Featured
Jan. 6 committee’s Bennie Thompson, a historic Black lawmaker, sees echoes of America’s ‘dark history.’ By Kyla Guilfoil / ABC News
The chairman is the longest-serving Black elected official in Mississippi.
Rep. Bennie Thompson knows all too well the dangers of a democracy denied. The longest serving African-American elected official in Mississippi, Thompson started his political career just four years after the Civil Rights Act of 1965 granted him access to his local government. Now 74, Thompson heads the House’s Jan. 6 committee investigating the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
After a year-long inquiry, the committee has been holding a series of hearings featuring sometimes startling testimony from former Trump aides, with the next session scheduled for Tuesday. Thompson, as chairman, has taken a leading role in describing the panel’s work to the public.
When he delivered the opening statement at the first of the committee’s latest hearings, last month, he drew connections between his upbringing in the segregated American South and the actions of the Capitol rioters. Read more
Political / Social
We Are Political Hostages. By Charles M. Blow / NYT
One of our greatest errors as a country has been our nonstop campaign to convince generations of voters that elections are about freedom of choice. This may be true if you are of a class not historically oppressed by the state. Many white people, particularly white men, fall into this category. They have the ability — the power — to be swing voters, knowing that their basic civil rights are not on the line. And many of them have invented new dangers — like threats to the Second Amendment — while pretending to defend their rights against those threats. For most other people, “freedom of choice” in elections is an illusion. We are captives of the two-party system. We are political hostages. Read more
If Herschel Walker wins in Georgia, America will have lost its mind. By Eugene Robinson / Wash Post
It’s not yet clear who will be the weirdest and most unfit Republican Senate candidate in November. But my early pick is Herschel Walker in Georgia. If he wins — and he could — this nation has truly lost its mind. The flashing red lights and blaring sirens are not just about the former football star’s myriad lies and stunning hypocrisy. That kind of stuff doesn’t necessarily trouble GOP voters in the least, given their continued devotion to Donald Trump, who counts Walker as a longtime friend. It’s Walker’s combination of utter ignorance and total confidence, which challenges even that of the former president. Read more
Republicans’ gains among Latinos reflect Democrats’ shift in values. By Alexis Martinez Johnson / USA Today
My abuelos were staunch Democrats. They believed in the values of hard work, family and self-determination. But the Democratic Party has left those values that are so important to our community.
Democrats have historically done well with Latinos, but a Wall Street Journal poll in December found that Latino voters were evenly split on whether they would support a Democrat or a Republican for Congress. In June, Republican Mayra Flores became the first woman born in Mexico to win a seat in the U.S. Congress when she was elected in a historically Democratic district in South Texas. Read more
Related: As Latino voters shift right, here’s where Democrats will be hit hardest. By David Byler / Wash Post
Related: The pandemic set back big Latino gains in education. How to get them back on track? By
“White life” and the fascist movement: Hey, at least they’re being honest. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Republicans don’t bother to speak in code anymore. Why should they? Their big plans for America are no mystery
Maya Angelou famously counseled, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” Her wisdom remains undefeated. If the American people — especially white people — along with the news media and political elites had heeded that wisdom, perhaps our country would not now be teetering on the edge of a fascist abyss. The contemporary Republican Party has become the world’s largest white supremacist organization, and now also explicitly supports the use of political violence and terrorism to advance the goal of ending multiracial democracy. Donald Trump’s coup attempt, culminating in the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021, was the literal embodiment of those values, beliefs and goals. Read more
Related: Poll Shows Tight Race for Control of Congress as Class Divide Widens. By Nate Cohn / NYT
Detroit limits use of cash bail, aiming to relieve racial inequality. By Aaron Morrison / Christian Science Monitor
Detroit is limiting courts’ use of cash bail, a move meant to lessen racial inequality in the U.S. city with the highest proportion of African Americans. The reforms will not ban bail, but will limit when courts can ask for it, protecting due process for those who cannot afford it.
Michigan’s largest district( Shown is Chief Judge William McConico) court and bail reform advocates have agreed to settle a federal class-action lawsuit over cash bail practices, which activists say routinely and unconstitutionally jail poor and working class defendants despite evidence of their inability to pay. Both sides say the reforms, to be announced Tuesday, strike at racial inequality in the criminal legal system. On any given day in Detroit, the nation’s Blackest city, nearly three-quarters of those jailed are Black, a proportion much higher than their share of the population. Read more
Democratic Lawmakers Ask Biden To Support Overturning Racist Court Precedents. By Paul Blumenthal / HuffPost
Biden promised to root out systemic racism, but his Justice Department still relies on the Insular Cases in court to deny rights to Americans.
