| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an inflation index of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Today's Agenda  The time is now. Photographer: Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images North America Happy Juneteenth On June 19, 1865, a Union general in Texas told the last people enslaved in the former Confederacy they were free. Today this is celebrated as "Juneteenth," a day of liberation. But slavery actually continued in some Union states for months afterward. And those freed slaves were told to keep working for their former masters, just for wages. Not exactly a Hollywood ending. But then nothing about racial justice in this country is quick or easy. The end of centuries of slavery led to another century of oppression and segregation, followed by a new kind of slavery in the prison-industrial complex. On this Juneteenth, 155 years later, people are marching in the street simply trying to make the case that Black Lives Matter. President Donald Trump had planned to hold his first campaign rally since March on this Juneteenth, until a backlash forced him to postpone it a day. It will still go on in Tulsa, Oklahoma, another place groaning with the weight of American racism as the scene of the worst race massacre in U.S. history. One wonders what signal Trump means to send by using this place and time to relaunch his campaign. Maybe he'll say he's done more for Black Americans than that slacker Lincoln. But the rest of us can turn this into a positive by channeling our heightened awareness of our deep-rooted racism into energy to effect real change, writes Michael Bloomberg. Tearing down Confederate statues and making official holidays of Juneteenth aren't nearly enough. Brands around the world have scrambled to exhibit solidarity, however clumsily, with the BLM movement. Some are even owning up to their racist pasts, notes Chris Hughes. This is great, but can't be a one-off thing; companies should be routinely held to account for addressing inequality beyond social-media gestures. One way people and organizations can fight systemic racism is by not giving all the life advantages to children of white elites, Richard Reeves suggests in conversation with Alexis Leondis. One of those is legacy admissions to universities, a privilege unavailable to too many BIPOC children. A huge equalizer, in fact, would be to automatically enroll such kids in colleges, as many are already doing, writes Cass Sunstein. We can help them with the costs. Those will be negligible anyway compared with the benefits of someday, hopefully, breaking the grip of racial inequality. Let's not take another 155 years. Further Racial Justice Reading: Crime-predicting algorithms send too many Black men to jail and should be used instead to identify and address social ills racism causes. — Cathy O'Neil Wear a Mask, Ya Doofus BLM protests have brought dense crowds together in the middle of a pandemic, sometimes coughing under tear gas, raising worries of a surge in Covid-19 cases. But early data from Minnesota — where police killed George Floyd, triggering this latest wave of protest — are encouraging, writes Adam Minter. Protesters tested had lower infection rates than the state as a whole. The jury's still out on other places, and future protesters and police alike will have to be responsible. One possible reason for this success, if it's real, could be widespread mask-wearing. By now we know it's a great way to slow the spread of coronavirus. Yet also, because this is America, masks have become a hot-button political issue, with Trump supporters believing they somehow signal animosity toward a president who refuses to wear one. It is, of course, not an issue of politics but of health, as the CEO of AMC Entertainment Inc., the movie-theater chain, learned the hard way today. He said his company wasn't going to force customers to wear masks, in order to not "be drawn into a political controversy." To what one assumes is his shock, this drew the company immediately into a political controversy, and it had to reverse course. Tara Lachapelle writes that it's simply bad business for companies not to require masks. They make everybody feel safer about going out, including to the movies. Further Coronavirus Business Reading: Inflation Watch They come out of the woodwork in every recession: the Inflation Cassandras, who warn fiscal and monetary stimulus will trigger runaway inflation and have us all carting wheelbarrows of cash to the grocery store. For the past 20 years they have been wrong. Now the only -flation on the horizon seems to be deflation, when prices can't stop falling. The cost of buying inflation insurance in the market is at rock-bottom. So it might be a good idea to get some of that cheap protection now, writes John Authers. In fact, writes Conor Sen, the pandemic has cut off supply as well as demand, causing imbalances that could lead to inflation or even stagflation. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition either, until it shows up. Telltale Charts The U.K. government's slow pandemic reaction cost lives, time and government credibility, writes Therese Raphael.  Falling RV sales didn't really foretell this recession, and a rebound won't end it, writes Justin Fox.  Further Reading The Supreme Court has thrown Dreamers an unexpected lifeline. Congress should secure it permanently. — Bloomberg's editorial board China keeps asking banks to sacrifice profits to save the economy, showing how broken its financial system is. — Anjani Trivedi The Wirecard debacle is a reminder not to be too allured by supposed mountains of corporate cash. — Chris Bryant Coronavirus could finally usher in the long-awaited age of AI. — Tae Kim ICYMI Trump and John Bolton may both lose in their legal fight. Apple will close some stores as coronavirus resurges. These U.S. cities will likely recover faster than others. Kickers Fighting fish coordinate their moves and their genes. (h/t Scott Kominers) Planets with oceans are probably common in the galaxy. The galaxy may have 36 alien civilizations capable of communicating with us. The "Into the Wild" bus has been removed from the Alaska wilderness. Note: Please send alien communications and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. | 
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