, she has confirmed. (SWNS)
Prof Gopal later confirmed that the tweet had been deleted by Twitter, but said she stood by it as it was about “structure and ideology” rather than people.
She wrote: “I would also like to make clear I stand by my tweets, now deleted by Twitter, not me.
“They were very clearly speaking to a structure and ideology, not about people. My Tweet said whiteness is not special, not a criterion for making lives matter. I stand by that.”
Read more: Black Lives Matter: Pictures show scale of demonstrations around the world
The academic and activist also shared abuse she had been received both publicly and privately following the tweet.
One person replied saying she was “disgusting inside and out”, and, “[i]f you don’t like white people, pack up your sh*t and go home. Problem solved.”
Other examples included: “...On another note, kill yourself. Else someone might show you which lives really Matter :)”
“Why would you want to abolish whiteness anyway, we’ve given you everything you own, without us you’d still be chasing Bush meat with a blowpipe.”

Dr Gopal says she stands by the tweet because it was about ideology, not people. (Twitter)
Dr Gopal says she stands by the tweet because it was about ideology, not people. (Twitter)
Prof Gopal, who revealed on Thursday that she had been promoted to full Professorship in the English department, was defended by Cambridge University as well as by the University and College Union (UCU).
In a statement, Cambridge University said: “The university defends the right of its academics to express their own lawful opinions, which others might find controversial.
“[It] deplores in the strongest terms abuse and personal attacks. These attacks are totally unacceptable and must cease.”
The Cambridge branch of the University and College Union (UCU) wrote: “Solidarity with Priyamvada Gopal - being targeted with vile sexist and racist abuse for speaking up against white supremacists.
“We are proud to be your colleagues both on the picket line and off it. #BlackLivesMatter #Solidarity.”
However, the university’s support of Prof Gopal has been criticised by some as inconsistent, with some pointing to the recent removal of Noah Carl from a research position at St Edmund’s college over links with far right extremist groups.

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Census shows white decline, nonwhite majority among youngest

Census shows white decline, nonwhite majority among youngest

MIKE SCHNEIDER


ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — For the generation of Americans not yet old enough to drive, the demographic future has arrived.
For the first time, nonwhites and Hispanics were a majority of people under age 16 in 2019, an expected demographic shift that will grow over the coming decades, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.
“We are browning from bottom up in our age structure,” said William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. “This is going to be a diversified century for the United States, and it’s beginning with this youngest generation.”
At the same time, the number of non-Hispanic whites in the U.S. has gotten smaller in the past decade as deaths surpassed births in this aging demographic, according to the Census Bureau population estimates.
Since 2010, the number of whites who aren't Hispanic had dropped by more than 16,600 people. But the decline has been escalating in the past three years, with the number of non-Hispanic whites dropping by more than a half million people from 2016 to 2019, according to the Census Bureau population estimates.
In 2019, a little under 40% of the total U.S. population was either nonwhite or Hispanic. Non-Hispanic whites are expected to be a minority of the U.S. population in about 25 years.
A natural decrease from the number of deaths exceeding births, plus a slowdown in immigration to the U.S., contributed to the population drop since 2010 for non-Hispanic whites, whose median age of 43.7 last year was by far the highest of any demographic group. If these numbers hold for the 2020 census being conducted right now, it will be the first time since the first decennial census in 1790 that there has been a national decline of whites, Frey said.
“It’s aging. Of course, we didn’t have a lot of immigration, that has gone down," Frey said. “White fertility has gone down."
In fact, the decrease in births among the white population has led to a dip in the number of people under age 18 in the past decade, a drop exacerbated by the fact that the much larger Millennial cohort has aged out of that group, replaced by a smaller Generation Z.
Over the past decade, Asians had the biggest growth rate of any demographic group, increasing by almost 30%. Almost two-thirds of that growth was driven by international migration.
The Hispanic population grew by 20% since 2010, with almost three-quarters of that growth coming from a natural increase that comes when more people are born than die.
The Black population grew by almost 12% over the decade, and the white population increased by 4.3%.
The nation's seniors have swelled since 2010 as Baby Boomers aged into that demographic, with the number of people over age 65 increasing by more than a third. Seniors in 2019 made up more than 16% of the U.S. population, compared to 13% in 2010.
In four states — Maine, Florida, West Virginia and Vermont — seniors accounted for 20% of the population. That's a benchmark that the overall U.S. population is expected to reach by 2030.
“The first Baby Boomers reached 65 years old in 2011,” said Luke Rogers, chief of the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Branch. “No other age group saw such a fast increase."
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Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP

Friday, June 19, 2020

Your OPINION is your opinion and don't let anyone tell you that you are wrong for it.




