Featured
Jen Senko on how Fox News brainwashed her dad — and is now prepping its audience for fascism. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
My dad hadn’t been racist. He hadn’t been anti-“illegal immigrant.” After listening to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, he got brainwashed. When I made the documentary, I did not know if I believed in brainwashing. Now I know that brainwashing does exist, it is real. There’s the brainwashing that happens through force, what we were all familiar with from movies. But what Fox News and the larger right-wing are doing is brainwashing by stealth. I believe this to be more insidious. There’s only one type of information going into the brain. There’s isolation. There is repetition. That is how they brainwash their public. I feel like there has been a massive brainwashing campaign, something unlike anything we’ve ever seen before in this country. That’s what’s happened in America through Fox News and the right-wing media and movement. Read more
Related: Donald Trump’s “slow-motion coup” is becoming a runaway train. By Alan D. Blotsky / Salon
Related: America ‘On Fire’: Facebook Watched As Donald Trump Ignited Hate. By Amanda Seitz / HuffPost
Political / Social
The White Stuff: A Field Guide to White Supremacy. Brian Gilmore / The Progressive Magazine
The nonfiction anthology A Field Guide to White Supremacy is a book that meets the moment. Edited and presented by Kathleen Belew and Ramón A. Gutiérrez, it is about the idea of white supremacy—and, as Chicago poet Haki R. Madhubuti once said, “Ideas,” and their creators, “run the world.” A Field Guide to White Supremacy leaves little out. Colonialism, patriarchy, racial violence, police brutality, Islamophobia, anti-immigrant policies, and many other manifestations of white supremacy are all addressed. Read more
Related: Pro-Trump Professors Are Plotting an Authoritarian Comeback. By Laura Fields / The New Republic
Related: The Moral Chasm That Has Opened Up Between Left and Right Is Widening. By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT
Glenn Youngkin Reaches for the Dogwhistle in the Election’s Final Week. By Timothy Noah / TNR
On Monday, Youngkin posted a campaign ad on Twitter featuring Laura Murphy, a white Fairfax County mother who said that her son Blake was traumatized by having to read Beloved as a high school senior. Laura told The Washington Post in 2013 that Blake was disturbed by the book’s depictions of (spoiler alert) bestiality, gang rape, and the murder of an infant. Read more
Why ‘Evangelical’ Is Becoming Another Word for ‘Republican.’ By Ryan Burge / NYT
A recent report from the Pew Research Center came as a huge surprise. Its most shocking revelation was that, between 2016 and 2020, there was no significant decline in the share of white Americans who identify as evangelical Christians. Instead, the report found the opposite: During Donald Trump’s presidency, the number of white Americans who started identifying as evangelical actually grew. Read more
Republicans, once hesitant to back Herschel Walker, rally to support football star and Senate candidate. By Eugene Scott / Wash Post
Republicans are coalescing around the Senate candidacy of former football star Herschel Walker, a Donald Trump favorite who once gave the GOP pause over allegations that he threatened the lives of two women, including his ex-wife, and embellished his business record. Senate Minority Whip John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Republican in party leadership, endorsed Walker on Monday, signaling growing support for the political novice among GOP leaders intent on ousting Georgia Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) next year. Read more
1 in 4 Jews in the U.S. experienced antisemitism in the last year, report says. By Joe Hernandez / NPR
Nearly one out of every four Jews in the U.S. has been the subject of antisemitism over the past year, a number that advocates for the Jewish community say should trouble all Americans. The data was published in a new report released Monday by the American Jewish Committee, which called for action to stop what the group characterized as a “severe problem” in the nation. Read more
Related: 2020 Had The Most Reported Hate Crimes Since 2001: FBI Data. By Nina Golgowski / HuffPost
Kyle Rittenhouse and the New Era of Political Violence. By Charles Homans / NYT Magazine
They called themselves citizens or patriots, and the demonstrators and media often called them militias, but it would have been most accurate to call them paramilitaries: young-to-middle-aged white men, mostly, armed with assault-style rifles and often clad in tactical gear, who appeared in town that evening arrayed purposefully around gas stations and used-car lots. Law-enforcement officers seemed to have broadly tolerated, and occasionally openly expressed support for, their activities, despite the fact that many of them were violating the same emergency curfew order under which dozens of demonstrators were arrested. Read more
Judicial inquiry begins looking into Eric Garner’s death at hands of NYPD. /ABC News
The long-awaited judicial inquiry into the NYPD killing of Eric Garner began on Monday. Judge Erika Edwards has ordered 13 witnesses, including NYPD officers and sergeants, to testify in order to offer more insight and transparency into the fatal 2014 incident. The proceedings will focus on: the arrest and use of force against Garner, the filing of official documents concerning Garner’s arrest, the alleged leaking of Garner’s arrest history and medical condition from the autopsy report, as well as the alleged lack of medical care for Garner. Read more
White House builds bridges with one of Black community’s most powerful groups. By Eugene Daniels / Politico
To successfully enact new voting rights and police reform laws, President Joe Biden may need some divine intervention. But if he can’t get that, at least he’s working to get some help from the Divine Nine. Formally known as the National Pan-Hellenic Council, the Divine Nine represents nine historically Black fraternities and sororities and their alumni. It is arguably the most powerful organization in the Black community. And, until now, they’ve largely been an untapped resource for administrations looking to connect with Black voters. Read more
Latina economic expert, in new Treasury role, foster racial equity. By Nicole Acevedo / NBC News
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has appointed Janis Bowdler, former UnidosUS economic policy director, to a newly created position meant to help advance racial equity efforts within the department. As the new counselor for racial equity, Bowdler will continue to build off recent work the Treasury Department has done aimed at lifting barriers for underrepresented communities in accessing benefits and opportunities. Some of the efforts she will be undertaking include improving access to the child tax credit and understanding how Community Development Financial Institutions, or CDFIs, and Minority Depository Institutions can increase access to capital across communities of color, among other efforts. Read more
.
