Featured
Church at the Super Bowl: Football, Jesus and fascism. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
The Super Bowl is more than a game; it is a metaphor for American life
A spectacle — in the truest sense of the world — of nationalism, militarism and so-called patriotism, this year’s Super Bowl was the first time that the Black National Anthem was sung. It was also the first NFL championship game where both opposing teams were led by black quarterbacks. Almost all of the NFL’s teams are owned by rich white men. Most of the NFL’s players – who literally sacrifice their health and well-being in what is a brutally violent sport – are Black and brown. Those same Black and brown football players (and coaches) are expected to be silent on political and social matters (unless they are “conservatives”) lest they offend the sensibilities and expectations of White America.
And predictably, right-wing propagandists and “culture war” bloviators attacked the Super Bowl for its supposedly “woke” politics. They singled out Rihanna and her half-time performance for special scorn and contempt, accusing it and her of being “Satanic.” Read more
Related: MAGA Watched the Super Bowl and Didn’t Like What They Saw. By Arianna Coghill / Mother Jones
Related: GOP objections to the ‘Black national anthem’ are about control. By Jennifer Rubin / Wash Post
Political / Social
College Board slams Florida, DeSantis over AP African American Studies course. By Joe Hernandez / NPR
The College Board hit back over the weekend at top Florida officials over the state’s ban on a new AP African American Studies course that’s being piloted in several states, while Florida’s governor on Monday suggested the state could “reevaluate” its relationship with the organization.
In a lengthy statement released Saturday, the national education nonprofit said it should have more quickly addressed claims by Florida’s Department of Education that the course was indoctrinating students and lacked educational value, which the College Board called “slander.” The organization also said that Florida’s public and private objections had no bearing on changes the College Board made to the final curriculum of the course, which it released earlier this month. Read more
Related: ACLA Calls for the Resignation of Presidents of 28 Florida Public Universities. By Daily Kos
Why Is Affirmative Action in Peril? One Man’s Decision. By Emily Bazelon / NYT
How the landmark 1978 Supreme Court decision that upheld the practice may ultimately have set it on a path to being outlawed. Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.’s opinion allowed affirmative action to continue based solely on the educational benefits of diversity for all students.
Archibald Cox, who argued in support of affirmative action before the court, died in 2004 when he was 92. A few years later, his granddaughter, Melissa Hart, helped lead the successful fight to defeat a ban on affirmative action in Colorado. She is now a justice on the State Supreme Court. Hart remembers, back when she was a law student, telling her grandfather that she thought the diversity rationale was a terrible mistake. “He was always willing to have the conversation and never willing to back down,” Hart says. “He said it was the strategically right way to argue the case” — the only way to win Powell’s vote. “And I see that’s true. I just wish we didn’t have to draw that line.” Read more
Nikki Haley’s campaign opened with an appeal to race. Some Indian Americans say it won’t work. By
“I think people can see through her much better now than ever before,” one expert said.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has long rejected the idea that the U.S. is a racist country. But when it came time to announce her 2024 candidacy for president on Tuesday, she began by sharing her identity — and a memory of her hometown. Haley’s announcement makes her the first Republican opponent of former President Donald Trump, whose administration she spent two years in as ambassador to the United Nations. But if Haley, born Nimrata Randhawa to Sikh Punjabi parents, is trying to make inroads with Indian Americans, experts say it’s not working. Read more
Related: The story of Nikki Haley and the Confederate flag. By Aaron Blake / Wash Post
Related: South Carolina GOP split as Nikki Haley, Tim Scott eye 2024 bids. By Allan Smith / NBC News
Ron DeSantis’ hypocrisy is his secret weapon. By David Mura / Salon
That DeSantis relies on this foundational principle of white supremacy is actually evidence of systemic racism
As I state in The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself from its very beginnings America had two irreconcilable goals. One was to seek equality, freedom, and democracy. The other was to maintain white supremacy and the domination by white people over any people of color. White America is fine with telling our tale through the lens of the first goal. But it is still decidedly not fine with telling the second story of America’s treatment of people of color and America’s desire to maintain white supremacy. All the recent ridiculous distorting, disparaging, and damning of Critical Race Theory are just the latest manifestation of this repression. Read more
How Black Political Thought Shapes My Work. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
One of the works I cited in my column this week is the volume “African American Political Thought: A Collected History,” edited by the political theorists Melvin L. Rogers and Jack Turner. Anna Julia Cooper, a writer, teacher and activist, circa 1902.Credit…C.M. Bell/Library of Congress
The book is a series of essays on the luminaries of African American political thought, across the history of the United States, by some of the most impressive scholars currently working. It is as close to a comprehensive overview of the African American political tradition as I’ve read, with chapters on figures from Phillis Wheatley and David Walker (two of the most important Black political thinkers of the early American republic) to Angela Davis and Clarence Thomas. Read more
Cost of getting sick for older people of color is 25% higher than for white Americans – new research. By Marc Cohen and Jane Tavares / The Conversation
As you age, you’re more likely to get sick. And health problems can affect your financial well-being too.
