Featured
Immigration, Whiteness, and the American Choice. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America
From its founding, immigration policy in the United States has never been only about labor or borders. It has also been about race—who counted as “white,” who could become American, and who could not. Read more
The Week’s Top Stories
Political / Social
Donald Trump, Pagan King.
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada recently described the world that President Trump is dragging us into with this aphorism: “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”
The Trump administration has adopted this philosophy as its own. In a recent interview with Jake Tapper, Stephen Miller said, “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” Read more
Related: Trump may not be losing his mind — another possibility is much more sinister. By Robert Reich / MSN
Trump-backed ‘SAVE Act’ will make it harder for Black voters, critics say. By Gerren Keith Gaynor / The Grio
The “SAVE America Act,” an election overhaul bill that establishes stricter voter registration laws, was passed on Wednesday in the United States House of Representatives, heading to the U.S. Senate and, potentially, to President Donald Trump‘s desk.
The legislation, which would require ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote, has been backed by the White House and described as necessary by President Trump to prevent Democrats from cheating in elections. But while Republicans say the SAVE Act would restore election integrity–despite there being no evidence of mass voter fraud in any U.S. election–critics of the bill say it will suppress Black and Brown voters and create more barriers to their access to the ballot. Read more
Related: Trump doesn’t want to nationalize elections. He wants control. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Related: Trump wouldn’t just undo the Voting Rights Act. He’d reverse it. By Hayes Brown / MS NOW
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore talks about being excluded from White House governors’ event. By Michel Martin / NPR
The National Governors Association meets in Washington, D.C., every year with this year’s meeting scheduled for next week. The traditionally bipartisan event is an opportunity for governors to meet with the president and discuss issues affecting their constituents
This year, the Trump Administration only invited Republicans to the meeting and disinvited some Democratic governors from the formal dinner scheduled to follow. Maryland Governor Wes Moore is one of the two disinvited governors. Moore said the decision sent the same message as the president’s recent refusal to apologize for posting a racist meme of the Obamas. Read more
How Stephen Miller Became the Power Behind the Throne. By David Klion / The Nation
Miller was not elected. Nor are he or his policies popular. Yet he continues to hold uncommon sway in the administration.
But over the past year, Miller has become arguably the most consequential figure in the second Trump administration—the maximalist force behind a maximalist presidency. Guided by white-supremacist teachings like the dystopian novel The Camp of the Saints, Miller has made the ethnic purification of the American body and the expulsion of potentially millions of immigrants the administration’s central priority. Read more
Related: MAGA’s war on “woke” has a long history — like 400 years. By Andrew O’Hehir / Salon
The Epstein Emails Show How the Powerful Talk About Race. By Ali Breland / The Atlantic
The files reveal the disgraced financier’s interest in “race science.”
In February 2016, after exchanging email pleasantries with the left-wing public intellectual Noam Chomsky and extending an invitation to his private island, Jeffrey Epstein recommended an article. “On a different note, you have encouraged me to look at data, no holds barred,” Epstein wrote before linking to “Race and IQ: Genes That Predict Racial Intelligence Differences” from the Right Stuff, an openly white-supremacist website and a pioneer of the online alt-right. The article argued that different races have differing levels of intelligence and that there is a genetic basis for the disparity. Read more
Related: Elon Musk posted about race almost every day in January. By Nick Robins-Early / The Guardian
Related: From Epstein to Bezos, the Ruling Class Is Rotten to the Core. By Jeet Heer / The Nation
It’s A ‘Modern-Day Concentration Camp’: Irish Man Held By ICE Details ‘Nightmare’ Facility. By Elyse Wanshel / HuffPost
An Irish man currently detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is shedding light on the unsettling conditions inside of a Texas detention center, which he calls “absolute hell.” The East Montana Detention Facility under construction on the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas
“We get three meals a day, very, very small meals, kid-sized meals. So everybody’s hungry, everybody’s tired,” Culleton said, noting there’s “no commissary” or other options for extra food. He added that there is also “competition” for food and favoritism by staff. He described the center as “filthy.” “The toilets, the showers, completely nasty, very rarely cleaned,” he said. Culleton emphasized that due to the conditions he’s “in fear for my life.” Read more
Pentagon says it’s cutting ties with ‘woke’ Harvard, discontinuing military training, fellowships. By Jocelyn Gecker / ABC News
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement Friday that Harvard “no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services.”
“For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,” Hegseth said. “Instead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard — heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks.” Read more
FAMU President Issues Comment After Student Claims Flyer for ‘Black’ Event Was Rejected. By
In response to the FAMU controversy, university President Marva Johnson– who’s appointment was protested citing her strong ties to Trump, according to reports— affirmed that the word “black” is not banned at the university. Read more
The End of Affirmative Action and the Quiet Erosion of Teacher Preparation at PWIs. By Antonio L. Elis / The Eduledger
The Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action in college admissions did not affect all institutions equally. Its consequences have been most acute in colleges and schools of education at Predominately White Institutions (PWIs).