Economic toll of COVID pandemic hits Black and Latino households hard. By Laurel Wamsley / NPR
Thirty-eight percent of households across the U.S. report facing serious financial problems over the last few months. That’s according to a poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. And among Black and Latino households, more than 55% reported serious financial problems. That’s compared with 29% of white households. Read more
Howard University students protest mold, rodents in campus dorms. By and
Many students have reported to the university and shared on social media mold in the dorms, Wi-Fi connection problems, dining halls infested with rats and roaches and an unresponsive administration. The mold problem began over the summer due to a flood on campus, Robinson told NBC News. Mold has since been identified in at least 38 dorm rooms out of 2,700 total rooms on campus, an official from Howard University confirmed to NBC News. In response to the issues on campus, students have occupied the Blackburn University Center for nearly two weeks. Read more
Why many Black employees don’t want to return to the office. By Khristopher J. Brooks / CBS News
Tennessee mom Ashley Brooks enjoys working in tech support at a Nashville firm, in large part because the job has been remote since the coronavirus pandemic erupted. But with her employer likely to summon employees back to the office in 2022, she is nervous: Like many Black Americans, Brooks finds the thought of returning to work discomfiting. Indeed, while polls suggest some employees are content to be back at their desks, Black workers told CBS MoneyWatch that being in a predominantly White workplaces often exacts an emotional toll. Working from home offers a measure of inner peace and even helps them do their jobs better, they said. Read more
Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen envision a more unified America. By Sharon Pruitt -Young, Audie Cornish, Matt Ozug and Courtney Dorning / NPR
Barack and Bruce. Obama and Springsteen. Mr. President and The Boss. They might like you to just call them renegades. Launched in February, the Renegades podcast consisted of a series of candid conversations between iconic musician Bruce Springsteen and former President Barack Obama, recorded in the summer of 2020 during the height of the pandemic. One episode dissects the idea of masculinity and fatherhood. Another sees the two delving into their experiences with race. In another, they dig deep into music: what kind inspires them and Springsteen’s career spent making it. And for those wondering how Obama and Springsteen came to be perhaps the most unlikely podcast-hosting duo of the year, there’s even an episode about how they first met. Read more
Historical / Cultural
A 19th-Century Law Dismantled The KKK. Now It Could Bring Down A New Generation Of Extremists. By Lyz Lenz / HuffPost
The case is a sweeping attempt to use the KKK Act of 1871 to dismantle this amorphous online world and implicate its members in the August 2017 violence at the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s a civil case, seeking damages for not only physical violence and violations of civil rights, but the emotional violence of online and physical harassment that began before the rally and has continued long after. Read more
Nearly 100 Confederate Monuments Were Toppled Last Year. What Happened to Them? By Melissa Lyttle / Mother Jones
Some cities in Alabama, North Carolina, and Texas have relocated their monuments to Confederate graveyards or local museums. Other cities in Georgia and Florida have moved them out of the public eye and onto private property. And many more have hidden their monuments away in shipping containers, warehouses, storage sheds, public works facilities, city impound lots, a prison maintenance yard, and other “secure undisclosed locations.” Read more
A White mob dragged a Black man from a Maryland jail in 1887. Now a memorial will mark the lynching. By Michael E. Ruane / Wash Post
Hance was eventually taken to a remote spot on Newtowne Neck Road, where he was hanged from the branch of a witch hazel tree. His arms were tied behind his back at the elbows, and his right hand was tied to his right foot. “There was no struggle beyond the working of the legs,” the Baltimore Sun reported, according to the Archives of Maryland. He was found that morning by a local farmer heading out to cut wheat. He had no shoes on, and his clothes were stained with blood. “It was a gruesome enough sight to satisfy any lover of horrors,” the newspaper said. It was June 17, 1887, and it was a scene that was repeated thousands of times across the United States in the decades after the Civil War and well into the 20th century. Read more
Claudette Colvin was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a bus. Now she’s fighting to get her record expunged. By Devon M. Sayers / CNN
Claudette Colvin, a civil rights pioneer who in March 1955, at the age of 15, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a White person on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, is seeking to get her conviction expunged. “I guess you can say that now, I’m no longer a juvenile delinquent,” Colvin said at a news conference Tuesday, after filing a motion asking the juvenile courts to seal, destroy and expunge her records. “Under Jim Crow the bus driver had the authority to ask you to give up your seat to a White person and that was absolutely wrong,” she added. Colvin’s legal team had said Monday it planned to file a request Tuesday with a Montgomery County court to clear her record. Read more
