Feature – King’s Death Gave Birth to Hip-Hop. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. led directly to hip-hop, an era of black American culture, politics, and art that is often contrasted with his legacy. If viewed as a continuous multi-year uprising—a framework that Peter Levy’s new book The Great Uprising compellingly proposes—it’s clear that the decade’s race riots, with the Holy Week Uprising as a final bookend, jolted black music as forcefully as they jolted all of black culture. Read more
Can it Happen Here? review: urgent studies in rise of authoritarian America. Cass Sunstein’s collection of essays shows Republican-led decay of US democracy predates Trump – and may be irreversible after him. Read more Also see, Will We Stop Trump Before It’s Too Late? by Madeline Albight
A Perilous Path: Talking Race, Inequality, and the Law by Sherrilyn Ifill, Lorretta Lynch, Bryan Stevenson and Anthony C. Thompson. A no-holds barred, red-hot discussion of race in America today from some of the leading names in the field, including the bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson. Read more
If taxes aren’t working, will desperate Republicans keep turning to race-based attacks? Even President Donald Trump tossed out prepared remarks on taxes at a roundtable in West Virginia this week. Holding them up, he said, “That would’ve been a little boring,” then tossed them away. Trump’s quip got laughs, but congressional Republicans who are trying to win in 2018 on a tax cuts message may not find it funny. Read more
Elgin Baylor holds back tears during statue ceremony. Lakers greats pose after the unveiling of a statue of Minneapolis and Los Angeles Lakers player Elgin Baylor, second from left, outside Staples Center in Los Angeles Friday, April 6, 2018. From left are Jerry West, Baylor, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, musician Bill Withers, and Shaquille O’Neal. Read more
America’s Federally Financed Ghettos. Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, showed utter contempt for his agency’s core mission last month when he proposed deleting the phrase “free from discrimination” from the HUD mission statement. Read more
Zora Neale Hurston: Black Feminist Icon and Thought Criminal. How dare Zora Neale Hurston author the African-American feminist classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, yet hate the New Deal, blast Brown v. Board of Education’s desegregation demand, and endorse Republican conservatives like Robert Taft!? Read more
‘Implicit Bias’ Is Very Real and It Infects Every One of Us. Few Americans admit to being racist or prejudiced, and yet all of us are shaped by the often buried but intractable prejudices that affect how we see and think of others. Read more
Betsy DeVos shouldn’t roll back guidance on racial discipline disparities. Black students, according to the report released this week by Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog agency, are more often disciplined in school and receive harsher punishments than white students for comparable offenses. Read more
The Untapped Potential of the Asian Voter. Asian Americans are the Democrats’ fastest-growing constituency, but the party has failed to mobilize them. That’s a major missed opportunity. Read more
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