As teacher preparation programs struggle with declining enrollment, budget cuts, and closures, Historically Black Colleges and Universities are experiencing growing demand. This divergence reveals how race neutral admissions policies are reshaping not only who enrolls, but where future teachers are prepared and whose communities are prioritized. Read more
World
Trump’s Gaza Plans Are Profoundly Unserious. By Hussein Ibish / The Atlantic
Conditions on the ground call for immediate humanitarian relief, not gauzy real-estate fantasies.
President Trump has extravagant plans for the Gaza Strip. The only problem is that they bear no connection to the grim realities on the ground—nor is there much prospect that the two will align in the foreseeable future. Read more
Inside a controversial Trump official’s mission to pander to Europe’s radical right. By Matthew Rozsa / AlterNet
President Donald Trump’s appointee Susan B. Rogers is “arguably… the public face of the Trump administration’s growing hostility to European liberal democracies,” according to a prominent British publication that accuses her of propping up far right regimes.
Rogers, who has been Trump’s Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs since October, has repeatedly characterized efforts to stop the rise of the far right as threats to free speech and met with marginalized extremist parties, according to a Wednesday report in The Guardian. Read more
Revelations in Epstein Files Lead to Resignations and Investigations Around the World. Mark Landler / NYT
A French politician, famed as a cultural icon of the 1980s and 1990s. A Norwegian diplomat who played a role in the secret talks that yielded the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians. A well-connected Slovak former minister who served as president of the United Nations General Assembly.
Three prominent officials, tripped up by their associations with Jeffrey Epstein — and they are far from the only ones. Read more
I Just Returned From China. We Are Not Winning. Steven Rattner / NYT
In addition to manufacturing, China is threatening America’s pre-eminence in a range of fast-growing sectors, including artificial intelligence and pharmaceutical drug development. While he has tried to cut our spending on important government functions like basic research, China has made them national priorities. Shown is Shanghai Skyline
Human capital is a key ingredient of China’s success. I met with innumerable young entrepreneurs whose energy and intelligence at least matched that of their Silicon Valley counterparts, including one billionaire who still sleeps in his office. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Spewing Hate At The Prayer Breakfast. By Will Saletan / The Bulwark
Donald Trump claims to be a champion of faith, but his own words tell a different story.
Will Salatan puts Trump to the ultimate test: The Bible. From the 10 Commandments to the Sermon on the Mount, see how Trump’s recent speeches stack up against the actual moral instructions of the scripture. Watch here
Related: The Evangelicals Who See Trump’s Viciousness as a Virtue. By Peter Wehner / The Atlantic
Related: Evangelicals won’t dump Trump over his racist Obama video. By Amanda Marcotte / Salon
Ohio churches resist Trump’s attacks on Haitian community: ‘We’re powerful when we come together.’ By Fabiola Cineas / The Guardian
Churches in Springfield provide networks of support as Haitians face uncertainty over the future of TPS legal protections
Haitians in Springfield have faced uncertainty and upheaval ever since Donald Trump amplified false claims that Haitians there were stealing pets and eating them during his 2024 presidential run. All the while, the city has erected a resistance infrastructure to protect the community. A local network of churches like Central, legal advocates, non-profits and volunteers have loudly proclaimed that Haitians are welcome – especially in a time when finding places to feel safe in the city has become harder. Read more
Formed for solidarity. By Emilee Walker-Cornetta / The Christian Century
Each year, Episcopalians gather in Alabama to enact a liturgy remembering Jonathan Daniels and other civil rights martyrs. Activists Ruby Sales (left) and Jonathan Daniels (right). Daniels was killed in 1965 while helping register Black voters in Lowndes County, Alabama. (Illustration by Martha Park)
Last summer my team at Episcopal Divinity School hosted a screening of the 1999 documentary Here Am I, Send Me: The Journey of Jonathan Daniels. Daniels, a White man from New Hampshire and a student at EDS (then called Episcopal Theological School), was killed in 1965 while volunteering with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to register Black voters in Lowndes County, Alabama. Read more
The sacred testimony of Black joy. By Kelly Brown Douglas / The Christian Century
It’s a fugitive act, a form of resistance that creates freedom inside captivity.
As we mark Black History Month—100 years after Carter G. Woodson inaugurated Black History Week in 1926, and as the organization he founded reflects on a century of commemorating Black life—I find myself thinking about Black joy. Black history, in all its pain and triumph, is also a testament to joy. Across generations of violence, injustice, and systemic dehumanization, Black people have insisted on their humanity. One of the most powerful expressions of that insistence has been joy. Black joy is real—both a lived experience and a historical legacy of Black resistance. Black joy is a fugitive act. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Why Bryan Stevenson is fighting to protect Black history with ‘The Legacy Sites.’ By Natasha S. Alford / The Grio
The acclaimed lawyer and author of “Just Mercy,” sits with theGrio in Montgomery, Alabama to discuss The Legacy Sites and telling truth that America can’t ignore.
