Feature – How Alabama could become ‘Ground Zero’ in renewed battle over Confederate symbols. Two competing narratives of the Civil War and the Southern Reconstruction will intersect once again this week. This time, national attention over the opening of the nation’s first-ever lynching memorial will serve as the backdrop. Grand opening ceremonies in Montgomery for the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum will take place on Thursday, slightly more than one week after the Confederate monument debate re-emerged, dropped into the primary elections by Gov. Kay Ivey. The two narratives – social justice and the Lost Cause – are likely headed for a collision during this year’s gubernatorial campaign and in the halls of the state Capitol. Read more
When Calling the Police Is a Privilege. Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, the two men, both black, did not know the manager had called the police. They say that only a few minutes had passed between when they entered Starbucks and when they were surrounded by Philadelphia police officers. Americans, on the whole, make millions upon millions of calls to 911 each year requesting police assistance. But there are differences in who makes such calls. Read more
The Democrats’ Gentrification Problem. In firmly Democratic neighborhoods across the country, the economic status of those moving in and out began to shift radically starting at the beginning of this century. Housing costs are driving the growing division between upwardly (mostly white) and downwardly mobile populations (mostly minority) within Democratic ranks. Read more
Trump challenges Native Americans’ historical standing. The Trump administration says Native Americans might need to get a job if they want to keep their health care — a policy that tribal leaders say will threaten access to care and reverse centuries-old protections. Read more
Election 2018 Is Off to the Racists. Across the US, white nationalists and their sympathizers are running for office—and they don’t need to win to be dangerous. Read more
Is it a coincidence that Trump uses the language of white supremacy? “There is a Revolution going on in California. Soooo many Sanctuary areas want OUT of this ridiculous, crime infested & breeding concept,” the president tweeted on Tuesday. What could he mean? Perhaps Trump was using “beeding” in the sense now popular among white supremacists? Read more
Boehner Benefits From Weed. Blacks Are in Prison for Using It. As white people exploit the changing tide on marijuana, the racism that drove its prohibition is ignored. So are the consequences for black communities, where the war on drugs is most heavily waged. Read more
The History of White Power. Twenty-three years ago, on April 19, 1995, a Ryder rental truck filled with fertilizer exploded in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The bombing was the growth of decades of activism by the white-power movement, a coalition of Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, skinheads and militias, which aimed to organize a guerrilla war on the federal government and its other enemies. Read more
Galley Talk: ‘Ghost Boys’ by Jewell Parker Rhodes. Eugenia Vela, kids’ event and marketing coordinator at BookPeople in Austin, Tex., recommends Ghost Boys, Jewell Parker Rhodes’s powerful new novel about a black boy killed by a police officer. Read more
When white colleges make black students’ worlds smaller instead of bigger. Although I attended a historically black college, it has only been recently that I decided to encourage my children to do the same. I had not thought they would need this experience as desperately as I did. Read more
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