From Cotton to Carbon: America’s Long Habit of Lying With Numbers

In 1860, at least one in five Southern households enslaved human beings — and in some states, it was half. Remembering the true numbers matters for how we confront inequality now.

When a clip from Fox News floats across my feed, I sometimes have to remind myself that this isn’t just the background noise of a broken culture. Millions of people are tuned in, nodding along, believing what they hear. And what they hear is often absurd, and more than absurd—dangerous.

Take Jillian Michaels, the fitness trainer whose abs-and-buns VHS ta…