Featured
Black Americans Are Not Surprised. By Christina Greer / NYT (Image by NPR)
Black people have seen this America before. We have endured throughout history’s progress and regress, watching the arc of justice bend with the changing winds. Until we reckon with our fellow citizens’ capacity — even hunger — for injustice, we will fail to meet, understand and survive this political moment.
What I mean by that is the ability of some Americans (historically, almost all of them white, though increasingly there are multiethnic fellow travelers in MAGA these days) to burn this country to the ground before they share it with those deemed other and unworthy. I also mean how long it takes for almost everyone else to wake up to the danger these people pose not only to Black people but, yes, to everyone else, too. Read more
Political / Social
Trump’s Lust for Power Cannot Be Satiated. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
The fundamental truth of Donald Trump is that he apparently cannot conceive of any relationship between individuals, peoples or states as anything other than a status game, a competition for dominance.
The upshot of this understanding of Trump’s personality is that there is no point at which he can be satisfied. He will always want more: more supplicants to obey his next command, more displays of his power and authority and more opportunities to trample over those who don’t belong in his America. Read more
Related: Tariffs Destroy What Makes America Great. By David Brooks / NYT
Related: Trumpworld Makes the Case Against Trump. By Jonathan Chait / The Atlantic
Related: Trump’s tariffs are the ultimate MAGA loyalty test. By Heather Digby Parton / Salon
Trump Is Selling Jews a Dangerous Lie. By Michael S. Roth / NYT
“My promise to Jewish Americans is this,” he said on the campaign trail. “With your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”
As the first Jewish president of a formerly Methodist university, I find no comfort in the Trump administration’s embrace of my people, on college campuses or elsewhere. Jew hatred is real, but today’s anti-antisemitism isn’t a legitimate effort to fight it. It’s a cover for a wide range of agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of Jewish people. Read more
Related: Trump-Backed DEI Ban Sparks Student Protests Across Kentucky Campuses. By Alexis Wray / Capital B
Related: Gutting DEI Won’t Save Us. By Richard Thompson Ford / Chronicle of Higher Ed.
American corporations didn’t want to diversify, anyway. By Adam Harris / The Guardian
After the murder of George Floyd, many companies turned to toothless diversity initiatives that they abandoned in the wake of Trump 2.0. A conservative agenda dating back to the 50s explains why.
Organizations who opted for expediency – programs to pacify rather than any transformational interrogation of institutional culture and values – capitulated. Values are only as good as their durability under pressure; and many of America’s largest companies proved an equitable, inclusive workplace was never one of their core values to begin with. Read more
Related: DEI and White privilege both helped me. But only one is disappearing. By Steve Majors / Wash Post
White House Confirms Trump Is Exploring Ways To ‘Deport’ U.S. Citizens. By Sara Buboltz / HuffPost
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that President Donald Trump is exploring legal pathways to “deport” U.S. citizens to El Salvador, where the administration has already arranged to house deported immigrants in a prison known for its human rights abuses.
Leavitt suggested the effort would be limited to people who have committed major crimes, but Trump has also mentioned the possibility of sending people who commit lesser offenses abroad. Read more
Related: Ketanji Brown Jackson Issues Seething Dissent To Supreme Court’s Hasty Migrant Ruling. By
Another Group the Democrats Should Stop Taking for Granted. By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT
During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump portrayed Hispanic immigrants as “rapists,” “bloodthirsty criminals,” “animals,” “stone cold killers,” the “worst people” and the “most violent people on earth.”
Less than a month later, Trump set a record for a Republican presidential candidate, winning 46 percent of the Hispanic vote, 18 points more than the 28 percent he received in 2016 and 14 points more than his 32 percent in 2020. Trump didn’t just defy the liberal assumption that his demonization of immigrants would cost him Hispanic voters; he turned those expectations upside down. How did that happen? Read more
When Trump Is Done, What Will Remain of Public Education? By Adam Harris / NYT
Last week, the Trump administration threatened to withhold funding specifically from schools and school districts with high shares of low-income students if they did not verify in 10 days the elimination of certain diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
What makes the latest guidance from the department so pernicious is that it specifically targets Title I funding, which goes to schools that tend to have higher percentages of students of color. Read more
Fed work helped build Black wealth in this suburb. Now families worry. By Michael Brice-Saddler and Lateshia Beachum / Wash Post
Prince George’s was until recently the nation’s wealthiest majority-Black county. That standing has been fueled by workers who gravitated to the federal sector. Cheryl Taylor, 66, and David Taylor, 72, both had long careers working for the federal government
The federal government is the largest employer in Maryland, and more than 65,000 federal workers live in Prince George’s County, making up 17.4 percent of the county’s total workforce, according to an analysis of 2023 American Community Survey data by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. Their median salary of $110,400 far outpaces workers in both the county government and the private sector. Read more
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she will enter the 2026 governor’s race. By Makayla Richards / 11 Alive
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms confirmed to 11Alive News on Friday that she’s running for the top seat in Georgia. She stated that a formal announcement would come soon.
