Race Inquiry Digest (May 14) – Important Current Stories On Race In America

Feature – Liberal hope is dangerous: Don’t count on Mueller or the blue wave to save America from Trump. Believe that American democracy still works and things will go back to normal? That’s nice. It’s also not reality. Read more 
Let Them Eat Trump Steaks. Outreach workers deliver food for children in Owsley County, Ky., where a majority of the population gets food stamps and Donald Trump received 84 percent of the 2016. By all accounts, he really hates the idea of people receiving “welfare,” by which he means any government program that helps people with low income, and he wants to eliminate such programs wherever possible. Read more 
FST Presents Gilbert King: Beneath A Ruthless Sun : A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and found (You Tube). Also see a review, “How a Racist Sheriff Railroaded a Disabled Teenager and Got Off,” by Jeffrey Toobin. 

Childish Gambino captures the grim surrealism of being black in America. In his provocative new video This is America, Donald Glover, as his hip-hop alias Childish Gambino, artfully uses the surreal to comment on black lives. Watch here 

When Jurors Are Silenced. In 48 states, the answer is simple: All of them. Juries in felony cases must agree unanimously in order to convict. The rule is the same in federal trials, and for good reason. It reflects the centuries-old understanding that jury unanimity is central to a fair justice system, that it “preserves the rights of mankind,” as John Adams said in 1786. Yet two states, Oregon and Louisiana, continue to hold out against this fundamental principle. The rule was born of explicit racism, a recent series by The New Orleans Advocate showed. Read more 

Changing the Stories of Police Shooting with the Justice Teams Network. The Justice Teams Network is a new project aimed at challenging dominant narratives of police shootings and helping communities find healing. Read more 

Unseen photographs of civil rights conflict in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963. In spring 1963, African American civil rights activists in Alabama started the Birmingham campaign, a series of sit-ins, boycotts and marches against segregation laws. The peaceful demonstrations were met with violence, teargas and police dogs. Read more 

Starbucks, Yale, and the Abuse of 911 Against Black Americans. Many whites see the police as a tool to enforce a certain racial order. Read more 

There’s No Good Excuse For The Racist Impact Of Michigan’s Medicaid Proposal. Michigan Republicans are pushing a new, Donald Trump-inspired bill that would require Medicaid recipients in the state’s mostly black cities to work to keep their health benefits, but exempt some of the state’s rural white residents from the same requirement. Read more 

Russian Trolls Were Obsessed With Black Lives Matter. The ads reveal a sophisticated campaign clearly aimed at supporting Donald Trump’s presidential bid and inflaming Americans on some of the most divisive social and political issues in the country, like gun control, Islamophobia, immigration, and police violence. Read more 

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