Featured
How Our History Became “Divisive.” By Stephen Kearse / Mother Jones
Weeks before losing the 2020 election, President Donald Trump offered a glimpse of the tactic that has defined his second term. It took the form of an executive order banning federal workplace diversity training; the tone was grave, the legalese pulsing with indignation.
Such declarations treat national unity as a sacred object and division as sacrilege. Race, the thinking goes, has no place in Americans’ idyllic “shared history” because it breeds obsession and discord, preventing us from getting along. Why race holds such subversive power, and why it divides us, is never broached, of course, because that context and history (genocide, pillage, slavery, segregation, mass incarceration) might, if accurately recounted, be “divisive.” Read more
Related: Ibram X. Kendi vs. America’s “Antiracism Backlash.” By Mother Jones
Political / Social
60 years later, Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters face new threats. By Hansi Lo Wang / NPR
“If there is no private right of action under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act is basically dead,” Tolson says. “I would consider it the final nail in the coffin. Given Shelby County and what this decision could potentially do, there won’t be much left for the Voting Rights Act — words on a page.”
This year, Democrats in both the House and Senate have reintroduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, in part to ensure that an “aggrieved person” has the right to bring a lawsuit under the law. But with Republicans in control of both Congress and the White House, the bills are not expected to become law. Read more
Related: Donald Trump and John Roberts Have a Lot in Common. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
Texas Democrats Walk Out to Stop GOP’s New Congressional Map. By Brandon Tensley / Capital B
The battle could have national ramifications, with several Democratic states vowing to act in kind should the new map go into effect. Democratic U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas protests redistricting plans before the Aug. 1 hearing of the House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting at the state Capitol in Austin
Texas Democrats on Monday prevented — for now — the chamber from continuing with a congressional map that would aggressively favor the Republican Party in the 2026 midterm elections. Advocates have criticized the new map, unveiled just days before the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, for potentially chipping away at the political power of Texans of color. Read more
Related: Representative Democracy Will Live or Die In Texas. By John Nichols / The Nation
Trump’s cruel policies have a human cost. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Bleak economic numbers and a fraying safety net are leaving people helpless — and hopeless
Under his “Big Ugly Bill,” the richest Americans are projected to receive at least $12,000 in the form of tax cuts and other subsidies from the American people and their tax money. By comparison, it is estimated that the “Big Ugly Bill” will cost poor and working-class Americans $1,200 each. Read more
Related: Democrats Have Found Their Message—and Trump Is Freaking Out. By Alex Shephard / TNR
Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m His Uncle. By David S Glosser / Politico
Let me tell you a story about Stephen Miller and chain migration. It begins at the turn of the 20th century, in a dirt-floor shack in the village of Antopol, a shtetl of subsistence farmers in what is now Belarus. Beset by violent anti-Jewish pogroms and forced childhood conscription in the Czar’s army, the patriarch of the shack, Wolf-Leib Glosser, fled a village where his forebears had lived for centuries and took his chances in America.
What does this classically American tale have to do with Stephen Miller? Well, Izzy Glosser is his maternal grandfather, and Stephen’s mother, Miriam, is my sister. I have watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, an educated man who is well aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country. Read more
Sen. Tim Scott Continues ‘America Is Not A Racist’ Narrative While Speaking To American Racist Charlie Kirk. By Zack Linly / Newsone
If history even bothers to remember Sen. Tim Scott, he’ll be remembered as the Black MAGA Republican who made defending America against allegations of racism his entire public persona.
He’ll be known as the GOP’s resident “Black friend” who pops up at Black churches to spread the MAGA gospel about how America’s post-racial era is upon us and President Donald Trump is the glorious white savior we have to thank for ushering it in. (Not that it ever needed to be ushered in, because America was never a racist country, amirite?) Read more
Bondi’s phony Obama probe exposes Trump’s fears. By Amanda Marcotte / Salon
Whatever Donald Trump fears is in the Epstein files, it must be bad. He clearly worries his base is not ready to move on from demanding a full release of all documents pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and alleged trafficker of underage girls — and a friend of Trump’s for over a decade.
Falsely accusing former President Barack Obama of “treasonous” behavior, a crime punishable by death, for conspiring against him in the 2016 election didn’t distract MAGA conspiracy theory enthusiasts. Calling on Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to back up those lies didn’t work either. So now Trump is moving into abusing his presidential power to create the illusion that Obama did something wrong. Read more
12 Years After Bankruptcy, a Changed Detroit Is Picking a Mayor. By Mitch Smith / NYT
The last time Detroit voters chose a new mayor, the local government was largely controlled by the state, the population was in free-fall and the city was careening through the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history.
