Featured
One More Time: Why Diversity Leads To Better Team Performance. By Ron Carucci / Forbes Image by HCM
Has DEI been politically hijacked to the point we are at risk of throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater?
The data are unmistakably clear. Companies committed to diversity and inclusion significantly outperform those that aren’t. In the most recent McKinsey Diversity Matters report, companies committed to diversity show “a 39 percent increased likelihood of outperformance for those in the top quartile of ethnic representation versus the bottom quartile. …The penalties for low diversity on executive teams are also intensifying. Companies with representation of women exceeding 30 percent (and thus in the top quartile) are significantly more likely to financially outperform those with 30 percent or fewer. Similarly, companies in our top quartile for ethnic diversity show an average 27 percent financial advantage over others. Read more
Related: How Did DEI Become the New American Battlefield? By Oumou Fofana / BET
Related: College Presidents Are Quietly Organizing to Support DEI. Eric Kelderman / Chronicle of Higher Ed.
Related: Right-wing makes airlines culture war targets over DEI criticism. By David Ingram / NBC News
Political / Social
MAGA Is Based on Fear, Not Grounded in Reality. By Paul Krugman / NYT
America is still a nation riddled with inequality, insecurity and injustice. But the anxiety driving MAGA isn’t driven by reality. It is, instead, driven by dystopian visions unrelated to real experience.
A few days ago, Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota — a MAGA hard-liner sometimes mentioned as a potential running mate for Donald Trump — warned that President Biden is “remaking” America, turning us into Europe. My first thought was: So he’s going to raise our life expectancy by five or six years? In context, however, it was clear that Noem believes, or expects her audience to believe, that Europe is a scene of havoc wrought by hordes of immigrants. As it happens, I spent a fair bit of time walking around various European cities last year, and none of them were hellscapes. Read more
Related: Tim Scott Says Voters Aren’t Interested In Verdict Against Trump In E. Jean Carroll Case. By
Related: Trump’s MAGA message doesn’t translate. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Retired conservative federal judge urges Supreme Court to disqualify Trump from office. By
A former conservative federal appellate judge is urging the Supreme Court to keep Donald Trump off the ballot, arguing the ex-president’s effort to cling to power after his 2020 election loss was “broader” than South Carolina’s secession from the US that triggered the Civil War.
“Mr. Trump tried to prevent the newly-elected President Biden from governing anywhere in the United States. The South Carolina secession prevented the newly-elected President Lincoln from governing only in that State,” J. Michael Luttig, a former judge on the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, told the justices in a friend-of-the-court brief filed Monday. Read more
Related: If It Walks Like an Insurrection and Talks Like an Insurrection… By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
Fani Willis Had to Use a Body Double. By Yasmeen Freightman / Atlanta Black Star
Related: By Amy Gardner and Holly Bailey / Wash Post
Jim Clyburn: ‘There’s a Lot to Be Concerned About’ in 2024. By Brandon Tensley / Capital B
8th Circuit won’t revisit Voting Rights Act case in Arkansas. By Hansi Lo Wang / NPR
A federal appeals court has denied a request to revisit a ruling that could undermine a key tool for enforcing the Voting Rights Act’s protections against racial discrimination in the election process.
It’s the latest move in an Arkansas state legislative redistricting case, filed by civil rights groups representing Black voters in the southern state, that could turn into the next U.S. Supreme Court battle that limits the scope of the landmark civil rights law. The full 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision Tuesday after attorneys led by the American Civil Liberties Union appealed the ruling by a three-judge panel last year. Read more
The combustible mix of right-wing anger coming together in Texas. By Philip Bump / Wash Post
Texas National Guard soldiers wait near a boat ramp where law enforcement officers enter the Rio Grande at Shelby Park on Friday in Eagle Pass, Tex. (Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)
Related: The GOP’s Ongoing Moral Surrender to Trump. By Tom Nichols / The Atlantic
US identifies three soldiers killed in attack in Jordan. By Natasha Bertrand, Oren Liebermann, Haley Britzky and Michael Conte / CNN
The three US soldiers killed in the drone attack on a US military outpost in Jordan were identified Monday as Sgt. William Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Specialist Kennedy Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia; and Specialist Breonna Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia, according to the Defense Department.
