Featured

The Unintended Consequences of Exclusion. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America

The United States Supreme Court, in Louisiana v. Callais, limited the use of race in redistricting, holding that districts drawn predominantly on racial lines can be unconstitutional.

Moments of institutional retreat are often read as moments of loss. When courts narrow remedies, when policies aimed at equity are rolled back, the instinct is to see only the closing of doors. But history suggests a more complicated reality. Constraint does not simply limit opportunity—it reshapes it. In environments where pathways narrow, the demands on those who advance intensify. What emerges under such pressure is not merely survival, but a form of excellence forged in response to the conditions themselves.

Read complete essay: The Unintended Consequences of Exclusion.

The Week’s Top Stories

Political / Social

Trump is losing — and his fragile ego can’t handle the defeat. By Robert Reich / AlterNet

We are witnessing what happens to a person who is consumed with the need to dominate but cannot.

Iran is unlikely to give in. It can withstand the economic pressure of a blockade better than Trump can withstand the political pressure that comes with rising gas prices (now nearly $4.50 a gallon, on average), soon followed by rising food prices. His looming failure in Iran is not just a serious geopolitical defeat for the United States; it’s a personal crisis for Trump. Read more

How Racism Is Destroying America. By Michael Ignatieff / NYT

Empathy, Eduardo Porter argues, in American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise, has always waged an unequal struggle against the racial animus that courses through American history, poisoning both those who hate and those who are hated. Race has contaminated American solidarity, making it impossible for poor whites, threatened by job loss, globalization and the death of carbon-intensive industries, to make common cause with African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and immigrants.

He writes, “Unwilling to share the bounty of state with people of other races and creeds, heritages and colors, real Americans — the white ones — have prevented the erection of a welfare state at all.” Read more

Anti-woke Vivek Ramaswamy confronts racism in his run for Ohio governor. By Hannah Knowles / Wash Post

Vivek Ramaswamy built a political brand casting racism as an obsession of Democrats. As a Republican running for Ohio governor, he’s facing racism on the right.

Vivek Ramaswamy didn’t mention the racist taunts that follow him online or the GOP primary opponent who said he’s not a real American. But the Ohio gubernatorial candidate who clinched his party’s nomination this week alluded to bigotry on the right in his opening message to a town hall full of young Republicans. Read more

Florida governor poll shows Donalds chances of beating Jolly. By Anna Commander / Newsweek

A new statewide poll for Florida‘s gubernatorial race shows Republican Representative Byron Donalds and Democrat candidate David Jolly are tied, underscoring a seemingly competitive race to succeed term-limited Governor Ron DeSantis.

The findings come in a state that President Donald Trump won by 13 points in 2024 against then-Vice President Kamala Harris, and where no Democrat has won the governorship in over 20 years. Read more

A legal scholar and ‘Backtalker’ defends critical race theory — a term she helped coin. By Tonya Mosley / NPR

Growing up in Canton, Ohio, legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw was encouraged to call out conditions that were unfair or inexplicable. It was a form of “talking back” that continued into her career, she says.

Crenshaw is responsible for naming two of the most contested ideas in American politics: intersectionality and critical race theory. The idea of intersectionality came to Crenshaw in the late 1980s when she was studying the 1976 Supreme Court case DeGraffenreid v. General Motors. A Black woman had sued the car maker for discrimination, and a federal court told her she could sue either as a Black person or as a woman, but not both at once. Read more

U.S. Sues The New York Times, Claiming Discrimination Against a White Man. By Rebecca Davis O’Brien / NYT

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said the paper had engaged in “unlawful employment practices” against the man, who did not get a sought-after promotion.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, says The Times’s “stated race and sex-based representation goals influenced the decision not to advance” the man’s candidacy for a deputy real estate editor role in 2025. “The New York Times categorically rejects the politically motivated allegations brought by the Trump administration’s E.E.O.C.,” said Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for The Times. Read more

Too Young for a License, Old Enough for Prison: The Brutal Debate Over 12-Year-Olds Facing Adult Charges in Florida. By Angela Wilson / The Root

