Even as Kamala Harris consolidates the entire Democratic Party behind her campaign, there will be people telling her she can’t win because she’s a woman of color.

The Democratic Party is about to run a Black, South Asian woman against a white supremacist former president. It’s about to run a person whose parents were immigrants against a xenophobe who supports mass deportations. It’s about to run a woman who prosecuted sexual predators against a sexual predator who has been judged to be a rapist. And it’s about to run a fierce defender of reproductive rights against a person who proudly claims responsibility for overturning Roe v. Wade. Read more 

Related: Major Asian, Black, Latino groups come out in support of a Harris presidency.  By Kiara Alfonseca / ABC News 

Related: Black Voters Feel Excited, and Worried, about a Kamala Harris Campaign. By Jeremy W. Peters, Audra D. S. Burch and Clyde McGrady / NYT

Related: For Kamala Harris, Black Women Are Already a Crucial Fundraising Force. By Julianne McShane / Mother Jones

Kamala Harris’s Diversity Hire. By Elaine Godfrey / The Atlantic

For her running mate, the vice president could be looking to make a diversity hire. 

Is Donald Trump Getting Cold Feet Over JD Vance? What We Know.  By Martha McHardy / Newsweek

Amid Joe Biden ending his re-election campaign, rumors are emerging that Donald Trump is regretting his choice of running mate. 

“Most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was the second-guessing of JD Vance—a selection, they acknowledged, that was borne of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter,” Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta posted on X. Read more 

Related: Why Trump Suddenly Thinks Picking J.D. Vance Was a Mistake. By Edith Olmsted / TNR

Black Republicans Push Identity Politics At Convention. By Zack Linly / Newsone

U.S. Rep Wesley Hunt (R-TX) speaks on stage on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Contrary to what Republicans would have us believe, the GOP is not anti-identity politics and it certainly isn’t above having a DEI state of mind, and the Republican National Convention on its first night Monday. First, early on during the RNC anti-woke-o-thon, the Republican Party’s nominee for governor in North Carolina, Mark Robinson, Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Tex.), and John James (R-Mich.) went back-to-back-to-back giving their largely white MAGA constituents a Black-on-Black-on-Black shucking and jiving extravaganza as they all really just seemed to be there for the sole purpose of serving as the “Black friends” who will declare he’s not racist and that he’s the No. 1 white savior for Black America. Read more 

Related: How white was the RNC in Milwaukee? 3% of delegates said they’re Black. By Daniel Bice / USA Today 

The Supreme Court Fools Itself. By Adam Serwer / The Atlantic 

The Roberts Court has made the current crisis of American democracy perpetual.

The Trumpist justices on the Supreme Court had a very serious problem: They needed to keep their guy out of prison for trying to overthrow the government. The right-wing justices had to do this while still attempting to maintain at least a pretense of having ruled on the basis of the law and the Constitution rather than mere partisan instincts. Read more

North Carolina University System Bans All DEI Programs At Public Institutions, Forcing Layoffs And Cutting All Related Funding. By Josh Rodgers / Afrotech

The consistent pulling back of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives feels like a repetitive cycle of the same thing, wondering when it will all end.

The latest announcement of organizations rolling back DEI comes out of North Carolina. According to Inside Higher Ed, the University of North Carolina (UNC) state system voted to ban DEI policies and offices. Passing with a 22-2 vote, the ban calls for state institutions to cut funding and eliminate positions related to DEI across the system’s 16 campuses. In its place, the system will roll out a “equality within the university” policy that ensures balance across the system, claiming that previous policies did not align with the state system’s culture of neutrality. While that language is ambiguous, System President Peter Hans says it is a necessary stance of neutrality in politically controversial times. Read more 

Related: Georgia denies state funding to teach AP Black studies classes. By Jeff Amy / Independent

Related: Black Colleges Are Owed $12 Billion, the Feds Say. Their States Aren’t So Sure. By Jasper Smith / The Chronicle of Higher Ed. 

World News

What Would a Harris Foreign Policy Look Like? By Benjamin Parker / The Bulwark

If Vice President Kamala Harris becomes the Democratic nominee for president, as seems increasingly likely, she stands a good chance of being elected to the most powerful office in the world. And yet, much of her reputation and political career has been based on domestic policy. Her foreign policy outlook, priorities, instincts, and style remain somewhat mysterious.

The Bulwark asked Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America and a foreign policy advisor to then-Sen. Harris, to shed some light on Harris’s foreign policy style. Shortly before the conversation, Soifer and JDCA chairman Ron Klein endorsed Harris for president. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Read more 

Harris created distance from Biden on Gaza by emphasizing Palestinian suffering. By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Shane Harris / Wash Post 

Kamala Harris’s comments have drawn the attention of voters who had vowed not to support President Biden over the Israel-Gaza war but fear a second Trump term.

