Featured
Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who is taking on Trump. By Mariana Alfaro ,Holly Bailey and Tom Hamburger / Wash Post
Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, on Monday unveiled an indictment of former president Donald Trump and those who supported his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state
People close to the Fulton County DA say her investigation of the former president reflects her bold approach to sensitive topics and seemingly untouchable targets.
Willis’s work has prompted criticism that she has exceeded her mandate as a local prosecutor — due in part to her willingness to talk to the public and the press about the case. But Willis has remained undeterred by such critics, saying she believes transparency is a requirement of her job. Those who know Willis have told The Washington Post that they are not surprised by her approach. They say her strategy reflects the nature of a prosecutor who is unafraid to investigate sensitive or seemingly untouchable targets. Read more
Political / Social
The Promise of Justice in Fani Willis’s Indictment. By Joan Walsh / The Nation
Don’t overlook the deep historical significance in the fact that it’s in Fulton County, Ga., that Trump might meet his most dramatic comeuppance.
There is gorgeous justice in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s staggering indictment of disgraced former president Donald Trump and his 18 coconspirators released late Monday night. Those 41 charges of racketeering, conspiracy, and other crimes lay bare the deep contempt Trump and his toadies showed for the voters of Georgia, who elected Joe Biden as their president. Fani Willis isn’t having any of that. The fact that all of this is taking place in Atlanta, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s home, and a capital of the Black voting rights movement, makes the moment even sweeter. Make no mistake, this is a voting rights case at its heart. Read more
Related: Read the Georgia Indictment Against Donald Trump. By Inae On / Mother Jones
Related: The Two Heroes of the Georgia Indictment: Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss. They stood their ground. By Timothy Noah / TNR
Related: This Indictment of Trump Does Something Ingenious. Norman Eisen and
Related: Who are the two Black people named in the Trump indictment in Georgia? By The Grio Staff
The Trump classified documents judge is no ‘wise Latina.’ By Raul A Reyes / The Hill
The legal briefs are piling up in Florida.
In the coming weeks, prosecutors in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case against former President Donald Trump must provide more information to Judge Aileen Cannon in compliance with her latest orders. The judge has questioned the “legal propriety” of bringing charges into her courtroom using an out-of-state grand jury. Aside from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Judge Cannon — who of Cuban American descent — is the most prominent Latina judge in the country. She is overseeing a historic case yet is on track to harm the judiciary system, democracy and her own reputation. Her partisan conduct is an embarrassment. Read more
The Limit Does Not Exist for Republicans. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
A majority of Ohio voters support the right to an abortion. The Ohio Legislature — gerrymandered into a seemingly perpetual Republican majority — does not.
In many states, this would be the end of the story, but in Ohio, voters have the power to act directly on the state Constitution at the ballot box. With a simple majority, they can protect abortion rights from a legislature that has no interest in honoring the views of most Ohioans on this particular issue. Eager to pursue their unpopular agenda — and uninterested in trying to persuade Ohio voters of the wisdom of their views — Republican lawmakers tried to change the rules. It was defeated. Read more
Related: Black voters joining the GOP is a great exaggeration. By Theodore R. Johnson / Wash Post
Affirmative Action May Be Dead—But the Battle over Race and Admissions Is Just Getting Started. By Pema Levy / Mother Jones
Conservative lawyers are targeting anything that could increase diversity.
This next phase targets admissions policies in K-12 schools, and is an effort to maintain the status quo, even as American public education grows increasingly segregated. Radically, the lawyers driving this test case have invited the Supreme Court to go beyond its rejection of affirmative action and ban admissions policies that do not actually take race into account. Read more
It’s Not Your Father’s Democratic Party. But Whose Party Is It? By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT
Has the left’s half-century struggle to return the Democratic Party to its working-class roots become an exercise in futility? This is perhaps the most vexing question facing the party of liberal America.
It is not an easy one to answer. In recent years, the Democratic electorate has moved in two directions. First: The percentage of Democrats with a college degree has almost doubled, growing to 41 percent in 2019 from 22 percent in 1996. Second: While the percentage of Democrats who are non-Hispanic and white has fallen to 59 percent from 76 percent over the same period, according to Pew Research, nonwhite Democrats — Black, Hispanic, Asian American or members of other minority groups — have grown to 41 percent from 24 percent. Read more
Latinos are the biggest ethnic group in Texas, but their political power lags behind. By Ashley Lopez / NPR
Latinos in Texas have officially eclipsed non-Hispanic whites as the dominant ethnic group in the state, but the group’s political power has yet to catch up.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Latinos made up 40.2% of Texas’ population last summer, while the non-Hispanic white share was 39.8%. The development was first reported by The Texas Tribune. Michael Li, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, says this is a huge milestone for Latinos in Texas. “But when it comes to political power,” Li says, “Latinos still are very underrepresented in Texas.” Li says Latinos in Texas are underrepresented compared to their population size when it comes to both participation and representation in politics. And there are a lot of reasons for this. Read more
North Korea says U.S. soldier was sick of ‘unequal American society.’ By Min Joo Kim / Wash Post
A TV screen shows an image of American soldier Travis King during a news program in Seoul on July 24. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
The U.S. soldier who fled into North Korea last month did so because he was disillusioned with the “unequal American society,” Pyongyang said Wednesday in its first public acknowledgment of the incident. Pvt. 2nd Class Travis King, who had been punished for misconduct while serving in South Korea and was being sent home to the United States, joined a civilian tour of the Joint Security Area in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea last month. He bolted across the line to the Northern side, and has not been seen or heard from since. Read more
Arkansas Education Department won’t allow credit for AP African American Studies course. By Char Adams / NBC News
Jacob Oliva, Arkansas’ education secretary, at the unveiling of the state’s LEARNS education bill at the Capitol in Little Rock in February.
