Featured
PragerU’s Confederate classroom propaganda: Co-opting history to prop up modern insurrectionists. by Amanda Marcotte / Salon
Abraham Lincoln is portrayed making arguments that sound like modern Proud Boys begging a judge for forgiveness
The cartoon videos aimed at children, which are also being considered for classrooms in Texas and New Hampshire, promote a wide-ranging amount of B.S. meant to poison children against reality: Videos that lie about climate change, glamorize genocide, fear-monger about urban life, and deny human rights abuses around the globe. There’s even a video in which an American bigot compares being criticized online to the plight of Soviet dissidents thrown in a gulag.
It’s all terrible, but I want to pull on one thread that especially illustrates why it is that conservatives are so obsessed with rewriting the past. It’s not just that their snowflake-delicate egos can’t stand the idea that their white ancestors may have done bad things. It’s because lies about history are so useful for justifying ongoing lies about our present day. Read more
Political / Social
Experts on Judge Chutkan and Trump: “Despite her encouraging words, she has yet to take action.” Chauncey Devega / Salon
“The sad fact is that no one, including Judge Chutkan, has been willing to employ the power of the judicial system”
Detailed plans for how Trump will become America’s first dictator are already in place in the form of Agenda 47 and Project 2025. As detailed by Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons in a new essay at MSNBC, Trump’s second regime will also be a White Christian theocracy. If Trump and his neofascist allies get their way, the human and civil rights of black and brown people, gays and lesbians and transgender people, women, Muslims, Jews, atheists, Democrats, liberals, progressives, the poor, the disabled, migrants and refugees, and others identified as “enemies” of the Trump regime and larger neofascist project will be taken away. Read more
Related: The “Big One” Missing From Trump’s Indictments. By Marc Elias / Democracy Docket
Related: The Authors of ‘How Democracies Die’ Overestimated the Republicans. By Michelle Goldberg / NYT
What Do Nikki Haley and Tim Scott Really Want? By A.B. Stoddard / The Bulwark
Are the two South Carolinians “in it to win it”—or just after the veep slot?
ON SATURDAY, SOUTH DAKOTA GOV. KRISTI NOEM endorsed Donald Trump at a rally in Rapid City where Trump-Noem signs sprinkled the stands, and all the buzz is that the super-buff, telegenic 51-year-old is on the fast track to be Trump’s running mate next year. This makes the question that has hung over the GOP primary all along even more salient: Just why are Nikki Haley and Tim Scott running for president? Read more
Related: Tim Scott’s girlfriend ? By Ben Terris / Wash Post
Analysis: Here’s why many Black people despise Clarence Thomas. (It’s not because he’s a conservative.) By John Blake / CNN
The myth is that many Black people oppose Thomas because they can’t handle his stern calls for self-reliance and his admonishments to stop looking for free stuff from White people or government programs. According to the conventional story, Black people don’t like Thomas because he is a Republican and a conservative—and because, according to Thomas in a fiery 1998 speech, he refused to be an “intellectual slave.” But many Black people don’t despise Thomas because he’s a conservative. They reject him because they say he’s a “hypocrite” and a “traitor” who hurts his own people to help himself. Read more
Related: Ginni Thomas has already explained the ethics of SCOTUS. By Dahlia Lithwick / Slate
Diversity rhetoric plummets among execs after affirmative action ruling. By Redd Brown and Bloomberg / Fortune
US executives drastically cut back on public discussions of workplace diversity last quarter, in the first earnings season since the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action sent a chill through corporate boardrooms.
Mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion on earnings calls and at conferences among Russell 3,000 Index companies fell by 54% from a year ago in the third quarter to the lowest since 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Since the court decision, Republican lawmakers and conservative groups have publicly warned US corporations that their diversity efforts could come under scrutiny, though some legal experts have said that workplace programs should be unaffected. Read more
Don’t Listen to Eric Adams. Immigrants Make New York City. By Brad Lander / The Nation
New York City needs immigrants, writes the city’s comptroller. Look at the numbers: The city lost more than 400,000 residents between 2020 and 2022.
Mayor Eric Adams said the quiet part way too loud last week, when he declared that the arrival of migrants “will destroy New York City” and blamed the crisis for a new round of budget cuts that “will hurt” every New Yorker, fanning flames of xenophobia by slashing services and blaming the newcomers. But as city comptroller, I look to the data. And the data says that’s just not true. New York City’s history, economy, and even our politics point in the other direction. Read more
Five former officers charged with federal civil rights violations in Tyre Nichols beating death. By AP and Andscape
Five former Memphis police officers were charged Tuesday with federal civil rights violations in the beating death of Tyre Nichols as they continue to fight second-degree murder charges in state courts arising from the killing.
