Featured
The War on History Is a War on Democracy. By Timothy Snyder / NYT
A scholar of totalitarianism argues that new laws restricting the discussion of race in American schools have dire precedents in Europe.
Democracy requires individual responsibility, which is impossible without critical history. It thrives in a spirit of self-awareness and self-correction. Authoritarianism, on the other hand, is infantilizing: We should not have to feel any negative emotions; difficult subjects should be kept from us. We start by saying we are not racists. Yes, that felt nice. And now we should make sure that no one says anything that might upset us. The fight against racism becomes the search for a language that makes white people feel good. The laws themselves model the desired rhetoric. We are just trying to be fair. We behave neutrally. We are innocent. Read more
Related: Republicans Are Setting Off a ‘Doom Loop’ for Democracy. By Ezra Klein / NYT Podcast
Related: What Underlies the G.O.P. Commitment to Ignorance? By Paul Krugman / NYT
Political / Social
Critical race theory: What it is and what it isn’t. By David Miguel Gray / The Conversation
Shown is President Lyndon Johnson signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which aimed to do away with racial discrimination in the law. But discrimination persisted.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law professor and central figure in the development of critical race theory, said in a recent interview that critical race theory “just says, let’s pay attention to what has happened in this country, and how what has happened in this country is continuing to create differential outcomes. … Critical Race Theory … is more patriotic than those who are opposed to it because … we believe in the promises of equality. And we know we can’t get there if we can’t confront and talk honestly about inequality.” Read more
Related: The cold truth about Republicans’ hot air over critical race theory. By Eugene Robinson / Wash Post
Related: What the U.S. military can teach us about critical race facts. By Michele L. Norris / Wash Post
Tucker Carlson prepares white nationalists for war: Don’t ignore the power of his rhetoric. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
For stochastic terrorism and other commands to violence to achieve maximum impact, they must be repeated and reinforced by various sources in an echo chamber effect. Fox News has long been the epicenter of that echo chamber, with Tucker Carlson as one of its most powerful voices.Last Thursday, Carlson continued with his campaign to defend (white) “civilization” against its “enemies” by somehow connecting a supposed controversy about scholar Michael Eric Dyson to 19th-century pseudoscience and then to “critical race theory” as somehow part of a nebulous and nefarious plot to “oppress” white people in “their own country.” At the crescendo of his performance, Carlson said this, specifically attacking Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Read more
Adam Serwer On New Book: ‘The Cruelty Is The Point’ In Trump’s America. By Sarah McCammon / NPR Podcast
I wanted to look at Trump as a manifestation of some of the ideological trends in American history that have been most dangerous to our democracy. You know, most people think of cruelty as an individual problem. And it is that, but what I’m focused on in the book is cruelty as a part of American politics, specifically the way that it is used to demonize certain groups so you can justify denying people their basic rights under the Constitution and exclude them from the political process, which is substantially what the Trump project was about, both as a means to power and also as a policy agenda. Listen here
More than half of House Republicans stand with Confederate traitors in the U.S. Capitol. By Joan McCaster / Daily Kos
The House voted 285 to 120 on Tuesday to remove statues of Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol and to replace the bust of the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision with one of the first Black Supreme Court justices, Thurgood Marshall. Of the 211 Republicans, 120—well over half—decided to perpetuate the Civil War and stick with the losing, racist side. Another 24 didn’t bother to vote. Shown are Members of the Congressional Black Caucus celebrating the Juneteeth Holiday legislation with Speaker Pelosi. Read more
Related: House Votes To Remove Confederate Statues From Capitol. By Elise Foley / HuffPost
Joe Biden and the Age of Blaxhaustion. By Elie Mystal / The Nation
Biden promised to remember who put him in power, and when it comes to how his administration looks, he more or less has. But when it comes to what his administration does, the results so far have been predictably underwhelming. This administration is not radical, not anti-racist, and not moving nearly fast enough to advance actual policies that will secure the fundamental rights of the people who put it in charge. Read more
Dear Kamala Harris: It’s a Trap! By Christina Greer / NYT
