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The Arenas of Masculinity: Race, Sport, and Radicalization. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / Race Inquiry (Image by Daily Mail)
The Fight of the Century Johnson v Jeffries, July 4th 1910
The crisis of masculinity in America is often framed in two familiar ways: either as the destructive force of “toxic” behaviors—aggression, misogyny, domination—or as the struggles of men in a rapidly changing society, uncertain of their place as traditional roles of provider and protector recede.
Movements such as MAGA have seized on this tension, promising a return to “traditional” masculinity as a means of securing political loyalty, especially among young white men. What is often missing from these analyses, however, is the role of race. Masculinity in the United States has never been race-neutral. For centuries, white manhood has defined itself in opposition to Black masculinity, casting the latter as a threat to be contained, humiliated, or displaced. Read more
Beyond the Arena: Race, Masculinity, and the Possibility of Change. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / Race Inquiry
The crisis of masculinity is often described as a behavioral or social problem, but beneath the surface lies a psychological one. As Alfred Adler suggested, superiority often hides feelings of inferiority. The exaggerated swagger of hyper-masculinity, whether on the field, in politics, or in online spaces, frequently masks insecurity. For many white men, that insecurity has been intensified by cultural and economic change.
Yet history also demonstrates that change is possible. Behaviors once thought immutable have shifted under pressure. Read more
Political / Social
Trump’s War on America Is Expanding. By Alex Shephard / TNR
The president is now unleashing state violence at home and abroad, illegally and with impunity.
It’s becoming clear that the administration’s extralegal assault on immigrant communities was just the beginning of a wider war, one that lately hast targeted anyone—from the street to the TV screen—who dares criticize the regime. Read more
Related: Trump and Hegseth’s Plan for the “War Within.” By Michael T. Klare / The Nation
Related: Trump Is Not Afraid of Civil War. Neither Is Stephen Miller. By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT
Related: How Trump Is Using the Justice Department to Target His Enemies. Alan Feuer and
The National Guard arrives in Chicago. What now? Consider This from NPR / NPR
The clock is ticking for Chicago and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
President Trump has deployed the National Guard to the country’s third largest city, and he says they’ll begin operations no later than Wednesday. Pritzker, a democrat, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson are fighting the administration’s efforts in the courts. Read more
Related: The Civil-Military Crisis Is Here. By Tom Nichols / The Atlantic
Related: Illinois sues the Trump administration over National Guard deployment to Chicago. By , and
The Supreme Court v. Democracy. By Elie Mystal / The Nation
The Nation’s justice correspondent previews the court’s coming term—and explains why it will never stand up to Trump.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 with its landmark decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, I hoped that Democrats would finally get a clue: The Supreme Court is not our friend. It has been corrupted and weaponized and functions as an antidemocratic enforcement mechanism of the Republican political agenda. When it’s not prosecuting the culture war on behalf of white-wing bigots, it’s destroying organized labor, engaging in copaganda, and anointing kings. Read more
Related: How to Save the American Experiment.
Related: With a Democratic leadership vacuum, Obama steps up his Trump administration criticisms. By , and
How the government shutdown is hitting the health care system. By Simon F. Haeder / Salon
Major rifts over key health care issues are at the heart of the federal government shutdown that began at the stroke of midnight on Oct. 1, 2025.
This is not the first time political arguments over health care policy have instigated a government shutdown. In 2013, for example, the government shut down due to disputes over the Affordable Care Act. This time around, the ACA continues to play a central role, with Democrats demanding, among other things, an extension of subsidies for ACA plan insurance premiums that are set to expire at the end of 2025. Democrats are also holding out to roll back cuts to the Medicaid program that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, as part of what he called his “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Read more
Related: Health Care Politics Bolster Democrats in Shutdown Fight. Catie Edmondson and Carl Hulse / NYT
Related: Six surgeons general: RFK Jr. is a threat to the health of Americans / Wash Post
Stephen Miller Is Going for Broke. By Jonathan Chait / The Atlantic
The White House aide equates opposition to Trump’s agenda with terrorism—and pushes for the use of state power to suppress it.
