Welcome back to Everything’s Political, Capital B’s weekly news, culture, and politics newsletter!
In this edition, learn about Donald Trump’s guilty verdict, the grief looming over Pride, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ alarming concurring opinion in a recent case, and the push to turn “Black Wall Street” into a national monument.
Now, on with the show.
Trump and Accountability
Donald Trump is now the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted of a crime.
On Thursday, a Manhattan jury found him guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a hush-money scheme involving Stormy Daniels, an adult film star.
For Black Americans, this moment might feel like that rare instance when the powerful are held to account.
As Marcia Chatelain, an Africana studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania, put it to me last year, Trump reminds people that “if you’re white and have money,” you get to play by a different set of rules.
His sentencing has been set for July 11 at 10 a.m. ET.
In the meantime, check out my Capital B Atlanta colleague Chauncey Alcorn’s recent article on Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who won her Democratic Party primary earlier this month and has brought a racketeering case against Trump.
A Not-So-Joyous Pride Season
Pride month is right around the corner. It’s one of my favorite seasons of the year — a time of joyous queer kinship.
This year, however, sadness and anger prevail.
Tayy Dior Thomas, Kita Bee, Starr Brown — these are the names of some of the Black transgender women who’ve been killed in the past few weeks alone. On Tuesday, the trial of a man accused of the fatal 2022 shooting of Regina “Mya” Allen, also a Black transgender woman, began in a Milwaukee County courtroom.
As the U.S. prepares for high-stakes elections, these deaths are a sobering reminder of not only Pride’s roots in queer Americans’ quest for social and political equality, but also the heightened danger the community has faced in recent years. State lawmakers introduced a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills in 2023, largely targeting education and access to gender-affirming care.
“Our trans communities of color continue to bear the brunt of anti-LGBTQ+ violence and policy,” as Tori Cooper, the director of community engagement for Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative, put it after Bee’s death, which is still being investigated. “Like all trans people, Kita deserved to live a long and fulfilling life in safe and affirming environments.”
Clarence Thomas’ Chilling Concurrence
A week on, I’m still thinking about the blow that the U.S. Supreme Court dealt to Black South Carolinians when it concluded that a congressional map isn’t racially discriminatory.
In particular, I can’t tear my mind away from Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion.
As if the court’s decision weren’t destabilizing enough, Thomas argues for banning federal courts from reviewing allegedly racist maps; he believes that this is a job purely for politicians. Additionally, Thomas rails against Brown v. Board of Education, insisting that the court exactly seven decades ago latched onto “extravagant uses of judicial power” to combat Jim Crow segregation.
Put simply, what Thomas is advocating for is the evisceration of legal precedent that has allowed Black Americans to chip away at racial inequality.
Thomas’ opinion might seem beyond the pale. But we’d be wise to remember it, since a dissent or concurrence can become the opinion of the majority in the future. In fact, the South Carolina case exemplifies this possibility. As Justice Elena Kagan notes, Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion making it all but impossible to strike down a racist gerrymander was the dissent in 2017’s Cooper v. Harris.
Tulsa and the Fight to Preserve History
Friday marks 103 years since a white mob laid siege to the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing as many as 300 people and leaving thousands more homeless.
To confront this history and honor the Black community that was wiped out, descendants of Tulsa Race Massacre survivors went to Capitol Hill this month to push for the passage of legislation that would designate Greenwood as a national monument.
A bill has bipartisan support in the Senate; a companion bill is expected to be introduced in the House this year.
“I’m not just excited. I’m ecstatic,” Tiffany Crutcher, whose great-grandmother narrowly escaped the assault on Tulsa, told me. “If we get this monument designation, we will echo the voices of the survivors who are no longer with us and the voices of the ancestors who built Greenwood.”
You can read my story on the battle to turn Greenwood, known as “Black Wall Street,” into a protected landmark here.
Preparing for Pride by revisiting The Stonewall Reader,
Brandon Tensley
This story has been updated.