The Brutal debate Over 12-Year-Olds Facing Adult Charges in Florida

The state of Florida leads the nation in direct filing, a practice that allows prosecutors to bypass a judge and send children directly to adult court; and for Black youth in Miami-Dade County, this legal mechanism acts as an impenetrable trapdoor. Statistics show that Black children represent a disproportionate percentage of those transferred to adult facilities, often for crimes where their white peers are diverted to rehabilitative juvenile programs instead, according to The Sentencing Project. Read more

Internal ICE records reveal widespread use of force in detention centers. By Douglas MacMillan et al. / Wash Post

The reports detail how guards have increasingly used chemical agents and physical tactics on detainees, including groups demanding adequate water, food and medical care.

The Post reviewed hundreds of internal ICE emails, called the “Daily Detainee Assault Report,” which summarize every incident in which staff members reported using physical force against detainees at 98 ICE detention facilities. Taken together, the reports offer an unprecedented look at the treatment of ICE detainees as the Trump administration has carried out the biggest expansion of immigration detention in decades. Read more

Republicans split with Trump and back Haitians – to save their seats. By Stephen Starr / The Guardian

In Ohio, where Haitians have helped revive the economy, vulnerable Republicans are reluctant to toe the Trump line

Turner and Carey are among several Republicans in Ohio up for election this year who are siding with Haitian immigrants and against the Trump administration, as the president’s ratings crumble not just in national polling, but in Republican strongholds such as Ohio. Although Ohio voted for Trump by double digits in the 2024 presidential election, polls suggest that support for the president is waning significantly. With three large metropolitan areas in a state that voted for Barack Obama twice, political scientists say that Ohio is slipping back into purple territory. Read more

Education

An HBCU Canceled Its MAGA Commencement Speaker, Now Republicans Want to Defund It. By Alecia Taylor / Capital B

South Carolina State University invited the state’s lieutenant governor to speak at graduation, but later rescinded the offer, citing safety concerns.

Less than two weeks before graduation day, students at South Carolina State University learned that a MAGA-supporting politician had been invited to speak at their upcoming commencement ceremony. The students wasted no time in taking their grievances about South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette to the school’s president and provost. Three days after the news spread, the invitation was rescinded. The decision might prove to be a costly victory for the students, however. A small group of Republicans within the South Carolina statehouse is now calling for the state to defund the HBCU. Read more

TSU And Meharry College Offering Full Ride To Young Black Men Interested In Medical Field. By Kandiss Edwards / Black Enterprise

The scholarship was established to honor the pioneering legacy of alumnus Dr. Levi Watkins Jr.

The fund is designed to remove the cost barriers that often discourage underrepresented students from pursuing high-level medical careers. By providing significant financial support, the endowment allows scholars to bypass the traditional eight-year educational route in favor of a streamlined seven-year curriculum without the burden of overwhelming student debt. Read more

How Conservatives Took Over the National Endowment for the Humanities. By Matt Hartman / The Chronicle of Higher Ed

Keegan Callanan has a penchant for the theatrical. Since Donald Trump appointed him to the National Endowment for the Humanities’ advisory council in 2019, Callanan has been one of its most outspoken conservative members. And “Hip Hop as Humanities: Counterstories for the Canon, Classroom, and Country” was exactly the kind of project he would find objectionable.

Since conservatives gained effective control of the agency under Trump, the NEH has doled out two grants to organizations the council members have ties with — both among the largest in its history. Both UNC’s civics school and the Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education, a grant-making organization with deep ties to conservative academic movements, received $10 million in January. Read more

World

Trump’s War on Iran & Strait of Hormuz Crisis Reveal “Limits of American Imperial Power.” By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now

We speak with Middle East history professor Toby Jones about the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, where overlapping blockades by Iran and the United States have disrupted shipping and the wider global economy since the start of the war in late February.