We are gerontology researchers who study financial vulnerability in later life. We wanted to see if it was possible to estimate the economic tolls of chronic health problems and whether race and ethnicity makes a difference. We found that Black people and Latinos over age 60 – who are typically less able to afford to get sick than their non-Hispanic white counterparts – face bigger financial consequences when they get chronic illnesses. Read more
Related: Abortion bans hurt poor and Black women most. By Jennifer Rubin / Wash Post
Gunman sentenced to life in prison for Buffalo massacre of Black victims. By David Nakamura / Wash Post
Payton Gendron targeted Black people and posted a rambling online statement that included antisemitic rants and far-right conspiracy theories
Docuseries on Black church highlights history, links to biblical orthodoxy. By Adelle M. Banks / RNS
‘We wanted to show the substantive differences between the denominations but also show that the primary arguments were not about orthodoxy,’ said producer Justin Giboney.
“How I Got Over,” a five-part series, examines the history of seven historic Black denominations and highlights major Black Christian leaders — well-known and lesser-known — who have contributed to American society. Officials of the AND Campaign, a nonpartisan think tank that promotes Christian civic engagement, are set to release the first episode on YouTube at 8 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Central on Monday (Feb. 13). Read more
Related: The Return of the Black Church? The Root
Aren’t Jesus Teachings Considered “Woke” ? By Afua Hirsch / Daily Kos
Woke nowadays refers to being aware or well informed in a political or cultural sense, especially regarding issues surrounding marginalized communities – it describes someone who has “woken up” to issues of social injustice. Guardian columnist Afua Hirsch points out the irony of “the right wing culture warriors claim to support free speech” but “they seem to want minorities to shut up and stop complaining,” including those who support Woke policies and values. Read more
Ron DeSantis Knows: The Path to Victory Runs Through Right-Wing Churches. By Katherine Stewart / New Republic
When he promises to “put on the full armor of God,” right-wing Christians get the reference. And they may dump Trump and move to him.
It’s worth remembering that the turning point in Trump’s campaign wasn’t the descent on the escalator in Trump Tower; it was the moment in early 2016 when Jerry Falwell Jr. (then president of Liberty University, since disgraced) blessed Trump’s candidacy. Fellow Christian nationalist leaders promptly anointed the former reality-show star as “God’s man”—even if, as all present seemed to agree, he wasn’t exactly a godly man. You may not remember that moment, but chances are Ron DeSantis sure does. Read more
A Black Woman’s Spiritual Journey Up a Mountain, in “You Go Girl!” By Shariffa Ali and Vivian Cheng / The New Yorker
In Shariffa Ali’s short film, a comedian grapples with her fears and finds healing and solidarity in the outdoors.
You Go Girl!,” directed by Shariffa Ali, tells a story in two parts. The first scene begins at dusk, on a frosty trail, in the Pacific Northwest. A Black woman who is decked out in hiking gear, named Audrey Jenkins, embarks on a hazardous trek up a steep, wooded mountain. In the other universe of the story, Audrey is onstage at a swanky Brooklyn comedy club, in a silvery dress, with full hair and makeup. She begins her set in front of an apathetic audience. Her gaze keeps drifting just beyond the stage, to an ornate couch marked “Reserved”—but there’s no sign of an occupant. It’s for her mom, who happens to be running late to the show, she reveals to the crowd. Read more
This Artist Has a Mission to Call White Americans to Truth. By Tish Harrison Warren / NYT
There was an “utterly dissociative nature to what I was experiencing,” he recalled. He wanted to follow God and love his neighbor. He cared about his Black friends, but he valued his Southern identity and had little grasp of history. “I could not have told you anything meaningful about enslavement,” he said. “I would have said the tropes everyone says, about ‘That was a long time ago’ or whatever. Thompson went to seminary, then moved to Charlottesville, Va., to be a campus minister and eventually became a pastor of a predominantly white Presbyterian church. Read more
Deion Sanders receives complaint about praying at Colorado. By Steven J. Gaither / HBCU Gameday
Deion Sanders freely talked about God and prayed at Jackson State. Needless to say, Colorado is not Jackson State.