Bottoms clarified her decision to run for governor after releasing a statement earlier in the day, stating that she was “seriously considering a run.” Read more
More Black babies are dying than white infants. Scientists are blaming healthcare inequality. By Julia Musto / Independent
Researchers say five million Black Americans could have been saved since the 1950s if their mortality rates were equal to those of white Americans
Although the disparity in the number of overall deaths reported between Black and white Americans has narrowed over the course of the last 75 years, researchers say that the same does not hold true for infants. Black infants are dying at twice the rate of white infants – and it’s largely thanks to healthcare inequality. Read more
World News
Trump and Netanyahu Steer Toward an Ugly World, Together. By Thomas L. Freidman / NYT
There was a time when a meeting between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel brought only pride to both Israeli and American Jews, who saw two democratic leaders working together.
Each is a wannabe autocrat, each is working to undermine the rule of law and so-called elites in his respective country, each is seeking to crush what he calls a “deep state” of government professionals. Each is steering his nation away from its once universal aspiration to be a “light unto the nations” toward a narrow, brutish might-equals-right ethnonationalism that is ready to mainstream ethnic cleansing. Read more
Related: Netanyahu visits Trump amid brutal campaign in Gaza. By Ishaan Tharoor / Wash Post
Related: You Don’t Get Trump Without Gaza. By Ben Ehrenreich / The Nation
“Terrifying”: Poorest Countries & Global Working Class Face Worst Impacts of Trump’s Tariffs. By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now
Global stocks continue to fall, and fears of a recession are growing, after Donald Trump rejected calls to scale back his order to institute sweeping tariffs on most of the world.
The move will be especially perilous for small, heavily indebted countries in the Global South who face punitive tariffs, including rates of 49% for Cambodia, 37% for Bangladesh and 48% for Laos. “What is really striking is not the sheer stupidity of it … but the wanton cruelty of it,” says Jayati Ghosh, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Read more
Related: Breaking News: Trump will pause tariff hikes for 90 days, but not for China. By Franco Ordoñez / NPR
How South Korea’s Democracy Prevailed Over a Reckless Leader. Choe Sang-Hun / NYT
The rise and fall of Yoon Suk Yeol exposed a vulnerability in South Korean democracy, but also a resilience. Its people were always ready to fight for it.
When Yoon Suk Yeol was running for president, he had the word “king” written on his palm. South Koreans dismissed — and ridiculed — it as a shamanistic ritual that reflected his desire for top government office. But after his inauguration in May 2022, it didn’t take long for them to see an authoritarian streak in Mr. Yoon. Mr. Yoon kept pushing the envelope, until he made his fatal mistake: On Dec. 3, he declared martial law, threatening a deeply cherished part of South Korean life: democracy. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
“The Most Important Spiritual Discovery Of All Time.” By Tom Rapsas / Patheos
God and I are one. I am one with God. God and I are one. I am one with God.
I found the message about our “oneness” with God, echoing the words found in John 14:20, strangely soothing. Maybe because, deep down, I knew they were true.
Christianity: “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” (attributed to Jesus)
Sufism: “To know yourself, at the deepest level, is to know God.”
Islam: “Those who know themselves know their Lord.”
Judaism: “He is in all, and all is in Him.”
Confucianism: “Those who know their own nature, know heaven.”
Taoism: “In the depths of the soul, one sees the Divine, the One.”
Buddhism: “Look within, you are the Buddha.”
Hinduism: “Atman [individual consciousness] and Brahman [universal consciousness] are one.” Read more
Wrapped In the Flag, Waving the Cross. By Isabel Rodriguez / The Progressive
Trump’s newly installed “Faith Office” raises concerns about religious freedom and equality amid his embrace of the Christian nationalist right.
The Faith Office marks the latest in a series of moves by Trump that cater to his large voter base of Christian nationalists—those who believe that the U.S. government should actively promote Christian faith as a core part of American identity. Read more
Religion or Ethnicity 3 – Untangling Critical Race Theory. By Paul Thompson / Patheos
In my February I talked about Untangling Critical Race Theory: What Christians Need to Know and Why it Matters by Ed Uszynski.
Untangling chronologically walks the reader through the rise of Marxism, critical theory, and finally Critical Race Theory (CRT). For each, Uszynski explains the historical context, the issues they were addressing, and even how these ideas have evolved over time and been misused by some. Read more
As an African American Latter-day Saint, here’s my advice to rooting out racism. By Mauli Junior Bonner / The Salt Lake Tribune
Recognizing racism within ourselves is not about shame; it’s about growth.
Before we begin that process — first recognize that our own racism requires honest self-reflection, a willingness to learn and an openness to change. Here are some steps to help with that process: Read more
Historical / Cultural
Donald Trump’s War on History. By David Corn / Mother Jones
Like other autocrats, he wants to control the nation’s story and police thought.
