The president’s speech to African American millennial supporters was rambling and toe-curling. But he and his audience loved it. David Smith, The Guardian — Put a 72-year-old man with…
By Jacob Shamsian, Insider — “Today” host Megyn Kelly apologized Wednesday for defending blackface, the act of non-black people wearing makeup to make themselves look black. Blackface has a racist history in the United States. It was used in minstrel shows, movies, and other forms of entertainment to dehumanize African-Americans and exclude them from the entertainment industry. Mocking caricatures spread stereotypes about African-Americans that were used to deny them civil…
By Jordan Weissmann — Sen. Cory Booker did not come out and propose reparations for black Americans this week. But the policy idea he rolled out on Monday might be the closest thing that we can expect to see from a serious presidential contender going into 2020. The senator from New Jersey, who is gearing up for a White House run, plans to introduce legislation soon that would create a “baby bond”…
By Astead W. Herndon, The New York Times — An air of solemnity hangs over Lucy McBath’s bid for Congress. It is present in her campaign stump speech, when she recounts the 2012 murder of her son, Jordan Davis, a black teenager who was shot and killed by a white man at a gas station when the 17-year-old refused to lower the volume of the rap music playing in his…
A new report released today by the International Drug Policy Consortium has exposed the past decade of the war on drugs as a colossal failure. Taking Stock: A Decade of Drug Policy –…
The impoverished nation is the staging point for Moscow’s revival in Africa. By Max Seddon and Tom Wilson, OZY — The team of Russian journalists who flew into the Central…
The conversation is happening. Will you be a part of it? By Nick Fouriezos, OZY — What happens when you get a room of 100 Black men from Baltimore discussing…
By Katrina Vanden Heuvel — If Democrats flip the House, the Congressional Progressive Caucus will have the leaders, agenda, and institutional muscle to drive the debate. “Only in the darkness can you see the stars,” the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us. Now, even in the bleak night of Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, there are stars that offer hope. If Democrats take back the House…
Baltimore is going through the same policing pangs as the rest of the nation, but worse. By Nick Fouriezos, OZY — This is a homecoming for Gary Tuggle, only going…
Hint: It has to do with race. By Zack Beauchamp, Vox — One of the most puzzling elements of the 2016 election, at least for a lot of Americans, was the millions of voters who switched from voting for Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016. Somewhere between 6.7 million and 9.2 million Americans switched this way; given that the 2016 election was decided by 40,000 votes, it’s fair to…
California president under fire for opposing pro-tenant measure yet working as a paid consultant for real-estate backed campaign. By Sam Levin, The Guardian — The California leader of a major US civil rights group is facing backlash for fighting a rent control measure while working as a paid consultant for an opposition campaign funded by real estate companies. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in California is opposing…
Move coincides with a period of fraught relations between Turkey and the US and comes after other politically charged name changes to streets in Ankara. City authorities in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, have renamed the street where the new US embassy is being built “Malcolm X Avenue”, after the civil rights leader, state media reported. The move coincides with a period of fraught relations between Turkey and the US…