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Competency checking is a practice that imposes extra scrutiny on Black professionals and people of color, challenging their qualifications, intellect, and ability to advance. There are three primary ways competency checking is deployed in the modern workplace. The first is the assumption of Black intellectual inferiority and/or a lack of qualifications. This can manifest in low expectations, marginalization, and extreme micromanagement. (More simply: If someone assumes, consciously or unconsciously, that all Black people are intellectually inferior, they may question the person and their qualifications more closely during an interview and, once hired, pay much more attention to their work while looking for any mistakes.) The second method of competency checking is the expression, particularly of surprise or unease, with open displays of Black intelligence, which can trigger requests or demands to confirm how it was acquired and whether its the result of rote memorization or actual, integrated knowledge. This can manifest as dismissal, quizzing, argument, and tokenization. (If a Black person knows something that their white coworker doesnt already know, the coworkers reaction isnt I didnt know that! but more often How do you know that?) The third method of competency checking is activation, specifically the feeling of fear when confronted with a Black person who holds any authority, especially someone in a leadership position. This can manifest as requests for identification, undefined feelings of unfairness, anger, unease, and what I would describe as an autoimmune level rejection of Black leadership. While competency checking can happen to other people of color and, to some extent, white women, there are specific historical and cultural reasons why Black people seem to bear the brunt of it. This book is an exploration of these methods; when, how, and why they were created and implemented; and how they continue to have an outsize impact on Black people and other people of color at work. The idea that it is not incompetence that is holding back Black professionals is for many a foreign concept. Thats understandable, given that the narrative surrounding Black peopleand the reason the workplace looks the way it does todayis that they dont value education or that theres no one in the hiring pipeline because there are so few qualified Black people, or that Black people want special treatment. Whats interesting is that both anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests that Black workers are getting a type of special treatment, just not the type that many people think. In 2019, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released research that revealed the impact of race and racism in the workplace. That year was a hot labor market, and the U.S. saw the longest economic expansion in its history, with more than 100 consecutive months of job growth and more than 21 million jobs added. But the EPIs analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics and Local Area Unemployment Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau data uncovered some surprising things: Per their report, Black workers are twice as likely to be unemployed as white workers overall, even Black workers with a college degree are more likely to be unemployed than similarly educated white workers. That unemployment gap, apparently, is a pattern that has persisted for more than 40 years. In fact, this 2-to-1 ratio holds in practically every state in the nation where Black workers make up a significant share of the workforce. I believe that gap is linked, especially when it comes to new hires and leadership, to competency checking. And it starts with a name. In 2024, The New York Times reported on research from the National Bureau of Economic Research about the impact of a Black- or white-sounding name on job applications. In a 2019 study, researchers sent 80,000 fake résumés for 10,000 job openings at 100 companies. The résumés were modified to imply different racial and gender identities, using names like Latisha or Amy to indicate a Black or white woman, respectively, and Lamar or Adam for a Black or white man. According to the resulting data, on average, candidates believed to be white received contact from employers about 9.5% more frequently compared to those thought to be Black. This type of research is known as an audit study, and it was the largest of its kind in the United States. Ultimately, it found that the results demonstrate how entrenched employment discrimination is in parts of the U.S. labor marketand the extent to which Black workers start behind in certain industries. Its not all doom and gloom: Some companies showed little to no bias when it came to screening applicants for entry-level positions. And while there is much to learn from the companies that got it right, we must remember that this study pertains solely to entry-level positions that do not require a college degree or extensive work experience. It also does not cover aspects of career progression or advancement opportunities within these companies, which are equally critical to understanding the full scope of how competency checking shows up in the workplace. From the book Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work by Shari Dunn. Copyright 2025 by Shari Dunn. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
