Featured
Kendrick Lamar’s performance was as Black and subversive as all get-out. By Karen Attiah / Wash Post
His message at the Super Bowl was a warning and a threat.
“The revolution’s about to be televised / You picked the right time / But the wrong guy.”
These were the words of Kendrick Lamar during his epic performance during the Super Bowl halftime show. And perhaps it’s fitting that during the country’s most-watched sports event, he artistically reminded us all that the place of Black people in America has always been under threat. And now, with an unmistakably white-supremacist administration at the helm, this is the right time. Read more
Related: 6 hidden messages in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance. By Cheyanne M. Daniels / The Hill
Related: What Kendrick Lamar’s Halftime Show Said. By Spencer Kornhaber / The Atlantic
Political / Social
Apparently, America Is Full of the Wrong Kind of People. By Carlos Lozada / NYT
In its early days, the second Trump administration is delivering a clear message: The United States is full of the wrong kind of people.
Refugees and asylum seekers are the wrong kind of people and should be prevented from entering the country. Federal civil servants, for example, have been deemed the wrong kind of people. Their political and ideological allegiances are questionable, their ideas destructive and their low-productivity jobs not worth their salaries. And anyone fitting a “diversity” category of any kind is automatically suspect, a convenient scapegoat whenever something — wildfires, plane crashes — goes wrong. Read more
Related: The President Is on a Mission to Destroy the ‘Enemy From Within.’ By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT
Trump’s War on D.E.I. Is Really a War on Civil Rights. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
You’ll find the surest evidence of the real meaning of the president’s anti-D.E.I. order in the fact that he also dismantled a decades-old requirement, originally promulgated by President Lyndon Johnson, that federal contractors try to employ more women, Black Americans and, in the years since, other people of color.
A world in which the White House and its allies have successfully arrested and reversed the march toward greater inclusion is a world in which they have reinscribed old patterns of privilege and subordination. Read more
Black Folks Wanted a Mass Boycott and it’s Happening Feb. 28. By Lawrence Ware / The Root
Incensed by DEI Rollback, Black folks started calling for boycotts of Walmart and others.
There is a call for anyone who is upset about corporations bowing to the whims of the president to boycott them on February 28th. This is not a bad idea because boycotts work. Don’t believe me, let’s look at history. Read more
Elon Musk Was Raised Under Racist Apartheid Laws in South Africa. What Does He Believe Now? By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now
We’re joined now for Part 2 of our interview with reporter Chris McGreal. He was Johannesburg correspondent for The Guardian during the last years of apartheid through 2002. His new piece for The Guardian is headlined “What does Elon Musk believe?” and “How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa.”
The South African-born billionaire Elon Musk is now a leader in Trump’s administration and has said white South Africans have been victims of, quote, “racist ownership laws,” and accused the post-apartheid government of anti-white racism, prompting Trump to cut off all aid to South Africa in an executive order Friday. Read more and listen here .
Related: Elon Musk Keeps Boosting White Nationalists on X. By Noah Lanard / Mother Jones
The New Authoritarianism. By Steven Levitsky / The Atlantic
With the leader of a failed coup back in the White House and pursuing an unprecedented assault on the constitutional order, many Americans are starting to wrap their mind around what authoritarianism could look like in America.
Rather than fascism or single-party dictatorship, the United States is sliding toward a more 21st-century model of autocracy: competitive authoritarianism—a system in which parties compete in elections but incumbent abuse of power systematically tilts the playing field against the opposition. Read more
Push to Drop Adams Charges Reveals a Justice Dept. Under Trump’s Sway. William K. Rashbaum ,Dana Rubinstein, Glenn Thrush,Michael Rothfeld and Jonah E. Bromwich / NYT
The Justice Department on Monday ordered federal prosecutors to drop the corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, a remarkable incursion into a continuing criminal case that raises questions about the fair administration of justice during President Trump’s second term.