They were all assigned to the 718th Engineer Company, a US Army Reserve unit based out of Fort Moore, Georgia, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said at a briefing. Read more
Andrew Gillum Reveals Feeling Abandoned By Former Friends After Hotel Scandal: ‘Lonely, Angry, Mad.’ By Ike Morgan / Atlanta Black Star
Black people are more sleep-deprived, and it’s hurting their health. Marc Ramirez / USAToday
Folks like 64-year-old James Nellums stopped by for heart readings along with tests for glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Recently diagnosed with diabetes, Nellums said the condition kept him constantly awake, triggering high blood sugar levels or the frequent urge to urinate. “How much do you sleep?” Robinson asked him. “About two or three hours a night,” Nellums said. Poor sleep is linked to a host of health problems, among them some of America’s greatest killers, most of which plague Black Americans. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
The ‘Profound Influence’ of Christian Extremists on Mike Johnson. By Roger Sollenberger / The Daily Beast
Speaker Mike Johnson’s spiritual journey reveals ties to Christian fundamentalists who support slavery. Johnson’s office won’t say where he stands on that issue.
If you want to know where Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson stands on any given political issue, he has a simple answer. “Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it—that’s my worldview,” Johnson told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview shortly after winning the speaker’s gavel in October. “That’s what I believe, and so I make no apologies for it.” While Johnson’s folksy answer dodges the question, you can find clarity elsewhere. And the more clarity you get, the more you understand why Johnson may be evasive. Read more
Historic sermon by Gina Stewart at joint Black Baptist meeting draws cheers, controversy. By Adelle M. Banks / RNS
After many in the room cheered her on and stood as she preached, the session featuring her sermon temporarily disappeared from the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc.’s Facebook page.
In her sermon, Stewart spoke of the courage of Claudia, the wife of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, who after having a dream, sent her husband a message to leave Jesus, an “innocent man,” alone. Stewart described Jesus, who was ultimately crucified under Pilate, as someone who got in trouble for breaking traditions and caring for the marginalized. “Jesus had a whole theological conversation with a woman at a well who was coming to look for water,” she preached, “and then commissioned this woman to go and run a revival in the city and the folks got saved. Read more
Edmundite Missions’ Black Farmers Initiative boosts rural community. By Aleja Hertzler-McCain / NCR
Workers harvest collard greens on John Brown’s farm in Dallas County, Alabama. Brown, who raises vegetables on the same land his father purchased about 80 years ago, is one of seven farmers in the Black Farmers Initiative, formed by the Edmundite Missions in partnership with the Deep South Food Alliance. (Courtesy of John Brown)
While taking care of his land is still hard work, Brown said his participation with a group of Black small farmers in a partnership with the Edmundite Missions has relieved some of the stress. The Black Farmers Initiative, formed by the Edmundite Missions in partnership with the Deep South Food Alliance, continues the priests’ long history of working for justice in Alabama. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Florida Republicans want to block removal of Confederate monuments. By Gary Fineout / Politico
Construction workers remove the Women of the Southland monument in Jacksonville last December. | Bob Self/Florida Times-Union via AP
Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature wants to block cities and counties from removing or relocating Confederate monuments, a move that has already sparked intense debates about history, racism and white supremacy. The bills currently moving through the GOP-led Legislature are causing a backlash from Democratic lawmakers, who say the measures are deeply offensive. Read more
Efforts to memorialize lynching victims divide American communities. By Rachel Hatzipanagos / Wash Post
A remembrance for Howard Cooper in Towson, Md., in 2022. The Black teenager was lynched by a White mob in 1885 outside what was then the Baltimore County Jail. Historians estimate there were 4,084 racial terror lynchings in 12 Southern states between 1877 and 1950. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
For years, activists in Franklin, Tenn., have lobbied for a public marker to remember three men lynched there in the summer of 1868. Acknowledging the deaths of two Black men, William Guthrie and Lawrence Bowman, and a Jewish man, Samuel A. Bierfield, would force a needed conversation about the town’s racist past, supporters say. Read more
Black Americans aren’t enthusiastic about reparations yet. Here’s why. By Emmanuel Felton / Wash Post
People line up to speak during a reparations task force meeting at Third Baptist Church in San Francisco in April 2022. (Janie Har/AP)
How ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Presses Up Against the Limits of Empathy.
