The marathon is a waste of resources and a big “fuck you” to those hit hardest. Cancel the marathon.

— Julie Klausner (@julieklausner) November 2, 2012

NYC Mayor Bloomberg has announced that the New York City Marathon will still happen on Sunday, which is pretty gross! The Atlantic has a good roundup of the arguments against it, and Heidi N. Moore has a great column saying why it’s a horrible idea (“Local politicians there is appalled at the idea of a marathon—’a marathon is a parade,’ the borough president told one newspaper—winding its way through the scenes of waterfront devastation.”)

Here is another story about life on minimum wage so that you have a fresh example to cite the next time you encounter a human who claims that inequality in America is actually overblown rhetoric and that it’s not actually that bad out there and that people should just work harder. (“‘I try to live within my means, but sometimes you just can’t,’ said Dupont, 25. The Houston resident works 30 to 40 hours a week taking customer service calls, earning between $7.25 and $8 an hour. That came to about $15,000 last year.”)

Really, we’re fighting because she raised me to never ever forget I was on parole, which means no black hoodies in wrong neighborhoods, no jogging at night, hands in plain sight at all times in public, no intimate relationships with white women, never driving over the speed limit or doing those rolling stops at stop signs, always speaking the king’s English in the presence of white folks, never being outperformed in school or in public by white students and most importantly, always remembering that no matter what, white folks will do anything to get you.

Mama’s antidote to being born a black boy on parole in Central Mississippi is not for us to seek freedom; it’s to insist on excellence at all times. Mama takes it personal when she realizes that I realize she is wrong. There ain’t no antidote to life, I tell her. How free can you be if you really accept that white folks are the traffic cops of your life? Mama tells me that she is not talking about freedom. She says that she is talking about survival.

—It is imperative that you read this.