Featured

Trump’s Cult of Animosity Shows No Sign of Letting Up. By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT

In 2016, Donald Trump recruited voters with the highest levels of animosity toward African Americans, assembling a “schadenfreude” electorate — voters who take pleasure in making the opposition suffer — that continues to dominate the Republican Party, even in the aftermath of the Trump presidency. With all his histrionics and theatrics, Trump brought the dark side of American politics to the fore: the alienated, the distrustful, voters willing to sacrifice democracy for a return to white hegemony. The segregationist segment of the electorate has been a permanent fixture of American politics, shifting between the two major parties. For more than two decades, scholars and analysts have written about the growing partisan antipathy and polarization that have turned America into two warring camps, politically speaking. Read more

Political / Social

Texas Republicans rush to guard the Alamo from the facts. By Jason Stanford / Wash Post

With more than 300 RSVPs, the event hosted by the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin was shaping up to be the highlight of our virtual book tour for “Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth.” But about four hours before showtime last Thursday, my co-authors, Bryan Burrough and Chris Tomlinson, and I received an email from our publisher. The Bullock had backed out, citing “increased pressure on social media.” Apparently, the state history museum was no place to discuss state history.

The Heroic Anglo Narrative is that in 1836, about 200 Texians (as White settlers were known, to distinguish them from Tejanos) fought a doomed battle at a Spanish mission in San Antonio against thousands of Mexican troops, buying Gen. Sam Houston enough time to defeat tyranny in the form of Mexican ruler Santa Anna and win freedom for Texas. The myth leaves much out, most notably that Texians opposed Mexican laws that would free the enslaved workers they needed to farm cotton. Read more

How and why Loudoun County became the face of the nation’s culture wars. By Hannah Natanson / Wash Post

Angry parents battling over critical race theory at rallies, outside school buildings and in rival Facebook groups. A teacher suing the school system after he was suspended for refusing to use transgender students’ pronouns. A raucous school board meeting that began with dueling protests over transgender rights and culminated in an arrest. Loudoun County, a wealthy and diversifying slice of purple-turning-blue suburban Northern Virginia, is fast becoming the face of the nation’s culture wars. “It’s unsettling to say the least, especially because it seems everybody is armed to the teeth these days,” said longtime resident Tom Mulrine, 77, who is White. “This could spark something.” “It’s shameful,” said Wendall T. Fisher, 67, who said he was the first Black elected member of the Loudoun County School Board — and the only to date. “It’s just shameful.” Read more

How Ty Seidule went from revering Robert E. Lee to being one of his fiercest detractors. By Jonathan Capehart / Cape Up Wash Post Podcast

America’s birthday this year comes at a moment when its history is being debated, so we’re bringing back this episode with Ty Seidule, author of “Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause.” Original air date: May 18. Listen here

Nikole Hannah-Jones Rejects UNC Tenure Offer, Will Teach At Howard University Instead. By Philip Lewis / HuffPost

Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer-winning journalist and creator of the “1619 Project,” has turned down a tenured position at the University of North Carolina and will be accepting a role at Howard University instead. Hannah-Jones, who will become a tenured member of the faculty at the historically Black university’s Cathy Hughes School of Communications, made the announcement Tuesday during an interview with Gayle King on “CBS This Morning.” The UNC alumna will take on the role as inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism and will begin her faculty role this summer. Read more

Terrified White Supremacists Run Away After Philadelphia March Goes Awry. By Ed Mazza / HuffPost

A white supremacist group based in Texas attempted a march on Philadelphia over the Independence Day weekend, but had to celebrate the holiday the Confederate way. “They literally ran away from the people of Philadelphia,” Michael Crum, a police officer in the city, told local ABC station WPVI. About 200 masked and khaki-clad members of the Patriot Front organization, listed as a white nationalist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, marched on the city in the Saturday night incident, NBC Philadelphia reported. They chanted about the election and “reclaim America,” engaged in pushing and shoving with people, and took a reporter’s cellphone, the station said. But that boldness quickly faded as more residents turned out. Read more

Biden’s infrastructure bill — no matter how “bipartisan” — will not defeat fascism. By Chauncey Devega / Salon

