Featured
Why are Jews afraid? By Jeffrey Salkin / Religion News Service
President Joe Biden, left, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., stand to honor the memory of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust during the annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, at the Capitol in Washington, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“I don’t know a single Jewish person who hasn’t at one point asked: ‘Which one of my friends who aren’t Jewish would hide me?’” Do I ask that question? No. Not yet.
But, in truth, yes: American Jews have every reason to worry. What scares me?
I am afraid that a Donald Trump victory will empower gangs of right-wing militants, Christian nationalists and white supremacists. I am afraid that regardless of the election outcome (which Trump himself has said he might not accept), his more radical and violent supporters will take to the streets. I believe they will attack visible Jewish targets — both institutions and people. Read more
Related: Is the golden age of American Jews really ending? By Mark Silk / RNS
Related: Biden’s Holocaust speech highlights antisemitism’s threat to democracy. By Jenifer Rubin / Wash Post
Related: The Wrong Way to Fight Anti-Semitism on Campus. By Conor Friedersdorf / The Atlantic
Political / Social
Trump trial delays bring focus to crucial Supreme Court case. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
The Supreme Court is preparing to make Donald Trump a de facto dictator
The mainstream news media’s obsession with the hush-money trial is committing the error of mostly ignoring Donald Trump’s attempts to convince the United States Supreme Court that he is basically a king and above the law because of “presidential immunity.” The court’s right-wing justices – three of whom were appointed by Donald Trump – appear likely to grant, in part or in whole, Trump’s demand for nearly unlimited power and by doing so to fundamentally betray the Constitution and American democracy. Read more
Related: The Supreme Court’s Republican bias hangs over the Trump immunity case. By E.J. Dionne / Wash Post
Related: Supreme Court Justice Thomas decries ‘nastiness’ and ‘lies’ against him. By AP and NPR
The GOP Campaign to Sow Chaos at the Ballot Box Has Already Begun. By Elie Mystal / The Nation (Image New Yorker)
A new lawsuit filed against the state of Nevada by the Trump team and its friends in the RNC says a lot about how they plan to suppress the vote in November.
The lawsuit is one of several Trump and his cultists have brought—and one of many more they intend to bring—either attacking mail-in voting or trying to get voters kicked off of registration rolls. The lawsuits are their attempt to do everything they can to prevent people from voting, because, as January 6 reminded them, suppressing the vote is easier than stealing votes after the fact. Read more
Why It’s So Hard to Change Minds About DEI. By Ilana Redstone / Chronicle of Higher Ed.
Nationwide, bills that would restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in some way have been introduced in more than two dozen states since 2023.
Conservatives have long seen higher education as a place where students are taught to see the world through a left-leaning lens. They see students as being indoctrinated with a worldview that leads to the unavoidable conclusion that Republicans are backward and racist and that Democrats in general, and progressives in particular, can alone claim the moral high ground. To many on the right, the legislative measures are a long-overdue course correction for an institution whose politics have become deeply one-sided. Read more
Related: Ackman Scolded Over DEI Views at Closed-Door Milken Session. By Simone Foxman / Bloomberg
Trump Judge McAfee and Georgia DA Fani Willis are also campaigning for reelection too. By Sam Gringlas
Trump is not the only key player in the Georgia election interference case facing voters this year. The top prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is on the ballot. And so is the judge.
“It’s this unprecedented and bizarre confluence of the prosecutor, the judge and one of the defendants all on the ballot,” says veteran Fulton Superior Judge Robert McBurney, who supervised the special grand jury requested by Willis to investigate Trump and his future co-defendants. “It highlights the tension between wanting to have apolitical judges and yet putting them on ballots.” Read more
Why So Many Democrats Are Rooting For Harry Dunn. By Brian Bennett / Time
Harry Dunn’s body was bruised and his Capitol Police uniform soaked with sweat and pepper spray when he got home on Jan. 6, 2021. He’d spent the day grappling with Donald Trump supporters charging into the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s win, absorbing body blows and racist jeers directed at him.
