Featured
New research undercuts Republican views of racism. By Phillip Bump / Wash Post
Republicans are more likely to say White people experience racism than Black people. That’s not true.
The emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement almost a decade ago was predicated on the killing of Black people at the hands of law enforcement. In short order, though, that concern spurred a broader consideration of the ways in which racial discrimination or disadvantage is embedded in the systems that undergird American society, including law enforcement.
Across a series of questions, Whites were less likely than other members of racial groups to say that they experienced negative responses from other people, ranging from disparagement to poor service to overt threats. KFF also overlaid a fascinating additional consideration: skin tone. It wasn’t simply the case that Black Americans were more likely than White Americans to say that they had negative experiences that were a function of discrimination. There was also a gap between Black people with light or dark skin tones. Read more
Political / Social
Trump Will Be a Dictator on Day One and Every Day Thereafter. By Matt Ford / The New Republic
His interview with Hannity told us everything we need to know about his second-term plans.
“They want to call you a dictator,” Hannity told Trump. “Do you in any way have any plans whatsoever, if reelected president, to abuse power? To break the law? To use the government to go after people?” The host referred to a wave of recent reporting that highlighted Trump’s authoritarian goals if he retakes the White House next year, which would build on the authoritarian steps and impulses he took during his first term. “Except on Day One,” he replied, to half-hearted cheers and laughs from the friendly audience. Read more
Related: Talk of a Trump Dictatorship Charges the American Political Debate. By Peter Baker / NYT
Related: Trump’s path to dictatorship depends on our democracy working. By Gregg Barak / Salon
Related: The insurrection clause has waited 150 years for the Trump test. By Sabrina Haake / Salon
A ‘tyranny of the minority’ is destroying American democracy, a new book warns. By John Blake / CNN
Police attempt to clear protesters trying to breach the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. The authors of a new book say some of the gravest threats to American democracy have occurred since that insurrection.
February 6, 1934 — an infamous day when thousands of fascists and militia members tried to topple a democratically elected government in France. A description of the 1934 riot comes midway through “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point,” by Steve Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. Their new book, which argues that the US must reform its Constitution and political institutions because they are dangerously antiquated, offers a chilling postscript to the French insurrection. Read more
Donald Trump’s dream team looks like an American nightmare. By Heather Digby Parton / Salon
Trump sycophants would have no compunction about pushing whatever buttons they have at their disposal
Many breathless headlines have appeared in the mainstream media over the past couple of weeks about the impending dictatorship of Donald Trump if he were to win the election next fall. All the major newspapers and magazines have finally begun to delve into exactly what Trump and his henchmen have in store to exact his revenge and enact the white nationalist agenda of the MAGA far right. It’s about time. Let’s hope they keep it up. Read more
At a Hearing on Israel, University Presidents Walked Into a Trap. By Michelle Goldberg / NYT
In the questioning before the now-infamous exchange, you can see the trap Stefanik laid.
“You understand that the use of the term ‘intifada’ in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews. Are you aware of that?” she asked Gay. Gay responded that such language was “abhorrent.” Stefanik then badgered her to admit that students chanting about intifada were calling for genocide, and asked angrily whether that was against Harvard’s code of conduct. Read more
Sheila Jackson Lee loses Houston mayor’s race to tough-on-crime state Sen. John Whitmire. By Andrew Zhang / Politico
The showdown illuminates the faultlines within the Democratic Party over how to deal with crime on a local level.
Democratic state Sen. John Whitmire defeated Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in the Houston mayoral race in Saturday’s runoff election after a campaign heavily focused on voter concerns over safety on the streets. Whitmire, a perennial tough-on-crime voice who for decades heralded Texas regulations over public safety, was declared the winner by the Associated Press with 57 percent reporting. At that point, Whitmire was leading by an almost 2-to-1 margin. Read more
Wisconsin university regents reject deal with Republicans to reduce diversity positions. By AP and ABC News
Universities of Wisconsin regents narrowly rejected a deal Saturday reached with Republicans that would have given employees a pay raise and paid for construction of a new engineering building in exchange for reductions in staff positions focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.