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Ford has used some version of its famous script logo for more than a century, but despite its widespread usage, people are scratching their heads over a detail they just noticed. In a viral TikTok, user Monica Turner asked viewers to pick the correct version of the automaker’s logo, one with a funny-looking flourish on the logo’s F and one without. Viewers were split on which version they thought was correct, and to some commenters’ surprise, it’s the one with the curlicue. @monicasopenhouse Mandela Effect- The Ford Logo! I think they BOTH Look wrong, ! #MonicasOpenHouse #FYP #mandelaeffect #FordLogo #strangebuttrue #TimeShift #Cern #WeirdStuff #Over30 #Over40 #Over50 #GenX #ConspiracyTheory #tinfoilhat original sound – Monica Turner Side by side and to the untrained eye, the real Ford logo looks fake next to its dupe. In the age of corporate blanding, the curlicue flourish reads as fake, but it’s been there as far back as the 1910s, according to a vintage advertising sign in the Henry Ford Museum. Some commentersincluding a former Ford mechanic and another who worked at a Ford dealershipgot it right, but the rest of us should know better too. Ford’s F-150 truck has been the long-running best-selling vehicle in the U.S., and over multiple rebrands, Ford has kept the script styling of its logo intact. From top: The 1907 version of Fords logo by C. Harold Wills, and a contemporary version [Images: Ford] The origin of Ford’s logo The logo, designed by Ford engineer and former letterpress printer C. Harold Wills, is inspired by its founder’s signature, but it’s not an exact replica. (Ford’s signature, notably, didn’t include the curlicue.) Like the script logo for Coca-Cola, founded several decades before Ford, the automaker’s logo was created in an era of ornate script branding that’s survived through multiple iterations and a trend toward sans-serif type all the way to the 21st century. When legendary designer Paul Rand created a handsome, modern, non-script logo concept for Ford in 1966, Henry Ford II decided against it because he thought it would have been too radical. [Photo: Ford] Imagine Ford’s logo, and you’re likely to recall the script font and blue oval, but perhaps other details are a bit hazy. That’s normal. Studies have shown that humans are terrible at remembering logos because our brains don’t bother storing unnecessary information unless we choose to memorize it; that way we can free up space to remember more important things. That leads to our inability to remember whether the bite mark and tilt of the leaf on the Apple logo is on the left or right (it’s the right) or whether or not the Fruit of the Loom logo has a cornucopia in it (it doesn’t). Since the minutia of Ford’s logo isn’t a pressing concern for most of us, our brain stores only the basics. See an oval badge with script type, and you know it̻s Ford. Look a little closer, though, and the details may surprise you.
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In a rural pocket of western Pennsylvania, along the leafy banks of Sewickley Creek, a small, jagged pipe juts just above the waterline, its cement casing carpeted in moss. The pipe releases treated wastewater into the creeka popular spot for kayaking and fishingfrom a landfill that handles some of the states most toxic industrial waste, including from oil and gas drilling. Two new signs on the opposite shore correct the impression of a forgotten relic. Warning! Hazardous Waste Discharge Point, they read. Arsenic, lead, cyanide, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and more are permitted substances for discharge at this site. Colleen ONeil of the Mountain Watershed Association fixes a crooked sign posted near a landfills discharge pipe that flows into Sewickley Creek in Yukon, Pennsylvania. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] The Max Environmental Technologies landfill has been out of compliance with requirements set under the Clean Water Act for most of the past three years and with the federal hazardous waste law, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, known as RCRA for short, since July 2023. Pollution has taken a toll on the creek: Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University tested Max Environmentals outfall and found radioactivity in the sediment downstream of the discharge point was 1.4 times higher than upstream. The researchers connected this radioactivity to the landfills intake of oil and gas waste, which spiked earlier in Pennsylvanias fracking boom. A close-up of a discharge pipe from the Yukon landfill: A sign warns that arsenic, lead, cyanide, cadmium, and hexavalent chromium are permitted substances for discharge here. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] I wouldnt eat the fish. I wouldnt swim in the water, said John Stolz, a professor of environmental microbiology at Duquesne, who coauthored the study and has researched oil and gas waste in Pennsylvania for 15 years. Water quality data for Sewickley Creek from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shows that much of it is classified as impaired. For decades, residents have raised the alarm about the 160-acre landfills impact on the town, blaming its operations for serious harms to their health, their children, their animals, their waterways, and their land. They say exposure to pollution from the landfill has led to more cancers, miscarriages, respiratory distress, and neurological diseases. Over three generations, since the landfills opening in 1964, theyve endured odors, dust, noise, and spills. Theyve watched their neighbors fall ill, die, or move out, and they live in fear for their own health. The EPA ranks Yukon higher for key health problems like cancer and heart disease than state and national averages. Just as Sewickley Creek is a single branch of a larger watershed, the landfills outfall is one node in a vast network of waste disposal that stretches across Pennsylvania and the United States. In addition to taking industrial waste like plastic battery pieces, lead paint debris, and fly ash, Max Environmentals Yukon site is one of more than 25 landfills in Pennsylvania that accept the solid waste that comes from oil and gas drilling. Yukon is a small town of a few hundred people, but the problems at Max Environmental are indicative of a national crisis. Oil and gas companies and the government agencies responsible for regulating them have never fully reckoned with it, in part because the industry successfully lobbied for federal regulations that exempt most of its waste from stricter rules that govern hazardous waste. As Pennsylvanias natural gas production soared during the 21st-century fracking rush, so too has the industrys solid waste and wastewater. The state first required companies to report volumes of solid oil and gas waste in 2010. In 2023, the most recent figures, there were 929,216 tons of solid waste generated, and 96% of that was sent to landfills or waste treatment facilities. The town of Yukon, Pennsylvania [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] Wastewater production, meanwhile, skyrocketed from around 168 million gallons per year before the boom in 2003 to more than 3.3 billion in 2023. This waste poses enormous regulatory challenges for state and federal authorities because it’s highly toxic and often radioactive. Options for disposing of it have ranged from injecting it underground, a practice linked to earthquakes in other states, to repackaging the often extremely salty water as a dust suppressant for public roads, where it can contaminate soil and waterand of course, sending it to landfills. Each of them is deeply flawed as a long-term solution. Activists and scientists say the government has failed to contend with the massive amount of this waste being created every day. Even basic details like where fracking waste ends up are often difficult to confirm. In 2023, a study of landfills by Duquesne University and University of Pittsburgh researchers concluded that state records tracking oil and gas waste in Pennsylvania were conflicting and inadequate. They found significant discrepancies between the amount that companies reported delivering to landfills and what the landfills said they accepted. These discrepancies make it much harder to assess the environmental impacts. Part of the problem is that nobody can really get a handle on how much waste is actually there, said Stolz, a coauthor of the study. [Image: Paul Horn/Inside Climate News] Meanwhile, the problem keeps growing: Natural gas production in Pennsylvania alone topped 7.5 million cubic feet in 2023, the most recent figure, a 47-fold increase over two decades. That production reached record highs during the Biden years, and the Trump administrations energy policies may push that ceiling higher. In January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order, Unleashing American Energy, aimed at increasing oil and gas development in the U.S. There’s also evidence that new wells drilled in Pennsylvania tend to become less productive faster than older wells, said Ted Auch, the Midwest director at the Pennsylvania-based FracTracker, an organization that studies the impacts of oil and gas development. The life span of a given well is shorter for newer wells than it was at the outset of the fracking boom, Auch said. What that means is that the industry is using more and more water, generating more and more waste, using more and more stuff to wring that unit of gas out of the shale rock. Significant Noncompliance In 2017, Connecticut-based private equity firm Altus Capital Partners purchased Max Environmental and its two landfill facilities in Yukon and Bulger, Pennsylvania. Max Environmentals new chief operating officer, Bill Follett, said the change in management and access to more funding would position the company for future success while ensuring environmental compliance. Instead, violations continued. Max Environmental is now under two consent orders from the EPA to improve its operations. The agency temporarily required the landfill to stop disposing of hazardous waste on-site, a process that has since restarted. We identified significant noncompliance at Max, said Jeanna Henry, chief of the air, RCRA and toxics branch in