Vice President Harris has pushed the rest of the Biden administration to more heavily consider Palestinian suffering in its response to Israel’s war in Gaza, lambasting the civilian death toll, calling on Israel to allow more aid into the territory, and speaking more forcefully and empathetically than President Biden about the Palestinian plight. Read more 

Related: Ex-Biden Staffer Who Quit over Gaza Says Kamala Harris Must “Chart a New Path” on Israel-Palestine. Amy Goodman / Democracy Now

Related: Harris May Not Be the Savior on Gaza Some Dems Want. By Nahal Toosi / Politico

Israeli Apartheid Stretches from the River to the Sea. By Arvind Dilawar / The Progressive

Israel’s two-tiered justice system makes it a democracy in name only.

In April, the United States Department of State published its annual reports on human rights practices in countries that receive U.S. foreign aid, including Israel. While the report on Israel downplays its ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip—which, so far, has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, including 15,000 children, according to Al Jazeera—it also includes a surprising acknowledgment of Israeli apartheid in the West Bank. Read more 

Related: Israel Risks All-Out War With Hezbollah. A Truce in Gaza May Reduce That Threat. By Patrick Kingsley and Euan Ward / NYT

Netanyahu Seeks Support in U.S. Visit, but Will Find a Nation Distracted. By Isabel Kershner / NYT

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is to meet President Biden and address Congress this week, swapping one political maelstrom at home for another in Washington.

With his visit to Washington this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel will step away from one political maelstrom and into another. He is facing anger at home over the prolonged war in Gaza and failure to bring home the hostages held in the enclave. Washington is divided over Israel’s conduct of the war and treatment of the Palestinians. Read more 

Related: Netanyahu compares Oct. 7 to Pearl Harbor and criticizes protesters in address to Congress. By Scott Wong, Rebecca Shabad, Rebecca Kaplan and Frank Thorp V / NBC News  

Related: Pressure Rises on Netanyahu Over Cease-Fire Deal Ahead of His Congress Speech. By Ephrat Livni / NYT

Related: More than 200 Christian leaders sign letter calling for cease-fire in Gaza. By Chloë-Arizona Fodor and  Jack Jenkins

Ethics / Morality / Religion

Kamala Harris’ multi-religious identity is a map of the future.  By Yonat Shimron / NCR

She would be the first presidential candidate with a diverse personal religious and spiritual history that is now far more representative of America’s multi-faith makeup.

Raised Hindu by her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a native of Chennai, India, she was often taken as a girl to 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California, by her neighbor, Regina Shelton, along with Harris’ sister, Maya. As an adult, Harris joined a Black Baptist church — Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, led by the Rev. Amos Brown. Meanwhile, the man who would become Harris’ husband, Los Angeles lawyer Douglas Emhoff,  grew up in New Jersey attending a Reform synagogue. Read more 

Related: Amos Brown, pastor to Kamala Harris, known for civil rights, reparations activism. By Jack Jenkins and  Adelle M. Banks / RNS

The Christian-Nationalist Rot Runs Deep. By Jonathan V. Last / The Bulwark

On Sunday, Brent Leatherwood, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, gave a statement about Joe Biden’s decision to step aside from the 2024 campaign.

Here’s what Leatherwood said: Not only is this a historic decision, it is the right decision for our nation. The role of president takes a heavy toll and, based on what has been apparent for some time, it was unrealistic to ask President Biden to endure another four years of the incredible burdens placed on the one who occupies this office. Twenty-four hours later, Leatherwood was fired –  and now they have reaffirmed his leadership. Read more 

Related: Catholic Christian nationalism is having a moment. By Ruth Braunstein / NCR

Court battle to keep Annunciation House open underscores how faith groups strive to welcome strangers in the face of anti-immigrant sentiment. By Laura E. Alexander / The Conversation

Over the past few months, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been locked in a court battle with Annunciation House, a network of shelters in the El Paso area that assists migrants with basic needs and legal aid.

On July 2, 2024, district court Judge Francisco Dominguez issued a ruling denying Paxton’s attempt to shut down Annunciation House. Paxton appealed two weeks later. In his original suit, Paxton sought to rescind Annunciation House’s ability to operate as a nonprofit in Texas, alleging that its efforts to assist migrants amount to “human smuggling.” Read more 

Voter protection training begins as clergy, secular groups look toward election. By Adelle M. Banks / RNS

Faith leaders are making plans to provide a de-escalating presence at the polls months ahead of another deeply contested presidential election in an increasingly polarized country. Faiths United to Save Democracy, a nonpartisan multiracial group with roots in Black church voter mobilization efforts, is expanding its outreach so participants include clergy and lay people of a variety of religions as well as people with no faith affiliation and members of secular organizations. Read more 

Historical / Cultural

The Black women who paved the way for Kamala Harris. By DeNeen L. Brown / Wash Post

Harris, on the verge of becoming the first Black woman to serve as a major party’s presidential candidate, stands on the shoulders of unsung superwomen of racial justice.