The move comes amid a national shift in education systems as several states restrict what educators can teach about race, gender and sexuality. The Arkansas Education Department abruptly removed course credit for an Advanced Placement African American Studies course, just months after Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed bills limiting what educators can teach in public schools. Read more
Mississippi officers plead guilty after torturing Black men with stun guns and sex toy. By and
Prosecutors say the officers, who are all white, nicknamed themselves the “Goon Squad” because of their willingness to use excessive force and to cover up their maleficence, including the attack that ended with one victim, Michael Corey Jenkins, shot in the mouth. The prosecutor recommended only five years of prison time Monday on the first charge and five on the second, with the sentences running concurrently, meaning they would be out after five years. Read more
35 Times Benjamin Crump Fought For Justice. By Kalyn Womack / The Root
Attorney Ben Crump attends the Time100 Gala, celebrating the 100 most influential people in the world, at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, in New York.
Almost every time you see a case in the news, the lead civil rights attorney is most likely Benjamin Crump. His passion for justice led to award recognition and even a law school being named after him. The attorney has become a household name upon the most sensationalized cases like that of George Floyd or Tyre Nichols. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
The ‘World’s Happiest Man’ Shares His Three Rules for Life. By David Marchese / NYT
Matthieu Ricard is an ordained Buddhist monk and an internationally best-selling author of books about altruism, animal rights, happiness and wisdom.
He was also late for our Zoom, and it was driving me nuts. Didn’t he get my confirmation email? Why hadn’t he emailed to say he was running late? I had deadlines! Tight deadlines! My carefully planned schedule was being shot to hell! Alas, everything turned out fine, as it was always going to. Clearly, I had much to learn about taming the mind. “You should not get quickly discouraged,” said Ricard, whose memoir, “Notebooks of a Wandering Monk,” is forthcoming. “You cannot master playing the piano now. These skills take time.” Read more
At Indigenous Seminary, Students Learn the Power of Faith Embedded in Identity. By Hannah McClellan / CT
The newly accredited school promotes a theological education that’s not at odds with culture.
NAIITS, previously known as the North American Institute of Indigenous Theological Studies, was founded in 2000 with a vision of seeing “men and women journey down the road of a living heart relationship with Jesus in a transformative way which does not require the rejection of their Creator-given social and cultural identity.” In 2021, it became the first Indigenous school to receive full accreditation from the Association of Theological Schools. NAIITS can now offer accredited master of arts, master of theological studies, and master of divinity degrees, as well as doctorates in Indigenous Christian theology. Read more
Progressive National Baptists gain partners to address voting rights, gun violence. By Adelle M. Banks / RNS
Members of the historically Black Protestant denomination also marked the ninth anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, in nearby Ferguson, Missouri.
The Rev. David R. Peoples, president of the PNBC, said in an interview Thursday that supporting the Brown family and the Ferguson community is one example of how the denomination is pursuing justice issues. “We want to make sure that wherever injustice takes place, wherever our people are oppressed and don’t have a fair shake, we’re going to speak out, we’re going to speak truth to power,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere until those things happen and positive change occurs.” Read more
Historical / Cultural
Georgia Indictment Lessons From the South’s History of Democratic Decay. By Anthony Michael Krels / NYT
The indictment should be situated in the broader arc of American political development, particularly in the South. That history justifies using the criminal justice system to protect the democratic process in Georgia — a critical swing state — for elections now and in the future.
We have the benefit of hindsight to heed the great lesson of the Reconstruction era and the period of redemption that followed: When authoritarians attack democracy and lawbreakers are allowed to walk away from those attacks with impunity, they will try again, believing there are no repercussions. We should not make those mistakes again. Read more
On The Anniversary of Michael Brown, Other Protests to Remember. By Jessica Washington / The Root
Michael Brown’s death helped spark a whole movement. The Root looks back at other incidents of police brutality that sparked racial justice protests.