Stephen Miller spent his weekend, as he is wont to do, describing American politics as if the nation were in the advanced stages of civil war and as if he were dictating a message while racing to a mountain hideout to escape bloodthirsty guerrillas. “There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country. It is well organized and funded,” he wrote on X. “And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.” Read more
Related: Stephen Miller’s Uncle Agrees That He’s a ‘Depraved Fiend.’ By Josh Fiallo / Daily Beast
Black women’s unemployment & is the economy getting worse? By Brittany Luse , Corey Antonio Rose , and Neena Pathak / NPR
Black women’s unemployment rate is hovering at 6.7% — higher than the rate for white workers. Is it a sign the broader economy could sour? These economists say yes.
Black women are the ‘canary in the economic coal mine,’ says Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman. She’s the author of The Double Tax: How Women of Color are Overcharged and Underpaid. Brittany speaks to Anna and Ofranama Biu, chief economist and senior research director at the Maven Collaborative, about why Black women’s unemployment is on the rise and why this trend could be a troubling sign for the rest of the country. Read more and listen here
Related: Black Americans See Decline in Thriving Despite Some Progress. By Jamal Watson / The Eduledger
Senate confirms Herschel Walker as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas. By
The former NFL player, who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 2022, will be the first ambassador to the Bahamas in nearly 15 years.
Walker, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump who unsuccessfully ran for a Senate seat in Georgia three years ago, was confirmed along with more than 100 other nominees in a 51-47 vote that fell along party lines. Read more
Education
Campus Civics Centers Are Getting Millions From Trump. Here’s What They’ll Use It For.
On Monday, the Department of Education announced $153 million in grants for “American history and civics seminars.” The grants are awarded in varying sums to 85 institutions, including over 50 universities. The recipients plan to use the money for a variety of educational ventures, including developing AI models of historical figures and providing civil-discourse workshops for high schoolers and their teachers.
Institutions that receive the grant will deliver seminars and workshops to K-12 educators and students on “American history and civics that directly commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.” The grant is part of a larger effort by the Department of Education, branded “America250,” to fund a variety of educational programs that bolster “patriotism.” Read more
Related: When Viewpoint Diversity Means Conformity. Amanda Anderson / The Chronicle of Higher Ed.
These Activists Want to Dismantle Public Schools. Now They Run the Education Department. by Megan O’Matz and Jennifer Smith Richards / Propublica
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been clear about her desire to shut down the agency she runs. She’s laid off half the staff and joked about padlocking the door. She calls it “the final mission.”
But the department is not behaving like an agency that is simply winding down. Even as McMahon has shrunk the Department of Education, she’s operated in what she calls “a parallel universe” to radically shift how children will learn for years to come. The department’s actions and policies reflect a disdain for public schools and a desire to dismantle that system in favor of a range of other options — private, Christian and virtual schools or homeschooling. Read more
Tribal colleges and universities aren’t well known, but are a crucial steppingstone for Native students. By Cynthia Lindquist / The Conversation
Most Native American high school students do not attend or graduate from college. Navajo Technical University in Crownpoint, N.M., is the largest tribal university in the country
As a tribal member of Spirit Lake Nation in North Dakota and the former president of Cankdeska Cikana Community College in Fort Totten, North Dakota, I recognize the difference that tribal colleges and universities, like the one I used to work at, can have in rerouting Native students’ education journeys. Read more
World
The ruin of Gaza: how Israel’s two-year assault has devastated the territory. By Jason Burke / The Guardian
The devastating war in Gaza has entered its third year, standing as Israel’s longest war since the 1948 conflict that led to the country’s creation.
The majority of those killed by Israel’s offensive in the strip have been civilians, and the overall total now exceeds 67,000. Entire families have been wiped out in a single airstrike. Sometimes, only a single individual, frequently a child, is left alive. There are also nearly 170,000 injured. In all, casualties amount to roughly 10% of Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million. Read more
Related: As Gaza war enters third year, Israel-Hamas peace talks offer hope. By Emily Feng / NPR
Related: Ravaged by War: Trying to Survive Gaza’s Present, Hoping for a Future. By Ben Hubbard, et al. / NYT
As America fumbles, China races ahead. By Fareed Zakaria / Wash Post
Xi is building the future while Trump pushes tariffs and fights the woke wars. A robot serves popcorn during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai.