Now Dunn’s running for Congress in Maryland’s 3rd district, representing a ribbon of commuter towns running between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Senior Democratic leaders have rallied around his candidacy, seeing Dunn as a forceful national voice who can help energize voters about the threats to democracy. Read more
Body cam footage of Roger Fortson’s Florida shooting raises questions. By Tom McLaughlin, Collin Bestor, Gabe Hauari and James Powel / USA Today
An active-duty U.S. airman was shot and killed during a deputy-involved shooting on May 3.
Roger Fortson, 23, was shot and killed by an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s deputy when, according to the department, the deputy was responding to “a disturbance in progress.” The Fortson family retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump who has accused the department of covering up misconduct in the aftermath of the shooting. “The circumstances surrounding Roger’s death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially considering the alarming witness statement that the police entered the wrong apartment,” Crump said in a statement on Wednesday. Read more
As mental health issues plague community, Asian Americans fight stigma. By Marc Ramirez / USA Today
Nationwide, pandemic-related isolation, anti-Asian rhetoric and abuse – along with mass shootings that claimed Asian victims in Atlanta and California – have exacerbated the mental health challengesfaced by Asian Americans in the last several years.
Meanwhile, studies show Asian Americans are least likely to seek mental health services, partly because of the cultural stigma that exists around seeking such help. Read more
Why Antiwar Protests Haven’t Flared Up at Black Colleges Like Morehouse. Maya King and
The White House appears anxious about President Biden’s coming speech at Morehouse College. But for complex reasons, such campuses have had far less visible Gaza tensions.
While anger over the war remains palpable at Morehouse and other historically Black colleges and universities, these campuses have been largely free of turmoil, and tensions are far less evident: no encampments, few loud protests and little sign of Palestinian flags flying from dorm windows. The reasons stem from political, cultural and socioeconomic differences with other institutions of higher learning. While H.B.C.U.s host a range of political views, domestic concerns tend to outweigh foreign policy in the minds of most students. Many started lower on the economic ladder and are more intently focused on their education and their job prospects after graduation. Read more
A Plan to Help Harlem Students Build Wealth: Start Them Off With $10,000.
A New York City nonprofit group, flush with millions in private capital, is piloting a first-of-its-kind savings program to address the racial wealth gap — by giving thousands of students in Harlem $10,000 each to invest. The Harlem Children’s Zone, an influential anti-poverty organization, said it is raising $300 million for an initiative called Wealth Builds that will launch in Upper Manhattan, where the group operates, and expand to 10 other cities, including Atlanta and Minneapolis. A kindergartner enrolled this year in the program could expect the $10,000 allotment, which will be controlled by professional money managers, to accrue interest of about 5 percent a year, Mr. Owusu-Kesse said. At the age of 25, the student could have roughly $26,000 in savings. Read more
Biden’s Public Ultimatum to Bibi. By Susan B. Glasser / The New Yorker
A hostage and ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel is “not dead,” a senior U.S. official says, but only if Netanyahu holds off on invading Rafah.
Biden insisted that the U.S. would continue to help Israel secure itself from external threats, but he laid down what appeared to be an uncrossable line for the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “If they go into Rafah,” the President told CNN’s Erin Burnett, “I’m not supplying the weapons.” His decision amounts to the most high-profile example in decades of a U.S. President publicly imposing such limits on American military assistance to Israel, and it came accompanied by a stark rebuke of how Israel has treated Palestinian civilians. “It’s just wrong,” Biden said. Read more
Related: Turning Point or Breaking Point? Biden’s Pause on Weapons Tests Ties to Israel. By Peter Baker / NYT
Under Putin, a militarized new Russia rises to challenge U.S. and the West. By Robyn Dixon / Wash Post
As Vladimir Putin persists in his bloody campaign to conquer Ukraine, the Russian leader is directing an equally momentous transformation at home — re-engineering his country into a regressive, militarized society that views the West as its mortal enemy.
