Featured
NAACP issues travel warning in Florida: the state ‘has become hostile to Black Americans.’ By Julia Shapiro / The Hill
The NAACP issued a formal travel advisory for Florida on Saturday, saying the state has become “hostile to Black Americans” under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) leadership.
“On a seeming quest to silence African-American voices, the Governor and the State of Florida have shown that African Americans are not welcome in the State of Florida,” the travel advisory reads.
“Due to this sustained, blatant, relentless and systemic attack on democracy and civil rights, the NAACP hereby issues a travel advisory to African Americans, and other people of color regarding the hostility towards African Americans in Florida,” the group added.
The advisory points to several of DeSantis’s controversial policies, including legislation he signed on Monday to prohibit colleges from spending public funds on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Read more
Related: NAACP Issues Travel Advisory in Florida | NAACP Press Statement
Florida
A message to America from inside Florida. By Stephanie Hayes / Tampa Bay Times
Please, be nice. We are human beings and we don’t all love what’s happening here.
You must know that not everyone here supports, oh God, let me fetch the heavy-a$$ reference materials: Nonstop school book bans; historic attacks on LGBTQ+ people; a six-week abortion ban; a hostile university takeover; whitewashing textbooks; eliminating majors and diversity programs; targeting and removing elected officials; busting unions; sending Florida law enforcement officers to, uh, Texas to patrol for migrants; and whatever the Donald Duck is going on over at Disney. This is not a complete list, mind you. Read more
Related: How Would Ron DeSantis “Make America Florida”? By Arianna Coghill / Mother Jones
Related: Ron DeSantis’s big idea: Make Florida students ignorant. By Jenifer Rubin / Wash Post
Political / Social
The Four Freedoms, According to Republicans. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
There are, I think, four freedoms we can glean from the Republican program.
There is the freedom to control — to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles. There is the freedom to exploit — to allow the owners of business and capital to weaken labor and take advantage of workers as they see fit. There is the freedom to censor — to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class. And there is the freedom to menace — to carry weapons wherever you please, to brandish them in public, to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people. Read more
Related: White Supremacy Is a Threat Because Republicans Use It. By Jonathan Chait / The New Yorker
Donald Trump Against America. By Michael Tomasky / The New Republic
He loves an America of his twisted imagination. He hates—and fears—the America that actually exists. And if he gets back to the White House … look out.
This new Trump of 2023 is all but promising that, if elected, he would use the presidency as a political weapon against these enemies. That’s terrifying on its own terms, as it will entail the demolition of democratic norms and safeguards that survived Trump I. But it’s also illuminating, as it bespeaks a deep fear on the part of Trump and his followers of the polyglot America that is beyond their reach. Read more
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott files to run for president. By , , and / CNN
Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina has filed to run for president in 2024, according to the Federal Election Commission’s website.
The filing comes ahead of a formal announcement that is expected to take place Monday in South Carolina. Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, launched a presidential exploratory committee in April, emphasizing his evangelical faith, his race and his experience growing up as the son of a single mother. He defined his personal ethos as one of “individual responsibility” and said his approach to politics was guided by the belief that the US is “the land of opportunity and not the land of oppression.” Read more
Related: Tim Scott Is Sure to Rise—and Surer to Fade. By Walter Shapiro / The New Republic
Related: Tim Scott’s Run for President Shines a Spotlight on Black Republicans. By Maya King / NYT
Jamaal Bowman Finds His Voice. Some Republicans Don’t Like the Sound. By Nicholas Fandos / NYT
Representatives Jamaal Bowman and Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared to be engaging in a good-natured partisan spat, but Ms. Greene said a day later that she had felt threatened.Credit…J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
The approach also carries risks, especially for a Black man, some of which came into sharp relief on Thursday. That is when Ms. Greene, a combative Georgian with a history of spouting conspiracy theories and directly confronting her own political opponents, said that she had felt threatened by Mr. Bowman, even though video showed her smiling as they sparred. Read more
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace: A Survey Report (2023). By Rachel Minkin / Pew Research Center.
A majority of U.S. workers say focusing on DEI at work is a good thing, but relatively small shares place great importance on diversity in their own workplace
Most workers have some experience with DEI measures at their workplace. About six-in-ten (61%) say their company or organization has policies that ensure fairness in hiring, pay or promotions, and 52% say they have trainings or meetings on DEI at work. Smaller shares say their workplace has a staff member who promotes DEI (33%), that their workplace offers salary transparency (30%), and that it has affinity groups or employee resource groups based on a shared identity (26%). Majorities of those who have access to these measures say each has had a positive impact where they work. Read more
Stacey Abrams on Writing and Her Future in Politics. By Belinda Luscombe / Time
Stacey Abrams has twice been the Democratic candidate for Governor in Georgia (unsuccessfully), founded FairFight Action to increase voter registration, and is currently the Senior Counsel to Rewiring America, a nonprofit that seeks to switch all households to using electricity. She was recently appointed as an endowed chair at Howard University. And she’s found time to write at least 12 books. Read more
Parasitic infections hit the health of low-income Black communities where states have neglected sewage systems. By Thomas E. Glidner / The Conversation
Intestinal infections take a heavy toll on impoverished Black communities that have out-of-date sewage systems. These infections often spread through contaminated soil and water and are among the most common diseases worldwide.
