Featured
The NCAA’s reparations don’t come close to righting its racial wrongs. By Kevin B. Blackistone / Wash Post
Political / Social
Biden and Harris make a rare joint campaign appearance to shore up Black voters’ support. By and
Preparing for a new phase of the campaign as Donald Trump’s criminal trial nears the end, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will make a rare joint campaign appearance here Wednesday to shore up a critical constituency in a critical state: Black voters in Pennsylvania.
The Democratic ticket will be joined by a rising Democratic star and likely major surrogate, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, as it works to counter Trump’s efforts to make inroads among the voters who helped power Biden to the nomination and then the White House four years ago. Read more
Trump is conditioning MAGA for the next stage. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Authoritarian leaders train and condition the public to follow and obey them -– or at the very least to not oppose them.
This training takes various forms, such as threats of violence and acts of intimidation, propaganda with an emphasis on disinformation and misinformation, generating a state of constant precarity, fear, and death anxieties (what I have termed “horror politics”), manipulating White Christianity and other belief systems, and more generally offering incentives and rewards for supporting the authoritarian and the movement and the regime. Those who resist or are not sufficiently supportive will be punished – severely. In a 2021 essay, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat offered these insights into the power of propaganda and its role in authoritarian training and conditioning: Read more
Related: The intersectionality of hate helps us understand the ideology of Donald Trump and the far right. By
Mark Robinson Is Testing the Bounds of GOP Extremism. By David A Graham / The Atlantic
A decade ago, Mark Robinson had a dead-end job and a nasty habit of posting anti-Semitic, homophobic, and sexist screeds on Facebook. Today he is North Carolina’s lieutenant governor. This November, he could become the state’s first Black governor.
Robinson’s fringe positions have led some to assume that he can’t win, but polls indicate that the race is very close. Robinson could reshape the politics of North Carolina, which has tried in recent years to attract newcomers from around the country. He also provides a test of how extreme a MAGA Republican can be and still win office outside deep-red states—of what, if anything, is too extreme in contemporary politics. Read more
A Supreme Court held to the lowest standards. By Sabrina Haake / Salon
Chief Justice Roberts, this is your moment of consequence. History will either laud you for preserving America’s 221-year arc toward justice or it will align you and your Court with tyranny.
You may need reminding that the Supreme Court has no army. You have no police; you lack all mechanisms of enforcement. Your authority depends on America’s trust in the rule of law, which you are allowing Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to mock. Having spent nearly 30 years as a federal trial lawyer, under an oath to promote, uphold and defend the Constitution, I feel mocked, as do many of my colleagues. Unlike the partisan zealots on your bench, we took our oaths to heart. Many of us wish we hadn’t. Read more
Not All Votes Are Created Equal. Mother Jones Podcast
For this show, host Al Letson does a deep dive with Mother Jones national voting rights correspondent Ari Berman about his new book, Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It.
They first discuss America’s early years and examine how the political institutions created by the Founding Fathers were meant to constrain democracy. This system is still alive in the modern era, Berman says, through institutions like the Electoral College and the US Senate, which were designed as checks against the power of the majority. Listen here
Justice Department fines Va. tech firm over ‘whites only’ job posting. By Daniel Wu / Wash Post
Arthur Grand Technologies, an IT firm based in Ashburn, Va., will pay more than $38,000 in penalties for a job ad that sought only White U.S. citizens.
“It is shameful that in the 21st century, we continue to see employers using ‘whites only’ and ‘only US born’ job postings to lock out otherwise eligible job candidates of color,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke with Justice’s Civil Rights Division said in the release. Read more
How the ‘model minority’ myth harms Asian Americans. By Eddy Ng / The Conversation
May is Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month, a time when Americans celebrate the profound contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders – a group that is commonly abbreviated as AAPI – to U.S. society. It’s also a time to acknowledge the complexity of AAPI experience.
The term “model minority” first appeared in popular media in the 1960s to describe East Asians – primarily Japanese and Chinese Americans – as having high educational attainment, high family median income and low crime rates. That label has since been applied to all AAPIs. The narrative of the “model minority” portrays Asian Americans as uniformly successful and privileged. Yet the reality is far more complex. In reality, AAPIs encompass over 20 distinct ethnicities, yet are often lumped into a single category. Read more
Asian Latinos are a growing but ignored demographic, new analysis shows. By AP and NBC News
Olivia Yuen is a middle school art teacher in Arizona who has a Chinese father and a Mexican mother.