the enforcement and compliance assurance division of the EPAs Mid-Atlantic region, in a November interview. One key issue is Max Environmentals treatment process for hazardous waste. With the sampling that theyre doing, some of the batches are passing and some of those are failing, she said. Im not sure I could say at this point if weve seen improvement, but they are doing the work that theyre required to perform under the order. In a statement to Inside Climate News in December, Carl Spadaro, the environmental general manager at Max Environmental, said initial testing of its treated waste showed compliance about 90% of the time, which is consistent with historical results. Max Environmental Documents Obtained through a Right to Know request to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), public documents provide more detail about the governments inspections, monitoring, and correspondence with Max Environmental about the Yukon facility. (View them here.) Any treated waste that does not pass initial testing has always and continues to be retreated until it meets required standards. This kind of practice is common in the hazardous waste management industry, Spadaro said. In December, Spadaro said the company is in compliance with our permits. But in a January 16 email, the EPA responded to questions about Max Environmentals permits with this sentence in boldface: Max is not currently in compliance with either RCRA or NPDES permits related to the Yukon site. NPDES is the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, under which permits are issued to facilities that discharge pollutants into waterways. The Mountain Watershed Association posted signs next to Sewickley Creek warning about hazardous waste from the Max Environmental landfill. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] There was no public indication of the wastewater pipes contents until March 2024, when a local environmental group, the Mountain Watershed Assciation, installed the warning signs. People who use the water downstream for recreation are often unaware of the outfalls existence. The creek flows to meet the Youghiogheny River, known as the Yough, which empties into the Monongahela River, one of Pittsburghs three iconic waterways. The Mountain Watershed Association purchased land along the creek to allow access for testing and monitoring. The orange plastic marks a designated area of land. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] I tell people that Sewickley Creek is likely the most polluted waterway in the entire Yough watershed, and its because of many things, but more than anything, Max is there, said Eric Harder, the Youghiogheny Riverkeeper at the Mountain Watershed Association (MWA), which has conducted independent testing at the outfall and advocated for residents interests with the state government. Testing in October suggested the company exceeded its permit limits for heavy metals like zinc and lead, and total suspended solids, an indicator of poor water quality. These echo similar findings by the EPA, which in 2023 said Max Environmental exceeded its permit limits for cadmium, zinc, nitrogen, and other pollutants. Its basically a time bomb thats built over empty coal mines, Harder said. And in a rural setting where people have been impoverished and underserved for many years. For Stacey Magda, managing community organizer at the MWA, the state of the outfall is emblematic. Its not maintained properly. Its in really bad shape, and thats really the norm for the whole facility, she said, standing on the opposite bank, dry leaves crackling underfoot as she stared at the outfall. The pipe looks like it belongs to an earlier time, like the abandoned mining buildings in the woods nearby. She watched the pipe dripping, the leaves drifting in the current. Prolonged drought in Pennsylvania in 2024 exposed twisty roots and thick stripes of sediment on the eroding creek banks. When the creek is high, the pipe is not visible at all. Stacey Magda, managing community organizer at the Mountain Watershed Association, walks next to Max Environmentals Yukon landfill. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] The Max Environmental sites long history as an industrial landfill, its location atop two former coal mines, and its close proximity to homes and farms make it a particularly demanding site to monitor and contain. The regulators really didnt either have the capacity, the resources, or the understanding to take those concerns and complaints seriously, Magda said. They are now, and its significant that they are now, but theres a strong sense that its still too late. Regulatory actions by the EPA and the Pennsylvania DEP in the past two years have slowed operations at the landfill, but its not hard to see why the people of Yukon arent optimistic about the future, given the sites past. There have been so many violations over the years, said Debbie Franzetta, who has lived in Yukon since 1988. And what they do is they pay the fines, and they continue to operate. Radioactivity Is Forever In 2012, Max Environmentals CEO at the time, Bill Spencer, gave an interview about the opportunity that fracking presented for the company. He said Max Environmental was finding what the