Featured
America is being destroyed by domestic hate, National Urban League report says. By Justin Gamble / CNN
The National Urban League unveiled on Tuesday its annual report on the state of Black America, saying the nation is under attack from hate and extremism within the country.
The report hopes to raise “the alarm around the explosive growth of far-right and domestic extremism and the threat it poses to our communities, our families, and our nation,” the organization said in the report’s executive summary. The report outlines areas where the organization believes inequities exist, including employment, education, health, housing, criminal justice and civic participation. Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the organization, said during the report’s unveiling ceremony in Atlanta, that it’s time to fight back. “There’s a fire blazing in the United States of America,” Morial said. “That fire is burning through democracy.” Read more
Political / Social
Kansas City Homeowner Is Charged In Shooting Of Black Teen. By Sanjana Karanth / HuffPost
Ralph Yarl, 16, was shot after mistakenly going to the wrong address to pick up his younger siblings.
Authorities have announced charges against a Kansas City, Missouri, man accused of shooting a 16-year-old Black teen who had mistakenly gone to the man’s home to pick up his younger siblings. Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson said at a Monday news conference that he’s filed two felony counts against Andrew Lester, an 84-year-old white man: assault in the first degree and armed criminal action. The announcement came less than an hour after Kansas City police said they submitted their investigation to the prosecutor’s office for review. Read more
Clarence Thomas’s explanations fail the laugh test. By Eugene Robinson / Wash Post
During his much-too-long tenure on the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas has been totally, tragically wrong about almost everything. But for a long time, I tried to convince myself that he was at least sincere in his deplorable ideology. Silly me.
I was never sympathetic. I believed Anita Hill, who testified at Thomas’s confirmation hearing in 1991 that he had sexually harassed her when she worked for him at two government agencies. And for Thomas, a far-right Republican apparatchik, to take the seat on the nation’s highest court vacated by the retirement of Thurgood Marshall, an icon of the civil rights movement, was always an abomination. Read more
Related: Harlan Crow Is Not a Nazi, but That’s Beside the Point. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
Connecting Clarence Thomas and Donald Trump: Tied together by a mutual worship of corrupt power. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas operates by the same underlying principles of corrupt power as Donald Trump
At its core, fascism is corrupt power where there is one set of rules for the Great Leader and their followers and allies and another set of rules and laws and expectations for everyone else. Unrestrained and corrupt power is both the means and ends of the fascist and other anti-democracy projects. That same corrupt power is a type of unifying energy field for today’s Republican Party and the “conservative” movement more broadly. Donald Trump participated in a decades-long crime spree. The presidency was but an opportunity for him to continue with those crimes on a historic and unprecedented scale and level. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas operates by the same underlying principles of corrupt power as Donald Trump. Read more
Related: The modern Republican party is hurtling towards fascism. By Robert Reich / The Guardian
Is a New Civil Rights Movement Taking Hold in Nashville? By Joan Walsh / The Nation
We see the work of John Lewis and Diane Nash in the multiracial movement behind Justin Jones and Justin Pearson. Simplistic comparisons are dangerous. Hope is not.
Are hope and history rhyming, as Joe Biden likes to say (pace Seamus Heaney)? The multiracial throng, Black and white, young and old, that marched joyously from the Nashville City Hall, where the Council voted 36-0 to reinstate Jones, to the state capitol, was likewise incredibly moving. The crowd traveled along John Lewis Way. Like Jones, Lewis attended Nashville’s Fisk University. Lewis was there with Diane Nash, where they coordinated sit-ins and Freedom Rides; the courthouse plaza is now named for Nash. Read more
Related; Aftershocks from Tennessee Republicans’ fiasco may resonate for years. By Jenifer Rubin / Wash Post
Related: Tennessee Republicans Exposed Their Authoritarian Streak. By Charles M. Blow / NYT
Related: Politics Rooted in Protest Fuels ‘the Justins’ of Tennessee. Clyde McGrady and
Freedom is under assault in Ron DeSantis’s Florida. By the Editorial Board / Wash Post
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) describes his state as “a citadel of freedom,” “freedom’s linchpin” and “freedom’s vanguard.” He titled his memoir “The Courage to Be Free” and called his budget a “Framework for Freedom.” In his State of the State address last month, he said: “We find ourselves in Florida on the front lines in the battle for freedom.”