Black men in ‘Groveland Four’ case may get rape convictions, indictments dismissed. By Kiara Alfonseca / ABC News
More than 70 years after four Black men were accused of raping a white woman in 1949, Florida State Attorney Bill Gladson has filed a motion to posthumously clear the “Groveland Four” of their criminal records. “Even a casual review of the record reveals that these four men were deprived of the fundamental due process rights that are afforded to all Americans,” Gladson wrote in his motion filed Monday. “The evidence strongly suggests that a sheriff, a judge, and prosecutor all but guaranteed guilty verdicts in this case.” Read more
A California Law School Reckons With the Shame of Native Massacres. By Thomas Fuller / NYT
Documented in letters and depositions held in California’s state archives, the Gold Rush-era massacres are today at the heart of a dispute at one of the country’s most prominent law schools, whose graduates include generations of California politicians and lawyers like Vice President Kamala Harris. For the past four years, the University of California, Hastings College of the Law has been investigating the role of its founder, Serranus Hastings, in one of the darkest, yet least discussed, chapters of the state’s history. Mr. Hastings, one of the wealthiest men in California in that era and the state’s first chief justice, masterminded one set of massacres. Read more
The Fearlessness of Passing. By Charles Taylor / Dissent
Making a movie of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing, one of the great works of the Harlem Renaissance—and, I’d argue, a great American novel—would be tricky in any era. That the actress Rebecca Hall, making her directing debut, has done a close-to-devastating job of it in this era is a remarkable achievement. The novel is the story of two girlhood friends who reencounter each other as young, married women, one passing for white and the other firmly settled into the life of Harlem’s black bourgeoisie. Larsen practically invites the careless reader to fall into well-intentioned sociological clichés—in other words, to believe that this is a novel about the tragedy that befalls those who, driven by racist persecution, cross the color line and betray their own. Read more
TV Diversity Is Improving On Screen. Behind The Camera, It’s Still Mostly White And Male. By Marina Fog / HuffPost
Published Tuesday, the Hollywood Diversity Report from the University of California, Los Angeles, examines hundreds of television shows released in the 2019-20 season. Led by UCLA researchers Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramón, the report found that of the 2019-20 shows on broadcast or digital platforms, “not a single scripted show created solely by a person of color won an Emmy.” In addition, “for broadcast and digital, the shows most likely to win an Emmy for 2019-20 were among those with the least diverse casts.” Read more
Gil Scott-Heron changed my life – and his humane message still resonates. By Abdul Malik Al Nasir / The Guardian
In 1986, as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was being inaugurated in Cleveland, Ohio, I was touring Europe with the artist, poet, author and civil rights activist Gil Scott-Heron. At that time, you wouldn’t have readily associated someone like Gil with the term rock’n’roll. In fact, people were struggling to find any genre name that could encapsulate this urban griot’s unique and diverse repertoire. Gil would often joke that if you wanted to find his music in the record store, “look for a category that says miscellaneous”; true innovators don’t fit into established genres but create them. Read more
Sports
‘Colin in Black & White’ and ‘Swagger’ review. By Brian Lowry / CNN
The N.F.L.’s Problems Are Bigger Than Gruden. By jane Coaston / NYT
Earlier this month, Jon Gruden stepped down as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders after the public learned that he sent racist, homophobic and bafflingly misogynistic emails to a league executive and others, including messages that insulted players and the head of the N.F.L. Players Association. It is likely that he will never work in the N.F.L. again. But in the weeks since Gruden resigned, games have gone on as usual. And the N.F.L.’s culture has remained as poisonous as ever. Here’s the thing: Gruden didn’t live in a vacuum. When the story came to light, not many people talked about the recipients of many of those racist, homophobic and bafflingly misogynistic emails. Read more
Candace Parker brings the WNBA title home to Chicago with a Game 4 win over Phoenix. Kareen Copeland / Wash Post
Visit our home page for more articles, book/podcast and video favorites. And at the top of this page register your email to receive notification of new editions of Race Inquiry Digest. Click here for earlier Digests.
About Race Inquiry and Race Inquiry Digest. The Digest is published on Mondays and Thursdays.
Use the buttons below to share the Digest in an email, or post to your Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter accounts.