During her victory speech after she and Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris acknowledged the generations of women “who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all, including the Black women, who are often — too often — overlooked, but so often prove that they are the backbone of our democracy. … I stand on their shoulders.” Read more

Related: The Brat-ification of Kamala Harris. By Shirley Li / The Atlantic

Related: Kamala Harris descended from a ‘notorious’ slave owner, historian says. By Martin Robinson / Daily Mail 

Buses weren’t the only civil rights battleground in Montgomery – the city’s parks still reflect a history of segregation. By Binita Mahato / The Conversation

Montgomery, Alabama, touts itself as the birthplace of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. But although Montgomery now embraces its history of bus boycotts and protest marches, it remains one of the most segregated U.S. cities, and still struggles with racial inequality. Oak Park, Montgomery’s first park, was white-only until the mid-1960s.

Today, Montgomery’s population is almost 60% Black. The poverty rate among Black residents is 30.8%, compared to 10.6% among white residents. The city’s infrastructure is deteriorating, and its tax base is shrinking. Read more 

New James Baldwin Art Exhibit Emphasizes His Love For Community. By Phillip Lewis / HuffPost

“This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin and the Voices of Queer Resistance” is a new exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Inside the exhibit, visitors can take in an eclectic set — from correspondence between Baldwin and his contemporaries to portraits, photographs, literature, video projections and more. Rhea L. Combs, the National Portrait Gallery’s director of curatorial affairs, wants visitors to the exhibit to view Baldwin not solely as a seminal figure but as someone who was also greatly influenced by the voices he surrounded himself with — voices that, for years, went unrecognized. Read more 

Duke Fakir, Last Surviving Member of the Four Tops, Dies at 88. By Jim Farber / NYT

He sang tenor on hits like “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” and “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch).”

Their classics included the exuberant “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” and the urgent “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” both of which hit No. 1, along with the barreling Top 10 staples “It’s The Same Old Song,” “Standing In the Shadows of Love” and “Bernadette.” Read more 

Darren Walker, Who Reoriented the Ford Foundation, Will Step Down.  By Robin Pogrebin / NYT

Mr. Walker, who oversaw $7 billion in grants, plans to leave at the end of 2025 after what will have been 12 years.

Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, one of the nation’s largest and most influential philanthropies, recently recalled the day his assistant excitedly told him that President Barack Obama wanted to meet him. He gently corrected her. “I said that President Obama wants to meet with the president of the Ford Foundation — he isn’t interested in meeting with Darren Walker,” he said. “It’s important to have that clarity so that when the day comes that you’re no longer president of the Ford Foundation, you can still find joy and happiness and satisfaction.” Read more

Sports

The Olympics are more racially diverse than ever. What does that mean for how we view the games? By Keith Magee / CNN

Emmanuel Karalis of Greece, whose mother is Ugandan and whose father is Greek, competing in a men’s pole vault event in Torun, Poland in February. 

For many nations — not least the US — the upcoming Paris Olympics will take place against a background of deep political and social division. Perhaps, though, the biggest sporting spectacle in the world will unite us for a few days in a way our political leaders cannot. It may also prompt us to think about what it means to be patriotic. Read more 

Related: What it means to be a Black Olympian representing the U.S. on the global stage. By Isabel Yip / NBC News 

Related: LeBron James will be a flag bearer in Paris Olympics Opening Ceremonies. By Les Carpenter / Wash Post 

NBA fathers and sons relate to Bronny James scrutiny: ‘He has to become his own player.’ By Brendan Marks / The Athletic

The phenomenon, of fans flocking to catch a glimpse of LeBron’s son, is nothing new.

The basketball-watching world just went through the very same obsession with Bronny — and largely still is, especially after the Los Angeles Lakers made him the 55th pick in this summer’s draft and paired him with his famous father. And while the buzz that surrounded Bronny, and now Bryce, rises to unique heights, that plight is one that fellow NBA sons can relate to. Read more

Paul Finebaum Names Deion Sanders As ‘Perfect Replacement’ For Elite CFB Coach. By Kevin Borba / Athlonsports

Just a week ago ESPN’s Paul Finebaum revealed that he thinks Deion Sanders is too impatient to contend at Colorado. 

A thought that many people across the country share, as the belief around Sanders is he will bolt out of Boulder the first chance he gets. A time that could be right around the corner as his two kids on his squad, quarterback Shedeur Sanders and safety Shilo Sanders, are both NFL-bound after this season. Finebaum cited that he thinks Sanders will grow tired of Boulder, and would instead much rather thrive in Los Angeles where recruiting would be easy. Read more 

First Take in major broadcasting change with Molly Qerim and Stephen A. Smith’s show bumped from ESPN again. By Jim Sheridan / US Sport

First Take will be moving to a new home for Thursday, July 25, and Friday, July 26. The show has been bumped to ESPN 2 for live coverage of Little League Softball.

Smith is currently in the process of negotiating a new deal with ESPN ahead of his contract expiring next year. The sportscaster is looking for a $25 million annual salary, per Puck.news. Read more 

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