Featured
Patrick Lyoya’s Death Casts A Light On How Police Mishandle Traffic Stops. By Phillip Jackson / HuffPost
Police reform advocates say the case shows why cops should stop pulling people over for minor infractions.
On April 4, a police officer shot Patrick Lyoya at point-blank range in the back of the head during a traffic stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Two months later, Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker announced he was charging the officer, Christopher Schurr, with second-degree murder — making Schurr the first officer from the Grand Rapids Police Department to be charged with felony murder in the shooting of a civilian.
The shooting, filmed by a witness, ignited outrage on social media. Lyoya’s death didn’t spark the same nationwide outrage as the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, but it raised tensions in Grand Rapids and underlined the often-dangerous role police can play in minor traffic stops. Read more
Related: Wait. Jayland Walker Is to Blame, but Somehow Robert Crimo Isn’t? By Maya Wiley / The New Republic
Political / Social
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of Clarence Thomas. By Corey Robin / New Yorker
For decades, Thomas has had a deeply pessimistic view of the country, rooted in his reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. After the Supreme Court’s recent opinions, his dystopia is becoming our reality.
On Friday, June 24th, Justice Clarence Thomas got something he’s sought his entire adult life: recognition. Writing in support of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Thomas recommended that the Court, as a next move, strike down a half century’s worth of “demonstrably erroneous” precedents establishing the right to contraception, the right to same-sex sexual conduct, and the right to same-sex marriage. On television and across the Internet, commentators took notice. Read more
Republicans Are Attacking Wisconsin’s Lieutenant Governor for Saying Slavery Was Terrible. By John Nichols / The Nation
Conservative politicians and commentators are circulating carefully edited clips of a speech by Mandela Barnes and claiming to be outraged.
My Wisconsin ancestors embraced an opposition to slavery that was best expressed by Joseph Goodrich and the Milton Seventh Day Baptists. In addition to maintaining a stop on the Underground Railroad, these small-town abolitionists resolved in 1852 “that we enter our solemn protest against the system of American slavery, as a sin against God, and a libel upon our national declaration, that all men are created equal, that we regard the fugitive slave law as an atrocious violation of the rights of humanity…and that to aid in its execution would be treason to Jesus Christ.” Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes echoed that historical viewpoint last August during a forum at the public library in Portage, Wis., when he spoke about the legacy of slavery in America. Read more
Stacey Abrams Outpaces Kemp in Fundraising Efforts, Raises $22 Million in Two Months. By Alexandra Jane / The Root
The Abrams campaign picks up more fundraising steam, widening the margin between herself and Republican Kemp.
On this week’s episode of Black women getting to the bag, Stacey Abrams has left Republican Brian Kemp in her fundraising dust as she closes in on $50 million dollars raised since announcing her campaign for governor last December. That’s right, in just seven months, Abrams has amassed enough to place a wide gap between herself and her biggest competition, with nearly $22 million being raised in the last two months alone. Read more
DeSantis signs bill requiring survey of Florida students, professors on their political views. By Brett Bachman / Salon
Colleges could lose funding if survey of “ideas and perspectives” fails to satisfy state’s GOP-run legislature
Public universities in Florida will be required to survey both faculty and students on their political beliefs and viewpoints, with the institutions at risk of losing their funding if the responses are not satisfactory to the state’s Republican-led legislature. The unprecedented project, which was tucked into a law signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, is part of a long-running, nationwide right-wing push to promote “intellectual diversity” on campuses — though worries over a lack of details on the survey’s privacy protections, and questions over what the results may ultimately be used for, hover over the venture. Based on the bill’s language, survey responses will not necessarily be anonymous — sparking worries among many professors and other university staff that they may be targeted, held back in their careers or even fired for their beliefs. Read more
Next Time Trump Tries to Steal an Election, He Won’t Need a Mob. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
Last week, the Supreme Court announced it would hear arguments in Moore v. Harper, a challenge to North Carolina’s new congressional map.
The long and short of the case is that North Carolina Republicans proposed a gerrymander so egregious that the state Supreme Court ruled that it violated the state’s Constitution. Republicans sought to restore the legislative map, citing the “independent state legislature doctrine,” which asserts that state legislatures have almost absolute power to set their own rules for federal elections. Once passed into law, then, those rules cannot be overturned — or even reviewed — by state courts. Read more
Killer of George Floyd Sentenced to 21 Years for Violating Civil Rights. Jay Senter and
A white Minneapolis police officer whose murder of a Black man outside a convenience store touched off protests around the world was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison on Thursday, in a case that signaled a new readiness to hold police officers criminally accountable for misconduct. Read more
Related: Charleena Lyles death: Officers were justified in the fatal shooting of pregnant mother of 4. By Paradise Afshar and Alaa Elassar / CNN
Related: Cleveland Officer Who Killed Tamir Rice Swiftly Exits New Police Job.