Addressing the root causes of migration is one of several jobs President Biden has handed Ms. Harris, who had no deep expertise with Latin America issues or the decades-long quandary of federal immigration reform. He has also asked her to lead the administration’s voting-rights efforts, which are in a filibuster limbo. According to The Times, he has her working on combating vaccine hesitancy and fighting for policing reform, too, among other uphill battles. Read more
Trump says Herschel Walker will run for Georgia Senate seat in 2022. By Brittany Gibson / Politico
Former President Donald Trump announced that retired football player Herschel Walker will challenge Sen. Raphael Warnock for his Georgia seat in the 2022 midterms. “He told me he’s going to, and I think he will. I had dinner with him a week ago. He’s a great guy. He’s a patriot. And he’s a very loyal person, he’s a very strong person. They love him in Georgia, I’ll tell you,” Trump said. Read more
Segregation Getting Worse In Most American Cities, Study Says. By Adam Mahoney / RolllingStone
Picture this: two babies born on the same day, maybe even within the same hour, at the Harlem Hospital Center in New York City. One baby, born to a Black mother, goes home to her family down the street in East Harlem. The second is taken home just a few blocks south to the Upper East Side by her white mother. Fast forward to these babies’ adulthoods, and they’ve stayed close to the people and places they’ve grown to love — but their ability to access things like fresh food, quality pharmacies, well-resourced schools, clean water, and even something as simple as the trees that shade their blocks are drastically different. The way their communities are policed and incarcerated is substantially different, too. As a result, the two people are expected to die roughly 19 years apart, despite living just a few blocks from one another. Read more
Related: Target Store Closings Show Limits of Pledge to Black Communities. By Michael Corkery / NYT
Reparations needed to confront anti-Black racism, UN rights chief says. By AP and NBC News
The U.N. human rights chief, in a landmark report launched after the killing of George Floyd in the United States, is urging countries worldwide to do more to help end discrimination, violence and systemic racism against people of African descent and “make amends” to them — including through reparations. The report from Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, offers a sweeping look at the roots of centuries of mistreatment faced by Africans and people of African descent, notably from the transatlantic slave trade. It seeks a “transformative” approach to address its continued impact today. Read more
How hate incidents led to a reckoning of casual racism against Asian Americans. By Kimmy Yam / NBC News
Asian Americans have dealt with an undercurrent of racism for centuries, since Asian immigrants first arrived in the U.S. more than 150 years ago. But experts say the recent attention on anti-Asian racism related to the pandemic has led many to reflect on the everyday, quiet yet insidious forms of racism. “It is violence — especially for a group that has been de-racialized and basically whitened,” Nadia Kim, professor of sociology and of Asian & Asian American studies at Loyola Marymount University, said. Read more
Rep. Cori Bush wants to transform policing and public safety with new bill. By Char Adams / NBC News
A new bill will head to Congress to create a federal agency that would limit people’s encounters with law enforcement by funding community systems led by health officials, to respond to mental health emergencies, rather than police. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., who worked more than 10 years as a mental health nurse in St. Louis, is the lead sponsor of the bill, which is an effort to curb the disproportionate share of police violence against people with mental illnesses and other health complications. Read more
Bill Cosby freed from prison, his sex conviction overturned. By Maryclaire Dale / AP News
Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and released him from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby. Cosby, 83, flashed the V-for-victory sign to a helicopter overhead as he trudged into his suburban Philadelphia home after serving nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence for drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand in 2004. Read more
The race-based adjustment for kidney functioning that’s harming Black Americans. By Jennifer Tsai / Slate
A patient’s level of kidney disease is judged by an estimation of glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR, which normally sits between 90 and 120 in a patient with two healthy kidneys. In the United States, patients can’t be listed for a kidney transplant until they’re deemed sick enough—until their eGFR dips below a threshold of 20. Jordan is biracial, with one Black grandparent and three white ones. His estimated GFR depends on how you interpret this fact: A white Jordan has a GFR of 17—low enough to secure him a spot on the organ waitlist. A Black Jordan has a GFR of 21. Jordan’s doctors decided he is Black, meaning he doesn’t qualify. So now, he has to wait. Read more
What Jewish Students Need From University Leaders Right Now.