Tadarrius Bean, Desmond Mills, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin and Justin Smith were indicted in U.S. District Court in Memphis. The four-count indictment charges each of them with deprivation of rights under the color of law through excessive force and failure to intervene, and through deliberate indifference; conspiracy to witness tampering, and obstruction of justice through witness tampering. Read more
Suicide rates among Black Americans are increasing by double digits. By Dwayne Bray / Andscape
For decades, the rate of suicide among Black Americans was a fraction of what it was for white people. But in recent years, suicide is becoming more common in the Black community. For Black children 12 and under, the suicide rate is now higher than it is for white kids.
The incidence of suicide among Black folks rose 19.2% over three years, from an age-adjusted rate of 7.3 suicides per 100,000 people in 2018 to 8.7 in 2021, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported earlier this year. The health policy research organization, the Kaiser Family Foundation, reported that suicide in the Black community jumped 58% from 2011 to 2021. To get further context on the problem, Andscape spoke with Joe, one of the nation’s authorities on suicide in the Black community. Read more
Historically Black Colleges Land $124 Million Donation to Boost Enrollment, Graduation Rates. By Melissa Korn / WSJ
Norfolk State University President Javaune Adams-Gaston says the school often doesn’t have the resources to do important large-scale projects.
A philanthropic group whose funders include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and MacKenzie Scott is giving $124 million to historically Black colleges and universities, aiming to shore up—and ultimately expand—the financially strapped schools. Read more
Related: Fisk University picks longtime Nashville leader as next president. By Rachel Wegner / The Tennessean
Historical / Cultural
He Became the Nation’s Ninth Vice President. She Was His Enslaved Wife. By Shadowblot1 / The Daily Kos
Julia Chinn was born into slavery in Kentucky around 1790, the year after George Washington was elected first president of the United States. The plantation owner’s son fell in love with her. They couldn’t legally marry, so they were joined in an illegal ceremony organized by the other enslaved people of the plantation, at Great Crossing Baptist Church. The son was Richard Mentor Johnson, who eventually became the 9th vice president of the United States. Read more
How the Underground Railroad Got Its Name. By Scott Shane / NYT
A painting entitled “The Underground Railroad,” by Charles T. Webber.Credit…Charles T. Webber, via MPI/Getty Images
Thomas Smallwood was a busy man in the summer of 1842. Born into slavery outside Washington, D.C., in 1801, he had largely educated himself and bought his own freedom 11 years before. By day, he ran a shoemaking business from the little house he shared with his wife and four children a short walk from the U.S. Capitol. By night, he was organizing daring, dangerous escapes from slavery — not by ones and twos but by the wagonload — from Washington, Baltimore and the surrounding counties. And one day early that August he took up his pen and made literary history, becoming the first to use a phrase that would resound through the subsequent decades of slavery and to the present day: underground railroad. Read more
7 state flags still have designs with ties to the Confederacy. By Gillian Brockell / Wash Post
Amid the racial justice protests of 2020, when Confederate statues all over the country toppled, Mississippi became the last state to remove the Confederate battle flag from its state flag.
The story of Emmett Till is the story of America. By Robert P. Jones / RNS
If we trace the historical stream further back, we can see, in Emmett Till’s story, America’s oldest struggles. Indeed, the land itself testifies to the cultural world in which Till’s murder was conceivable.
The names on contemporary maps hark back four centuries to the encounter between Indigenous peoples and the first Europeans seeking new acquisitions in the name of the church and Christian nations. Tallahatchie County and the Tallahatchie River, where the broken body of Emmett Till was found, retains its Choctaw name meaning “rock of waters” for the iron sandstone outcroppings near its source. Read more
Bayard Rustin Challenged Progressive Orthodoxies. By James Kirchick / NYT
Bayard Rustin, a trusted adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, was a towering figure in the fight for racial equality.
Remarkably for a man of his generation and public standing, he was also openly gay. When Mr. Rustin died in 1987, obituaries downplayed or elided this fact. Emblematic of this erasure was this paper, which made only passing mention of his homosexuality and obliquely described Mr. Rustin’s longtime partner as his “administrative assistant and adopted son.” Read more
How a Culture War Over Race Engulfed a School District. James Ross Gardne / The New Yorker
After a ten-year-old took her own life, residents battled over whether her death was a tragic but isolated incident, or caused by a pattern of racist bullying. .
Izzy’s suicide threw an already divided school district into crisis. The D.O.J. had just released the results of its investigation, finding that the district had compromised the rights of students of color by “responding in a clearly unreasonable manner to widespread, pervasive race-based harassment . . . by both students and staff.” In a letter describing its findings, the D.O.J. reported prevalent use of the N-word, racial taunts, and physical threats. Read more
Inside Ava DuVernay’s ‘Origin’, a Global Investigation With a Personal Touch. By Rebecca Ford / Vanity Fair
The Selma filmmaker adapts Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 bestseller Caste, but centers her film on the writer’s own journey.
