Featured
The limited usefulness of Black conservatives. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Donald Trump’s behavior at Diamond’s funeral should be a warning for Black conservatives
“Black conservative” is a specific type of character and performance in post-civil rights America (although the archetype long predates it). In the white right-wing imagination, these are black people who fulfill a fantasy role in a type of new-age race minstrel performance where they denigrate and insult the intelligence, dignity, and political agency of other black people for the pleasures of white “conservatives” and white America.
Throughout the Age of Trump, “Diamond” and “Silk” played their role in that universe very well. Diamond’s funeral was held last Saturday in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Donald Trump was the featured guest at Diamond’s homegoing ceremony, which was attended by several hundred MAGA faithful and others. Of course, Diamond’s funeral and celebration of life also featured nonsense conspiracy theories, right-wing paranoia and fearmongering, general MAGA madness and other foolishness. Read more
Related: Elaine Chao issues rare rebuke of Trump over his racist attacks on her. By / NBC News
Political / Social
Cops Lynched Tyre Nichols Because They Knew They Could. By Elie Mystal / The Nation
All police, regardless of race or background, are employed to uphold a system conceived by white people, for white people, that operates to oppress Black people.
All cops are employed to uphold a system, a system conceived of by white folks, for white folks, that operates to oppress and control Black people. It’s not surprising if Black people do not even find it difficult to participate in the oppression of other Black people, especially when they align themselves with an institution (in this case, the police) instead of working to take down that system. To put it a different way: When a cop says they “bleed blue,” believe them. Read more
Related: The Killing of Tyre Nichols and the Issue of Race. By Jelani Cobb / The New Yorker
Tyre Nichols’ funeral in Memphis brings calls for justice. By Joe Hernandez / NPR
RowVaughn Wells speaks alongside her husband Rodney Wells and the Rev. Al Sharpton during the funeral service for her son Tyre Nichols at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, Tenn., on Wednesday.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who delivered the eulogy, called for justice for Nichols and lamented the fact that the 29-year-old Black man was killed in the same city where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. “Let me be clear, we understand that there are concerns about public safety. We understand that there are needs to deal with crime,” Sharpton said. “But you don’t fight crime by becoming criminals yourselves.” Read, listen and watch here
While Ron DeSantis Is Fighting Culture Wars, Millions Of Floridians Are Losing Their Health Care. By Jonathan Cohn / HuffPost
The Florida governor’s record of opposing Medicaid expansion — and other initiatives to expand coverage — deserves more attention than it’s getting
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis keeps making news with his self- described campaign to fight “woke” ideology. The latest headlines came about two weeks ago, when the Republican announced that he was prohibiting public high schools from offering a new Advanced Placement course in African American history. But DeSantis has some other governing responsibilities, too. One of them is looking out for the health and economic well-being of Florida residents, including those who can’t pay for medical care on their own because they don’t have insurance. Read more
Related: Ron DeSantis Wants to Erase Black History. Why? Janai Nelson / NYT
How to Be a (YOUNG) Antiracist — Ibram X. Kendi and Nic Stone
The #1 New York Times bestseller that sparked international dialogue is now a book for young adults! Based on the adult bestseller by Ibram X. Kendi, and co-authored by bestselling author Nic Stone, How to be a (Young) Antiracist will serve as a guide for teens seeking a way forward in acknowledging, identifying, and dismantling racism and injustice. Available January 31, 2023. Read more
The Urgency of Police Reform Is at the Mercy of a Divided Congress. By Grace Segers / The New Republic
A Republican House and Democratic Senate could complicate negotiations, but some still hope for a revival of talks two years after the last failed effort.