needs of the oil and gas industry are and fulfilling [them]. The companys environmental general manager, Spadaro, who serves in the same position today, called Max Environmental an ideal partner to drilling companies. DEP records show the Yukon landfill accepted about 106,000 tons of oil and gas waste between 2015 and 2019. In 2015, this waste accounted for nearly 97% of the nonhazardous waste the landfill took in, though its been a far smaller percentage in recent years. From 2011 to 2021, the Yukon site accepted the second-largest amount of liquid oil and gas waste among landfills in Pennsylvania. Oil and gas waste can become radioactive during the extraction process. As workers drill deep into the earth, they encounter naturally occurring materials like radium, radon, uranium, potassium, and thorium. Fracking requires the use of massive quantities of water, and much of this water comes back to the surface contaminated by the elements underground as well as proprietary drilling chemicals added by the companies. Solid waste, like drill cuttings, sludges, and filters, can also become contaminated. Spadaro said Max Environmental does not accept radioactive waste and checks each arriving truckload for radiation just like all other waste management facilities in Pennsylvania. The entrance to the Max Environmental landfill in Yukon, Pennsylvania [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] But between 2021 and 2023, state records show that Max Environmental detected radioactive materials in waste 34 times at Yukon and accepted it anyway. Thats because the company makes an exception for naturally occurring radioactive material and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials, known as NORM and TENORM, said Lauren Camarda, a DEP spokesperson and the communications manager for the agencys southwest office. The oil and gas industry is one of the major sources of TENORM. The most common isotope detected at Max Environmental in those years was radium 226, the same one that scientists found increased levels of in the sediment downstream of Max Environmentals outfall at Sewickley Creek. Every time Max Environmental detects radioactivity in incoming waste, the company must seek approval from DEP to dispose of it onsite, Camarda said. Camarda said in an email that the type, characteristics, and amounts of waste approved for disposal have not significantly changed at Max Environmental since fracking began in Pennsylvania. This is mainly because the facility has always accepted industrial waste materials that are now considered hazardous by modern standards, and the sites testing levels and parameters already reflected that reality. The one change to Max Environmentals residual waste permit related to fracking came in 2012, when DEP approved an amendment to allow the site to solidify oil and gas waste. Stolz said this type of processing was one of the revelations from his research on landfills that most shocked him. The processing allows companies to accept highly toxic fracking wastewater as long as they claim they immobilize it. How are they immobilizing it? Well, theyre putting it into kitty litter, theyre putting it into sawdust, and then theyre putting it into the landfill, and then, of course, everything percolates down, and the waste accumulates and it winds up in the leachate, he said, describing industry practices in general. Max Environmentals Spadaro said the site hasnt accepted fracking wastewater for several years, but when it did, the company used lime-based materials that ensure adequate solidification. Although the volume of oil and gas waste sent to Max Environmental has decreased since its peak, the company accepted hundreds of tons of this waste in 2023, the most recent figures. And the legacy of the boom years remains, literally, in the ground. People have to understand that radioactivity is forever, Stolz said. And we know that the Marcellus in particular is incredibly radioactive. The Marcellus formation is the oblong-shaped shale gas deposit that lies beneath Pennsylvania, a diagonal slash from the northeast corner of the state to the southwest. A view of Sewickley Creek in Yukon, Pennsylvania [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] Nathaniel Warner, an associate professor of environmental engineering at Penn State, has found increased radioactivity in the sediment of waterways even 18 miles downstream of facilities that had accepted fracking wastewater in the past. Trying to find out if this contamination has entered the food chain in Pennsylvania, Warner tested the tissue and shells of freshwater mussels living downstream of wastewater discharge points. What he found was alarming. What we know is that even when youve removed the source [of pollution], that radioactivity sticks around in the environment, he said. Warners studies found elevated levels of radioactivity in the mussels bodies and shells. Scientists worry that radioactivity could be magnified as it travels up the food chain from freshwater mussels to the muskrats who eat them to apex predators like the bald eagle. If [animals are] consistently in contact with something thats decaying radioactively, you can accumulate genetic damage, said Daniel Bain, a scientist at the