Featured

An Open Letter to Clarence Thomas. By Elie Mystal / The Nation

As the Trump administration tries to remake society along apartheid lines, your vote to stop the assault, however unlikely, is absolutely essential.

Dear Justice Thomas, I write to you in desperation. I need every possible Supreme Court vote to stand against the current racial reordering of American society along apartheid lines, and I have come to the admittedly wild conclusion that yours is the most gettable among my judicial enemies.

I write to you because you are the only black person the current ruling class of whites would even consider listening to. Your long-standing opposition to the civil rights movement, or really anything else that could wean this country off of its addiction to racial oppression, has made you uniquely positioned to speak truth to these particular powers. Trump himself won’t listen to you (or your court, or the Constitution, or the rule of law), but even a simple note from you admonishing this administration for its racial animus would be noticed by what passes as the intellectual elite in the MAGA firmament. Read more

Glenn Loury on ‘the Barbarians at the Gates.’ By Evan Goldstein and Len Gutkin / The Chronicle of Higher Ed.

Glenn Loury talks about Trump, self-censorship, falling out with the Manhattan Institute, and retiring after almost 50 years in the classroom.

For decades now, the Brown University economist Glenn Loury has been one of the most influential conservative intellectuals, a reliably contrarian voice in left-leaning academe. Loury no longer works for the Manhattan Institute, which declined to renew his contract after Loury became highly critical of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. We recently sat down with Loury over Zoom to talk about Trump’s attacks on the university, what Rufo should be doing now, and whether conservative support for free speech is a hypocritical ruse. Read more

Political / Social

‘I Even Believe He Is Destroying the American Presidency.’ By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT

One thing stands out amid all the chaos, corruption and disorder: the wanton destructiveness of the Trump presidency.

The targets of President Trump’s assaults include the law, higher education, medical research, ethical standards, America’s foreign alliances, free speech, the civil service, religion, the media and much more. I asked scholars of the presidency to evaluate the scope of Trump’s wreckage. “The gutting of expertise and experience going on right now under the blatantly false pretext of eliminating fraud and waste,” Sean Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, wrote by email, “is catastrophic and may never be completely repaired.” Read more

MAGA Senator’s Stunning Admission: GOP Is Badly Screwing Trump Voters. By Greg Sargent / TNR

As a staunch Trump ally openly acknowledges the truth about the House GOP’s “big, beautiful bill,” a leading health care reporter explains all the ways it will seriously hurt the Trump-MAGA working-class base.

Senator Josh Hawley, a staunch ally of Trump, went on CNN and said this in strikingly direct terms. He decried the bill’s massive cuts to Medicaid and confirmed that they are a betrayal of GOP and MAGA voters. Read more

Who Gets to Be an American? By Michael Luo / The New Yorker

Since the earliest days of the Republic, American citizenship has been contested, subject to the anti-democratic impulses of racism, suspicion, and paranoia. The Trump Administration’s effort to curtail birthright citizenship is the latest turn in the long-running struggle over who should be included in America’s family of citizens.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. Under the innocuous-sounding heading of “Protecting the Value and Meaning of American Citizenship,” the White House order eliminates birthright citizenship for children without at least one parent who is a citizen or permanent resident, arguing that these children are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, as required in the Fourteenth Amendment. Read more

Trump’s DOJ Thinks Chicago Mayor Hired Too Many Black People. By Zack Linly / Newsone

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division saw a mass exodus of more than 100 attorneys who up and resigned from the department due to its focus on white grievance and steering away from (or outright gutting) cases involving civil rights protections for Black people, people of color and other marginalized groups under the administration of President Donald Trump.

Well, the department is currently solidifying its role as a “reverse-racism” watchdog by launching an investigation into Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s hiring practices, which, apparently, was brought on after the mayor publicly spoke on the diversity of his administration—and we all know diversity is a cardinal sin in the Church of Making White Nationalism Great Again. Read more

Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms launches run for Georgia governor. By Ben Kamisar / NBC News

Bottoms, who worked in the Biden administration, is the highest-profile Democrat in the race, which also includes GOP state Attorney General Chris Carr.

She announced her campaign Tuesday morning, releasing a video on social media that recounts her upbringing and tight-knit family and criticizes President Donald Trump. “These days, most Georgians are right to wonder: Who’s looking out for us? Donald Trump is a disaster for our economy and our country. From his failure to address rising prices to giving an unelected billionaire the power to cut Medicare and Social Security — it’s one terrible thing after another,” Bottoms says in the video. Read more

Joy Reid Joins the State of the People Tour Movement. By Fisher Jack / Eurweb

Award-winning journalist Joy Reid has joined forces with activist Angela Rye on the “State of the People Power Tour.”

