Featured
A New Age of Wealth Inequality, Power and Democracy. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America
This essay examines the return of extreme wealth inequality, the emergence of a powerful billionaire class, and the growing influence of concentrated wealth over the nation’s political, economic, and cultural life. It also considers what lessons history may offer for confronting this new challenge and preserving democratic accountability.
Read complete essay. A New Age of Wealth Inequality, Power and Democracy. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America
Related: Elon Musk’s Race War Just Took Darker Turn—Time for a Global Response. By
Related: A Fair Deal for America. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America
The Week’s Top Stories
Political / Social
UFC fight can’t hide MAGA male weakness. By Amanda Marcotte / Salon
Calling Michelle Obama a “man” won’t make up for losing the Iran war
The painful event was an almost too-perfect symbol of the larger problem infecting Trump’s White House: it’s run by men obsessed with looking tough, but who are, in actuality, weak and incompetent. The more they fail, the more they grasp for these theatrical but ineffectual displays of masculine preening, hoping that the public mistakes loud and violent displays for strength. Read more
Trump’s “white working class” base may finally have had enough. By Heather Digby Parton / Salon
It’s always been a bit strange that this spoiled, Richie Rich-style heir to a real estate fortune could possibly become an avatar of the working class.
He’s never known a moment of physical labor in his life and has nothing but contempt for any of the hard-fought regulations and rights that protect workers from the predations of the moneyed elite and give them a chance at the American dream. One might have thought that all his ostentatious displays of wealth, compared to the squeeze working people have faced for at least the last generation, would at least make them skeptical. Read more
Related: In These White Towns, Allegiance to Trump Has Backfired. By
Related: The case that Florida is ready to turn blue again. By Andrew Prokop / Vox
Robert White wins Democratic primary for D.C. delegate to Congress. By CBS News
Robert White Jr. won the Democratic primary for the district’s delegate to Congress on Tuesday, ushering in generational change for a position long held by the same candidate as the nation’s capital faces mounting pressures on its autonomy.
White’s win in the heavily Democratic city sets him up to take the top spot in November’s general elections, when he could replace 18-term delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. Norton, 89 and a fixture of the Civil Rights movement, decided not to run again after facing growing concerns over her ability to forcefully push back against the Trump administration’s federal intervention into the city’s affairs. Read more
Related: Janeese Lewis George wins DC mayoral primary. By Irie Sentner / Politico
More Than 770,000 Children Are No Longer Receiving SNAP Benefits After Trump Changes Federal Food Program. By Nicole Santa Cruz / ProPublica
Republican backers of Trump’s signature domestic policy bill repeatedly claimed that revisions to the food benefits program wouldn’t affect the most vulnerable. But reports from a dozen states show children are losing access.
Nearly a year after the measure was signed into law, the number of children receiving food assistance has plummeted by at least 776,000, according to a ProPublica analysis. At least 12 states break down program participation by age, and of the 1,670,011 people who are no longer receiving benefits in those states, 776,134, or 46%, were children. Read more
Young Black Men’s Suicide Rates Surpasses Young White Men’s For The 1st Time On Record. By Shannon Dawson / Newsone
New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obtained by Capital B News, reveals a troubling trend: suicide rates are rising rapidly within the Black community. According to the figures, Black Americans experienced a 53% increase in suicide deaths between 2014 and 2024, a rate of growth more than ten times faster than that of white Americans and more than double the increase seen among Latino and Native American populations.
Particularly alarming is the impact on Black boys and young men. Black males between the ages of 16 and 29 are now dying by suicide at higher rates than their white counterparts. While white men remain nearly twice as likely to die by suicide across all age groups, the disparity shifts dramatically among younger populations. The crisis reaches its peak among Black men ages 20 to 24, whose suicide death rate stands at 31.9 per 100,000 people, the highest of any age group. Read more
New book explores America’s history of celebrating freedom while excluding millions. By Geoff Bennett and Jonah Anderson
The United States is preparing to mark 250 years since its founding, a milestone often framed as a celebration of democracy, freedom and national promise.