YOUR opinion is very important.

Every single person in this world will have an opinion about something that will make someone mad..... tough.....respect and move on.

Thursday, May 21, 2020










Airborne Coronavirus Detected in Wuhan Hospitals

Kenneth Chang
















A worker disinfects a room at the Red Cross hospital in Wuhan, in China's central Hubei province on March 18, 2020. - The hospital, which has been used to treat COVID-19 coronavirus patients, will be temporarily closed from March 18 for a week of extensive disinfection, before being returned to service as a general hospital. (Photo by STR / AFP) / China OUT (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Adding to growing evidence that the novel coronavirus can spread through air, scientists have identified genetic markers of the virus in airborne droplets, many with diameters smaller than one-ten-thousandth of an inch.
That had been previously demonstrated in laboratory experiments, but now Chinese scientists studying real-world conditions report that they captured tiny droplets containing the genetic markers of the virus from the air in two hospitals in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak started.
Their findings were published Monday in the journal Nature.
It remains unknown if the virus in the samples they collected was infectious, but droplets that small, which are expelled by breathing and talking, can remain aloft and be inhaled by others.
“Those are going to stay in the air floating around for at least two hours,” said Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech who was not involved with the Nature paper. “It strongly suggests that there is potential for airborne transmission.”
Marr and many other scientists say evidence is mounting that the coronavirus is being spread by tiny droplets known as aerosols. The World Health Organization has so far downplayed the possibility, saying that the disease is mostly transmitted through larger droplets that do not remain airborne for long, or through the touching of contaminated surfaces.
Even with the new findings, the issue is not settled. Although the coronavirus RNA — the genetic blueprint of the virus — was present in the aerosols, scientists do not know yet whether the viruses remain infectious or whether the tests just detected harmless virus fragments.
“The missing piece is viable viral replication,” said Harvey V. Fineberg, who leads the Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. “Could you culture this virus from the air?”
In February and March, scientists collected samples at Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University and at a makeshift temporary medical facility used to quarantine and treat patients with mild symptoms. They also sampled the air in public areas around Wuhan, including a residential building, a supermarket and two department stores.
Very little virus was detected in the air of the isolation wards or in the patient rooms of the hospital, which were well ventilated. But elevated concentrations were measured in the small toilet areas, about 1 square yard in size, which were not ventilated.
“It kind of emphasizes the importance of avoiding small confined spaces,” Marr said.
The researchers also detected viruses in the air in the locations where staff members took off their protective garments, suggesting that viruses that had settled on clothing could be knocked back into the air. These readings were greatly reduced after the hospitals implemented more rigorous cleaning procedures.
The Wuhan data echo findings at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where other researchers also found coronavirus RNA in the air as well as on surfaces in rooms. That research, still in the process of being reviewed by other scientists before publication in a journal, did not determine the size of the droplets. But the presence of RNA from the virus in out-of-the-way locations, such as under a bed and on window sills, also suggested that small droplets were carried around the rooms by air currents.
In their paper, the Nebraska researchers detected the presence of coronavirus RNA, but not whether the viruses were still infectious. In additional experiments, the scientists are trying to grow the virus in cultures to determine if they are capable of sickening people.
“We’ve made a lot of progress the last couple of weeks,” said Joshua L. Santarpia, a professor of pathology and microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. “I really do hope that we’ll start being able to say something more definitive in the next week or so.”
In the Wuhan research, no viruses were detected in most of the public places they studied, including the residential building and the supermarket, although some levels were detected in crowded areas outside one of the hospitals and in the department stores. Marr said she calculated it would take about 15 minutes for a person to breathe in one virus particle.
“It was interesting to see there were measurable amounts,” Marr said. “I think it adds good evidence to avoid crowding.”
The paper did not state whether people passing through those areas were wearing masks, which would block much of the virus a sick person breathes out.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company