Featured

‘Gut-level Hatred’ Is Consuming Our Political Life. By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT

Divisions between Democrats and Republicans have expanded far beyond the traditional fault lines based on race, education, gender, the urban-rural divide and economic ideology.

Polarization now encompasses sharp disagreements over the significance of patriotism and nationalism, as well as a fundamental split between those seeking to restore perceived past glories and those who embrace the future. Democrats are determined not only to block any drive to restore the America of 1963 — one year before passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act — but also to press the liberal agenda forward. Toward the end of the 20th century, Republicans moved rightward at a faster pace than Democrats moved leftward. Read more

Political / Social

The Supreme Court Has Killed Affirmative Action. Mediocre Whites Can Rest Easier. By Elie Mystal / The Nation

The court ended one of our most effective social justice policies because anything that isn’t seen to primarily benefit white people is anathema to this country.

None of that really matters now, though. The “why” of it is less important than the reality. Affirmative action is gone. Prestige-obsessed white parents have gotten what they wanted. Damaged Blacks who are willing to climb up a ladder and then pull it up behind them have gotten what they wanted. Students who think their intellectual “merit” can be captured on a multiple choice test, like well-trained dolphins who know exactly which hoops to jump through, have gotten what they wanted. Congratulations on all their success: They’ve put a lot of effort into giving Black students another reason to apply to Howard instead of Harvard. Read more

How the Supreme Court’s overturning of affirmative action could lead to the end of legacy admissions. By Chauncey Devega / Salon

Lawyers for Civil Rights’ Oren Sellstrom explains how vital evidence revealed in the Havard case can now be used

In this wide-ranging conversation, Sellstrom details the basis of the LCR’s case against Harvard and how the recent Supreme Court decision(s) is part of a much larger right-wing backlash against the civil rights movement and racial progress that uses “original intent” to justify partisan right-wing outcomes that are contrary to the Constitution and the facts. Read more

Tim Scott Once Confronted Racism Head On. Not Anymore. By Garrison Hayes / Mother Jones

“The radical left is indoctrinating our children, teaching CRT instead of ABC,” Scott says in the video, a phrase that has become something of a campaign catchphrase.

My analysis begins in 2010 when Scott clinched a resounding victory in the US House of Representatives election against Paul Thurmond, whose father, Strom, was a notorious racist figure in the 20th century. Scott’s ability to win in a majority-white district set his political career on an upward trajectory, making him, in some respects, the Republicans’ primary spokesperson on race, or what I describe as the party’s “default DEI Guy.” Read more

Congressional Black Caucus allies launch ‘eight-figure’ effort to flip the House. By Ben Kamisar / NBC News

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries would be in line to become speaker if Democrats take control.

A top ally of the Congressional Black Caucus is launching a super PAC that will spend tens of millions of dollars to mobilize Black voters and flipping the House majority for Democrats — and electing the first Black speaker of the House. Read more

Hispanic GOP caucus grows its numbers — and wants to increase its influence. By Marianna Sotomayor / Wash Post

The Congressional Hispanic Conference has a record 18 members; their work on a border security package earlier this year could offer a blueprint for how the group might shape legislature in the future. Shown is Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.) of the congressional Hispanic Conference speaks about border security at the U.S. Capitol on April 18. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

Hispanic voters have historically voted in large numbers for Democrats, but in recent years, Republicans have peeled away some of that support during presidential election cycles. And a recent Pew Research Center poll about the 2022 midterms found that Hispanic support for Democrats dropped from 72 percent in 2018 to 60 percent in 2022. While Democrats still have an advantage, they did not win back voters they appeared to have lost to Republicans in 2020. Read more

President Biden Announces Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms as Senior Advisor for Public Engagement. The White House

Today, President Biden announced that Keisha Lance Bottoms will serve as Senior Advisor to the President for Public Engagement. In this role, Bottoms will oversee the White House Office of Public Engagement, which works at the local, state, and national levels to ensure community leaders, diverse perspectives, and new voices have the opportunity to inform the work of the President in an inclusive, transparent and responsible way. Read more

Texas A&M interim dean resigns after Kathleen McElroy’s botched hiring. By William Melhado and Alejandro Serrano / Texas Tribune

José Luis Bermúdez, who led the school’s College of Arts and Sciences, will leave his position after a deal to hire respected journalist Kathleen O. McElroy fell apart amid conservative pushback.