This nationwide initiative aims to empower Black communities through grassroots engagement and sustainable infrastructure. Reid’s involvement brings a powerful voice to the movement, emphasizing the importance of civic participation and community solidarity. Read more

Education

On Education, DeSantis’s Florida Paved the Way for Trump’s America. By Dana Goldstein / NYT

When it comes to education, America under President Trump increasingly looks a lot like Florida under Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Supreme Court is poised to allow parents to opt their children out of school lessons they oppose on religious grounds; in Florida, parents already have some opt-out rights. The Trump administration has moved to withhold funding from schools and colleges with diversity practices it opposes, while pushing a “patriotic” curriculum. Mr. DeSantis got there first. Read more

Harvard draws the legal blueprint for how to fight back Trump’s revenge campaign. By Austin Sarat / Salon

Trump and his subordinates are using every lever at their disposal to make the university pay for disobedience

That is revenge pure and simple. Revenge, law professor William Miller contends, is “crazed, uncontrolled, subjective, individual, admitting… no rule of limitation.” And it proceeds in an escalating cycle of tit-for-tat moves until one of the parties involved surrenders. Read more

US launches unit to target DEI policies at colleges with civil fraud probes. By Mike Scarcella and David Thomas / Reuters

The United States announced on Monday the formation of a new unit that will crack down on federally-funded universities that have diversity, equity and inclusion policies using a civil anti-fraud law, the Justice Department said in a memo. Shown is Deputy Attorney Todd Blanche who will lead the unit.

The creation of the “Civil Rights Fraud Initiative” marks the latest escalation by the administration of President Donald Trump against colleges and universities that it has claimed are pushing antisemitic, anti-American, Marxist and “radical left” ideologies. “A university that accepts federal funds could violate the False Claims Act when it encourages antisemitism, refuses to protect Jewish students, allows men to intrude into women’s bathrooms or requires women to compete against men in athletic competitions,” Deputy Attorney Todd Blanche wrote in the memo. Read more

Students of Color Want Cops Out of Their Schools. By Marium Zahra / The Progressive

Students of color from around the country share experiences with school resource officers that make them feel threatened and othered at school.

Students of color don’t feel safe around campus security,” Southern California high school junior Bethel Albe says in an interview with The Progressive. “They feel like they’re more at risk of getting stopped, they’re more at risk of being viewed as someone that they’re not. It’s a very restricting environment to be in for myself and my peers.” Read more

LSU’s William F. Tate named new Rutgers University President. By Nick Kosko / On3

Rutgers reportedly named LSU President William F. Tate to the same role, according to NJ Advance Media’s Steve Politi. The New Jersey university and Big Ten school casted a search for their new university president following Jonathan Holloway’s tenure.

“Tate has served as Executive Vice President for Academic Affair and Provost, while holding the Education Foundation Distinguished University Professorship at the University of South Carolina,” his bio at LSU read. Read more

World

Nobody in Ukraine Thinks the War Will End Soon. By Anne Applebaum / The Atlantic

Ukrainians are confident that they can continue fighting, even without the same level of American support.

On Saturday, I asked Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv, in western Ukraine, whether he expected the Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul to lead to a cease-fire. “No,” he told me. Later, I asked the audience at the Lviv Media Forum whether any of them expected a cease-fire soon. About 200 journalists and editors were in the room. No one raised their hand. Many laughed. Read more

Making Gaza Unlivable: Israel Intensifies Attacks as Netanyahu Vows to Seize All of Gaza. By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now

A damning new report reveals how Israel is systematically making Gaza unlivable. The independent news outlet +972 Magazine has spoken to Israeli soldiers who describe how they have been using bulldozers and explosives to intentionally flatten Gaza.

The +972 report features videos Israeli soldiers shared online, like this one by Avraham Zarviv, who operates a D9 armored bulldozer. His nickname is “Flattener of Jabalia” — the northern town of Jabaliya in Gaza. In this video, he uses his camera to show a flattened landscape in Rafah. Read more

CECOT prison in El Salvador is a ‘human zoo’ of immigrants. By Carolina A. Miranda / Wash Post

The demeaning spectacle of the human zoo comes to mind as one U.S. official after another has traveled to El Salvador for photo ops inside the notorious prison known as CECOT (in English, the Terrorism Confinement Center).