Putin’s inauguration on Tuesday for a fifth term will not only mark his 25-year-long grip on power but also showcase Russia’s shift into what pro-Kremlin commentators call a “revolutionary power,” set on upending the global order, making its own rules, and demanding that totalitarian autocracy be respected as a legitimate alternative to democracy in a world redivided by big powers into spheres of influence. Read more
Reflections on Thirty Years of Democracy in South Africa. By Amanda Joyce Hall / AAIHS
International Conference Against Apartheid, January 1986 (Digital Public Library of America)
The essays featured in the roundtable on Black Perspectives have illuminated some of the many fruitful and exciting directions of anti-apartheid scholarship centered on the 30th anniversary of South Africa’s first democratic elections. The end of apartheid had local and international implications, especially for continental and diasporic Africans, so it is fitting for Black Perspectives and AAIHS to devise a roundtable on this important event, the legacies of which scholars are still grappling to understand. Read more
Elon Musk’s Diplomacy: Woo Right-Wing World Leaders. Then Benefit. Ryan Mac, Jack Nicas and
Mr. Musk has built a constellation of like-minded heads of state — including Argentina’s Javier Milei and India’s Narendra Modi — to push his own politics and expand his business empire.
Mr. Musk, 52, has repeatedly used one piece of his business empire — X, formerly known as Twitter — to vocally support politicians like Mr. Milei, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Narendra Modi of India. On the platform, Mr. Musk has backed their views on gender, feted their opposition to socialism and aggressively confronted their enemies. Mr. Musk even personally intervened in X’s content policies in ways that appeared to aid Mr. Bolsonaro, two former X employees said. Read more
Related: I Read Everything Elon Musk Posted for a Week. Send Help. By Tim Murphy / Mother Jones
Related: Why Black Twitter Isn’t Fleeing Elon Musk’s X. By Brian Stelter / Vanity Fair
Haitian aid workers worry American Christian donors could worsen crisis. By Fiona Andre’ / RNS
As the security crisis in Haiti continues, the humanitarian aid group Haiti Family Care Network is urging U.S. Christian donors to refrain from worsening the situation by donating to orphanages and to redirect their efforts instead toward initiatives helping parents support their children.
“There are actually better ways to care for the needs of children than building and supporting orphanages,” said Heather Nozea, chair of the network. Read more
India’s Hindu nationalist regime is a threat to Muslims — and bad news for the U.S. By Rasheed Ahmed / Salon
Narendra Modi’s likely election victory will mean worsening violence and repression — and not just in India
Americans should be aware that the spread of such ideas is much more than a faraway event in a remote country. When BJP leaders call for violence against religious minorities, the India-based relatives of American families are endangered. When Indian Americans raise millions of dollars for Modi and the BJP, and advocate for their policies in the halls of Congress, it helps to legitimize an authoritarian regime. This regime targets U.S. citizens and Indians alike. What goes on there has a profound impact on what goes on here — and vice versa. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
NY mayor hails Pope Francis as global ‘influencer’ ahead of Vatican meeting. By Christopher White / NCR
Ahead of meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican this weekend, New York’s Mayor Eric Adams hailed the pontiff as a global “influencer” and one of the few world leaders to help lead during “dark times”
The mayor is here in Rome to participate in the World Meeting on Human Fraternity, which is taking place May 10-11 and bringing together some 30 Nobel Peace Prize winners to dialogue with political leaders, community organizers, scientists, economists and others, in hopes of deepening social bonds. While Adams is not Catholic, he identifies as a Christian and told NCR that he was recently baptized again “to recommit myself to my faith and recommit myself to the work that is needed.” Read more
How to Create a Society That Prizes Decency. By David Brooks / NYT
The pain in America resides in places deeper than economic policies can reach. So how can we create a society in which it is easier to be decent to one another?
To answer that question, I returned to Howard Thurman’s magnificent 1949 book, “Jesus and the Disinherited.” Thurman, a Black theologian, was a contemporary of Martin Luther King Sr., at Morehouse and had a strong influence on the activism of his son Martin Luther King Jr. Read more
Trump, Evangelicals, and the Dance of Hypocrisy. By Stuart Delony / Patheos
In the ever-shifting sands of American evangelical ideology, one might expect biblical teachings on morality and ethics to serve as guiding principles in shaping political allegiances. However, recent history unveils a starkly different narrative—one where moral relativism reigns supreme, and the highest bidder for power is crowned king, regardless of their ethical bearings.