I am a biological anthropologist, and it is clear to me that these two types of infections contribute to systemic health inequities, especially among communities of color in which limited access to medical care and inadequate sanitation systems may both increase exposure to pathogens and lead to worse outcomes. Read more
Leader from one of world’s largest investment firms visits Morehouse. By Mirtha Donastorg / The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Vern Perry, a Morehouse alum, manages $68B in assets as a global head at unit of Blackstone
Perry, Morehouse Class of 1994, is a board member of the historically Black college. He’s also the global head of a division of Blackstone, the largest alternative investment manager in the world with nearly $1 trillion in assets. Nearly two years ago, Blackstone brought its LaunchPadprogram to Morehouse and other Atlanta University Center institutions to cultivate entrepreneurs. Blackstone committed $500,000 over five years each to Morehouse, Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Reparations for slavery to be topic as Episcopal presiding bishop meets NY bishop-elect. RNS Press Release
Ahead of new bishop’s consecration, two North Carolinians will share vastly different family histories of slavery in a conversation focused on reparations for slavery, economic justice, and environmental justice.
The conversation will focus on three priorities Heyd has identified as his focus as he begins his time at the diocese, including racial justice, with a special focus on economic reparation from the diocese to descendants of slaves. Presiding Bishop Curry, who is a descendent of slaves, and the first black presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Heyd, who is white, are both from North Carolina. Read more
‘Playing God’ traces the history of Catholic conservatism gone extreme. By Tom Roberts / NCR
From left: San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone; Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò; Leonard Leo; Steve Bannon; and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (CNS/Courtesy of Franciscan University of Steubenville/Ryan Nolan; Paul Haring; Courtesy of the Federalist Society; Gregory A. Shemitz; Courtesy of University of Notre Dame/Peter Ringenberg)
A disturbing symbiosis exists between the disruptive, norm-trashing far right in our national politics and a similar force that has become prominent within the Catholic hierarchy in the United States. The relationship is alarming, given the established wisdom of church-state separation, but hardly surprising. As Mary Jo McConahay illustrates in Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and The Far Right, the two entities have become, over decades, increasingly dependent on and subservient to each other in a mutual pursuit of cultural influence. Read more
When faith says to help migrants – and the law says don’t. By Laura E. Alexander / The Conversation
Many religious traditions preach the need to care for strangers. But what happens when caring for the stranger comes into conflict with government policy?
After Title 42 restrictions at the U.S. border ended on May 11, 2023, debates about immigration have heated up again – focused mostly on reform, border security or refugees’ needs. But the treatment of immigrants is deeply intertwined with religious freedom as well. As a scholar of religious ethics who studies immigration, I am interested in recent cases that highlight growing tensions between immigration policies and religious groups’ commitments to pastoral and humanitarian care. Read more
Historical / Cultural
A look at the history of racism in America and its role in today’s divisions. By Judy Woodruff and Frank Carlson / PBS
The fact that our country is divided isn’t new. In many respects, it can be traced back to the founding of a nation on the promise of freedom while dependent on slavery, a time when many couldn’t participate in the democracy being created. Judy Woodruff examines how that founding contradiction has evolved and what it means for our challenges today. It’s part of her series, America at a Crossroads. Read more and listen here
Most U.S. Latino history is left out of high school textbooks, study finds. By Edwin Flores / NBC News
Most of the seminal events impacting U.S. Latino history are not a subject of study in high schools across the country, according to a new report by Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and UnidosUS, a national Latino advocacy and research organization.