“[T]he Insular Cases represent a shameful legacy that simply cannot be squared with the core values of racial justice and equity that we share with your administration,” the lawmakers write. These precedents, decided between 1898 and 1922, created the category of “unincorporated territory” to enable U.S. colonial expansion from Puerto Rico to the Philippines while denying the rights and privileges of citizenship to their residents solely because of their race. The court decisions called the residents of these territories “savage tribes” and “alien” and “uncivilized race[s]” who were “absolutely unfit to receive” the rights granted to American citizens. Read more
H.R. 40, the federal bill to study reparations, appears stalled once again. By Jesse Washington / Andscape
Despite committee approval in February, a vote in the full House isn’t on the schedule
If the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, right now the path of the federal reparations bill is bent into a question mark. In February, the growing national movement to compensate Black people for slavery and government discrimination seemed poised to take a major step forward. Advocates announced that H.R. 40, a decades-old bill to study and make recommendations on reparations, had enough votes to pass the House of Representatives. Today, H.R. 40 is being treated like that elderly relative you know you should visit, but never get around to. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Episcopalians approve fact-finding commission on Indigenous boarding schools. By
The resolution comes as U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland kicks off ‘The Road to Healing,’ a national tour listening to the stories of survivors of Indian boarding schools in the United States.
The Episcopal Church will create a fact-finding commission to research the denomination’s role in the federal Indian boarding school system that separated generations of Indigenous children from their families and cultures in the 19th and 20th centuries. Bishops and deputies at the mainline denomination’s scaled-back General Convention approved the Resolution for Telling the Truth about The Episcopal Church’s History with Indigenous Boarding Schools over the weekend in Baltimore. Read more
Native American Pastor Leads Southern Baptists to Decry Forced Conversions. By Aiden Hobson / Christianity Today
“Burdened and broken” by the federal investigation into Indian boarding schools, Mike Keahbone drafted the denomination’s first resolution in support of native peoples.
Southern Baptists took a historic stand last month to acknowledge the trauma suffered by Native Americans and to officially offer their support and prayers. “When you look at the long history of Southern Baptists, there was not a resolution in our history that ever took a stand with Native American people,” said Mike Keahbone. A Native American who leads a church located near the headquarters for the Comanche Nation in southwest Oklahoma, Keahbone knows firsthand the need for gospel witness and for healing among native peoples. Read more
So where did all this right-wing religious nuttery come from? By Thom Hartmen / Salon
Most Americans — and most Christians — don’t want religious doctrine dominating our laws. So how did we get here?
The right-wing billionaires and the corporations and foundations aligned with them knew back in 1971 — when Lewis Powell laid out their strategy in his infamous “Powell Memo,” the year before Richard Nixon put him on the Supreme Court — that most Americans wouldn’t happily vote to lower billionaires’ taxes, end unions and regulation of gun manufacturers, or increase the amount of refinery poisons in our air. They put billions of dollars over five decades into a project to seize control of the legislatures of a majority of the states, jam up the U.S. Congress and pack the Supreme Court — and it was all about taxes, unions and regulation. Read more
The Right’s Antisemitism Problem—and the Left’s. By David Masciotra / The Bulwark
How prejudice and propaganda on the political extremes contribute to rising harassment of Jews.
Leon Saltiel, a World Jewish Congress representative at the United Nations and grandchild of Holocaust survivors, recently wrote that as the world’s “oldest hatred,” antisemitism “exposes the failings in each society.” The United States certainly has its share of failings to expose. It is not a surprise that antisemitism is part of the combustible mix of authoritarian politics, anti-intellectualism, and the growing popularity of conspiracy theories, but it is disturbing that it comes from a variety of sources—and that it is rarely treated as a major problem. Read more
Historical / Cultural
US Military Bases Honoring Confederate Figures Slated to Get New Names. By Dora Mekouar / VOA News
Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, honors a Confederate general, and could soon be renamed Fort Liberty.
