The Messy Racial Politics of the Super Bowl Halftime Show
Tossing and turning, emotions were strong.Paul Kuroda/ZUMA Even before it was announced last September that Jennifer Lopez and Shakira would headline the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show, the performance was already steeped in controversy. The commotion began a month earlier, when rapper Jay-Z revealed he was partnering with the NFL to help manage the league’s…
How Football Shaped Indigenous Identity
Carlisle Indian School players surround head coach Glenn “Pop” Warner in Carlisle, Penn., circa 1900s.AP Photo/Pro Football Hall of Fame This Sunday, when the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers meet on the field for Super Bowl LIV, at least some headdress-adorned Chiefs fans in the stadium will be chanting and tomahawk-chopping their…
The Most Racist Thing I Saw Today Was This Campaign Ad Attacking the Squad and Kaepernick
Since announcing a bid for his old Senate seat, ex–Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a racist without portfolio, has been relatively quiet. Into the void has stepped Rep. Bradley Byrne, one of Sessions’ opponents in Alabama’s March primary. Last week, Byrne unveiled a campaign ad that managed to exploit the legacy of his dead Army veteran…
Monsters of the 2010s: Donald Sterling
Armando Arorizo/Zuma The staff of Mother Jones is rounding up the decade’s heroes and monsters. Find them all here. Five years ago, a secret recording of a real estate mogul’s racist remarks erupted around the internet and upended the National Basketball Association. Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling—who paid $2.7 million to settle a housing discrimination lawsuit filed…
The Best TV Show About Racism Was a Comic-Book Fantasia. Here’s How “Watchmen” Did It.
HBO On the day HBO’s Watchmen resurrected a race war, a producer brought a priest onto the set in Georgia to pray with cast members. This was going to be the show’s opening sequence, a depiction of the Tulsa massacre of 1921. White people in Klan attire, on horseback. Black folks getting gunned down indiscriminately.…
Appealing to Black Voters in South Carolina, Elizabeth Warren Fires Up White Liberals
Elizabeth Warren addresses a crowd at Clinton College, an HBCU in Rock Hill, S.C., on September 28, 2019.Meg Kinnard/AP Elizabeth Warren came to the South Carolina Lowcountry on Saturday and played all the standards. At a town hall in Goose Creek, about 20 miles north of Charleston, she talked about corporate greed and government decisions…