Inflation is hitting Black and Hispanic Americans harder than White and Asian Americans. By Rami Luhby / CNN
Many Americans are struggling to cope with higher prices for food, gas, housing and other essentials. But inflation has taken an even heavier toll on certain segments of the population.
Virginia’s top health official needs an education on racism. By Stephen A. Haering and Charles Konigsberg / Wash Post
Stephen A. Haering and Charles Konigsberg are board certified physicians in general preventive medicine and public health and former directors of the Alexandria Health Department, part of the Virginia Department of Health. Konigsberg also served as the state health official for Kansas and Delaware.
Racism is a public health crisis. Virginia State Health Commissioner Colin Greene said recently that he associates the word “racism” with “fire hoses, police dogs and Alabama sheriffs.” Greene misunderstands the issue. Those are overt symptoms of racism. Such overt symptoms are only the tip of the iceberg of symptoms of racism — and other forms of oppression, including sexism, classism, ableism and oppressions based on sexual orientation and gender/gender identity. Read more
Fred Gray, the ‘chief counsel for the protest movement,’ to get Medal of Freedom for his civil rights work. By Jonathan Entin / The Conversation
Over the past seven decades, longtime Alabama civil rights lawyer Fred Gray represented Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and the victims of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment, in which the U.S. Public Health Service refused for decades to provide readily available treatment to Black men who had the disease. As a scholar of constitutional law and civil rights, I understand that Fred Gray has had an enormous impact on American law and society. His cases are taught in every law school in the country, and his work has led to fundamental reforms in legal doctrine and helped to cement important changes in the lives of ordinary people all over the country. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
There is no one Islamic interpretation on ethics of abortion, but the belief in God’s mercy and compassion is a crucial part of any consideration. By Zahra Ayubi / Religion News
Islamic views on abortion are based on diverse interpretations of what’s right and wrong when it comes to the body.
As a scholar of Islamic ethics, I’m often asked, “What does Islam say about abortion?” – a question that has become even more salient since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed 50 years of constitutional protection for the right to get an abortion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling on June 24, 2022. Read more
The Far-Right Christian Quest for Power: ‘We Are Seeing Them Emboldened.’ By Elizabeth Dias / NYT
Political candidates on the fringe mix religious fervor with conspiracy theories, even calling for the end of the separation of church and state.
Three weeks before he won the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano stood beside a three-foot-tall painted eagle statue and declared the power of God. “Any free people in the house here? Did Jesus set you free?” he asked, revving up the dozens before him on a Saturday afternoon at a Gettysburg roadside hotel. Read more
Prominent evangelical leader caught on a hot mic boasting about praying with SCOTUS justices. By Jon Skolnik / Salon
Right-wing anti-abortion group holds prayer ceremonies with SCOTUS justices: report
A right-wing, anti-abortion religious activist was caught bragging about praying with various Supreme Court Justices, according to a hot mic audio tape obtained by Rolling Stone. The admission was made by Peggy Nienaber, the executive director of Liberty Counsel’s D.C. ministry, during a celebration of the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that established America’s constitutional right to abortion. On a live stream, Nienaber was directly asked whether she prays with any members of the court. “I do,” she responded, seemingly unaware that the stream was being recorded. “They will pray with us, those that like us to pray with them.” Read more
How to Stop Feeling ‘Othered. / By Christina Edmondson / Christianity Today
Effective intercultural ministry means coming to terms with your own cultural identity.
In this conversation, Heather and author Christina Edmondson discuss Christina’s work in anti-racism and diversity and inclusion. Christina brings up the value of affinity spaces, in allowing us to not feel “othered.” Christina also discusses how social media is helping and hurting us in our cultural competence. Christina’s unique skill set in therapy as well as cross-cultural conversation, allows her to be uniquely skilled in how she discusses conversations around conflict resolution and confronting division. Listen here
Historical / Cultural
‘Giving Students the History They Need.’ By Eleanor J. Bader / The Progressive
An adaptation of Jeanne Theoharis’s book on the life of Rosa Parks provides teachers with accurate course material on the civil rights movement.