Opened in 2023 and designed to incarcerate top-level gang members, this maximum-security detention center has become infamous for its austere conditions. The grotesque images that have emerged from CECOT, like the human zoos that preceded it, are about presenting a barely contained savagery, reinforcing the idea that some people don’t qualify as fully human. Read more

Odious In The Oval: Trump Conspiracy Fest. By Li Zhou / HuffPost

Trump cited few specifics while trying to advance claims of racial persecution, which South African officials have denied.

President Ramaphosa — and other South African officials — have vehemently pushed back on the idea that white farmers are being persecuted by the country’s government or disproportionately attacked, calling the narrative a “false” one. Experts, too, have disputed the suggestion, noting that crime rates are high in the country but that there’s little evidence white farmers are disproportionately attacked compared to Black farmers. Read more

Ethics / Morality / Religion

Still seeking justice for George Floyd. By Elizabeth Palmer / The Christian Century

Five years after an infamous murder, George Floyd Square in Minneapolis remains a site of protest, lament, and mutual aid.

George Floyd Memorial Square consists of the four square blocks surrounding the memorial site. A large wooden sculpture of the Black power fist stands in the middle of each of the four intersections leading into the Square. They were modeled after a larger fist that stands in the central intersection, cast in iron by sculptor Jordan Powell-Karis and installed by activists during the night. The memorial area, on the pavement outside the front door of what was Cup Foods in 2020—it’s since been renamed Unity Foods—is cordoned off by ropes and concrete barricades. Read more

The Choice Between Trump Or Christ, Cruelty Or Love. By Henry Karlson / Patheos

Christ taught Christians to embrace selfless love, a love which would lead them to be concerned about the welfare of their neighbor; that is, they should not be self-absorbed, looking out only for themselves.

Trump is about glorifying himself, attaining the power, control, and domination he wants over the world, with a willingness to do whatever it takes to make it happen, and to do so with extreme cruelty; Christians who follow him embrace the same ideals, and want to experience such power, often vicariously through Trump. Read more

Real Threats to Religious Freedom. By Bill Lueders / The Progressive Magazine

Two recent court cases showcase the thinning line between state and church.

In early February, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order calling for the creation of a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias” and “protect the religious freedoms of Americans” by ending “the anti-Christian weaponization of government.” It fits the narrative that religious conservatives, including Christian nationalists, have sought to create about how radical leftists are allegedly trying to take away people’s religious freedom. Read more

RFK Jr. is laundering Christian right views as MAHA. By Amanda Marcotte / Salon

Christian conservatives know they have a branding problem with women

Increasing numbers of Americans in recent years are rejecting organized religion, seeing it as cruel, restrictive and close-minded. At the same time, interest in a more vague spirituality is on the rise, fueled by “wellness” influencers framing spirituality as a shortcut to worldly gains like money, fitness, and romance. Kennedy has a long history of embracing fake science while ignoring real science, but this is his first foray into doing it to cape for a cause that’s primarily, if not exclusively, associated with the religious right. Read more

Historical / Cultural

The Burning of Nottoway Plantation. By Maurice Carlos Ruffin / Time

Louisiana, like much of the rest of the South, is dotted with former plantations. But on May 15, 2025, the largest surviving plantation mansion of them all burned to the ground, reportedly due to an electrical fire. All that’s left is a portion of the façade. All else is ashes.

Nottoway, like many plantations, took on a second life as a location for weddings and portrait taking. As of this writing, the website labels Nottoway as a “resort” with amenities such as a gym, pool, and tennis courts. The history tab of Nottoway’s website provides a detailed listing of the diameters of certain oak trees—but nothing about the history of the plantation, how it was built, or what went on there. Many people, myself included, see the Nottoway Plantation as little more than a former slave labor camp. A place where crimes against humanity went unpunished and many affiliated with those crimes were treated as noble heroes. Read more

What Would Malcolm X Say About America In 2025? By Bilal G. Morris / Newsone

Malcolm X is proving to be far more prophetic than Martin Luther King Jr.

King lived in the optimism that one day white people would accept that Black people were created equal. Malcolm X, on the other hand, lived in the realism that white systems would never embrace Black people—because those systems were never built for us in the first place.
Malcolm X would have turned 100 today, and America in 2025 looks eerily similar to the one he warned about nearly six decades ago in his iconic speeches “The Ballot or the Bullet” and “Message to the Grassroots.” Read more

When William F. Buckley Jr. Met James Baldwin. By Sam Tanenhaus / The Atlantic

In 1965, the two intellectual giants squared off in a debate at Cambridge. It didn’t go quite as Buckley hoped.