The regents voted 9-8 during an emergency meeting to reject the deal reached Friday after being brokered by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. “I don’t like this precedent,” Regent Dana Wachs said during the meeting. “We need to make this a welcoming environment.” Read more
Black women are more likely to experience infertility than white women. They’re less likely to get help, too. By Lisa Armstrong / The Guardian
IVF has helped hundreds of thousands get pregnant. But Black women in the US, saddled with the myth of hyper-fertility and biased reproductive care, often lack the assistance they need
The desire to control Black women’s fertility can be traced back to chattel slavery and was borne from a bevy of racist ideas – the most pervasive being that Black women can reproduce easily. It’s a belief that’s still commonly held today, and in addition to serving as the basis for reproductive discrimination, the trope has furthered the idea that infertility is only an issue for white people. Read more
The racial homeownership gap is widening. New rules might make it worse. By Tory Newmyer / Wash Post
Banks are facing tougher capital requirements — which will probably make mortgages pricier for cash-poor buyers
Despite narrowing during the pandemic — helped by low interest rates and government stimulus programs — the racial homeownership gap has been widening more recently and now stands at 29 percentage points, its widest in a decade, according to the National Association of Realtors. Read more
How Segregated Preschools Impact Children. By
I was very excited to read Dr. Casey Stockstill’s new book, False Starts: The Segregated World of Preschoolers (NYU Press).
Stockstill tells us that preschools are the most segregated school environments that children are likely to ever experience. When you consider how integration in K-12 schools is a long-standing political issue, it’s interesting to note that preschool segregation is, as Stockstill puts it, a “black box.” Its causes are many, but underexamined. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
To Bear Witness to Evil. By Cathy Young / The Bulwark
Dwight Eisenhower understood why we must preserve memories of atrocities—a duty still painfully with us today.
THE HOLOCAUST—THE TARGETED EXTERMINATION of Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II—is such a canonical fact in Western history that we rarely think about the way its reality entered our cultural consciousness. Jason Lantzer, a historian at Butler University in Indiana, seeks to fill some of that gap in his new book Dwight Eisenhower and the Holocaust—and along the way highlights some issues that are regrettably relevant today. Read more
Why Fundamentalists Love Trump. By David French / NYT
To understand why they support Trump, it’s important to understand fundamentalism more broadly and to understand how Trump fits so neatly within the culture of fundamentalist Christianity.
After Trump won, folks in the pews warmed up to him considerably, especially those who were most firmly ensconced in evangelical America. Most home-schooling families I knew became militantly pro-Trump. I watched many segments of Christian media become militantly pro-Trump. And I always noticed the same trend: the more fundamentalist the Christians, the more likely they were to be all in. Read more
Mideast War Pushes Companies to Extend Diversity Programs to Faith Groups. By Emma Goldberg / NYT
Workers are asking employers to respond to rising Islamophobia and antisemitism. But office discussions about religion are complicated.
For years, Nabeela Elsayed told business leaders that their diversity, equity and inclusion programming should teach workers about anti-Muslim hate, antisemitism and other threats to religious groups, but rarely got meaningful responses. In recent weeks — since the start of the Israel-Hamas war — Ms. Elsayed has noticed a surge of interest from them on the issue. Read more
Don’t Miss These African Christmas Hits. By Akosua Frempong / Christianity Today
Jam out this season to highlife, Afrobeats, jazz, a cappella, R & B, rap, dance, and hip-hop artists from Nigeria, South Africa, and more.
Having listened to hours of African Christmas music, I can safely say that these albums and songs will put your heart in a worshipful mood and set your feet tapping and your body grooving. While globally, African music may be best known for the highlife and Afrobeat genres, artists across the continent incorporate jazz, a cappella, R & B, rap, dance, and hip-hop into their music. Read more and listen here
Viva Guadalupe! Beyond Mexico, the Indigenous Virgin Mary is a powerful symbol of love and inclusion for millions of Latinos in the US. By
Historical / Cultural
Charlotte Forten Describes Life on the Sea Islands. By Charlotte Forten Grimké / The Atlantic
A young black woman describes her experience teaching freed slaves during the Civil War.
