Race Inquiry Digest (March 19) – Important Current Stories On Race In America

Feature – Chris Hayes: What ‘Law and Order’ Means to Trump. If all that matters when it comes to “law and order” is who is a friend and who is an enemy, and if friends are white and enemies are black or Latino or in the wrong party, then the rhetoric around crime and punishment stops being about justice and is merely about power and corruption. Read more 

The FBI Is Too White—And It Considers That a “Huge Operational Risk. For the FBI, the long-standing failure to diversify its ranks is nothing short of “a huge operational risk,” according to one senior official, something that compromises the agency’s ability to understand communities at risk, penetrate criminal enterprises, and identify emerging national security threats. Read more 

When the Irish Weren’t White. “[T]hey steal, they are cruel and bloody, full of revenge, and a subhuman species good for nothing but work and servitude who might ruin America with their crime, poverty and interbreeding with white women.” These are historical statements from yesteryear describing a despised race of people in America. They were not referring to Africans, Mexicans or Muslims. They were talking about the Irish. Read more 

Economic Anxiety Didn’t Make People Vote Trump, Racism Did. Our analysis shows Trump accelerated a realignment in the electorate around racism, across several different measures of racial animus—and that it helped him win. By contrast, we found little evidence to suggest individual economic distress benefited Trump. Read more 

The Racist Origin of the Second Amendment and the Rise of Black Gun Ownership. Many people of color say they have good reason to be protective of their right to bear arms. Gun sales and gun club memberships among African Americans have gone up since the election of Trump. However, gun sales in the overall population have gone down since the election. Read more 

It’s official: We are experiencing a Black Renaissance. We are today finding ourselves once again in the middle of a resurgence of black art, black culture, and black power. A Wrinkle in Time’ and ‘Black Panther’ aren’t just revolutionary. They are evolutionary. Read more 

Anti-Semitism Is Rising. Why Aren’t American Jews Speaking Up? The heads of influential, established organizations like the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Federations of North America — have been remarkably quiet, focused instead, as they have been for decades, on Israel, not the brewing storm in our own country. Read more 

Detroit’s black middle class emerged from 1968’s upheaval. No place did the struggle for opportunity and the backlash against it play out more dramatically than in Detroit after the murder of Dr. King and the riots which followed. Read more 

Package Bombings Reveal The Racist Underbelly Of Austin. Interim police Chief Brian Manley speaks during a news conference near the scene where a woman was injured in a package bomb explosion in Austin, Texas, on March 12.  For many people of color in Austin, particularly black people, the recent attacks have been an alarming reminder of the city’s deep-seated racial tensions. Read more 

Georgia GOP pushes elimination of Sunday voting to suppress black turnout. That Sunday is often a high-turnout day for African American voters because of Souls to the Polls events that encourage people to cast ballots early after attending church. Read more 

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