Two years ago, Senators Cory Booker (left) and Tim Scott tried unsuccessfully to get Congress to sign off on bipartisan police reform. Capitol Hill has only grown more divided since. While the recorded scenes of Nichols’s harrowing beating have shocked many since they were released last week, Deonarine warned that there is a “numbing component” of videos of police brutality as well. She expressed her hope that there’s still time for Congress to be jolted into action. Read more
Republican House Oversight Committee disbands Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. By Cheyanne M. Daniels / The Hill
Shown is Chairman Of House Oversight Committee, James Comer (R-Ky)
The Republican-controlled House Oversight and Accountability Committee has disbanded the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which focused on issues including voting rights, freedom of assembly and criminal justice reform policies. In a committee meeting on Tuesday, Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said this doesn’t mean topics related to these issues can’t be brought before the committee. But Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) is urging the committee to reinstate the subcommittee, saying that the loss of it sends an “unmistakable message to the American people that their civil rights and civil liberties are no longer a priority to the 118th Congress.” Read more
The problem with the Black Democratic leadership class. By Perry Bacon Jr. / Wash Post
Many prominent Black Democratic politicians are overly wedded to a centrist, traditional style of politics. They are therefore too hostile to more progressive policies and movements that could boost Black Americans in particular. They often seem more interested in maintaining their status at the top of the political system than changing it. For example, numerous Black mayors, particularly those in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and D.C., have strongly opposed efforts to make their cities’ criminal justice policies less punitive and to increase scrutiny of cops. Read more
Kemp Declares State of Emergency Over Stop ‘Cop City’ Movement. By
Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency Thursday as tension between police and ‘Cop City’ protesters has brought international attention to Atlanta. Kemp has ordered 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops to be ready to intervene after Saturday’s vigil turned into a protest where some activists “threw rocks, launched fireworks, and burned a police vehicle in front of the Atlanta Police Foundation office building.” The protests and subsequent response have reignited concerns about law enforcement overreach and driven a new round of criticism about the lack of public input on the $90 million project. Read more
California mass shootings: Asian Americans grapple with back-to-back tragedy.
The shootings, both of which included Asian American victims and perpetrators, have been shocking and devastating for a community that’s still grappling with the violence many of its members experienced during the pandemic.
The shootings happened within days of one another this past week. In Monterey Park, California — a suburb near Los Angeles — a 72-year-old Asian American man killed 11 people, all of whom are of Asian descent, at a local dance studio on Saturday; he also wounded nine others. Police have yet to identify a motive for the shooting, though they’re reportedly looking into personal connections that the shooter had with patrons of the studio. In Half Moon Bay — a beach town south of San Francisco — a 66-year-old Asian American man killed 7 people, including Chinese and Latino farm workers on Monday. Read more
Native Americans left out of ‘deaths of despair’ research. By Rhitu Chatterjee / NPR
A sign calling attention to drug overdoses is posted in a gas station on the White Earth reservation in Ogema, Minn.. A new study shows that early deaths due to addiction and suicide have impacted American Indian and Alaska Native communities far more than white communities.
For more than a decade, Americans have been dying younger than people in other developed countries. Researchers attribute much of this rise in mid-life deaths to what are called “deaths of despair” — that is suicides, drug overdoses and deaths from alcoholic liver disease — among middle-aged white Americans. But a study published last week in The Lancet shows that these premature deaths have affected American Indian and Alaska Native communities far more than white communities. Read more
Montana’s Black Mayor. By Adam Harris / The Atlantic
Wilmot Collins fled a civil war in Liberia with big ideas about what America can be. But can it ever live up to what he imagined?
In his office overlooking Sixth Avenue in Helena, Montana, Wilmot Collins leans back in a chair at his conference table and recounts all of the ways his being here, as a Liberian refugee who in 2018 became the first Black mayor of any city in Montana since the state joined the union, was unlikely to happen. Read more
Student protests heat up at Bethune-Cookman University after split with Ed Reed. By Bracey Harris / NBC News
Reed’s ouster as football coach was the “the tipping point” for students already frustrated with living conditions at the historically Black university campus, one student leader said.
A battle over a would-be football coach’s pointed criticisms has roiled Bethune-Cookman University, heating up student protests over broken ventilation systems, inconsistent hot water and mold-infested dorms at the historically Black university. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Reconstructionist Jews call for reparations, embark on racial justice pilgrimages. By Yonat Shimron / Religion News
The denominational resolution calls for a ‘deep reflection on the ways in which we have participated in or benefitted from racial injustices in our communities.’