Deion Sanders has made it clear over the years that he’s a man of faith. That was never a problem for Coach Prime at Jackson State University, but it doesn’t appear it will fly as easily in the Rocky Mountains. Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote a letter to University of Colorado Boulder Chancellor Phil DiStefano with concerns about him leading a Christian prayer, thereby “engaging in religious exercises with players and staff members.”
The letters referred to two incidents since Deion Sanders took over at Colorado as “inappropriate and unconstitutional actions.” Read more
Historical / Cultural
Black Virginians and the American Revolution. By Adam McNeil / AAIHS
African American] member of the telephone and telegraph battalion at Camp Upton, Long Island, 1917 – ca. 1919 (Wikimedia Commons)
In the summer of 1782, nearly nine months after Patriot victory at the Battle of Yorktown during the US War for Independence, Virginia’s social order had not been restored. Over a thousand Black Virginians escaped with the British during the American Revolution, and the remaining population of Black Virginians did not stop using the military conflict to their advantage in their own parallel anti-slavery war. For the planter class of Virginia’s Eastern Shore who feared a Black-British alliance, their nemesis had not yet died. Read more
America has a history of banning Black studies. We can learn from that past. By Derecka Purnell / The Guardian
Rightwing pundits target knowledge found in critical race theory because they know it leads to action. Students who organized for formal Black studies programs on campuses were directly, or indirectly, involved in or inspired by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s political education and organizing efforts in the south. Photograph: Lynn Pelham/Getty Images
This is not the first time that politicians have tried to ban Black studies curriculum and social movements education from schools and campuses. These bans have historically come on the heels of Black and multiracial uprisings in the streets. Academic deans and faculty committees have marginalized and ousted professors with radical politics. University and high school administrations are often antagonistic to departmentalizing Black study programs. States cut funding for these programs and their professors while increasing funding for and the presence of policing. But fortunately, such repression has catalyzed resistance that birthed Black studies programs in the first place. Read more
After MLK’s home was bombed, he refused to back down: ‘This movement will not stop.’ By DeNeen L. Brown / Wash Post
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. addresses a crowd from his front porch, at his home in Montgomery, Ala., on Jan. 30, 1956, after it was bombed. He urged his peers not to resort to violence and remain calm. No one was injured in the blast. (AP)
Minutes after 9 p.m., on the night of Jan. 30, 1956, a segregationist parked his car in front of the modest white clapboard parsonage home of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Ala. In the shadows, the man walked up five steps leading to the front door and planted a stick of dynamite on the porch. Read more
HBCUs and the Red Scare. By Candace Cunningham / AAIHS
Dorothy Counts, a 15-year-old African American student, walks to school at Harry Harding High School in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 4, 1957, amid jeers from students and others opposed to school integration. To the right is her friend Edwin Tompkins. Douglas Martin, The Charlotte News, 5 September 1957 (Wikimedia Commons)
In the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education, racial tensions rose as African Americans began immediately submitting school desegregation petitions. In South Carolina, white supremacists used legal and extralegal methods to launch a full-scale assault against civil rights activists. Faculty and students at Black colleges and universities became major targets of these methods. On January 15, 1968, Governor George Bell Timmerman made the Allen faculty members a central part of his address to the legislature—without addressing them by name. He used their membership or participation in allegedly subversive organizations to make dubious claims of communist connections. Read more
Black Vietnam veteran’s nearly 60-year wait for Medal of Honor is over. By Catherine Herridge / CBS News
After a delay of nearly six decades, one of the first Black officers in the Green Berets will receive the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest combat decoration for his heroism in Vietnam.