But Eddie Glaude Jr. argues that America’s anniversaries have always been shadowed by a deeper contradiction. Geoff Bennett sat down with Glaude to discuss his new book, “America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries.” Read more
Education
Former Ed. Dept. Lawyers Sound Alarm on Giving Justice Dept. More Civil-Rights Oversight. Alexandra Crosnoe / The Chronicle of Higher Ed.
The Trump administration announced Tuesday that the Justice Department will collaborate with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), pledging to enforce antidiscrimination law in a more “responsive and coordinated” manner.
But former Education Department lawyers warned the partnership could further compromise civil-rights enforcement at colleges. The OCR reviews discrimination complaints filed by students at primary and secondary schools and colleges. Read more
The Future of DEI in Higher Education: Unpacking Recent Federal Restrictions. By Emma Donohue et.al. / The Fulcrum
President Trump’s executive order characterizing DEI programs as “illegal and immoral discrimination” has led to over 400 colleges and universities eliminating or rebranding their DEI programs.
PBS News reports that universities face billions in cuts and freezes, with Columbia University losing $400 million and Johns Hopkins cutting 2,000 jobs after losing over $800 million in federal grants. Higher Ed Dive and Campus Reform have also reported large scale cuts such as the University of Florida’s closing its Office of the Chief Diversity Officer and laying off all DEI-related employees. Read more
HBCUs Alabama State and Morris Brown reach historic agreement. By Steven J. Gaither / HBCU Gameday
Alabama State and Morris Brown — are at the center of a new agreement designed to create a smoother path from undergraduate study to graduate education. ASU and Morris Brown College signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Tuesday, June 16, on ASU’s campus. The agreement is designed to help Morris Brown graduates move into graduate programs at Alabama State.
ASU President Dr. Quinton T. Ross Jr. and Morris Brown President Dr. Kevin E. James signed the agreement during the ceremony. Read more
Related: Fisk University Facing Backlash Over Data Center Proposal. By Jatika Hudson / Eduledger
World
Trump’s war accomplished nothing – the Iran deal is proof. By Kenneth Roth / The Guardian
The agreement shows the US is in a weaker position than before the war
No one gets a Nobel peace prize for ending a war he started, let alone for a pointless war of aggression that set back the causes that supposedly prompted the conflict. No amount of Donald Trump’s spin can obscure the fact that his newly announced deal with Iran is one big lesson in why this war should never have been launched. The text of the deal, a 14-point memorandum of understanding, underscores its emptiness. The tyrants of Tehran are undoubtedly celebrating.. Read more
Related: Trump’s Dimwitted Tirade on Iran Deal Accidentally Reveals It’s a Sham. By Greg Sargent / TNR
Related: Why Obama looms over Trump’s reported deal to end the war in Iran. By Gerren Keith Gaynor / The Grio
Cuba’s Humanitarian Crisis: The United Nations’ Response. By Peter Kornbluh / The Nation
The UN confronts a “perfect storm” of US-sponsored deprivation on the island.
On June 8, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk issued a dramatic declaration, holding the Trump administration directly accountable for the escalating humanitarian crisis in Cuba. The crippling impact of the US oil blockade, and new sanctions driving foreign companies from the island, are creating what Türk called “a perfect storm for social and economic deterioration and suffering for the Cuban people.” Read more
Ghana to advance reparatory justice at first major gathering since landmark UN resolution | Reparations and reparative justice. By Carlos Mureithi / The Guardian
Ghana is hosting a conference to advance the continent’s push for reparatory justice after the adoption of the landmark United Nations (UN) resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.
