The aftermath of the Trayvon Martin killing took a dispiriting turn this month, with two separate instances of alleged vigilante justice making headlines. The first happened in Mobile, Alabama, when a group of black people critically assaulted a white man who complained about kids playing basketball in front of his house. The victim’s sister says she heard one member of the mob say the beating was justice for Trayvon. Then last week, two black teenagers in Oak Park, Illinois were arrested for punching and kicking a white man before robbing him. When he was arrested, one of the kids, Alton Hayes III, told police he picked his victim because he was angry about the Trayvon case.
While the vast majority of the pro-Trayvon activity over the past several weeks has been peaceful and constructive—fundraisers and silent protests, for example—these beatings raise two possible concerns. First, the people who are committing these crimes and then allegedly invoking Trayvon may be doing so as a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card, tossing out the dead boy’s name as a way of saying, “This really isn’t my fault, because if George Zimmerman hadn’t killed Trayvon, I wouldn’t be doing this.” If that’s the case, it’s depressing how quickly Trayvon’s death went from being a tragedy to being a tool (though, sadly, the shooting was already a political tool for many).
The second possibility is that there actually are black people feeling enough anxiety over Trayvon to attack innocent white people. This possibility is far more frightening, especially considering the way America is dividing itself along ethnic lines when it comes to opinions on what really happened the night Trayvon died. More than half of American blacks believe Zimmerman is “definitely guilty” of a crime, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll, while only 11 percent of non-blacks agree. Some, like TheNew York Times‘ Charles Blow, are calling this “another O.J. moment.” Others are drawing similarities to another famous American trial: that of Rodney King.
In a sick coincidence, Zimmerman killed Trayvon almost exactly 20 years after a jury in Los Angeles acquitted three LAPD officers of charges stemming from beating King. The riots that followed that verdict lasted for days, leaving more than 50 people dead and thousands more injured.
Neo-Nazis are now reportedly “patrolling” the streets in Sanford, Florida, adding another layer of tension to an already-difficult situation. That any black Americans would provide them with justification for their intimidation tactics by senselessly attacking white people is terrifying. That’s not justice for Trayvon. In fact, that’s adding fuel to the same kind of fear-mongering that led Zimmerman to believe a 17-year-old black boy was a mortal threat in the first place.
If there will be justice for Trayvon, it will be found in a courtroom. And if you really want to honor his memory, the best you can do is extend your hand to those who would harm you and say you forgive them.
The UN has passed a non-binding resolution to endorse the Equal Earth Projection, a map which more fairly represents the true size of the Earth’s landmasses. The current commonly used projection, called the Mercator Projection, greatly exaggerates land towards the north and south poles, which makes Africa look much smaller. In the Mercator projection, countries near the north and south pole can be anywhere from two to 14 times their true size. In the Equal Earth projection these distortions are minimised, making Africa look larger in comparison.
We asked Jack Swab and Derek Alderman, cartographers and geographers who study the social and communicative power of maps, to explain what’s going on.
What is a map projection?
A map projection is a technique that cartographers (map-makers) use to transform the round, three-dimensional Earth into a flat, two-dimensional map that we see on the wall or on our computer screen. As cartographers flatten the globe, the map becomes distorted, changing shapes and areas. There is no map projection that does not distort the Earth, but some projections are better suited for some uses than others.
A cartographer’s job is to choose from the hundreds of different map projections, and consider where the map is focused and how it is going to be used. No single projection is best for every use. This new Equal Earth projection is better suited than Mercator for producing global scale world maps for educational, public communication and policy purposes.
The Equal Earth supports a more accurate geographic understanding of the relative sizes of countries and continents. It provides a fairer perspective for the public to compare regions in terms of population, environment, development, politics and other global patterns.
Is the Mercator projection still useful?
While the Mercator projection isn’t good for showing the size of the Earth’s landmasses, we won’t see it totally disappear. For example, it’s very useful for navigational purposes as it maintains the accuracy of a compass bearing between two points without having to recalculate it.
