Featured
What Federal Control of D.C. Police Could Mean for Overpolicing in Black Communities. By Christina Carrega / Capital B
Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and threat to take over the city’s police comes as crime reaches a 30-year low in the nation’s capital. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, seen with President Donald Trump in May, said recently that the city is not experiencing a surge in crime.
Once known as “Chocolate City” for its historically large Black population, Washington remained under partial federal control on Tuesday. For residents, the federal takeover of the city’s police department under President Donald Trump marks the first time a commander-in-chief has seized control. Some 800 National Guard members are being deployed to the city. While Washington is the nation’s capital, it’s a district and not a state, giving presidents the authority to take federal control.
Related: Trump’s DC takeover is an ominous move. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Related: Trump’s D.C. Crackdown Isn’t About Crime. By Jonathan Chait / The Atlantic
Black mayors and leaders decry Trump’s threats to deploy National Guard in cities. By Curtis Bunn / NBC News
By suggesting that other cities, also run by Black mayors, might be next, President Donald Trump was “playing the worst game of racially divisive politics,” one rights leader said.
Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said the president’s actions and words were racially polarizing, considering crime rates in these cities are largely declining. “This is a distraction at a time when these cities deserve credit because crime and violence are down in most American cities right now, and this is trying to distract from that success, and in effect, create a de facto police state in these cities,” Morial told NBC News. “He’s playing the worst game of racially divisive politics, and that’s all it is,” Morial said. Read more
Political / Social
Trump Keeps Targeting Black Folks, and the Reason Why is Staring Us In The Face. By Lawrence Ware / The Root
President Trump keeps doing things that harm the Black community. Why? The answer is not very deep.
He clearly has it out for us. Why? I don’t think the answer is very deep: We have a petty Commander in Chief. In fact, if you look up the word petty in the dictionary, you will see the smiling face of the 45th and 47th president of the United States. Many of us have been critical of him at every turn, and in response he targets us every chance he gets. Trump is petty. It’s that simple. Read more
Related: Trump escalates his racist attacks on Black Americans. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Newsom says California to draw congressional maps to ‘END TRUMP PRESIDENCY.’ By Oren Oppenheim / ABC News
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said California will move forward with drawing new congressional maps that he said “WILL END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY” and allow Democrats to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“DONALD ‘TACO’ TRUMP, AS MANY CALL HIM, ‘MISSED’ THE DEADLINE!!! CALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE ‘BEAUTIFUL MAPS,’ THEY WILL BE HISTORIC AS THEY WILL END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY (DEMS TAKE BACK THE HOUSE!),” Newsom wrote Tuesday night, in a post written in the style of President Donald Trump’s occasionally all-caps social media posts. Read more
Related: Can Democrats Fight Back Against Trump’s Redistricting Scheme? By Jonathan Blitzer / The New Yorker
Related: Texas Democrats face a “complicated” long game. By Russell Payne / Salon
The Supreme Court May Be About To Deal A Final Blow To The Voting Rights Act. By
The court appears ready for one final cut, to kill off the last remaining piece of the act that allows the people to challenge racially discriminatory election practices.
On the evening of Aug. 1, the court released its briefing question for rearguments in the case of Louisiana v. Callais, now called Callais v. Landry. That question, which is meant to instruct lawyers on what issue is under debate, asked whether Louisiana’s “intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.” This now sets up arguments about whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the last remaining bulwark of the law post-Shelby County, is unconstitutional for requiring the use of race in some instances of redistricting. The court will hear arguments on Oct. 15, early enough for a decision that could impact the 2026 midterms. Read more
Related: Is America a Democracy? By Nick Serpe / Dissent
American Nazis: The Aryan Freedom Network is riding high in Trump era. By Aram Roston / USA Today
Wearing cargo shorts, flip-flops and a baseball cap shading his eyes from the sun, Dalton Henry Stout blends in easily in rural America. Except for the insignia on his hat. It bears the skull and crossbones of the infamous “Death’s Head” SS units that oversaw Nazi Germany’s concentration camps – and the initials “AFN,” short for Aryan Freedom Network, the neo-Nazi group Stout leads with his partner.
