Breaking News

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  7/28/2021
  

  What It Looks Like to Reconnect Black Communities Torn Apart by Highways

  An interactive feature shows the impact of highway building on Black communities throughout the urban United States, and prospects for reconnecting neighborhoods previously divided by asphalt. 

• 
• SOURCE: Indyweek
  7/28/2021
  

  Where They Stood: A Photojournalist Documents the Nation's Fallen Confederate Monuments

  "Last fall, I began to document the Confederate monuments that have been taken down since George Floyd’s death. In April, I started a five-week, 7,300-mile road trip throughout the South to continue this work."

• 
• SOURCE: Jewish Currents
  7/28/2021
  

  Selling the Holocaust?

  Writer Menachem Kaiser discusses the genre of Holocaust writing and the engagment of the generation of grandchildren of survivors with Jewish Currents editors Arielle Angel and Maia Ipp. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/29/2021
  

  Ron Popeil, Inventor and Ubiquitous Infomercial Pitchman, Dies at 86

  "Mr. Popeil’s mastery of television marketing, dating to the 1950s but spanning several decades, made him nearly as recognizable onscreen as the TV and movie stars of his era."

• 
• SOURCE: WNYC
  7/28/2021
  

  Fifty Years Since the War on Drugs

  "This summer marks 50 years since the war on drugs began under President Richard Nixon. But the opioid overdose epidemic continues to ravage the country, and incarceration—especially of Black people—has skyrocketed over the past 5 decades." 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/27/2021
  

  Critical Race Theory: A Brief History

  CRT pioneers Kimberlé Crenshaw and Mari Matsuda explain how and why they developed critical perspectives on racism in legal scholarship and how little the current debate has to do with their ideas. 

• 
• SOURCE: Texas Tribune
  7/28/2021
  

  Texas Lawmakers Used MLK’s Words To Attack Critical Race Theory. MLK III Says His Father’s Work Actually Supports It

  “Yes, we should judge people by the content of the character and not the color of their skin — but that is when we have a true, just, humane society where there are no biases, where there is no racism, where there is no discrimination,” Martin Luther King III said. “Unfortunately, all of these things still exist.”

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/24/2021
  

  After a Mock Slave Auction and a Resolution Against Racism, Battle Against "Critical Race Theory" in a Small Town

  The Traverse City, Michigan school system's response to a series of racist incidents sparked a backlash from white parents who now invoke the specter of "critical race theory" to accuse minority students and their parents of fomenting division. 

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  7/23/2021
  

  Revisiting the 1976 Chowchilla School Bus Kidnapping

  The ordeal of 26 children and their school bus driver in California's San Joaquin Valley highlighted the conflicts between rural California and the state's urban centers, class conflict, and the rising fear of crime in 1976. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/23/2021
  

  Opinion: Students Need to Learn About the Haters and the Helpers of our History

  by Michele Norris

  "We do our children no favors if we only feed them a steady diet of fairy tales that sidestep life’s complexities.... What’s really at work is adults trying to outrun a sense of shame."

• 
• SOURCE: Last Week Tonight
  7/26/2021
  

  Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Ties the History of Housing Discrimination to Reparations

  John Oliver breaks down the long history of housing discrimination in the U.S., the damage it’s done, and, crucially, what we can do about it.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/24/2021
  

  Spain Pledged Citizenship to Sephardic Jews. Now They Feel Betrayed

  The Spanish government has recently begun rejecting most applications for citizenship from the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain during the Inquisition; most applicants under the initiative launched in 2015 had been accepted. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/24/2021
  

  ‘He Had a Life Before Death’: Remembering Emmett Till for the Child He Was

  Emmett Till's cousin Ollie Gordon describes Till's personality at what would be his 80th birthday, reminding us that he was a person, and not just a martyr.

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  7/26/2021
  

  Remembering Bob Moses, 1935–2021

  by Margaret Burnham

  Robert Moses's commitment to grassroots democratic organizing was best expressed through listening rather than speaking, and purposeful following rather than leading. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  7/26/2021
  

  Like JFK, Biden Has Good Reason to Be Wary of the Military

  Joe Biden faces challenges like those that confronted JFK: both presidents faced a substantial presence of right-wing extremists within the active and retired ranks of military leadership. Biden must stand firm in the face of manufactured controversies including over diversity training. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  7/26/2021
  

  Can Affirmative Action Survive the Supreme Court?

  by Nicholas Lemann

  The moderate Republican appointee has always served as the Justice to protect modest versions of affirmative action. What will happen in a pending case now that such Justices are gone from the court? The historical trajectory of supposedly meritocratic admissions offers clues.

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  7/26/2021
  

  Pancho Villa, My Grandmother, and the Revolutionary History of the Border

  by Carlos Sanchez

  Conflicting family and neighborhood stories about the life of Pancho Villa – bandit or revolutionary? – showed the author how little of the complexity of the Mexican Revolution and the experiences of ethnic Mexican people made it into his school books in El Paso. Will new Texas laws push this knowledge back into the shadows? 

• 
• SOURCE: The Bulwark
  7/27/2021
  

  Should Rep. Lauren Boebert Visit Auschwitz after her Comparison of COVID Mandates to the Holocaust?

  "The Holocaust used to be out of bounds in political discourse because its enormity shocked the world—at least the free world. The original enforcer of this norm was conscience."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  7/26/2021
  

  What the Congressional Black Caucus Lost When It Won Power

  The Congressional Black Caucus has moved from the margins of power in the Democratic Party to the center, but has blunted its calls for change in the process, 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/21/2021
  

  Richard Pildes: Our Elections are Too Frequent for Democracy to Work

  by Richard Pildes

  The legal scholar argues that the Framers' belief in frequent Congressional elections has resulted in time for governing being squeezed out by campaigning.