Feature – The NRA, Gun Control and Black People: A Complicated History. Black people, the NRA and gun control share a complicated history, from the drafting of the Second Amendment and the establishment of the slave patrols, to the organization’s past opposition to arming Black people, to present-day support for stand your ground laws. Read more 

The Right Can’t Fight the Future. Going backward, to a world without ambiguity on race, gender and work is a powerfully attractive idea, particularly for those who fear losing their cultural and social hegemony as the nation browns, and their economic ascendancy as technology creates new industries they scarcely understand. Read more 

Oscar-nominated film about Emmett Till contemplates how racial terror affects those left behind. The film looks at the day Till was kidnapped from the viewpoint of his uncle, Mose Wright, the relative Till was visiting in Mississippi in the summer of 1955. Read a review.

The Black Director Who Should Have Won an Oscar. The grandson of slaves, Oscar Micheaux made 44 movies, becoming the “Cecil B. De Mille of Race Movies,” and the “Czar of Black Hollywood,” inspired by that obnoxiously racist film from 1915: Birth of a Nation. Read more 

News flash! The Oscars are still so white. Just take a look at the most excluded group. After the #OscarsSoWhite outcry, we’re seeing glimmers of hope in Hollywood — with black actors, writers and directors nominated in multiple categories this year. But when it comes to Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans, the Academy Awards still have a long way to go to flip the script. Read more 
The blurring of racial lines won’t save America. Why ‘racial fluidity’ is a con. Johnny Otis with his band. Otis was born white but chose to be black. He was a pioneer in what people now call “racial fluidity.” It’s the belief that race, like gender, is a choice, not a biological identity you’re assigned at birth. Read more 

Some of those hit hardest by the opioid epidemic are not rural, white Americans. A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention breakdown revealed that the death rate from opioids is rising most steeply among black Americans, particularly in urban areas. Read more 

White Families Are Engines Of Inequality. The truth is that white families took advantage ― and continue to take advantage ― of racist housing policies and pass the resulting equity on to their (presumably white) children. Read more 

A Dozen Democrats Want To Help Banks Hide Racial Discrimination In Mortgages. The Senate is set to vote on a Kaine-sponsored bill that deliberately undermines the government’s ability to enforce laws against racial discrimination in the housing market. Read more 

Trump’s EPA Concludes Environmental Racism Is Real. A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency finds that people of color are much more likely to live near polluters and breathe polluted air—even as the agency seeks to roll back regulations on pollution. Read more 

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