Featured
58 Jazz Luminaries Assembled for This Photo. Only One Remains. By Hank Shteamer / NYT
On Aug. 12, 1958, Art Kane gathered 58 jazz notables in front of an East 126th St. brownstone for a group portrait.
What started out as “sort of a graduation photo or class picture of all the jazz musicians,” as Kane once put it, became perhaps the most emblematic and enduring image from the genre’s golden age. Only one of its subjects is still alive: the saxophonist Sonny Rollins, 94, who spoke in a phone interview about the image’s power at a time of pervasive segregation and racism. “It just seemed like we weren’t appreciated,” he said from his home in Woodstock, N.Y.,“mainly because jazz was a Black art.” Read more and review this interactive picture
Political / Social
Trump’s New Team Is a Gift to America’s Enemies. By A. B. Stoddard / The Bulwark
Their incompetence will weaken the United States. Their instability will leave them vulnerable to being compromised.
Affairs. Addiction. Secrets. Conspiracies. Compulsions. From Trump’s point of view, a cabinet composed of people with such baggage is a cabinet that will remain loyal to him. But from the point of view of America’s enemies, this is like Christmas morning. Nominees with personal troubles and scandals are nominees who can be compromised. Read more
Related: Trump Says He Will Deport U.S.-Born Kids Together With Undocumented Parents. By and
Related: Trump says members of Jan. 6 committee should be jailed. By Mariana Alfaro / Wash Post
Why Democrats Got the Politics of Immigration So Wrong for So Long. By Rogé Karma / The Atlantic
They spent more than a decade tacking left on the issue to win Latino votes. It may have cost them the White House—twice.
If that analysis were true, then the nomination of the most virulently anti-immigration presidential candidate in modern history for three straight elections should have devastated the GOP’s Latino support. Instead, the opposite happened. Latinos, who make up about a quarter of the electorate, still lean Democratic, but they appear to have shifted toward Republicans by up to 20 points since 2012. According to exit polls, Trump—who has accused South American migrants of “poisoning the blood of our country” and called for the “largest deportation effort in American history”—won a greater share of the Latino vote than any Republican presidential candidate ever. Read more
When facts no longer matter: 3 key steps to return to civil dialogue. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
As I asked in a previous essay here at Salon, have the day-to-day relationships and shared sense of community, norms, reality and meaning that make a healthy society and democracy possible been broken beyond repair? Or are these divides greatly exaggerated and there is much more that ties the American people together than divides them and in the end that may be their salvation?
Dr. Kurt Gray is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directs the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. In this conversation, Dr. Gray explains how white racial resentment drove support for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement — and how many liberals and progressives underestimate the power that white victimology and its fictions such as “reverse racism” hold for many white Americans. He also highlights how polarization and divides between conservatives and liberals reflect deeper differences in our understanding of the relationship between politics, public policy, harm and morality. Read more
What’s America’s largest ethnic group, and why did we get it wrong for so long? By Andrew Van Dam / Wash Post
The identity of America’s largest ethnic group has long seemed cut and dried. But new data is challenging the conventional wisdom.
While “ethnic group” is hard to define, the most detailed Census Bureau ancestry data consistently shows that the most common ancestry in America is actualllllly German! It makes intuitive sense. In the 1800s, Germany (or the bits of Europe that would more or less become Germany) sent the United States more immigrants than any other country by a fairly wide margin. If you account for the nation’s population at the time, it’s the largest wave of immigrants America has received from any country since we started keeping track in 1820. Read more
Race-Conscious Admissions Can Continue at Naval Academy, Federal Court Rules. By Declan Bradley / The Chronicle of Higher Ed.
Incoming plebes (freshmen) arrive for Induction Day at the U.S. Naval Academy in June 2023.
A federal judge ruled Friday that the United States Naval Academy may continue to consider race or ethnicity in its admissions process, dealing a defeat to the advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions’ effort to expand the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision on race-conscious admissions to the nation’s military academies. Read more
Prosecutor seeks to overturn convictions in cocaine sting operation. By AP and NPR
Broward County State Attorney Harold F. Pryor stands in the back of the gallery during the penalty phase of the trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Aug. 1, 2022.
