Featured
Collaboration in a Time of Authoritarian Drift. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / Race Inquiry digest
African Americans have long held varied political beliefs. Before the mid-20th century realignment, Black citizens could be found in both major political parties. Over time, however, the ideological split between liberal and conservative positions has mapped closely onto party identity.
Under the Trump movement, the Republican Party has advanced policies that actively undermine African American civic standing: attacks on diversity and inclusion, suppression of truthful historical education, racialized immigration enforcement, and an increasingly militarized response to dissent. These are not simply conservative positions; they are elements of an authoritarian project aimed at weakening multiracial democracy. Read more
Related: Can Trump’s young Black fans grow the MAGA movement? By Jay Stahl and Phillip M. Bailey / USA Today
The Week’s Top Stories
Political / Social
The longest government shutdown in U.S. history comes to a close. By Barbara Sprunt / NPR
President Trump has signed a bill to fund the government, bringing a close to the longest government shutdown in history, one that saw millions of Americans affected and ended with little political gain.
The bill includes a measure to reverse layoffs the Trump administration imposed during the shutdown, provides backpay for federal employees, and institutes protections against further layoffs. But the central issue underlying the entire shutdown — extensions on enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year — is not addressed in the bill. Instead, as part of the deal reached with a bipartisan contingent of senators, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., agreed to hold a vote in mid-December on Democrat-drafted legislation aimed at extending those subsidies. Read more
Related: Shutdown Deal Fuels Chuck Schumer Backlash: ‘We Need New Leadership.’ By Nik Popli / Time
When A Muslim Democratic Socialist Mayor Has An Africana Studies Degree. By Stacey Patton / Newsone
If the phrase “Muslim Democratic Socialist” already makes conservative pundits sweat, then “Africana Studies,” like Black Studies, is the accelerant.
The right is losing its collective mind again, and it’s been delightful to witness. This time, they’re imploding over Zohran Kwame Mamdani, the Ugandan-born, South African–raised, Queens-bred Muslim Democratic Socialist who has been elected mayor of New York City. For the pundit class that’s spent years fearmongering about affirmative action, Critical Race Theory, DEI, and Marxism in the classroom, Mamdani’s victory is their nightmare made flesh. Read more
Related: Democrats keep missing the message. Mamdani didn’t. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Chicago mayor implores U.N. body to investigate ‘abusive’ immigration campaign. By Tobi Raji / Wash Post
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson accused the Trump administration of violating the “dignity of all Chicagoans” with violent raids and arbitrary detentions.
Speaking before members of the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) accused President Donald Trump’s administration and federal immigration officials of violating the “dignity of all Chicagoans” with violent raids, and he asked the human rights council to hold a special session. Read more
Related: Black Residents Report Being Harassed by Memphis Safe Task Force. B
The Equity Docket: Making Black Votes Matter Less. By Terrance Sullivan / The Progressive Magazine
The Supreme Court is poised to strike down what remains of the protections of the Voting Rights Act, endangering universal suffrage.
The fight for a voice in representation now centers not only around overt disenfranchisement but also around the dilution of Black and brown votes through redistricting, state laws, and judicial decisions. In the state of Louisiana, this fight has reached a critical juncture in the case ofLouisiana v. Callais, which is currently being heard before the Supreme Court. Read more
Related: After Election Day losses, Trump and MAGA will strike back hard. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
How We Got Here: Jelani Cobb on Rise of Trump & White Nationalism After Push for Racial Justice. By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now
Jelani Cobb, the acclaimed journalist and dean of the Columbia Journalism School, has just published a new collection of essays, “Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here.”
The book collects essays beginning in 2012 with the killing of Travyon Martin in Florida. It traces the rise of Donald Trump and the right’s growing embrace of white nationalism as well as the historic racial justice protests after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. Read more
More Americans, especially Black adults, are dying before they can access Medicare benefits, study finds. By Sadie Harley / Medical Express
For 60 years, Medicare has served as a social safety net. Workers pay into the system over their lifetimes with the expectation that they will be able to access affordable health care when they turn 65. But for a growing number of Americans, especially Black Americans, that expectation is going unfulfilled.
That’s according to a new study led by researchers at Brown University and Harvard University, which found that a rising number of premature deaths prevent many Americans from reaching the age of Medicare eligibility. From 2012 to 2022, deaths among adults ages 18 to 64 increased by 27%, according to an analysis of federal mortality data from all 50 states. The trend is especially true for Black adults, who saw a 38% increase in premature deaths over the decade, compared with a 28% rise among white Americans. The findings were published in JAMA Health Forum. Read more
Education
DEI Rollbacks Are Eroding First-Generation, Low-Income Student Supports. By Sena Ho / The Progressive Magazine
FGLI students at elite universities are feeling the impact of Trump Administration policies and the end of affirmative action, but are finding solace in programs that make campuses more welcoming.