Brown’s death was far from the only time Black Americans have risen-up to demand accountability after a horrific incident of police brutality. From the LA Riots to the 2020 Summer of racial reckoning, Black Americans have a long tradition of taking to the streets demanding justice for our fallen brethren. Here is the Root’s guide to recent racial uprisings in the United States and the Black Americans whose deaths changed everything. Read more
Revealing the Smithsonian’s Racial Brain Collection. By Nicole Dungca and Claire Healy / Wash Post
On the day Mary Sara died of tuberculosis in a Seattle sanitarium, the doctor caring for the 18-year-old offered her brain to one of the most revered museums in the world.
Nearly 100 years later, Sara’s brain is still housed by the institution, wrapped in muslin and immersed in preservatives in a large metal container. It is stored in a museum facility in Maryland with 254 other brains, amassed mostly in the first half of the 20th century. Almost all of them were gathered at the behest of Hrdlicka, a prominent anthropologist who believed that White people were superior and collected body parts to further now-debunked theories about anatomical differences between races. Read more
What happened when an Ohio school district rushed to integrate classrooms. By Laura Meckler / Wash Post
Shaker Heights sorted students by ability level, and the top classes always had more White students. In the pandemic, it unraveled this ‘tracking.’
David Glasner, superintendent of schools, popped his head into a fifth-grade classroom and saw that all but one student were Black. A colleague asked a child sitting in the corner, “Where are the White students?” And the student replied, “The White kids — they’re enriched.” “That student has internalized that idea that those White kids are better than him,” Glasner said later. “That one incident was a punch to the gut.” The problem was twofold: Black students were not encouraged to take upper-level classes, despite an open-enrollment program aimed at making sure they had equal access. Meanwhile, White parents actively pushed to get their children into these courses. Read more
How ‘They Cloned Tyrone’ transforms racial archetypes into unlikely heroes. By Uwa Ede-Oslfo / NBC News
John Boyega as Fontaine in “They Cloned Tyrone.”Parrish Lewis / Netflix
A pimp, a drug dealer and a sex worker. “They Cloned Tyrone” animates these racial archetypes into the heroic trio who unearth a nefarious deep-state plot to clone and control Black people in the fictional town of Glen. Read more
Clarence Avant, Godfather of Black music, has died at 92. By Anastasia Tsioulcas / NPR
Clarence Avant and his wife, Jacqueline, attending a Grammy Awards event in 2020. Avant died Sunday at age 92. Jacqueline Avant was killed in 2021
One of the great connectors in the music and entertainment industries has died. The executive and businessman Clarence Avant boosted the careers of generations of musicians, entertainers, sports stars and politicians. Read more
Sports
Michael Oher, depicted in ‘The Blind Side,’ alleges he was never adopted by Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, but signed into a conservatorship. By and / CNN
Former NFL player Michael Oher, whose life story was portrayed in the Oscar-winning movie “The Blind Side,” has filed a petition in a Tennessee court to end Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy’s conservatorship over him.
Oher claims the Tuohys told him they were going to adopt him, but instead filed a conservatorship that kept millions of dollars from him. A lawyer for Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, Steve Farese, said they have no comment but will be issuing a statement Tuesday. Read more
Sage Steele and ESPN part ways after settling lawsuit. By and
Steele sued ESPN after, she said, she was “sidelined” for making controversial comments blasting ESPN’s Covid vaccination policy and questioning former President Barack Obama’s racial identity on a podcast.
Steele said in her lawsuit that her comments sparked a media frenzy and that ESPN, acting in a knee-jerk fashion, “relied on the misleading characterizations of her comments,” forced her to publicly apologize and suspended her in October 2021. ESPN, however, denied ever having suspended her. Read more
Venus Williams asks presenter to STOP TEMPTING her on life away from tennis as she records first Top-20 win in four years. By Navya Misha / Firstsportz
Venus Williams tempted to be on a yacht.
Tennis great Venus Williams won her first top 20 win in four years, triggering a well-deserved celebration and a hint of lighthearted banter. During her post-match interview, Williams was confronted with a question that elicited both laughter and enlightenment. Inquiring about her unwavering resolve, the interviewer joked about the potential of enjoying a yacht anywhere in the world instead of playing a tournament. Williams responded with a cheeky twist, “Where’s the yacht gonna be? Stop tempting me,” she said. Read more
Tennessee State hopes its new hockey program inspires other Black colleges to follow suit. By Mia Berry / Andscape
Supported by NHL and Nashville, advocates view new team as step toward increasing diversity and equity in the sport. Tennessee State University president Glenda Glover dons a custom hockey jersey bearing the university’s logo during a news conference on June 28 in Nashville, Tennessee, where the university announced its plans to to add a men’s hockey team.
“Tennessee State is offering hockey as a chance to celebrate diversity, increase diversity, and our goal here at Tennessee State isn’t just a cool story, said ”Mike Snee, executive director of College Hockey Inc. “Hopefully this becomes the first of eventually many other HBCUs to at least add club hockey, and then maybe that’s a step in the process toward eventually adding NCAA hockey. … Who knows who’s next, but that’s what we need to do to keep the momentum for the sport going.” Read more
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