‘Radicalized’ GOP And ‘Twisted People’ On Fox News Called Out In Damning New Ad. By Lee Moran / HuffPost
Progressive PAC MeidasTouch is calling on people to reject the “radicalized” GOP ― and spotlights the harmful influence that personalities on right-wing media such as Fox News can have on Republicans ― with its latest viral ad. The narrator in the 90-second spot released online Saturday notes how alienated people worldwide “are drawn to extremist leaders promising to take on the enemies of their people.” “In America, some of our lost souls respond in a similar way to the call of influential voices,” he continues. “But instead of militant preachers or radical clerics, every single night in America they can listen to our own angry advocates of division and conspiracy” on right-wing media. Watch here
The Fortune 500 now has two Black women CEOs. That’s actually an improvement. By Chauncey Alcorn /CNN
A ‘Record-Breaking Year’ For Gifts To HBCUs. By Liz Schlemmer / NPR
The nation’s largest HBCU is having a blockbuster year for fundraising. North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro has raised $88 million since its fiscal year began last summer. That’s almost six times what the university typically fundraises annually — and the fiscal year isn’t even over yet. “There has not been a year like that ever in our history,” says Todd Simmons, N.C. A&T’s associate vice chancellor for university relations. “Nor has there been a year like that in the history of nearly any other public HBCU in America.” Read more
Deadly air pollutant ‘disproportionately and systematically’ harms Americans of color, study finds. By Juliet Eilperin and Darryl Fears / Wash Post
Nearly every source of the nation’s most pervasive and deadly air pollutant disproportionately affects Americans of color, regardless of their state or income level, according to a study published Wednesday. The analysis of fine-particle matter, which includes soot, shows how decisions made decades ago about where to build highways and industrial plants continue to harm the health of Black, Latino and Asian Americans today. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Town’s Statue Of Colonial Woman Who Killed Natives Sparks Debate. By Amelia Mason / NPR
A statue of a woman towers over a patch of daffodils in a city park in Haverhill, Mass. Scowling ferociously, she leans forward, gripping a hatchet. The statue honors Hannah Duston, a 17th-century English colonist who is believed to have killed 10 Native Americans in order to escape captivity during King William’s War. It has become a flashpoint in the country’s ongoing debate about racist monuments, as locals reevaluate the Duston legend. Read more
Mitch McConnell sends letter to Education secretary demanding removal of the 1619 Project from federal grant programs. By Ryan Nobles / CNN
Some Statues Tell Lies. This One Tells the Truth. By Timothy Egan / NYT
Washington State has chosen to immortalize Billy Frank Jr., a Native American truth-teller, genuine hero and role model, who died in 2014, at the U.S. Capitol in the National Statuary Hall Collection. Replacing the statue of Marcus Whitman, an inept Protestant missionary who tried to Christianize the natives (as Whitman might have put it), with a Native American who was arrested more than 50 times for practicing his treaty rights to fish for salmon is a karmic boomerang. Statues, especially those in the sacred space holding the Capitol’s collection, where each state is given only two, are national narratives set in stone. Read more
How the N-Word Became Unsayable. By John McWhorter / NYT
“Nigger” began as a neutral descriptor, although it was quickly freighted with the casual contempt that Europeans had for African and, later, African-descended people. Its evolution from slur to unspeakable obscenity was part of a gradual prohibition on avowed racism and the slurring of groups. It is also part of a larger cultural shift: Time was that it was body parts and what they do that Americans were taught not to mention by name — do you actually do much resting in a restroom? Read more
From memes to race war: How extremists use popular culture to lure recruits. By Marc Fisher / Wash Post
The first images of “The Last Battle” seem designed to rile people on the conservative side of the culture wars: public nudity, strippers, children dressed in drag — symbols of a society supposedly in a moral free fall. Then the online video pivots to more extreme material: quick-cut scenes of attacks on White people, bogus allegations of election fraud and a parade of pictures purporting to show “the Jewish Communist takeover.” The six-minute video, distributed on gaming platforms and social media, rapidly reveals itself as a visually arresting propaganda piece. Read more
Hollywood sees gold in political figures like Stacey Abrams. By Variety
In addition to launching the organization Fair Fight — shifting the nationwide narrative around voting rights — Stacey Abrams starred in the documentary “All In: The Fight for Democracy,” has written numerous books and is endlessly featured as a panelist or keynote speaker. She is also part of United Talent Agency’s roster of premiere clientele. And while Hollywood’s talent agencies have always repped political figures, they are all taking their clients to a new level. Read more
