I don't know specifics about the Lancet, but academic journals are decentralized. Anybody doing impactful research relevant to the foci of the journal can be published in the journal, so any researcher can submit manuscripts. This means that the editor doesn't tell people what they can and can't research, but they do exercise a degree of control over what research gets published. For the prestige of the journal, it would make sense for them to publish anything that the editor thinks will make a big splash--after undergoing peer review.
So Step 1: the editor either desk rejects an article or sends it out for review.
Step 2: the journal has a pool of decentralized researchers' contact information. These are usually people who have already published in that journal, as well as the eminent scholars in various sub-fields. The editor might not be a specialist in microbiology, but they have a list of a dozen respected and well-published experts. They reach out until they have three of these experts as (unpaid) reviewers, whose identities are publicly kept anonymous. (Researchers agree because this is usually seen to be a service to your field.)
At this point, three researchers with expertise the closest to the content of the article manuscript in review are sent an anonymized copy. They (theoretically) don't know who wrote it or what lab it came from, so this minimizes initial biases. They comb through the manuscript draft, looking to make sure the science is sound and the conclusions are accurate. They send their feedback to the editor, who anonymizes it and sends it to the manuscript author(s). At this point, the paper can be rejected for unsound science, or the authors will (typically) have to make minor revisions for clarity. If they aufficiently address the remarks of the reviewers, as determined by the editor, the paper gets published.
The Lancet probably pays its editors, though many journals don't, and a common compensation practice is that the journal pays the university to lighten a professor's teaching load by one course. The usual capital incentives are not present, and the actors involved in the publication steps are usually ideologically in line with ethical scientific process. Note too, that the editor is usually a professor employed at a university; they owe no deep allegiance to the Lancet as a publication, but see their role as a gatekeeper of the validity of the research in their field.
As researchers in the US are typically affiliated with universities, the journal will not play a negative role in their employment (though researchers must keep publishing to keep their jobs). Most labs receive a mixture of funding: directly from the university, donations made to specific labs, external grants from various sources (governmental and NGO typically, though also through private companies with an interest in particular research). This diversity in funding sources means that there are multiple avenues for labs to get funding. (Note that this is not true for all fields, though areas of research with medical implications have lots of money flowing.)
As for the researcher's job, assuming they are a tenure-track professor, there are similar mechanisms in place. The tenure process typically involves the home university soliciting the professional opinions of the person's department chair, in-department colleagues, students, and external researchers in the same field. A hefty tenure portfolio is produced wherein the researcher narratively justifies the relevance and impact of their research, which is then corroborated with, especially, the external reviewers' close examinations of the research.
Each of these processes serves to diffuse the power across a group of people, and tenure track faculty often have a lot of contractual, codified protections from enployer retaliation for their research.
Tldr: the people who do the work of scientific publishing are not paid by the journal, so the journal as a capitalist publication does not have the same methods of controling what researchers publish
Sorry, but this is a pretty surface-level take. The Shakespearean plays and the French language are vessels for other skills. Literary criticism, argumentation, media literacy, acculturation to a shared literary canon, and even just how to talk about books are all additional aims to using Shakespeare in an English class, beyond "learn this book you hate". A good English class can focus on these skills with any content, but Shakespeare is used for his contributions to the English language and literature in addition to his privileged place in culture (a valid avenue for argument).
The targeted plays might not be every student's cup of tea, but some students will love Shakespeare and hate your favorite book. As long as the classroom is used as a social learning space, there will need to be shared central content used as a medium for the skills--which are more important and enduring than the exact content of the plays. It's the same for the French grammar you don't remember but which gave you the rudimentary skills to study another language more effectively.
What is it with the extremely common tendency for some of the most privileged groups out there to act like they're some of the most marginalized individuals ever?
To paraphrase Paolo Freire: equality looks like oppression to the oppressor.
If people call them out on how their actions are negatively impacting others, they get defensive because they feel like they're losing something.