Backed by GOP supermajorities in both chambers, Mr. DeSantis is waging frontal assaults on press freedom, reproductive freedom, free enterprise and academic freedom. Meanwhile, in the name of protecting gun rights, he has scaled back prudent safety rules. And now he’s poised to target undocumented immigrants, including “dreamers,” with what will be some of the cruelest policies in America. Read more
Sen. Tim Scott Wants To Sell Unity To The Party Of White Grievance. Good Luck With That. Michael Arceneaux / HuffPost
The South Carolina senator ― the lone Black Republican member of the Senate ― believes that he can sell the Republican Party as the party of “great opportunity.” The question is for whom?
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) has not made up his mind on whether or not he will run for president, but he has recently launched a presidential exploratory committee, and based on his first week as a prospective candidate, already developed a losing strategy for a would-be bid. Scott, the lone Black Republican member of the Senate, will reportedly tout the GOP as “the great opportunity party.” Read more
Related: Tim Scott’s Disastrous Answer to a Simple Abortion Question. By Alex Shepard / TNR
A Man Whom Trump Reviled Is Running for Office in Harlem. ‘Karma,’ He Says. By Mara Gay / NYT
Yusef Salaam, one of the wrongfully convicted Central Park Five, is running for a New York City Council seat in Harlem.Credit…Kadar Small for The New York Times
This is the man whose arrest prompted Donald Trump to publicly call for the death penalty in 1989 when Mr. Salaam was just 15 and charged with four other teenagers with a horrific crime that they did not commit. Read more
The Unequal Racial Burdens of Rising Seas.
Louisiana Republicans Want to Ban Colleges From Teaching About Racism. By Tori Otten / The New Republic
The Louisiana state Republican Party thinks that diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, programs on college campuses are too “divisive” and should be banned. The Republican State Central Committee, or RSCC, the state GOP’s governing body, unanimously passed a resolution Saturday asking the state legislature to ban DEI offices at all Louisiana colleges and universities, both public and private. Read more
Related: Scholastic apologizes for suggesting ‘racism’ be cut from kid’s book. By Emma Bowman / NPR
Related: Few Latino, ethnic studies majors, despite conservative DEI attacks. By Suzanne Gamboa / NBC News
Black People Live Longer In Areas Where There Are More Black Doctors: Study. By Stacy Jackson / Black Enterprise
A new study published in JAMA Network Open found that counties with a higher prevalence of Black doctors are linked to a longer life expectancy of Black people in those areas. Black people who resided in counties with more Black physicians had lower mortality from all causes and lower disparities in mortality rates compared to their white counterparts.
Primary care physician Monica Peek, also a health equity researcher at UChicago Medicine, wrote an editorial to go along with the findings from the new study. “That a single Black physician in a county can have an impact on an entire population’s mortality, it’s stunningly overwhelming,” Peek said. “It validates what people in health equity have been saying about all the ways Black physicians are important, but to see the impact at the population level is astonishing.” Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Howard Thurman: A Bridge Between Movements. By Tryce D. Prince / AAIHS
Standing in front of the microphone during ceremonies of the opening of the Hearst Lounge at Boston University are Robert Choate, Dean of the School of Fine Arts; Dean Howard Thurman of Marsh Chapel; President Harold Case, President of B.U.; and Harold G. Kern of the Hearst Corp, 1959 (Boston Public Library)
As historian Paul Harvey writes, one cannot discuss the Black Freedom Struggle without positioning the institution of the Black Church in the foreground, and acknowledging it as the force that drove the movement. Many Black church figures, however, have been overlooked in historical retellings of the Black freedom struggle. One of these figures is Howard Thurman, who, until the last decade or so, was largely unheard of in popular discussions. While he himself was reluctant to be the center of attention, Thurman is deserving of our recognition as a central figure in the story of the Black Freedom Struggle. Read more
Related: Howard Thurman and the Problem of Faithlessness. By D’ondre Swails / AAIHS
Related: Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited as a Framework for Victory. By Eva Bohler
Related: Beyond Faiths and Race in Interfaith, Interracial Worship. By Dorsey Blake / AAIHS
A fascist Jesus Christ: MAGA turns Donald Trump into a martyr. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Trump’s anointment as some type of new Jesus Christ is a symptom of a much larger problem with the Christian right
Donald Trump embodies, both as a human being and through his behavior, the literal opposite of the self-sacrifice, humility, dignity, generosity, sacrifice, and courage represented by Jesus Christ and his teachings. Trump is also the antithesis of the forces of health, life, and regeneration represented by the Easter holiday. Trump is plotting his return to the White House and has publicly promised an apocalyptic reign, a Hitler-like “final battle” and “End Times” where he and his MAGA movement’s “enemies” will be severely punished if he wins the 2024 Election. Read more
For embattled TN lawmakers, liberal faith movements were a training ground. By Jack Jenkins / RNS
Both Jones ,and Pearson ,cut their teeth working with faith-led movements in Nashville and Memphis, respectively, as well as with the Poor People’s Campaign.
