Featured

America’s right-wing political monsters are real — and they are coming for you. By Chauncey Devega / Salon

The American people can no longer deny that political monsters are real. These monsters want to overthrow America’s secular and multiracial democracy and replace it with an American apartheid plutocracy. The monsters want to take away the basic human and civil rights of nonwhite people, women, LGBT people, immigrants, liberals and progressives, along with any other groups they deem to be “un-American” and “the enemy.” Across the country, this monstrous agenda is well underway. For all of the Biden administration’s early successes, they occur under the ominous shadow of a right-wing terrordome, now nearing completion for 2022 and 2024 and beyond. Trump’s coup attempt and his followers’ attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 is but a preview of what is to come. Read more

Political / Social

White House to Host George Floyd’s Family on Anniversary of His Death, but Will Miss Floyd Police Reform Bill Deadline. By Zack Linly / The Root

This Tuesday will mark the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death. Two things were supposed to happen on or by that date: Floyd’s family was to be hosted at the White House, and a federal police reform bill named for Floyd was supposed to be on President Joe Biden’s desk. Unfortunately, it looks like only one of those things will come to fruition. Read more

A year after George Floyd’s death, Minneapolis remains scarred, divided. By Holly Bailey / Wash Post

A year after George Floyd’s death sent millions across the country into the streets in some of the largest sustained protests in American history, the city at the center of that movement continues to struggle with its own reckoning over policing, equality and racial justice. Colorful signs featuring Floyd’s name and face still decorate front yards across this Upper Midwestern city in a collective demand for justice. Visible scars also remain from the unrest that erupted after his death, leaving scores of buildings damaged or destroyed. Read more

Louisiana police release video showing officers punched, dragged Black man before his death. By Daniel Politi / Slate

When Ronald Greene, a 49-year-old Black man, died in May 2019, police told his family that it happened after his car crashed into a tree during a chase with officers. The bodycam footage finally released this week by Louisiana State Police shows that wasn’t even close to the whole story. The police released the footage, which came from nine body camera and dash camera videos, on Friday shortly after the Associated Press obtained and published portions of the footage. The shocking videos showed how police stunned, punched, and dragged Greene as he repeatedly yells “I’m sorry” after he led them on a high-speed chase when he didn’t pull over. Read more

Does Teaching America It’s Racist Make It Less Racist? By Jane Coaston / Wash Post Podcast

Who would have guessed that a school of thought from the 1970s could cause controversy in a handful of states among politicians, on school boards and in college classrooms in 2021? Critical race theory originated as a way of examining racism within the structures of American society. But now, for some it is synonymous with school curriculums and workplace diversity training. It has also become the battleground for a new culture war between conservatives and liberals who disagree on how helpful or harmful these teachings are. This week, Jane Coaston talks to John McWhorter, a linguist at Columbia University who has written extensively on race and language, and Michelle Goldberg, an Opinion columnist at The New York Times. Listen here

CNN Fires Rick Santorum Over Claim That White Settlers Found “Nothing” in America. By Jamilah King / Mother Jones

Since 2017, Rick Santorum has had a pretty plum gig as a CNN commentator, but got the axe this weekend after making the ill-advised comment that there was “nothing” in America before colonizers arrived. In fact, there had been hundreds of millions of indigenous tribes living peacefully in the Americas for millennia. But don’t tell that to Santorum, who made his remarks at an event for the Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth group. “We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here,” Santorum told the students, according to the HuffPost. “I mean, yes, we have Native Americans, but candidly, there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.” Read more

Antisemitic incidents heightened across U.S. amid Israel-Gaza fighting; mosques were damaged, too. By Erik Ortiz / NBC News

Rabbi Shaoul Hamaoui’s synagogue, the Persian Hebrew Congregation in suburban Chicago, had never been defaced while he’s served as spiritual leader for more than a decade. But that changed Sunday afternoon when a window was shattered and surveillance video captured two people, one carrying a stick and another holding a “Freedom for Palestine” sign. No one was at the synagogue at the time, and police in Skokie, Illinois, said they are investigating the vandalism as a hate crime as the search for its perpetrators goes on. Read more

For Asian American Women, Racism And Misogyny Have Always Been Intertwined. By Marina Fang / HuffPost