Students from low-income households or whose parents didn’t attend college—known collectively as first generation, low-income (FGLI) students—often describe feeling alone or singled out, especially at elite universities where they are surrounded by peers from wealthier backgrounds. Read more
Charlie Kirk’s Group Wants to Grow. Its Latest Target: Black Colleges. By Jasper Smith / The Chronicle of Higher Ed.
Craig Long, a conservative Black social-media influencer, stood just outside Hampton University’s student center, reading aloud from his phone the long list of topics he wanted to debate with the throngs of students and alumni gathered at the historically Black college’s homecoming. He wore a grey hoodie, jeans, and a fitted hat that read “BLEXIT.”
“What do you think are the biggest threats facing Black families today?” Long read. “Do you feel that all viewpoints, including conservative ones, are welcome or heard on your campus?” Read more
In a basement at Howard University, scholars work to preserve Black newspapers. By Ira Porter and Cameron Pugh / CSM
Brandon Nightingale walks to the stacks in the basement of Founders Library and opens a cardboard box. Inside sits a treasure that had been feared lost: The North Star. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who has a hall here on Howard University’s campus named for him, founded the antislavery newspaper in 1847. He named it after the star that enslaved people followed to freedom.
“When they came and said, ‘Hey, we found this. What do y’all want to do with it?’ – we were mind blown,” remembers Mr. Nightingale, senior project manager for the Black Press Archive digitization project, which operates from the library’s basement. Read more
House Republicans say a Virginia college president lied to Congress over DEI. By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff / Wash Post
A Republican-led House committee is accusing George Mason University’s president of lying to the panel when he testified in September about diversity policies the Trump administration say amount to racial discrimination.
An interim staff report from the House Judiciary Committee released Thursday says GMU President Gregory Washington violated the law by making “materially false” statements to Congress about his involvement in implementing certain hiring policies at the Virginia university — which appears to be the first time the committee has made such an accusation of a sitting university president. Read more
World
Africa Is Rising. The World Shouldn’t Turn Its Back. Howard W. French and Lydia Polgreen / NYT
Africa is expected to see a massive population boom in the next several decades. At the same time, the United States, China and European nations are pulling back their presence there in terms of aid, trade and investment.
In this episode, the Opinion columnist Lydia Polgreen speaks with the former Times correspondent and bureau chief Howard French about the challenges facing Africa, the risk for global powers if they disengage from the continent and one 20th-century African leader’s vision for Black self-reliance that feels especially relevant today. Read more
Prominent Afrikaners refuse to be ‘pawns,’ and hit back at Trump’s claims about South Africa. By Kate Bartlett / NPR
President Trump has announced that no U.S. officials will attend the G20 summit hosted by South Africa — the current rotating chair of the group of major world economies — in Johannesburg later this month, citing “human rights” concerns. Vice President Vance had been due to attend in Trump’s place.
Now, some white Afrikaners themselves, as well as Afrikaans groups, are calling out what they say are the U.S. administration’s “lies” and “falsehoods” in their name. “We reject the narrative that casts Afrikaners as victims of racial persecution in post-apartheid South Africa,” a group of over 40 prominent Afrikaners said in an open letter last month. “We are not pawns in America’s culture wars.” The group included writers, journalists, musicians, university lecturers and Christian clergy. Read more
Related: South Africa, Mandela, inspired the world. Still icons of freedom? By Terence McNamee / CSM
Caribbean Leaders Call for Unified Latin American Resistance to US Attacks. By Michael Fox / Truthout
The US has now struck 18 vessels and killed 70 people in its ongoing onslaught in the Caribbean and Pacific.
The tiny Caribbean island nation of Barbados — with a population roughly the size of Anchorage, Alaska, or Lincoln, Nebraska — might not be the country one would first imagine taking the lead to stand up to U.S. military actions and ambitions in the region. But as the Trump administration continues to attack boats, first in the Caribbean Sea and now in the Pacific, leaders in Barbados have been vocal. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Shared songs with new meaning. By Melissa Florer-Bixler / The Christian Century
My colleague’s Black church was taking a break from anti-racism work with White churches. So we decided to sing together.
A fes years ago, I came across a book called Worship Across the Racial Divide. Its chapter titles were arresting: “African Americans as the Icon of ‘True Worship,’” “The Naïve Experience of Worship in Multiracial Churches,” “‘Have You Seen Our Gospel Choir?’ Conspicuous Color in Multiracial Worship.” The book’s author, sociologist Gerardo Martí, spent two years studying 12 racially integrated congregations in Southern California. The most common feature he found in these churches was a Black music leader or gospel choir, meant to attract those outside the White majority. Read more
T.D. Jakes moves from pastoring to podcasting as his next focus. By Adelle M. Banks / RNS
Less than a year after suffering a massive heart attack, megachurch founder T.D. Jakes is launching a podcast featuring celebrities and influencers discussing transformative points of transition in their lives.
“NXT Chapter with T.D. Jakes” will premiere on the iHeartMedia radio network Friday (Nov. 14) with an interview with media mogul Oprah Winfrey. Read more
Christian Nationalism Shapes Trump’s Disjointed Foreign Policy in Africa. By Jessica Washington / The Intercept
Trump ended deportation protections for South Sudanese immigrants, prioritized asylum for white South Africans, and threatened to invade Nigeria. It’s all part of the Christian nationalist playbook.