The number of people of both Latino and Asian American or Pacific Islander heritage has more than doubled in the last 20 years yet it remains an often ignored demographic, researchers at UCLA said Wednesday. The UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute analyzed Census Bureau data within the last two decades. This included the 2000 census count as well as American Community Survey 5-year estimates on population characteristics from 2010 and 2022. Their analysis indicates people in the United States who identify as Latino and Asian American or Pacific Islander, or “AAPI Latinos,” rose from 350,000 to 886,000 in that period. Read more
CBS defends diversity hiring on ‘SEAL Team’ from ‘anti-white discrimination’ suit. By Variety and NBC News
CBS filed a motion Thursday to throw out a lawsuit challenging its diversity hiring practices for writers on the show “SEAL Team,” arguing that it has a First Amendment right to hire who it wants.
Brian Beneker, the longtime script coordinator on the show, sued in February, arguing that he had been repeatedly passed over for writing jobs because he is a straight, white man. Read more
In communities of color, long-covid patients are tired of being sick and neglected. By Akilah Johnson / Wash Post
It has been four years since coronavirus infections began burdening people with lingering symptoms often dismissed by medical providers.
Health-care experts and medical studies have found that racist myths about Black people having higher pain tolerance, coupled with physicians’ biases, mean Black patients are more likely to be seen as drug-seeking and described negatively in electronic medical records. That is true when it comes to routine diagnoses, and clinicians and public health researchers believe the same to be true with long covid, even as its definition remains very much a work in progress.
World News
South Africa’s Young Democracy Leaves Its Young Voters Disillusioned.
We spoke to South Africans who grew up in the three decades since the country overthrew apartheid and held its first free election about their lives and plans to vote — or not — in this week’s pivotal election.
At the dawn of South Africa’s democracy after the fall of the racist apartheid government, millions lined up before sunrise to cast their ballots in the country’s first free and fair election in 1994. Thirty years later, democracy has lost its luster for a new generation. South Africa is now heading into a pivotal election on Wednesday, in which voters will determine which party — or alliance — will pick the president. Read more
Related: South Africa’s Black Elites Sour on the President They Championed.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel are becoming increasingly isolated internationally – they need to listen to their friends. By Julie M. Norman / The Conversation
Pressure, both external and internal, is rapidly changing the international landscape for Israel.
In 2011, Ehud Barak, then Israel’s defence minister, warned that Israel would face a “diplomatic-political tsunami” of international isolation and censure if it could not resolve the conflict with the Palestinians. More than a decade later, that wave has held off, but the current is moving swiftly in that direction. Read more
Haiti Names New Prime Minister to Try to Lead Country Out of Crisis.
Garry Conille is taking on the office just ahead of the arrival of a Kenyan-led international police force charged with helping restore order to the violence-torn nation.
An experienced international aid official, Garry Conille, was unanimously appointed prime minister of Haiti by a Presidential Transition Council on Tuesday, which tasked him with leading the country out of its current crisis until elections for a new president can be held. Read more
Russia is flooding Europe with disinformation. The U.S. elections are next. By Lee Hockstader / Wash Post
With European parliamentary elections coming in June, Moscow has jumped into action.
In 2022, European monitors who track Russian disinformation spotted an ambitious online influence operation they called Doppelganger. The Moscow-run effort cloned the websites of legitimate newspapers, magazines and news services, including Britain’s Guardian and Germany’s Bild, posted replicas under similar domain names and filled them with Kremlin propaganda. In the United States, where dysfunctional politics and First Amendment safeguards make monitoring Russian mischief even harder Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
A New Documentary Goes Behind the Scenes of Christian Nationalism. By Sophie Hayseen / Mother Jones
“Bad Faith” traces the origins of January 6 back to the Moral Majority of the 1980s.
The new documentary Bad Faith, directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones, begins with footage familiar to many Americans: an army of insurrectionists adorned in stars, stripes, and military gear storming the Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. It was a watershed moment that left many Americans wondering how we got here. Bad Faith seeks to help answer that question by looking at a crucial reason why American democracy ended up at a precipice: the rise of Christian nationalism. Bad Faith is now available to rent on Apple TV and Amazon Prime. Read more
White evangelical Christians are some of Israel’s biggest supporters. Why? By Gene Demby et al. / NPR Podcast
As war continues to rage in the Middle East, attention has been turned to how American Jews, Muslims, and Palestinians relate to the state of Israel.
But when we talk about the region, American Christians, particularly evangelical Christians, are often not part of that story. But their political support for Israel is a major driver for U.S. policy — in part because Evangelicals make up an organized, dedicated constituency with the numbers to exert major influence on U.S. politics. So today on the show, we’re looking into the history and theology behind how white evangelical Christians became so connected to Israel, and what that connection looks like in the public square. Listen here
Artists created images of Christ that focused not on historical accuracy but on reflecting different communities − a scholar of religious history explains. By Virginia Raguin / The Conversation
‘Christ of the New Jerusalem’ − created in 1915 for the Uranienborg Church, Oslo, by Emanuel Vigeland. Michel M. Raguin, CC BY
In my work as a religious history scholar, I’ve learned that throughout history artists created images of Christ that would speak to different communities. Read more
Historical / Cultural
How an Alabama Town Staved Off School Resegregation. By Jennifer Berry Hawes / ProPublica
In the 1970s, Black students organized protests and a boycott that cost local white businesses money. Today, many families who could afford private school still choose Thomasville’s public schools.