“I feel like I’m now representing the 10 million Black people who were enslaved for 246 years who endured hardship, immense suffering, and constant sorrow,” Stevenson told the Grio in an exclusive interview in Montgomery, Alabama, in January. “I think they need an advocate when people are trying to erase their pain and suffering.” That erasure is the biggest story of our nation in this moment. Read more
Martha Washington’s enslaved maid Ona Judge made a daring escape to freedom – but the National Park Service has erased her story from Philadelphia exhibit. By Timothy Welbeck / The Conversation
Before January 2026, those who wished to learn about Judge could literally stand on the same walkway in Philadelphia where Judge once stood when she chose to flee.
This changed in late January when the National Park Service dismantled the slavery exhibit at Philadelphia Independence National Historic Park. The removal sparked intense, immediate outrage from people across the country dismayed by the attempt to suppress unfavorable aspects of American history. Read more
We Have to Look Right in the Face of What We Have Become. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
Crucially, there is the power inherent in giving victims of wrongdoing a chance to tell their stories, not as one perspective among many but as part of the official record. Two examples of this dynamic stand out in American history.
In 1871, Congress convened the Joint Select Committee to Inquire Into the Conditions of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, better known as the Klan hearings, on account of its focus: vigilante violence against the formerly enslaved. A little more than a century later, in 1980, Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, an official federal investigation into the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The American people need to know the full story of what has been done in our name. And the people we’ve wronged deserve their chance to speak and be heard. Read more
Written by an Atlanta graduate, the Black National Athem still resonates. By Leondra Head / CBS News
“James Weldon Johnson wrote the lyrics for the song. So to sing it is just a privilege and something we all cherish,” Clark Atlanta student Cheney Pooler said.
Johnson graduated in 1894, when Clark Atlanta was Atlanta University. He originally wrote “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as a poem while working as a school principal in Florida. Johnson’s brother transformed it into a song. Read more
‘The most dangerous man in America’: how Paul Robeson went from Hollywood to blacklist. By Howard Bryant / The Guardian
The groundbreaking singer, actor and athlete became a victim of McCarthyism and saw his shining career destroyed and his legacy tarnished
In August 1972, the front page of the New York Times arts section published a story titled, Time to Break the Silence on Paul Robeson? The legendary bass-baritone spent the first half of the 20th century as one of the greatest talents the US had ever produced, and its second, both in life and in death as an outcast, the greatest casualty of the second Red Scare period to which today’s current attacks on liberal and progressive politics draw comparison. Read more
Sports
Bad Bunny’s Halftime History Lesson. Jon Caramanica / NYT
The superstar showcased Puerto Rican pride during a 13-minute set that turned a global opportunity into an intimate, personal performance.
Here, it started in the sugar cane fields — once Puerto Rico’s cash crop, and a source of rampant labor exploitation. Bad Bunny began his show with the frisky “Tití Me Preguntó” from 2022, walking amid laborers in pavas chopping at stalks and tall plants forming something of a labyrinth. He strode past vendors of coco frio, tacos and piraguas; a pair of boxers sparring; a table of older gentlemen playing dominoes; women at a nail salon. Read more
Related: Trump calls Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show a ‘slap in the face to our country.’ By Nadine El-Bawab / ABC News
Related: MAGA loses the culture war — and Trump loses the plot. By Sarah K. Burris / AlterNet
The 2026 NFL Black quarterback tiers. By Martenzie Johnson / Andscape
Look, you can’t win em all!
After winning the Super Bowl MVP award each of the last three seasons, it was starting to become the norm that Black quarterbacks would be in that position. Not to mention, Black quarterbacks had won four of the last seven regular-season MVPs as well. And yet this season’s Super Bowl quarterback matchup was between Sam Darnold and Drake Maye. The conference championships feature those two plus Matthew Stafford and Jarrett Stidham. Shoot, Mahomes and Jackson didn’t even make the playoffs! Read more
While USA Destroyed Canada, Three Black Hockey Players Created History At Milan Olympics. By Akshay Kapoor / Essentially Sports
The United States women’s ice hockey team extended its unbeaten run at the Milan Cortina Games with a 5-0 win over Canada on Monday. Shown is Laila Edwards.
The victory improved the Americans to 4-0 and marked their third straight shutout. While Hilary Knight matched the national record for career points, the lineup’s three Black players made history as the first to share the ice in a single Olympic match. Read more
Related: Your Guide to ‘Rooting for Everybody Black’ at the 2026 Winter Olympics. By Capital B Staff
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