The study found that 87% of key Latino topics were either not covered in U.S. history textbooks or were mentioned in just five or fewer sentences. “Only 28 of 222 important topics were covered well, leaving out many aspects of the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, the U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico, the Panama Canal, the modern civil rights movement, Cold War politics, and legal developments shaping the Latino experience, such as the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and racial segregation,” according to a release on the report. Read more
Malcolm X at 98: Angela Davis on His Enduring Legacy & the “Long Struggle for Liberation.” By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now
We dedicate the show to remembering Malcolm X on what would have been his 98th birthday Friday. We begin with an address by world-renowned abolitionist, author and activist Angela Davis on Malcolm’s legacy, attacks on the teaching of Black history by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and more. “This is a time to reflect deeply on the long struggle for liberation,” Davis said. “And Malcolm asked us to keep our eyes on the future, future worlds, radical democratic futures for all beings who inhabit this planet.” Read more
The multiracial aristocracy depicted in ‘Queen Charlotte’ is a dangerous distortion. By Shayn Armstead / CNN
A Black noblewoman finds love and happiness as the wife of England’s king: That is the heart-warming if improbable plot of Shonda Rhimes’ latest historical miniseries ”Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.”
It ought to be clear that an interracial love story between royals in a late-18th century Britain where people of all races interact on near-equal footing, is fantasy. And for those who don’t know that, a disclaimer at the start of the first episode of “Queen Charlotte” offers a reminder. But its departure from history has not detracted from its appeal: the series has charmed millions of viewers since its debut this month. For some, its celebration of a multiracial but purely fictional British aristocracy may even be a big part of its appeal. Read more
Viola Davis Says Hollywood Is ‘Vast Desert’ For Black Women Over 50. By Margo Margaritoff / HuffPost
“I play a lot of moms,” said Davis. “Everyone wants me to play their mom. I have people who hug me in the street who call me Mom.”
While attending the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, Viola Davis expressed her frustration with the available roles for Black women in Hollywood. “When it comes to Black women who are over 50, then that is when [the lack of interesting roles] is problematic. That’s when it is a vast desert,” the EGOT winner, who most recently portrayed Michael Jordan’s mother Deloris Johnson in “Air,” told People. “Women are no longer begging for a seat at the table, they’re creating their own.” Read more
Sports
Jim Brown, Football Great and Civil Rights Champion, Dies at 87. By Richard Goldstein / NYT
After a Hall of Fame career in the N.F.L., he pursued social activism and Hollywood stardom, but his image was stained by accusations of abuse toward women.
Playing for the Browns from 1957 to 1965 after earning all-American honors at Syracuse University in football and lacrosse, Brown helped take Cleveland to the 1964 National Football League championship. In any game, he dragged defenders when he wasn’t running over them or flattening them with a stiff arm. He eluded them with his footwork when he wasn’t sweeping around ends and outrunning them. He never missed a game, piercing defensive lines in 118 consecutive regular-season games, though he played one year with a broken toe and another with a sprained wrist. Read more
Related: Jim Brown was a confounding knot of athleticism, activism and violence. By Jerry Brewer / Wash Post
Related: Jim Brown Piled Up Yards, but Never Wavered an Inch. Ken Belson and /NYT
French NBA players see Victor Wembanyama’s potential to inspire. By Marc J. Spears / Andscape
The future No. 1 pick — likely heading to San Antonio — has impressed a slew of his countrymen, including Rudy Gobert, Boris Diaw, Mickaël Piétrus and more
Tariq Abdul-Wahad made French basketball history by becoming the first countryman to get drafted into the NBA when the Sacramento Kings selected him in 1997. Since the former San Jose State star opened the NBA door for France, the likes of 2007 NBA Finals MVP and four-time champion Tony Parker, three-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert and NBA champions Boris Diaw and Ronny Turiaf, among many others, have stepped through. Read more
Why Brittney Griner Stood for the National Anthem. By Jemele Hill / The Atlantic
The WNBA player has a different perspective on “The Star-Spangled Banner” but hasn’t given up the cause of justice.
Playing in her first real WNBA game in 579 days, Brittney Griner did something Friday night in Los Angeles that national television audiences hadn’t seen her do in a long time: The Phoenix Mercury center stood for the national anthem. She stopped doing so in 2020 but has resumed the practice after returning from 10 months of imprisonment in Russia. “One thing that’s good about this country is our right to protest,” Griner said after the game when I asked her about the issue. Read more
Growth of U.S.-born Black baseball players takes root in upstart HBCU programs. By David Squires / Andscape
MLB support underpins development of NAIA teams, including Dillard, Philander Smith and Wilberforce.
The success and continued growth of these HBCU teams is critical this year, as the MLB began spending its $150 million, 10-year investment in diversifying the game. The plan was already in place before the announcement in October 2022 that the World Series would be played without U.S.-born Black baseball players for the first time in 72 years. That sobering news followed a season in which Opening Day rosters in 2022 included only 7.2% U.S.-born Black players, down from 18% in 1991, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. That number dipped slightly, to 6.2% for Opening Day 2023, according to statistics MLB provided. Read more
Related: Baseball Returns to the ‘Hallowed Grounds’ of a Negro Leagues Stadium. By Gary Phillips / NYT
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