Commentary

If a Black man runs from the police when they pull into his neighborhood, is that evidence of guilt or a rational act of self-preservation? That is the question before the Maryland Court of Appeals in Washington v. State of Maryland. Given that Black people are killed at higher rates than white people, running from the police is an act of self-preservation. On July 9, 2020, Tyrie Washington was standing in an alley with another person in Northwest Baltimore. Four officers were, according to their testimony, “riding around” to show their presence in a marked police car.

I’ve mourned relatives, students, people from my past. As piercing as some of these deaths have been, it wasn’t until Aug. 21, 2021, that I became someone whose grief is permanent. That day, in the early, still-dark hours, I woke up and saw my mom had called at an even earlier, darker, hour. When I called her back, she delivered the worst news of my life. My 35-year-old brother Tyler had died in a car accident the night before.

Eight years ago, a week before Election Day, I published a column on Center Maryland speculating about who might be getting cabinet positions and other prominent roles in the anticipated administration of Anthony Brown, the Democratic nominee for governor (don’t bother looking for it on Center Maryland’s archives — most of the pieces from that era have vanished). The day after that column appeared, I ran into Ken Ulman, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, at the Montgomery Business Hall of Fame annual luncheon, greeting people as they came in. Ulman praised my column and said I had gotten just about everything right, with one or two notable exceptions. I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Too often post-election pundits can’t help but paint broad brushes of why certain demographics did or did not turn out and why they voted the way they did. When things go wrong for one party or right with the other, the analysis centers on messaging, strategy, and outreach. In Maryland, Asian-American and Pacific Islander voters are too often seen as a monolith. As a result, grassroots or media outreach is rarely comprehensive. Intentional AAPI outreach requires time and effort — candidates and aligned organizations must work with community and business leaders across the AAPI spectrum to pinpoint the issues that are important to this very diverse community. In some districts, it can be the difference between winning and losing.

As Christmas approaches, not everyone is celebrating. American families — hit hard by inflation, wage stagnation and layoffs — must confront another challenge: an expired child tax credit. The program, which provides cash handouts to parents and is vociferously backed by President Joe Biden, has been hailed as instrumental in reducing child poverty. But renewing the child tax credit has proved challenging. Now, with a few weeks remaining before a new Congress takes office, advocates of the child tax credit are pushing for a renewal in an end-of-year tax package. The political pain point comes down to work. Republicans want parental toil in exchange for government cash. Democrats, not so much.

As Robert Iger takes the reins at Disney from maligned outgoing CEO Bob Chapek, industry analysis has treated his re-ascension to the helm as a necessary antidote for the struggling company. But the fact that Iger is retaking the CEO role demonstrates real limitations and blind spots in his own leadership. Chapek, of course, was Iger’s hand-selected successor. While many of Disney’s current challenges may have come about from Chapek’s stilted rule and ill-devised decisions to focus on profit over culture, it is also clear that he was not set up to succeed.

Maine lobster has become somewhat controversial in recent months, as conservation groups identified the gear fishermen use to trap lobster (specifically, the vertical lines used to retrieve traps) as a threat to the already-endangered North Atlantic right whale. Critics took issue with the propriety of serving lobster to French President Emmanuel Macron — even if butter-poached with American Osetra caviar — at the first state dinner of Joe Biden’s presidency on Dec. 1. And Whole Foods announced last month it would stop carrying Maine lobster in its stores, as it was no longer regarded as sustainable by the nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council or California-based Seafood Watch. Yet getting entangled with lobster gear in the Gulf of Maine or Georges Bank is not the only threat facing right whales.