Heads of state and government, ministers, civil society representatives, historians, researchers and legal experts representing more than 80 countries are converging in the capital, Accra, for the three-day event, billed Next Steps, which starts on Wednesday. It is the first major gathering on the issue since the resolution was adopted. Read more
UN chief blames global indifference for Haiti crisis. By Aljazeera
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the international community has failed Haiti as gang violence deepens across the country. More than 2,300 people have been killed this year, with families displaced and essential services disrupted. Watch here
Ethics / Morality / Religion
The Banality of Peter Thiel’s Evil. By Charles Lehmann / The Nation
Newly unearthed details of the tech giant’s secret annual retreat show the malignity of his influence—and the mundanity of his ideas.
For someone obsessed with the imminent arrival of the Antichrist and other doomsday scenarios, tech baron Peter Thiel sure is keen to place himself within the existing political order’s power elite. An early Silicon Valley recruit to the MAGA movement, Thiel donated heavily to Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign and spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Read more
Related: Is there such a thing as too much empathy? By Megan McArdle / Wash Post
What right-wing influencers just did to a major US church. By Christian Paz / MSN
It’s been a pivotal last week for the largest Protestant Christian denomination in the United States. The Southern Baptist Convention took a series of moves to the social and theological right at their annual gathering — a shift urged on by an upstart far-right movement that now appears to be in the driver’s seat.
Central to this movement is one figure: William Wolfe, a podcaster, former Trump administration official, and director of the Center for Baptist Leadership — a think tank project from the Presbyterian-founded American Reformer publication. Wolfe has boosted fringe accounts online, spoken at far-right conferences and on extremist podcasts, and shared ultra-conservative, if not radical, views on immigration, gender, and race, while pledging to defeat the “mind virus” of “white guilt.” Read more
In Richmond, churches retrace the path of the enslaved to confront their own history. By Fiona Andfe’ / RNS
From 1830 to 1860, tens of thousands of enslaved people disembarked ships at Richmond’s Manchester Docks, an entry point into a bondage system that built Virginia’s wealth and shaped the city’s history. Shackled together, the enslaved people trudged along a muddy trail connecting the docks to the city’s auction house, where they were sold and bought as property.
The silent walk was the first part of a historical and spiritual pilgrimage through Richmond led by two local Episcopal churches. The gathering, called “Walking With the Enslaved: The Church’s Role in Slavery Pilgrimage,” seeks to cover the city’s racial history from the steps of Virginia’s state Capitol to a notorious 19th-century slave jail to Richmond’s first African church. Read more
Historical / Cultural
The Black soldiers who changed the meaning of the Civil War. By Jake Lundberg / The Atlantic
These troops helped transform a conflict fought initially to preserve the Union into one that destroyed slavery as well.
Hegseth’s war on “wokeness” and diversity is also a war on history itself. Black military service has existed since the Revolution. The close bonds Frazier described were cemented with the Civil War, when Black Americans saw the Union army as an instrument of emancipation and full citizenship, as well as a way to serve the national cause. The Atlantic contributor Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a white officer in one of the first Black regiments to be recognized by Stanton, wrote in the magazine in 1864 that Black soldiers had remolded “the destinies of two races on this continent.” Read more
Bryan Stevenson on Confronting America’s Legacy of Slavery. By Reveal / Mother Jones
The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative talks about remembering the country’s darkest chapters as the Trump administration tries to erase America’s full history.
When Bryan Stevenson moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1980s, the city—one of America’s most prominent slave trading spaces before the Civil War—had dozens of Confederate monuments and memorials, but nothing commemorating slavery. Today, thanks to Stevenson’s efforts, the city looks much different. On this week’s More To The Story, Stevenson talks about the importance of memorializing America’s full history as the Trump administration attempts to erase slavery and lynching from the nation’s museums and why he sees today’s narrative struggle for racial justice as a generational battle. Listen here
These Cities Are On The Verge of Reparation Success. By
From Chicago to Decatur, Ga., these American cities have made strides to ensure descendants of the enslaved get reparations.
It’s no secret that reparations have become one of the most debated local policy efforts in the country. Still, around the U.S., local leadership and activists are banding together to deliver what they say is just payment to the descendants of chattel slavery. Read more
Related: Trump Tries to Kill First Reparations Program for Black Americans. By Hafiz Rashid / TNR
Juneteenth reminds us of Black Americans’ long struggle for education following end of slavery. By Rodney Coates / The Conversation
The Biden administration declared Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021. Today, Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. But the story for formerly enslaved people continued to unfold in complex ways well after Juneteenth, including when it came to their educational journeys.
Juneteenth made clear that freedom was not just confined to someone’s physical enslavement, but mental enslavement as well, bound in the laws that barred enslaved people from receiving an education in Southern states. Read more
Over 160 Years After Abolition, Anti-Black Racism Still Structures US Economy. By C.J. Polychroniou / Truthout
Scholars Michelle Holder and Jeannette Wicks-Lim share their analysis of the formation of US anti-Black racism.
More than 400 years have passed since the first white colonists arrived in North America to establish a settlement, and more than 160 years since slavery was abolished, yet structural racism is still alive and kicking in the U.S. In the interview that follows, two economists, Michelle Holder and Jeannette Wicks-Lim, co-authors of a new book titled The Political Economy of Racism: The Persistence of Anti-Blackness in the United States, discuss how anti-Black racism developed and the role that it continues to play in the contemporary United States. Read more
Sports
Joe Louis’ Son Shares How His Father Stood Up ‘When He Thought Black People Were Being Wronged’ (Exclusive). By Tommy McArdle / People
Joe Louis Barrow Jr., son of the legendary 20th century heavyweight, took part in a new documentary on his father’s life for The History Channel
More than 45 years after legendary 20th century boxer Joe Louis died at 66, his son is giving new life to his father’s legacy as an athlete and civil rights activist. Joe Louis Barrow Jr., the late boxer’s oldest son, dove into his father’s history as he took part in The History Channel’s new documentary The Clash of Nations: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, which premieres on Friday, June 19 in celebration of Juneteenth. The documentary also marks the 90th anniversary of the first of two legendary boxing matches Louis fought against German boxing champion Max Schmeling in the 1930s. Read more
The Rise, The Sacrifices, And The Victory Of Jalen Brunson. By Stephen A. Crockett Jr. / Newsone
This isn’t just a story about the New York Knicks winning their first NBA title in generations. It’s a story about a star who chose to believe in something bigger than his next paycheck.
In order to understand Jalen Brunson’s sacrifice – the financial, emotional, and physical toll the lead guard made for the New York “championship” Knicks – you need look no further than his mom and Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Read more
Related: After A Long, Fraught Journey, Mike Brown Finally Wins An NBA Championship. By Joe Jurado / Newsone
Serena And Venus Williams To Play Doubles At Wimbledon. By Adam Zagoria / Forbes
Serena, 44, made her return to competitive tennis for the first time in four years last week with 19-year-old Victoria Mboko. The duo won their first match before Mboko had to pull out of the event due to a knee injury suffered in singles. Venus, who has still been competing sporadically, turns 46 on Wednesday.
The Williams sisters have won 14 Grand Slam titles together in doubles, including six at Wimbledon — the first of them in 2000 and the last in 2016. Their first two doubles titles at Wimbledon, in 2000 and 2002, came as wild cards. Wimbledon runs June 29-July 12. Read more
Site Information
On Race in America is published every Saturday. Some articles may be AI-assisted.
Articles appearing in On Race in America are archived on our Archive Page in the drop down menu. A collection of Books, Podcasts, and Video Favorites can also be found there.
On each page you can register your email to receive notifications of new editions of On Race in America
Click here for earlier Editions.
The site is fully searchable by name or topic—see the Search option at the top of the page.
At the bottom of each Blog page, you’ll find custom share buttons that let you email the Blog or post it directly to your Facebook, or LinkedIn accounts.