From a modest ranch house in Texas, the couple oversee a network they say has been turbocharged by President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. They point to Trump’s rhetoric — his attacks on diversity initiatives, his hardline stance on immigration and his invocation of “Western values” — as driving a surge in interest and recruitment. Read more
Over 60,000 Are in Immigration Detention, a Modern High, Records Show. Chris Cameron and Hamed Aleaziz / NYT
The number of detained people has jumped since January, when about 39,000 people were in immigration detention, reflecting efforts by the Trump administration to quickly ramp up arrests and deportations. The Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, in May.Credit…
The latest figures reflect the shifting focus of immigration policing: Most of the people detained in January had been arrested by Customs and Border Protection, the agency that patrols the nation’s land borders, seaports and airports. ICE, which conducts immigration raids in the nation’s interior, is now making the overwhelming majority of arrests six months into President Trump’s second term. Read more
Education
Trump’s Assault on Universities Isn’t Just About Education. By Perry Bacon / TNR
The Trump administration’s moves against colleges are part of its broader antidemocratic campaign against independent institutions and sources of power. Liberals must defend universities to defend democracy. Trump with Education Secretary Linda McMahon
The Trump administration is relentlessly attacking colleges, threatening to cut funding from universities across the country unless they crack down on pro-Palestinian activism, the rights of transgender students, and initiatives targeted to minorities in particular. Read more
Related: Trump Wants $1 Billion From UCLA for Its ‘Hostile Environment.’ What Is That?
Related: How Columbia’s Leadership Refashioned the University in Trump’s Image.By Meghnad Bose and Anna Oakes / The Intercept
At Colleges, Diversity Training Is Out. Dialogue Workshops Are In.
As colleges across the nation phase out diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, many have started to phase in programs with a new focus: “dialogue.”
It’s unclear whether the new embrace was precipitated by colleges’ abandonment of DEI amid state and federal scrutiny. But campuses that once touted the importance of inclusivity are now training students to talk through their differences. Read more
West Point and Air Force Academy Affirmative Action Lawsuits Are Dropped. Vimal Patel / NYT
When the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions at colleges in 2023, the justices said the decision did not apply to military academies because they had “potentially distinct interests.”
The group behind the litigation, Students for Fair Admissions, sued shortly after to test that idea. It argued that the use of race in admissions at the academies, including the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the United States Air Force Academy, should also be struck down. On Monday, the group dropped its case, acknowledging a significant shift in the political landscape since it had brought its lawsuit. In some of their earliest actions in office, Trump administration officials reversed diversity initiatives, including the considering of race in admissions, at the military schools. Read more
World
When Is It Genocide? The Ezra Klein Show / NYT Podcast
We are almost two years on. The death toll in Gaza is now estimated to be more than 61,000 people. There are a little over 2 million Gazans. The leaders in the U.S. government are not spending much time trying to help Americans grapple with that scale of grief and loss. But that would be, for our population, like 2500 Sept. 11s.
Philippe Sands is a lawyer who specializes in genocide cases, has tried genocide cases, who teaches on these questions at Harvard Law School and University College London. Sands is the author of, among other books, “East West Street,” about how the idea of genocide was developed and written into international law. Sands is the best possible guide to the hardest possible topic. He joins me now. Read more or listen here
Related: The Reasons Israelis Have Closed Their Eyes to Gaza.
Related: Australia Joins Growing Effort to Recognize Palestinian Statehood. Victoria Kim / NYT
South African coalition party says US trade deal may hinge on race policies. By Nellie Peyton / Reuters
The second biggest party in South Africa’s ruling coalition thinks the 30% tariff Donald Trump imposed on its exports to the U.S. will stay unless the government changes some domestic race policies such as affirmative action, its leader said on Monday.
