Race Inquiry Digest (October 4) – Important Current Stories On Race In America

Feature – ‘Student Athlete,’ the latest doc from LeBron James, examines the exploitation of college athletes. HBO film tells the story of four athletes in football and basketball. Tuesday night, Student Athlete, the latest offering from LeBron James’ SpringHill Entertainment production company, premieres on HBO. Directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Trish Dalton, Student Athlete takes a big-picture look at the NCAA and the ways Division I football and basketball have become a boon to everyone except the players who fuel its success and ratings. “The coaches are making millions of dollars and they’re coaching players whose parents live below the poverty line,” former NFL and college football coach John Shoop says in the film. Soraya Nadia McDonald / The Undefeated Read more

The Angry White Male Caucus. When Matt Damon did his Brett Kavanaugh imitation on “Saturday Night Live,” you could tell that he nailed it before he said a word. What Thursday’s hearing drove home, however, was that white male rage isn’t restricted to blue-collar guys in diners. It’s also present among people who’ve done very well in life’s lottery, whom you would normally consider very much part of the elite. Paul Krugman / NYT Read more

The Caucasian Kanye: Tucker Carlson Has Gone Full White Nationalist.  Carlson insisted that a Georgetown professor’s tweet that called Kavanaugh and the members of the Senate Judiciary committee, “entitled white men,” was advocating white genocide, which, he insisted (because they always do), is not what Martin Luther King Jr would have wanted. Michael Harriot / The Root Read more

White evangelicals are the only religious group to support Trump. Trump’s standing among white evangelicals has remained virtually unchanged at 71 percent, according to a recent Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll conducted in late August and early September. Tara Isabella Burton / Vox Read more

How Real Estate Segregated America. Real-estate interests have long wielded an outsized influence over national housing policy—to the detriment of African Americans. Shown are Richard Nixon, HUD Secretary Romney, and D.C. Mayor Washington who tour a neighborhood damaged by riots after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. Keena-Yamahtta Taylor / Dissent Read more

Georgia to be sued for purging minority voters ahead of the midterm elections. Voting activists have announced a lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State and GOP gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, alleging he used a racially-biased method to purge roughly 700,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the November election. Kira lerner / ThinkProgress Read more 

Why Does Mississippi’s Flag Still Have A Confederate Symbol? Flags are used to instill pride and hope, but for many people, the Mississippi flag represents oppression and terror. HuffPost Video Watch here

In Mississippi Senate race, an African American Democrat faces a Republican using a Confederate symbol. In Mississippi, where Espy is seeking to become the first black senator from the state since shortly after the Civil War, the difficulty facing him is underscored by the unbroken line of white male faces that have led the state for the past century and a half. And it is exemplified by McDaniel’s tactics. Cleve R. Wootson / Wash Post Read more

Southern Diet Blamed For High Rates Of Hypertension Among Black Americans. Black participants in a study published Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association  were much more likely than white participants to eat a Southern-style diet, which the researchers defined as one that heavily features fried foods, organ meats and processed meats, dairy, sugar-sweetened beverages and bread. Maavi Singh / NPR Read more

‘The end of our journey’: A historic black church closes its doors in a changing D.C. The death of the renowned church in Shaw, Lincoln Temple — an anchor during decades of segregation, a staging ground for the 1963 March on Washington and a haven during the 1968 riots — is the latest sign of the capital’s changing face as black residents get priced out of this neighborhood and so many others. Deneen L. Brown / Wash Post Read more 

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