Trumpism and other forms of American fascism are not acute illnesses in the nation’s civic life and society. They are more like chronic illnesses; the infection runs deep. New research by Morning Consult reveals the extent of this problem, reporting that “26% of the U.S. population qualified as highly right-wing authoritarian.” Using researcher Bob Altemeyer’s right-wing authoritarianism test and scale and building on work he has conducted recently with the Monmouth University Polling Institute, Morning Consult “found that U.S. conservatives have stronger right-wing authoritarian tendencies than their right-of-center counterparts in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom”: Read more

Eric Adams wins Democratic primary in NYC’s mayoral race. By Karen Matthews / AP

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City after appealing to the political center and promising to strike the right balance between fighting crime and ending racial injustice in policing. A former police captain, Adams would be the city’s second Black mayor if elected. He triumphed over a large Democratic field in New York’s first major race to use ranked choice voting. Results from the latest tabulations released Tuesday showed him leading former city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia by 8,426 votes, or a little more than 1 percentage point. Read more

Freedom Riders Ride Again for Voting Rights. By Luis Feliz Leon / The Progressive

The U.S. Supreme Court last week upheld voting restrictions in Arizona in a 6-3 vote split down partisan lines, amid a surge in voter suppression bills in nearly every state. This suite of bills—tallied up as high as 389 bills in forty-eight states, combined with eighty-one anti-protest bills in thirty-four states—are steadily entrenching the power of Republicans. In response, UNITE HERE, an international union of hospitality, restaurant, airport, and entertainment venue workers, together with Black voting rights activists organized by Black Voters Matter, have hit the campaign trail to fight back and demand passage of For the People Act to strengthen voting rights, limit the influence of money in political campaigning, and secure statehood for Washington, D.C. Read more

How G.O.P. Laws in Montana Could Complicate Voting for Native Americans. By Maggie Astor / NYT

The ballot collection law is part of a nationwide push by Republican state legislators to rewrite election rules, and is similar to an Arizona law that the Supreme Court upheld on Thursday. In Montana — where Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, was elected in November to replace Steve Bullock, a Democrat who had held veto power for eight years — the effects of that and a separate law eliminating same-day voter registration are likely to fall heavily on Native Americans, who make up about 7 percent of the state’s population. Read more

‘Rampant issues’: Black farmers are still left out at USDA. By Ximena Bustillo / Politico

The Biden administration is trying to make up for decades of racial discrimination in U.S. farm assistance by forgiving loans to farmers of color. But Black farmers and their advocates say that plan, while welcome, won’t fix the ongoing problem: Agriculture Department programs are still biased against them. The agency granted loans to only 37 percent of Black applicants last year in one program that helps farmers pay for land, equipment and repairs but accepted 71 percent of applications from white farmers, according to a POLITICO analysis of USDA data. In a grant program to help producers weather the coronavirus pandemic, farmers of color received less than one percent of the payments even though they are five percent of all U.S. farmers. Read more

Bill Cosby Defends Phylicia Rashad’s Freedom Of Speech. By Elizabeth Blair / NPR

Bill Cosby called on Howard University to support former co-star Phylicia Rashad’s freedom of speech after she expressed support for him when his sexual assault conviction was overturned. In a statement, Cosby also lashed out at the media, comparing journalists to the rioters who stormed the Capitol in January. “Howard University you must support ones Freedom of Speech (Ms. Rashad), which is taught or suppose to be taught everyday at that renowned law school, which resides on your campus,” Cosby said in a statement provided to NPR by his spokesman Andrew Wyatt. Read more

US Black and Latino communities often have low vaccination rates – but blaming vaccine hesitancy misses the mark. By Elisa J. Sobo, Diana Schow and Stephanie McClure / The Conversation

By early July 2021, nearly two-thirds of all U.S. residents 12 years and older had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine; 55% were fully vaccinated. But uptake varies drastically by region – and it is lower on average among non-white people. Many blame the relatively lower vaccination rates in communities of color on “vaccine hesitancy.” But this label overlooks persistent barriers to access and lumps together the varied reasons people have for refraining from vaccination. It also places all the responsibility for getting vaccinated on individuals. Ultimately, homogenizing peoples’ reasons for not getting vaccinated diverts attention away from social factors that research shows play a critical role in health status and outcomes. Read more

Historical / Cultural

Why reparations are always about more than money. By Kerry Whigham / The Conversation

Between 1904 and 1908, German soldiers and settler colonists killed about half of all Nama people and over 80% of the Herero ethnic group. On May 28, 2021, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas acknowledged that Germany committed genocide in what is today Namibia. Maas’ statement was Germany’s first official description of these events as “genocide.” Maas also announced that Germany would pay Namibia roughly US$1.3 billion to answer for these crimes. Many refer to this gesture as reparations. Meanwhile, in the United States, reparations to Black Americans for slavery are gaining traction. As a scholar who researches how societies deal with histories of mass atrocities and also works with governments on policies to protect those at risk, I argue that past atrocities do not end when the physical violence comes to an end. The violence continues to affect the social, cultural and economic lives of those targeted far into the future – making societies sometimes turn to reparations. Read more

Ida B. Wells Monument Unveiled in Chicago. By Zack Linly / The Root

Let it never be said that Black people are anti-monument. Obviously, we would rather not see statues erected to commemorate people who would see us back in chains if they were alive today, but America does have its heroes who are worth honoring. On Wednesday, Chicago gave us a shining example of this when city officials revealed a monument to educator, journalist and civil rights icon Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Read more

Descendants of Slaves Say This Louisiana Factory is Environmental Racism. By John Burnett and Marisa Penaloza / NPR

A bitter fight has broken out between the powerful backers of this major new grain terminal on the Mississippi River in south Louisiana and the historic Black community that has been here on the fence line for 150 years. Charges of environmental racism are coming from her and fellow descendants of enslaved people, who believe the silo complex is an existential threat to the community of Wallace. Read more

For Native peoples, an apology never spoken is no apology at all. By Negiel Bigpond and Sam Brownback / Wash Post

Harry White Wolf was a Cheyenne tribal member buried in the cemetery at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan. A baby being held at Haskell when it was a boarding school for Native American children, Harry died in 1884, just six months old. Today, headstones marking graves similar to Harry’s dot the Haskell Cemetery, marking a solemn, silent rebuke to the U.S. government, which removed these children from their homes and trained them to be like the dominant culture. Read more

Towson University removes names of Maryland enslavers from dorms. By Taylor DeVille / Wash Post

Spurred by years of pressure from students, Towson University removed the names of two prominent Marylander enslavers from dormitory buildings after the University System of Maryland Board of Regents voted to allow the college to rename them. The committee is tasked now with recommending how to rename Paca House and Carroll Hall — student housing buildings named for William Paca and Charles Carroll, both elected officials who enslaved hundreds and signed the Declaration of Independence. Read more

MLK Jr. statue vandalism prompts California hate crime investigation. By Steven Vargas / USA Today

A statue of Martin Luther King Jr., standing tall with his hand raised forward, was vandalized with hate symbols over the Fourth of July weekend in a California park. The statue, meant to represent “hope and justice” in the city of Long Beach, about 25 miles south of Los Angeles, was spray-painted with a swastika and SS Bolts. The graffiti has since been cleaned by the city’s parks and recreation department. The Long Beach Police Department told USA TODAY on Monday that the incident was being investigated as a hate crime. There were no suspects as of Monday night, police said. Read more

Gamble & Huff mark 50 years of Philly Soul and socially conscious music. By Christopher A. Daniel / NBC News

By the early 1970s, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff were regularly meeting in Gamble’s office by an upright piano with a list of titles and a tape recorder to talk about the news or what was happening throughout Philadelphia. Their chemistry as songwriters and producers, combined with those frequent chats, laid the foundation for some of popular music’s most memorable, socially conscious songs to date. Read more

Jam & Lewis Shaped Pop History. They’re Working on Its Future, Too. By Wesley Morris / NYT

Jam and Lewis have made music for and seemingly with everybody, but Janet Jackson is the artist with whom they’re most automatically associated. Over about half a dozen albums, beginning with “Control” in 1986, the three merged into a trinity of megaselling, genre-melting popular musicianship, releasing work that defined and redefined then defined again who Jackson is and how she can sound. Jam and Lewis have been up for 11 producer of the year Grammys, and the bulk of the accolades has included their work with Jackson. But after decades of below-the-title collaboration (often in matching suits, ties, fedoras and shades) Jam and Lewis have decided to put themselves first. Sort of. July 9 brings “Jam & Lewis Volume One,” the first album released under their own names. Read more

“Zola” is a cautionary tale about Black women befriending white women. By Melanie McFarland / Salon

Zola,” though blackheartedly funny at points, is not a comedy. Technically it’s a drama, but that doesn’t describe the whole picture either. Narratively and aesthetically speaking, this film has layers. Contains multitudes. Feelings. The only thing it isn’t is wearying. It begins in a relatively benign place, with Taylour Paige’s Zola meeting a woman named Stefani (Riley Keough) during her shift as a restaurant server. The two hit it off immediately, connecting over a mutual affinity for pole dancing. Not long after they pull a shift together at a local club, where we watch them laugh together in the parking lot. “Zola,” a film that confirms the same white women that smile in your face be the same ones that come for you later. Read more

Sports

Black coaches and ex-athletes say NCAA changes are long overdue. By Curtis Bunn / NBC News

As a point guard with Wake Forest and Winthrop universities in the 1980s, Clay Dade often found it difficult to get a meal outside of the campus cafeteria. He seldom could afford to take a girl out on a date. Buying a new jacket or coat in the winter was not a reasonable consideration. Extra cash from home was nonexistent. This was not what he expected as an athlete on a basketball scholarship. Money was, and remains, a common concern among student athletes who hail from financially challenged backgrounds. Read more

Sha’Carri Richardson to miss Tokyo Olympics after not making relay. By Tom Schad / USA Today

Sha’Carri Richardson will miss the Tokyo Olympics after USA Track & Field announced its full roster of athletes Tuesday, revealing that she has not been selected as a member of the 4×100 relay team. The organization said in a statement that while it has sympathy for Richardson, who is serving a one-month suspension after testing positive for marijuana at the U.S. Olympic trials last month, it also has a responsibility to “maintain fairness for all of the athletes.” Read more

Naomi Osaka: Watch New Trailer for Netflix Docuseries on Tennis Star. By Jon Blistein / Rolling Stone

Netflix has released a new trailer for its upcoming docuseries about tennis star Naomi Osaka. The three-part series, titled Naomi Osaka, will premiere on July 16th on the streaming service. The trailer features a collage of footage and narration from Osaka as she discusses everything from the work and sacrifice that goes into being a professional athlete to the pressures of celebrity and wanting to excel at tennis — if only so her mother could stop working so much. The clip ends with Osaka discussing her public activism and declaring, “I always had this pressure to maintain the squeaky image, but now I don’t care what anyone has to say.” Watch here

It’s time MLB celebrates Larry Doby Day, too. By Luke Epplin / Wash Post

Late in the afternoon on Independence Day of 1947, Larry Doby was waiting inside Newark’s Penn Station for an overnight journey that would alter the course of baseball history. Doby was 23, a soft-spoken, hard-hitting infielder with limited experience but unlimited potential. Only hours earlier, he’d played in his final game for the Newark Eagles, the reigning champions of baseball’s Negro Leagues. The following afternoon, on July 5, Doby would join the Cleveland Indians as the first Black player in the American League and the second overall in Major League Baseball that century, a mere 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson first took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Every April 15 since 2004, Major League Baseball has celebrated Jackie Robinson Day. It’s time it started celebrating Larry Doby Day, too. Read more

Simone Biles Is Redefining Female Power in Sports. By Lindsay Crouse / NYT

In a sport where you can begin to age out by the time you’re old enough to vote, she is 24 and at the top of her game. With that status, Biles is forging a new model for one of America’s most popular female sports — not as a prepubescent girl but as an athletic young woman. She isn’t just still good; she’s better than she’s ever been. And she appears to be having a great time. Read more

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Important Current Stories On Race In America

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