Donald Trump Is About to Do to Europe What He’s Been Doing to America. By
So far in his second term, Donald Trump has focused chiefly on destroying democracy here at home. Except with respect to tariffs, the larger world generally—and Europe specifically—has been spared his depraved intercessions.
That ends this week, when he meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and much like Hyman Roth and Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part II, they start slicing up their little pieces of the Ukraine birthday cake. Read more
Progressive Leaders Across the Americas Unite Against Growing Global Fascism. By José Luis Granados Ceja / Truthout
The leaders must now translate positive experiences from the Pan-American Congress into action in their home countries.
On the final day of the Second Pan-American Congress this month, more than 60 delegates from 12 countries made their way into the Secretary of Public Education headquarters in downtown Mexico City. As leaders from the Americas walked through the building’s passages and patios, many stopped to take pictures in front of the walls lined with murals from famous artists, including Diego Rivera. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Black spirituality is what the world needs now. By Daryl Grigsby / Black Catholic Messenger
There is, within the Black Church, a prophetic tradition that centers spirituality, social justice, and activism. This tradition exists among Black Catholics, Episcopalians, mainline Protestants, Baptists, and nondenominational Christians.
This is the tradition of Rev. Henry Highland Garnet’s 1843 “Let Your Motto Be Resistance” sermon, Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas’ “The Black Christ” book, and Servant of God Thea Bowman’s ode to “fully functioning” Blackness. In many respects, the Black freedom struggle, the Civil Rights Movement, and other efforts have been nurtured by the African-American Christian understanding of the gospel as good news in this life. Read more
With new Vatican ambassador, Trump sends culture-war message to American Catholics. By Katherine Kelaidis / RNS
On Aug. 2, the U.S. Senate in a party-line vote confirmed Brian Burch as President Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the Holy See.
Burch is an unusual choice as a liaison to Pope Leo XIV, whom many observers see as continuing the vision of the late Pope Francis and whom Burch, the co-founder of the far-right voter advocacy group Catholic Vote, spent much of the past decade criticizing. Read more
Why Evangelicals Couldn’t Care Less About Trump’s Epstein Scandal. By Rob Schenck / Mother Jones
They have a long history of falling for narcissists posing as Saviors.
To understand this frustrating phenomenon, one must appreciate that for white American evangelicals, Trump’s MAGA movement is, at its core, religious, which is how deeply religious voters experience it. Religious commitments don’t die or even change quickly or easily. What drives the MAGA-religious is passion, identity, and even something so transcendent that it elevates a believer’s consciousness to unshakable sublimation to the leader—there are no unforgivable transgressions, and that includes pedophilia and sexual violence. Read more
How Much Do These Pastors Gross Preaching The Gospel? By Ahsan Washington / Black Enterprise
Many pastors have expanded their reach beyond church settings by engaging with communities through books, broadcasts, live events, and online platforms.
Many have amassed great wealth spreading the gospel and preaching prosperity. BLACK ENTERPRISE highlighted seven pastors for their dedication to serving their communities. The positive impact they make in matters of faith, leadership, and community growth. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Trump Against History. By The New Republic
How is Trump changing our sense of who we are? We asked eminent Yale historian David W. Blight to round up some colleagues to consider the question. Here’s what they had to say.
Trump Is the Enemy of the American Revolution. By Johann Neem
Trump’s White Nationalist Vision for the Future of History. By Edward L. Ayers
“Indoctrination”? We Call It “Education.” By James Grossman
Related: Trump Administration Seizes Editorial Power Over Smithsonian Museum. By
This Week in ‘Nation’ History: The Broken Promise of ‘Brown v. Board of Ed.,’ Sixty Years Later. By Katrina Vanden Heuvel / The Nation
Anniversaries of the decision are opportunities to reflect on how much has been promised, how much delivered, how much still owed.