A Florida prosecutor says he will seek to vacate as many as 2,600 convictions of people who bought crack cocaine manufactured by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for sting operations between 1988 and 1990. The Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that people couldn’t be charged in cases where the sheriff’s office made the crack cocaine and undercover deputies then sold it to buyers who were arrested and charged. Read more
Byron Allen’s $10B lawsuit against McDonald’s will go to trial. By Gerren Keith Gaynor / The Grio
The latest ruling in a lawsuit filed by Allen’s media companies is hailed as “historic” as Allen uses a post-Civil War statute in his bid against the fast food chain.
The lawsuit alleges that the fast food chain blocked Allen and his media properties, including his TV networks and streaming assets, from McDonald’s general market ad agency responsible for dispersing the vast majority of McDonald’s massive ad budget. According to court filings, McDonald’s spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to advertise its products in national media. Instead, the lawsuit claims Allen and his companies were relegated to McDonald’s Black-only ad agency, which has a significantly smaller budget. Read more
World News
Atlanta Phambili Initiative intended to assist South African business. Thuto Ngobeni Reports / Channel Africa
Outgoing United States (US) Ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety says the aim of the Atlanta Phambili Initiative is for South African businesses to feel at home when doing business in the American city of Atlanta in the state of Georgia.
Brigety was speaking at the second-leg of this initiative in Johannesburg. Listen here
The World Is on Fire. And Trump’s About to Be President. Feel Better? By Michael Tomasky / The New Republic
The president-elect’s affection for the worst despots and dictators should worry us all.
We might wind up is one where the U.S. under Trump just becomes another member-state of the Global Authoritarian Caucus—Russia, China, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Hungary, El Salvador, and so many others. These sorts of despots are the type of corrupt rulers the United States of America used to oppose. Under Trump—who said on Meet the Press Sunday that he might indeed look to leave NATO—it’s a club of maniacs that the U.S. is very likely to join. Read more
Massacre in Haiti’s Capital Leaves Nearly 200 Dead, U.N. Says. Frances Robles / NYT
The killings in a Port-au-Prince slum, which appeared to target practitioners of Voodoo, were ordered by a gang leader, a Haitian human rights organization said.
More than 180 people were killed in a massacre over the weekend in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Haiti’s capital, the United Nations’ human rights chief said on Monday. A leading Haitian human rights group described the killings as the personal vendetta of a gang boss who had been told that witchcraft caused his son’s fatal illness. Read more
Historical / Cultural
I’m a scholar of white supremacy who’s visiting all 113 places where Confederate statues were removed in recent years − here’s why Richmond gets it right. By David Cunnigham / The Conversation
In a symbolic rebuke of the American South’s racist history, an old Confederate monument now has a meaningful new life, four years after it was toppled in Virginia.
In June 2020, protesters in Richmond used ropes to pull down the bronze statue of Confederate leader Jefferson Davis, splashed paint on its surface and slung a toilet paper noose around its neck. Charged discussions over what should become of it followed. In 2022, the statue – carefully and controversially preserved in its degraded state and displayed on its back instead of its original upright position – went on display in a Richmond museum. Read more
Biden designates national monument at former Indian boarding school. By Toluse Olorunnipa and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. / Wash Post
In October, President Joe Biden appeared in Laveen, Arizona, to apologize to Native Americans for the U.S. government’s role in creating and operating Indian boarding schools.
President Joe Biden designated a new national monument focused on Indian boarding schools on Monday, using the final Tribal Nations Summit of his presidency to further acknowledge the trauma inflicted on thousands of Native American children by the federal government. Read more
Nikki Giovanni, Poet Who Wrote of Black Joy, Dies at 81. Penelope Green / NYT
As a writer, she tackled race, gender, sex, politics and love. She was also a public intellectual who appeared on television and toured the country.
