Featured
Book banning in the US: The authors of color censors are trying to silence. By Eliott C. McLauglin / CNN
Young adult authors of color are fed up with being targeted. They’re sick of seeing their books bogusly labeled “critical race theory” or “anti-police.” They’re incredulous at claims their words make kids uncomfortable. They’re done seeing their books challenged or banned over what they see as insincere claims about vulgarity, violence or sex. They’re exasperated with feeling singled out.
Groups that monitor censorship, including the ACLU, PEN America, American Library Association and the National Coalition Against Censorship, say it’s more than a feeling. Since the killing of George Floyd, a Black father, by a White police officer, experts see Black and brown authors increasingly becoming the quarry of would-be censors, they say. Read more
Political / Social
The Expansion of Democracy Is What Republican Elites Fear Most. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
Conventional wisdom says that the rule of the majority is in unavoidable tension with the rights of the minority.
The great genius of the American system, seen in this light, is that it tempers, restrains and moderates the majority for the sake of minority rights. To that end, our system makes it extremely difficult for a majority to control simultaneously all of the institutions it needs to carry out its preferences. Read more
America Needs to Examine Its Relationship to Black Suffering. By Savala Nolan / Time
People walking near the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and Riley Street attend a vigil across the street from Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, NY on May 17, 2022
It suddenly seemed less important to figure out why some images of Black suffering lead to justice (such as it is) and some don’t. It seemed, instead, necessary to sit with the disturbing fact that we are still, four hundred years into the American project, actively and purposefully watching Black people suffer and die. Is there a way out of this recursive nightmare? Read more
“This Is Racist Terrorism”: Ex-Buffalo Cop Says Gun Violence & White Supremacy Must Both Be Addressed. By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now
As President Biden calls on Congress to enact new gun control measures, we go to Buffalo to speak with Cariol Horne, a racial justice advocate and former Buffalo police officer. She says the nation must address white supremacy, as well as gun control, “This is racist terrorism. We have to call it what it is.” Horne also talks about how she was fired from the Buffalo police force for stopping a white officer from choking a Black man who was handcuffed. Read more
Related: Ben Crump calls for more accountability in Buffalo shooting. By Tori B. Powell / CBS News
What the shooting in Uvalde has meant for the Latino community. By Mary Louise Kelly, Alejandra Marquez Janse and Roberta Rampton / NPR
It’s been a little over a week since the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School. While the entire nation is reeling, the tragedy is hitting Latinos particularly hard, as they see the names and the photos of victims who look and sound like them. Read more
Related: Uvalde massacre is yet another shooting affecting Latinos — and spotlighting gun issues. By , and
What we know about the Tulsa mass shooting victims. By Emily Shapiro / ABC News
Four people, including two doctors, were killed at a medical facility.
Two doctors, an employee and a patient were gunned down at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical building on Wednesday after the gunman allegedly targeted his doctor, blaming him for pain. Here is what we know about the four people who died in America’s latest mass shooting. Read more
The prospect of more police at schools is no comfort for Black parents. By Caitlin Gibson and Clyde McGrady / Wash Post
As some propose arming teachers or increasing police presence on school campuses, parents of color see new threats.
In the aftermath of the rampage in Uvalde, Republican lawmakers have revived a familiar array of proposals: More police in schools. Increased patrols. “Hardened” campuses with more stringent security measures. Several conservative leaders, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, insist that arming teachers or school staff with guns might be the best way to guard against another mass shooting. But the implications of more police, or even the possibility of armed teachers, resonate differently for marginalized communities that already feel disproportionately targeted by law enforcement and school officials. Read more
More student or faculty diversity on campus leads to lower racial gaps in graduation rates. Nicolas A Bowman / The Conversation
College graduation gaps between Black and white students tend to shrink when there are more students of color or faculty of color on campus. This finding is based on analyses of 2,807 four-year U.S. colleges conducted by psychology researcher Nida Denson and me. Our research appeared as a peer-reviewed article in 2022 in Volume 93, Issue 3, of The Journal of Higher Education. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Minister Giving Sermon in Church
Clergy of color face unprecedented mental health challenges. By
Exhausted faith leaders are left with serious questions about how to care for their own physical and mental well-being while helping congregants in a meaningful way.
It is important to remember that “clergy are human beings,” said Bishop Vashti McKenzie, interim president and general secretary of the National Council of Churches and a retired African Methodist Episcopal leader. “When you add racial unrest on top of burying more congregants than you’ve ever had in your whole entire ministry,” on top of losing loved ones in one’s own family, it can all add up, McKenzie said. Read more
White Churches, It’s Time to Go Pro-Life on Guns. By Charlie Dates / Christianity Today
The Christian majority in America needs to shake off its malaise and work with Black pastors to end shooting violence.
Chicago might be a strange perch from which to write this appeal for gun reform. After all, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas recently invoked that well-established dog whistle and the refuge of Republican politicians and many of their Christian supporters: the deaths of Black kids due to gun violence in Chicago. For them, my city is proof positive that gun laws don’t work. But here I sit, as one of Chicago’s young pastors at one of its most historic Black churches, bidding for a favorable response from the larger, politically dominant, white evangelical denominations in America. Read more
White Christian Nationalism Is a ‘Threat to Democracy.’ By Sarah Jones / New York Magazine
Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry discuss their new book, The Flag and the Cross.
In The Flag and the Cross, their new book from Oxford University Press, white Christian nationalists undergo careful scrutiny. Combining research with data analysis, Gorski and Perry argue that white Christian nationalists share a set of common anti-democratic beliefs and principles. “These are beliefs that, we argue, reflect a desire to restore and privilege the myths, values, identity, and authority of a particular ethnocultural tribe,” they write. “These beliefs add up to a political vision that privileges the tribe. And they seek to put other tribes in their proper place.” Read more
Related: What Comes After the Religious Right? By Nate Hochman / NYT
Historical / Cultural
California Details Racist Past In Slave Reparations Report. By Janie Har / HuffPost
The 500-page report details California’s role in perpetuating discrimination against African Americans.
The slavery reparations movement hit a watershed moment Wednesday with the release of an exhaustive report detailing California’s role in perpetuating discrimination against African Americans, a major step toward educating the public and setting the stage for an official government apology and case for financial restitution. The 500-page document lays out the harms suffered by descendants of enslaved people long after slavery was abolished in the 19th century, through discriminatory laws and actions in all facets of life, from housing and education to employment and the legal system. Read more
Veterans of color on proposed ditching of Confederate names at 9 bases. Tiffany Cusaac-Smith / USA Today
As a young military service member, Richard Kingsberry said he wasn’t aware that two of the bases where he served had been named after Confederate leaders Braxton Bragg and Robert E. Lee. That realization would happen later, but it helped sparked him to join the effort to see names on military boats, installations and other places removed, saying that they sent the wrong message about the nation’s history and ideals. Read more
Resurrecting Shirley Chisholm from Symbol to Life. By Anastasia Curwood / AAIHS
I will admit some naïveté in beginning such a project. I thought it would take less than half the time it eventually did to write Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics. I thought it would be a relatively simple process of consulting congressional and personal papers and then crafting a coherent narrative of cradle to grave. I realized I would have to pay attention to the recovery process of determining the details of Chisholm’s life, but I did not initially reckon with the challenges of interpreting that life. And that is a good thing, because I might have been too intimidated to start the project at all. Read more
Race Against Time | Book by Jerry Mitchell / Simon & Schuster
“For almost two decades, investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell doggedly pursued the Klansmen responsible for some of the most notorious murders of the civil rights movement. This book is his amazing story. Thanks to him, and to courageous prosecutors, witnesses, and FBI agents, justice finally prevailed.” —John Grisham, author of The Guardians. Read more
‘The Wire’ at 20: ‘This Show Will Live Forever.” By Jonathan Abrams / NYT
David Simon and Ed Burns discuss the legacy of their seminal crime drama, and why the systemic decay it depicted has become only more profound.
Two decades ago, Simon, a former cops reporter at The Baltimore Sun, joined Ed Burns, a retired Baltimore homicide detective and public-school teacher, to create HBO’s “The Wire.” Fictitious but sourced from the Baltimore that Simon and Burns inhabited, “The Wire,” which premiered on June 2, 2002, introduced a legion of unforgettable characters like the gun-toting, code-abiding Omar Little (played by the late Michael K. Williams) and the gangster with higher aspirations, Stringer Bell (Idris Elba). Read more
At Buffalo Thunder ride, reflection on Black history and service. By Luz Lazo / Wash Post
After two years of a pandemic pause, hundreds of Black motorcyclists returned to Washington for the annual Memorial Day tribute to the post-Civil War, all-Black regiments of the Army, known as Buffalo Soldiers, as well as all people of color who gave their lives for American freedom. On Sunday, about 400 Buffalo Thunder riders from across the country, many from as far as Florida and Idaho, rode from a Landover, Md., church parking lot to the African American Civil War Memorial at U Street, passing waving crowds along the 14-mile route. Read more
Sports
‘I don’t understand what took so long’: Black men now half of the NBA’s head coaches. By Marc J. Spears / Andscape
The NBA currently has a league-record 15 Black head coaches among 30 teams after the recent hiring of Darvin Ham by the Los Angeles Lakers, with the Charlotte Hornets yet to fill their coaching vacancy. The NBA’s diversity in its head coaches is in stark contrast with the NFL, college football and college basketball, and stunning considering the predominantly Black NBA had just seven African American head coaches at the end of the 2020-21 season. Read more
Related: NBA Marks Transformative Year For Diversity Among Coaches As Finals Begin. By Ap and HuffPost
LeBron James is now a billionaire. By Jordan Valinsky / CNN
LeBron James is a billionaire, marking the first time an active NBA player has achieved that milestone, according to one calculation. Forbes said that the Los Angeles Lakers star has “maximized his business,” generating more than $1.2 billion in pretax earnings. His NBA salary from three different teams during the past 19 years has amounted to $383 million, and James has “raked in upwards of $900 million in income from endorsements and other business ventures,” the magazine said. Read more
The Dodgers Embrace the Family of a Player They Once Shunned. By Scott Miller / NYT
At Pride Night, Los Angeles will celebrate the life of Glenn Burke, M.L.B.’s first openly gay player. His family will be there hoping the honor makes Burke “partially whole.”
The life and times of Glenn Burke are too big to squeeze into one night, but the Los Angeles Dodgers are finally giving it their best shot. In staging their ninth annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night, they will celebrate their former outfielder — and the first major leaguer to have come out as gay — on Friday during their series with the Mets. Call it closing the circle 44 years later. Call it righting a wrong after they drove him out of town in 1978. Read more
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