In March, when a white gunman in Georgia killed six women of Asian descent in a string of shootings, many Asian American and Pacific Islanders, especially AAPI women, were horrified — but not surprised. AAPI women and girls know all too well the toxic combination of racism and misogyny, which is often reinforced through media and culture. And, as a new report released Thursday lays out, AAPI women have experienced the consequences of that toxicity throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more

If Only There Were a Viral Video of Our Jim Crow Education System. By Nicholas Kristof / NYT

Since Floyd’s death, we’ve focused on racial inequities in the criminal justice system, and it has been easy for liberal white Americans — my tribe — to feel indignant and righteous while blaming others. But in some areas, such as an unjust education system, we are part of the problem. At the very time that America was having a racial reckoning about criminal justice, Democratic states were closing in-person schooling in ways that particularly harmed nonwhite students. Race gaps increased, according to research by McKinsey & Company, and a Federal Reserve study suggests that higher dropout rates for marginalized students will have long-term consequences. Read more

Employees want corporate America to stand against racism. By Jessica Guynn / USA Today

From Silicon Valley to Wall Street, corporations pledged support for the Black Lives Matter movement and condemned police killings as protests flooded American streets. One year later, the national unrest has quieted, but the racial justice movement ignited by the death of George Floyd is coursing through cubicles, conference rooms and corner offices in corporate America, with U.S. workers demanding that companies confront systemic racism in the nation and inside their own organizations. Read more

Ex-Secret Service Agent Details ‘Shockingly’ Racist Abuse Endured By Michelle Obama. By Lee Moran / HuffPost

A former Secret Service agent has detailed the racist abuse that was leveled at Michelle Obama during her time as first lady, and her frustration and inability as an assigned protector to do anything about it. “I could do nothing,” Evy Poumpouras told Insider in an article published Wednesday. “There’s freedom of speech in the United States, and even if I personally feel that speech is wrong, the law doesn’t give me the power to take that person’s speech away.” Read more

Historical / Cultural

A Vision of Racial and Economic Justice. Norman Hill and Velma Murphy Hill / Dissent Magazine

More than a year into a national reckoning over racism, two heroes in the struggle for racial justice have received little national attention. A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin were mentor and student, friends and colleagues—eventually, their relationship was like father and son. They were two giants who contributed greatly to the advancement of civil and human rights, economic justice, and coalition politics for the democratization of America. Although younger generations are often unaware of their contributions, it is on their shoulders that today’s activists stand. Five principles animated their lives of struggle and achievement. Read more

How a Black man’s death in 1965 changed American history. By Javonte Anderson / USA Today

Fists. Feet. Nightsticks. Bottles. Cattle prods. And a single shot from an Alabama state trooper’s revolver that ripped through Jackson’s stomach as he tried to shield his mother from the attacks. His death eight days later altered the course of American history. It united activists in Marion and Selma, making their combined campaigns for desegregation and voting rights powerful enough to resonate around the world. Yet Jackson’s name is little more than a footnote in time. Read more

Removal of Confederate names could affect hundreds of sites. By Robert Burns / AP News

The push to remove Confederate names from Pentagon properties, including storied Army posts, could eventually affect hundreds of items and facilities, the chair of the congressionally chartered Naming Commission said Friday. Michelle Howard, a retired Navy admiral who heads the commission, told reporters her group began its work in March, with an interim report due to Congress in October and a final report a year later. Read more

The survivors of the Tulsa massacre deserve recompense. Congress should help make it happen. By the Editorial Board / Wash Post

“I STILL see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams.” Nearly 100 years after the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, the oldest survivor of the attack by a White mob riveted a congressional committee with her memories of that terrible day. “I have lived through the massacre every day,” said Viola Ford Fletcher, 7 at the time of the attack and now 107. “Our country may forget this history, but I cannot.” Read more

Blues music was birthed by slavery, racism, and Jim Crow. By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos

While blues has had a global influence and is played by musicians of all colors and nationalities, let us never forget its roots, the pain and suffering intertwined with its birth, and its role in aiding a people’s survival and resilience. Be prepared to spend some time listening today, or bookmark some of this amazing footage for later. Though no single documentary can encompass all of the blues and its history, Jay Levey’s Blues Story makes a good start on capturing both blues and the musicians who made it happen. Shown is Harmonica-playing bluesman Willie Foster, born Sept. 19, 1921, near Leland, Mississippi; died on May 20, 2001, in Jackson, Tennessee. Read more

