Featured
What American Fascism Would Look Like. It can happen here. And if it does, here is what might become of the country. The New Republic
Related: Yes, That’s Right: American Fascism. By Michael Tomasky / TNR
Related: The “Day One” Dictatorship. On the law in a fascist America. By
Related: Revenge and Freedom From Fact. On the media in a fascist America. By Brian Stelter / TNR
Related: A Right-Wing Counter-Hegemony. On culture in a fascist America. By Maureen Corrigan / TNR
Related: The End of Civic Compassion. On education in a fascist America. By Rosa Brooks / TNR
Political / Social
After almost a decade of Trump, America is tired. And scared. By William S. Becker / The Hill
It seems hard to believe, but there was a time when we Americans could go days, or even weeks, without hearing about Donald Trump. That ended nearly a decade ago, when Trump decided he wanted to be president. Now, he is a constant presence on the evening news and in the morning newspaper. He ensures it by manufacturing turmoil, threats and constant controversy.
Outside the MAGA camp, some Americans say they’re suffering from crisis fatigue. Recent polls have found that voters from both parties anticipate the November election with a mixture of exhaustion and the realization that this is one of the most important elections ever. Read more
Related: Trump’s testing out a new campaign strategy: horror politics. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Related: How Trump’s hidden Nazi messages help conceal his open antisemitism. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Related: Donald Trump’s Team Says It Will Sue After ‘Garbage’ Biopic Premieres In Cannes. By AP and HuffPost
Are Our Oligarchs Going to Drag Us Into Civil War? By Thom Hartman / TNR
The billionaires who own the GOP are now actively promoting the same sort of revisionist history the Confederacy did. That did not go very well. Image PP and J Center
The headline in this week’s Fortune reads: “Billionaire investor Ray Dalio warns U.S. is ‘on the brink’ and estimates a more than 1 in 3 chance of civil war.” Billionaires and civil war? A billionaire-funded Supreme Court justice flew the American flag upside down outside his house after January 6 in apparent support of Donald Trump‘s attempt to overthrow our government. Read more
Related: Justice Alito’s Upside-Down Flag. By Adam Serwer / The Atlantic
Related: Virginia governor allows Confederate groups to keep tax exemptions. By Edward Helmore / The Guardian
Civil Rights Pioneer Torches Trump on MSNBC for Black Voter Claims: ‘Insult to Voters’ Intelligence.’ By Suchitra B / Inquisitr
Donald Trump compared himself to Abraham Lincoln yet again, claiming he has done more for Black people than any other president in US history. In response, civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and torched the former President for insulting the intelligence of American voters across racial identities, Raw Story reported.
“For him to say that he did more for blacks than Barack Obama, than FDR, than Eisenhower — I’m talking about Republican and Democrat — doing more than Obama, he didn’t do more than George Bush who I marched on every opportunity that I had,” Sharpton raged on against the presumptive GOP nominee. “For him to say that is to say we’re stupid,” he exclaimed. Read more
Related: ‘Embarrassing’ Tim Scott Gets Stark Reminder After Latest Toadying To Trump. By Lee Moran / HuffPost
Fani Willis and presiding judge in Trump Georgia case win elections. By Holly Bailey / Wash Post
Two of the most prominent figures in the Georgia criminal case against former president Donald Trump easily won their respective elections Tuesday in their first appearance on the ballot since the inception of the high-profile election interference case.
Willis now proceeds to November’s general election, where she will face Courtney Kramer, a Republican lawyer who interned in the Trump White House. Read more
New Report: Higher Ed More Diverse but Racial Disparities Remain. By Sara Weissman / Inside Higher Ed.
A new report on “Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education” from the American Council on Education found that college students have grown increasingly diverse over the last two decades, but sizable racial disparities in educational attainment and completion rates and debt levels persist, among other findings.
It also found that professors, staff members and administrators remain predominantly white. The in-depth 323-page report, released Tuesday, delves into 201 indicators “to determine who accesses a variety of educational environments and experiences, to explore how student trajectories and outcomes differ by race and ethnicity, and to provide an overview of the racial and ethnic backgrounds of faculty, staff, and college presidents.” It also draws on eight data sources, mainly data from the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Census Bureau. Read more
Republican leaders and UNC board give in to claims of white grievance. By Gene Nichol / The Charlotte Observer
The University of North Carolina System Board of Governors is poised, enthusiastically, to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs across the state’s public higher education system.
The new policy will go from requiring senior-level diversity officers at each institution to making them illegal. Such are the winds that blow in North Carolina. Trying to catch up with Florida has become an essential Republican mandate. And the UNC governors are nothing if not compliant partisans, especially when it comes to race. Read more
World News
Haiti’s Gangs Grow Stronger as Kenyan-Led Force Prepares to Deploy. / NYT
Jimmy Chérizier, a former police officer also known as Barbecue, is now one of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders and a key part of a new gang coalition.Credit…Matias Delacroix/Associated Press
They have a stranglehold on the country’s infrastructure, from police stations to seaports. They have chased hundreds of thousands of people from the capital. And they are suspected of having ties to the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s president. Read more
ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Israel’s Netanyahu and Hamas’s Sinwar. Louisa Loveluck et al. / Wash Post
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said on May 20 that he’s seeking arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas leaders. (Video: Joe Snell/The Washington Post)
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Monday that he was seeking arrest warrants against senior officials in the Israel-Gaza conflict, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In a statement, Netanyahu called the decision a “travesty of justice” and said the ICC’s decision “will not stop us from waging our just war against Hamas.” Read more
Related: Actually, HBCUs Have a Lot to Say About Gaza. By Alecia Taylor / Chronicle of Higher Ed.