This is why most online mapping platforms like Google Maps or Apple Maps rely on a variation of the Mercator projection to provide directions. Using the Equal Earth projection for navigation would not be as effective as the Mercator projection.
How will the Equal Earth projection be used?
Map-making is decentralised and there is no single authority regulating which map projection is used. What the UN did was endorse the broader message that Equal Earth is a fairer projection that more equitably displays the true size of the Earth’s land. And although this action is happening at a global level, there are movements underway in cartographic communities to make the Equal Earth projection the default world map projection.
The UN resolution by itself will not make Equal Earth a globally adopted projection. That requires intentional revision of maps used in textbooks, databases, media productions and diplomatic discussions, which requires labour and financial investment.
The Equal Earth projection was developed by cartographers and is a popular choice among map-makers since it was unveiled in 2018. It’s now possible to buy wall maps with the Equal Earth projection on them, and the projection has already been used in a wide variety of media. That said, individuals will need to opt in to using the Equal Earth projection over other types.
Why has the Equal Earth projection sparked resistance?
Resistance to the Equal Earth projection has been quite limited. There were several abstentions from the United Nations General Assembly vote, but most of this was for other reasons. Ukraine, for example, raised concerns over the depiction of the contested Crimean Peninsula on the map, which the Equal Earth Projection website depicts as contested territory.
This spurred a Russian response, along with points from other nations about contested territory. Given the UN resolution was a vote on how the world is portrayed and not about any specific political boundaries (a point that both Russia and Ukraine agreed on), these discussions amounted to geopolitical posturing about non-map issues.
The lone outlier, and only “no” vote against the Equal Earth projection, came from the United States. It claimed that the proposal was part of a “radical and ideological project” that was not appropriate for the United Nations to be debating. American delegates took issue with language linking Mercator’s distortions to colonial legacies and the marginalisation of Africa. This is not surprising since the current administration denies the existence of structural systems of inequality.
It is hard to miss the hypocrisy at play. The US wants other countries not to discuss the political implications of cartography even as President Trump engages in his own nationalist branding of the map. He has unilaterally renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and Lake Ontario to Lake America for clear ideological reasons and without international consultation.
How does the new map matter when it comes to changing global views of the world?
The argument that African nations put forward was that the Equal Earth projection is a form of “cognitive justice”. Cognitive justice recognises that people often equate power and value of places with their apparent size on maps. Traditional views of Africa as a smaller continent compared to Europe or North America typically reflect the perceived importance of these parts of the world.
Equal Earth may make it easier to teach, broadcast and discuss a different view of Africa and its prominence in the world. Today, African countries are among the world’s fastest growing economies and fastest growing populations. Map projections alone cannot change people’s attitudes. Yet, as African nations seek to have more influence in international affairs, correcting the mental map of global leaders is an important step in amplifying the continent’s relevance and rights.
Young workers often share values with older colleagues, but the environment where they learned about workplace behavior is different. Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash, CC BY
Learning Facilitator for Online Master of Business Administration, Boston University
For all the talk about generational differences at work, some of the biggest differences show up in surprisingly ordinary moments.
Take being late for work. A Gen Z employee in her 20s I spoke with works at a small, locally owned café and restaurant run by an older Gen X owner. When she realized she was going to be late one day, she texted him. He was frustrated. To him, being late was serious enough to warrant a phone call, and a text felt too casual and impersonal.
She saw the exact same interaction very differently.
“He’s super busy, so I felt a call was going to take up too much time,” she told me. “So I texted. I thought it was more considerate.”
Both thought they understood what respectful workplace communication looked like. They just had completely different definitions of it.
I study workplace culture and communication, and I see this type of misunderstanding as increasingly common in multigenerational workplaces. And this is becoming more pronounced as Gen Z moves further into the workforce. The oldest members of Gen Z are now approaching 30, while the youngest are in college and high school.
What’s distinctive about the older members of Gen Z is that many went through college, internships or their first jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, when much of our communication moved online and masks often covered half our faces. And there’s a new twist now, as artificial intelligence changes how we communicate all over again.
