Featured
The Idea That Biden Should Just Give Up Political Power Is Preposterous. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
I find this drumbeat, which has been ongoing since at least 2022 (“Let me put this bluntly: Joe Biden should not run for re-election in 2024,” Mark Leibovich wrote last summer, also in The Atlantic. “He is too old”), to be incredibly strange, to say the least. The basic premise of a voluntary one-term presidency rests on a fundamental misconception of the role of re-election in presidential politics and presidential governance.
Absent an extraordinary turn of events, Biden will be on the ballot next year. He wants it, much of the institutional Democratic Party wants it, and there’s no appetite among the men and women who might want to be the next Democratic president to try to take it away from him. Democrats are committed to Biden and there’s no other option, for them, but to see that choice to its conclusion. Read more
Related: I’m fine with Biden’s age because I’m fine with a President Harris. By Perry Bacon Jr. / Wash Post
Related: The GOP wants to impeach Biden for ‘corruption’? Don’t make me laugh. By Paul Waldman / Wash Post
Political / Social
A Perfect Storm for the Ambitious, Extreme Ideologue.’ By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT
Economic conditions are improving at a much faster rate in the United States than they are in Europe, but partisan polarization is worsening here at a more intense pace than elsewhere. What gives?
While no issue divides America today as slavery did in the 1850s, or as the struggle between agricultural and industrial interests did at the turn of the last century, voters are now split into warring camps at remarkable levels of hostility. Is there something unique to the United States that exacerbates partisan animosity, even in good times, perhaps especially in good times? Is this yet another dark side to American exceptionalism? Read more
Nikki Haley wants to make the presidential race about Kamala Harris. By Maeve Reston and Marisa Iati / Wash Post
While delivering her constant refrain that a vote for President Biden is a vote for Vice President Harris, Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley has called the vice president incompetent and a failure and said she is not up for the job.
That provocative argument, which has no evidence behind it, and the spectacle of one ascendant Indian American woman attacking another has generated attention in a race where Haley had until recently struggled to attract the spotlight. Read more
Pennsylvania governor implements major expansion of voting access in key swing state. By Stephen Wolf / Daily Kos
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro announced a major initiative to expand voting access in Pennsylvania on Tuesday when he unveiled the implementation of automatic voter registration through the state’s motor vehicle agency.
Shapiro’s administration estimates that 1.6 million citizens are eligible but unregistered, meaning that automatic registration has the potential to add tens or even hundreds of thousands to the voter rolls in this key swing state. Republicans have long opposed efforts to enact automatic registration and have used their majorities in the legislature to block its adoption, but Shapiro sidestepped the GOP by using his executive powers to implement it administratively. Read more
Related: John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is back in Congress. By Hansi Lo Wang / NPR
On race, the NC Supreme Court is building a bridge – to 1953. By Gene Nichol / The Charlotte Observer
As the N.C. Supreme Court revisited the question of whether partisan gerrymandering was forbidden under the state constitution, voting rights activists marched from the state Capitol in Raleigh to the Legislative Building on March 14, 2022. TRAVIS LONG tlong@newsobserver.com
Many North Carolinians find it difficult to understand why Anita Earls, the only Black woman on our state Supreme Court, is being investigated for raising questions about the “racial, gender or political bias” of the court system while Paul Newby and Phillip Berger, Jr., two of the most partisan flamethrowers ever to sit on the high tribunal, remain secure, likely anxious to review the charges against Earls upon the Judicial Standards Commission’s recommendation. It doesn’t seem right. It isn’t. Read more
Florida’s “War on Woke” Is Spurring a Brain Drain. By Kali Holloway / The Nation
Thanks to Ron DeSantis’s education policies, the state is seeing an unprecedented exodus of teachers, professors, and college students
Lately, Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has significantly curtailed his use of the term “woke.” Whereas just a few months ago he said the word seven times in 26 seconds in a speech, he avoided it completely during the first primary debate.
DeSantis’s rhetorical retreat is likely due to recent polling showing that his once-declared “war on woke” is yielding diminishing electoral returns. But anyone hoping that this political shift would be accompanied by a policy shift will be disappointed. His authoritarian, white supremacist attacks on Florida’s public education system have continued apace. Read more
Related: DeSantis’ weaponization of education turns deadly. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Related: Some Businesses Make ‘Woke Free’ a Selling Point. By Santul Nerkar / NYT
Her students reported her for a lesson on race. Can she trust them again? By Hannah Natanson / Wash Post
Mary Wood’s school reprimanded her for teaching a book by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Now she hopes her bond with students can survive South Carolina’s politics.