Fwiw, I have a parent like this. This is antisocial behavior: they are actively causing social and psychological harm to those around them. My last partner and I had to be around my parents out of financial necessity. When we were able to disentangle, we did, and then cut all contact. My present partner of two years has not met either of my parents, and won't, as long as I can help it. My parents don't even know my partner exists, because they don't get to learn anything about my life anymore; they use information as a weapon.
These dynamics that you are putting up with are untenable. Your partner needs to protect you from their aggressively racist family member(s) and anyone who permits/abeds the racism. To echo other posters: you need to have a difficult conversation if you expect to maintain a long-term relationship with your partner. It's possible your partner doesn't recognize how this baseline toxicity is unacceptable, because they likely grew up surrounded by it. It's not necessarily your job to educate them, but they will need to take an active role in reshaping the dynamics they are in.
It's fair to ask your partner to call out the racist bullshit when it happens. It's fair to tell your partner that you don't want to be in the same room or at the same events as the family member. You don't deserve to be racially aggressed while the rest of the family tacitly looks on. You don't deserve that kind of isolation.
Raze the suburbs and build affordable mid density. Especially anything near the LIRR. I grew up in a town in Nassau where everything within a mile of the LIRR station is still single family homes, except a short main street strip with one floor of apartments over ground floor businesses.
And consolidate the school districts. It's racism barely couched in classism, actively reproducing segregation.
I don't know specifics about the Lancet, but academic journals are decentralized. Anybody doing impactful research relevant to the foci of the journal can be published in the journal, so any researcher can submit manuscripts. This means that the editor doesn't tell people what they can and can't research, but they do exercise a degree of control over what research gets published. For the prestige of the journal, it would make sense for them to publish anything that the editor thinks will make a big splash--after undergoing peer review.
So Step 1: the editor either desk rejects an article or sends it out for review.
Step 2: the journal has a pool of decentralized researchers' contact information. These are usually people who have already published in that journal, as well as the eminent scholars in various sub-fields. The editor might not be a specialist in microbiology, but they have a list of a dozen respected and well-published experts. They reach out until they have three of these experts as (unpaid) reviewers, whose identities are publicly kept anonymous. (Researchers agree because this is usually seen to be a service to your field.)
At this point, three researchers with expertise the closest to the content of the article manuscript in review are sent an anonymized copy. They (theoretically) don't know who wrote it or what lab it came from, so this minimizes initial biases. They comb through the manuscript draft, looking to make sure the science is sound and the conclusions are accurate. They send their feedback to the editor, who anonymizes it and sends it to the manuscript author(s). At this point, the paper can be rejected for unsound science, or the authors will (typically) have to make minor revisions for clarity. If they aufficiently address the remarks of the reviewers, as determined by the editor, the paper gets published.
The Lancet probably pays its editors, though many journals don't, and a common compensation practice is that the journal pays the university to lighten a professor's teaching load by one course. The usual capital incentives are not present, and the actors involved in the publication steps are usually ideologically in line with ethical scientific process. Note too, that the editor is usually a professor employed at a university; they owe no deep allegiance to the Lancet as a publication, but see their role as a gatekeeper of the validity of the research in their field.
As researchers in the US are typically affiliated with universities, the journal will not play a negative role in their employment (though researchers must keep publishing to keep their jobs). Most labs receive a mixture of funding: directly from the university, donations made to specific labs, external grants from various sources (governmental and NGO typically, though also through private companies with an interest in particular research). This diversity in funding sources means that there are multiple avenues for labs to get funding. (Note that this is not true for all fields, though areas of research with medical implications have lots of money flowing.)
As for the researcher's job, assuming they are a tenure-track professor, there are similar mechanisms in place. The tenure process typically involves the home university soliciting the professional opinions of the person's department chair, in-department colleagues, students, and external researchers in the same field. A hefty tenure portfolio is produced wherein the researcher narratively justifies the relevance and impact of their research, which is then corroborated with, especially, the external reviewers' close examinations of the research.
Each of these processes serves to diffuse the power across a group of people, and tenure track faculty often have a lot of contractual, codified protections from enployer retaliation for their research.
Tldr: the people who do the work of scientific publishing are not paid by the journal, so the journal as a capitalist publication does not have the same methods of controling what researchers publish