The result isn’t necessarily that Gen Z employees communicate better or worse with their bosses and colleagues than previous generations did. I argue that they have simply learned to do so in a very different environment.
When a text means something more
The café example is an easy one to dismiss as younger workers preferring texting and feeling that phone calls are for important occasions only.
But that misses what I think is the more interesting point: The employee wasn’t trying to avoid her boss. She thought she was respecting his time.
For her boss, by contrast, the phone call itself carried meaning. It communicated that she understood the seriousness of being late.
Neither one had explained that expectation to the other.
Managers shouldn’t assume employees attach the same meaning they do to a particular form of communication. If being late requires a phone call, they need to say so. A two-minute conversation about expectations can prevent both people from walking away from an interaction believing the other was disrespectful.
Another common stumble concerns openness, which might feel like oversharing.
One Gen Z worker I spoke with had recently started a job at a large New England company in a blue-collar industry. He was struggling with severe anxiety and decided to tell his baby boomer manager. The manager was sympathetic, but also uneasy.
“It made me feel uncomfortable, if I’m being honest,” the manager told me. “I didn’t want to downplay his anxiety, but I’m not sure I needed to know.”
That distinction matters. His reaction wasn’t that anxiety wasn’t real or that his employee should simply get over it. But he questioned how much of it belonged in their professional relationship.
Many older workers learned that professionalism is about setting clear boundaries between personal and professional life. Members of Gen Z are coming of age during a period when conversations about mental health and personal well-being are considerably more public. What feels like honesty to one person can feel like oversharing to their boss.
This doesn’t mean that managers have to become therapists, and employees don’t have to disclose everything happening in their lives. But both may need to recognize that their comfort level around disclosure isn’t universal.
What younger workers may see as honesty could be seen as oversharing by older colleagues, who tend to keep more boundaries over personal information.Aleksandra Sapozhnikova on Unsplash, CC BY
Learning to read a room when the room disappeared
Some workplace communication is never spoken at all. Think about how people traditionally learned to read a room. They watched faces around a conference table. They noticed a change in a manager’s tone. Someone caught them after a meeting and quietly explained what had just happened.
Now think about someone who was 18 or 19 in 2020.
At exactly the age when many young people would have been developing these skills in college, internships and early jobs, the room disappeared. Classes went online. Internships became remote. When people returned in person, masks sometimes made facial communication more difficult.
That doesn’t mean members of Gen Z can’t read facial expressions, but we should be careful about assuming everyone had the same opportunities to learn the unwritten signals of professional life. If feedback matters, I believe managers should say it. A disappointed expression on a Zoom call is a poor substitute for a conversation.
I thought that was understood
Imagine a manager telling a young employee: “I need this by Friday.” The employee sends it back at 4:30 p.m. that Friday afternoon. The manager is annoyed because they intended to review it that morning, make changes and send it along to someone else.
The employee is equally confused. The deadline was Friday, and they met it.
This deadline mismatch gets at something I have repeatedly encountered in my research with Gen Z workers. In a survey I conducted of 250 Gen Z professionals across industries, clear structural expectations emerged alongside fairness and empathetic engagement as recurring themes.
If an employee wants clarity, it shouldn’t automatically be confused with hand-holding. An employee can want autonomy and still want to know exactly what success looks like. “Friday” and “Friday by 10 a.m. because I need three hours to review this” communicate very different expectations.
Artificial intelligence may make this issue even more important. We can now produce polished emails, summarize meetings and generate information faster than ever. But more communication does not guarantee more understanding.
I believe that may be the larger lesson for every generation working together. We tend to mistake the workplace norms we learned for common sense. They aren’t. They were taught to us by the workplaces, technologies and moments in history in which we began our careers.
Gen Z is learning theirs in a very different world.
Still, I could not have imagined how significantly his leave would end up affecting our family and our connections with community.
During his leave time, my spouse took our oldest child to playdates and birthday parties. He quickly became connected with our small-town network of families with kids close in age. I witnessed my spouse becoming more comfortable being the “main” parent in public, going to kid-centered community events and connecting with other parents.