Six months earlier, two of Wood’s Advanced Placement English Language and Composition students had reported her to the school board for teaching about race. Wood had assigned her all-White class readings from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me,” a book that dissects what it means to be Black in America. Read more
Group sues West Point, seeking to ban affirmative action in admissions. By Nina Totenberg / NPR
Students For Fair Admissions, the conservative group that earlier this year won a U.S. Supreme Court ban on affirmative action programs in higher education, is now suing the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The suit is aimed a eliminating all racial considerations in the service academy’s admission program.
Last June, in its landmark opinion banning affirmative action in colleges and universities, the Supreme Court explicitly declined to extend its ban on affirmative action to the service academies, at least for now. The court said that the “special considerations” raised by the military had never been addressed by the lower courts. Read more
State-run, land-grant HBCUs have missed out on $13 billion in the last 3 decades. By Ayana Archie / NPR
Land-grant, historically Black colleges and universities have missed out on more than $13 billion they should have gotten in the last three decades or so, according to letters the Biden administration sent to the governors of 16 states appealing to them to invest more money in HBCUs. Shown is Lee Hall on FAMU’s campus.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack sent letters to the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Read more
Racial trauma has profound mental health consequence – a Black clinical psychologist explains and offers 5 ways to heal. By Char Newton / The Conversation
Since European expansion into the Americas, white people have demonized Black people and portrayed them as undesirable, violent and hypersexual. Originally, the intent of this demonization was to legitimize the conquest and sale of African people.
One consequence of this negative portrayal has been the documented psychological impact on Black people themselves. It includes self-hatred, internalized racism and an erosion of Black consciousness within the Black community. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Racial unity in America’s pews. The Editorial Board / CSM
As more churches seek diversity, they lean on biblical truths.
Every few months, a new survey offers another snapshot of the state of Christianity in the United States. Taken separately, the surveys invite different conclusions. Yet together, they point to a stirring of spiritual thought – particularly in regard to the role of church in racial reconciliation. Indeed, even as millions of Americans have stopped going to church over the past 25 years, churches have become more multiracial during the same period. Earnest wrestling to uproot legacies of racial division coincides with a broadly shared hunger among churchgoers for unity and inclusivity. A Lifeway Research poll earlier this year found that large majorities of American Christians, across denominations, want their churches to do more to promote ethnic diversity. Read more
Trump Says On Rosh Hashanah That ‘Liberal Jews’ Voted To ‘Destroy America.’ By Nick Visser / HuffPost
“Let’s hope you learned from your mistake,” the former president wrote Sunday
Former President Donald Trump marked the start of the Jewish High Holy Days with a fiery missive on Sunday reminding his followers that “liberal Jews” voted to “destroy America & Israel” through their support of Joe Biden. “Just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed in false narratives!,” the former president wrote on the social network. Read more
Vivek Ramaswamy takes questions about his Hinduism — one Bible verse at a time. By , and
The Bible-quoting first-time candidate is getting asked about his Hindu faith repeatedly on the campaign trail as more Republicans learn about him and seek more information.
Republican voters eager to learn more about Vivek Ramaswamy are especially curious about one thing: his religion. “What is your opinion of Jesus Christ?” an Iowan asked Ramaswamy at a campaign stop in Nevada on Saturday. When Ramaswamy explained that in his Hindu faith, Jesus is “a” son of God and not “the” son of God, the potential caucus goer followed up with another question about “the fact that the only way to heaven is Jesus Christ.” Read more
Historical / Cultural
Black Studies and the Story of Survival. By Brandon James Render / AAIHS
Dr. Nathan Hare is often called “the father of black studies.”
In October 1969, sociology professor Nathan Hare spoke at a press conference at San Francisco State College, home of the first Black Studies Department in the United States. Speaking as a representative of the Black students that demanded a Black-centered curriculum, Hare noted the significance of the institution’s role: “This is where Black studies was born. And Black Studies can die here. So, we hope to save it and we will do whatever’s necessary to save Black Studies through San Francisco State College.”1 Read more
African American Women on the American Railroad. By Daleah B. Goodwin / AAIHS
Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad by Miriam Thaggert examines African American women’s engagement with the railroad as both a travel space and a work site.
Using the position of the train car and station Thaggert delves into one of the central and pervasive questions regarding the African American experience: how Black people will occupy and move in public spaces. This examination of nineteenth- and early twentieth- century African American women begins by documenting the experience of passenger travel for African American women aboard segregated train cars through the accounts and literature of African American clubwomen and educators. Read more
Youngkin asks Virginia Military Institute to take Confederate memorial that includes ‘highly sanitized depictions of slavery.’ By Tyler Englander / WAVY
A monument known as the Confederate Memorial could soon be coming to the Virginia Military Institute.
