New Outrage: There Aren’t Enough Black People in the Path of the Solar Eclipse

It reads like The Onion, but it’s actually The Atlantic:

On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will arrive mid-morning on the coast of Oregon. The moon’s shadow will be about 70 miles wide, and it will race across the country faster than the speed of sound, exiting the eastern seaboard shortly before 3 p.m. local time. It has been dubbed the Great American Eclipse, and along most of its path, there live almost no black people.

Okay then.

Does Alice Ristroph believe the sun and
moon are racist? You’ll be pleased to know she considers that doubtful:

Presumably, this is not explained by the implicit bias of the solar system. It is a matter of population density, and more specifically geographic variations in population density by race, for which the sun and the moon cannot be held responsible. Still, an eclipse chaser is always tempted to believe that the skies are relaying a message. At a moment of deep disagreement about the nation’s best path forward, here comes a giant round shadow, drawing a line either to cut the country in two or to unite it as one.

Plenty of eclipse chasers aren’t tempted in this manner at all. Many of us just want to see the eclipse.

We’ve all seen stories like this, that desperately try to insert a diatribe about some leftist hobby-horse into the discussion of literally any topical story under the sun. But this one takes the cake.

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