Featured
Dave Chappelle Takes On Antisemitism, ‘Observably Stupid’ Herschel Walker On ‘SNL.’ By Mary Papenfuss / HuffPost
“It shouldn’t be this scary to talk about anything,” the controversial comedian said. “It makes my job incredibly difficult.”
Controversial comedian Dave Chappelle tiptoed on a tightrope in his “Saturday Night Live” monologue as he challenged antisemitic attacks by Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), some stereotypes and censorship. And everyone kept laughing — uproariously. It was Chappelle’s first time hosting the sketch show since he sparked major controversy for transphobic jokes in his latest Netflix special, “The Closer.” Some furious “Saturday Night Live” writers reportedly considered boycotting the program. Chappelle didn’t address the transphobic jokes, but did take on other serious issues. Watch here
Related: Kyrie Irving’s Journey to Activism and Conspiracies. Jonathan Abrams and
Political / Social
Democrats hold Senate majority — and the House is still in play. By Salon Staff
With Nevada win, Democrats lock down Senate majority. Victory in the House remains (just) possible
One seat in the Senate remains undecided, but is now less consequential: The Georgia contest between incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will be decided in a Dec. 8 runoff election. Warnock finished slightly ahead of Walker, but did not reach the 50 percent threshold required by state law. Even more implausibly, it now appears possible that Democrats could hold their majority in the House of Representatives as well, something that seemed virtually inconceivable to most observers going into this election, and even in the first day or two after it concluded. Such a victory remains relatively unlikely — it would require Democrats to win nearly all of the undecided races on the West Coast, some of which are currently led by Republicans — but the 2022 midterms have already made clear that the unlikely and the impossible are different things. Read more
Related: Why I’m Cheering Tuesday’s Results. By Charles M. Blow / NYT
Warnock kicks off Georgia Senate runoff with broadsides against Walker, alleging ‘disturbing history.’ By Greg Norman / Fox News
Warnock says Georgia Senate runoff is about competency and character
“We’ve seen that Herschel Walker has a disturbing history pattern of violence against women, against his own family. And he takes and he refuses to take responsibility for that,” Warnock said Thursday. “And he refuses even to answer questions. So, the question right now is this: is that who we want representing Georgia?” The runoff between Warnock and Walker is scheduled for Dec. 6 after neither candidate captured 50% of the vote in Tuesday’s midterm election. Read more
Related: Connect! Unite! Act! why winning the Senate matters. By Christopher Reeves / Daily Kos
Racial breakdowns for midterms expose shifting electorate. By Silvia Foster-Frau and Sabrina Rodriguez / Wash Post
White voters remain a key demographic for the Republican Party, but voters of color showed some decline in Democratic support. Shown is Cecia Alvarado who trains young canvassers at a get out the vote gathering in Las Vegas the weekend before the election on Nov. 5. Alvarado is also the Nevada Executive Director for Somos Votantes.
The red wave pundits predicted did not materialize, but support for Democrats slipped across the board, including among voters of color integral to the party’s political future. While more than 8 in 10 Black voters supported Democrats for Congress, their level of support fell betweenfour and seven percentage points during the midterms compared with 2018, according to network exit polling and the AP VoteCast poll, respectively. Among Latinos, support for Democrats declined between nine and 10 percentage points, with between 56 percent and 60 percent backing Democrats. Read more
For Black women, Stacey Abrams’s loss ‘feels like a punch in the gut.’ By Janay Kingsberry / Wash Post
Voters in four states approve effort to wipe slavery and indentured servitude off the books. By and / CNN
Although the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibited slavery in 1865, it allowed an exception “for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” and the proposed amendments asked voters to either explicitly rule out slavery and indentured servitude as potential punishments or remove the terms from state law altogether. Voters in four states agreed to strike the punishment from the books, CNN projects, while the effort fell short in one. Read more
Affirmative Action Benefits All Students—Even Asian Americans. By Rachel Shin / The Nation
In October, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for two cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina in an effort to overturn race-conscious admissions.
While attorneys argued legalities inside the court, students outside exchanged testimonies, frustrations and fears. David Lewis, political action chair of Harvard’s Black Students Association and a student leader of the Affirmative Action Coalition, introduced student speeches and led chants, saying that he considered affirmative action to be integral to his education. “Where I grew up, I was the only dark-skinned Black student,” Lewis told The Nation. “When I came to a diverse environment that utilizes affirmative action at Harvard, where I was able to engage in a Black community, I was allowed to trust my own voice and contribute to the educational environment.” Read more
Related: What is affirmative action, anyway? 4 essential reads. By Jamaal Abdul-Alim / The Conversation
Related: The role of HBCUs in a post-affirmative action America. By Char Adams / NBC News
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Unity in Diversity – The Legacy of Howard Thurman | Living as Apprentices.