[ad_2]
Welcome back to Everything’s Political, Capital B’s weekly news, culture, and politics newsletter!
In this edition, learn about Donald Trump’s guilty verdict, the grief looming over Pride, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ alarming concurring opinion in a recent case, and the push to turn “Black Wall Street” into a national monument.
Now, on with the show.
Trump and Accountability
Donald Trump is now the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted of a crime.
On Thursday, a Manhattan jury found him guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a hush-money scheme involving Stormy Daniels, an adult film star.
For Black Americans, this moment might feel like that rare instance when the powerful are held to account.
As Marcia Chatelain, an Africana studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania, put it to me last year, Trump reminds people that “if you’re white and have money,” you get to play by a different set of rules.
His sentencing has been set for July 11 at 10 a.m. ET.
In the meantime, check out my Capital B Atlanta colleague Chauncey Alcorn’s recent article on Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who won her Democratic Party primary earlier this month and has brought a racketeering case against Trump.
A Not-So-Joyous Pride Season
Pride month is right around the corner. It’s one of my favorite seasons of the year — a time of joyous queer kinship.
This year, however, sadness and anger prevail.
Tayy Dior Thomas, Kita Bee, Starr Brown — these are the names of some of the Black transgender women who’ve been killed in the past few weeks alone. On Tuesday, the trial of a man accused of the fatal 2022 shooting of Regina “Mya” Allen, also a Black transgender woman, began in a Milwaukee County courtroom.
As the U.S. prepares for high-stakes elections, these deaths are a sobering reminder of not only Pride’s roots in queer Americans’ quest for social and political equality, but also the heightened danger the community has faced in recent years. State lawmakers introduced a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills in 2023, largely targeting education and access to gender-affirming care.
“Our trans communities of color continue to bear the brunt of anti-LGBTQ+ violence and policy,” as Tori Cooper, the director of community engagement for Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative, put it after Bee’s death, which is still being investigated. “Like all trans people, Kita deserved to live a long and fulfilling life in safe and affirming environments.”
Clarence Thomas’ Chilling Concurrence
A week on, I’m still thinking about the blow that the U.S. Supreme Court dealt to Black South Carolinians when it concluded that a congressional map isn’t racially discriminatory.
In particular, I can’t tear my mind away from Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion.
As if the court’s decision weren’t destabilizing enough, Thomas argues for banning federal courts from reviewing allegedly racist maps; he believes that this is a job purely for politicians. Additionally, Thomas rails against Brown v. Board of Education, insisting that the court exactly seven decades ago latched onto “extravagant uses of judicial power” to combat Jim Crow segregation.
Put simply, what Thomas is advocating for is the evisceration of legal precedent that has allowed Black Americans to chip away at racial inequality.
Thomas’ opinion might seem beyond the pale. But we’d be wise to remember it, since a dissent or concurrence can become the opinion of the majority in the future. In fact, the South Carolina case exemplifies this possibility. As Justice Elena Kagan notes, Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion making it all but impossible to strike down a racist gerrymander was the dissent in 2017’s Cooper v. Harris.
Tulsa and the Fight to Preserve History
Friday marks 103 years since a white mob laid siege to the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing as many as 300 people and leaving thousands more homeless.
To confront this history and honor the Black community that was wiped out, descendants of Tulsa Race Massacre survivors went to Capitol Hill this month to push for the passage of legislation that would designate Greenwood as a national monument.
A bill has bipartisan support in the Senate; a companion bill is expected to be introduced in the House this year.
“I’m not just excited. I’m ecstatic,” Tiffany Crutcher, whose great-grandmother narrowly escaped the assault on Tulsa, told me. “If we get this monument designation, we will echo the voices of the survivors who are no longer with us and the voices of the ancestors who built Greenwood.”
You can read my story on the battle to turn Greenwood, known as “Black Wall Street,” into a protected landmark here.
Preparing for Pride by revisiting The Stonewall Reader,
Brandon Tensley
This story has been updated.
[ad_2]
