Featured
‘This film is needed now more than ever’: exploring the roots of US racism. By David Smith / The Guardian ( Image by HITC)
Netflix documentary Stamped from the Beginning takes Ibram X Kendi’s best-selling book and explores the question ‘what’s wrong with Black people?’
In between, it explores how anti-Black racist ideas were created, spread and deeply rooted in American society, often via popular culture, making a case that the history of racism is the history of power. It uses a vivid animation process that blends live action with the art of the era along with music composed by Nate Wonder and Roman GianArthur, brothers and longtime collaborators with Janelle Monáe. Read more and watch the official trailer.
Related: ‘Stamped From the Beginning’ review: Ibram X. Kendi’s on anti-Black racism. By Eric Deggans / NPR
Political / Social
The Roots of Trump’s Rage. By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT
Brian Klaas, a political scientist at University College London, captured the remarkable nature of the 2024 presidential election in an Oct. 1 essay, “The Case for Amplifying Trump’s Insanity.”
Klaas argued that the presidential contest now pits a 77-year-old racist, misogynist bigot who has been found liable for rape, who incited a deadly, violent insurrection aimed at overturning a democratic election, who has committed mass fraud for personal enrichment, who is facing 91 separate counts of felony criminal charges against him and who has overtly discussed his authoritarian strategies for governing if he returns to power against “an 80-year-old with mainstream Democratic Party views who sometimes misspeaks or trips.” Read more
Related: Donald Trump dreams of an American Fourth Reich — and he’s not kidding. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Colorado Supreme Court to take up appeals in Trump ballot case. By and /NBC News
The Colorado Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear appeals related to a judge’s ruling against an effort to keep former President Donald Trump off the state’s ballot in 2024.
The appeals were filed by both Trump and the Colorado voters arguing he is ineligible to hold office. Trump took issue with the state judge’s finding that he “engaged in insurrection,” while the voters disagreed with the ruling that the constitutional clause about ineligibility does not apply to the presidency. Read more
Related: What this judge said about Trump is bone-chilling. By
Pollster sees hope for Biden: “Republicans are in far greater trouble than is generally understood.” By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Trump needs 95% of Republicans to have a chance of winning. Simon Rosenberg explains “he’s very far away from that”
Democratic Party strategist and commentator Simon Rosenberg rejects the consensus view that President Biden is already done for. Rosenberg’s insights merit very careful consideration: He was one of the few experts who predicted that the so-called Republican “red wave” was actually a chimera. In this conversation, Rosenberg explains why President Biden and the Democrats are in a much stronger position than Donald Trump and the Republicans heading into the 2024 election and why he thinks so many of the early 2024 election polls are incorrect. Read more
Related: Young voters are not interested in the institutions Biden needs. By Phillip Bump / Wash Post
The Decision That Could End Voting Rights. By Adam Serwer / The Atlantic
A federal court’s opinion yesterday could render the Voting Rights Act meaningless, if the Supreme Court upholds it.
The right to vote free of racial discrimination was won by blood and sacrifice, those of both the soldiers who fought to preserve the Union and the enslaved and formerly enslaved, and inscribed in the Constitution as the Fifteenth Amendment, so that sacrifice would not be in vain. But that right is also very inconvenient for the modern Republican Party, which would like to be able to discriminate against Black voters without interference from the government.
Yesterday, a three-judge panel from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the law that made America a true democracy for all of its citizens, does not allow private parties to bring lawsuits challenging racial discrimination in voting, which is how the law has worked since it was passed. Read more
Related: Clarence Thomas just made another mess for his colleagues to clean up. By Jay Willis / Slate
Georgia judge orders new bond agreement for Trump co-defendant Harrison Floyd. By Amy Gardner / Wash Post
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis had asked the judge to send Floyd back to jail because of his inflammatory social media posts
A state judge declined Tuesday to revoke the bond agreement of one of former president Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election-interference case after prosecutors argued that a series of social media posts had intimidated and threatened witnesses in the case. But Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee agreed with District Attorney Fani T. Willis that defendant Harrison Floyd had violated the terms of his bond agreement with some of his posts. Read more
An HBCU will host a general election presidential debate for the first time. By
For the first time in U.S. history, a general election presidential debate will be hosted at a historically Black college or university.
