I first came upon Richard Wright via The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (incredible book btw), the title of which actually comes from a poem in the original draft of Black Boy:

I was leaving the South
to fling myself into the unknown...
I was taking a part of the South
to transplant in alien soil,
to see if it could grow differently,
if it could drink of new and cool rains,
bend in strange winds,
respond to the warmth of other suns
and, perhaps, to bloom.

I first read Wright's novel Native Son, a story about a young black man (Bigger Thomas) born to Jim Crow Mississippi and living in Chicago's redlined Black Belt in the 1930s

The book was especially captivating to me through Wright's ability to express the chaotic, bewildered psychological turmoil in Bigger's mind throughout the book.

Reading Black Boy, Wright's autobiography, it is clear where this ability came from. As powerful as Native Son is, I found Black Boy to be even more so. The details of his life are harrowing. The abject poverty and hunger, the racial subjugation and humiliation, the suppression of his individuality and intellect by his own family and community. But again what made this book so captivating to me was clarity with which he could see and portray his own inner life and psychology through all of this. His prose is engrossing and poetic. I was absorbed in it from page one. I've never quite read anything else like it, and can't recommend it enough.

If anyone has read Black Boy or anything else by Wright (or Isabel Wilkerson as well for that matter; Caste and The Warmth of Other Suns are absolute favorites of mine), I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The plaintiffs’ brief alleges that Meta was aware that its platforms were endangering young users, including by exacerbating adolescents’ mental health issues. According to the plaintiffs, Meta frequently detected content related to eating disorders, child sexual abuse, and suicide but refused to remove it. For example, one 2021 internal company survey found that more than 8 percent of respondents aged 13 to 15 had seen someone harm themself or threaten to harm themself on Instagram during the past week. The brief also makes clear that Meta fully understood the addictive nature of its products, with plaintiffs citing a message by one user-experience researcher at the company that Instagram “is a drug” and, “We’re basically pushers.”

Perhaps most relevant to state child endangerment laws, the plaintiffs have alleged that Meta knew that millions of adults were using its platforms to inappropriately contact minors. According to their filing, an internal company audit found that Instagram had recommended 1.4 million potentially inappropriate adults to teenagers in a single day in 2022. The brief also details how Instagram’s policy was to not take action against sexual solicitation until a user had been caught engaging in the “trafficking of humans for sex” a whopping 17 times. As Instagram’s former head of safety and well-being, Vaishnavi Jayakumar, reportedly testified, “You could incur 16 violations for prostitution and sexual solicitation, and upon the seventeenth violation, your account would be suspended.”

Archive link in case anyone hits a paywall.

This article is from September, but it is good, and in light of other recent efforts by the Indian government at mass surveillance of their population, I think it is worth a read.

A system like Aadhaar is a great way for governments to sneak in a platform of surveillance and control under the guise of welfare and could serve as a model for other governments seeking to supercharge their own surveillance efforts.

From exile in Moscow, ex-intel chief Kamal Hassan and Assad cousin Rami Makhlouf are spending millions of dollars in competing efforts to build fighting forces that would lead a revolt along Syria’s coast. They are also vying for control of a network of 14 underground command rooms stocked with arms and ammunition that were built in the dictatorship’s last days. Syria's government has deployed another former Assad insider – a childhood friend of the new president – to neutralize the plotters.

[...]

DAMASCUS - Former loyalists to Bashar al-Assad who fled Syria after the dictator’s fall are funneling millions of dollars to tens of thousands of potential fighters, hoping to stir uprisings against the new government and reclaim some of their lost influence, a Reuters investigation has found.

Assad, who escaped to Russia last December, is largely resigned to exile in Moscow, say four people close to the family. But other senior figures from his inner circle, including his brother, have not come to terms with losing power.

Two of the men once closest to Assad, Maj. Gen. Kamal Hassan and billionaire Rami Makhlouf, are competing to form militias in coastal Syria and Lebanon made up of members of their minority Alawite sect, long associated with the Assad family, Reuters found. All told, the two men and other factions jostling for power are financing more than 50,000 fighters in hope of winning their loyalty.

[...]

To counter the plotters, Syria’s new government is deploying another former Assad loyalist – a childhood friend of new President Ahmed al-Sharaa who became a paramilitary leader for Assad and then switched sides mid-war after the dictator turned against him. The task of that man, Khaled al-Ahmad, is to persuade Alawite ex-soldiers and civilians that their future lies with the new Syria.