Jones says this latest conflict is part of a decadeslong project by the United States to exert imperial control over the oil-rich region, but that it’s now in danger of a strategic loss signaling a deeper imperial decline. Read more and listen here

Trump says Venezuela is ‘really happy’, but poll shows fast-growing discontent. By Antonio María Delgado / Miami Herald

Speaking Monday at a White House event, Trump highlighted what he described as a shift in Venezuela’s social and economic climate following the removal of Nicolás Maduro from power earlier this year. Interim leader Delcy Rodríguez.

But the latest data from Venezuelan polling firm Meganálisis paints a starkly different picture. The survey, conducted in the third week of April, shows a sharp drop in support for Trump among Venezuelans. While 92% of respondents in January said they felt grateful to the U.S. president following Maduro’s capture, that figure had fallen to 47% by April — a decline of 45 percentage points in just three months. Read more

‘Educated under embargo’: How Cuban doctors vital to Latin America and the Caribbean became under threat by the US. By Nesrine Malik / The Guardian

The US is blocking the employment of Cuban doctors around the world – and the poorest will suffer the costs

US pressure on Cuba is rising. A country that has already been under US-led and enforced embargos for almost 70 years, Cuba is now in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, with a new policy that is isolating it further and having a devastating effect on Latin America and the Caribbean. The US has blocked the employment of Cuban doctors, medical professionals who go where others fear to tread and who have propped up healthcare across the region for decades. Read more

King Charles III confronts slavery legacy during Bermuda tour. By Dorothy Reddin / GB News

King Charles has explored a museum exhibition examining Bermuda’s historical ties to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, deepening his knowledge of the island’s past.

Bermuda’s connection to the Transatlantic Slave Trade was defined by its geography. Unlike the vast sugar plantations of the Caribbean, Bermuda acted as a strategic maritime hub for the British Empire. Enslaved Bermudians were world-renowned shipbuilders and sailors. They built the fast “Bermuda Sloops” that carried goods and people across the British Atlantic. Bermuda was a key supplier of salt (essential for preserving food for the British Navy), which was raked by enslaved people in the Turks and Caicos under brutal conditions. Read more

Ethics / Morality / Religion

Rubio visits Rome aiming to repair White House ties with Pope Leo. By Anthony Faiola, Stefano Pitrelli and Adam Taylor / Wash Post

The State Department said the pair discussed the “situation in the Middle East and topics of mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere” on Thursday.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Thursday with Pope Leo XIV with relations between the Vatican and the White House at a low point over President Donald Trump’s repeated, direct criticism of the U.S.-born pontiff, who has emerged as a leading global critic of the war in Iran and of the administration’s invocation of God in pursuing military action that has resulted in the deaths of thousands. Read more

Religious historian debunks Trump Cabinet’s claim US ‘was founded as a Christian nation.’ By Alex Henderson / AlterNet

Far-right Christian nationalists, from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to The Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts to Pastor Doug Wilson, are claiming that the United States was designed to be a “Christian nation.”

Liberal opponents of Christian nationalism, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and People for the American Way, argue that while the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause is protective of one’s right to practice Christianity, it is equally protective of other religions — or, for that matter, atheists and agnostics. Read more

Rev. Stephen Green On Faith, Justice, And The Liberating Gospel Of Jesus. By Anoa Changa-Peck / Newsone

Rev. Stephen Green of Greater Allen AME Cathedral discusses faith-based organizing, the liberating gospel, and the Black church’s 200+ year legacy of resistance in Queens, N.Y.

At a time when some weaponize faith for political gain, Rev. Stephen A. Green offers a compelling vision of community, accountability, and radical love through the liberating gospel of Jesus. Serving as senior pastor of The Greater Allen A.M.E Cathedral of New York, Rev. Green unpacked what it means to bring “the Bible and the newspaper together.” Read more and listen here

Historical / Cultural

How the Slaveholding Founders Really Felt About Slavery. By Timothy Sandefuir / Reason

Angst, guilt, and more self-awareness than you might expect

The Declaration of Independence accused the king and Parliament of Great Britain of “exciting domestic insurrections” among the half-million people enslaved in the American colonies. This was a reference to the November 1775 proclamation by Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, that he would free “all indentured servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to rebels)” who were “able and willing to bear arms” against the American revolutionaries. Today’s readers often consider it hypocritical that the Founders denounced Britain for offering black Americans the same freedom for which they were themselves fighting. Read more

‘Disgrace’: Horror as red state’s new history course calls slavery a ‘necessary evil.’ By Bennitol L. Kelty / Raw Story

A red state sparked backlash after announcing that it will offer an alternative version of advanced history classes meant to combat the “woke.”