Variations of the phrase “Hitler was right,” appeared in more than 17,000 tweets from May 7 to May 14, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Jewish college students have been attacked and threatened on online forums for expressing their values. Student governments have posted one-sided statements placing full blame for the conflict in the Middle East on Israel and have shunned American Jews and Israelis on their campuses. Jewish students have been made to feel excluded in their own communities. Hillel International – The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life at Colleges and Universities.
College applications pour in because of optional ACT, SAT test scores amid COVID-19. By Lindsay Schnell / USA Today
College applications soared for the 2021-22 school year as thousands of students took advantage of relaxed test score policies during COVID-19. America’s colleges, on average, experienced a jump in applications of at least 11% – including public, private and selective universities, plus historically Black colleges. That’s according to Common App, which provides a one-size-fits-all application to more than 900 colleges and universities. Read more
Office Culture Is So Unwelcoming To Black Employees, They Don’t Want To Go Back. By Monica Torres / HuffPost
For Christina, a software engineer, the transition to remote work was supposed to last just two weeks. But as the coronavirus pandemic progressed, it became a change she would like to make permanent ― and her office culture is one main reason. “I do feel like I have freedom that I didn’t have in the office,” said Christina, who asked not to be fully named because she feared reprisal at work. While working remotely, she learned she had become one of the only Black people in her department, and said she’s glad she does not have to experience that reality in person. Read more
Mom’s fight against hair bias could spark statewide changes in Illinois. By Aryana Azari / GMA
One mom’s fight against hair bias could bring about real change. Chicago resident Ida Nelson sent her son Gus “Jett” Hawkins, 4, to Providence St. Mel School one day in early March with his hair in braids. The next day, she said she received a call from the school administrators that Jett’s hair violated the school’s code of conduct. “He was super excited about going to school and showing his new hairstyle to his teachers and to his friends,” Nelson told “Good Morning America.” Read more
Fatal shooting of 2 Black people in Massachusetts investigated as hate crime, officials say. By Wilson Wong / NBC News
Authorities are investigating a Massachusetts shooting that left two Black people dead as a hate crime after investigators found “some troubling white supremacist rhetoric” in the gunman’s handwriting, officials said Sunday. Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins, who identified the suspected gunman as 28-year-old Nathan Allen, said during a press conference on Sunday that investigators found “antisemitic and racist statements against Black individuals.” “There was hate in this man’s heart,” she told reporters Monday. Read more
Historical / Cultural
On July 4, recognize the Black and Indigenous soldiers who helped win the Revolutionary War. By Bonnie Watson Coleman / Wash Post
The Fourth of July marks the declaration of America’s independence, and with it, the founders’ ambition to create a country defined by greater equality and opportunity for all. Of course, their vision of equality was woefully incomplete, in ways that are embodied by Juneteenth. Adding Juneteenth to the national calendar is a good step, but it ought to be a spur to reevaluate what we celebrate on Independence Day, too. While the Fourth of July is meant to be celebrated by every American, we rarely use that space to address the whitewashed retelling of the American Revolution. It is long past time the United States recognized the contributions of Black and Indigenous soldiers to the founding of the nation. These troops represented one-quarter of the fighting strength of George Washington’s Continental Army by the march to victory in Yorktown in 1781. Read more
A Maryland attic hid a priceless trove of Black history. Historians and activists saved it from auction. By Michael E. Ruane / Wash Post
Case files from 1964 “Mississippi Burning” murders made public. CBS News
Pride means knowing LGBTQ history — including that of Indigenous Two-Spirit people. By Simon Moya-Smith / NBC News
As with every June, there is often less acknowledgment given to the fact that Indigenous LGBTQ people were the first people on this continent victimized by the white Christians who arrived as Bible-thumping invaders — Indigenous peoples who are not only accepted, but also often venerated by their own people. To be gay, lesbian, gender-nonconforming, nonbinary or trans is a blessing to Indigenous peoples; it’s a spiritual role in many nations and tribes known as Two-Spirit. If a Native person is Two-Spirit, they are holy people. Read more
Black Valedictorians and the Toxic Trope of Black Exceptionalism.