Last week, Reconstructing Judaism’s board of governors approved a resolution calling for reparations to descendants of slaves and Indigenous peoples for harms caused by colonization, slavery and white supremacist policies.
Reconstructing Judaism, a small liberal movement of some 90 U.S. Congregations and a handful abroad, is following in the footsteps of the far larger Reform Jewish movement, whose congregational arm passed a resolution in 2019 in support of a federal commission to consider reparations for Black Americans. Read more
Ron DeSantis and His Christian Crusaders Are Stealing Trump’s Religious Thunder. By Audrey Clare Farley / TNR
As the former president loses his edge with evangelicals, the man who might replace him is cashing in on the resurgence of right-wing Catholicism.
“Donald Trump has to go,” conservative evangelical Everett Piper wrote for The Washington Times in November. “If he’s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.” Some of her peers evidently agree. An unnamed evangelical leader toldVanity Fair last month that if Trump wins the GOP nomination, Republicans will “get crushed in the general.” Speaking with The Washington Post, Baptists for Biblical Values founder Brad Cranston disparaged the former president and said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had the “best chance.” Read more
Black college students who turn to their faith think less about suicide. Janelle R. Goodwill / The Conversation
Black college students who resorted to self-blame when faced with stress were also more likely to experience suicidal thoughts within the past year.
This is in comparison to those who were less likely to resort to self-blame. But those who turned to their faith to cope with stress were less likely to think about taking their own lives. While the suicide rates for white children between ages 5 and 11 decreased slightly – going from 1.14 to 0.77 per 1 million from 1993 to 2012 – suicide rates for Black children of the same age nearly doubled. Specifically, they went from 1.36 to 2.54 per 1 million during the same time frame. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Black History Month: Why we celebrate it in February. By Scott Neuman / NPR
In 1926, Carter G. Woodson, the scholar often referred to as the “father of Black history,”established Negro History Week to focus attention on Black contributions to civilization.
February marks Black History Month, a tradition that got its start in the Jim Crow era and was officially recognized in 1976 as part of the nation’s bicentennial celebrations. It aims to honor the contributions that African Americans have made and to recognize their sacrifices. Starting in the ’60s, through the ’70s, we were very successful in integrating African American history of culture into the curriculum,” King says. However, “now here we are back, having to push that agenda again … [against those] trying to suppress the teaching of African American history and culture.” Read more
The Life of Louis Fatio: American Slavery and Indigenous Sovereignty. By Caroline Wood Newhall / AAIHS
Left to right : Plenty Payne, Billy July, Ben July, Dembo Factor (civilian clothes), Ben Wilson (back row), John July, William Shields; John Jefferson, Informant (NYPL)
In 1892 a reporter for the Missouri-based Daily Globe-Democrat interviewed an elderly Black man by the name of Louis Fatio living near Jacksonville, Florida. Throughout the interview, Fatio described parts of his tumultuous life of 92 years, first as an enslaved guide for the U.S. army and then as a captive living among the Seminoles. In sitting for the interview, Fatio seized an opportunity to recount his own version of his life story—a story that had been distorted and used by white Americans for various political purposes for decades. Read more
Meet Bayard Rustin, often-forgotten civil rights activist, gay rights advocate, union organizer, pacifist and man of compassion for all in trouble. By Jerald Podair / The Conversation
As I began writing “Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer,” my biography of the 20th-century radical leader and activist, one of my colleagues cautioned me not to “fall in love.”