Why are Jamaica’s politicians dragging their heels on declaring Bob Marley a national hero? By Kenneth Mohammed / The Guardian
The trailblazing musician was a powerful force for change and unity, and his legacy continues to inspire millions. He deserves his homeland’s highest honour
He is a 20th-century global icon but not officially designated a national hero in his own land. In a recent interview at the Bob Marley: One Love movie premiere, Jamaica’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, disclosed that his government was considering again the longstanding petitions to award its highest honour to the legend. Marley’s profound impact on music and Jamaican culture is undeniable. From Kingston to Harare, he stood for social justice and freedom and against colonialism. To have decades of deliberation by politicians on whether to declare him a national hero is baffling. Read more
The History Of The Oldest Black Community In Europe. By Shannon Dawson / Newsone
Liverpool is home to England’s oldest Black community. Dating back to the city’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade between the 17th and 19th centuries.
African and Afro-Caribbean individuals were brought to Liverpool as enslaved people, enduring unimaginable hardships and contributing to the city’s economic prosperity through their labor, according to Echoes of Liverpool. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
A new book argues most white US Christians worship a religion of whiteness. By Yonat Shimron / RNS
Michael Emerson and Glenn Bracey depict a Christianity that worships a white Jesus and a set of sacred symbols, including the flag, the cross and, increasingly, guns.
In 2000, two sociologists wrote a book about the fraught efforts of white evangelicals to diversify their congregations to better address racial discrimination in the church. Now, one of those authors, Michael Emerson, has teamed up with another sociologist, Glenn Bracey, for an update. Their conclusions are grim. Read more
Related: The Political Meaning of Christianity: Relevance to MAGA. By Roger E. Olson / Patheos
Webcomic probes U.S. Catholic stories of race, resistance and social justice. By Nate Tinner-Williams / NCR
A free Catholic webcomic series is telling true stories of racial justice, White Catholic violence, and the pioneering work of a Black Catholic judge in the Deep South.
“Bad Catholics, Good Trouble” is the brainchild of Maryland-based Matthew Cressler, formerly a religion professor at the College of Charleston and now chief of staff at the Corporation for Public Interest Technology. A self-professed “lover of comics,” he first had the idea for a comic series on Catholics and race — his academic specialty — after creating a shorter work with artist Marcus Jimenez. Read more
Predictions About the Future of the Christian Church. By Russell Moore / CT Podcast
A conversation on the state of American religion.
What will the next several decades of American Christianity look like? Are the factors that led to the decline of mainline church attendance the same as those leading to decreased interest in evangelical congregations? Why are Gen Z women leaving religion at higher rates than their male counterparts? These are the questions that Russell Moore and Ryan Burge—author, professor, and writer of the Graphs about Religion Substack—address in this episode. Listen here
Died: KODA, the Ghanaian Gospel Star Who Sang Hits Rebuking Pastors. By Akousua Frempong / CT
The highlife musician challenged the materialism and extortion he encountered too often in the church.
Kofi Owusu Dua-Anto, a Ghanaian gospel musician who challenged church leaders with his catchy songs, died last month at the age of 45. Known professionally as KODA, the artist passed away suddenly on April 21 after a yet-undisclosed short illness. KODA won awards for his vocal and musical finesse and production skills, but he used the platform his music offered him to speak out against the materialism and self-promotion he believed had overtaken his country’s church leaders. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Revolutionary Ideals and Black Realities. By Steve Mintz / Inside Higher Ed.
The untold story of America’s founding.
James Forten was just 15 years old when he served as a gunpowder handler on Stephen Decatur’s 22-gun privateer, the Royal Louis, during the American Revolution. A free Black whose great-grandfather had been one of the first slaves in Pennsylvania to purchase his freedom, Forten had attended a school led by the pioneering Quaker abolitionist Anthony Bénézet. Read more
A century ago, anti-immigrant backlash almost closed America’s doors. By Matthew Smith / The Conversation
Immigrant children at Ellis Island in New York, 1908. National Archives/Wikimedia Commons
One hundred years ago, the U.S. Congress enacted the most notorious immigration legislation in American history. Signed by President Calvin Coolidge, the Immigration Act of 1924 dramatically reduced immigration from eastern and southern Europe and practically barred it from Asia. Read more
The Lynching That Sent My Family North. By Ko Bragg / The Atlantic
How we rediscovered the tragedy in Mississippi that ushered us into the Great Migration
I first learned about the lynching of Bob Broome in 2015, when Auntie emailed my mother a PDF of news clippings describing the events leading up to his murder. She’d come across the clippings on Ancestry.com, on the profile page of a distant family member. Bob was Victoria’s great-uncle. “Another piece of family history from Mississippi we never knew about,” Auntie wrote. “I’M SURE there is more to this story.” Read more
Family Files Lawsuit For Black Teen Who Was Wrongly Convicted. By Noah A McGee / The Root
Alexander McClay Williams was posthumously exonerated in June 2022.