“The Climax of an Era”—so declared The Nation’s headline marking the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, handed down sixty years ago this Saturday. For the few progressives left in those dark times, the Warren Court’s unanimous decision declaring “separate but equal” public facilities unconstitutional was “a fine antidote to the blight of McCarthyism and kindred fevers,” observed Carey McWilliams, soon to become The Nation’s editor. Read more
Black Moses’ tells a powerful story of political ambition. By Aram Goudsouzian / Wash Post
Caleb Gayle’s book is about Edward P. McCabe, a politician who imagined Black Americans settling in the West and governing on their own terms.
At first glance, the life of Edward Preston McCabe appears to be a classic success story of the Gilded Age. In 1878, after stints as a clerk in New York and Chicago, he arrived at the forlorn town of Nicodemus, Kansas, and took over the local government. He enticed more settlers and helped to foster the town’s increasing prosperity. But McCabe was a Black man in Jim Crow America. Racism shaped the contours of his ambition, and then it strangled his dreams. Read more
Beyoncé Is Now Halfway To EGOT Status After This Major Win. By AP and HuffPost
The music superstar is taking home the award following her Western-themed halftime show during the NFL’s Christmas game.
Beyoncé has an Emmy to go with her 35 Grammys. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, her legal name, was listed as one of a half dozen people on a team that won outstanding costumes for a variety, nonfiction or reality show for “Beyoncé Bowl,” her Western-themed halftime show on Netflix’s Christmas NFL game between the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans. The special Emmy is Beyoncé’s first. She has been nominated for 10 others without a victory. And it takes her halfway to an EGOT with her 35 Grammys. She still needs a Tony and an Oscar to complete the quartet. Read more
Related: Megyn Kelly’s Beyoncé meltdown has nothing to do with Sydney Sweeney. By Sophia Tesfaye / Salon
Baldwin: A Love Story. By Nicholas Boggs / Amazon Books
Drawing on new archival material, original research, and interviews, this spellbinding book is the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, revealing how profoundly his personal relationships shaped his life and work.
This spellbinding book tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin’s most sustaining intimate and artistic relationships: with his mentor, the Black American painter Beauford Delaney; with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger; and with his collaborators, the famed Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and the iconoclastic French artist Yoran Cazac, whose long-overlooked significance as Baldwin’s last great love is explored in these pages for the first time. Read more
Sports
Frances Tiafoe opens up on life in ‘white sport’ tennis. By Ella Kipling / Daily Express
Frances Tiafoe, 27, has shared his experience of being a black player in the predominantly white sport – and what it is like for people to see themselves in him
Tiafoe, from Maryland, is the son of Sierra Leonean immigrants, who reached his career high at world No10. In doing so, he became the first Sierra Leonean American man to be ranked in the top 10 by the ATP. Read more
Ben Shelton will break American men’s tennis Grand Slam drought. By Dan Wolken / USA Today
The 22-year old from Atlanta via the University of Florida won his first Masters 1000-level title on Thursday night at the Canadian Open, beating Karen Khachanov 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 in a terrific final.
Sure, you can put some asterisks on the significance of this tournament – namely, that No. 1 Jannik Sinner and No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz opted to take an extra week off after meeting in both the French Open and Wimbledon finals. Those two have dominated the Grand Slams for the last two years, and Shelton – to this point – has yet to prove he belongs in their company. Read more
Naomi Osaka releases statement after criticism over what she did following Canadian Open final defeat. By Ryan Smart / Sportbible
Naomi Osaka has released a statement after receiving criticism on social media following her Canadian Open final defeat to Victoria Mboko.
Mboko, 18, produced a superb display in Montreal to win 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 and secure her maiden WTA Tour singles title. And the home crowd were left even more jubilant as the world number 24, who was born in the United States, has lived in Ontario, Canada since she was two months old. Read more
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