Race Inquiry Digest (November 27) – Important Current Stories On Race In America

Featured – “That Was a Damn Lie :” The New Yorker’s Jelani Cobb on why we fell for Obama’s version of a united America. We discuss whether the media has “normalized” white nationalism, what Obama did and didn’t get right about our era, and why Trumpism is almost certain to outlast the man himself. Read and/or listen.  

The tragedy of Trump’s latest Twitter tantrum. The Twitterer believes he is faultless, accepts only praise, rages at criticism, demands gratitude, puffs up himself and deprecates everybody else. Read more 

African Americans Are Disproportionately Arrested for Low-Level Marijuana Violations—and the Disparity Is Growing. Blacks are nearly four times more likely than whites to be arrested for minor pot possession violations. Read more 

Spike Lee: Why I Turned ‘She’s Gotta Have It’ Into a TV Series.’ The filmmaker talks returning to/expanding on his directorial debut for Netflix: “If somebody’s going to fuck it up, it’ll be me.” Read more 

The Nationalist’s Delusion. Trump’s supporters backed a time-honored American political tradition, disavowing racism while promising to enact a broad agenda of discrimination. Read more 

A New National Museum and Memorial In Alabama Will Finally Look Back at Racial Terror In America. On April 26, 2018, two new historical complexes in Montgomery, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum, devoted to honoring victims of lynching and to reconciling America’s past racial violence. Read more 

Hate in America is on the rise. It is noteworthy that many of the groups against whom crimes rose by double digits were the focus of inflammatory rhetoric by Donald Trump over the course of his presidential campaign. Read more 

Five myths about American Indians. Old stereotypes or created new ones have been perpetuated — particularly ones that cast indigenous peoples as obstacles to, rather than actors in, the creation of the modern world. Read more 

How The U.S. Defines Race And Ethnicity May Change Under Trump. Any changes to the federal standards for race and ethnicity data could have far-reaching consequences on legislative redistricting, affirmative action, and the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act and other anti-discrimination laws. Read more 

There’s A Reason Powerful Americans Love To Attack Black Sports Figures. Powerful white Americans have been scoring political points off black athletes for as long as there have been organized sports in America. In this respect, at least, Donald Trump is a traditionalist. Read more 

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