In 1931, 16-year-old Alexander McClay Williams was sentenced to death in Pennsylvania for the 1930 murder of his teacher. He was executed six months after his convictions. The victim, judge, and jury in his case were all white. In October 2022, 91 years after he was executed, Williams was posthumously exonerated after his family and their legal representatives were able to prove that he was never responsible for his teacher’s murder and that his case was an example of racial profiling. All the charges against him were dismissed. Read more
Golden Time of Day: Philly honors native son, singer Frankie Beverly with street renaming. O.J. Spivey / The Philadelphia Tribune
Philadelphia celebrated native son and R&B singer Frankie Beverly, 77, on Saturday with a ceremonial renaming of the 6000 block of Norwood Street in Germantown where his childhood home sits as “Frankie Beverly Way.”
Though the weather was wet and gloomy, it was a golden time of day for the dozens of people in attendance at the Dell Music Center in Strawberry Mansion. The honor was championed by City Council member Cindy Bass. “Frankie Beverly has given so much to our city, our culture, and the music scene,” she said. “We just want to be here and say thanks. That street sign is up now in East Germantown. We love and appreciate you.” Read more
Teen walks at graduation after completing doctoral degree at 17. By Shafiq Najib / ABC News
Dorothy Jean Tillman II was 10 when she entered college as a freshman.
Dorothy Jean Tillman II told “Good Morning America” that she was homeschooled in her early years before entering college at age 10. In 2020, she said she earned a Master of Science degree, and then, one year later, at age 15, was accepted into the Doctorate of Behavioral Health Management program at Arizona State University. In December 2023, at 17, Tillman successfully defended her dissertation to earn her doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health from ASU’s College of Health Solutions. Read more
Sports
Emmitt Smith ripped Florida for eliminating all DEI roles. Here’s why the NFL legend spoke out. By Jarrett Bell / USA Today
Emmitt Smith probably wasn’t the first NFL legend you expected to stick his neck out as such a powerful voice for DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion – as opposition intensifies on many fronts. Think again.
During a wide-ranging interview with USA TODAY Sports, Smith, 55, passionately doubled down on the scathing statement he issued in March that denounced the elimination of DEI programs at his alma mater, the University of Florida. The school’s action was prompted by a controversial state law passed in 2023 that bans Florida’s public universities and colleges from any spending on DEI. Smith’s position comes from the thinking that this huge issue is way bigger than himself. Read more
CJ McCollum wins NBA J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award. By Marc J. Spears / Andscape
New Orleans Pelicans guard recognized for service, dedication to the community
“Helping people is the greatest gift in the world,” McCollum told Andscape. “And out of all the things that I’ve been able to do in my life, the greatest joy I get is in seeing people genuinely appreciate it, whether that’s conversations, whether that’s health, whether that’s resources, whether that is an opportunity. Read more
Georgia QB sues Florida Coach Billy Napier over failed NIL deal. By Gus Garcia-Roberts and Albert Samaha / Wash Post
Former Florida recruit Jaden Rashada claims Napier and a UF donor promised him a massive payday that never materialized.
Former University of Florida recruit Jaden Rashada sued football coach Billy Napier, a millionaire donor and others Tuesday, claiming they lured him into abandoning a commitment to rival Miami last year with the promise of a $13.85 million payday that never materialized. Rashada, now a quarterback for Georgia, claims in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Pensacola that UF donor Hugh Hathcock promised him the massive payday, including a $500,000 signing bonus, and that Napier and another UF official pressured him to commit to the university with promises he would be immediately financially set for life. According to the lawsuit, Hathcock even suggested he could secure Rashada’s father a job. Read more
Caitlin Clark’s ‘problematic’ fame is about ‘race and sexuality.’ :Jemele Hill / NY Post
Caitlin Clark owes some of her “worth” as a marketable WNBA player to her race and sexuality, according to former ESPN host Jemele Hill.
The Indiana Fever player took the country by storm the past year after setting all-time records for scoring during her senior season of college basketball and becoming the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA draft. Clark’s success has since garnered massive media attention, with thousands attending her games and millions watching from home. She also signed a lucrative $28 million Nike sponsorship deal shortly after graduation and inked an historic, multi-year partnership with Wilson on Tuesday. Read more
The World’s 10 Highest-Paid Athletes 2024. By Justin Birnbaum / Forbes
The numbers have become so outrageously high that NBA stars LeBron James ($128.4 million) and Giannis Antetokounmpo ($111 million) have even joked on social media about securing their own Saudi deals—and it’s easy to see why. View the full list. Read more
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