This, of course, is good advice for any biographer, and I tried to follow it. But it wasn’t easy, because Bayard Rustin was America’s signature radical voice during the 20th century, and yes, I believe those voices includes that of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Rustin trained and mentored. His vision of nonviolence was breathtakingly broad. He was a civil rights activist, a labor unionist, a socialist, a pacifist and, later in life, a gay rights advocate. Today, scholars would call Rustin an intersectionalist, a man who understood the complex effects of multiple forms of discrimination, including racism, sexism and classism. Read more
Samara Joy Is Bringing 21st Century Flair to Classic Jazz Standards. By Thania Garcia / Variety
Samara Joy knows how to command a room. After years of observing jazz champions like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald from behind her computer screen and through crackling records, the 23-year-old Bronx native has become a gem of her own in New York’s modern jazz scene. Her 2022 Verve Records debut, “Linger Awhile,” is up for best jazz vocal album at the upcoming Grammys, and is both classic and fresh — which is why it also garnered the singer recognition in the best new artist category. Read more and listen here
Michael Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson to play him in biopic. By Kelsey Ables / Wash Post
Jaafar Jackson in 2014 and his uncle Michael Jackson in 1987. (AP)
Michael Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson will play the “King of Pop” in the upcoming biopic “Michael.” “I’m humbled and honored to bring my Uncle Michael’s story to life,” Jackson wrote on Monday in an Instagram post. “To all the fans all over the world, I’ll see you soon.” A singer and songwriter, the younger Jackson has said his father, Jermaine — a former member of the Jackson 5 — discovered and encouraged his musical side. Read more
Ojeda Penn, 79, Atlanta jazz musician, dies in accident.
Editor’s note: Ojeda was a friend for over 40 years. He cared deeply about music and the plight of Black people in this country. We communicated frequently about the issues contained in this blog. He will be missed. Condolences to his family.
Sports
Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts to make history as first-ever Black starting quarterbacks to face off in Super Bowl. By Christopher Brito / CBS News
Mahomes will be making his third trip to the big game after a dramatic 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. He was the third Black quarterback to win a Super Bowl in 2020 when he led the Chiefs over the San Francisco 49ers. He lost against the Tampa Buccaneers a year later. If Mahomes wins against the Eagles, he will be the first Black quarterback with multiple Super Bowl wins. If the Eagles beat the Chiefs, Hurts would become the fourth Black quarterback to win a Super Bowl, joining Mahomes, Doug Williams and Russell Wilson. Read more
Doug Williams: The real MVP. By Jason Reid / Andscape
Thirty years ago, Doug Williams directed the most prolific quarter in playoff history to become the first black quarterback to win the Super Bowl
On Jan. 31, 1988, Williams directed the greatest offensive performance during a single quarter in NFL postseason history, throwing four touchdown passes as part of a 35-point, 356-yard second quarter in the Washington Redskins’ 42-10 victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. He became the first African-American passer to both start in a Super Bowl and be selected the game’s MVP. And Williams also became a hero to black America. Read more
In ‘Stand’ documentary, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf wants to leave ‘something for them to think about.’ By Marc J. Spears / Andscape
Former NBA guard reveals how his life spiraled downward after his national anthem protest in 1996
Does the NBA owe Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf an apology? “I can care less about the apology,” Abdul-Rauf recently told Andscape. “That’s like government apologizing for the 300 and something years of unpaid labor and not paying taxes for slavery. And these people don’t want their apology. Apologies are only as good as what you back it up with. “A lot of lives were affected. Monies were lost. Families that you could have supported were hurt as a result of being sensitive.” Twenty-five years ago, Abdul-Rauf was one of the NBA’s most feared shooters. Abdul-Rauf talks about it all in Stand, a Showtime Sports documentary debuting Feb. 3 on Showtime. Read more
Deion Sanders massively reshapes Colorado football roster in 2 months. By Brent Schrotenboer / USA Today
Coach Deion Sanders is expected to sign another top recruit Wednesday, capping a whirlwind recruiting spree for him at Colorado.
No other college football coach in the country has overhauled his roster this year like Deion Sanders did in just eight weeks at Colorado. It’s downright historic. With at least 42 new scholarship players coming in, Sanders has reeled in the biggest class of newcomers in recorded school history. And he might not be done. The transfer portal opens again in May after Sanders already signed or gained commitments from 23 players from other four-year colleges in December and January. Read more
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