To THE EDITOR OF THE “ATLANTIC MONTHLY.” — The following graceful and picturesque description of the new condition of things on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, originally written for private perusal, seems to me worthy of a place in the “Atlantic.” Its young author—herself akin to the long-suffering race whose Exodus she so pleasantly describes—is still engaged in her labor of love on St. Helena Island. — J. G. W. Read more
Movie Theaters, the Urban North, and Policing the Color Line. By Alyssa Lopez / AAIHS
While America’s urban areas witnessed a massive boom in the popularity of motion pictures and moviegoing in the early twentieth century, these same cities, like New York, Chicago, Atlantic City, and Philadelphia, consciously worked to maintain the rigidly segregated lines of white supremacy.
As scholars Jacqueline Stewart, Cara Caddoo, and Allyson Nadia Field, have explained, major developments in the motion picture industry occurred simultaneously with important transitions in African American cultural and social life. Indeed, as the movies became synonymous with urban living, Black migrants and immigrants made their way to these areas, swelling population numbers by the thousands in northern and midwestern cities. In tandem with these developments, local police forces and theater employees, sometimes working together, endeavored to maintain racial boundaries in neighborhood theaters and popular playhouses. Read more
The Work of Black Life: A Conversation With Christina Sharpe. By Rhoda Feng / The Nation
In Ordinary Notes, a extraordinary work of memoir, poetry, and criticism, she writes a love letter to Black art.
The ‘past’ fails to stay in the past,” writes Christina Sharpe in Ordinary Notes. Instead, it hovers continually over the present. Sharpe, a writer and the Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the Humanities at York University, has written three books about the legacies of chattel slavery. Ordinary Notes builds on both of Sharpe’s earlier books and is her most personal project yet. Read more
Norman Lear (1922-2023) Reshaped How America Saw Black Families. Jonathan Abrams and
Lear’s shows touched on hot-button issues such as civil rights activism, alcoholism and abortion, going far beyond the one-dimensional existence that Black characters were previously relegated to. His shows depicted television’s first two-parent Black family, an upwardly mobile Black family and the other side of the coin to his most famous character, “All in the Family’s” Archie Bunker, in Redd Foxx’s portrayal of the oft-bigoted Fred Sanford in “Sanford and Son.” Read more
Black Music Sunday: Remembering Guitar Slim and the things he used to do. By Denise Oliver-Velez / Daily Kos
Eddie Jones—the blues guitarist known to the world as “Guitar Slim”—was born on Dec. 10, 1926, in Greenwood, Mississippi. He joined the ancestors far too young, at the age of 32, in February 1959 in New York City. In the course of his short life, he achieved something that many artists never do when given many more years of life.
His song, “The Things I Used to Do,” became a standard in genres from blues to R&B to rock and roll, and has been covered by well over 50 artists, including Muddy Waters, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and many more. Read more and listen here
Ellen Holly, ‘One Life to Live’ star and the first Black actor to lead a daytime TV show, dies at 92. By Variety and NBC News
Producer Agnes Nixon cast her in the role of Carla Gray after reading the actor’s opinion piece in The New York Times, in which Holly recounted her personal difficulties in finding acting work as a light-skinned Black woman. Ellen Holly and Al Freeman Jr. in 1979 in “One Life to Live.”ABC via Getty Images
Carla Gray’s main conflict in the series “One Life to Live,” regarded a love triangle between two doctors — one white, one Black. The arc predated storylines on “All My Children” and “General Hospital” that also directly confronted race. In her 1996 autobiography, “One Life: The Autobiography of an African American Actress,” Holly recounted how her and her Black co-stars were underpaid and mistreated by executives while working on “One Life to Live.” Read more
Sean Combs faces fourth sexual assault lawsuit in less than a month. By Anne Branigin / Wash Post
The latest accuser says she was 17 years old when Combs and others allegedly raped her. Combs has denied the allegations.