University of Pittsburgh who was involved with the 2023 study on oil and gas waste and landfills. Warner said its difficult to quantify the true public health costs of the radioactivity released into the environment by the oil and gas industry, in part because its such a complex question and in part because its understudied. But that does not mean there is no impact. Radium, radon, and uranium are all known to cause cancer. For years weve spread oil and gas wastewater on roads. We used to put it into pits right next to the well, put it in the groundwater and discharge it to streams, Warner said. From that historical practice, theres elevated radioactivity, theres elevated salinity, theres decreased diversity of critters. Whats harder to know are the long-term effects on people. Pennsylvania has spent years cleaning up contamination from coal mining and historical oil development that the companies left behind. Bain said that fracking waste is the latest iteration of that troubling pattern. Thats part of what were going to have to deal with as a region, Bain said. We have to be really vigilant about where that waste is going and what kind of impact its causing. When the landfill started to accept more waste related to fracking in the 2010s, many residents noticed that the tangible impacts of the landfill on their everyday lives worsened. That period of time was a really tough time for people with any kind of asthma, MWAs Harder said. Residents repeatedly called DEP to complain about noise, odors, mud, and truck traffic, according to agency records. In 2015, when Max Environmental accepted 92,039 tons of oil and gas waste, the people of Yukon called dozens of times to report smelling chemical odors that caused headaches and burned their noses and throats. They rated the smell a 9 out of 10, compared it to eggs and rotting flesh, said it made them gag and clogged their ears. When the wind blew, they watched dust settle in their yards and coat their dogs paws. To avoid the odor, they kept their windows shut on nice summer evenings and left their flower gardens untended. DEP notes about the calls show that they also registered their frustration: been over a year and the problem still exists; something has to be donenobody should have to put up with this; appeals for it to stop on a Sunday before he goes to church; seems like they call forever and no one ever does anything; how long are they going to get away with this? In January 2015, a DEP staff member took down this call: 05:00 PM JUST GOT HOME AND HIS PROPERTY SMELLS LIKE A CHEICAL PLANT – JUST GIVE A REASON TO KEEP CALLING – LET THERE BE A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. Violations noted appears over and over again at the bottom of the complaints. In 2017, two Yukon residents filed a class-action lawsuit against Max Environmental over air pollution, alleging that the company had caused property damage through its release of noxious odors and air particulates. The complaint said the company has a well-documented history of failing to control the emissions generated by its operation, pointing to 41 instances when DEP inspectors noted off-site odors between 2013 and 2015 and three odor citations issued by DEP in 2013 and 2014. The lawsuit settled in 2024 for a total of $425,000. As part of the settlement, the company admitted to no wrongdoing. We have adjusted our operations to reduce the potential for odors and dust migration. There have been no off-site indications of water impacts, Max Environmentals Spadaro said. Only $275,000 of the settlement was earmarked for residents, a sum that many of those affected saw as inadequate. Just under 270 households filed claims in the suit, making the average payout per family about $1,000. Its nothing for how much we lost, Joan Kodrin, a Yukon resident, said to a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter last year. Craig Zafaras, who has lived in Yukon for decades, said Max Environmental didnt bother me until they started taking the fracking waste, adding, I have no issue with fracking. I have issue with people that dont do their job. Craig Zafaras lives directly next to the Max Environmental landfill. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] With this new waste stream came more dust and a strange ammonia-like odor at his home across the street from the landfill. They tried to cover the smell with a chemical, which was worse than the actual smell itself, he said. On some days it was so bad, he would drive out of town to escape it. During an EPA-led community session about the landfill in October, Zafaras talked about the chemical smell he had noticed on his property and the headaches and sore throats it seemed to cause. He outlined his many unsuccessful attempts to convince the DEP and EPA to conduct testing where he lives, and not only at the landfill. I fear this is toxic to my health and others, he said. No one seems to care. Read Part II of this story here: What inspectors discovered at the landfill, and how generations of Yukon residents fought for accountability. This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. It is republished with permission. Sign up for its newsletter here.
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