At the heart of that activism is a faith-infused advocacy environment common in the South, where coalitions of local religious communities — particularly Black churches, mainline Protestants and interfaith organizations — often partner with national faith-led activist groups, such as the Poor People’s Campaign, to champion liberal policies. Read more
A Christian’s Thoughts on the Problem of Christian Nationalism. By bill McKibben / The New Yorker
The separation of church and state, though under attack from the right, is still ingrained in our national psyche. Who’s best positioned to keep it there?
Methodism was far from perfect; having split regionally over slavery, it trafficked, in the South, with segregation, and it has yet to come fully to terms with gay rights. Nor was it, in its basic social liberalism, an outlier. “Christian nationalism seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy.” The American experiment in pluralism is endangered, and so is public understanding of one of the world’s great faiths. It’s a perilous moment, but a teachable one. Read more
Latinos who are religiously unaffiliated continue to grow. By Suzanne Gamboa / NBC News
Most Latinos still identify as Catholic, but a several-year decline in the share who do continued in 2022.
Engel Martinez, 27, grew up Catholic, attending Sunday catechism classes and celebrating his First Communion and confirmation; his grandmother had even urged him to become a priest. Martinez, of San Diego, now considers himself religiously unaffiliated. The share of Latinos who, like Martinez, say they are religiously unaffiliated grew last year, while the share of those who are Catholic continued to slide, a Pew Research survey released Thursday finds. Read more
Historical / Cultural
AP African American Studies, CRT, and Redressing Institutional Racism. By Anique John / AAIHS
AP African American Studies Panel at the National Museum for African American History and Culture in Washington, February 2, 2023 (Wikimedia Commons)
In recent months, there has been political discussions of AP African American Studies, particularly by Governors of conservative states. This has brought into question how and why AP African American Studies should be taught. if AP African American Studies courses are banned and restricted for being “dangerous,” our students are clearly not being granted equal access to learn all social, political, and historical realities which are a part of African American Studies and, therefore, a part of the American experience. Therefore, this becomes more than a matter of diversifying the curriculum to accommodate African American perspectives; it becomes a social justice issue which is in need of redress. Read more
Professor Craig Wilder talks relationship between slavery, higher education during annual Coit-Phelps lecture. By Ella Kamm / Tufts Daily
Professor Craig Wilder spoke about his work to uncover higher education’s connection to the slave economy on April 12 at the inaugural event for the Slavery, Colonialism, and Their Legacies at Tufts project. The event was co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at Tufts, the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy and the Office of the Provost.
“Today’s lecture is part of a larger effort to examine the history of slavery and colonialism and their lasting [effects] on higher education across America,” University President Anthony Monaco said in his introduction. “This work is difficult but necessary as a step in our university-wide commitment to become an anti-racist institution.” Read more
Zora Neale Hurston’s Hometown in Florida Is in Peril. By Nick Tabor / NYT
When towns like Eatonville must sell off pieces of the past to underwrite the present, we lose another piece of vital Black history. These places should be recognized as treasures — not only as rich communities unto themselves but also as living monuments, more valuable than any statue we could erect.
In 1887, Eatonville, Fla., a community near Orlando, was among the first all-Black towns to incorporate — making it an outlier in the post-Reconstruction South. Its leaders went on to found the Robert L. Hungerford Normal and Industrial School, the first school for Black children in Central Florida, with the help of Booker T. Washington. The author Zora Neale Hurston, who grew up in Eatonville, fictionalized her hometown in the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Read more
How hip-hop has enhanced American education over the past 50 years, from rec rooms to classrooms. By Toby Jenkins / The Converstion
The year 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop culture. People around the world are taking time to reflect on and celebrate hip-hop’s accomplishments.
Today, as a professor of higher education, I still carry the fondness I had for hip-hop as a child into my professional work. I have spent over two decades developing hip-hop cultural initiatives on college campuses. Hip-hop has made my jobs feel like house parties and turned co-workers and students into homies. But its impact in education is more than personal. Read more
The Artist Mark Bradford Is Finally Ready to Go There. By Ismail Muhammad / NYT
After a celebrated career of making oblique work that refused autobiography, he is making his most personal work yet.