Baldwin’s presence in England was itself an event. He was there to promote the paperback edition of Another Country and to discuss a screenplay with a filmmaker. He also made himself available to journalists and students. And there was the debate with Buckley at the Cambridge Union—a debate on the subject of race in America. Read more

These 7 executive actions show how Trump wants to reshape American history. By Bill Chappell / NPR

President Trump issued a record number of executive actions in his first months in office, enacting sweeping changes in how the federal government works — and signaling his intentions to reshape how the country’s stories are told.

Trump said he wants to remind Americans of “our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.” But many historians are sounding an alarm and say the president is going too far. Critics worry that the executive actions taken together, for instance, would minimize or even erase achievements by women and minorities. Read more

Spike Lee and Denzel Washington Vividly Celebrate Their Own Legacies in ‘Highest 2 Lowest.’ By Richard Lawson / Vanity Fair

Among the weirdest films to premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is Spike Lee’s out-of-competition drama-thriller Highest 2 Lowest, the kind of idiosyncratic indulgence only a filmmaker of Lee’s stature is allowed.

Denzel Washington, collaborating with Lee for the sixth time, plays David King, the gregarious, seemingly tireless impresario of a legendary music label who is living the good life in an eye-popping penthouse with his beautiful wife, Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera), and handsome, precocious teenage son Trey (Aubrey Joseph). Read more

Country Music Is Entirely at War With Itself. By Tressie McMillan Cottom / NYT

A veritable renaissance has come for country music over the last decade, as Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and queer artists have staked a legitimate claim to the genre.

The line between white people’s country and Black people’s soul has always been about as strong as the braided ropes that once segregated audiences in Jim Crow dance halls. One can go back to the deep country inflections in Black funk groups like the Commodores. Or, one can listen to country performances by Little Richard, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin for the absolute best that the art form could ever hope to produce, then or now. Read more

Sports

Caitlin Clark says bigotry has ‘no place’ in WNBA amid probe into fans’ alleged hate comments. By James Boyd / The Athletic

Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark on Monday denounced hatred and bigotry directed toward the league and its players, one day after the WNBA announced it was investigating “alleged hateful fan comments” that were made toward the Chicago Sky during the Fever’s season-opening win Saturday.

“There’s no place for that in our game. There’s no place for that in society,” Clark said after practice. “Certainly, we want every person that comes into our arena, whether a player or a fan, to have a great experience, so I appreciate the league doing that (investigation). … We’ll leave that up to them to find anything and take the proper action if so.” Read more

Co-owner of Over $6 Billion Sports Empire, Grant Hill Flies to North Carolina Only to Send a Message to 6900 Students. By Khelendra Kumar Yadav / Essentially Sports

When Grant Hill was invited to Duke’s 2025 Commencement Address on May 11, he knew exactly the message the youth needed.

There were no flashy monologues about building empires, even though he holds stakes in major teams like the Atlanta Hawks, Baltimore Orioles, Orlando City, and Orlando Pride. When combined, their valuation reaches a massive $6 billion and yet, he chose to share the wisdom passed down by his mother about how to live life. Read more

Stephen A Smith poised for new ESPN role after network chief’s comments. By Charlie Wilson / The Mirror

ESPN’s Jimmy Pitaro has suggested that network personality Stephen A. Smith could join the NFL coverage at ESPN, which includes the likes of ‘Monday Night Football’

Smith, who earlier this year inked a new 5-year $100 million contract with ESPN, is now among the industry’s top earners, alongside big names like Tom Brady and Charles Barkley. The deal, which came after intense negotiations, saw Smith receive an $8 million raise from his previous $12 million annual salary. Read more

Organizations are partnering to introduce Black students in Detroit to golf. By Corey Williams / ABC News

Coaches and community groups in the city are taking ambitious steps to spread the game’s popularity among students — noting that only about 50 of more than 14,000 high school students in Detroit’s school district play golf on school teams.

In Detroit, the biggest challenge is exposing Black youth to the game, said Jesse Hawkins, who is Black and coaches Horne’s team at Renaissance High School. Backing from local corporations and nonprofits, providing access to equipment and even college scholarships is helping. Read more

Race Inquiry

Important Current Stories On Race In America

Race Inquiry Digest (May 22) – Important Current Stories On Race In America

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