As a young Black officer, Troy Mosley arrived at Fort Benning in Georgia in 1995 where he eventually took command of a 300-person company at the age of 31. The irony of leading hundreds of troops at a world premier military base named in honor of a Confederate officer who fought to defend slavery was not lost on him. “It was kind of a peace offering to the defeated Confederates that we will allow you all to have some dignity and some honor in noble defeat,” says Mosley, now a retired lieutenant colonel and author. “But what it said to me as a Black American and a Black army officer was that my inclusion was not as meaningful or as important, and therefore, I was an American by grace only, but not really welcome at the table.” Read more
Aretha Franklin’s $7.8 million tax debt paid, sons look to take reins. By Brian McCollum / Detroit Free Press
Aretha Franklin’s long-standing $7.8 million debt to the Internal Revenue Service has been paid in full, her estate says in a new court filing. It could open the door for Franklin’s four sons to finally take the driver’s seat in her post-death affairs and fully benefit from revenues flowing into her estate — which would mean millions of dollars at last getting into their hands. With the tax debt now purportedly off its back, the estate argues that most of the incoming cash should get distributed equally among the four sons each month. From that point, income tax obligations would be on each individual. Read more
July Cover: Martin Lawrence. By Ronda Racha Penrice / Ebony
Reigning comedy king Martin Lawrence reflects on the 30th anniversary of his iconic sitcom, his trailblazing career in standup, tv and film, and that long overdue star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The catchphrases—you so crazy, you go girl, talk to the hand and wazzup—are just a few that the 90s hit show Martin popularized. When the series debuted August 27, 1992, on FOX, no one, not even Martin Lawrence himself, predicted it would become one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. Thirty years later, the show is still widely watched on BET—where it airs every weeknight—as well as on other networks and streamers. Read more
Nipsey Hussle’s legacy inspires 3 years after his murder. By AP and NBC News
Several paid homage to Hussle’s positive influence during a murder trial that ended Wednesday with a conviction for his killing.
Even though Nipsey Hussle was gunned down outside a Los Angeles clothing store three years ago, the sting of his death remains fresh for those who revered the widely beloved rapper and community activist. Several paid homage to Hussle’s positive influence during a murder trial that ended Wednesday with a conviction for his killing. Some shed tears. One of his closest friends regrets being unable to protect Hussle. A witness battles with ongoing nightmares as if Hussle’s fatal shooting happened yesterday. Some in the hip-hop community still look to his rap lyrics for teachable moments. Like Hussle’s popular catchphrase “The Marathon Continues,” the memory of his impactful legacy is still at the forefront of many people’s minds. Read more
Sports
NBA to pay former ABA players $24.5 million under new pension program. By Dana Hunsinger Benbow / USA Today
The NBA board of governors voted Tuesday to pay $24.5 million to former American Basketball Association players, many of whom are struggling to pay rent, medical bills and buy the basic necessities to live. The agreement reached by the NBA and its players association ends a years-long battle launched by the Indianapolis-based Dropping Dimes Foundation. Dropping Dimes, a non-profit founded in 2014 to help struggling former ABA players and their families, has been pleading with the NBA to give players of the now-defunct ABA the money it says they deserve. About 115 players are eligible for the payout, which the NBA is calling “recognition payments,” not pensions. Those players either spent three or more years in the ABA or played at least three combined years in the ABA and NBA and never received a vested pension from the NBA. Read more
Why Jeremy Lin hopes for more than ‘the next Jeremy Lin or Yao Ming.’ By Max Gao / NBC News
Lin and actor Simu Liu talked Asian representation in sports at a charity game and pushed for athletes to be more than simply compared to other Asian players.
Point guard Jeremy Lin teamed up with actor Simu Liu to headline a celebrity basketball game in Toronto over the weekend. The second CCYAA Celebrity Classic, at the University of Toronto’s Goldring Centre, featured more than 20 Asian American and Canadian actors, musicians and influencers competing on opposing teams in support of Lin’s foundation and the Canadian Chinese Youth Athletic Association. More than three years after he played for the Toronto Raptors and became the first Asian American to win an NBA championship, Lin walked the streets where he celebrated the first title in franchise history. He said it was an emotional experience that filled him with “a lot of love, reflection and gratitude.” Read more
Condoleezza Rice added to new Broncos ownership group. By Pat Graham / ABC News
Rob Walton announced the inclusion of Rice in a statement issued Monday on behalf of the Walton-Penner family ownership group. The group agreed to buy the franchise from the Pat Bowlen Trust last month for a reported $4.65 billion. It’s pending approval by the NFL. “A highly respected public servant, accomplished academic and corporate leader, Secretary Rice is well known as a passionate and knowledgeable football fan who has worked to make the sport stronger and better,” Walton said in a statement. “Her unique experience and extraordinary judgment will be a great benefit to our group and the Broncos organization.” Read more
Wimbledon Needs More Arthur Ashe Moments, On and Off the Court. By Kurt Streeter / NYT
For the first time in nearly a half-century, a weekend at Wimbledon felt, and looked, different.
Nick Kyrgios and Ons Jabeur brought a fresh diversity to the men’s and women’s singles finals. Jabeur, of Tunisia, became the first North African player to make it to a singles final. Kyrgios, an Australian with Malaysian roots and a well-documented swagger that marks him as something wholly different from his peers, was playing in his first Grand Slam final. Jabeur and Kyrgios each ended up losing, but that is beside the point. Not since 1975, when Arthur Ashe and Evonne Goolagong made it to their finals, had both championship matches combined to be as diverse. Tennis evolves in fits and starts, and nowhere does that feel more true than at Wimbledon. Read more
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