There’s probably no way, in a town as basketball crazy as Los Angeles, for a six-foot preteen Black boy to avoid unwanted attention. When the artist Mark Bradford turned 12 or so and shot up to nearly his current height — he stands at a gangly 6-foot-8, with a body reminiscent of Kevin Durant’s — he drew a scrutiny he wasn’t used to. “At the end of the day, I’m an abstract artist,” Bradford says. “But the question I’m proposing is: If you’re pulling from source material that lives in the world, is it ever truly abstract? Read more
Asian and Black representation grew in film and television, study finds. By Variety
Less than 2% of all movies released last year centered on Asian stories, and TV series with at least one Asian series regular increased by 2%, according to the report. Shown is Stephanie Hsu, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”
TV series with at least one Asian series regular increased 2%, from 2021’s 36.5% to 2022’s 38.4%. Asian main title cast and directors in film increased by 7.7% and 5.9% respectively. In 2022, Black actors’ presence in main title film roles increased by over 20%, reflecting the studios’ commitments to fund more projects with Black talent, according to the study. The number of films released with at least one main Black title actor also increased by 30.1%. Yet the number of films with Black stories at the forefront decreased by 16.7%, with only 35 films total. Read more
Sports
Jalen Hurts’ record deal another step beyond NFL’s racist past. By Mike Freeman / USA Today
Eagles make QB Jalen Hurts highest-paid player in NFL history with five-year, $255 million contract
If you want to understand just how remarkable the contract extension signed by Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts truly is, the one that’s the richest contract ever, you need to go back in time. You need to look at how Black quarterbacks have been treated. How badly, awfully, disgracefully they’ve been treated. You need to understand history and that splendid bending of its arc. Read more
‘Sweetwater’ a movie with a back story, visuals worth recognizing. By Jannelle Moore / Andscape
The story of Nat Clifton breaking the NBA’s color barrier with the New York Knicks is finally told on the big screen
For every widely known pioneer and trailblazer who has made history as “the first African American to,” there have been countless more unsung figures with stories of impactful triumphs. Some of those stories remain little-known footnotes in history. It’s well known that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball when he made his Brooklyn Dodgers debut in April 1947, but how many of us know about Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton breaking the color barrier in the NBA three years later? Briarcliff Entertainment’s Sweetwater aims to highlight the career and the legacy of the man who not only was the first African American player to sign a contract with the NBA but who also shaped how the game is played. Read more
‘Air’ takes leaps but stays true to Nike’s actual chase of Michael Jordan. By Nick DePaula / Andscape
New movie depicts the people and events instrumental to the company signing the future basketball great
The movie retells one of the most famous storylines in the business of sports – Michael Jordan signing with Nike in 1984. “The idea is that it’s the inception of the whole idea of sneaker culture,” said Affleck. After watching The Last Dance during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, screenwriter Alex Convery realized it glossed over the competition between Converse, Adidas and Nike to sign Jordan in 1984. He recognized that an entire movie lay in the story behind the pursuit. Read more
Related: Michael Jordan Was an Activist After All. By Harvey Araton / NYT
Stephen A. Smith Is Under No Obligation to Tell You What You Want to Hear. By David Marchese / NYT
In our apparently endless era of conversational combat, Stephen A. Smith has distinguished himself as a virtuoso of the form.
As the brightest star of ESPN’s long-running flagship debate show, ‘‘First Take,’’ Smith has helped his show dominate its competition through a combination of insider knowledge, charismatic (or depending on your view, infuriating) confidence, turn-on-a-dime intensity, verbal flair and, at times, winking self-awareness. That success has allowed Smith, who is 55, to become arguably the face of the network, and also to branch out, first with a podcast, ‘‘Know Mercy,’’ which debuted last year, and then a memoir, ‘‘Straight Shooter,’’ which was a best seller after being published in January. Read more
Jackie Robinson’s Legacy Stretches Beyond the Baseball Field. By David Waldstein / NYT
As M.L.B. celebrates Jackie Robinson Day, scholars from a foundation created in his honor — like Rep. Lauren Underwood — work to fulfill his vision for society.
As it does every year, Major League Baseball on Saturday will honor the anniversary of the day that Robinson first broke Baseball’s racial barrier on April 15, 1947. Players will wear Robinson’s No. 42 to commemorate his achievement, which helped shift many long-held beliefs about race in the United States. But Robinson’s legacy goes far beyond the baseball field. It also extends to hundreds of Jackie Robinson Foundation scholars and alumni, like Underwood, who help to fulfill Robinson’s vision of a more just society through their own accomplishments. Read more
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