A dozen years later, Detroit is functional again. Local control of City Hall was long ago restored, the city’s bond rating is on the upswing and the streetlights are back on. And after decades of hemorrhaging residents, the city has seen slight upticks in population in the last two years, according to Census Bureau estimates. Read more
Black Women Have A Silent Killer And It’s Heart Disease. By Shannon Dawson / Newsone
Black women are disproportionately affected by heart disease, but how can we change this alarming disparity? It starts with knowledge.
Heart disease is often seen as a condition that primarily affects older men, but the reality tells a very different—and urgent—story for Black women. Despite making up a vital and vibrant part of our communities, Black women are disproportionately affected by heart disease; in fact, it’s the number one cause of death in the community, according to the American Heart Association. Read more
Education
Black-Led, Progressive Homeschool Networks Rise Amid Book Bans, Attacks on DEI. By Ella Fassier / Truthout
As Trump attacks civil rights protections, a growing number of progressive parents are opting out of public schools.
“We dreamed of a space where banned books are read on purpose, where we don’t shy away from hard history, and where our families don’t have to code-switch.” Read more
Public schools are closing as Arizona’s school voucher program soars. By Laura Meckler / Wash Post
Arizona, with a marketplace of school options, offers a window into the GOP vision for K-12 education. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School teacher Bobbie Watterson hugs a student outside the classroom in Phoenix in May.
The state has supported a robust charter school system, tax money for home schooling and expansive private school vouchers, which are available to all families regardless of income. Nearly 89,000 students receive Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, a form of vouchers, state data show; a second voucher program awarded nearly 62,000 tax-supported private school scholarships in 2024, though some students received more than one. More than 232,000 students attend charter schools. Read more
Trump Went to War With the Ivies. Community Colleges Are Being Hit. By Ben Austen / NYT
Measures intended to punish elite universities are inflicting collateral damage on the nation’s two-year colleges, which educate 40 percent of all undergraduates. A welding class at Delta College, a community college near Saginaw, Mich.
Like their four-year counterparts, community colleges are grappling with disappearing federal grants, shuttered D.E.I. offices, eliminated programs, canceled cultural convocations and panicked students and staff. At Delta, many of the grants that fund financial aid for low-income students and the staff that support them have been eliminated or threatened. Read more
A Forgotten Migration: An Interview with Crystal R. Sanders. By Ashley Everson / AAIHS
Ashley Everson, a managing editor of Global Black Thought, interviews Crystal R. Sanders, Associate Professor of African American Studies at Emory University, about her most recent book, A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs.
Ashley Everson: One of the major contributions of A Forgotten Migration is the concept of educational migration—a form of forced movement to the Northeast and Midwest United States that unfolded alongside the Great Migration. Unlike Black southerners who fled the South in search of economic opportunity, Black students were pushed out by Southern states that feared the disruptive potential of a growing educated Black professional class (6). Why do you think this particular migration has remained so overlooked or omitted in dominant narratives of Civil Rights and migration history? Read more
World
Rwanda Agrees to Accept 250 Migrants as Part of Trump Deportation Plan. By Eve Sampson / NYT
The African nation is the latest country to strike a deal to take in deportees from the United States. President Trump with Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe of Rwanda in the Oval Office in June.
“Rwanda has agreed with the United States to accept up to 250 migrants, in part because nearly every Rwandan family has experienced the hardships of displacement,” said the government spokesman, Yolande Makolo. Rwanda isn’t the only African nation to strike a deal with the United States to accept deportees. In July, the U.S. Supreme Court approved the deportation of eight men to South Sudan. The kingdom of Eswatini also accepted five deportees from the United States that same month, though it soon announced plans to repatriate them to their home countries. Read more
Haitians in Ohio, mocked by Trump, get a reprieve — but face uncertain future. By Tatyana Tandanpolie / Salon
Trump wants to terminate legal status of the Haitian immigrants he slandered — their community remains strong
The Trump administration wants to end TPS for Haitians, but a federal judge’s ruling against the Department of Homeland Security in July has extended the expiration until February 2026, offering thousands an additional five months to strategize their next move — at least for now. Read more
Russia warns against threats after Trump repositions nuclear submarines. By Robyn Dixon / Wash Post
The Kremlin warned Monday against “nuclear rhetoric” after President Donald Trump repositioned two nuclear submarines because of what he called “foolish and inflammatory statements” by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev’s rambling comments, in a social media post, included veiled threats referencing Moscow’s “Dead Hand” capability of initiating a nuclear strike on the United States even if Russia’s leaders were attacked and unable to issue the order. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
What the story of the Charleston church murders teaches. By Mark Silk / RNS
In late April of 2015, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, senior pastor of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, opened a “Requiem for Racism” program by praying: We know only love can conquer hate, that only love can bring all together in your name. Irregardless of our faiths, our ethnicities, where we are from, together we come in love, together we come to bury racism, to bury bigotry, and to resurrect and revive love, compassion, and tenderness.
Pinckney’s prayer is quoted in “Mother Emanuel,” Kevin Sack’s exceptional new book about the church from its antecedents in colonial Methodism through the murders and Roof’s trial. Read more
How Charlie Kirk turned to religion to level up his racism. By Amanda Marcotte / Salon
More recently, Kirk and TPUSA have undergone a dramatic Christian right makeover. As NBC News reported, he has “become one of the nation’s most prominent voices calling on Christians to view conservative political activism as central to Jesus’ calling for their lives.”
Kirk’s commitment to theocracy isn’t half-baked. He believes in the Christian nationalist concept of the Seven Mountains Mandate, which calls on far-right Christians to control not just all government, but media, business and education. Read more
‘This is domestic terror’: Shaken by ICE raids, pastors rethink ministries. By Jack Jenkins / RNS
The fact that agents felt comfortable apprehending a man on church property — and were willing, Rev. Lopez says, to raise a weapon at her even after she identified herself as a pastor — left her shaken. “
It’s a sentiment shared by a growing number of faith leaders and the communities they serve, as President Donald Trump has enacted a massive immigration crackdown over the past few months, resulting in thousands of detentions and deportations across the country. For many immigrant-heavy congregations, the risk has been amplified by the administration’s decision to rescind a long-standing internal government policy of avoiding immigration raids at “sensitive locations” such as houses of worship. Read more
ELCA elects first Black presiding bishop, calls Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. By Yonat Shimron / RNS
The Rev. Yehiel Curry, bishop of the ELCA’s Metropolitan Chicago Synod since 2019, will serve a six-year term as presiding bishop of the 2.7 million-member denomination.
The 2.7 million-member Protestant group also passed a strongly worded resolution calling on members “to petition U.S. leaders to recognize and act to end the genocide against Palestinians, halt military aid to Israel used in Gaza, and support Palestinian statehood and U.N. membership.” Read more
Historical / Cultural
Trump Wants to Make the Confederacy Great Again. By Chris Lehmann / The Nation
The president is making a big push to rewrite the past in favor of some of America’s top historical traitors, racists, and scumbags. A pedestal that once held a statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike sits near Judiciary Square on August 5, 2025, in Washington, DC.
On Tuesday, the administration announced that the National Park Service will be restoring a statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike that was toppled and removed during the 2020 George Floyd protests in Washington, DC. The service is presently cleaning the statue, which protesters had defaced, and plans to return it to its former home near Judiciary Square, a few blocks from the National Mall, in October. Read more
Related: Trump Rewrites History by Putting Up Confederate Statue. By Leigh Kimmins / Daily Beast
Robert Smalls Gets Statue At South Carolina State Capitol. By Joe Jurado / Newsone
Robert Smalls escaped slavery by commandeering a Confederate ship and was the first Black man to serve in South Carolina’s state legislature.
Throughout President Trump’s second term, there has been a concerted effort to erase the accomplishments of Black people from national monuments and museums. Surprisingly, South Carolina, of all places, is taking a step in the opposite direction as Robert Smalls will become the first Black man to receive a statue outside of South Carolina’s State House. Read more
How the George Floyd Protests Changed America, for Better and Worse. By Justin Driver / NYT
In “Summer of Our Discontent,” the journalist Thomas Chatterton Williams argues that Floyd’s murder in 2020 upended American racial politics — with lasting, often adverse effects.
The ensuing indignation over Floyd’s murder, alongside the then-raging pandemic and extensive lockdown orders, fused to generate the largest protest movement in our country’s history. That activism at once marked and marred the American psyche, Williams insists, as “the residues of the normative revolution of 2020 have lingered.” In his view, a grave shift in mores and attitudes fomented a racialized “wokeness” on the left that, in turn, generated a ferocious backlash on the right, bequeathing our current, anguished hour. Read more
5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Roy Hargrove. By Marcus J. Moore / NYT
This virtuoso trumpeter bridged jazz, hip-hop, R&B and soul on his own records and in collaborations with D’Angelo, Erykah Badu and the Roots. Listen to 13 selections.
