Featured – Afro-Textured hair : Everything you ever wanted to know about Afro-textured hair. By Wikipedia.
Terminology, structure, evolution, continental Africa, Trans-Atlantic slave trade, politics of black hair, Emancipation and post-civil war, rise of black pride, modern perceptions and controversies, and styling. Read more
Joe Biden’s “Jim Crow moment” was dreadful — but he may be Democrats’ best shot. By Chauncey DeVega / Salon
Black Americans are one of the most reliable and stalwart members of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition. Biden still, of course, benefits from having been Barack Obama’s vice president. Public opinion and other research shows that black Americans are very sophisticated in their voting behavior. They see and understand the threat posed by Donald Trump’s regime, and were among the first to sound the alarm about the horrors his racial authoritarianism would unleash if he were to become president. Ultimately, black Americans understand that Biden, while far from perfect, may be the candidate with the best chance to defeat Donald Trump. Read more
‘Segregationist’ barely begins to describe the racist Dixiecrats that Joe Biden worked with in the Senate. By Will Haygood / Wash Post
My journeys as a biographer have often taken me through the South, where I’ve combed archives of Dixiecrat politicians and met eyewitnesses to their reign. Referring to Dixiecrats as “segregationists,” as they have been called throughout the Biden controversy, doesn’t capture the ugliness of these white supremacists. Read more
What South Africa can teach the U.S. about reparations. By Ereshnee Naidu-Silverman / Wash Post
Americans can learn from South Africa, which over two decades ago undertook a national, public truth-telling initiative — the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) — to address its long history of institutionalized racism. That initiative was a necessary first step in the country’s process of healing and rebuilding relationships, rooted in a shared past. Read more
The black woman who launched the modern fight for reparations. By Ashley D. Farmer / Wash Post
While Conyers should be lauded for his original efforts to introduce this legislation, this month’s hearings would not be possible without Audley “Queen Mother” Moore, the founder of the modern reparations movement. Read more
The Reparations Debate. By Keenga-Yamahtta Taylor and Adolph Reed Jr. / Dissent
Last month, Philadelphia public radio station WHYY program Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane hosted a discussion between Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Adolph Reed Jr. on reparations. The following transcript of their conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Read more
In the census-citizenship case, the Supreme Court may once again affirm ‘white rule.’ By John Blake / CNN
The case revolves around a simple request. The Trump administration says it wants the Census Bureau to ask residents whether they are US citizens. The Department of Justice says it would help ensure the voting rights of racial minorities. But critics say it’s really about a deeper question: Will the new conservative majority on the court ignore what opponents of the question call “smoking-gun evidence” that the case is really about preserving “white power”? Read more
Elizabeth Warren: Repeal The Law That Criminalizes Migrants. By Roque Planas / HuffPost
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren called Tuesday for repealing the decades-old law criminalizing unauthorized border crossing ― the same law the Trump administration used to systematically split up families at the border last year. Read more
FYI Democrats: ‘The Divine Nine’—black sororities and fraternities 101. By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos
Back in January, when I saw a news article headlined, “Sen. Kamala Harris’ secret weapon: The sisters of AKA,” I sighed, and muttered to myself, “Secret to whom?” Then I had to take a deep breath, and accept the fact that, for many white people in the United States, the social and political networks within the black community, other than the black church and perhaps the NAACP, remain relatively unknown. Read more
Survivor of WWII Internment Camp Speaks Out: Japanese Americans Know the Trauma of Child Detention. By Democracy Now
Amid reports of inhumane and degrading conditions at child immigration jails along the southern border, we speak with Satsuki Ina, a Japanese-American psychotherapist who was born in the Tule Lake Segregation Center, a maximum-security internment camp for Japanese Americans during WWII. Watch here
There Are Really Two Distinct White Working Classes. By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT
One is solidly Republican and will stay that way; the other leans Democratic. And then there are the in-betweeners. Read more
How black pharmacists are closing the cultural gap in health care. By Cara Anthony / NBC News
After a health insurance change forced Bernard Macon to cut ties with his black doctor, he struggled to find another African American physician online. Then, he realized two health advocates were hiding in plain sight. At a nearby drugstore here in the suburbs outside of St. Louis, a pair of pharmacists became the unexpected allies of Macon and his wife, Brandy. Much like the Macons, the pharmacists were energetic young parents who were married — and unapologetically black. Read more
We may never resolve our conflicted feelings about Michael Jackson. By Maria Puente / USA Today
It’s been 10 years since Jackson died and his legacy, reinvigorated in the wake of his demise, is once again being challenged as fans and critics alike grapple with conflicting feelings about the late superstar. (He died June 25, 2009, at his home in Los Angeles of a drug overdose administered by his doctor. He was 50.) So which is it going to be? Is it possible to love and listen to (and buy) Jackson’s remarkable body of music – and also believe he molested little boys, as the recent HBO film “Leaving Neverland” alleged? Read more
Another win for Serena: She’s the new face of Wheaties cereal. By Deja Harrison / The Undefeated
Williams is just the second black female tennis player to make the box cover after Althea Gibson in 2001 and one of only a handful of black women to make the box cover. In 1996, gymnast Dominique Dawes was featured, and track and field Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee was featured in 2004. Williams is also the first tennis player on the cover since Andre Agassi in 2005. Read more
The NBA has an ‘owner mentality’ problem. By Martenzie Johnson / The Undefeated
That difference between “owner” and “owner mentality” is at the heart of a recent TMZ report that at least two NBA clubs, the Clippers and Philadelphia 76ers, are doing away with the term “owner” in favor of titles with fewer racial connotations. Read more
“Swinging While I’m Singing”: Spike Lee, Public Enemy, and the Message in the Music. By Mark Anthony Neal / AAIHS
1989, a number, another summer, sound of the funky drummer” —Public Enemy, “Fight the Power.” The scene may be the most iconic of Spike Lee’s filmmaking career; the late Bill Nunn as Radio Raheem giving up his final breath at the hands of the NYPD in a fashion eerily similar to the death of Eric Garner twenty-five years later. Two years before the videotaped beating of Rodney King, and a full generation before personal handheld devices captured the police killings of Garner, Philando Castile, and Oscar Grant, Jr., Radio Raheem’s cinematic death in the film Do the Right Thing (1989) gave witness to the over-policing of Black communities and the coming crisis of gentrification.
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