The most significant arena of competition is technology. Here China has already established a commanding lead in several areas. In green technology — from solar panels to batteries to electric vehicles — Beijing’s dominance is now overwhelming. These act as a geopolitical lever as Beijing offers solar farms, battery plants and electric buses to nations in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Bloomberg has tracked 13 critical technologies and found that China now leads in five and is catching up fast in seven. Read more
Related: Cheer Up, or Else: China Cracks Down on the Haters and Cynics.Lily Kuo / NYT
If We’re at War, Americans Deserve to Know More About It. By W.J. Hennigan / NYT
The Trump administration told Congress this week that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
The average American knows vanishingly little about what its government seeks to accomplish in this fight. Citizens aren’t in possession of the metrics by which to judge the administration’s pursuit of those goals. We haven’t been told which specific drugs they seek to stop. We haven’t been told much about which specific groups they seek to destroy. We haven’t been told much about what legal authorities they are acting on. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Wisdom Bearers: Ambassador Andrew Young, The Rev. Dr. Paul Smith, and Dr. Catherine Meeks. You Tube Video
These two stalwarts of the civil rights movement talk about their childhood, their friendship and much more. Moderated by Dr. Catherine Meeks.
This is so uplifting and exciting. I am honored as well as humbled that I can sit in the room with such wonderful souls as Rev. Smith and Ambassador Young. Watch here
Preservation Grants Help Black Churches Hold On to Their History. By Shelia Poole / Christianity Today
Over a hundred congregations have received up to a half-million dollars to repair deteriorating buildings and restore their place in their communities. Cynthia Gibbs, chair of the Taveau Legacy Committee, is part of a group working to restore historic Taveau Church in South Carolina.
Cynthis Gibbs grew up five miles from Taveau Church, a small wooden building weathered by decades of declining membership and a deteriorating physical structure. Outside Charleston, South Carolina, the church sits on land once owned by Henry Laurens, one of America’s founding fathers, a wealthy planter and slave owner. At nearly 200 years old, the structure had become a shell of its former self with its story largely untold. Read more
Tony Evans Will No Longer Pastor Dallas Megachurch After Restoration. By Adelle M. Banks / RNS
Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship announced that its pastor of 48 years won’t return to leadership. The church expects son Jonathan Evans to succeed him.
Dallas megachurch founder Tony Evans, who stepped back from leading his church due to an undisclosed “sin” he announced last year, apologized to his congregation and his family on Sunday, after the elder board of his Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship announced the pastor had completed a “restoration process” and will not return to leadership of the church. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Civil Rights Lawyer Bryan Stevenson on How America’s Story Should Be Told. Kurt Streeter / NYT
The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative says it would be “dishonorable” to remain silent in the face of President Trump’s efforts.
As the Trump administration attempts to remove exhibits focused on race and slavery from national parks and reviews the Smithsonian Institution’s approach to history, cultural institutions are struggling with how best to respond. Bryan Stevenson, 65, is a civil rights lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law group that represents imprisoned and condemned inmates. He has a message for those cultural institutions: expand your efforts, don’t retreat. Read more
‘The Birthplace Of African American History’ Is A Fascinating Florida Landmark Hidden In A Stunning State Park. By Hannah Saab / Islands
Florida has some of the country’s most breathtaking state parks, and among these is a hidden gem that holds a crucial place in history:
Welcome to Fort Mose Historic State Park. The sprawling 40-acre park is known as “the birthplace of African American history.” The denomination was coined by David Nolan, historian for the ACCORD Civil Rights Museum in Florida, thanks to the fort’s role as the site of the nation’s first legally sanctioned free African settlement. So don’t be fooled by its lush trails and quiet picnic spots; the beautiful destination was once part of one of the most profound stories in early American history. Read more
The Forgotten Fight: 10 Black Suffragists Who Battled For The Vote Beyond The 19th Amendment. By Black Enterprise Editors
Women’s suffrage, but for whom? Open an American history textbook from the last 50 years to the women’s suffrage chapter, and you will likely find a summary that places Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the forefront of the movement and Seneca Falls as a key location for women’s right to vote.
