Featured
“Thomasine & Bushrod” Is a Blaxploitation Western That You Need to Stream. By Richard Brody / The New Yorker
Gordon Parks, Jr.,’s deft, exuberant film revises Western conventions in light of the experience of its Black protagonists.
“Thomasine & Bushrod” (which is streaming on the Criterion Channel, Tubi, Prime Video, and many other services) is set on the brink of modernity—in Texas, in 1911—and the brink of the mythologizing of the West in movies themselves. Its protagonists are young, Black, and hip, leaping out from the historical framework with their bearing, their daring, and their sense of style. Thomasine (Vonetta McGee) is a bounty hunter who captures her prey—white men—with expert marksmanship and keen erotic wiles. H. P. Bushrod (Max Julien, who also wrote the script and co-produced the film) is a cowboy and an escapee from jail who’s on a mission: to avenge the killing of his sister by a psychopathic white bank robber, Adolph (yes) Smith (Jackson D. Kane). Read more
Political / Social
The Buffalo supermarket shooting suspect posted an apparent manifesto repeatedly citing ‘Great Replacement’ theory. By Ben Collins / NBC News
The manifesto includes dozens of pages of antisemitic and racist memes, repeatedly citing the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory frequently pushed by white supremacists.
A manifesto allegedly written and posted by the suspect in a mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket that killed 10 people laid out specific plans to attack Black people and repeatedly cited the “great replacement” theory, the false idea that a cabal is attempting to replace white Americans with nonwhite people through immigration, interracial marriage and, eventually, violence. The manifesto, which appears to have been written by 18-year-old Payton Gendron, included a shared birth date and biographical details with the suspect in custody. The PDF was originally posted to Google Docs at 8:55 p.m. Thursday, two days before the shooting, according to file data accessed by NBC News. Read more
Justice Thomas Should Take a Long Look in the Mirror. By Jesse Wegman / NYT
Thanks to the unparalleled position of power he has held for three decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — perhaps the most distinctive voice in an institution that has the final say over many of the nation’s most fraught debates — has long enjoyed the luxury of knowing that 330 million Americans are bound to listen to him. The question is, does he ever listen to himself? Read more
Related: Brother Thomas, why are you such a hater? By Juanita Tolliver / The Grio
Related: Justice Clarence Thomas says abortion leak has changed Supreme Court. By AP and NBC News
The fall of Roe v. Wade will only embolden the fascists: How will America respond? By Chauncey Devega / Salon
This decision signals that “democratic norms” are gone, and old-style politics is useless. So what can we do?
As we now know from the draft Supreme Court opinion recently published by Politico, the end of Roe v. Wade is upon us, and abortion rights as a matter of constitutional law will no longer exist in the United States. The fall of Roe is a huge step forward in the much larger attack on human and civil rights in America by the Republican fascists, the “conservative” movement and the larger white right. Many Americans now find themselves trapped in the very nightmare whose existence they spent years denying. Read more
Related: Abortion rights and adoption: Adoptees criticize Supreme Court draft. By Grace Hauck / USA Today
1 million COVID-19 deaths: A hard-hit Georgia County reckons with loss. By Nada Hassanein / USA Today
As the U.S. reaches the grim milestone of 1 million COVID-19 deaths, few places in the country have seen as much loss as north central Georgia’s majority-Black Hancock County. The death rate here is the nation’s fourth-highest, 3.5 times the U.S rate. About one in every 100 people have died in the sprawling county dotted with abandoned brick buildings, pastures, kitchen gardens and family cemetery plots. Among the county’s 8,600 residents – a quarter of whom are 65 or older and most likely to die of COVID-19 – whole families are gone. For congregants of the many tight-knit church communities, the deaths are intimate. Everyone knows someone who has died or has lost a loved one themselves. Read more
Related: How 2 New Jersey towns illustrated persistent race gap in the COVID pandemic.
Asian American groups to march for racial justice at National Mall next month. By Brahmjot Kaur / NBC News
“The goal is to galvanize Asian Americans and allies across multiple issues, and educate folks about the issues that our communities face,” one organizer said.
A coalition of more than 50 Asian American nonprofit organizations announced Thursday a multicultural march to be held on the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., over the summer. The event on June 25 will call for greater civic participation within the community, and racial and economic justice. Read more
US schools are not racially integrated, despite decades of effort. By Pedro A. Noguera / The Conversation
Nearly seven decades after the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the court’s declared goal of integrated education is still not yet achieved. American society continues to grow more racially and ethnically diverse. But many of the nation’s public K-12 schools are not well integrated and are instead predominantly attended by students of one race or another. Read more
Legal weed is booming in Detroit’s suburbs — but the city is left out. By Erin Einhorn / NBC News
While legal marijuana businesses thrive in Detroit’s suburbs, the city has not yet allowed any recreational cannabis shops to open.
