Featured
The Colorblind Campaign to Undo Civil Rights Progress. By Nicole Hannah-Jones / NYT
Anthony K. Wutoh, the provost of Howard University, was sitting at his desk last July when his phone rang. It was the new dean of the College of Medicine, and she was worried. She had received a letter from a conservative law group called the Liberty Justice Center. The letter warned that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions, the school “must cease” any practices or policies that included a “racial component” and said it was notifying medical schools across the country that they must eliminate “racial discrimination” in their admissions. If Howard refused to comply, the letter threatened, the organization would sue.
Those who believe in American democracy, who want equality, must no longer allow those who have undermined the idea of colorblindness to define the terms. Working toward racial justice is not just the moral thing to do, but it may also be the only means of preserving our democracy.
Race-based affirmative action has died. The fight for racial justice need not. It cannot. Must Read
Political / Social
Trump and Biden secure the presidential nominations for 2024. By Stephen Fowler / NPR
The general election rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Biden is now official.
Both men have now secured the required delegates to be their respective party’s nominee. Biden and Trump won nearly every contest in the presidential nominating calendar so far but the important threshold of winning a majority of delegates to the party conventions this summer has finally been met. Tuesday’s contests included primaries in Georgia, a key swing state for both parties, as well as Washington state and Mississippi. Read more
Biden Calls for Greater Support of HBCUs, HSIs, and MSIs. By Liann Herder / Diverse Issues in Higher Ed.
When President Biden addressed over 32 million viewers for the annual State of the Union (SOTU) last week, he used the occasion to issue a full throttle support for higher education. While speaking on his administration’s accomplishments in his last four years of service, Biden also addressed what he called “the future of possibilities we can build together.”
Biden has made access to affordable education a cornerstone of his presidential tenure, and he reinforced that position by calling for an increase in Pell Grants and a further increase in “our record investments in HBCUs [Historically Black Colleges and Universities] and Hispanic and Minority Serving Institutions [HSIs and MSIs].” Read more
Trump former advisers sound the alarm that he praises despots in private and on the campaign trail. By Jim Sciutto / CNN
To Donald Trump, Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán is “fantastic,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping is “brilliant,” North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is “an OK guy,” and, most alarmingly, he allegedly said Adolf Hitler “did some good things,” a worldview that would reverse decades-old US foreign policy in a second term should he win November’s presidential election, multiple former senior advisers told CNN.
The former president’s admiration for autocrats has been reported on before, but in comments by Trump recounted to me for my new book, “The Return of Great Powers,” out Tuesday, Kelly and others who served under Trump give new insight into why they warn that a man who consistently praises autocratic leaders opposed to US interests is ill-suited to lead the country. Read more
Related: For Trump’s sake, two GOP women go to war against their own sex. By Ruth Marcus / Wash Post
The GOP can’t leave MAGA — “Americans must electorally mercy-kill the Republican Party.” By Chauncey Devega / Salon
An ex-MAGA activist warns “no civic savior is coming” as Donald Trump’s cognitive decline becomes undeniable
In a series of recent conversations with me here at Salon, Dr. John Gartner, a prominent psychologist and contributor to the bestselling book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” has issued this warning: “Not enough people are sounding the alarm, that based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented. Read more
Related: ‘Make the RNC White Again’: GOP Ends Minority Outreach Program. By Roger Sollenberger / Daily Beast
For This Rookie Judge, a Pivotal Decision Looms in the Georgia Trump Case. Danny Hakim and
Judge Scott McAfee will soon decide whether to disqualify Fani Willis, the prosecutor leading the case, on the grounds that her romance with a subordinate created a conflict of interest.
Opinions differ, however, on whether her actions created a legitimate conflict of interest — and on whether even an appearance of a conflict is sufficient to disqualify the district attorney and her whole office. Read more
The Attack on IVF Is a Pandora’s Box for Black Families . By Margo Snipe / Capital B News
As the debate continues, “what we’re seeing again is extreme and cruel policies,” one doctor says.