For a generation that grew up on hip-hop and jazz, Roy Hargrove was a singular force and a bridge to both worlds, a virtuoso trumpeter whose sound merged genres and cultures with soulful precision that felt timeless and urgent. Read more and listen here
Beyoncé and Jay-Z Are the Wealthiest Celebrity Couple in 2025 — Here’s Their Fortune. By Lauren Weiler / Showbiz CheatSheet
Beyoncé and Jay‑Z stand as one of the most iconic power couples in music, blending chart‑topping hits, entrepreneurial ventures, and cultural influence into a partnership few can rival.
A study by ooShirts shows Beyoncé and Jay-Z have the highest combined net worth of any celebrity couple in 2025. Individually, Beyoncé has a net worth of $700 million. Jay-Z has $2.5 billion. Together, their net worth equals $3.2 billion. This is higher than Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham, and Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco. Read more
Sports
What Would Roberto Clemente Do? By Dave Zirin / The Nation
The right fielder would want the baseball players’ union to fight the Trump administration’s campaign of terror against immigrants and their families.
The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist David Maraniss says that he never speaks for the dead, but in this one case, he’ll make an exception. I had asked the best-selling author of Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero what baseball Hall of Famer and Latin American icon Roberto Clemente would say about Trump’s sadistic immigration policies and Major League Baseball’s silence in the face of these policies. Maraniss responded, “I have no doubt: Clemente would speak out on behalf of the many thousands of Latino jibaros and trabajadores who give so much to this country and are now living in fear of ICE shock troops. Read more
Hulk Hogan’s legacy isn’t complicated. By David Dennis Jr. /Andscape
Professional wrestling star’s career is no match for his racism. Hulk Hogan, born Terry Gene Bollea, died Thursday in Clearwater, Florida. He was 71 years old. Hulk Hogan speaks on stage on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 18, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
There is no amount of accomplishment that can erase racism. There isn’t enough nostalgia, memories or celebration to remove “I am a racist” from the way you are remembered, especially in the absence of any sort of true remorse. The Hulk Hogan tributes will still pour in, of course. Many people loved him until the day he died. But his legacy isn’t complicated. It’s simple: Hulk Hogan’s racism is character-defining no matter what came before it. And it’s inextricable from any story there is to tell about the man himself, regardless of the memories he provided along the way. Read more
Victoria Mboko: The Canadian tennis talent who can’t stop winning arrives at her home event. By Matthew Futterman / The Athleltic
Her performance in Paris, and then in Montreal, where she has knocked out two-time major champion Coco Gauff and surged into the top 50 of the WTA rankings, showed every bit of what has generated all the buzz about Mboko becoming the latest in a string of Canadians from immigrant families who have made it to the top of the sport.
The Mbokos moved from the Democratic Republic of Congo nearly three decades ago, to escape the First and Second Congo Wars of the mid-1990s. Visa issues kept the family separated, with Godée in Montreal and Cyprien in North Carolina. Godée then moved to N.C., where the family lived for several years and where Victoria was born, before all moving to Toronto when she was still a baby. Read more
Noah Lyles’ taunting stare sparks beef with Kenny Bednarek at U.S. track championships. By Marcus Thompson II / The Athletic
Looking to either side is a subtle flex in sprinting. Fractions of seconds decide races. So any break in form can be detrimental. Taking a glance, stealing a look at an opponent, is a declaration of a runner’s confidence. It’s revealing the absence of worry about losing time.
What Noah Lyles did to Kenny Bednarek on Sunday in the U.S. track and field championships? That wasn’t a flexing glance. It was an optical taunt. Non-verbal derision. Lyles ran the final five meters or so of the 200-meter final while staring to his left directly at Bednarek. The gaze continued after he crossed the finish line in 19.63 seconds, a new world-leading time. Read more
Dennis Rodman’s Daughter Trinity Rodman Is The Highest-Paid Player In National Women’s Soccer League. By Dantee Ramos / Blavity
Trinity Rodman, 19, the daughter of NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman, is the highest-paid player in league history. The 2021 Rookie of the Year received a contract extension with the Washington Spirit.
Her new extension includes a four-year deal for $1.1 million, currently more than what she was earning under her prior agreement — a three-year contract with a net pay of $42,000 to play in the National Women’s Soccer League. Read more
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