A lawsuit was filed against hip-hop mogul Sean Combs on Wednesday alleging that Combs and others trafficked and sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl in 2003. It is the fourth sexual abuse lawsuit involving Combs filed in less than a month. Read more
Sports
LeBron James named MVP as Lakers down Pacers to win inaugural NBA Cup. By AP and The Guardian
As commissioner Adam Silver prepared to hand LeBron James the MVP trophy of the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament, he cautioned that “it doesn’t come with a franchise”. James bent over in laughter, but he has been serious about wanting to own an NBA expansion team in Las Vegas.
For now, he’ll more than settle for the individual honor and tournament championship after scoring 24 points and adding 11 rebounds Saturday night to help the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Indiana Pacers 123-109 in the final. Read more
Coco Gauff Is The World’s Highest Paid Female Athlete, Earning $23 Million In 2023. By Kyra Alessandrini / Blavity
Coco Gauff is the highest-earning female athlete of 2023. The 19-year-old is estimated to have made $22.7 million in prize money and endorsements this year, according to Sportico’s annual list of top earners.
Gauff has been competing professionally since she was 15 years old. She had already signed deals with companies such as Barilla and New Balance at that age. This year, deals included brands such as Bose, UPS, Rolex, the accounting firm Baker Tilly and The Marvel movie. Read more
With His $700 Million Deal, Shohei Ohtani Is Set To Become MLB’s All-Time Earnings Leader. By Justin Birnbaum / Forbes
The 29-year-old Japanese phenom’s new contract with the Dodgers is the largest in American team sports history.
For a habitual record breaker like Ohtani—the only player in baseball history to record more than 10 wins as a pitcher and more than 30 home runs as a batter in the same season—it puts a new mark in his sights. If the 29-year-old plays out his new contract in full, he is poised to become MLB’s all-time leader in on-field earnings at roughly $742 million, eclipsing the mark set by Alex Rodriguez, who hung up his cleats in 2016 after making roughly $455 million, according to Spotrac. Read more
Stuart Scott was a champion for ending cancer in Black communities. By Kelley D. Evans / Andscape
Stuart Scott fought. He battled appendiceal cancer, and for many, the treatment the ESPN sports anchor endured is unimaginable. He shared some of his journey in his 2014 ESPYS speech.
But before that day, Scott endured more than 55 rounds of chemotherapy since his cancer diagnosis in 2007. As the video ended, there were no dry eyes in the house. He walked onto the stage, grabbed his trophy from actor Kiefer Sutherland and greeted the crowd. In a recent report from the State of Cancer Health Disparities in 2020 by the American Association for Cancer Research, data shows that the breast cancer death rate is 39% higher for Black women than white women. Black men are diagnosed with cancer and die two times more than men of other races or ethnicity. And those only scratch the surface. Read more
Michigan State football coach: Rape survivor charges sexual harassment. By Kenny Jacoby / USA Today
Brenda Tracy, a prominent rape survivor and activist, says Mel Tucker made sexual comments and masturbated without consent during a phone call. Her complaint led to an ongoing Title IX investigation.
Their partnership should have been a force for good. Instead, it has devolved into scandal, with the activist accusing the coach of the same misconduct that both of them preached against. The accused is Mel Tucker, the head football coach at Michigan State University and one of the highest paid coaches in all of sports. Accusing him is Brenda Tracy, a rape survivor who has made educating athletes about sexual violence her life’s work. Read more
‘I needed something different for my own soul.’ By Barry Svrluga / Wash Post
Ed Cooley, made by Providence, is now dedicated to resurrecting the men’s basketball program at Georgetown.
That’s where Cooley finds himself for the moment, as much defined by where he was as where he is. He knows why he’s in Washington and not Rhode Island. He knows that his daughter, Olivia, graduated from Georgetown and is building a life in the District. He knows how much having the elder Thompson as a role model — as one of the few Black coaches in the game at the time — helped shape him. He knows that Providence is the place he grew up, the place he became known statewide. It’s not who he is. Read more
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