When Michigan legalized recreational marijuana, Detroit’s leaders set out to ensure that the city’s residents could share in the profits. They passed one of the nation’s most ambitious “social equity” laws, intended to help the Black and Hispanic communities that paid the steepest price from the war on drugs participate in the lucrative industry. But more than two years after legalization in Michigan, even as marijuana entrepreneurs are thriving in Detroit’s suburbs, the city itself has become a cannabis dead zone. Its first recreational marijuana law was blocked last year by a federal judge over a provision that set aside licenses for longtime Detroiters. A second law, enacted last month, was hit this week by another lawsuit, throwing its future into question. Read more
Dr. Jelani Cobb Named Dean of Columbia Journalism School. By Rebecca Kelliher / Diverse Issues in Higher Education
Renowned journalist Dr. Jelani Cobb will be the next dean of Columbia Journalism School, effective August 1. Cobb is currently the Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism and director of the Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights at Columbia. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
White nationalists get religion: On the far-right fringe, Catholics and racists forge a movement. By Kathryn Joyce and Ben Lorber / Salon
Nick Fuentes’ racist “groyper” movement is building a coalition with far-right Catholics. They have a plan
In post-Trump America, white nationalists and Christian nationalists are putting their differences aside in a push to roll back abortion rights and enshrine white Christian dominance. “We are the right-wing flank of the Republican Party,” said Nick Fuentes last year. “We have got to drag … these people kicking and screaming into the future … into a truly reactionary party.” Read more
Why some Black churches aren’t elated about the possible end of Roe. Clyde McGrady and Lateshia Beachum / Wash Post
While many conservative White evangelicals rejoiced after the draft opinion was revealed, the reception in Black churches has often been more complicated. Some leaders of Black churches say they can’t help viewing the debate through a racial lens: Black women are more likely to have abortions, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data, while government reports show they are also three times as likely as White women to die of pregnancy complications. Read more
Report: Christians May Have Helped Run Half of Native American Boarding Schools. By Emily McFarlan Miller / Christianity Today
The United States operated 408 boarding schools for indigenous children across 37 states or then-territories between 1819 and 1969 — half of them likely supported by religious institutions. That’s according to the first volume of an investigative report into the country’s Indian boarding school system that was released Wednesday by the US Department of the Interior. Read more
Related: Nick Estes: Indian Boarding Schools Were Part of “Horrific Genocidal Process” Carried Out by the U.S. By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now
The new language of love. By Gail Strange / Presbyterian Today
Many of these words and phrases that have the ability to cause so much pain have origins that are deeply rooted in racism and gender inequality. Such words and phrases, many of which have been around for centuries, have been so incorporated into the language we use on a daily basis that many times those who speak them are oblivious to the words’ true meanings or hurtful origins. Read more
Historical /Cultural
Vital, challenging film tackles America’s original sin. By Chris Byrd / NCR
Jefferey Robinson, Jesuit educated at Marquette University and a Harvard Law School graduate, grew angry and felt ignorant when he “started learning stuff about the history of race in America I had never heard before.” He compiled what he discovered into a persuasive, comprehensive and authoritative presentation on anti-Black racism. The documentary, “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America,” revolves around a Juneteenth talk Robinson gave June 19, 2018, at New York’s venerable Town Hall. Read more
John Canley, awarded Medal of Honor 50 years after Tet Offensive, dies at 84. By Harrison Smith / Wash Post
He was the first living Black Marine to receive the nation’s highest military decoration for valor
After his commanding officer was severely wounded, shot by North Vietnamese troops in one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, Sgt. Maj. John L. Canley took command and rallied his undersized Marine company to stave off repeated enemy attacks. Deployed to the former imperial capital of Hue on Jan. 31, 1968, he led his men through a week of vicious fighting, at times braving machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades to carry wounded Marines to safety. Read more
Kendrick Lamar returns with double album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. By Melissa Ruggieri / USA Today
Say this for Kendrick Lamar – he’ll make you wait, but when he returns, it’s a massive presentation. Five years after his Grammy-winning and Pulitzer Prize-earning “Damn,” one of the most profound rappers in the game returned Friday with the double album, “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.” On 18 tracks evenly divided between “Big Steppers” and “Mr. Morale,” Lamar spends an hour and 13 minutes steering listeners through a musical odyssey heavy on piano riffs, incongruous bites of sound and, as expected, much baring of his soul. Read more
Related: A Mortal Man’s Heart: Kendrick Lamar and Black Masculinity. By Zion McThomas / AAIHS
Sports
First all-Black American team summits Mount Everest, makes history. By Felecia Wellington Radel / USA Today
They made it to the top of the world — while also making history. The Full Circle Everest team, which began its journey into the Himalayas after months of training and trekking, has become the first all-Black American expedition to make it to the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world above sea level. “I am deeply honored to report that seven members of the Full Circle Everest team reached the summit today (May 12),” team leader Phil Henderson said in a post on Full Circle Everest’s Instagram. “While a few members, including myself, did not summit, all members of the climb and sherpa teams have safely returned to Base Camp where we will celebrate this historic moment!” Read more
Naomi Osaka Takes Control of Her Business Interests Off the Tennis Court.
Already the world’s top-earning female athlete, Osaka is leaving IMG to start a sports representation company with her longtime agent, Stuart Duguid.
A four-time Grand Slam singles champion, Osaka, 24, earned roughly $60 million last year, according to Forbes, with an estimated $55 million coming from more than a dozen corporate sponsors. She was tied for 12th on the Forbes list of top-earning athletes with Tiger Woods. Conor McGregor, the mixed martial artist, held the top spot on the list, earning $180 million. Read more
Anybody Can Dribble a Basketball. But Few Can Do It Like This. By Sopan Deb / NYT
Three elite dribblers of the past — God Shammgod, Tim Hardaway and Oscar Robertson — share their secrets, and name their favorites now.
This year’s N.B.A. postseason has featured some of the best dribblers in basketball history, including Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Chris Paul and Stephen Curry. Curry creates space for deep 3-pointers while defenders swarm him. Harden baits defenders into fouling him all over the court. Irving is a wizard at misdirections and spin moves to get to the rim. Paul operates the ball like it is on a string. All four can get by defenders with ease. Read more
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