Authoritarianism cannot exist with free thought. It must dominate the societal discourse and prevent debate. That means it must also dictate history. The Nazis knew this. In April 1933, two months after Hitler became Germany’s chancellor, Joseph Goebbels, his propaganda chief, proclaimed that “the year 1789” would be “expunged from history”—meaning that the animating ideas of the French Revolution, such as liberty, civic equality, and human rights, were to be crushed. Read more
Related: At the Smithsonian, Donald Trump Takes Aim at History. By David Remnick / The New Yorker
Former FIU Professor Teaches Black History Under A Tree. By Zack Linly / Newsone
At this point, there’s no denying the white and eternally fragile agenda of MAGA conservatives to rewrite American history in a way that waters down or outright omits the nation’s overwhelming history of systemic racism.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, last Tuesday, students and community members in Florida — were invited to attend a new even titled Black History Learning Tree on Florida International University’s campus, where they learned about the Rosewood massacre and other events that impacted Black America from former psychology professor Dr. Marvin Dunn. Read more
The Kids Who Got Bused—And Became Democrats. By Jerusalem Demsas / The Atlantic
In today’s episode of Good on Paper, I talk with the economist Ethan Kaplan about his research on the rare two-way, court-ordered busing program implemented in Jefferson County, Kentucky, in 1975.
The findings surprised me. White students who were assigned to be bused into majority-Black inner-city schools were significantly more likely to identify as Democrats later on in life, more supportive of redistributive policies and unions, and less likely to believe that success is earned. Read more
American liberators of Nazi camps got ‘a lifelong vaccine against extremism’ − their wartime experiences are a warning for today. By Sara J. Brenneis / The Conversation
World War II, the Holocaust and the horrors of Nazi violence have no modern equivalent. Nevertheless, extremism is now threatening democracy in the United States in recognizable ways.
As the Trump administration executes summary deportations, works to suppress dissent, fundamentally restructures the federal government and defies judges, experts warn that the country is turning toward authoritarianism. As a scholar of the Mauthausen camp, I believe that understanding how American soldiers and Spanish prisoners experienced its liberation offers a valuable lesson on the real and present dangers of extremism. Read more
America Has Gotten Coretta Scott King Wrong. By Jeanne Theoharis / The Atlantic
Her ghostwritten autobiography diminishes her, and I found out why.
A year after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, the publishing company Holt, Rinehart and Winston released Coretta Scott King’s My Life With Martin Luther King, Jr. Coretta King saw the deficit partly as a result of who was doing the telling. At one of the first conferences of King scholars, in 1986, she said to those gathered, “The next time we have a conference on him, I want to see more women scholars. He allowed me to be myself, and that meant that I always expressed my views.” Read more
At James Earl Jones Memorial, Friends Share Laughs, Tears and Moving Stories. Derrick Bryson Taylor / NYT
At a gathering in the Broadway theater renamed to honor the star, speakers including Denzel Washington and Phylicia Rashad described Jones as an inspiration.
Denzel Washington called him his “northern star.” Whoopi Goldberg said “getting to see him onstage was heaven.” Some of the most notable names in show business gathered in Times Square on Monday afternoon for a starry, and sometimes emotional, send-off for James Earl Jones, who died last year at the age of 93. Read more
Sports
What came after the Florida Gators’ national title win is what has people talking. By Sam Brock / NBC News
Walter Clayton Jr.’s show of sportsmanship elicited an immediate reaction from fans across the country.
He walked over to Sharp, who was kneeling on the hardwood, hands buried in his face, and placed his arm on his opponent’s back. He offered some words of encouragement and gave him a hug, literally just moments after the game had ended. Read more
Why the ‘Tiger Woods Effect’ failed to reshape the PGA Tour. By Michael Lee / Wash Post
Nearly three decades after Woods’s game-changing Masters win, the tour is still struggling to capitalize on his success to diversify the game.
But on the PGA Tour, the “Tiger Woods Effect” never took shape for Black golfers. While Asian golfers have become more prominent since the arrival of Woods — the son of an African American father and a Thai mother — only three Black golfers, including Woods, possess PGA Tour cards. Another, Harold Varner III, plays on the LIV Golf circuit. Read more
Fifty years later, Frank Robinson’s managerial debut still matters to those who were there. By Justice B. Hill / Andscape
On April 8, 1975, Robinson became the first Black manager in MLB history
Black men who aspired to manage a Major League ballclub “lacked the necessities,” so the whispers went. But Frank Robinson understood this hurdle that team officials put in front of him. Like Jackie Robinson, hiring Frank Robinson would be the next grand experiment in the sport. Could this Robinson prove his color didn’t matter when it came managing ballplayers? Read more
Pirates apologize for replacing Roberto Clemente signage with alcohol ad. By Des Bieler / Wash Post
The team’s president said a logo honoring the Pittsburgh great on a section of the right field wall would be restored after outcry from fans and Clemente’s son.
“We want to make sure that the Clemente family understands that we intended no disrespect to their father,” team president Travis Williams said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our relationship with the Clemente family and apologize to them and our fans for our honest mistake.” Read more
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