Our family is still seeing the benefits of those few weeks 10 years later.
This diversity in leave policies can make it hard to assess the impact of leave for the non-birthing parent. But existing research suggests that extended leave for birthing parents and moderate leave for non-birthing partners positively impact infant well-being and reduce postpartum mental health challenges.
Children also benefit from paternity leave. When a father takes significant leave – meaning at least two weeks – children report experiencing more father-child closeness and better communication in the relationship up to nine years later. And overall child health tends to improve when fathers take paternity leave.
Paternity leave is an opportunity for fathers to become comfortable in their parenting role and connect with other parents.SolStock/E+ via Getty Images
Family balance
Allowing both parents to have sufficient time off to bond and adjust to their new roles can also have longer-term benefits within the family unit and contribute toward more equity in child rearing. Even in 2026, mothers are often considered the “default” parent, with fathers taking a more secondary role.
As I experienced in my own family, when fathers have ample time off, it sets up the dynamic to be more balanced between parents. This helps reduce the strain on recovering mothers and redistributes some of the care work that goes into raising children.
Home economics
What’s more, paid leave policies have been shown to help families’ financial health. Pay rates during leave can vary widely depending on your company, organization or country. Without full or close to full pay, many families cannot afford to take leave.
In the U.S., for example, the Family and Medical Leave Act allows time off, but not in all circumstances, nor is that time required to be paid. Many families cannot afford to take the full allowable time off, using up sick or vacation time if available. Many parents in the U.S. end up going back to work sooner than seems healthy.
New parents in the U.S. often find themselves in an economic bind – they can’t afford to take leave, nor can they afford to rely on a single income to have a parent stay home. But many also can’t afford the childcare rates for newborns, which tend to be particularly high. National averages for infant care at childcare centers are nearly US$200 more per month than toddler care. While rates vary significantly depending on where you live and what type of care you choose, infant care remains the most expensive.
Despite the lack of a paid U.S. federal leave policy for parents, both domestic and multinational companies have noticed that their workers care about parental leave policies. Some have begun to offer leave for supporting parents in order to recruit and retain workers.
U.S. leave policies consistently rank at or near the bottom when compared with other similarly developed countries, like the 38 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.
Some countries follow a “use-it-or-lose-it” model of parental leave, where fathers in particular are encouraged to take a more substantial role in childcare. Sweden and Norway, for example, earmark 90 days of leave for each parent, and it cannot be transferred to or split with the other parent. This encourages both parents to take time off.
There are many options across countries with parental leave policies. Flexibility and defined expectations seem to be key contributors to getting the most out of the parental leave that is offered.
Cultural adoption
When non-birthing parents are men, another barrier to taking leave is the perceived social acceptability within their communities. Even when paid paternity leave is available, many men struggle to take it because of how traditional gender roles and expectations of masculinity frame childcare as women’s work.
To offset these kinds of social pressures, countries like Japan and Austria offer incentives such as bonus leave time for families when fathers actually take their available leave. Germany offers a similar bonus, and it has found improved couple relationship satisfaction when fathers take more of their leave time.
Beyond improvements in maternal and infant health, both parents taking leave can create a more equitable workplace environment. Disparities and discrimination that come when only women take leave after birth can lessen when fathers and other supporting parents also take leave. Childbearing women are then less likely to be penalized, formally or informally, for taking parental leave.
Paid parental leave policies that provide leave for all parents, regardless of gender, also can help reduce structural inequality in the workplace across race and class. In the U.S., Hispanic and Black workers often have less access to paid leave policies and may experience increased pressure to return to work earlier than their white counterparts.
As more states, countries and corporations adopt more flexible and inclusive leave policies, researchers will continue to learn how parental leave benefits both parents and children. What they’ve found so far leads me to believe that, just like we’ve seen with prenatal care and early education programs, parental leave will prove to be an early investment in healthy children and families that pays dividends in the long term.