Many Black families across the nation are struggling with infertility and reaching toward in vitro fertilization as a glimmer of hope. But in recent weeks, the battle over reproductive freedom has expanded beyond abortion access — now, IVF has become a point of controversy in some Republican-led states. Read more
Related: Why doctors still use race as a way to diagnose patients. By Gene Demby et. al. / NPR
Virginia bans legacy admissions. Maryland and Congress should follow. By the Editorial Board / Wash Post
Legacy admissions at state colleges might not be the most glaring way the government has promoted hereditary privilege. Yet the persistence of family preferences in vaunted educational institutions is still corrosive to the principle of meritocracy.
On Friday, Virginia became the latest state to prohibit its universities from providing any preferential treatment in admission decisions on the basis of an applicant’s familial relationship to alumni or donors. It should not be the last. Read more
Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge to depart Biden administration. By Brett Samuels / The Hill
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia Fudge will depart the Biden administration later this month, the White House announced Monday, making her just the second Biden Cabinet official to leave their post.
Fudge will leave her role March 22 as the White House gears up for a reelection bid. The 71-year-old told USA Today she plans to retire from public life. Read more
World News
As leader resigns, Haitian politicians rush to form new government. By Widlore Mérancourt , Samantha Schmidt, Michael Birnnaum and Amanda Coletta / Wash Post
Haitian leaders scrambled Tuesday to meet a 24-hour deadline to set up a panel that will lead the deteriorating country to new elections following the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Kenyan officials, meanwhile, said they were putting the deployment of a U.N.-approved multinational security force to the beleaguered Caribbean nation on pause until a new government is in place, according to media reports. A senior U.S. State Department official said the transitional presidential council would select an interim prime minister and government in “the very near future” and the mission should “go forward without delay.” Read more
Related: Haiti’s most notorious gang leader plots its future amid rebellion. By Matt Rivers / ABC News
Related : In Haiti, the toxic effects of apathy and naiveté. By Lee Hockstader / Wash Post
More Children Have Died In Gaza War Than Have Been Killed By Conflict Worldwide In 4 Years. By
“This war is a war on children,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said of Israel’s months-long offensive in the Palestinian territory. Image by NDTV
The current military offensive in Gaza began after Hamas militants launched a deadly attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 captive. Hamas released roughly half the hostages during a temporary pause in fighting late last year, and is estimated to still have about 100 captives who are still alive. Since the attack, Israeli forces have launched a massive military offensive on Gaza, displacing most of the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians, blocking humanitarian aid and killing an estimated 31,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Read more
Related: Rift between Biden and Netanyahu widens as Israeli leader vows to press on with Rafah operation. By
Chinese migration to US is nothing new – but the reasons for recent surge at Southern border are. By Merdith Oyen / The Conversation
While a record 2.5 million migrants were detained at the United States’ southwestern land border in 2023, only about 37,000 were from China.
I’m a scholar of migration and China. What I find most remarkable in these figures is the speed with which the number of Chinese migrants is growing. Nearly 10 times as many Chinese migrants crossed the southern border in 2023 as in 2022. In December 2023 alone, U.S. Border Patrol officials reported encounters with about 6,000 Chinese migrants, in contrast to the 900 they reported a year earlier in December 2022. Read more
Frantz Fanon’s Conflicted Vision for Decolonization. By Erik Linstrum / TNR
“The Wretched of the Earth” is perhaps best read today not as a playbook for revolt but as a conflicted reflection on it.