“The Department of Justice is making decisions that are not based on the facts or the law,” said Carrie H. Cohen, a former federal public corruption prosecutor in Manhattan. “The memo explicitly says this is not about the facts or the law, but it’s about other considerations entirely.” Read more
Why so many Latino voters supported Donald Trump. By Julia Young and Gema Kloppe-Santamaria / The Conversation
For many observers of the 2024 US presidential election, Donald Trump’s ability to harness so much of the Latino vote remains one of the more puzzling issues. Latino voters – men in particular – swung decisively towards Trump last November: increasing by 16 points from 2016 to 42% of the bloc in 2024.
This despite Trump’s consistent history of antagonistic remarks about Latino immigrants. It also appears to fly in the face of the fact that his policies on tariffs, border militarisation and mass deportations will likely affect Mexico, Panama and several other Latin American countries. Read more
World News
Trump and Musk mislead over South Africa’s land reform law. By and
The so-called land question has been a decades-long dilemma for South Africa.
Apartheid, dismantled in the 1990s, left a deep-seeded legacy of land inequality after centuries of policies pushed non-White South Africans off the land to the benefit of White people. An act in 1913 limited Black ownership to just 7% of the land, later revised to 13%. Now, more than 100 years later, Black people make up 81% of South Africa’s population of 63 million, yet only own 4% of private land, according to a government land audit conducted in 2017. Read more
Related: How a White Fringe Group Drew Trump’s Ire on South Africa. By Matthew Hill and Rene Vollgraaff / Bloomberg
Related: Afrikaner ‘Refugees’ Only. Trump wants to “promote the resettlement” of white South Africans. By Adam Serwer / The Atlantic
Trump Says Palestinians Will Not Be Allowed to Return to Gaza Under His Proposal. Claire Moses and Shawn McCreesh / NYT
President Trump said the nearly two million Palestinians that he wants to displace from the Gaza Strip would not be allowed to return to the territory under his hypothetical plan to rebuild it.
In a clip from a Fox News interview scheduled to air on Monday, Mr. Trump elaborated on his recent proposal for an American-led takeover of Gaza. Asked if Palestinians who would be removed from the territory while it is cleared would have the right to eventually return to their homeland, he said: “No, they wouldn’t. Because they’re going to have much better housing — in other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.” Read more
Haitian migrants share stories of abuse as Dominican Republic ramps up deportations. By AP and NPR
A crowd of 500 descended from dusty trucks on a recent morning and shuffled through a tiny gap in a border gate separating Haiti from the Dominican Republic.
They were the first deportees of the day, some still clad in work clothes and others barefoot as they lined up for food, water and medical care in the Haitian border city of Belladère before mulling their next move. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Pope decries ‘major crisis’ of Trump’s mass deportation plans, rejects Vance’s theology. By Christopher White / NCR
Pope Francis has written a sweeping letter to the U.S. bishops decrying the “major crisis” triggered by President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans and explicitly rejecting Vice President JD Vance’s attempts to use Catholic theology to justify the administration’s immigration crackdown.
“The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” reads the pope’s Feb. 11 letter. Read more
Related: Faith-based groups challenge Trump orders in two court cases. By Jack Jenkins / RNS
The path of best resistance: “Faith-rooted messaging would help build broader political support.” By Chauncey Devega / Salon
In an attempt to gain some clarity on Trump’s return to power and the connections between the country’s democracy crisis and moral crisis and civic collapse, I recently spoke with Rev. Adam Russell Taylor. He is president of Sojourners and author of “A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community.”
This is the second part of a two-part conversation. Read more
Black Women and Religion during the Civil Rights Movement: An Interview with AnneMarie Mingo. By Aaron Pride / AAIHS
Dr. Mingo is an Associate Professor of Ethics, Culture, and Moral Leadership and the Director of the Metro-Urban Institute at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
She also writes in areas of Black Church activism, peace and reconciliation, and the influence of Black music and media on social activism. She is the founder of the Cultivating Courageous Resisters project that works collaboratively to expand the work and equip intergenerational religious activists to help meet critical contemporary needs for social justice. Have You Got Good Religion?: Black Women’s Faith, Courage, and Moral Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement was published with the University of Illinois Press in 2024. Read more
Historical / Cultural
How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Made. By Calvin Schermerhorn /AAIHS
Celebration of The Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia by the Colored People, in Washington, April 19, 1866, from the Harper’s Weekly Collection (Schomburg Center Photographs and Prints Division).
