2022
September
21
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

September 21, 2022
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Trudy Palmer
Cover Story Editor

What difference does a Black mermaid make? A lot if you’re a brown-skinned girl taught by tradition that princesses, heroines, and such are always white.

Earlier this month, Disney released a trailer for its live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” coming out next year. There was predictable backlash about Ariel, played by Halle Bailey, being Black, but, for me, that paled in comparison to videos of little girls’ surprise and delight at seeing an Ariel who looks like them. It reminded me how much representation matters – even in the realm of make-believe.

It matters in real life, too.

I still remember the moment I realized that a Black man could be a commercial pilot. (Women of any race weren’t being hired back then.) I was a teenager, flying to and from a boarding school several times a year. I had flown before then, too, and gone to the airport plenty of times to drop off or pick up family and friends. In all those years, I had seen and heard only white pilots.

Then one day on a TWA flight, when the pilot welcomed passengers over the intercom, I could tell by the tenor and rhythm of his speech that he was Black. There was no dialect or Black vernacular. He simply sounded, unmistakably, like my dad and uncles and other Black men I knew.

I was floored.

I’d never given a moment’s thought to the issue until then. Grass was green, the sky was blue, pilots were white. Until one wasn’t. 

The realization didn’t change my career trajectory; I had no interest in learning to fly. But it did teach me how insidiously what we see can limit our sense of what we can be. 

Nowadays, I’m pleasantly surprised if the pilot on my flight is Black – only 1.6% of commercial pilots are – but I’m not shocked. I’ve known since high school that it’s feasible.

From pilots to mermaids, representation unlocks a world of possibilities. 


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Sofiia Gatilova/Reuters
Ukrainian service members repair a Russian tank captured during a counteroffensive near the Russian border in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, Sept. 20, 2022. The counteroffensive saw Russian forces driven out of Kharkiv and fueled criticism in Russia of the Kremlin's strategy in Ukraine.

After Russia’s defeat in Kharkiv, the pressure was on Vladimir Putin to respond. Today he did, by announcing the escalation of the war in Ukraine through the mobilization of 300,000 Russian troops.

Mary Altaffer/AP
President Joe Biden addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, Sept. 21, 2022.

In championing Ukraine, President Biden is waging his signature global campaign for democracy. But addressing the U.N., he did not lose sight of other vital challenges that much of the world cares more about.

Patterns

Tracing global connections

Russia’s military setbacks in Ukraine have undermined President Putin’s standing with his allies and dealt a blow to his dream of reasserting Russia’s superpower status.

Points of Progress

What's going right

In our progress roundup, change comes to a notoriously dangerous road in Bolivia, child marriage rates drop in Nigeria, and Belgian city centers prioritize safety for people.

Television

Gilles Mingasson/Courtesy of ABC
Quinta Brunson stars as a teacher in the award-winning sitcom "Abbott Elementary," which offers a safe space, says a Monitor columnist, not only for imagining how to overcome adversity in education, but also for rethinking the balance between entertainment and empowerment. Season Two debuts Sept. 21.

Television shows are, by nature, feats of celebrity. But our commentator finds humility and heroism center stage in the award-winning sitcom “Abbott Elementary.”


The Monitor's View

AP
A dog looks over a wall in front of a house covered in ice near Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2018.

Denmark has broken the ice on a difficult issue in debates over global warming. Yesterday it announced it will start giving money to countries that feel the worst effects of climate change and yet are the least responsible for it. The decision by one of the world’s most industrialized nations could set a precedent for similar countries in acknowledging how their historic use of fossil fuels requires them to lift up less-developed nations.

Copenhagen’s initial pledge is modest – $13 million. That’s compared to an estimated $70 billion needed annually by developing countries for adaptation to climate change. But the recognition of responsibility signals potentially larger funding to help such countries become resilient to adverse weather events, especially if the money is directed toward clean governance and local support.

Danish Development Minister Flemming Møller Mortensen said the move would have a healing effect on “negotiations between rich and poor countries, where the debate about loss and damage for far too long has been full of conflict.”

Since 2013, every United Nations climate summit has officially recognized the need for “loss and damage” compensation. The idea is that wealthier nations should help offset the long-term effects of their carbon emissions. The effects range from damage to homes to damage to ecosystems and culture. 

Putting a number on such compensation has been difficult. A lawsuit in Peru shows why wealthier nations have resisted giving climate aid. A local farmer is suing an energy producer in Germany over the possibility that its emissions helped melt glaciers that resulted in the flooding of his village. Where, richer countries ask, are the boundaries of liability?

Earlier this year, a group of 48 developing countries calling itself the V20 group of vulnerable nations sought to address that concern. It established a fund to both share the burden of climate costs and show that such funding can be fairly and transparently used.

Taking responsibility for the adverse impact of emissions has gained some ground. Scotland and a region in Brussels made modest “loss and damages” pledges at last year’s climate summit in Glasgow. At the U.N. this week, 16 countries, including Germany, agreed to support biodiversity – which helps mitigate climate change and its effects.

“Only through dialogue, cooperation, and sharing of ideas, information, and experiences, we will be able to advance concrete initiatives that can help people, communities, and countries at risk,” wrote A.K. Abdul Momen, Bangladeshi foreign minister; Mr. Mortensen; and Birgitte Qvist-Sørensen, general secretary at DanChurchAid, in Climate Home News. “Our goal is to turn dead-end discussions into cooperation and action helping us all to manage climate induced loss and damage.”

Climate resilience need not mean cycles of helplessness and recovery from weather events. It can mean rejuvenation through economic cooperation and higher standards of governance. Denmark has helped the world take a step in that direction.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

Peace might seem unattainable at times. But today, on the International Day of Peace, and always, acting on each opportunity to be a peacemaker brings practical solutions that can have far-reaching effects.


A message of love

Francisco Seco/AP
Women hold up drawings of Iranian Mahsa Amini as they shout slogans during a protest against her death, outside Iran's Consulate General in Istanbul, Sept. 21, 2022. Protests have erupted across Iran in recent days after Ms. Amini died while being held by the morality police for violating the country's strictly enforced Islamic dress code. As part of the protest, some women have stopped wearing a hijab, including some in this photo.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Come back tomorrow when we take a deeper look at the U.S. immigration controversy stirred by politicians sending asylum-seekers northward.

More issues

2022
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