Historian Kevin Kruse warned on Bluesky that Sunshine State students could have “to suffer through the Florida Man version” of Advanced Placement U.S. History, and called out a curriculum that frames Florida as always having been Christian, anti-slavery and on the right side of history. The Tallahassee Democrat reported on Tuesday that Florida will start offering the alternative course as a pilot program in the fall. The state-developed course will offer credit at Florida colleges and universities to compete with the AP course, which offers credit at colleges and universities across the country. Read more

Md. Gov. Wes Moore unveils marker honoring Black boys buried at Maryland reform school. By Bolarinwa Oladeji / The Grio

State leaders say the memorial is part of a broader effort to uncover the identities and stories of more than 230 Black boys believed buried near the site.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on Wednesday unveiled a historical marker commemorating the House of Reformation, a former segregated juvenile detention facility tied to one of the darkest chapters in the state’s racial history, according to Washington, D.C.’s WUSA9. The marker honors the memory of Black boys who were sent to the House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children, a state institution that operated in the unincorporated Prince George’s County town of Cheltenham, Md., during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Read more

Trump’s dog whistles and prosecutions echo Nixon’s racist strategy. By Heather Digby Parton / Salon

No longer bothering to hide its agenda, the administration is making blatant appeals to the Old South

After the Voting Rights Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, Republicans set out to maintain and solidify control of the South. The operation went into full force in 1968 when historian and political scientist Kevin Phillips took note of Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s success in embedding racist-coded “law and order” messages in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, and he persuaded GOP candidate Richard Nixon to follow suit. The GOP’s “Southern Strategy” was born. Read more

Motown’s Black women songwriters and producers were the invisible architects behind the pop music juggernaut. By Margena A. Christian / The Conversation

During the 1960s, in a country divided by racial strife, the music of Berry Gordy Jr.’s Motown Records helped bring people together. Sylvia Moy was a trailblazing Motown songwriter.

I’m a scholar of popular culture and author of the biography “It’s No Wonder: The Life and Times of Motown’s Legendary Songwriter Sylvia Moy.” Researching my book inspired me to find other women who contributed to the Detroit label’s era of chart dominance and helped change the music industry, despite going largely unrecognized for their efforts. Read more

Why Wynton Marsalis thinks jazz is the perfect metaphor for democracy. By Jeffrey Brown / PBS

Renowned trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis has launched a new project, a kind of call and response for these times. Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown met Marsalis at the Jazz at Lincoln Center, for our series Art in Action, exploring the intersection of art and democracy, part of our CANVAS coverage.

The music is vibrant and alive, but, says Wynton Marsalis, our democracy is threatened, with warning signs everywhere. “Our music takes us away from that into the feeling of community, which is shared responsibility, shared rights and the creation of space for others to be creative and to be a part of the process. And it’s just an assertion of who we are and a reassertion of the importance of freedom and of civic engagement by artists.” Read more

Black Celebs Who Slayed the 2026 Met Gala. By Capital B Staff

Attendees at the iconic fashion event shared the inspiration behind looks featuring the “dressed body” theme. SZA attends the 2026 Met Gala celebrating “Costume Art” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on May 4.