The Commission on Presidential Debates announced Monday that Virginia State University in Petersburg will host the second debate of the 2024 general election cycle Oct. 1. “We are honored and grateful to have been chosen as a host for a 2024 Presidential Debate,” VSU President Makola M. Abdullah said in a news release. “This is a historic moment for our university and for HBCUs nationwide.” Read more
Corporate America Is Rethinking Diversity Hiring. By Jeff Green and Kelsey Butler / Bloomberg
Some companies change diversity programs under legal attack
The same conservative activist, Edward Blum, who helped gut race-related college admissions at the US Supreme Court have now set their sights on corporate diversity programs, barraging airlines, tech giants and law firms with lawsuits and complaints. And they’re already having an effect. Read more
Related: Pentagon’s Plan to Spend Over $100M on Diversity Training Sparks Fury. By / Newsweek
GOP states are embracing vouchers. Wealthy parents are benefitting. By Andrew Atterbury / Politico
Most of the beneficiaries are incoming kindergarteners or students already enrolled in private schools.
Republican-controlled legislatures in Florida, Arizona, Iowa, Arkansas and elsewhere passed massive expansions to school vouchers this year, fueled by anger over pandemic-era school closures and disagreements over what kids are taught. The new taxpayer-funded scholarships grant families thousands of dollars to educate their kids how they see fit — whether it’s through private schools, homeschooling or some other alternative to public classrooms. Read more
Worry less about TikTok and Bin Laden — fret more that Mike Johnson shares the terrorist’s view. By Amanda Marcotte / Salon
By calling America “dark,” “depraved,” and “irredeemable,” the GOP speaker may as well be citing Al Qaeda’s leader
In a video recorded just weeks before he ascended to his role as the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill, Johnson filmed a video for the World Prayer Network with rabidly homophobic pastor Jim Garlow. As Frederick Clarkson has chronicled for Salon, Garlow is part of an apocalyptic Christian movement that wishes to end secular democracy and replace it with “a utopian biblical kingdom where only God’s laws are enforced.” (Which, of course, sounds much like bin Laden’s hope for an Islamic caliphate.) Garlow asked Johnson if he felt that it was finally “a time of judgment for our collective sins.” Read more
A new report warns that DeSantis’ private army is a potential hotbed of extremism. By Hunter / Daily Kos
One of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ more bizarre moves has been the establishment of the Florida State Guard.
This during a gubernatorial tenure that has seen DeSantis lurch to the far, far right on everything from civil rights to public education to whether or not people suspected of “drug smuggling” ought to be summarily executed upon crossing our southern border. The guard was announced with some pomp in 2022 and premised as an alternative version of the state National Guard under the orders of nobody but the governor himself and would be focused on emergency response in case of natural disasters or other state emergencies. Read more
Dexter Wade, buried alone in Mississippi, finally gets the funeral he was denied. By and
More than eight months after 37-year-old Dexter Wade was killed and later buried in a pauper’s field, his mother gave her only son the formal funeral that he’d been denied.
Civil rights leaders flew in from around the country for the service Monday. Several elected officials, including a member of Congress, found seats in the church audience alongside grieving family members. A gospel choir sang of hoping for better days to come, flanked onstage by 15 ornate flower bouquets, including one shaped in the initials of the man whose violent death and discreet burial had sparked a national outcry: “DW.” Read more
Childhood Cancer Death Rates Have Stalled For Black Youth. By Shannon Dawson / Newsone
The survival rate for childhood cancer has improved significantly over the years due to advances in modern-day medicine and early detection, but lifesaving treatment can be hard for Black and Hispanic children to access.
According to a new report published by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, childhood cancer death rates for Black and Hispanic children stopped improving after 2011. Between 2001 and 2011 declines in cancer death rates for Black, Hispanic, and white youth were similar, ranging from 15% to 17%. However, only rates for white youth continued to decline through 2021, the report published Nov. 16 noted. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Black Administrative Politics and the Question of the US State. By Frances O’Shaughnessy / AAIHS
In his book Administering Freedom, labor organizer and historian Dale Kretz asks how formerly enslaved Black people made freedom meaningful through their collective engagement with the US federal government. The Freedman’s Bureau (James E. Taylor/Library of Congress)
Through meticulous archival research of the Freedmen’s Bureau, the Freedmen’s Branch, and the US Pension Bureau, Kretz centers Black political action in the unstable emergence and consolidation of the US welfare state over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He convincingly articulates a long tradition of “Black administrative politics” that did not end with the Freedmen’s Bureau. Read more
How the Voting Rights Act, Newly Challenged, Has Long Been Under Attack.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act in Washington in August 1965. Almost since he did so, the law has been challenged in the courts.Credit…Associated Press
A federal ruling this week was only the latest in decades of legal challenges to a law that has shored up Black Americans’ political power. But the ruling on Monday, which would block private citizens and civil rights groups from suing under a key provision of the law called Section 2, is just one of dozens of threats the law has faced: The Voting Rights Act has been under sustained legal and political assault since the day Lyndon B. Johnson signed it in 1965. Read more
Cassie’s Lawsuit Against Diddy, Explained. By Zane Guy / New York Magazine
Cassie sued Diddy in federal court on November 16, accusing the hip-hop mainstay of rape and a decade-long pattern of abuse that began when she was 19 years old.