Ava DuVernay’s industry colleagues—like Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, and Jeffrey Katzenberg—kept asking her about Caste. They all assumed DuVernay would have been one of the first to read Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 nonfiction book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, an eye-opening examination of American racism as a caste system. Like some of her influential colleagues, she had received the galley of the book early, but hadn’t read it yet. It wasn’t until September of 2020 that DuVernay actually sat down with it, and she finally understood why people kept bringing it up to her. “After you read it, you want to talk about it, and you want to ask questions, and you want to dive deeper,” she says. Read more
Sports
The racist incident that shook baseball nine years before integration. By Frederic J. Frommer / Wash Post
Jake Powell played outfield for the Washington Senators and New York Yankees. (Bettmann Archive)
On a midsummer day at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in 1938, a WGN Radio reporter asked an innocuous question to New York Yankees outfielder Jake Powell in a pregame interview: What did he do in the offseason? The 30-year-old replied that he worked as a police officer in Dayton, Ohio, where he stayed in shape by cracking Black people over the head with his nightstick, using the n-word. WGN immediately terminated the interview and issued several apologies that night, but the outrage quickly spread beyond Chicago. Powell’s crude, racist comment led to a national backlash among African Americans that put the game on its back foot on race nearly a decade before baseball finally integrated. Read more
N.F.L. Reporter Files Racial Discrimination Claim Against the League After Dismissal. Ken Belson and Rosman / NYT
Jim Trotter said his contract with the NFL Network was not renewed after he challenged Commissioner Roger Goodell and other executives on pro football’s commitment to diversity.
Trotter, now a columnist for The Athletic, a sports website owned by The New York Times Company, said in a 53-page complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan that he was let go in retaliation for, among other things, publicly challenging Commissioner Roger Goodell on the league’s commitment to diversity. “The N.F.L. has claimed it wants to be held accountable regarding diversity, equity and inclusion,” Trotter said in a statement. “I tried to do so, and it cost me my job.” Read more
Related: NFL world reacts to ‘Black National Anthem.’ By Kevin Harrish / MSN
Alabama condemns racist, homophobic taunts at Texas football players. By Caleb / Austin American Statesman
After Texas’ 34-24 win over Alabama, a video surfaced of a group of University of Alabama students engaging in vile behavior by using racist and homophobic language against Texas players who were dancing on the sideline. American-Statesman reporter Danny Davis reached out to Alabama for comments and received the following statement from the university. “We are disgusted by reports of vile language and inappropriate behavior Saturday night. To be clear, we condemn this behavior and it will not be tolerated in our venues. It is not representative of UA or our values. We expect all attendees to act with class and respect toward others,” the statement said. Read more and watch video here
Meet the woman behind Deion Sanders’ ‘Coach Prime’ business empire. By Bruce Feldman / The Atheletic
It’s less than an hour after Colorado, a 20 1/2-point underdog, shocked No. 17 TCU — and the entire college football establishment — and disbelief hangs over Amon G. Carter Stadium.
Schwartz-Morini is one of the few leaving TCU who isn’t the least bit surprised at what she witnessed. A Colorado team that finished 1-11 last year, newly led by NFL legend Deion Sanders, underwent the biggest roster overhaul in college football history and just defeated an opponent that played for the College Football Playoff national championship last season. A New Yorker with a deep Rolodex of sports contacts, Schwartz-Morini is Sanders’ business partner and manager, and much like Colorado’s new head coach, is like nothing college football has seen before. Read more
WNBA enters new chapter of front-office hiring. By Sean Hurd / Andscape
From left to right: New York Liberty CEO Keia Clarke, Las Vegas Aces general manager Natalie Williams and Connecticut Sun assistant general manager Morgan Tuck are among the numerous Black women in front-office roles with WNBA teams. Andscape Illustration
The WNBA has been a league that has led the way in the area of diversity, but recent activity appears to demonstrate a new chapter for front-office hires. Those in the league hope that the successes of front-office personnel this season can continue to drive that change. “It’s just something to be proud of,” Tuck said. “Diversity is always a really good thing. Seeing it be successful, it opens doors for someone who wants to be in those roles or it opens the eyes of someone about increasing diversity. Read more
Novak Djokovic’s stunning tribute to Kobe Bryant after equalling Margaret Court. By Sam Goodwin / Yahoo Sports
Novak Djokovic has paid an emotional tribute to the late Kobe Bryant after winning his 24th grand slam title – the number that Kobe wore for the LA Lakers.
Djokovic became the oldest man to win the US Open in the professional era on Sunday (local time), claiming his fourth crown in Flushing Meadows and the 24th of his career. Read more
HBCU classics are for the culture, not the competition. By AP
Special games between two HBCUs have existed since the early 1900s, when Black people created their own spaces to exist and celebrate themselves within the confines of a segregated society. Shown is the Jackson State Tigers band.
This particular intersection of sports and culture was outside Hard Rock Stadium, where the historically Black universities Florida A&M and Jackson State were playing in the annual Orange Blossom Classic. The outcome of the game meant bragging rights for the next year, of course, and the tailgating here had many of the same trappings you might find at a game in the Southeastern Conference or Big Ten. Read more
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