Ms. Giovanni was a prolific star of the Black Arts Movement, the wave of Black nationalism that erupted during the civil rights era, propelled by her, the novelist John Oliver Killens, the playwright and poet LeRoi Jones (later known as Amiri Baraka) and the poets Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange and Sonia Sanchez, among others. Like many women in the movement, Ms. Giovanni was confounded by the machismo that dominated it. Read more
Related: When Nikki Giovanni Was Young, Brilliant and Unafraid. Veronica Chambers / NYT
Kendrick Lamar’s Year on Top. Hanif Abdurraqib / The New Yorker
What has made Lamar both fascinating and a bit dangerous, for those, such as Drake, who chose to cross him this year, is the fact that he doesn’t seem to desire anything that his peers have.
He also doesn’t appear to be especially afraid of anyone. Lamar has always been fearless and eager to antagonize, though it feels like a lifetime ago in the Arc of Kendrick that we heard his verse on Big Sean’s 2013 song “Control,” exuding the same kind of combative bravado that he’s spent much of 2024 pushing forward. In “Control,” Kendrick challenged his rivals by name, rattling off a short list of m.c.s who were, at the time, generally considered (more or less) his equals in terms of cultural capital, if not in talent. Read more
Samuel L. Jackson Is Approaching An Incredible Box Office Record. By Jack Walters / Screen Rant
Samuel L. Jackson is one of the most recognizable and accomplished actors of his generation, having appeared in several of the highest-grossing movies of all time.
This immense success comes in part thanks to his various supporting roles throughout big studio franchises like the MCU, Star Wars, and Kingsman, alongside a handful of leading roles in more prestigious indie projects. Samuel L. Jackson’s best movies are those that fully embrace his energetic, kinetic acting style, and that’s allowed him to forge a strong name for himself in today’s industry. Samuel L. Jackson Is $2.2 Billion Away From Becoming The Highest-Grossing Actor Of All-Time. Read more
Sports
A leader in sports activism, Harry Edwards has some final lessons to share. By Michael Lee / Wash Post
Edwards, the leading scholar in the sociology of sport, has continued his work in the face of a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Edwards has lived long enough to go from being feared to being revered, long enough to see America change for reasons both practical and performative. But throughout his esteemed career as a civil rights activist and the seminal scholar in the sociology of sport, Edwards has recognized that change is never permanent. Progress requires patience and persistence, an acknowledgment that the work never ends. Read more
Coco Gauff is the highest-paid female athlete of 2024 and she’s not the only Black woman on the list. By Haniya Philogene / The Grio
Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, and Simone Biles are reportedly among the highest-paid female athletes of 2024.
According to this year’s list, Coco Gauff took the number one spot for the second year in a row, earning approximately $30 million in endorsements and salary/prize money. Fellow tennis star Naomi Osaka, who came in sixth on the list, earned nearly $15 million this year. The list also included Olympic gymnast and gold medalist Simone Biles, who reportedly earned $11.1 million. Read more
Colorado coach Deion Sanders braces for emotional Alamo Bowl vs. BYU. By Brent Schrotenboer / USA Today
Colorado head coach Deion Sanders is already bracing himself for what will happen to his heart when his team faces BYU in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio Dec. 28.
It will be the final game that he will coach his two youngest sons at Colorado after coaching them most of their lives, from youth league to college. Both quarterback Shedeur Sanders and safety Shilo Sanders are down to their last game of college eligibility. “This is gonna be our last game,” Sanders said Sunday on an Alamo Bowl announcement event. “And you talk about monumental. You talking about something that we started from the youth league. And guess what? It started right here in Texas.” Read more
Warriors arrive at the only conclusion left: The Jonathan Kuminga era is here. By Marcus Thompson II / The Athletic
Torches tend to get passed ceremoniously. Anointings are usually occasions for celebration.
But the Jonathan Kuminga era, for however long it lasts, launches in desperation. Birthed by an absence of better answers. Motivated by Steph Curry’s urgent need for an offensive co-star. Forced by the reality of a roster regressing to its mean in the struggle to mask its weaknesses with its strengths. In his fourth season, the Warriors finally declare Kuminga valuable enough to accommodate. Steve Kerr benched a future Hall of Famer in Draymond Green, who’s been playing well in his 13th season, to prioritize Kuminga. Read more
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