Mr. Ahmad offered his perspective on the fanfare that had surrounded him as a teenager: “My story is told as though it is a positive one, inspirational,” he wrote in The Atlantic. “But I see it as a grim one, the tale of a harsh reality that wrecks people. There is nothing positive about classifying me as an exception. When a person is exceptional for doing what I have done, the whole system is cruel to its core.” We all owe it to those who follow in Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Ahmad’s footsteps to focus on removing the obstacles they will confront. And we owe it to them to be more dedicated to dismantling racism than to congratulating them for being among the few to thrive despite it. Read more
Johnson County, Iowa, Renamed After Black Professor Instead Of Vice President. By James Doubek / NPR
Johnson County, Iowa, has a new name. It will still be Johnson County. But henceforth, the county is taking its name from a different Johnson: Lulu Merle Johnson, a professor and historian who was the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in Iowa. It was originally named for Richard Mentor Johnson, who served as vice president under President Martin Van Buren. The board noted that the current longtime namesake, Richard Mentor Johnson, was a slave owner from Kentucky with no known connections to Iowa. The Wisconsin Territorial Legislature gave his name to the county in 1837. Read more
‘The Queen of Basketball’ Lucy Harris finally gets her flowers. By Kevin L. Clark / The Undefeated
She is arguably the greatest living women’s basketball player who’s never graced a Wheaties box. As a dominating center, she won three national titles. She scored the first basket in the first Olympic competition for women in 1976. She was the first and only Black woman to be drafted to the NBA (before the WNBA existed) — courtesy of the New Orleans Jazz. In 1992, she became the first Black woman to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. And yet, if the name Lusia “Lucy” Harris-Stewart doesn’t ring any bells, sadly, you’re not alone. Read more
Carmelo Anthony of Portland Trail Blazers wins Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion award. By Marc J. Spears / ESPN
Portland Trail Blazers forward Carmelo Anthony is the inaugural winner of the NBA’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion award, it was announced Tuesday. The NBA said Anthony, a 10-time NBA All-Star, an entrepreneur and a philanthropist, was selected “for his dedication over the past year to pursuing social justice and advancing Abdul-Jabbar’s life mission to engage, empower and drive equality for individuals and groups who have been historically marginalized or systemically disadvantaged.” Read more
New Celtics head coach Ime Udoka’s path from Nigeria to Boston. By Martenzie Johnson / The Undefeated
After nearly a decade as an assistant coach, Ime Udoka became the new head coach of the Boston Celtics on Monday. The 43-year-old is the 18th coach, and sixth Black coach, in the franchise’s illustrious history. Udoka, who most recently served under Steve Nash for the Brooklyn Nets, was a forward in the NBA for five teams from 2003 to 2011 before embarking on a coaching career that started in 2012 with the San Antonio Spurs. Read more
WNBA legend Maya Moore to be presented with Arthur Ashe Courage Award at 2021 ESPYS. By ESPN
WNBA legend Maya Moore, who walked away from basketball to help free a wrongfully convicted man, will be presented with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at The ESPYS on July 10 (8 p.m. ET/ABC). Moore, 32, a former WNBA MVP who has won four WNBA championships, two NCAA titles and two Olympic gold medals, left the game at her peak in 2019 to advocate for Jonathan Irons, who had been convicted of burglary and assault and sentenced to 50 years in a Missouri prison. She formed the “Win with Justice” campaign to educate the public on the criminal justice system and to fight to set Irons free. Read more
Despite Slips, Biles Wins at U.S. Trials and Will Lead Olympic Team. By Juliet Macur / NYT
“At the end of the day, it is what it is,” she said. “It wasn’t my best performance. I kind of got in my head today.” Biles, 24, still finished first in the all-around at Olympic trials, ahead of Sunisa Lee, 18, of St. Paul, Minn., to continue her winning streak that began in 2013. If Biles successfully defends her all-around Olympic title, she will be the first woman to do so in more than 50 years. Read more
Following Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s executive order allowing college athletes to be compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness — known by its abbreviation “NIL” — at least seven states will put into effect NIL laws, on Thursday. The laws allow athletes to make money for things like endorsement deals, signing autographs and social media content. That’s been prohibited under NCAA rules, but now, the organization is in the process of reforming those rules. Especially after the recent Supreme Court decision weakened the NCAA’s long held, but increasingly outdated, notion of amateurism in college sports. Read more
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