Last month, A&M celebrated hiring McElroy ( Texas A&M graduate) — who worked at The New York Times for two decades and formerly directed the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism — to revive the university’s journalism program. But the deal fell apart in the weeks that followed after a vocal group of constituents in the Texas A&M system expressed concern over her experience at the Times and with her work on race and diversity in newsrooms, McElroy told the Tribune last week. Read more

Black people in redlined neighborhoods face higher risks for heart failure. By Justin Gamble / CNN

Black adults living in zip codes historically impacted by redlining have an 8% higher risk of developing heart failure than Black adults in non-redlined areas, a study published Monday in the American Heart Association’s scientific journal Circulation says.

During the early 20th century, US banks routinely engaged in a racist lending practice known as redlining, which denied loans and insurance to people of color seeking to purchase houses outside undesirable areas of cities. The practice began in the 1930s, amplifying segregation, and was eventually banned in the late 1960s. “Among Black adults living in historically redlined communities, approximately half of the excess risk of heart failure appeared to be explained by higher levels of socioeconomic distress,” the AHA said in a news release. Read more

Carlee Russell Is Home. These Black Women and Girls Are Still Missing. By Capital B Staff

Over 193,000 Black people were reported missing in 2022. From left, top row: Tionda Bradley, Rajah McQueen, Sacoya Cooper, and Nefertiri Trader. From left, bottom row: Lashaya Stine, Diamond Bradley, Arianna Fitts, and Kierra Coles.

The mysterious case of Carlethia “Carlee” Russell, a nursing school student who went missing for more than 48 hours last week after reporting an unaccompanied toddler on the side of an Alabama highway, has flooded social media and news cycles across the country. The headlines that Russell deservedly received are not the norm for missing Black people, especially Black women, who disappear or are kidnapped. It was an “unprecedented” level of news and social media coverage, said Natalie Wilson, co-founder of the Black and Missing Foundation. Read more

Ethics / Morality / Religion

Barack Obama Warns American Christians That Sacred Texts Are Threatened. By Claude Wooten / MSN

Former President Barack Obama has long claimed that he learned — or improved — his capacity for empathy by his engagement with literature. Today he issued a statement in defense of literature and more largely a defense of freedom of expression and difference of opinion.

Concerned that “some of the books that shaped my life,” Obama writes, “are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives,” he reminds Americans that their freedom of expression, codified in law, is the envy of the free world — and currently at risk. Mark Twain, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin and Walt Whitman — to name a few — have contributed, Obama says, to his essential understanding of the “country’s character.” “It is the sacred texts,” Obama writes, “that some calling for book bannings in this country claim to want to want to defend — that have often been the first target of censorship and book banning efforts in authoritarian countries.” Read more

Arizona Church Burnings Recall a Dark Past. By Miriam Davidson / The Progressive

When two churches were burned in the small town of Douglas, it echoed a long history of hate crimes.

On May 22, just eleven days after publicly announcing that her congregation would be hosting migrants when Title 42 expired, the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Douglas, Arizona, watched in horror as the imposing brick-and-wood structure went up in flames. This crime recalls the dark history of church burnings in the United States, which date back to before the Civil War. African-American churches in the South were targeted for being way stations on the Underground Railroad and for supporting Black emancipation. Read more

Black Catholics’ congress stresses their ‘rightful place’ in US church. By Aleja Hertzler-McCain / NCR

Auxiliary Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr. of Washington, president of the National Black Catholic Congress, celebrates Mass Feb. 6, 2022, at St. Matthew’s Cathedral to mark Black History Month. The 13th National Black Catholic Congress is July 20-23. The portraits on display are of Fr. Augustus Tolton and Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, candidates for sainthood. (CNS photo/Javier Diaz, Catholic Standard)

Black Catholics from across the U.S. are preparing to gather just outside Washington for the 13th National Black Catholic Congress July 20-23. The four-day event, held at National Harbor in Maryland, will feature keynote addresses by Washington, D.C., Cardinal Wilton Gregory and motivational speaker Omékongo Dibinga, workshops, a documentary film viewing and several liturgies, including a celebration of the feast of St. Mary Magdalene. Read more

Abigail Oduol seized the moment to organize for anti-racism in her workplace. By Kathryn Post / RNS