I recently traveled to rural Wilcox County, in Alabama’s Black Belt, to understand the origins of the local “segregation academy” and how it still divides the broader community. While I was in Wilcox County, I wondered: How would things be different if the segregation academy didn’t exist? Locals I met in the county seat of Camden mentioned another small town just a short drive over the county line where people had chosen a different path. Read more
Related: When desegregation came to Harlan County, U.S.A.: An oral history. By Karida L. Brown / Wash Post
In the Name of God. By Sari Horwitz et al. / Wash Post
For decades, Catholic priests, brothers and sisters raped or molested Native American children who were taken from their homes by the U.S. government and forced to live at remote boarding schools, a Post investigation found.
Clarita Vargas was 8 when she was forced to live at St. Mary’s Mission, a Catholic-run Indian boarding school in Omak, Wash., that was created under a U.S. government policy to strip Native American children of their identities. “It haunted me my entire life,” said Vargas, now 64. Read more
Related: They took the Children. By Dana Hedgpeth and Sari Horwitz / Wash Post
“The Big Cigar” is “a crazy way to tell” how Huey P. Newton escaped to Cuba using a fake movie. By Nardos Haile / Salon
Huey P. Newton is an icon in American history but despite his lasting, impactful legacy, he was also just a man. Alongside co-partner Bobby Seale, the two college students founded what would go on to be the revolutionary Black power and liberation group, the Black Panther Party in 1966.
During this tense political and social climate, Newton was charged with the murder of a 17-year-old girl by police. To escape the murder charges and an impending trial, Newton had plans to flee to Cuba. However, in a ploy to get Newton to Cuba safely and evade authorities, one of Newton’s friends, an unlikely movie producer Bert Schneider financed a fake film production to aid in Newton’s fight for justice. The Apple TV+ series “The Big Cigar,” based on a 2012 Playboy article written by Josh Bearman, follows Newton’s struggles and triumphs as a leader but also Newton’s journey to Cuba with Schneider’s help. Read more
The Story Behind Smokey Robinson and The Miracles’ “Shop Around” and Why It’s One of the Most Important Songs in Motown History. By Jim Beviglia / Songwriter
The Motown label dominated the music world throughout the 1960s as a steady stream of hits came forth from an outstanding variety of artists. But it’s fair to wonder what might have happened had not Smokey Robinson and The Miracles helped break the dam, so to speak, with their massive 1960 hit single “Shop Around.”
What is the song about? Why was it changed at the last minute? And how did it help launch Motown as a national powerhouse label? Let’s look at “Shop Around,” an iconic hit from a legendary record company. Read more
Sports
Negro Leagues stats update by MLB a sobering reminder of challenge to maintain Black history. By Clinton Yates / Andscape
Negro Leagues legend and Pittsburgh native Josh Gibson’s statue is front and center in Legacy Square at PNC Park in Pittsburgh on June 29, 2006.
On Tuesday, it was confirmed that Major League Baseball will be updating all of their official records to reflect the stats of Negro Leaguers, dating from 1920 to 1948. That includes over 2,300 players from an era that while largely celebrated and idolized around the game, did not hold any actual standing until MLB decided to recognize them in 2020. The fruits of that labor are now borne. Read more
How Deion Sanders’ son ended up declaring bankruptcy: ‘Kind of stunning.’ By Brent Schrotenboer / USA Today
Big questions raised in bankruptcy case of Colorado football safety Shilo Sanders, son of Colorado’s coach
As a 24-year-old college football player at the University of Colorado, Shilo Sanders has quite a problem on his hands: Bankruptcy. More than $11 million in debt. And now there are court proceedings that question his wealth and where he’s keeping it. How did it even reach this point? According to court filings by his attorney, it’s primarily because Sanders − son of Colorado coach Deion Sanders – didn’t show up for a civil trial in Texas in March 2022. Read more
Jaylen Brown calls out ESPN anchor following controversial take. By David Butler / USA Today
Jaylen Brown has challenged Stephen A. Smith to name his sources after the ESPN anchor stated that he’s been told the Boston Celtics star forward lacks marketability.
Smith’s comments came during a recent episode of “First Take,” during which he shared that an anonymous source had told him Brown’s attitude had led many around the NBA to dislike him. Read more
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