TIL that by using the McDonald’s app for online orders, you automatically enter into an arbitration agreement, meaning you waive your right to sue the company in court. 🍔📱 [source, comments]

"Can't afford food? Blame billionaires, not immigrants"
Poster spotted in Toronto

Freight graffiti for Sonya Massey. On July 6, 2024, Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old African-American woman, was murdered in her home by deputy Sean Grayson of the Sangamon County Sheriff's Office in Woodside Township near Springfield, Illinois.

“The Democratic Party didn't just change their nominee, they have changed their message in the final hundred days before the election.”

https://www.axios.com/2024/08/01/kamala-harris-joe-biden-president-strategy-election

NEW: Billionaire Elon Musk has created a PAC collecting voter data from those living in key states through an online "register to vote" form that does not directly register people to vote.

All of this in an effort to help Donald Trump become president.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/02/elon-musk-pac-voter-data-trump-harris.html

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On this day, 2 August 1924, James Baldwin, renowned gay Black author and social critic was born in Harlem, New York City. Frustrated with endemic racism in the United States, he moved to France where he spent most of his life. However, he did return to the US during the civil rights movement and played an active role in fighting racism, despite the official movement's homophobia, encouraging civil disobedience and taking part in the March on Washington in 1963 and the Selma march in 1965. Baldwin believed racism to be a central tool of US capitalism, telling journalist Joe Walker: "Racism is crucial to the system to keep Black and whites at a division so both were and are a source of cheap labour… The price of any real socialism here [in the US] is the eradication of what we call the race problem."In 1968 Baldwin also pledged to refuse to pay tax in protest against the Vietnam war. For these "subversive" activities, Baldwin was subjected to illegal surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who collated 1,884 pages of documents on him. This collection of writings by Angela Davis begins with the letter sent to her by Baldwin: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/if-they-come-in-the-morning-angela-davis To access this hyperlink, click our link in bio then click this photo

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On this day, 3 August 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, for the “Indies,” with disastrous consequences for the people who already lived there. There are popular myths that he discovered the United States and proved the earth was round. However, he never even set foot in what is now the mainland US, and the fact that the earth was a sphere had been known since the days of the ancient Greeks. Columbus himself believed the earth to be pear-shaped. He landed in what is now known as the Bahamas, where he and his crew were greeted by the Indigenous Taíno people, who lived in village communes and held all property in common.Columbus began immediately imprisoning and murdering the Indigenous people and enslaving them in the search for gold. The Taíno people began fighting back but couldn’t defeat the Spanish, with their advanced weaponry and armor, so many began to kill themselves and their children to avoid a worse fate. Within just two years, half of the 250,000 Indigenous people on nearby Haiti were dead. More colonisers came, and the genocide of the native population continued across the Caribbean and the Americas. Despite all of this, today, in many places across the region, Indigenous communities survive and continue to resist.Exactly 500 years later, in 1992, Indigenous peoples around the Americas organised protests against celebrations of the event. Our latest double podcast episode explores them, and the 32 years of Native American resistance which are followed. You can support our work like this, and listen early, by joining us on patreon at https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory Link in bio

TIL obesity results in more chronic health issues overall than smoking, drinking or poverty. While all of the listed issues harm health, it was found that obesity was linked to a wider array of chronic health issues. [source, comments]