Enter the Orange Messiah, Donald J. Trump, the unlikely darling of the evangelical world. Despite a laundry list of ethical and moral failings, Trump has been embraced with open arms by evangelical leaders and followers alike. From boasting about grabbing women “by the pussy” to alleged hush money payments to porn stars, Trump’s track record reads like a manual on how not to embody Christian values while exploiting the faithful. Read more
Aren’t Jesus Teachings Considered “Woke.” By SBM / Daily Kos
Woke nowadays refers to being aware or well informed in a political or cultural sense, especially regarding issues surrounding marginalized communities – it describes someone who has “woken up” to issues of social injustice.
Ron Desantis and the GOP call anyone Woke who: reads books instead of banning them, embraces science, is willing to change their minds when new information becomes available, believes in true equality for all people (isn’t this in the Declaration of Independence??), respects others’ rights, believes culture and the arts have value, and you care about the planet and all of its life. These are just some of the values of thinking and living a Woke life day to day. Isn’t Jesus Christ the epitome of WOKE then! Read more
Historical / Cultural
First free Black settlement in U.S., long buried, is being resurrected. By Sarah Enelow-Snyder / Wash Post
Fort Mose was first built in 1752 in Spanish St. Augustine, Fla. A life-size reproduction will soon open. A historical reenactment of the Fort Mose militia in 2021. (Florida State Parks
The Black Town Under Lake Martin: A Father & Son’s Dream Of Greatness. By Bilal G. Morris / Newsone
Benson’s town and the Kowaliga school was an amazing display of fortitude and perseverance, but it didn’t last forever. America’s evolution swallowed so much Black history in this country. Alabama Power Company began construction on the Martin Dam in 1923. Once completed in 1926, the dam created heavy upstream flooding that sunk the town of Benson, Sousanna, and some Native American lands. Read more
Virginia school board votes to restore Confederate names to two schools. By Nicole Chavez / CNN
School board members in Virginia’s Shenandoah County voted early Friday to restore the names of two schools that previously honored Confederate leaders – nearly four years after a decision was made to change them.
The 5-1 vote the school board decided to reinstate the names Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby Lee Elementary School. The names honor Confederate Gens. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby. Read more
Schools are More Segregated than 30 Years Ago. But How Much? By Kevin Mahnken / The 74
Racial segregation in classrooms edged upward over the past three decades, according to the work of two prominent sociologists. Across America’s largest school districts, the expansion of school choice and the winding down of court-mandated desegregation decrees have resulted in white students being more racially isolated from their non-white peers, the authors find.
Timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education to end legal segregation in public schools, the research offers further evidence that integration hit its peak during the 1980s, only to recede somewhat in the time since. But it also poses questions about the true scale of that backsliding nationally, as well as the solutions that could be reasonably embraced to counter it. Read more
The Freedom to Dominate. By Erin R. Pineda / Dissent
The intimate connections between freedom, domination, and whiteness have long shaped political life in the United States. Alabama Governor and presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972 (Bettmann/Getty Images)
This entanglement has produced a notion of freedom that does not entail the absence of constraint nor self-rule, but instead white racial entitlement to seize and dominate the land, labor, and bodies of others—“ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!” as W.E.B. Du Bois succinctly put it in 1920. It is the same entanglement that enabled the authors of the Declaration of Independence to conjoin their “self-evident truths” to a complaint against “the merciless Indian Savages” whose lands they desired to seize without royal restraint, or to agitate for freedom from a tyranny they likened to slavery while nevertheless reserving the right to tyrannize and enslave. This “white freedom” is the subject of Jefferson Cowie’s Pulitzer Prize–winning history, Freedom’s Dominion. Read more
Algenon Marbley, Southern District of Ohio’s first Black chief judge. The Columbus Dispatch
When President Bill Clinton nominated Marbley in 1997 to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Marbley was only the second African American judge in the district. In 2019, he became the first African American to serve as chief judge for the district. Read more
Charlamagne Tha God Won’t Take Sides. By Lulu Garcia-Navarro / NYT
Charlamagne Tha God calls himself an entertainer. He’s a comedian, a media personality and an author. (He has written two best sellers about his life and struggles with anxiety. This month he is publishing a new book, “Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks.”) But it’s as the co-host of the wildly popular hip-hop morning radio show “The Breakfast Club” that Charlamagne — born Lenard McKelvey — has become more than a performer: He’s a political force.
When we spoke last month, we talked about his personal politics and whether Black men will really move toward Trump (he’s not buying it). But we began the first of our two conversations discussing his recent stint guest-hosting “The Daily Show,” on which he used one of his monologues to blast corporate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and got a lot of love from conservative media for it. Read more
‘The Jazzmen’ changed America—and were exploited due to race. By Larry Tye / Fortune
Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie transformed America with their music—and were financially exploited because of their race
To see the degradations of Jim Crow in mid-century America, you only had to look at a lunch counter or the inside of a bus or a voting booth. But the financial impact of that brutal double standard was more subtle and more difficult to measure. The money troubles of Willam James “Count” Basie, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong made for ideal bellwethers, and are worth a fresh look as the world celebrates Duke’s 125th birthday, the Count’s 120th, and the near-100th of Satchmo’s genre-defining Hot Five recordings. Read more
Sports
Shai, Shaq and Shannon: How Jokić’s MVP announcement led to new beef. By Alex Andrejev /The Athletic
Shaquille O’Neal and Shannon Sharpe are known for sharing their opinions, and their comments clashed this week as they exchanged barbs after Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokić won his latest NBA MVP trophy Wednesday. An all-out feud between the sports personalities has since ensued.
O’Neal, while interviewing Jokić on TNT after the award announcement, said he thought Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander should have won the honor, prompting criticism from Sharpe. Read more
Everyone Is Going Wild Over Racy Photos Of WNBA Star Angel Reese Posing For Khloe Kardashian’s Denim Campaign. By
Angel Reese landed her first fashion campaign after being selected in the WNBA Draft. Following her Met Gala appearance, basketball sensation Angel Reese has earned a commercial for Khloé Kardashian’s Good American brand.
Reese, who has previously declared herself to be a woman who can achieve anything she sets her mind to, has now proven it by being chosen by Khloé Kardashian to model the newest release: longer inseam sizes designed for tall ladies. Who better than the recently drafted Chicago Sky athlete, who is 6 feet, 3 inches tall. Read more
Ben Shelton interview: The American tennis star who wants to be different. By Matthew Futterman / The Athletic
“I wanted to be a little bit different from anyone else,” Ben Shelton said recently in Madrid.
He was actually talking about his decision last year to sign a major deal with the small-but-growing Swiss shoe and apparel manufacturer On, rather than pursuing a certain American behemoth with a famous swoosh. (More on that in a bit.) The Floridian was in the early days of a three-month sojourn in Europe that will last as long as he does at Wimbledon, which ends in mid-July. Read more
The former Denver Bronco who bought a pub in England – and saw his world implode. By Sarah Shephard / The Athletic
Instead of being the beating heart of a community, The Carington Arms is at the centre of a bitter legal dispute. On one side, the pub’s owner, the Ashby Folville Land Trust (AFLT), led by Alex Stroud, a descendent of the Smith-Carington family who once owned the whole village, which claims it is owed thousands in unpaid rent and now has a court order allowing it to repossess the pub and recover the money.
On the other, the landlord, Lorne Sam, a former American footballer who claims he has been discriminated against because “I’m different. And the difference is that I’m American and I’m Black”. Read more
Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders ‘could be the first pick’ of the 2025 draft. By Jason La Canfora / Wash Post
The 2024 quarterback draft class was as historic as some expected, and its unprecedented nature — with six of the first 12 selections spent on passers — has already focused attention in scouting circles on next year’s options.
Specifically, there was plenty of chatter after this NFL draft about Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, son of Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders, who also serves as his bombastic coach with the Buffaloes. Opinions vary, at least to some degree, about where Sanders would have slotted among his peers this spring had he left school to enter the pro fray. Read more
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