Paul Mooney, Comedy’s Maestro of White America. By Lauren Michele Jackson /The New Yorker

Paul Mooney died on Wednesday, of a heart attack, at the age of seventy-nine. White” and its associated terms pepper the English lexicon with euphemism: whitewash, white elephant, white lie. And, of course, “white,” as in white people, is a modifier that still sends its own referents running scared. Really, who can blame them? Unlike other, perhaps less civil, monikers—“buckra,” “ofay,” “honkey”—“white” is abrupt, without music. And yet Paul Mooney made it sing. Read more

Earth, Wind & Fire’s Philip Bailey on Maurice White’s legacy, dedication to faith: ‘I always go back to God.’ By Stephanie Nolasco / Fox News

After achieving worldwide fame, Philip Bailey is determined to give back. n 2007, the singer from Earth, Wind & Fire fame founded Music is Unity, a non-profit focused on helping young people succeed in their transition out of the foster system. This year, the foundation, along with Mixed Roots Foundation, is launching the #FosterChallenge campaign, encouraging Americans to raise $1 for each of the nation’s 500,000 foster youth. The proceeds will support over 20 nonprofit foster care organizations. Their virtual event, “Power of One: Hour of Unity” also kicks off on Thursday and features guest speakers and performers. Read more

Sports

Stop everything you’re doing and watch Simone Biles’ Yurchenko double pike vault. By D’Arcy Maine and Amy Van Deusen / ESPN

During podium training on Friday ahead of Saturday’s U.S. Classic, Simone Biles casually showed off her latest vault and WE PROMISE YOU ARE NOT READY FOR THIS. In case you haven’t guessed yet, here’s Biles showing off her Yurchenko double pike — a vault no woman has ever competed. Take a second to get mentally prepared, because your mind is about to be completely blown: Watch here

‘You Don’t Belong Here’: Young Black Hockey Players Reveal the Racism They Experienced On the Ice, Player Made ‘Monkey Noises’ and Hurled Racial Slurs. By Ashley Turner / Atlanta Black Star

Two young, black hockey players are calling out the sport for the racism they have endured from other players, as well as the league’s reluctance to rectify the problem. Brandon Bernard and his 14-year-old twin brother Landon were initially subjected to racist taunts from the opposing team at a Jan. 9 hockey game. The players of the 14-and-under team Ashburn Xtreme were recorded on video making monkey sounds every time one of the boys skated by. Now, the two Frederick (Maryland) Freeze players are speaking out about their troubling experiences, and the lack of support they feel they have so far received from USA Hockey in handling the matter reports USA Today. Read more

Coco Gauff Wins a Title. And Then She Wins Another. By Christopher Clarey / NYT

It had been a year and a half since Coco Gauff won a tennis title. On Saturday, she won two in only a few hours. Gauff, the 17-year-old from Delray Beach, Fla., secured the singles title first, defeating Wang Qiang, 6-1, 6-3, with a poised and powerful performance at the WTA Tour’s Emilia-Romagna Open in Parma, Italy. After a trophy ceremony and a short rest, Gauff returned to center court with her doubles partner, Caty McNally, and won that title, too, rebounding from a slow start to defeat Darija Jurak and Andreja Klepac, 6-3, 6-2. Read more

How do Americans feel about the anthem at sporting events? It depends which Americans you ask. By Michael Lee, Scott Clement and Emily Guskin / Wash Post

According to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll conducted in March that found that 84 percent of Americans support the anthem being played or sung before professional sporting events. Seventy-one percent feel positive when the song plays. The results also hint at the stark racial divide among Americans about how they feel about the song. While four-fifths of White Americans and two-thirds of both Hispanics and Asian Americans say the anthem makes them feel positive, a much smaller 35 percent of Black Americans share those emotions. And 22 percent of Black Americans say they feel negative when they hear the song at sporting events. Read more

The Phoenix Suns Are Chris Paul’s Latest Project. By Scott Cacciola / NYT

Paul is pulled in many directions — acting, training, arguing with referees — but now he has his eyes set on winning a championship with the Suns. He has been inescapable for 16 N.B.A. seasons. One of the league’s great point guards and an 11-time All-Star, he has entered the renaissance phase of his career, guiding the Phoenix Suns to the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Phoenix, which is making its first playoff appearance since the 2010 season, will face the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round, starting Sunday. Read more

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