Decolonization for Fanon was a process of transforming dreams of mobility into reality. It was also, inevitably and not entirely regrettably, a violent process. The stark dichotomy of the colony—“a world cut in two,” between the tightly circumscribed zones of the colonizer and the colonized—was defended by force and could only be dismantled by force. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Experts Place New Secret Society Squarely In The Christian Nationalist Revival. By Josh Kovensky / TPM
A men-only, Christian-only, right-wing secret society with the aim of installing certain kinds of Christians in a future U.S. government does not want to be called Christian nationalist. US President Donald Trump awards the Claremont Institute, accepted by their president Ryan Williams, the National Humanities medal in the East room of the White House on November 21, 2019. (Photo by Andrew CABALLERO-)
The Society for American Civic Renewal asks prospective members to discuss “Christian nationalism” when interviewing them for admission, and defines itself in a mission statement obtained by TPM as believing in a form of Christianity “not blurred by modernist philosophies.” One of its objectives is to prepare members to run an “aligned regime” that the organization believes is coming. Read more
Related: The Terrifying Christian Nationalist Crusade to Conquer America. By Chris Lehmann / The Nation
Related: Latino evangelical support for Christian nationalism rises as Trump courts religious vote. By
Related: Supreme Court and religion: Judges put Christianity above other faiths. By Steve Kennedy / Slate
Christian Zionism Gone Crazy. By Roger E. Olson / Patheos
Recently I met a Christian man, an evangelical, who believes the State of Israel ought to commit genocide against Palestinians in “Greater Israel.”
He did not specify the precise boundaries of “Greater Israel,” but for him it definitely includes the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. According to him, and I’m sure he didn’t come up with this idea on his own, Joshua and the Israelites of old did not obey or complete the alleged mandate from Yahweh to kill all the inhabitants of Canaan. The time is now, he believes, for the Jews of Israel to finish the job. Read more
Why A White Christian Lying About Immigrants Is So Creepy. By Fred Clark / Patheos
So, OK, we need to talk about Katie Britt. The Republican junior senator from Alabama was tapped with giving her party’s official “response” to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and, basically, Katie Britt managed to creep out most of America.
She also lied. Aggressively. Katie Britt’s transparent lie was both hateful and nonsensical — a stupid story that forcefully suggests the opposite of the meaning assigned to it by Katie Britt and those she invited to be as willfully stupid, cruel, and dishonest as she was eager to be. But let’s start with the creepiness. Read more
Related: The pure emptiness of Katie Britt. By Lucian K. Truscott IV / Salon
Ramadan finds greater recognition in America’s public schools. By Amaarah DeCuir / The Conversation
Ramadan – the Islamic month of fasting – is expected to begin at sunset on March 10, 2024. The likely first day of fasting will be Monday, March 11. Amaarah DeCuir, who researches Muslim student experiences, offers insights into how public schools can move toward greater recognition of the sacred Islamic month.
There are 3.85 million Muslims in the United States. Of that number, 1.35 million are children. Although this may only represent a small portion of public school students nationwide – and many Muslim children attend private Islamic schools – Muslim students are a part of a 60% majority of students in public schools who say that religion is important in their lives. Read more
Historical / Cultural
A Bloody Retelling of ‘Huckleberry Finn.’ By Tyler Austin Harper / The Atlantic
Percival Everett transforms Mark Twain’s classic.
Percival everett’s new novel imagines Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Huck’s enslaved sidekick, Jim. But to call James a retelling would be an injustice. Everett sends Mark Twain’s classic through the looking glass. What emerges is no longer a children’s book, but a blood-soaked historical novel stripped of all ornament. James conjures a vision of the antebellum South as a scene of pervasive terror. Everett recognizes that American slavery’s true history is not revealed in the movements of great armies or the speeches of politicians. Its realities lie in the details of life lived under conditions of unceasing brutality—the omnipresent whip, the daily interplay of dread and panic, the rage that can find no outlet. Read more
‘Opera Has Never Been White’: The Invisible Legacy of Black Women in Classical Music. By Mariel Padilla / The 19th and Capital B
For hundreds of years, much of the repertoire of Black classical musicians and composers has been lost, hidden, or destroyed. Singer Marian Anderson and conductor Leopold Stokowski perform with the Westminster Choir for a Christmas film made for American military personnel stationed overseas in 1944. (Gado/Getty Images)
It was 1781 when a 14-year-old girl made her debut as an opera soloist in Saint-Domingue, the former French colony now called Haiti. She was a free person of color, the first person of African descent to star as the soloist in a French opera, and soon became the main female opera singer in Port-au-Prince. Yet, for the first four years of her career, she was only ever referred to as the “young person” in newspaper announcements. Read more
There Is Something Putin Can’t Control. By Joy Neumeyer / NYT
According to “The Master and Margarita,” Mikhail Bulgakov’s celebrated novel about the devil’s visit to Stalinist Moscow, “manuscripts don’t burn.” This famous phrase became a shorthand for art’s supposed ability to triumph over repression. Today, Bulgakov’s formula is being put to the test once again in Russia, where a new film adaptation of the book has caused a scandal.