On Monday, President Joe Biden personally called Col. Paris Davis (ret.) to deliver the news, informing him that he will receive the Medal of Honor “for his remarkable heroism during the Vietnam War,” according to a White House statement. “The call today from President Biden prompted a wave of memories of the men and women I served with in Vietnam – from the members of 5th Special Forces Group and other U.S. military units to the doctors and nurses who cared for our wounded,” Davis said in a statement released by him and his family. Read more
Even in Death, Black Americans Have Been Denied the Right to Rest in Peace. By Greg Melville / NYT
At 106 years old, Benjamin Prine was the last living person born into slavery on Staten Island when he died in October 1900. He was laid to rest at the Second Asbury A.M.E. Cemetery on the borough’s North Shore, alongside the remains of an estimated 1,000 other people, many formerly enslaved and nearly all Black. Today there’s no sign at the corner of Livermore and Forest Avenues of his grave or the burial ground that holds his remains. There are no memorials or historical markers to tell the story about how, at one time, 20 percent of Staten Island’s population consisted of enslaved people. Read more
In Majority-Black New Orleans, Chefs Are Rewriting ‘Whitewashed’ History. By Brett Anderson / Wash Post
A new generation is exploring how the city’s celebrated food owes as much to West African and Caribbean cuisines as to French cooking. New Orleans chefs, restaurateurs and scholars have been rethinking the city’s culinary history. Front row, from left: Serigne Mbaye, Afua Richardson, Nina Compton, Lisa Nelson, Zella Palmer, Martha Wiggins, Edgar Chase IV. Back row, from left: Prince Lobo, Dr. Howard Conyers, Robert Manos, Charly Pierre.
Mr. Mbaye created Dakar NOLA expressly to help diners understand the crucial role that enslaved laborers played in creating New Orleans’s famous cuisine, and connect that history to the city today. Mr. Mbaye, 29, is part of a generation of Black chefs and scholars who say they want to dismantle the “whitewashed” stories on which the tourist economy of New Orleans rests — deeply abridged versions of the past that are at odds with the experiences of Black residents. Read more
Louis Vuitton taps Pharrell Williams as next men’s creative director. By Anne Branigin / Wash Post
American musician, producer and streetwear designer Pharrell Williams will be Louis Vuitton’s next creative director of menswear, succeeding the late Virgil Abloh. The French luxury brand confirmed the appointment in a statement Tuesday.
The role, one of the most prominent leadership positions in men’s fashion, had been vacant since Abloh’s death from cancer in November 2021. Despite Williams’s high celebrity profile, his selection may come as a surprise to fashion insiders — Jamaican designer Grace Wales Bonner was rumored to be the front-runner for the role, as was British designer Samuel Ross and LOEWE creative director J.W. Anderson. Read more
Sports
Super Bowl LVII a Black victory regardless of the result. By William C. Rhoden / Andscape
From the vantage point of history and Black culture, the classic between Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts was a win for everyone
For neutral fans and for students of history, the performances of Mahomes and Hurts extended a legacy and wrote yet another grand chapter in the history of Black quarterbacks. They had the two longest individual quarterback runs in Super Bowl history — Mahomes for 26 yards and Hurts for 28. From the vantage point of history and Black culture, everybody won. Read more
Related: Black Quarterbacks in the Super Bowl Reflect Progress and Lost Opportunity. By Jenny Vrentas / NYT
Related: Long maligned, the Black quarterback emerges as an NFL standard. By Jerry Brewer / Wash Post
Which LeBron James would the NBA get as a team owner? By Matenzie Johnson / Andscape
James has ambition, business savvy to join ownership. Unlike current owners, he’s outspoken about social justice
Back in October, after a meaningless preseason game in Las Vegas, Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James made it known for the umpteenth time that he wants to own an NBA team someday, perhaps even one in Sin City. James has the résumé, finances and capitalistic ruthlessness to make for an eventual team owner, following in the footsteps of Michael Jordan. But unlike Jordan, James has been very deliberate and opinionated about his social politics, even when they run counter to the typical white billionaire conservative sports team owner, seen most recently in his comments about Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Read more
How to improve the Rooney Rule. By Janelle Moore / Andscape
Owners aren’t incentivized enough to comply with the rule. Here are some suggested revisions.
In its 20 years of existence, the Rooney Rule produced significant gains and losses in its goal to create equal opportunities on the 32 sidelines and front offices of the NFL As earnest as the Rooney Rule is, it doesn’t negate the fact that it there is a need for improvement. There have been revisions, but the rule is still struggling to resonate. Among reasons the rule fails to resonate: there’s not much of an incentive to comply. Here are some adjustments that should be considered to improve the Rooney Rule. Read more
Roberto Clemente book removed from Florida public schools. By Nicole Acevedo / NBC News
A book about late Afro-Puerto Rican MLB legend Roberto Clemente can’t be found in the shelves of public school libraries in Florida’s Duval County these days.
“Roberto Clemente: Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates” by Jonah Winter and Raúl Colón — and other books about Latino figures such as the late Afro-Cuban salsa singer Celia Cruz and Justice Sonia Sotomayor — are among the more than 1 million titles that have been “covered or stored and paused for student use” at the Duval County Public Schools District, according to Chief Academic Officer Paula Renfro. School officials are in the process of determining if such books comply with state laws and can be included in school libraries. Read more
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