Abigail Odoul, top right, joins a panel of women speaking about about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the workplace. Photo courtesy Odoul

In 2019, Oduol kicked her organizing skills into high gear as an employee with a lot to lose. When a Black colleague at Earthjustice, the public interest environmental law organization where Oduol works as a senior development officer, was bullied because of their race, Oduol helped establish an employee resource group called Black at Earthjustice that pushed through an organization-wide anti-bullying and microaggressions policy. ‘A part of why this work has been able to go forward is because of relationship building, which is foundational to who we are in Christ,’ Oduol said about her DEI efforts. Read more

RFK Jr’s unhinged antisemitism is no surprise. By Jeffrey Salkin / RNS

Robert Kennedy Jr., who has presidential ambitions, has long trafficked in conspiracy theories. In particular, he is an anti-vaxxer. This week, however, he went to the truly dark side, as The New York Times reported:

“Covid-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. Covid-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Mr. Kennedy said at a private gathering in New York that was captured on videotape by The New York Post. “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” RFK Jr. might take a certain pride in the fact that this antisemitic conspiracy theory has a long lineage. Read more

Historical / Cultural

At ‘ground zero’ for slavery, a new museum helps rewrite history. By Edward Ball / Wash Post

Back in 1999, Joseph P. Riley Jr., the mayor of Charleston, S.C., had a disruptive idea: Charleston, a city more than three centuries old that attracts millions of tourists every year searching for traces of the Old South, should have a museum about slavery.

After all, the city was the port where nearly half of the captive Africans dragged to this continent were first sold. Charleston was also where, in 1861, militant White people afraid that newly elected President Abraham Lincoln would end their right to enslave people launched the Civil War. For roughly 200 years, slavery was paramount to Charleston’s economy, politics and mental life — and yet its legacy had been trivialized or ignored. Read more

My Life in the Aftermath of Martin Luther King’s Assassination. By Clarence B. Jones and Stuart Connelly / The New Yorker

After my friend was killed, I considered taking up arms. But his legacy called me back to a different way of living. Martin Luther King, Jr., gives a press conference in Birmingham, Alabama, as his speechwriter Clarence B. Jones stands to the left. Photograph by Ernst Haas / Hulton Archive / Getty

The last time Martin phoned me, on the day of his assassination, the call came into my office in New York. I knew him so well that I figured I could anticipate the purpose for his call. He was in Memphis with Andrew Young and the Reverend Billy Kyles, going over the details of his schedule. I expected that he wanted to make sure he knew exactly when I’d be arriving in town to assist him. It was a matter of logistics—clerical stuff, really—and I was buried in other work. I shouted to my secretary, “Tell him I’ll be there on time.” Read more

What America Loses Without Jesse Jackson’s Voice. By Janell Ross / Time

Jesse Jackson sat on what looked like a brownstone stoop. “You ready…?” he asked.

“OK. Here we go. I am–somebody,” Jackson says before prompting the children to repeat after him, phrase by phrase, as if learning a mantra. In reality it was the language of a poem, written decades earlier by the Rev. William Holmes Borders Sr., an Atlanta pastor and civil rights activist who beginning in the 1940s had illuminated on his radio program the truth about American segregation and inspired, among other listeners, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But it was in many ways Jackson, an activist and King acolyte, who was with King when he was assassinated in Memphis, who had made the poem famous, reciting it, whole or in parts, in many of his public speeches since King’s murder, even recording it on an album. “I am –somebody. I may be poor. But I am–somebody.” Read more

Racial identity is more fluid than you might think. By David Byler / Wash Post

Many Americans assume race is a constant. Something people are born into and that — like their birthdate or country of origin — simply doesn’t change.

But for a surprising number of us, race is a fluid concept. Polling data show that roughly 8 percent of adults jumped from one racial category to another in recent years. And that has important political implications for the Republican Party. The best data on race-switching comes from panel surveys conducted by academics. These studies — such as the General Social Survey, the American National Election Studies and Cooperative Election Study — ask a representative sample of Americans about their views and identities and then contact them again four to eight years later to track how they have changed. Read more

How Do You Tell the Story of 50 Years of Hip-Hop? By Jon Caramanica / NYT

Shown is Sean “Puffy” Combs in a celebratory mood. In the mid-1990s, labels like Bad Boy helped bring rap to the center of American culture. Credit…Johnny Nunez/Getty

A Newly Discovered Realm of Accomplishment for John Coltrane. By Richard Brody / The New Yorker

“Evenings at the Village Gate” shows John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy at their finest, on the cusp of the jazz avant-garde. Photograph by Herb Snitzer / Courtesy Impulse! Records

A newly recovered recording that was released last week, “Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy,” featuring performances taped at a leading New York jazz club in August, 1961, has a singular place in the canons of both headliners. It reveals an entirely new realm of accomplishment for Coltrane and Dolphy, and helps to redefine the very importance of hitherto unreleased recordings.