Enough of God to Go Around
The following quote by Howard Thurman, an African American theologian, preacher, and quiet activist, came up on the Church of the Savior Inward/Outward e-mail today. It interested me first because of its vision for authentic unity between people and secondly because Andre Daley of the Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance recently encouraged me to use some of Thurman’s books in our discipleship curriculum. Here’s the quote: Read more
Muslim Americans make historic gains in 2022 midterm elections. By
Mana Abdi, 26, speaks with a reporter in this Oct. 6, 2022 file photo in Lewiston, Maine. Abdi is one of two Somali women elected to the Maine House. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, file)
Nabeela Syed made history in this year’s midterms when she defeated a Republican incumbent in Illinois’ 51st District, making her the youngest member of the Illinois General Assembly and among the first Muslims elected to the state Legislature. “It is so important for us to have a seat at the table, for us to have a voice in the legislative process,” Syed, a 23-year-old Indian American who is Muslim, told a local TV news reporter soon after her win. Syed recalled a conversation with a friend who said he never thought he’d see a name like hers on hundreds of yard signs in their community. Read more
A ‘missionary to Christian nationalists,’ Phoenix pastor urges conversion, not confrontation. By Bob Smietana / RNS
Kyle Rittenhouse, right, is introduced to a cheering crowd by Charlie Kirk, middle, founder of Turning Point USA, at a panel discussion at the Turning Point USA America Fest 2021 event, Monday, Dec. 20, 2021, in Phoenix. The panel discussion, called “Kenosha On Camera,” comes a month after Rittenhouse’s acquittal on charges in the deadly Kenosha shootings in 2020. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Phoenix pastor Caleb Campbell has a theory about the growing number of Americans who are labeled as Christian nationalists. Most would rather go to Cracker Barrel than storm the Capitol. Many see themselves as good Christians who love their country. But somewhere along the way, they began to think being a good American and being a Christian were one and the same. “Their whole life has been the intermingling of their American civil religion and their Christian religion,” said Campbell, pastor of Desert Springs Bible Church and a self-described missionary to Christian nationalists. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Do We Have the History of Native Americans Backward? By David Trever / The Mew Yorker
They dominated far longer than they were dominated, and, a new book contends, shaped the United States in profound ways. Shown is a portrait of Thayendanegea, painted in London, in 1785, by Gilbert Stuart.Art work by Gilbert Charles Stuart / British Museum
I remember when I first encountered what must be the best-selling book of Native American history ever published, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” by Dee Brown. I was twenty years old, and had made my way from the Leech Lake Reservation, in northern Minnesota, where I grew up, to Princeton, in a part of New Jersey that seemed to have no Indians at all. Since “Bury My Heart” appeared, in 1970, it has been translated into seventeen languages, and sold millions of copies. In the opening pages, Brown wrote, “The greatest concentration of recorded experience and observation came out of the thirty-year span between 1860 and 1890—the period covered by this book. It was an incredible era of violence, greed, audacity, sentimentality, undirected exuberance, and an almost reverential attitude toward the ideal of personal freedom for those who already had it. During that time the culture and civilization of the American Indian was destroyed.” Pekka Hämäläinen’s “Indigenous Continent” (Liveright) boldly sets out a counternarrative. Read more
Related: What This Restaurateur Wants You To Know About Indigenous Food. By Sucheta Rawal / HuffPost
82 schools renamed from Confederate generals to civil rights icons. Dozens now honor people of color. Alia Wong and Neena Hagen / USA Today
More than 80 public schools across the United States chose to drop their namesakes in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, citing the individuals’ racist acts, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal data.
“It’s all part of this power struggle around the schoolhouse,” said Hilary Green, the James B. Duke Professor of Africana Studies at Davidson College. She studies Confederate monument removal and school renaming trends. Green said she expects the country will continue to see an uptick in the number of schools abandoning racist namesakes. Read more
‘Black Women Will Save the World’ recounts the stories of America’s ‘sheroes’ : NPR’s Book of the Day / NPR
Why ‘Atlanta’ Is the Blackest Show Ever. By Toure’ / NYT
Credit…Guy D’Alema/FX
I can’t remember exactly when I realized “Atlanta,” which ended its four-season run Thursday night on FX, was the Blackest show in TV history. It was probably in the midst of “Rich Wigga, Poor Wigga” the episode in which high school kids, in order to qualify for a college scholarship that a wealthy Black man is giving out, have to take a test to prove their Blackness. Black people love to talk about what’s Blacker than what or who’s Blacker than who because, for many of us, Blackness is more than an ethnicity; it’s a religion we love to praise. “Atlanta” took the notion of a racial test to the nth degree, in a way that was funny but also loving. In fact, the whole show is a love letter to hip-hop culture, the city of Atlanta and Blackness itself. Read more
Snoop Dogg is getting his own biopic. By Li Cohen / CBS News
Snoop Dogg’s life story is headed to the big screen in deal with Universal Pictures: “It was holy matrimony, not holy macaroni”
Snoop Dogg’s life story is officially headed to the big screen. The rapper, actor and business mogul and Universal Pictures announced the upcoming production of a biopic on Wednesday. “What’s his name? Snoop Dooogggyyy Doooooggg,” Universal Pictures tweeted. “That’s right, we’re partnering with the Dogg Father himself @SnoopDogg to bring his legendary life-story to the big screen.” Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., also confirmed the news, tweeting out an article of the announcement with a simple word, “Finally.” Read more
Chuck Berry’s complicated path to becoming a rock legend. By David Kirby / Wash Post
To some degree, all rock bios are about sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, yet the biggest takeaway from “Chuck Berry: An American Life” has to do with a fourth element: sheer force of personality. Berry, who died in 2017 at 90, didn’t invent rock single-handedly. “He didn’t do it alone and he didn’t do it on purpose,” writes RJ Smith, who has also written books on James Brown and photographer Robert Frank. But when you listen to his music, you wouldn’t be blamed if you thought that he could have. Read more
Nick Hornby, Hilton Als, Carolyn Prusa books on Prince: Dickens and Prince and My Pinup, reviewed. By Laura Miller / Slate
Was I What You Wanted Me to Be? Prince’s generation searches for their past selves in a lost genius.