These non-Native people, we learn throughout the movie, are the wolves in Mr. Scorsese’s “picture,” and they are hidden everywhere in plain sight. Some have become intimate with the Osage people, and others, like Mr. Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, have married into Osage families and even fathered Osage children. Read more
Michele Norris shines light on ’Our Hidden Conversations.’ By Jonathan Capehart / Wash Post Podcast
In this conversation recorded for Washington Post Live on Jan. 19, Post columnist Michele L. Norris discusses her new book, “Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity,” how she got people to open up about such a fraught topic, and the difference between “race” and “racism.” Listen here
Sports
Jackie Robinson statue stolen from youth league field in Wichita, Kansas, found in trash can, burned and in pieces. By and Sarah Engel / CNN
In this photo provided by Mel Gregory, the statue of baseball legend Jackie Robinson is seen Sunday, April 18, 2021, in Wichita. Mel Gregory via AP
The statue “was a symbol of hope” in the community, Wichita City Council member Brandon Johnson told CNN on Sunday. On Tuesday, Johnson described the discovery as “heartbreaking.” “I hate to see that the statue was not in one piece,” he told reporters. “I do want everyone to know we are undeterred to make sure that statue gets rebuilt and put back there for our community, for League 42, for young people, that symbol of hope will be only gone for a short time.” Read more
Despite The City Being Majority Black, There Were No Black-Owned Businesses Included In NY Times’ Detroit Lions Boost Report. By Jasmine Browley / Essence
The New York Times (NYT) recently released a report highlighting Detroit local businesses’ economic impact of the Lions playoff run leading to the NFL Super Bowl. The problem is, there were no Black-owned businesses included despite the city being majority Black.
Phil Lewis, a trusted social media figure and reporter for the Huffington Post, called out the newspaper’s omission of any Black owned businesses in the report despite the city being 77% Black. In his newsletter, What I’m Reading, Lewis pointed out that Chimika Harris, a manager at Cutter’s Bar & Grill, spoke with a reporter from NYT but none of her comments were included in the report. Lewis’s article underscored that the outlet’s report completely ignored the Detroit’s Black business ecosystem despite playing a valuable role in the city’s bustling restaurant scene. Read more
Michigan hires Sherrone Moore to replace Jim Harbaugh as coach. By Matt Bonesteel / Wash Post
Michigan announced Friday night that it will hire Sherrone Moore to replace Jim Harbaugh as its football coach, a move that was expected after Harbaugh left the College Football Playoff champions to take the Los Angeles Chargers’ head coaching job.
Moore, 37, had been on Harbaugh’s coaching staff since 2018 and had been the Wolverines’ offensive coordinator and offensive line coach since 2021. He was the team’s acting head coach for four games in 2023 while Harbaugh was serving a school-issued suspension over potential recruiting violations, leading Michigan to a 4-0 record with wins over No. 9 Penn State and No. 2 Ohio State. Read more
Colin Kaepernick Finally Returns to Football After Kneeling Controversy. By Justyn Cortes / ITM
Colin Kaepernick was a prolific star in the National Football League (NFL) in the 2010s.
This controversial athlete got his chance to return to football in a new video game that sought to overtake EA’s Madden as the pro-football gaming franchise. Wild Card Football was released on October 9, 2023, and featured real-life footballers such as Steelers’ T.J. Watt, the Rams’ Aaron Donald and the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts. However, players cannot play as an NFL team like the Raiders or the Seahawks, rather gamers create their own customized team. It is a “reimagined playground-style” of football with gamers playing seven-on-seven teams. Read more
Site Information
Articles appearing in the Digest are archived on our home page. And at the top of this page register your email to receive notification of new editions of Race Inquiry Digest.
Click here for earlier Digests. The site is searchable by name or topic. See “search” at the top of this page.
About Race Inquiry and Race Inquiry Digest. The Digest is published on Mondays and Thursdays.
Use the customized buttons below to share the Digest in an email, or post to your Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter accounts.