Hannibal Buress the Rapper’s Warmup Act? Hannibal Buress the Comedian. By Carrie Battan / The New Yorker

The former standup comic, whose career shift into music is not, in fact, a bit, does a quick comedy set downtown before rapping about veneers and weight lifting.

Given Hannibal Buress’s track record, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suspect that his latest career move is an elaborate piece of performance art. The forty-year-old standup comedian and actor has spent the past two years forging a new path as a rapper and a producer. Last year, he released an eight-song EP under the stage name Eshu Tune. (The name Eshu comes from a Yoruban god known as a trickster.) His music ranges from the dense and introspective to the bluntly absurd, including a song called “Veneers,” in which he pays tribute to his porcelain teeth. Read more

Sports

Stephen Curry is too good to pretend his success is merely down to hard work. By Andrew Lawrence / The Guardian

A new documentary on the four-time NBA champion shows a man driven by a grudge against those who doubted him. But there is more to his success

The pre-draft scouting report on Stephen Curry was unsparing. “Appears as though he’ll always be skinny,” the scouts huffed. “Can overshoot and rush his shots. Doesn’t like when defenses are too physical with him.” But the part that figures to have Golden State Warriors fans breaking out into shoulders-shimmying guffaws is this: “Do not rely on him to run your team.” You can almost picture the line etched inside one of his four championship rings. “There’s just something magical about Steph,” filmmaker Peter Nicks tells the Guardian. And while Curry’s simmering grudge against anyone who second-guesses him is at the heart of Stephen Curry: Underrated, an A24-produced Apple TV+ cinéma vérité that drops this Friday, Nicks didn’t mean for that theme to overpower his documentary. Read more

Here’s Why Shohei Ohtani Is The Best Player In MLB—And Why He Might Score A $600 Million Deal. By Brian Bushard / Forbes

See key facts.

Los Angeles Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani, who at 29 years old is already being discussed as the best player in his generation in the MLB, is expected to set a league record earning hundreds of millions of dollars after his contract expires at the end of the year, and teams across the league have entered a trade war for the superstar pitcher. Read more

Aliyah Boston Has Officially Arrived. By Claire Fahy / NYT

Boston, the Indiana Fever rookie forward and center, has already become a face of the W.N.B.A. just months into her professional career.

She was the first rookie to be named a starter for the W.N.B.A. All-Star Game in nine years and only the eighth rookie ever. The achievement added to what has been an impressive season for Boston, who is drawing comparisons to greats like Brittney Griner, A’ja Wilson and Elena Delle Donne just weeks into her professional career. Read more

Doc on Venus and Serena Williams’ Father Sells to Major Markets. By Manori Ravindran / Variety

A new documentary about Richard Williams, the father of tennis greats Serena and Venus Williams, has sold into major markets.

The film paints a complex portrait of the life, career and impact of Williams — the family patriarch and tennis coach to Venus and Serena Williams, who was also portrayed by Will Smith in the 2022 movie “King Richard.” In the documentary, Williams provides rare home video footage and candid interviews to detail the family’s unprecedented gate-crashing in the 1990s of a predominately white, upper-class sport. Read more

Colin Kaepernick’s Defense of Black Studies. By Dave Zirin / The Nation

The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback tells Dave Zirin why he’s raising the alarm about government attacks on Black history.

Kaepernick and the esteemed scholars Robin D.G. Kelley and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor have edited a compilation titled Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies. Putting out such a text in this current climate of racist backlash is an audacious act. I asked him recently why he decided to take on this particular fight. COLIN KAEPERNICK: The study of Black life has been subject to uninterrupted attacks by white supremacist forces since day one. In recent years, however, those actively working to limit or erase the teaching of Black history from high school and college curricula have become louder, better organized, and more violent. Read more

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