The R&B singer, who was once signed to Diddy’s label, Bad Boy Records, alleges sex trafficking, human trafficking, sexual battery, sexual assault, and gender-motivated violence, among other causes of action. Just one day after Cassie filed the lawsuit, she settled with Diddy out of court. Below, everything to know about the lawsuit, the settlement, and the music industry’s response. Read more
Chick Webb, The King of Swing. By Alice Nicholas / AAIHS
Dizzy Gillespie and his orchestra performing at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. (William P. Gottlieb/Wikimedia Commons)
Jazz historian Stephanie Stein Crease provides a comprehensive biography of Chick Webb in her 2023, Rhythm Man: Chick Webb and the Beat that Changed America. Drum historian, Chet Falzerano published Chick Webb – Spinnin’ the Webb: The Little Giant (a much shorter and less comprehensive Chick Webb biography) in 2014. In 2021, Moira Rose Donohoe published an illustrated children’s book, Stompin’ at the Savoy: How Chick Webb Became the King of Drums. These authors detail much of the life, work and artistry of Chick Webb. Read more
For Usher, outdoing himself is the only way forward. By Chris Richards / Wash Post
As his buzzy Las Vegas residency draws to a close, the scrupulous R&B superstar is still in search of his hyper-self. Usher performs onstage at the Dolby Live theater at the Park MGM Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on Nov. 7. Every fantastic thing you’ve heard about his Las Vegas residency is probably true. (Roger Kisby)
Even in this world of zero-calorie hyperbole and unimaginative star-worship, every fantastic thing you’ve heard about Usher’s Las Vegas residency is probably true. The show starts with our man dressed like Teddy Pendergrass, singing meticulously, dancing gyroscopically. Two hours later, he’s tireless and shirtless, dripping sweat onto his microphone stand as he teaches it the missionary position. Read more
Kerry James Marshall’s Prints Throw Blackness Into Relief.
A new art book collects the painter’s printmaking oeuvre over almost half a century.
“I am not one who goes in much for magical thinking,” the painter Kerry James Marshall wrote in 2018. “Material reality has spirit enough for me.” From the first scrapbook his kindergarten teacher showed him to his career blurring the lines between large-scale painting, lithography, photography and sculpture, KERRY JAMES MARSHALL: The Complete Prints: 1976-2022 (Ludion/D.A.P., $125) traces a lifelong reverence for the materiality of all visual art. Read more
Sports
LeBron James becomes the first NBA player to score 39,000 points as LA Lakers clinch In-Season Tournament knockout spot. By Sam Joseph / CNN
Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James reached yet another milestone in his legendary career on Tuesday night as he became the first player in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA) to score 39,000 career points.
James previously broke the all-time mark of 38,387 – held by fellow Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – in February this year and is now in uncharted territory. According to the NBA, his current scoring pace suggests that he is on track to reach 40,000 points later this season. Read more
Meet the brothers behind Kansas City Chiefs TE Travis Kelce’s business. By Matenzie Johnson / Andscape
Aaron Eanes (left) and Andre Eanes (right), founders of A&A Management, have been the business managers for Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce since 2013. Rowan Daly
Aaron and Andre Eanes are twin brothers who grew up in Cleveland to entrepreneur parents. Their parents owned and ran 17 Burger King franchises across their hometown and Atlanta. The two grew up watching and playing football, basketball and other sports. So when it came time to pitch Kelce on the brothers representing him as he prepared to enter the 2013 NFL draft, he already trusted them and their plan despite how young and inexperienced they were. “I just had a simple conversation with Travis. ‘Yo, we’re about to start this company, you should rock with us,’ and he was just open to seeing what that would look like,” Andre said. Read more
New Orleans Pelicans forward Larry Nance Jr. heads drive to fight food insecurity. By Marc J. Spears / Andscape
New Orleans Pelicans forward Larry Nance Jr. warms up before a game against the Portland Trail Blazers at Moda Center on March 27 in Portland, Oregon. Amanda Loman/Getty Images
“We know that food insecurity is a problem finding food for New Orleans residents and people in this community, homeless population, low-income population, people that need access to food,” Nance told Andscape. “So how do we get them access to food?” Nance hopes to answer that question with the arrival of The Larry Nance Jr. Zero Hunger Challenge announced today. Read more
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