Though nineteen states have passed laws or imposed rules to restrict how public school teachers discuss race, racism, or other subjects deemed “divisive” in their classrooms, many educators are pushing back on these boundaries and are using every tool at their disposal to help students understand U.S. history and social justice movements. In fact, more than 13,000 teachers in forty-seven states are currently teaching The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, young readers edition, an adaptation of Jeanne Theoharis’s award-winning 2013 deconstruction of the “national fable” that reduces Parks to a tired, middle-aged woman who simply took a seat on a bus and inadvertently started a movement. Read more
A small Wisconsin town is honored as the state’s first Black-founded community. By Diane Bezucha / NPR
Peter Baker says he will never forget his first visit to Lake Ivanhoe. It was 1966. He was 9 years old and his friend brought him up from Chicago on a fishing trip. They caught dozens of fish, mostly bluegills and crappies. “We went home and I ran in the house with all these fish and I showed my mother, ‘We were up there at Lake Ivanhoe, and it was all Black!’ ” said Baker, now 66. “And the first thing she said is, to my father, ‘Ernest, we’re going up there next week.’ ” The tiny subdivision of Lake Ivanhoe is nestled beside a quiet lake, just six miles east of Lake Geneva. The Bakers bought a house on Tuskegee Drive and moved the family up from Chicago. Peter spent his days fishing, swimming and running through the woods. During the era of sundown towns, where African Americans were not welcome after dark, Baker said Lake Ivanhoe was a refuge. Read more
Schomburg Center Volunteer Is One of the Last Surviving ‘Black Angels’. By Lisa Herndon / NYPL
During her time as a nurse at Staten Island’s Sea View Hospital, Virginia Allen (center) became known as a “Black Angel.'”Allen is pictured with Delores Morris (left) and Zulma Candelaria Cruz (right). The three have been honored as Staten Island Advance Women of Achievement, one of the borough’s highest honors.
White nurses walked off the job in 1929, saying that caring for tuberculosis patients was too dangerous. According to Allen, the shortage created job opportunities for Black women. People were recruited from the South, the Caribbean, and Asian countries to fill the void. Some of the staff were also graduates of the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing and the Lincoln School for Nurses. “Even though the Department of Hospitals had over 20 hospitals in New York, only four of them hired Black nurses at that time,” Allen said. “They had to work in other occupations because there were no jobs available to them because of segregation.” Patients at Sea View were from all races, backgrounds, and ages. Read more
Native American elders recall abuse at US government boarding schools. AP and The Guardian
Deb Haaland stands behind a Native American color guard ahead of the event in Anadarko on Saturday. Photograph: Bradley Brooks/Reuters
Native American tribal elders who were once students at government-backed Indian boarding schools testified Saturday in Oklahoma about the hardships they endured, including beatings, whippings, sexual assaults, forced haircuts and hurtful nicknames. They came from different states and different tribes, but they shared the common experience of having attended the schools that were designed to strip Indigenous people of their cultural identities. Read more
Celebrating Yemaya: The mother of the ocean and sea in African diasporic traditions. By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos
The ocean and the sea are sacred places for millions of West African-descended people in the U.S. diaspora. Powerful female forces are represented by deities called by many different names—among them are Yemaya, Mami Wata, and La Sirène, symbolizing the eternal mother of us all—which makes sense since we are born from a water-filled womb. The ocean also played a major role as the place of forced crossing during the transatlantic slave trade; those enslaved people who managed to survive the journey still make offerings to their goddess on behalf of their ancestors. So today, I’d like to share some music dedicated to the ocean and the sea, or invoking the sea in celebration of Yemaya, and dance. You don’t have to be part of the religion, or even religious (and I know some of my visitors today will be atheists). Love and sharing are universal, as are music and dance. Join me. Read more
The lucrative, complicated world of TikTok’s interracial couples. By Sydney Trent / Wash Post
Amber Wallin can pinpoint the moment when she and her husband, Ben, took off as an interracial couple on TikTok. In the video she posted to the platform in January 2021, Amber meanders sleepily down the hall to the living room, mumbling profanely about how it’s time to go to bed. Next, the camera turns to Ben, sprawled on the couch in front of a TV, crying because the character in the video game “Ghost of Tsushima” that he thought was dead had returned to life. The Wallins are among TikTok’s “interracial influencers,” who, unwittingly or not, are benefiting in part from the nation’s long history and not-always-healthy fascination with mixed-race couples and children. Read more