While Trump’s immigration and foreign policy stances in relation to these three countries may seem disjointed, experts on white supremacy and Christian nationalism told The Intercept that it all fit into the white Christian nationalist playbook. Trump’s strategy feeds into his base’s fears over immigration and demographic change while positioning the president as a defender of Christian values. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Memorial Honoring Black WWII Soldiers Silently Removed From U.S. Military Cemetery In The Netherlands. By Jeroslyn JoVonn / Black Enterprise
Dutch media reports that two informational panels about African American soldiers in World War II were removed from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten’s visitor center, Newsweek reports.
The Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, just east of Maastricht, is the final resting place for over 8,200 American soldiers, with another 1,700 listed as missing and memorialized on site, according to the ABMC. About 1 million African American soldiers served in Europe during World War II, and 174 are buried or honored at Margraten, per the Dutch research project Black Liberators. It is the only U.S. military cemetery in the Netherlands. The removal appears linked to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, a stance that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended in reshaping the Pentagon and the U.S. military. Read more
Related: Salute To These History-Making Black Veterans. By Ahsan Washington / Black Enterprise
The Ideal That Underlies the Declaration of Independence. By Walter Isaacson / The Atlantic
When America’s Founders wrote the declaration that gave birth to the new nation, they began by saying that “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes.” Other nations had been born out of conquests or rebellions, many based on tribal or religious identities. But the United States was born out of an ideal, which they proclaimed in the next sentence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
These truths became the creed that bound a diverse group of pilgrims and immigrants into one nation. For people of many different beliefs and backgrounds, it defined Americans’ common ground. Read more
2026 Grammy Nominations Reflect Black Artist Excellence. By Mary Spiller / Black Enterprise
From Kendrick Lamar’s nine nods to Doechii’s continued rise, this year’s Grammy nominations spotlight a historic showing for Black musicians across major categories.
The 2026 Grammy nominations, revealed Nov. 7, marked a milestone year for Black artists, who led nearly every major category. Kendrick Lamar topped the list with nine nominations, including Album of the Year and Rap Album of the Year for his acclaimed project GNX. Read more
Related: Black Musical Theater, 200 Years and Running. By Jesse Green / NYT
Sports
Lenny Wilkens, N.B.A. Hall of Famer as Both Player and Coach, Dies at 88. Richard Goldstein / NYT
A perennial All Star, he was cited as one of the league’s 50 greatest players and one of its top 10 coaches, winning 1,332 games and leading Seattle to a championship.
Lenny Wilkens, the All-Star N.B.A. point guard of the 1960s and ’70s who became the league’s second-ranking coach in total victories, forging a Hall of Fame career through five decades in pro basketball, died on Sunday at his home in Medina, Wash. Read more
Related: Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkens will never be forgotten by NBA community. By Marc J. Spears / Andscape
Allen Iverson’s 2001 Sixers embodied Philly’s brash, gritty soul − and changed basketball culture forever. By Jared Bahir Browsh / The Conversation
It’s unusual for a professional sports franchise to plan a yearlong celebration for a team that didn’t win a championship. But it is also rare that a group of players represents the vibe and culture of a city so accurately as the Philadelphia 76ers did back in 2001.
Throughout the 2025-2026 NBA season, the Sixers will honor the 25th anniversary of their legendary 2001 team. The celebration kicks off with the return of Hip-Hop, the muscle-bound rabbit mascot who debuted in 1998 and represented the team for 13 years. Throughout the year the team will wear jerseys and feature court designs from the 2001 season, and it will honor the team and its star player, Allen “The Answer” Iverson, during a reunion game on Jan. 31, 2026. Read more
The Moment Magic Johnson’s HIV Announcement Changed Everything. By Angela Johnson / The Root
On November 7, 1991, NBA legend Magic Johnson shocked the world when he announced his HIV diagnosis and his retirement from the NBA.
In 1991, Magic Johnson was everything in the NBA. The Los Angeles Lakers’ star point guard was a leading scorer and the face of several major brands, including Pepsi, Converse and Nestlé. But all of that came to a stunning halt on Nov. 7, 1991, when he announced to the world that he had been diagnosed with HIV and would be retiring from the team he’d played for since 1979. Read more
Deion Sanders and the fall of Camelot. By William C. Rhoden / Andscape
The delightful period of Coach Prime’s rise to Colorado is over. What’s left is a hard rebuild.
Coach Prime was the king of Camelot. His son, star quarterback Shedeur Sanders, was its prince, and Travis Hunter was the duke. The force of Prime’s personality compelled Boulder to become the high-profile epicenter of college football. Suites were sold out, attendance soared, celebrities patrolled the sidelines. Folsom Field was the place to be. Now, he feels obliged to apologize to fans and, in a classic signature of a losing program, Sanders is “protecting” players from the media. After the blowout loss to Arizona, Colorado players were not made available to reporters. Read more
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