But Black women played a crucial role in the movement— both in advocating for the vote for all women before the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 and fighting for its equal enforcement after 1920, as Jim Crow laws kept Black women and other women of color from the polls. Read more
Beyond Tulsa: Uncovering America’s Forgotten Black Wall Streets And Their Legacies Today. By Jazmin Goodwin / Yahoo news
“Beautiful, bustling, and Black”—that was how author, attorney, and activist Hannibal B. Johnson described Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood District in his book “Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District.”
Though perhaps the most widely known, Tulsa’s story was not unique. “Wherever you had large Black populations concentrated because of segregation, you had these enterprising African Americans who sprouted up to provide every need possible. However, alongside these success stories came the backlash. Beyond Tulsa, Black Americans who engaged in economic activity fell victim to racial violence and intentional economic disruption. Read more
The Right Is Suddenly Obsessed With ‘Heritage Americans.’ By Ali Breland / The Atlantic
Why some on the right want to know if your ancestors were here during the Civil War
“You could find their last names in the Civil War registry,” MacIntyre explained. This ancestry matters, he said, because America is not “a collection of abstract things agreed to in some social contract.” It is a specific set of people who embody an “Anglo-Protestant spirit” and “have a tie to history and to the land.” MacIntyre continued: “If you change the people, you change the culture.” “All true,” Carlson replied. Read more
“To Free Someone Else”: Toni Morrison the Book Editor. By Marina Magloire / The Nation
A recent book on her career in publishing makes the case that the great American novelist should also be seen as a pathbreaking editor.
As the only Black woman editor at Random House between 1972 and 1983, Morrison had the power to decide which Black writers received the visibility and resources of a major publishing house. Dana A. Williams’s new book, Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship, explores the efforts that Morrison took to make all of her writers feel free to express themselves in an industry that prioritized profit over artistry. Read more
An Intimate Chronicle of Kanye West’s Fall from Grace. By Andrew Marantz / The New Yorker
One simple way to think of Kanye West is as a genius stuck in the body of a child who’s always on the verge of a tantrum. He takes out his crayons, scribbles on a napkin, then declares the result a masterpiece—and often, implausibly, it is—and yet he may tear up the napkin a few seconds later if his mood changes, or if he receives anything other than instant and unmitigated praise. In the new documentary “In Whose Name?,” an intimate chronicle of West’s long fall from grace, from 2018 to 2024, we see this pattern repeat again and again, at times almost literally. Read more
Sports
LeBron’s ‘Second Decision’ could have been memorable. Instead, it was corny. By Dan Shanoff / The Athletic
If LeBron James’ original “The Decision” was a fascinating display of self-regard, Tuesday’s “The Second Decision” was easily the cringiest, corniest thing he has ever done in his otherwise superlative career. Spoiler: It was a liquor ad.
But this? Invoking an all-time sports-culture moment like “The Decision” just to support a cringy, corny ad for Hennessy? (Imagine if Michael Jordan faxed a note “I’m Back,” then the next page spat out: “I’m Back … to wear Hanes new ComfortBlend boxer-briefs.”) This kind of build-up and let-down is beneath LeBron. It’s beneath us all. Read more
The Fight for the Future of Women’s Basketball. By Louisa Thomas / The New Yorker
The W.N.B.A. star Napheesa Collier’s blistering critique of the league has brought it to a turning point.
Napheesa Collier is a smooth, coolheaded forward for the Minnesota Lynx. She is not the most famous player in the W.N.B.A., but she is one of the best. On Tuesday she sat at the podium with papers in her hands, and, in the course of four minutes, read her prepared remarks. She said that the league office paid lip service to players’ health, that it ignored increasingly urgent concerns about referees losing control of games. It seemed not to care about the quality of the product on the floor. Read more
Joe Flacco to the Bengals means Shedeur Sanders’s chance could be coming. By Mark Maske / Wash Post
The Cincinnati Bengals, with their season coming unraveled, made a move to address their near-term quarterback situation Tuesday by trading for Joe Flacco, the well-traveled veteran who was just benched by the Cleveland Browns.
For the Browns, the deal moves Shedeur Sanders one step closer to the field; he could become the primary backup to fellow rookie quarterback Dillon Gabriel. Here’s what the trade means for the Bengals, Flacco, the Browns and Sanders. Read more
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