Who was Prince? The artist himself mostly didn’t want us to know, judging by what he said to the writer he hired to help him produce an autobiography. “ ‘Mystery’ is a word for a reason,” Prince told Dan Piepenbring, who ended up being credited as the editor of 2019’s The Beautiful Ones, a sort of scrapbook attached to a short text of reminiscences written by the artist. “It has a purpose.” The purpose of the famously reticent musician’s elusiveness is just another one of those mysteries. Read more
Black Music Sunday: Sharing some post-midterms jazz joy. By Denise Oiliver Velez / Daily Kos
Vocalist Samara Joy performs onstage at the 2022 Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala, Body and Soul: America Rises Through the Arts on April 13, 2022, in New York City.
Black women’s voices have been lifted in songs of both struggle and joy since we were snatched and brought here. I have always been a particular fan of Black female jazz vocalists, all of whom I’ve written about here in the past—Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Carmen McRae, Betty Carter, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Nancy Wilson, and so many more. They not only sang to us, they sang for us. Read more and Listen here
Sports
Fauci, Serena and Venus Williams honored at National Portrait Gallery. By Judy Kurtz / The Hill
The worlds of sports, entertainment, medicine, food and philanthropy all artfully collided in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, as Serena and Venus Williams, Anthony Fauci, José Andrés and Ava DuVernay were among those honored with works of art that they inspired at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. “I was awestruck by the talent of that artist,” Fauci told ITK at the biennial Portrait of a Nation gala, reacting to a five-minute stop-motion animation of him, consisting of 19 drawings on paper, by artist Hugo Crosthwaite. Read more
MLB’s integration struggle started with Jackie Robinson. It didn’t end there. By Frederic J. Frommer / Wash Post
The Boston Red Sox and other teams honored Jackie Robinson on April 15, 2022. (Michael Dwyer/AP)
Major League Baseball recently wrapped up its season-long celebration of the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, beginning with “Hamilton” star Leslie Odom Jr. narrating a video tribute to Robinson and ending with a nationally televised World Series promotion. But if the high-profile commemoration gave the impression baseball solved its integration problem 75 years ago, history provides a much more complicated story. After Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, progress was haltingly slow across the sport. Read more
Brooklyn Nets’ hire of Jacque Vaughn historic for the NBA. By Marc J. Spears / Andscape
There’s high praise for the promotion of Vaughn, who gives the league a record 16 Black head coaches.
For the first time in NBA history, most of the head coaches are now African American, just like the majority of the players. The Brooklyn Nets promoted interim head coach Jacque Vaughn to head coach on Wednesday. With the African American’s promotion, there are now 15 full-time Black coaches and one Black interim coach (Joe Mazzulla of the Boston Celtics). The 16 current Black NBA coaches are a record for a league which, according to Statistica, is made up of 71.8% Black players. “It’s never been for me how many Black head coaches there are,” said Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers, an African American with 1,048 wins as a head coach entering Wednesday. “For me it’s been about Black coaches having the same opportunity as everyone else at becoming head coach. The fact that’s it’s now 16 only amplifies that. Read more
From Kevin Garnett to Karl-Anthony Towns: Being Black in Minneapolis as an NBA player and beyond. By Marc J. Spears / Andscape
In a community still reeling from the police murder of George Floyd, everyone from pro players to local business owners are figuring out what the city means to them.
“I was full of so many different emotions, if I’m being honest,” Garnett recently told Andscape. “I knew George. If anybody who was a ballplayer was out in the city, you knew dude. He was always consistent. Always fun-loving, always full of joy, always wanted to talk hoop, always was heavy-handed and always was funny as s—. Always good with the God. So, if you come from any of that spirit and understand, you are feeling the type of way you are. Looking at it, more needs to be done. “But I was tense like everybody else to see just the impact of the whole situation and the impact that it has on the city. The city is mourning and still hurting from that along with the other victims and situations that occurred also. We have a sense of a resurrection and almost a reboot of the city to be able to preserve and bring on this new energy and new vibe.” Read more
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