From coal mines to chain gangs and more: Black music tells the tales of Black workers. By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos
When I was growing up we always celebrated the first of May as “May Day” in my home, not as some kind of spring ritual but in honor of International Workers Day, often referred to as Labour Day. Though here in the United States, Labor Day on the first Monday in September became “the official holiday” to avoid the taint of anything that reeked of global leftism, my very left-of-center, union-raised dad made sure we honored both days. So on this #BlackMusicSunday, the day after May Day, I’m exploring songs and tunes from multiple genres of Black music that feature work, workers, and jobs. Shown is Gil Scott-Heron. Read more
The Face of Solo Guitar Is Changing. It’s About Time. By Grayson Haver Currin / NYT
Yasmin’s Williams’s radiant sound and adventitious origins have made her a key figure in a diverse dawn for the solo guitar. Long dominated by much-mythologized white men like John Fahey, the form’s demographic is slowly broadening to include those who have often been omitted, including women, nonbinary instrumentalists and people of color. These musicians are paying little mind to the traditional godheads. They are, instead, expanding the fundamental influences within solo guitar, incorporating idioms sometimes deemed verboten in what was once a homogenized scene. Read more
Netflix’s stunning “Yasuke” spins a fantastical Black samurai story, but needs more space to swing. By Melanie McFarland / Salon
Yasuke” creator LeSean Thomas leaves everything on the field with his new Netflix anime series. That’s blatantly obvious the moment we drop into the center of a battle where armored warriors clash against socerers and giant mechs raining fire down on troops. The year is 1582, but Thomas mashes up classic images of feudal Japan with anime robots, shamans, demons and mutants because he can. This is his legendary world to build about a Black samurai, a character based on an actual historical figure, and thus far no other artist has built any mythmaking around him. Read more
Sports
Black football agents face another hurdle: Convincing White players to sign with them. By Candace Buckner / Wash Post
Before Internet searches were the norm, Black NFL agent Roosevelt Barnes remembers trying to recruit a high-profile draft pick. He sent a brochure to the future first-rounder that listed the names and photos of clients that he and his partner, Eugene Parker, represented: Deion Sanders, Emmitt Smith and Rod Woodson, to name a few. The player called the number on the pamphlet, and Barnes answered. Early into the call, Barnes could sense the player’s excitement. But as the conversation continued, the player’s enthusiasm dulled. The prospective client, who was White, said he was going in a different direction and ended the call. Read more
Kyrie Irving’s conversion to Islam shows his commitment to life beyond basketball. By Khaled A. Beydoun / The Undefeated
During Ramadan, Islam’s holy month when nearly 2 billion adherents observe the daily fast from sunup to sundown, Irving has embraced a new cause that encompasses the pillars of social justice, anti-racism and humanitarianism that have come to define the 29-year-old superstar’s walk, on and off the court. Read more
After Jackie: Players who followed Robinson to MLB also faced ongoing racism. By Andrew B Distler / The Undefeated
The story of Jackie Robinson facing racist crowds in Philadelphia is well known. But this isn’t the story of Robinson, and the year isn’t 1947. It’s the story of Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Dick Allen, and the year is 1965 — almost two decades after Robinson broke the color barrier to become the first black MLB player in the 20th century. Allen is among the scores of black baseball players, many of them largely forgotten, who followed in Robinson’s footsteps in the 1950s and ’60s. Fans attacked their homes, teammates shunned them, owners abused them. Yet there are no biopics about them, few schoolchildren learn their stories and, unlike Robinson, there is no day on the baseball calendar to celebrate and appreciate them as the trailblazers they are. Read more
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The ‘Mississippi Plan’ to keep Blacks from voting in 1890: ‘We came here to exclude the Negro.’ By Ronald G. Shafer / Wash Post 
The GOP’s Black Friend Says America Is Not a Racist Country. By Nathalie Baptiste / Mother Jones
Is Racism a Mental Illness? Shayla Love / Vice News
To Protect the Next George Floyd, We Must Remove the Threat of Police Violence from Everyday Life. By Phillip Atiba Goff / Time and Yahoo News
Andrew Brown Jr. shooting exposes disconnect between majority rural Black city and the county. By Nicquel Terry Ellis / CNN
In police shootings, race might not be part of the set of facts. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. By Colbert I. King / Wash Post
The most important trial of police officers for killing a Black man has not yet happened. By Paul Butler / Wash Post
Should Biden Emphasize Race or Class or Both or None of the Above? By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT