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When Pimping Became Mainstream: The Jeffrey Epstein Story and the Republican Manosphere. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America

Pimping is often imagined as a street-level crime confined to urban mythology and criminal subcultures. But the exploitation and control of women for power, profit, and pleasure has always extended far beyond the street corner. From the stylized world described by Iceberg Slim to the elite trafficking network surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the methods have evolved while the underlying structure has remained disturbingly familiar. Today, echoes of that same mentality can be found not only in criminal enterprises, but in cultural and political movements that seek to normalize male dominance under softer and more respectable language.

Read complete essay. When Pimping Became Mainstream: The Jeffrey Epstein Story and the Republican Manosphere

The Week’s Top Stories

Political / Social

Trump’s war against wokeness is not new. By Heather Digby Parton / Salon

This sounds like a very modern problem; DEI, ChatGPT and DOGE are all terms that didn’t exist just a few years ago. But this is just the latest battle in the longer culture war that’s been going on since the 1980s. Only the acronyms and slogans have changed.

What we now call “woke” was “PC” — political correctness — back in the day. DEI was “affirmative action” and “multiculturalism.” ChatGPT didn’t exist then, but we did have two big know-it-alls by the names of Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan who helped define all these terms for the right in ways that made it sound like Democrats were destroying the fabric of all Americans hold dear. Read more

Dems warn a third of Congressional Black Caucus could be wiped out by redistricting wars. By Scott Wong and Melanie Zanona / NBC News

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus spoke in dire terms about the Supreme Court’s latest redistricting ruling but have vowed to fight back.

The Congressional Black Caucus, a power center in the Democratic Party for decades, saw its membership rise this Congress to an all-time high of 58 House members. Now, thanks to a Supreme Court redistricting ruling that’s expected to dramatically diminish Black representation on Capitol Hill, the CBC is fighting a five-alarm fire that could devastate its membership. CBC Chair Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said as many as 19 of the caucus’ members could be affected by the redistricting wars in a worst-case scenario, though she noted it’s still fluid given that states are still drawing new maps in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling. Read more

What Dems Must Now Overcome to Win the House. By David Kurtz / TPM

The impact of the redistricting decisions by the U.S. and Virginia supreme courts is beginning to get factored into analyses of the 2026 House elections, but let’s start with this top line: their effects on the Mid-Decade Redistricting War, since that sets the structural conditions on which the election will be run.

Just a few days ago, Democrats had edged into a small lead over Republicans, largely thanks to the Virginia redistricting. With the setback Friday in Virginia, the Republicans now have what is widely considered an 8-seat advantage over Democrats that could grow to as many 10 seats depending on how aggressively Republicans target majority-Black districts in Louisiana and Alabama. Read more

How Minority Districts Fueled the G.O.P.’s Southern Ascendancy in Congress. By Carl Huise / NYT

Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, formerly the No. 3 Democrat in the House, is certain he would never have been elected to Congress without changes in the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court determined last week amounted to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

“And about half of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus wouldn’t be there,” said Mr. Clyburn, the first African American sent to Congress from his state since Reconstruction. He was part of the historic 1992 class of Black and Hispanic lawmakers elected after new maps were drawn to comply with 1982 changes meant to strengthen the Voting Rights Act. Read more

Black Georgia lawmakers claim ‘voter disenfranchisement’ after Gov. Brian Kemp signs new law making local elections nonpartisans in predominantly Black counties. By Brandon Caldwell / The Grio

The law, which goes into effect in 2028, removes the labels of Democrat and Republican from candidates in five of Georgia’s major metroplexes, all of which are either Democratic strongholds or have leaned Democratic in recent elections.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed House Bill 369 into law on Tuesday, a controversial new bill that makes some local elections in major counties near the Atlanta metroplex nonpartisan. The law, which goes into effect in 2028, singles out Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb and Clayton Counties respectively. Read more

Why a landmark Supreme Court ruling has failed to keep racial bias out of jury selection. By Austin Scott / The Conversation

On April 30, 2026, Texas executed James Broadnax, a Black man who was sentenced to death for the robbery and murder of two men in 2008.

Before the jury was seated, the prosecutor moved to dismiss each of the seven Black people from the jury pool. Citing court documents, CNN noted that he “(utilized) a spreadsheet during jury selection that bolded only the names of every Black juror” and none of the white or Latino people. After defense objections, the judge reseated one Black juror, citing the otherwise all-white jury. The trial proceeded with 11 white jurors and one Black juror. Read more

Black People Worse Off in Trump’s Economy Than Every Other Group, Per the Fed. By Layla A. Jones / TPM

Black people in America did worse economically in 2025 than at any time since the Federal Reserve began its financial wellbeing survey in 2013, according to some measures published Wednesday.

While a larger share of Hispanic people reported doing worse off year over year, Black people netted the largest jump in this category, up 7% to 28% of respondents. White people were the only racial group who felt their economic situations’ improved, with 26% reporting doing worse off year over year, down from 30% in 2024. Read more

The Alabama Black Belt Left to Drown in Sewage After DEI Reversal. By Phenix S Halley / The Root

Advocates say a federal agreement to address the public health crisis in Alabama has been dismantled under anti-DEI policies, leaving Black residents without answers.

For generations, residents in rural Lowndes County, Ala. have lived with raw sewage flowing through their yards, homes and neighborhoods. Now, advocates say a federal agreement meant to address the public health crisis has been dismantled under the Trump administration, leaving many Black residents without answers. Read more

Trump Is Changing Who Gets To Be — And Stay — American. By Nathalie Baptiste / HuffPost

The Trump administration is dismantling legal pathways for immigrants and threatening to revoke the citizenship of hundreds of Americans.

For the last several months, the Trump administration has been dismantling legal pathways for immigrants to live and work in the United States permanently, including by pausing applications for legal permanent residency and citizenship. And even darker, the administration has begun taking steps to denaturalize citizens — removing citizenship from immigrants who have gone through the long, arduous, invasive, and well-documented legal process to earn it. Read more

Education

Florida’s new history course whitewashes the founders on slavery. By Chauncey Devega / Salon

A rival Advanced Placement curriculum is offering a dangerous view of the Constitution and America’s founders

The scope of Florida’s latest right-wing project is ambitious, and part of a three-year campaign, according to a recent report by Dana Goldstein of the New York Times. The course, she revealed, “focuses on the Protestant faith of the Founders, argues that the U.S. Constitution is an antislavery document and recommends a textbook written explicitly to build patriotism.” The story quotes Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, as praising the new curriculum’s use of primary sources. But even he acknowledged that the new course leans not on criticism but explicitly on how America is a “good, special place.” Read more

New HBCU Coalition Aims to Fast-Track Institutions to R1 Status. By Jamaal Abdul-Alim / The EduLedger

A new coalition of 15 HBCUs has formed to raise the research profile of Black institutions collectively and to use their research to tackle some of “society’s most pressing challenges,” leaders of the group announced recently. Howard University Interim President Wayne A. I. Frederick will serve as interim president of the group, named the Association of HBCU Research Institutions, or AHRI.

The coalition is being funded by a three-year, $1 million grant from the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative, which is a presidential initiative of Harvard University founded as a way for Harvard to take “full accountability for its involvement in and benefit from slavery through actively advancing reparative efforts” and “have [a] meaningful impact on direct descendants and descendant communities.” Read more

The Democrats Can’t Let Go of Racial Preferences. By Richard D. Kahlenberg / The Atlantic

Racial preferences in college admissions have long been deeply unpopular, and three years ago, the Supreme Court declared them unlawful, in a sweeping ruling that portended doom for other race-conscious policies to promote diversity or remedy past discrimination.

Some research indicates that, in the aftermath of the civil-rights era, the achievement gap between rich and poor students now dwarfs the gap between white and Black students. Even so, well-intentioned blue-state Democrats keep pushing for race-based affirmative action, to their own political detriment, rather than supporting a much fairer policy of providing a leg up to economically disadvantaged people of all races. Read more

World

Pope Leo is right. Trump’s war in Iran fails a test. By Ranesh Ponnuru / Wash Post

Leo’s opposition to the war isn’t some idiosyncrasy: It’s consistent with John Paul II’s opposition to the Gulf War and the Iraq War. But Trump isn’t going to take papal opposition in stride, as his predecessors did, and no amount of visits from Rubio will preclude the possibility of another presidential social-media eruption.

Another reason for conflict between the pope and the president: Trump has made next to no attempt to justify his Iran policy using the traditional criteria for just war, and sometimes he broadcasts contempt for the idea that war could be subject to moral evaluation. When he threatens to end Iran’s civilization, it can’t plausibly be spun as anything but placing large-scale war crimes on the table. Read more

Cubans Deserve America’s Generosity, Not Its Cruelty. By Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan L. Jackson / NYT

As members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we spent five days in Cuba in April to better understand the humanitarian impacts of America’s monthslong energy blockade of the island. We came away shocked by the inhumane effects of the policy, whose goal appears to be strangling the economy until the Cuban people are brought to ruin and the country is available, as President Trump put it, for the “taking.”

With the exception of one Russian oil tanker carrying 10 to 14 days’ worth of oil, fuel deliveries to Cuba have been blocked for more than four months, as other countries have feared having their tankers seized in open waters by U.S. military vessels. The resulting daily indignities have rippled across Cuban society. We returned from our trip certain that if the American people knew the full extent of what is happening on the ground in Cuba, they would demand an end to the blockade immediately. Read more

Those with Trump in China have something in common — and it’s not the interest of America. By Robert Reich / AlterNet

Trump calls the entourage of 12 CEOs accompanying him to China an “incredible gathering” of America’s “Greatest Businessmen/women.”

Well, it may be an incredible gathering. But to characterize them as America’s greatest business leaders — who are assumed to be leading America’s competitive charge against China — is misleading. The American CEOs traveling with Trump to China don’t think of themselves as being in competition with China. In fact, they’d like nothing better than to make more money for themselves and their shareholders by setting up more lower-cost, highly productive factories and research facilities in China and hiring more Chinese talent. Read more

Putin says Russia-Ukraine war ‘coming to an end.’ By Tara Suter / The Hill

On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the war between Russia and Ukraine is “coming to an end,” after more than four years, according to Reuters.

The outlet reported that the Russian president told reporters that he believed “that the matter is coming to an end,” and stated that he was open to discussion about fresh European security arrangements. Read more

Ethics / Morality / Religion

White House aims to link U.S. history and Christianity in 9-hour prayer festival. By Michelle Boorstein, Laura Meckler and Natalie Allison / Wash Post

Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and Mike Johnson will speak at the event, which centers on the idea that the founders wanted the U.S. to be explicitly Christian.

“Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving” is partly funded by millions in public dollars earmarked for the nation’s 250th birthday celebration, organizers said. It will feature mostly evangelical Protestant leaders and members of the Trump administration, many of whom have embraced the message that America’s founders wanted the country to be explicitly Christian. Read more

Why Trump’s Spiritual Adviser Dedicated a Golden Statue to the President. By Isaac Chotiner / The New Yorker

Mark Burns, an evangelical pastor, explains that Trump’s supporters don’t think of him as a godlike figure, even as the President posts pictures of himself as Jesus.

I recently spoke by phone with Burns, who is the senior pastor at the Harvest Praise & Worship Center, in Easley, South Carolina, and the founder of the internationally broadcast NOW evangelical television network. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the backstory behind the statue, why Burns believes God told him to support Trump, and why he thinks opponents of the President misunderstand how his supporters really see him. Read more

Black clergy strategize, preach and urge election turnout after Voting Rights Act gutting. By Adelle M. Banks and Jack Jenkins / RNS

On the first Sunday (May 3) after the Supreme Court decided to hollow out the Voting Rights Act, the Rev. Richelle Lewis-Castine offered some clear advice to her congregation in Patterson, Louisiana.

“I encouraged them to early vote,” said the pastor of an African Methodist Episcopal Church. “I encouraged them to make sure that they get the information, that they’re reading carefully, and to encourage other people — especially those groups in their families who would not normally vote — to vote because it is so very important at this hour.” Read more

Historical / Cultural

America at 250: A declaration of ideals reset the world – and still resonates today. By Scott Baldauf, Colette Davidson and Whitney Eulich / CSM

“One of the greatest global legacies of the American War was the Declaration of Independence,” says Professor Bell, author of “The American Revolution and the Fate of the World.” “It became one of the weapons of choice that other rebels, separatists and rights seekers, would copy in their own insurgent movements against their own empires around the world.”

Because of its broad resonance, the declaration has “taken on a life of its own,” Professor Bell says. “It’s been repurposed and repossessed by diverse figures, from the Haitian rebels to Ho Chi Minh writing the Vietnam Declaration of Independence in 1945 and quoting ours directly.” Read more

A Return to Jim Crow? Ex-DOJ Civil Rights Chief Kristen Clarke Denounces Gutting of Voting Rights Act. Amy Goodman / Democracy Now

We speak with Kristen Clarke, general counsel of the NAACP, about growing threats to democracy in the United States following the Supreme Court’s gutting of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

She says that given the history of racial discrimination in the United States, particularly in the Deep South, “it is unsurprising” to see lawmakers “race at lightning speed to eradicate the gains that have been made over the decades.” Read more and listen here

Charleston’s Gullah Geechee Community Demand 7,000 Acres in Reparations. By Aallyah Wright / Capital B

Advocates say rising tourism and development are displacing descendants from their ancestral land.

Marcus McDonald’s roots run deep on both his sides of his family in Charleston, South Carolina. He’s a descendant of the Boone Hall Plantation, where his ancestors in his father’s family were once held captive. They come from a line of Gullah Geechee people, the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were enslaved on the sea islands of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Read more

The overlooked history of Asian Americans and the struggle for belonging. By Judy Woodruff and Sarah Clune Hartman / PBS

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing demographic group in the U.S., but across American history, their stories and the discrimination they faced have often been overlooked.

For her series, America at a Crossroads, Judy Woodruff looks at how that past continues to shape the question of who belongs in America. Listen here

‘Michael’ Becomes Second Highest-Grossing Biopic of All Time, Beating Out ‘Elvis.’ By Charlotte Phillipp / People

The Michael Jackson biopic has netted $577 million since it hit theaters three weeks ago

Over three years after it was first announced, the film premiered in theaters on April 24. Michael stars Jaafar Jackson, the son of the King of Pop’s brother, Jermaine Jackson, in the titular role. Playing a young Michael is Juliano Krue Valdi, while Colman Domingo portrays patriarch Joe Jackson, who managed Michael and his brothers in the Jackson 5, and daughters Rebbie Jackson, La Toya Jackson and Janet Jackson. Read more

How Netflix Cashes In on the Comedy Culture Wars. By Ben Schwartz / The Nation

In the comedy world, there should be nothing more innocuous, safe, and harmless than the words: The Netflix Roast of Kevin Hart. Hart, the star of Scary Movie, Ride Along, Central Intelligence, and three Jumanji movies, has perfected innocuousness as a $100 million brand (and that’s a conservative estimate). Right-wing culture-war mascot Shane Gillis at the Netflix comedy roast for Kevin Hart.

Except for getting bounced from the Oscars over a decade ago for a homophobic bit, Hart has been a reliably sponsor-friendly comic for a very long time. That’s why when his roast was hijacked with so much mean-spirited culture-war banter—most not even directed at its nominal target for the evening—it signaled yet another garbage-scented shift in the MAGA era of American humor. Read more

Josephine Baker was the blueprint—her legacy still echoes through today’s biggest Black women stars. By Kay Wicker / The Grio

FKA Twigs is gearing up to play the iconic Josephine Baker in an upcoming American-French biopic.

After taking the world by storm with her talent, glamour, confidence, and celebrity, the life story of the late, world-famous dancer, singer, actress, and activist Josephine Baker is headed to the silver screen. “I cannot wait to embody Josephine Baker, bringing her fight, her love, her losses, her talent, and her heroism to the big screen,” Twigs said in a statement per the Hollywood Reporter. “She lives on in our hearts as a visionary, ground-breaking woman whose story is as powerful as it is relevant today.” Read more

Sports

Ryan Clark is Right: Black Athletes Shouldn’t Play Where Their Voting Rights Are Threatened. By Lawrence Ware / The Root

MAGA folks in the South are big mad right now. Ryan Clark took the mic on “The Pivot Podcast” and suggested (I’m lying. He said this with his whole damn chest.) that “Black athletes should stop signing with schools in states that gerrymander districts to block Black representation.”

His comments are popping off online because if this ever actually happened, it would cripple the SEC. On any given Saturday at college football games across the southern part of the U.S., the field is full of Black bodies playing the game while an almost completely white audience cheers them on. Read more

The Uncommon Bravery of Jason Collins. By Dave Zirin / The Nation

The death of the NBA’s first openly gay player at 47 underscores a hard truth: Male professional sports remains hostile terrain for openly queer athletes.

On Wednesday, cancer killed a 47-year-old former NBA player of singular bravery. In hindsight, I don’t think we realized just how brave he was when he was in the headlines. His name was Jason Collins, and he played 13 years in the league, following an All-American college career at Stanford where he suited up alongside his twin brother, Jarron. Jason Collins, of course, will be remembered as a trailblazer. Not a Portland Trail Blazer but the person who took on the weight of being “a first.” He was the first openly gay, active male athlete in one of the four big sports leagues—NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL—in North America. Read more

Florida subpoenas NFL leaders over diversity hiring rules. By Andrew Atterbury / Politico

The subpoenas allow Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier to keep pressure on the NFL after he previously gave the league a May 1 deadline to scrap the Rooney Rule and other diversity hiring protocols.

Uthmeier’s threats of a civil rights lawsuit over the NFL’s Rooney Rule and similar policies garnered a response from league officials and pushed the NFL to soften language on its website. But Uthmeier, an appointee of GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the revisions do not go far enough as he vows to keep fighting for the repeal of NFL efforts designed to expand opportunities for minority coaches and executives. Read more

A’ja Wilson Is Going for GOAT Status: “I Want to Prove That I’m the Best.” By Erin Vanderhoof / Vanity Fair

Every year after the WNBA season ends, A’ja Wilson takes a reset. “I put my shoes away. I get my long nails,” the six-foot-four center says. “This makes sure I cannot touch a basketball.”

When she is playing, Wilson’s unstoppable. She’s a four-time league MVP who’s led the Las Vegas Aces to three championship victories—the first WNBA player to score more than 1,000 points in a single season. Her three-pointers float effortlessly; her jump shot is the move’s platonic ideal. She bats away defenders like a cat with a toy mouse. Read more

I can tell Stephen A Smith why many Black people don’t like him. By Etan Thomas / The Guardian

The ESPN star has done brilliant work for Black students. I wrote an open letter to him explaining why his comments on politics alienate much of his audience

Dear Stephen A Smith,

You wonder why many Black people in America feel that you “betrayed your race”. It’s not a mystery why they may feel this way. Chuck Modiano, my co-host on The Collision, put it well: “Stephen A Smith loves to criticize Black athletes, but he won’t go after Roger Goodell like that. He won’t go after owners that way.” Far too often, you attack Black male athletes in particular – Kyrie Irving, Kwame Brown, LeBron James, Terrell Owens and Kevin Durant are just a few of your targets – with a passion and vitriol you just don’t reserve for white athletes and executives. Read more

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