Virginia passed several laws that reinforced the iron-strap restrictions on Black upward economic mobility. One law held that “no person whatsoever shall buy, sell, or receive of, to or from any servant, or slave, any coin or commodity whatsoever, without the leave or consent of the master or owner of such servant, or slave.” Family drama complicated the inheritance scheme further. Read more
Black Educators as Movement Leaders. By Noah Nelson / AAIHS
Septima Clark guides the hand of a Citizenship Education Program student (Bob Fitch Photography Archive, Stanford University Libraries).
Black educators have played a pivotal role in shaping both knowledge and organizing throughout history. Consequently, as we consider the future of social movements, we should look to the educators who redefined teaching as integral to community organizing. Thus, our goal today is to revitalize a teaching tradition pioneered by Black educators—a tradition deeply rooted within their communities and designed to empower students and families to challenge the world around them. Read more
All The Ways Sandra Bland’s Legacy Lives On. By Bruce C.T. Wright / NewsOne
Today, Sandra Bland would have been 38 years old. Her tragic death is a reminder that the fight for justice and racial equality is still very much alive and needed.
Bland’s death sparked national outrage, and her story helped ignite the movement, bringing much-needed attention to police violence and systematic racism in the Black community, specifically struggles faced by Black women in America. Read more
The Truth About Black Responsibility In Hollywood. By Candice Frederick / HuffPost
“Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” examines the influential Sly and the Family Stone front man. It also probes a question that’s even more interesting. Questlove’s documentary “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
In the last few moments of “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius),” director Ahmir Thompson, aka Questlove, shows his audience a montage of great Black artists who’ve publicly crashed and burned under the heavy gaze of Black expectation in a white Hollywood. We see images of Prince, Nina Simone, Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill and Donna Summer. We see Will Smith accepting his Academy Award in 2022 after slapping Chris Rock earlier in the ceremony. Read more
Sports
Jalen Hurts’ Super Bowl LIX victory a study in resilience, perseverance. By William C. Rhoden / Andscape
Hurts, the Super Bowl LIX MVP, ran for 72 yards and a touchdown and completed 17-of-22 passes for 221 yards and two touchdowns. He became the fifth quarterback in NFL history with multiple touchdowns passing and a rushing touchdown in a Super Bowl, joining Ken Anderson, Brett Favre, Joe Montana and Patrick Mahomes.
But as Hurts tells anyone who cares to listen, he’s not a numbers guy. He’s a wins guy. “I don’t play the game for stats,” he said after leading Philadelphia to the NFC championship. “I don’t play the game for numbers, any statistical approval from anyone else. Winning and success is defined by that particular individual; it’s all relative to that person and what I define it as winning. And so, my No. 1 goal is to always come out and win. The standard is to win.” Read more
Related: Jalen Hurts took the hard road. And kept plowing forward. By Sally Jenkins / Wash Post
Related: Who is Bry Burrows? What to know about the fiancée of Jalen Hurts. By Julia Gomez / USA Today
Commanders QB Jayden Daniels is NFL offensive rookie of the year. By Nicki Jhabvala / Wash Post
Dan Quinn has called him “The Terminator” and a “rare competitor” who often seems impervious to the mental chaos and pressures of his position.
Now they all can call Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels the Associated Press’s 2024 offensive rookie of the year, the final stamp on one of the finest debut seasons by any NFL quarterback. Read more
Conservatives Bothered By Black National Anthem’s Inclusion At Super Bowl LIX. By Jeroslyn JoVonn / Black Enterprise
Ledisi was among the Grammy Award-winning New Orleans natives who performed national anthems at Super Bowl LIX in their hometown on Sunday. Decorated Grammy-winning artist Jon Batiste delivered a New Orleans-inspired rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” while Ledisi, accompanied by the Greater New Orleans High School Chorale Collective, powerfully performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called the Black National Anthem.
Although it’s not the first time the Black National Anthem has been performed at the Super Bowl, its performance during Super Bowl LIX—coinciding with the opening weeks of another Donald Trump presidency—prompted swift criticism from conservative viewers. Read more
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