Editor's Note

Dear reader, Just about everyone has seen the video: A white woman, a dog yapping at her knees, confronts the cameraman, threatening to call the police. The man remains calm, but everyone knows what could happen. It's what REJC calls "perfect outrage bait." Christian F. Cooper ’84, the man at the center of the viral confrontation in Central Park, never expected that his Harvard degree would protect him from American racism — in fact, he would consider that assumption rather banal. And in this week's cover story, REJC goes behind Cooper's binoculars to explore the nuance absent from the coverage of his life. But that's not all: VEP introduces us to the owners of RepHAIRations, the "first Black hair shop" in Arlington. KL profiles the owner of El Jefe's and his advocacy against what he calls "the food delivery oligopoly." SSL rides along with a group of activists fighting to make the eventual COVID-19 vaccine free. JEG talks with Crimson EMS volunteers now serving as EMTs in their home communities — amid a global pandemic. FYH writes about a future focused architecture competition and OGO and RLL tell the story of a historic first in Somerville. If you're missing Lamont, HRTW and KL showcase the various workspaces of a student body spread far and wide. And KKC closes the issue with a poignant endpaper on what we gain when we lose our typical "Harvard summers." The weather's getting colder and the leaves are beginning to turn — it's time to fall for FM! Yours, AWDA + NHP