George Floyd: New book captures full scope of his life and family’s legacy. By Nicquel Terry Ellis / CNN
George Floyd. For the last two years, his name has been echoed across the nation from the streets of Minneapolis where protesters marched, to the halls of corporate America where major brands publicly denounced racism. His name is a symbol for the racial equality fight, and a rallying cry for justice and an end to police brutality against Black people. But who was the 46-year-old father? Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa decided that it was time to look deeper at Floyd’s life by writing a biography titled, “His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.” Read more
“He could make you laugh. He could make you think”: How Biggie Smalls became a rap legend. By D. Watkins / Salon
On the anniversary of Christopher Wallace’s 50th birthday, Justin Tinsley writes The Notorious B.I.G.’s biography
By 24, rapper Christopher Wallace better known by his stage name The Notorious B.I.G. was already one of the most talented rappers in the history of the art form – selling millions of records, touring the world, being nominated for multiple Grammys, winning a Billboard Music Award, Soul Train Music Awards, Source Awards and more. He had everything figured out, escaped poverty and was a master of his art from before his brain was fully developed – a true genius. Gun violence cut the rapper’s life short; as a result we will never know what he could have been. This year, the year Biggie would have turned 50, Justin Tinsley, sports and culture reporter for ESPN’s Andscape, formerly The Undefeated, takes a deep dive into the life of Christopher Wallace and the powerful legacy he created in such a short time in his book “It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him.” Read more
Bow Down To Viola Davis In Action-Packed ‘The Woman King’ Trailer. By Cole Delbyck / HuffPost
Gina Prince-Bythewood directs the upcoming historical epic about an all-female army of African warriors.
Viola Davis is ready for battle (and another Oscar) in the gripping first trailer for “The Woman King.” Inspired by true events, the historical epic tells the story of General Nansica (Davis), the leader of an all-female militia who defended the West African kingdom Dahomey in present-day Benin up until the 20th century. The elite group of warriors known as the Agojie famously served as the inspiration for the Dora Milaje in Marvel’s “Black Panther.” Hits theaters on September 16. Watch the trailer
Sports
Oscar Robertson, NBA legends reflect 30 years after forming NBRPA. By Cydney Henderson / USA Today
The idea of the NBRPA started after Archie Clark attended a Democratic convention in his hometown of Detroit and was introduced to retirees of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. Clark immediately noticed the need for a similar organization for retired basketball players who weren’t allowed to join the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) post-career. “I went and talked to Dave Bing, he’s in Detroit with me. Him and I got together and we went and got Oscar,” Clark told USA TODAY Sports. “He was the president of the players association when we were players and he really represented the labor interest of the NBA. That was someone we really had to get it off the ground.” Read more
Las Vegas Raiders Hire First Black Female President In NFL History. By Josephine Harvey / HuffPost
Sandra Douglass Morgan was also the first Black person to chair the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
“Her experience, integrity and passion for this community will be invaluable to our organization,” Raiders owner Mark Davis said in a statement. “From the moment I met Sandra, I knew she was a force to be reckoned with. We are extremely lucky to have her at the helm.” Read more
James Wade is living a dream as a Black coach and executive thriving in the WNBA. By Sean Hurd / Andscape
For the 46-year-old Wade, it’s been a journey he began a decade ago as an intern without any expectations and has since evolved into a championship-winning coach. It was a journey that featured stops on multiple teams, spanning a handful of countries, and has found a grounded home in Chicago, where Wade has solidified himself as one of the best coaches and executives in the game. Wade’s coaching journey continues this weekend in Chicago when he will make his first appearance as an All-Star Game head coach. Read more
Mike Grier becomes the first Black general manager in NHL history. By AP and NBC News
“It’s not something I take lightly,” Grier said at a news conference introducing him as the San Jose Sharks new GM. “I realize there’s a responsibility that comes with the territory.”
The San Jose Sharks’ three-month search for a general manager ended with a barrier-breaking hire as the team made longtime NHL forward Mike Grier the first Black GM in league history. “It means a lot to me,” Grier said at his introductory news conference Tuesday. “It’s not something I take lightly. I realize there’s a responsibility that comes with the territory. But I’m up for it. How I carry myself and how this organization carries himself, I think we’ll do well and hopefully we’ll leave a footprint and open some doors for people to follow.” Read more
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