But as “The Master and Margarita” shows — after decades of suppression and censorship, the book helped liberate readers’ imaginations and provide a touchstone for the reforming Soviet intelligentsia — power never totally succeeds in shaping art to its ends. Ahead of a presidential election expected to extend his tenure by six more years, Mr. Putin appears politically impregnable. Yet try all he might, he can’t control culture. Read more
Sports
The Wilt Chamberlain Conspiracy Theory and the ‘Presentism’ Trap. By David Head / The Bulwark
What to make of the fevered speculation that his 100-point single-game record is a lie
AFTER MORE THAN SIXTY YEARS, the late basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain still holds the NBA record for most points in a game: 100, posted in a March 2, 1962 contest between Chamberlain’s Philadelphia Warriors and the New York Knicks. That’s 19 more points than Kobe Bryant, in second place, ever registered in a single night. It’s 31 more than Michael Jordan’s highest single-game score, and 39 more than LeBron James’s or Shaquille O’Neal’s top scores. Despite being an easy stat to check—just look at the box score!—a corner of the sports social media world believes it didn’t happen. Read more
NAACP, DEI supporters call on Black athletes to avoid colleges in states with anti-DEI laws. By , / CNN
Black activists, political leaders and supporters of diversity, equity and inclusion programs are urging Black student athletes to boycott colleges and universities in states that have promoted or passed anti-DEI policies.
Their calls come as 81 anti-DEI bills that target programs at colleges have been introduced in 28 states and in Congress since the start of 2023, according to a tally by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Eight have been signed into law, in states, including Texas and Florida. Read more
Warriors’ Steph Curry open to political career after basketball. By Cydney Henderson / USA Today
Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry may have a future career path lined up after his trailblazing NBA career comes to an end. And it’s not in the broadcast booth.
While promoting his latest children’s book, “I Am Extraordinary,” Tuesday on CBS Mornings, national correspondent Jericka Duncan asked Curry if he would be open to a political career post-basketball. Curry, 35, didn’t rule it out. “Maybe, I have an interest in leveraging every part of my influence for good in the way that I can,” Curry said. “So, if that’s the way to do it, then – I’m not going to say the presidency but if politics is a way that you can create meaningful change, or if there’s another way outside of politics.” Read more
Russell Wilson over Justin Fields could be Steelers’ costly QB mistake. By Nate Davis / USA Today
Russell Wilson isn’t going to cost the Pittsburgh Steelers much … except maybe a bona fide opportunity at serious Super Bowl contention.
The news emerged late Sunday night that “Mr. Unlimited” was set to expand Pittsburgh’s depth chart later this week, once the Broncos make his release official. Per reports, the Steelers will essentially pay Wilson the veteran’s minimum ($1.2 million), while Denver kicks in roughly $38 million for him not to be in the Mile High City. Wilson seemed to confirm the development, posting on X, “Year 13. Grateful. @Steelers.” (Just wait until he learns “Here We Go, Steelers” is what gets the Steel City faithful fired up. Maybe he’ll even download a little Styx.) Read more
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