In a story first reported by the Washington Post, the VMI Board of Visitors voted last week to take a Confederate monument from Arlington National Cemetery and relocate it to New Market Battlefield in Shenandoah County, which is owned by VMI. The news comes after the federal government determined the monument should not stay at Arlington National Cemetery, where it is currently located. Read more
No Pen, No Pad’: The Unlikely Way Rap Is Written Today. Joe Coscarelli and
Fifty years into hip-hop’s constant evolution, many of today’s rappers don’t write down their lyrics at all. Here’s how they make songs now.
While many fans and listeners might still have that outdated, old-school image of an artist scribbling furiously in a notepad — think Tupac, Nas or Eminem — many younger hip-hop artists grew up idolizing stars like Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Future and Young Thug, all of whom have boasted about never putting their lyrics to paper, or even a phone screen. Instead, using technological advances in digital recording, much of modern rap music is composed via a strange, improvisational studio technique known as “punching in” — a mumbling, nonsensical-at-first, freestyle approach to every line, one at a time, until a song is fully formed. Read more
‘SNL’ veteran Leslie Jones talks new memoir, Hollywood strikes. By Brian Truitt / USA Today
Leslie Jones’ father told her, “Be undeniable,” and it’s a mantra the actress and comedian has embraced in all aspects, including the title of her memoir: “Leslie F*cking Jones.”
It’s probably better than, say, “Annette,” her actual first name that was supposed to be a great punchline in a cut “Saturday Night Live” sketch – a story Jones tells in her new book (out now). She started off in comedy just being known as Leslie, until one fateful night at a club in 2011. “I wanted to be like Madonna, Whoopi, whatever,” Jones tells USA TODAY. “The club booker was like, ‘What’s your last name?’ And I was just like, ‘I don’t go by my last name,’ but when I said Leslie Jones, he was like, ‘Leslie (expletive) Jones. That’s a star’s name right there.’” Read more
Sports
The NFL’s Dubious Rhetoric About Race. By Jemele Hill / The Atlantic
The league’s public-relations spin about diversity doesn’t hold up in private. NFL Network reporter Jim Trotter at press conference at Phoenix Convention Center. (Kirby Lee / USA Today Sports / Reuters)
At every turn, the NFL portrays itself as being deeply committed to racial progress. It has a $250 million social-justice fund. It created and then expanded a rule designed to give candidates of color a shot at leadership roles. The league even had “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a hymn often described as the Black national anthem, performed alongside “The Star-Spangled Banner” during kickoff weekend. But a contrasting picture of how the league really views matters of racial justice keeps coming into clearer focus. Earlier this week, the former NFL Network reporter Jim Trotter, who is Black, sued the league, accusing it of retaliation. Read more
Related: Jerry Jones’ odd statement about minority owners amid Trotter lawsuit. By Mike Freeman / USA Today
Mel Tucker should be fired for insensitivity, stupidity. By Jim Trotter / The Atheletic
Mel Tucker was considered a rising star in November 2021 when Michigan State University signed him to a ground-shaking 10-year, $95 million contract extension.
In only his second year, he had taken an unranked football program and guided it to 11 wins and a No. 9 ranking in the final Associated Press poll. Suddenly, his name was being mentioned by NFL officials as a prospective head-coaching candidate, and LSU was rumored to be preparing a lucrative offer to lure him away. Monday morning, the same university that hurriedly sought to lock down Tucker moved to swiftly distance itself from him, abruptly announcing that it has begun termination proceedings following a sexual harassment claim against Tucker. Tucker has admitted to making sexual comments and masturbating during an April 2022 phone call with Brenda Tracy, a rape survivor whom he brought on campus twice to address his players, coaches and staff about sexual violence, then another time to be an honorary captain at the Spartans’ spring game. If terminated for cause, Tucker reportedly stands to lose $80 million. Read more
Deion Sanders transforms Colorado into Black America’s team. By Clinton Yates / Andscape
Black fans nationwide have adopted the Buffaloes. But Boulder remains a city and campus with racial problems
Following in the footsteps of teams such as the Georgetown Hoyas in the 1980s, UNLV and the Fab Five at Michigan in the 1990s and Miami Hurricanes football in the 1980s and 1990s — it doesn’t matter who you rooted for before or even still do now, if you don’t even particularly care about college football, brothers and sisters, you probably care about Sanders and his team. It cannot be understated how absolutely bizarre it is to see the residents of Boulder, Colorado, walking around with Prime T-shirts on, at a school that’s barely 5% Black. Read more
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