Black celebrities delivered showstopping looks at the 2026 Met Gala, drawing on artistic inspiration at one of the industry’s biggest nights. The theme of the exhibition, “Costume Art,” focuses on the relationship between clothing and the human form. The dress code, “Fashion is Art,” encouraged attendees to celebrate the “dressed body” in all its forms. This year’s Met Gala follows 2025’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibit, which paid tribute to the history and influence of the Black dandy. Like last year, attendees built on the theme in their own unique ways. Read more

Sports

The Savannah Bananas Bring Back a Negro Leagues Team. By Josh Levin / The Atlantic

Over the past three-plus years, the Bananas have gone from a baseball curiosity to a cultural juggernaut. The team tours the country playing what it calls Banana Ball: a family-friendly, souped-up, TikTok-ready version of the national pastime. Games feature singing and dancing and celebrity cameos, plus backflipping outfielders, stilt-walking batters, and the occasional double to the gap. Last year, according to the organization’s own data, the Bananas and their affiliated teams sold 2.2 million tickets—more than 11 different MLB franchises.

The Bananas are frequently compared to the Harlem Globetrotters. But unlike their basketball counterparts, who ritually defeat the rival Washington Generals, the Bananas don’t script the outcomes of their games. They play against—and sometimes lose to—a rotating band of teams with their own personalities and followings. Read more

Historically Black colleges take the lead in driving the growth of women’s flag football. By Mia Berry / Andscape

As the sport surges in popularity across the country, multiple HBCUs are launching programs to create opportunities to compete at the collegiate level. Winston-Salem State flag football players celebrate their Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association championship on April 11, 2026, at Johnson C. Smith in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In 2024, Alabama State, a member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC), became the first NCAA Division I school to offer a women’s flag football program. The Division II CIAA, which launched flag football programs at seven member institutions in 2025, will become the first HBCU athletic conference to offer it as a varsity sport starting in the 2026-27 season. Read more

Magic fire head coach Jamahl Mosley after 5 seasons. By Tim Bontemps / ESPN

Mosley, 47, spent the past five seasons with Orlando, leading the team out of a rebuild and into the playoffs each of the past three seasons. They failed to advance past the first round in any of them after they lost in seven games to the Detroit Pistons this season, blowing a 3-1 series lead. Mosley went 189-221 overall.

Magic president Jeff Weltman, who signed a contract extension just before Orlando’s run to the NBA Cup final four, will lead the team’s search for the next head coach. Read more

What happened to Isiah Thomas? Hall of Famer reveals health diagnosis. By Ben Leibowitz / Akron Beacon Journal

Fans seeing Thomas on TV for the first time in a while have noticed that the man otherwise known as “Zeke” looks different. He recently opened up about a medical diagnosis that explains it.

Speaking on The Mark Jackson Show, which is part of the Come and Talk 2 Me network, Thomas revealed that he’s been diagnosed with Bell’s palsy. According to the Mayo Clinic, Bell’s palsy is a “condition that causes sudden weakness in the muscles on one side of the face.” It notes that the weakness is often short-term and typically improves over the span of weeks. Read more

Stephen A.Smith Doesn’t Hold Back Against FOX for Claiming Skip Bayless’ Return to First Take Is a Ratings Grab. By Krushna Prasad Pattnaik / Essentially Sports

Skip Bayless reunited with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN’s First Take last Friday. It was an attention-grabbing development across the football media landscape. But things turned sour when an OutKick article, which was prominently featured on Fox News, framed it as a desperate attempt to bump up ratings. According to Smith, everything is fine and dandy at First Take.

Addressing the controversy through his radio show, Smith said, “Instead of just celebrating Skip Bayless coming back to First Take for the day, I’m seeing articles here on Fox News, Awful Announcing, along with others…one article actually said, ‘Why is Skip Bayless coming back?’ And it’s talking about ratings slip. Read more

Site Information

About On Race in America

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 home page. 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 the page, you’ll find custom share buttons that let you email the edition or post it directly to your Facebook, LinkedIn, or X (formerly Twitter) accounts.

On Race in America

A publication on race, history, and democracy

On Race in America (May 9) – Stories, Insight and Perspective

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Featured

The Week’s Top Stories

Political / Social

Education

World

Ethics / Morality / Religion

Historical / Cultural

Sports

Site Information

Like this:

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Featured

The Week’s Top Stories

Political / Social

Education

World

Ethics / Morality / Religion

Historical / Cultural

Sports

Site Information

Share this:

Like this: