For whatever reason, President Donald Trump’s hand-picked board at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is still so dedicated to collectively humping the president’s leg that it has tried to appeal a federal court’s decision to remove Trump’s name from the center, which was posthumously named for a popular president who was assassinated, not the buffoonish bigot-in-chief, who, according to every recent poll, is the most unpopular president in U.S. history. Fortunately, the federal courts have been largely unmoved by the Trump administration’s many attempts to normalize its authoritarian ridiculousness, and that hasn’t changed regarding the Kennedy Center, as a federal judge, on Friday, declined the board’s motion to delay the removal of Trump’s name from a living memorial to JFK.

From the Washington Post:

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the Kennedy Center’s lawyers failed to demonstrate they were likely to win their appeal or that the center would suffer “irreparable harm” if Trump’s name were removed.

Justice Department lawyers representing the center filed the motion to stay after the center’s trustees voted Thursday to appeal Cooper’s May 29 ruling. They could still pursue a stay through an appeals court.

On Friday afternoon, crews erected scaffolding in front of the building where Trump’s and Kennedy’s names are displayed.

Removing Trump’s name would be the most tangible setback in the president’s 15-month effort to take over the storied arts institution. On Monday, the center removed “Trump” from the title of its website, restoring it to “The Kennedy Center.” That came four days after the venue’s administration directed employees to erase references to Trump from official center materials — signs, social media accounts, email signatures, webpages, documents and promotional materials.

So, the writing was already on the wall, metaphorically speaking, which makes it all the more pathetic that Trump’s chosen board of MAGA sycophants would even bother fighting the ruling to take pro-Trump writing off the wall.

Also, in what world would removing Trump’s name cause “irreparable harm” to the Kennedy Center? Adding his name and making him the board’s chair only served to tank the institution’s ticket sales and cause a chorus line of musicians and other celebs to cancel their appearances. All Trump has done for the Kennedy Center is make it a cultural pariah, just as Trump has taken America 250, a planned celebration of the 250th anniversary of the nation, and rebranded it as Freedom 250, making it a MAGA-associated event that no one wants to be a part of, including recording artists, other famous people, and the representatives of several Democratic states.

After unsuccessfully citing bad weather and petitioning for a delay in the removal of Trump’s name, the letters began coming off the building early Saturday morning, according to the New York Times.

Trump and his stooges might as well stop trying to force-feed America his legacy. The Trump era of U.S. politics is an era of shame and idiocracy — one that has done more to disprove the concept of American exceptionalism than anything we’ve seen in the last decade — and that’s how history should record it, regardless of how many buildings, products, and stationary the president tries to slap his name on.

SEE ALSO:

Kennedy Center Board Votes To Shut Down For 2 Years. We All Know Why

More Musicians Cancel Kennedy Center Performance After Trump Renaming

Tell me something . . . Why is it that whenever racists try to degrade Black folks, one of the most popular tropes they always reach for is watermelon?

Think about it. 

It’s never lychee, kumquats, dragon fruit, guava, or even a cheap Del Monte fruit cup. It’s never a charcuterie board with seedless grapes, artichoke hearts, or pâté de foie gras on a water cracker. Nope. It is always watermelon.

I’m really posing a rhetorical question here because you and I both know that the racist imagination will go digging through the same Jim Crow junk drawer every time. That’s because the racist imagination is not only violent and irreparably diseased, it’s boring, lazy, repetitive, and always on some unoriginal plantation vaudeville foolishness.

Which brings us to the racist father of Austin Metcalf, who finally broke his silence after a Texas court sentenced 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony to 35 years in prison for defending his own life. On Wednesday night, Jeff Metcalf sat for a nearly three-hour interview with Jinxed Reality/JinxedSip to talk about the conviction and sentencing of Anthony. He insisted this case was never about race, right before spectacularly and undeniably confirming that race was sitting underneath this situation the whole time, waiting for the gag order to be lifted.

“We don’t see color. We’re not racist,” he said right before obsessing over race and giving a full white grievance sermon. 

“We have friends of all diversities, nationality, ethnicities. It doesn’t matter. I’m like, God, God doesn’t see color. Justice doesn’t see color. Hate doesn’t see color. Love doesn’t see color. If you put on those glasses and you see color as an individual, you need to look in the mirror. You need to re-evaluate who you are.”

In other words, “I don’t see color,” but I see “culture,” “race cards,” “Black fatigue,” “watermelon,” and let me tell you exactly what’s wrong with Black people and prove that I can see Black people just fine.

When he was asked about the public backlash around the case and to respond to Black commentators who had criticized his family and the racial dynamics of the trial, Metcalf said that Black people had embarrassed their “own culture and race.” He told Black people not to “blame the white person” and claimed, “we all have equal rights.” He mocked “your culture” while talking about criminal records. And he called Karmelo Anthony’s parents “grifters” and suggested CPS should check on their other children.

And then, as if he wanted to make sure nobody missed the point, he reached for the oldest racist trope in the book.

“Let me make something racist up so y’all can go viral,” Metcalf said. “I got a new name for Melo, okay? Because he was such this little boy y’all was trying to portray. How about watermelon felon? How’s that one strike you?”

There it is. Watermelon felon. And with those two words, Black Americans everywhere got confirmation that we have been gaslit by a whole year of denials as Metcalf threw an entire history of anti-Black racism at a Black teenager. Those two words verified that Black folks weren’t “making it about race” or being “divisive.” 

Now, I could sit here and give you an academic breakdown about the stereotypical association of Black people with watermelons. I could talk about the jokes, coon songs, minstrel shows, consumer ads, racist postcards, lithographs, and ephemera that turned Black folks into grinning, barefoot caricatures, tearing into huge slices of watermelon. I could explain how this is all tied to post-Civil War era fears about Black self-sufficiency and how whites had to make the case that Black folks were lazy, greedy, animalistic, sexual, and unfit for citizenship.

But honestly, why bother? That would be a waste of my intellectual energy and your time. Because racists like Jeff Metcalf know the history well enough to know where to reach. He knew exactly where to reach because he told us before he did it. “Let me make something racist up,” he said. “Watermelon felon.”

This wasn’t just an insult. What Metcalf did was fuse criminality with caricature. He took “felon,” a legal label, and attached it to “watermelon,” a racist symbol, so that Anthony can be imagined as both criminal and cartoon, laughable, dangerous, punishable, and less than human. That’s the old racial script.

His own words remove the possibility of a stumble into an unfortunate phrase. He did not unknowingly invoke a racist image. He announced his intent unapologetically with a setup and punchline. Some folks will say, “Well, he is grieving.” But grief is not a racial alibi. The language was already there inside the speaker.

A grieving white father does not get to launder racism through his loss. He does not get to turn a Black teenager into a Jim Crow joke and then demand immunity because he is suffering. Black people have suffered for centuries in this country, and we are still expected to choose our words carefully, show decorum, swallow our rage, forgive, manage white feelings, and prove our humanity before we are granted even the smallest measure of empathy.

So my people, let’s go ahead, take this racism, and return to sender. “Watermelon felon” does not reveal any truths about Karmelo Anthony or other Black youth demonized by America. Instead, it exposes Jeff Metcalf and every other racist who swears they “don’t see color” while carrying a whole dusty, fetid Jim Crow museum in their mouths.

SEE ALSO:

America Still Wants To Snatch Our Black Children From The Future

Texas Reporter Makes ‘Gorilla’ Reference During Karmelo Anthony Trial

We’re nearly four months into the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran, and, once again, there’s talk of a ceasefire and a deal that could end the conflict. Now, we’ve heard all of this before — dozens of times over, actually — but this time, there actually seems to be some agreement between governments that a peace deal is actually in the works. However — because there’s always a “however” — President Donald Trump has already lashed out at the Iranian government, which he has accused of leaking details of the deal that are, of course, fake news.

So, let’s get into it…

According to Axios: “The U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding President Trump claims will soon be signed calls for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen immediately without tolls and for Iran to receive sanctions relief based on compliance, according to a diplomat from one of the mediating countries and a U.S. official.” If that’s the case, it would only mean Trump is set to sign a deal that would return everything to exactly how it was before the U.S. and Israeli governments began bombing Iran out of nowhere, and with no clear objective.

But Iranian media outlets released their own details about the deal, and those reports seemed to amount to more of a cave to Iranian demands than a mutually beneficial or compromising deal, which, again, has happened before.

From BBC News:

On Friday, Iranian media published what they described as terms of an agreement. The reported details included the lifting of a US naval blockade and “at least $300bn (£223bn)” to address the damage caused by the US and Israeli strikes on Iran.

Israel is not involved in the talks which have been mostly mediated by Pakistan and are meant to lead to an extension of the ceasefire and the start of negotiations on key issues, including Iran’s nuclear programme. For decades, Iran has been accused by Western countries of trying to build a nuclear weapon. It has denied the accusations saying its programme is for peaceful purposes – to generate electricity and for research purposes.

Iran’s Mehr news agency which published the alleged contents of the deal said Iran wanted a final agreement to be endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution.

“The final agreement shall be limited to issues concerning the future of enriched materials and enrichment activities, sanctions relief, and the programme for rebuilding Iran’s economy,” it said.

It added that “final negotiations shall not begin until half of Iran’s frozen assets have been released, Iranian oil sanctions have been suspended, and the naval blockade has been lifted”.

So, slight correction: if what has been reported regarding the deal is true, everything goes back to exactly how it was before the bombing started, and Iran gets an extra $300 billion in the bank.

Trump, of course, was unhappy about the leaked details and, in a Truth Social post, denied that what was presented bore any resemblance to the deal he was prepared to sign.

“Very dishonorable people to deal with,” Trump called the Iranian government in the post. “With them, there is no such thing as dealing in good faith. AMAZING! Also, their totally rebuffed Drone attack last night against Indian Ships leaving the Hormuz Strait is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. They better get their act together, and FAST!”

First, even for Trump, that was a weird and nonsensical use of the word “AMAZING,” although I suppose it’s pretty amazing that Trump didn’t include in his post another idle threat to bomb Iran “back to the stone age” or destroy its entire civilization.

Other than that, though, it’s all the same rinse and repeat: Trump claims there’s a deal coming, a ceasefire is tentatively put in place, then Trump start’s shit talking us out of said pending, possibly imaginary deal. And even if there’s a real deal in place, details get reported, revealing that Iran is getting more than it’s giving up, which is contrary to what Trump claims, so we just end up back where we started, with no deal and no ceasefire. And if the Israeli government never takes part in these talks, but is often the first country to resume launching bombs and missiles wherever it pleases, why should anyone have any confidence that a real, mutually agreed upon deal would be sustainable even if one could be reached?

In the end, we’re left with the same question we had from the start of this debacle: What the hell are we even doing here?

SEE ALSO:

Iran Rejects US Terms To End War, Offers Terms Of Its Own

House Votes To End Iran War, Trump Fumes At GOP Members Who Voted Yes

When the ngoni enters the Juke Joint in Sinners, the room shifts. The sound is small, sharp, ancient, almost easy to miss if you’re only listening for volume. But that little stringed voice opens a door. Suddenly, the blues is not alone in Mississippi. It has ancestors in the room.

That is the brilliance of Ryan Coogler’s Surreal Montage. It does not treat Black music as a straight line. It treats it as a circle. Past, present, and future arrive together, each one carrying rhythm in a different body.

At DanceAfrica 2026 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, that circle became visible again. The Bantaba, the gathering space, was not just a performance frame. It was a living classroom. Drummers, dancers, elders, children, vendors, aunties, teachers, and witnesses all moved inside one shared field of energy. Not everybody knew the full history of what they were watching, but everybody could feel that something was being carried.

Chief Ayanda Clarke named the responsibility clearly: when we understand the history, culture, and intention behind the energy, we can create a legacy and lineage that does not disappear. When we know the “whys,” he said, we can use cultural expression to counteract purposeful erasure.

That same intelligence lives in the harvest celebrations of Upper Guinea, in the Hamana region near Kankan, in villages like Fisadou. There, music and dance are not separate from life. The djembe and dundun do not simply accompany the gathering. They organize it. The village dances to celebrate the harvest, to honor nature, to strengthen connection, to remind the community that survival is not only labor, it is also joy.

This is why Baba Abdel Salaam’s words keep echoing: you can take away the drums, but you cannot take away the beat.

That beat travels.

It travels from the savannah to Brooklyn. From the Bantaba to the dance studio. From the harvest ground to Chicago footwork. In Chicago, the feet move fast, cutting the floor into rhythm, speed, precision, and invention. It may not look like the village at first glance. But look again. The body is still talking to the drum, even when the drum has become a track, a sample, a bassline, a machine.

Kofi Osei Williams put it plainly: yes, you are dancing and drumming, but you are also part of the culture, part of the community, part of the rituals, part of us uplifting the world.

That is the through-line.

Black dance is not just movement. It is memory with a pulse. It is community organizing itself through rhythm. It is the body learning how to stay connected across oceans, cities, generations, and technologies.

The beat did not die. It found another body.

SEE ALSO:

‘Sinners’ Connects Ancestral And Modern Black Dance, Music

Ryan Coogler And Spike Lee Talk ‘Sinners,’ Hollywood

In the hushed moments before the Surreal Montage in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners becomes a portal that transcends time, space, and language, Delta Slim leans toward Sammie and says, “Tell ’em who you are, where you from.” 

It lands like advice, but it feels closer to ritual instruction.

Because in Black music, especially the blues, where you’re from is never just geography. It’s inheritance. It’s lineage. It’s the sound of a place living inside the body. The weight of a grandfather’s hands. The rhythm of a church tambourine. The sway of a second line. The ache of a train whistle cutting through Mississippi humidity at night. To say who you are is also to say who carried you here.

And before Sammie even touches the mic, the room is already breathing together. Sweat hangs thick in the air. Cigarette smoke drifting beneath amber light. Somebody stomping rhythmically on the floorboards with hard-bottom shoes. Somebody laughing too loudly near the bar. Somebody already halfway gone inside the music before the song even begins.

The room feels alive. Not crowded exactly, but full. Pulsating. Like everybody brought something with them, and the room is trying to carry it all at once. Grief. Lust. Exhaustion. Loneliness. Joy. The bass is already moving beneath people’s feet before anybody notices it consciously. A low vibration traveling upward through old wood and into the spine.

And somehow all these separate bodies begin swaying, leaning, and pushing into bodies, surrendering themselves to one loose, human, nonrobotic pimp-strut groove.

Delta Slim seems to understand that the room is already leaning toward something larger than performance – something instinctive, something visceral. Something holy.

And that is exactly what Ryan Coogler’s Surreal Montage in Sinners begins to uncover. The sequence doesn’t move like a history lesson. It moves the way memory does, vivid, out of order, alive. African drummers, bluesmen, breakers, DJs, twerkers, C-walkers, second-liners, masked dancers, and future-funk spirits crowd into the same trembling room at once, as if time itself can’t hold the groove together anymore.

Amiri Baraka argued in Blues People that the deepest African continuities survived slavery not through monuments, archives, or institutions, but through nonmaterial practices carried in music, dance, religion, rhythm, and communal life. As Baraka contends, “Only religion (and magic) and the arts were not completely submerged by Euro-American concepts. Music, dance, and religion do not have artifacts as their end products, so they were saved.”

That idea becomes the spiritual engine of Coogler’s montage.

The body remembers what the archive could not hold.

Kelly White, a New Orleans-born dancer and educator rooted in diasporic practice, put it even more plainly: “The body doesn’t lie.”

What makes the montage in Sinners so overwhelming is its refusal of chronology. Coogler does not stage Black music history as a clean line moving from past to present. He stages it as a spiritual crossroads where everything happens at once. Blues guitarists stand beside African drummers. A second-line spirit glides past a breaker. DJs, Memphis jukers, twerkers, C-walkers, and modern dancers all move through the same trembling room as though they crossed through some rhythmic portal that dissolved time itself.

The sequence feels less like a lesson and more like possession. Less like documentary and more like collective memory catching the Holy Ghost.

Baraka’s point wasn’t simply that Black music “came from Africa.” That would flatten the complexity of what survived. His deeper insight was that Black expressive forms mutate because Black life mutates, while older rhythms survive underneath the transformation. Repetition. Call-and-response. Improvisation. Syncopation. Ecstatic release. Communal rhythm. Spiritual crossing.

The montage doesn’t show Black music history as a timeline. It shows it the way Baraka understood it: as a series of transformations carrying older rhythms into newer conditions. That’s why the scene moves so fluidly from African drumming to funk, from second-line procession to hip-hop, from masking to C walking. Coogler is not carelessly collapsing these forms. He’s revealing the deeper rhythmic intelligence moving beneath all of them.

Kelly White gave me another language for this. “Where we think in compartments,” she told me, “spirit is one.” That may be the clearest way to understand Coogler’s montage. The film does not separate Africa from New Orleans, blues from Bounce, C walking from ritual, or past from future. It lets spirit refuse the categories.

Traditional archives preserve objects. Museums preserve paintings, documents, instruments, clothing, and photographs. But many Black cultural traditions survived through forms that could not be easily locked behind glass. They survived because they were already portable systems of inscription. The knowledge did not depend on paper, monuments, or institutional preservation. It lived in coordinated bodies, rhythmic memory, repeated gesture, and communal performance.

The text moved before it was ever written down.

Kelly White called the movement, the music, and the drum the holders of the magic. Not decoration. Not entertainment. The holders. The vessels. The carriers.

That is the deeper brilliance of Black cultural survival across the Atlantic world. The drum could be outlawed. The language could be fragmented. The shrine could be burned. But the rhythm could still live in somebody’s shoulders. The procession could still survive in somebody’s feet. The prayer could still hide itself inside a bassline, a moan, a stomp, a sway, or a shout.

Again and again, the people I spoke with described these traditions not as performance alone, but as something spiritual, communal, and deeply lived. Jazz Johnson, founder of Twerk NOLA, told me that movement can be taught, but the spirit of it can’t. She described New Orleans shakedown spaces simply: “This is people’s church.” Shelby “GameOva” Skip Skipper, one of the defining carriers of New Orleans Bounce dance, offered the clearest instruction: “Let the beat use you.” And in Los Angeles, thinking through the relation between church ecstasy and ecstatic dance in the street, Boomer da Clown put it in the plainest possible language: “Ain’t no different.”

Ain’t no different between catching the Holy Ghost in church and ecstatic dance under the authority of the street, because the street is archive, altar, procession route, and ancestral ground.

Kelly White said it another way: “You don’t need to be in church to feel God.”

Chief Ayanda Ifadara Clarke, percussionist, educator, and chief installed in Osogbo, Nigeria, drew the line between spectacle and embodied cultural literacy this way: “Performative without intention doesn’t necessarily hold the same weight.” Speaking during DanceAfrica in Brooklyn, he described “cultural scientists,” people who understand how rhythm, repetition, procession, and communal energy can be directed intentionally rather than accidentally. That distinction sits at the center of Sinners. The groove is not random. The room is not random.

Something is being called in.

That is the cosmology Coogler is staging. What he gives us in the montage is not simply Black creativity, but Black continuity.

The body became the storage site of culture itself. More than that, the body became the compositional site.

The archive? That’s just paperwork.

The real text lives in bodies, written and rewritten through rhythm, gesture, procession, call-and-response, ecstatic release. The body doesn’t just remember. It writes, authors, and transmits.

The sacred escaped into the body before the archive could be burned.

Because the body was always the first site of inscription. Before Black culture could stabilize into institutional archives, it survived through embodied systems of writing: rhythm, movement, repetition, communal gathering. The archive came later.

The body carried the text first.

Think about it.

Where else was it supposed to go?

As Kelly White reminded me, what outsiders read as street culture is often a revered practice, full of work, energy, and Ashé.

The Juke Joint in Sinners is not simply a nightclub. It is a Black sacred chamber where rhythm, memory, grief, pleasure, sex, spirit, and ancestry collapse into the same room. Djinafoli often gets misunderstood outside the culture. The ceremony is not about the dancers becoming spectacular. It is about humans becoming legible to the unseen. This is a Djinafoli that rocks, repeats, and revises to call in the forces of nature, the Djinn, the Orisha, the Mpungos, the angels, God.

Down at the Bucket of Blood, inside the Hole in the Wall off the back road past the liquor store and the railroad tracks, the rent party has already turned into a full-blown revival. The room leans a little. Sweat drips from the ceiling. Cigarette smoke curls upward like incense. Beer bottles sweat beneath amber light while the bass circles itself over and over again, repetition so deep it stops sounding repetitive and starts sounding ritualistic.

Again. Again. Again.

Like the ring shout the hoodoo man was working before the folks arrived to guard this sacred place.

Like Big Freedia’s Bounce invocations, where repetition turns release into ritual, anger and stress dropping out of the body one command at a time.

And suddenly:

The room obeys rhythm.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

Feet start moving before thought catches up. Shoulders unlock. Hips answer some ancient call older than language itself. A woman twerks with such grace and precision that the movement no longer feels performative at all.

It feels like somebody surviving out loud.

Across the floor, a young man starts C-walking, not dancing, walking. His flag tucked neatly in his back pocket, he moves smooth, shuffling perfectly inside the groove.

He walks for the homies. For the ones who didn’t make it. For everybody who needs to see someone keep moving.

Every step lands with intention. Dead cousins. Lost brothers. Neighborhood ghosts.

The movement moves through him like memory finding its way into muscle.

A Crip in Long Beach told me he walks to protect what he has. He spoke about C walking with the seriousness of the Haka, not to collapse those traditions into one another, but to name a form of declaration, invocation, grief, challenge, lineage, and communal synchronization moving through the body at once. He described the walk as ancestral, territorial, something carried. Like the Haka stopping the machinery of official order cold, the body interrupts the archive, demanding to be witnessed and reckoned with. The walk, too, transforms the body into a vessel for memory, neighborhood, dead homies, and inherited identity. Every stomp, every shuffle, every shift in rhythm carries intention.

The movement was not about entertainment.

It was about presence. Protection. Continuity.

Klown Walking carries another kind of threshold logic. It is not simply Crip Walking by another name. Practitioners explained that people from the community who wanted to dance without being read as Crips, Bloods, or gang-affiliated would say they were just clowning. Over time that protection became its own form: Klown Walking, rooted in the same neighborhoods, but understood as a kind of truce language between Bloods and Crips. It was not outside the community. It was the community finding a way to keep the dance moving without letting every step become a declaration of war.

Nobody in the room separates spirit from flesh. That separation belongs somewhere else, not here. Here, sweat functions like anointing oil. Feet preach. Bass resurrects. The horns don’t simply play notes, they summon worlds. Trumpets scream open the sky while second-line umbrellas spin like invocation somewhere between Congo Square and the future. The sacred and the profane collapse together right here. Whiskey and prayer. Flesh and spirit. Mourning and joy.

The room itself becomes one giant trembling body remembering how to survive.

Big Chief Shaka Zulu, a master Black Masking craftsman, percussionist, and stilt dancer who leads the Golden Feather Hunters in New Orleans, put the distinction sharply: “A costume you put on to cover who you are, a suit you put on to reveal who you are.” Kelly White deepened that insight when she described Black Masking suits as carrying 200 days of preparation, prayer, meditation, and shared energy. Bead by bead. Sequin by sequin. Hand by hand. So when a community protects the form, it is not protecting decoration. It is protecting accumulated spiritual labor.

Kofi Osei Williams, CEO of Asase Yaa in Brooklyn, known to me simply as Osei, gave me another version of this. For him, guardianship is not only about blocking the door. It is about building an institution strong enough to hold people. “When you have so little,” he told me, “you just want to keep it.” But what they do, as he put it, is “not really selling a product, but servicing a people.” He also insists that culture cannot survive as nostalgia. It has to move, and it has to carry people with it: “We’re doing the same thing with our people, not for our people, but with our people.”

The practitioners inside the Juke Joint protect the threshold with fierce discernment. Not simply because they are protecting a building or a neighborhood, but because they are protecting concentrated Black life force. The room holds something sacred. Something hard-earned. Something the world has repeatedly tried to consume once it recognized its value.

White America redlined neighborhoods, gerrymandered districts, and guarded schools and property with institutional seriousness for generations. But when Black people protect thresholds, territory, codes, rhythm, lineage, or communal space, it is often pathologized as “ghetto” or “uncivilized.” Rarely is it understood as cultural, intellectual, and intentional force against systems that desire the magic while abandoning the people who make it possible. Jay-Z once warned, “Please don’t die over the neighborhood your mama renting,” and he’s right to question cycles of violence. But underneath all of this sits another question entirely: what if part of what people are protecting is the magic itself?

The groove.

The memory.

The language.

The survival.

Protect the threshold like you have something worth protecting.

Because you do.

The vampires in Sinners do not arrive because Sammie is talented. They arrive because the music pierces something. The groove opens something.

The room itself becomes spiritually audible.

Sammie doesn’t merely perform the song. He opens the crossing. The room reorganizes itself around his ability to pierce the veil between memory and presence. He isn’t just an entertainer.

He’s a medium.

A conduit for what seeks to enter and move.

Baba Abdel Salaam, Executive Artistic Director of Forces of Nature Dance Theatre and Artistic Director of BAM’s DanceAfrica, once said that this is what makes the artist part of the first priestcraft: the artist studies the forces of nature and translates them into rhythm, image, movement, and song. That is Sammie in this moment. He is not simply performing inside the Juke Joint. He is opening a portal and becoming responsible for what enters.

Now the room changes.

The danger in the film is not simply appropriation.

It is access without stewardship.

The vampires do not simply want the music.

They want access to the force inside the music.

They hear the life inside the groove. The memory inside the rhythm. Sacred power moves through the room. Sammie’s song does not merely entertain; it pierces the veil between worlds. Past, future, and even future ancestors collapse into the same trembling moment. The music becomes so spiritually concentrated that it draws outside forces toward it almost instinctively, like predators smelling blood in water.

And suddenly the film stops feeling metaphorical.

Because Black cultural history is filled with forms that survived precisely because communities protected them relationally, contextually, and communally. Second lines. Masking traditions. Ring shouts. Hoodoo practices. Contemporary street forms like C walking, Klown Walking, and Krump. All of them carry coded movement, territorial meaning, lineage, and communal memory inside them.

The film does not imagine Black sacred space as culturally isolated, but relationally held.

The danger is not contact.

The danger is extraction without stewardship.

Osei sharpened that point in Brooklyn. Vampirism, in his reading, is not only about whiteness. It is about any relationship to culture built on taking without care. He spoke about people entering Bed-Stuy, buying into the neighborhood, then trying to silence the drums, police the stoops, and reshape the culture that made the place valuable in the first place. That is another version of the Juke Joint door: someone wants the life of the room, but not the people who made it breathe.

Many of these traditions were never fully open to outsiders because unrestricted access often meant distortion, extraction, surveillance, commodification, or erasure.

That tension still exists now.

The blues was once treated like contamination. Now Black rhythm circulates as global commodity.

Again and again, Black expressive culture becomes desirable precisely after being detached from the people who created and protected it.

That is the deeper horror inside Sinners.

The vampires do not enter the Juke Joint as students, caretakers, or stewards.

They arrive as consumers.

And once sacred space becomes consumable, the entire room changes.

The surreal montage in Sinners works because the nonmaterial survived.

Baba Abdel said it plain: “You can’t kill the rhythm.”

The groove survived.

The shout survived.

The break survived.

The walk survived.

The shake survived.

The spirit survived.

That is the deeper revelation sitting underneath the sequence. Not simply that Black music evolved, but that Black people found ways to carry memory, rhythm, grief, joy, spirituality, and communal knowledge through the body even when everything else was under assault. The archive could burn. The language could fracture. The sacred could be outlawed. But the rhythm could still move through somebody’s shoulders and undulate the spine into possession. The procession could still survive in somebody’s feet. The spirit could still arrive through repetition, bass, sweat, and song.

In Sinners, Ryan Coogler stages Black music and movement not as entertainment, but as survival technologies powerful enough to summon worlds. The montage becomes a vision of Black culture carrying memory, spirit, grief, joy, and ancestral continuity through the body across time itself.

The room trembles.

The body carries what history could not safely store.

The body writes the text that the archive could never hold.

The archive dreams of preservation.

But the body composes onward.

Black continuity is not nostalgia.

It is unfinished, living authorship.

The montage does not only preserve Black history.

It preserves Black futurity.

We survived, yes.

But we continue.

The inscription is not yet done.

We are still answering the question.

SEE ALSO:

The Black History Of Line Dancing

Imagining A World Where Everyone Can Dance

June is Black Music Month. While this is a time to celebrate all the bangers and musical contributions made by Black musicians, it’s also important to look back at the struggles they have historically faced. From unpaid royalties, white artists stealing covering songs by Black artists, to unfair label practices, here are some Black artists who have spoken out against how the music industry exploits Black artists. 

Little Richard and the Era of “Race Records”

In the early days of rock ‘n’ roll, there was a trend called “race records,” in which record labels would sign Black musicians and release their records exclusively in Black neighborhoods. These records would sell millions of copies, but the musicians would often see very little of that money. “I didn’t get no royalties, because I didn’t know nothing about trying to demand for no money, see,” blues musician Big Bill Broonzy told Alan Lomax in 1947.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Black artists weren’t being paid fairly for their work, there was also the issue of white artists creating sanitized covers of songs by Black artists. No one was impacted by this more than the late Little Richard. 

“They took Pat Boone and threw Pat Boone on me,” Little Richard said in PBS’s History of Rock and Roll. Now that would be somewhat fine if the covers brought Little Richard’s music to a wider audience and resulted in significant royalties, like Google’s totally never-wrong AI summary suggests. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Boone’s covers would chart significantly higher than Little Richard’s original records, and he didn’t even receive a percentage of Boone’s record sales, despite writing the songs. 

“I looked around and didn’t have any money,” Little Richard told Rolling Stone. “Those record companies paid me nothing, you know? Nobody had paid me a dime. All those hits.”

Prince

This is not a remotely hot take, but I genuinely believe that Prince is one of, if not flat-out, the greatest American musician to ever do the damn thing. The way he managed to parlay genuine artistic virtuosity into overwhelming commercial success is something very few musicians, outside of maybe Kendrick Lamar, have done in recent years.

I could really spend this whole piece gushing about Prince, but that’s not why we’re here.

Prince gained success at a young age, signing his first contract with Warner Bros. Records when he was only 19. After a 15-year run that featured several hit records and a blockbuster movie, the ‘90s marked an era of evolution for Prince. While Graffiti Bridge had a few bangers (Thieves in the Temple still slaps), Diamonds and Pearls, his first album with The New Power Generation, seemed to point toward Prince’s new direction for the era. 

The Prince and the New Power Generation era was short-lived after he changed his name to a symbol due to his inability to secure his masters from Warner Bros. Records. Prince would appear on stage with the word “slave” written on him and would regularly speak out against how the industry exploits Black artists. 

While much was made of Taylor Swift rerecording her songs to own her masters, Prince was the first to put that move on the table. 

“I wanted to buy my masters back from Warner Bros. They said no way. So I’m going to rerecord them. All of them. Now you will have two catalogs with pretty much exactly the same music—except mine will be better—and you can either give your money to WB, the big company, or to NPG. You choose,” Prince said in a 1999 interview. 

Prince was one of the first musicians to fully leverage the internet to distribute his music directly to his fans through his NPG Music Club. Despite facing ridicule from a public that was ill-informed on how exploitive the music industry could be, Prince stood 10 toes down on his principles and eventually gained control of his masters in 2014.

Sam Moore

Sam Moore, of Sam & Dave fame, Songs like Soul Man and Hold On, I’m Coming should’ve allowed Sam to comfortably coast into retirement alone, given how often they’ve been used in film, TV, and commercials. In 1993, Moore wanted to retire from touring and live off the royalties he should’ve received from his music. He wrote to the Health and Retirement Funds (H&R Funds) of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) asking about his pension, and was shocked when they said he was only entitled to a single payment of $2,285, and a monthly payment of $67, for up to five years. They calculated that Moore only earned $66,000 since the 1960s, while Moore estimated that he should’ve had $3 million in earnings and a pension of around $9,000.

Moore joined several other musicians in filing a lawsuit against the AFTRA H&R Funds for failing to properly monitor their earnings and enforce their contractually guaranteed contributions to their health and retirement accounts. This was a protracted lawsuit that lasted 9 years, with the artists eventually reaching an $8.4 million settlement. As this was a class-action lawsuit, Moore received only a fraction of that money, far less than he was originally owed. 

Megan Thee Stallion

Unfortunately, it’s common for young artists to sign terrible contracts simply to gain some early traction in their careers. This is what happened to Hot Girl Summer artist Megan Thee Stallion. In 2020, she filed a lawsuit against her former label 1501 Certified Entertainment, claiming that her contract was “unconscionable.” Megan claimed in the lawsuit that the label took 60% of her earnings and that she had to pay producers, mixers, and featured artists from the remaining 40%. The suit also claimed that her label was preventing her from releasing new music. 

During an Instagram Live stream, Megan said she “didn’t really know what was in [her] contract” when she first signed it. “I was young. I think I was like 20, and I ain’t know everything that was in my contract,” she added.

Megan eventually settled with 1501 Certified Entertainment in 2023 and was released from her contract. The timing was perfect, as Megan was reaching the height of her popularity and has since (hopefully) collected bag after bag through her various brand deals. 

Unfortunately, Megan Thee Stallion was only the latest in a long line of Black women who have been exploited by the music industry. While it’s a shame all these artists had to go through these hardships, hopefully, the next generation of Black artists will look to these stories and have the knowledge necessary to protect themselves against the exploitative forces within the music industry. 

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Music Is Medicine: A Love Letter To Black Music Month

The Iceman Cometh And The Results Are So Boring, Y’all

For some weird reason, it’s not enough for state officials in Alabama to execute a man who has been sentenced to death; they feel the need to do it in a way that is likely painful, certainly cruel and definitely unusual. In fact, Alabama officials were so dead set on executing a Black man on death row by using nitrogen gas to suffocate him that, in a rare move, the U.S. Supreme Court had to step in and declare it unconstitutional.

According to the New York Times, on Thursday evening, the Supreme Court issued an emergency ruling that rejected a last-minute appeal by the state after lower-court judges found that the method of execution was “likely unconstitutional” in this case. The court’s decision, which was unsigned and included no reasoning — which the Times noted is typical of emergency rulings — saved convicted murderer Jeffery Lee from being executed via nitrogen hypoxia, just before he was set to be executed at 6 p.m. Thursday. The SCOTUS decision was a 6-3 ruling, with three of the court’s conservative judges, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Neil M. Gorsuch, voting in favor of the nitrogen gas execution.

State officials argued that Lee, 49, initially chose nitrogen gas as the method for his execution. Still, at some point, he became so desperate to escape the odd, rarely used method that he preferred death by firing squad, as he felt it would be quicker and less painful.

From the Times:

In his legal challenge, Mr. Lee disputed claims from proponents of nitrogen hypoxia that the method is efficient and potentially painless. He even proposed death by firing squad as an alternative that he believed would be quicker and less painful.

In a decision late last month, Judge Emily Marks of U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama sided with state officials and said the execution could move forward, finding that using the gas “did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.” But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit disagreed and sent the case back to Judge Marks.

In a new decision on Tuesday, Judge Marks blocked the state from executing Mr. Lee using the gas. This time, she agreed with his argument that death by firing squad — with four .30-caliber bullets aimed at his heart — “significantly reduces a substantial risk of severe pain.” Judges from the same appeals court affirmed her decision on Wednesday night.

According to CNN, nitrogen hypoxia is a method of execution that experts say causes “air hunger.” A federal court ruled the method violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. According to the Times, Alabama was the first state to use nitrogen gas to execute a person in 2024.  Lee would have been the eighth death row prisoner to be executed in Alabama using that method, and the ninth overall. In other words, nitrogen hypoxia has only been used eight times to kill someone since 2024, and seven of those eight executions happened in Alabama.

It’s significant that, while Lee still doesn’t want to die painfully, he does seem to have accepted his fate, because the jury that presided over his trial had recommended that he not be executed at all. According to CNN, Lee was convicted of murdering two people while robbing a pawnshop in Orrville, Ala., in 1998. The jury recommendation was life in prison, but the trial court overruled that decision and sentenced Lee to death.

“While I am disappointed the Supreme Court did not allow the state to proceed with Lee’s chosen method of execution, I remain committed to ensuring that justice is ultimately served for his victims,” Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama said in a statement.

But death is death, right? So, what does the method even matter, unless cruelty is the point?

SEE ALSO:

Alabama Governor Commutes Sentence Of Black Man 2 Days Before Execution

James Broadnax Executed After Cousin Confesses To Being The Shooter

Here’s a question: Does anyone who isn’t a MAGA supporter, a GOP official with MAGA constituents, or a billionaire who is being further enriched amid the MAGA movement want anything to do with any event tied to President Donald Trump? Since Trump’s disastrous second term began,  numerous musicians and other big-name celebrities have canceled their appearances at the Kennedy Center — which, until recently, was renamed to include Trump in its title, musicians have demanded over and over again that he stop playing their music at his events, numerous non-current recording artists refused to take part in his Freedom 250 celebration, and several current celebs have reportedly declined to take part in the UFC event the president is planning on the White House lawn.

Now, several states have opted not to participate in Trump’s “Great American State Fair” because a MAGA rally by any other name is still a MAGA rally.

From CNN:

Officials from Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, North Carolina and Connecticut told CNN they declined an invitation from the Trump administration to showcase their states at the giant fairgrounds being built on the National Mall. Pennsylvania has yet to decide whether it will participate.

While officials said their states’ decisions were largely due to costs, a spokesperson for Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, pointed to concerns about the partisan nature of the event, set to open June 25 and last about two weeks.

“The State of Oregon will not be participating in the Great American State Fair due to both the cost of participating in the Fair and growing concerns that the event in Washington D.C. is shaping up to be a more partisan affair than originally presented,” spokesperson Luke Harkin said.

Interestingly enough, all six states — Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut and North Carolina — are states where officials fought legal battles against the Trump administration in cases regarding immigration enforcement and/or illegal National Guard Deployments. According to USA Today, Maine, where officials and residents also clashed with federal immigration agents over ICE operations in the state, also declined to take part in the event.

According to an event spokesperson, all 50 states will still be represented in the “Great American State Fair” — which, along with the UFC event, is part of the Freedom 250 celebration that has consistently proven to be a famous person repellent — regardless of states that opt not to participate.

“What we can say is that every state’s story will be told in a way that’s authentic to its people, history, and culture,” the spokesperson told CNN, “Whether represented by a governor’s office, a tourism board, or a beloved state company or organization, every community will be celebrated.”

Still, it says a lot that entire states are refusing to participate in any event associated with the most unpopular president in U.S. history.

Is it a state fair, or a sad state of affairs? Apparently, it’s both.

SEE ALSO:

Celebrities Don’t Want To Be A Part Of Trump’s UFC Event Either, As Freedom 250 Continues To Be A Bust

Trump Wants To ‘Cancel’ Freedom 250 Festival As Most Acts Drop Out

A white man in Leesburg, Ga., has been arrested after allegedly terrorizing a Black family reunion with an AR-15-style rifle.

According to WALB 10, deputies with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office were called to the 100 and 200 blocks of Autumn Leaf Drive on Sunday, following reports of a shooting in progress. Lee County officials haven’t revealed much about the shooting, outside of reporting that it began with a “verbal altercation,” and that the man arrested in connection with the gunfire has been identified as Jeffrey Tyler Kinzer, who, according to the family that held the event, drove past the home at around 9 p.m., leaned out of the window of his vehicle, and began shouting racial slurs at the Black people he saw standing outside.

From WALB:

“He’s talking junk. He started yelling the ‘N-word,’” Ramell Green, a witness said. “He kept going so we let him go. We just discussed what had happened after.”

The person who lives at the home also said that she called the Lee County Sheriff’s Office after Kinzer left. But about five minutes later, Kinzer and the driver returned.

This time, Kinzer was reportedly wearing body armor and carrying an AR-15-style rifle.

Those outside spotted the suspect with the gun from a distance and began running, Green said. Then Kinzer opened fire, and Green said a bullet flew past him.

“…People started taking positions because they saw he had a gun. And I was in the middle of the street,” Green said. “And I grabbed my gun and started returning fire and moving with him.”

Green said he is a Marine veteran. He wanted to defend the roughly 20 children and older adults who witnesses said were at the home when the shooting occurred.

“It’s so hurtful. I cried all night,” Loucindi Broussard, another witness, said. “I’m laying outside on the ground for a shootout. I’m under a car with my sister who is 77 and I’m 62.”

Thankfully, the only person reported to have sustained an injury was Kinzer, who was shot by a member of the family he allegedly attacked.

According to WSAV, Kinzer, who reportedly acknowledged to deputies that he had been involved in the shooting, has been charged with aggravated assault and was transported to the Lee County Jail after he was released from the hospital. It’s a charge that many would consider paltry, considering he allegedly unleashed racial terror on a Black family in what sounds like an attempted mass shooting, motivated by hate.

“We were having a family gathering. And it was a great family gathering,” Green told WALB. “It was peaceful…He came and caused that to happen. And he found out that he’s not the only one that has training.”

According to WSAV: “Investigators believe additional witnesses, victims, and potentially other individuals involved in this incident have not yet been identified or interviewed. Anyone involved in this incident in any capacity and has not already provided a statement to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office is asked to contact investigators at 229-759-6012.”

Mind you, earlier this month, we reported that a white man in Texas was arrested after he allegedly brought an AR-15-style rifle to a Black teen’s birthday pool party after his wife got into a verbal altercation with partygoers. It’s almost as if the bible belt has an issue with armed white supremacists terrorizing Black communities.

Who would’ve thought?

SEE ALSO:

White Man In Texas Brings AR-15 To Black Teen’s Birthday Pool Party

White Man Accused Of Plotting To Shoot Up Atlanta Airport

Firefighters with the Chicago Fire Department responded to a call about a fire in Grant Park at around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, and what they found was a cross burning at the park, which, of course, immediately sparked fears that white supremacists were in the Windy City engaging in Klan-destine activities. Now, Chicago police have released photos of a “person of interest” seen fleeing the scene of the cross burning.

Authorities haven’t identified the suspect by name, and it’s important to note that a “person of interest” isn’t necessarily a person accused of committing the crime, but local activists and community members are sounding the alarm on what is widely perceived as a hate crime, and word is spreading to national activist groups like the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which recently held its first conference without its founder, Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died at age 84 in February.

From ABC 7 Chicago:

Rev. Michael L. Pfleger said the Faith Community of Saint Sabina will offer $10,000 for information leading to an arrest.

“This was so premeditated. You made this cross somewhere. You carried it, you got it downtown. You put it in one of the most visible spots in Chicago and then you set it afire,” Pfleger said. “This is a decades-old symbol of hate and supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan. This is their symbol.”

Reaction also came from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which was holding its first conference without the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.

“The image of the burning cross is one that brings terror. And it’s beneath the dignity of our society to continue that,” said Yusef Jackson, president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

It’s worth noting that the burning cross was first discovered and recorded by a Black mother and daughter, who happened to drive past the park when they spotted it.

“We stopped in our tracks because we were like, what?” Alyna Carlton told ABC 7.

Firefighters quickly extinguished the flames on Tuesday, and Chicago police reported that they are investigating the circumstances of the fire and potential motives. Meanwhile, the office of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson released the following statement:

“Like many Chicagoans across our city, we were deeply disturbed upon seeing the images which have emerged following this incident. Hate has no place in our city. Every Chicagoan deserves to feel safe, protected, and respected while going about their day or enjoying our public spaces. We will continue working across City government to uphold that standard and ensure Chicago remains a welcoming, inclusive, and safe place for all.”

SEE ALSO:

Klan Robe And Materials Found In Mississippi Law Enforcement Office Closet

Judge: ‘Honorary’ KKK Member Can Stay In Governor Race

Well, the GOP has notched another victory in the ongoing redistricting battle. Florida’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the state can conduct its midterm elections using a recently redrawn map. 

AP reports that in a 6-1 ruling, the court found that the First District Court of Appeal (1st DCA) should consider the merits of the case before it weighs in on the matter. The lawsuit was filed by a group of voters who believed that Florida’s recent redistricting effort violates the state constitution’s ban on partisan redistricting. Since the lawsuit is still pending in a lower court, the Florida Supreme Court believed it lacked jurisdiction to grant a temporary injunction against the map. 

“At this time, we do not have jurisdiction over that matter, and we do not simply assume that the First District’s decision will provide an appropriate basis for this Court’s review,” the court ruling states. 

According to CBS News, Justice Jorge Labarga, the lone dissenter, pushed back against the idea that the court didn’t have the jurisdiction to rule on the map. Labarga expressed frustration with the 1st DCA for failing to expedite the process before this Friday’s filing deadline, which will lock the districts and candidates in place. 

“Had the district court invoked pass-through jurisdiction here, doing so would have established an independent basis for this Court’s jurisdiction in this matter,” Labarga wrote. “Unfortunately, for now, and with a filing deadline and an election fast approaching, we will not have the opportunity to review the issues of statewide importance raised in the petitioners’ efforts to enjoin Florida’s 2026 congressional map.” 

Florida’s map is already heavily skewed toward Republicans, with the GOP holding 20 of Florida’s 28 U.S. House seats. The new map would potentially give Republicans another four House seats in the state. Florida’s Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier defended the new districts in court and declared “complete and total victory” in a social media post. 

“The Florida Supreme Court’s failure to stop this brazen partisan power grab is not only an assault on democracy, but an abdication of its duty to the people of Florida,” Genesis Robinson, executive director of Equal Ground, a community organizing group that sued the state, said of the ruling. 

Amy Keith, executive director of Common Cause Florida, told AP that the new map is “a pretty clear partisan gerrymander,” and added that her organization is “going to do everything we can to prevent this map from impacting further, future elections.” 

Should the 2028 election lead to Democrats controlling Congress and the Oval Office, there’s got to be something done on the federal level about redistricting. Congressional maps are typically redrawn every 10 years in response to new Census data. That’s changed over the last year, after President Donald Trump successfully convinced several Republican governors to trigger mid-decade redistricting efforts focused on protecting the GOP’s narrow House majority. 

While California successfully passed through a redistricting effort, giving Democrats five new House seats, state laws have hampered most Blue states from effectively passing counter efforts. 

Trump and the Republican Party are incredibly unpopular on the national level, yet they could very well maintain control of Congress this fall simply through redrawing the maps. They are effectively using the new maps to undermine the will of the people and hold the country hostage to their whims. That’s not exactly a sign of a healthy democracy. 

SEE ALSO:

Florida Redistricting Effort Faces 1st Legal Challenge

Republican Pressure Grows For Florida To Undergo Redistricting Effort

In May 1916, in Waco, Texas, 17-year-old Jesse Washington was convicted of murder and rape during a one-hour trial in which his feckless attorney offered no defense. The courtroom had already done its work and named him guilty after deliberating for only four minutes. But Washington’s conviction and death sentence were not enough.

A mob of white men and boys dragged him out of the courthouse, stripped him naked, spat on him, kicked, stabbed, and castrated him, passed his genitals around in a handkerchief, and hauled him before a waiting crowd of 15,000 spectators, where they burned him alive under a tree in front of the mayor’s office. 

The pyre where the teenager was chained and cooked for hours was constructed by small boys who were paid to gather scraps of wood and kindling. Another small child, sitting at the top of the same tree above the barbaric spectacle, had to be rescued when the smoke overwhelmed him. Waco’s mayor later complained about the destruction of “a good tree.”

While Washington’s parents and at least one sibling were being held in a local jail, his charred body was lassoed and dragged behind a truck through the Black section of town to send a message. When his charred head fell off and bounced through the street, a gaggle of white boys reportedly picked it up, plucked his teeth from the smoldering skull, and sold them as souvenirs for $5 apiece. And then they all went home and resumed pretending to be human.

One hundred and ten years later, still in the State of Texas, another Black teenager, Karmelo Anthony, has been made to stand before a racist public hungry to see his body destroyed beyond any ordinary measure of justice. No, there was no tree, chain, fire, or white children perched in trees or on adult shoulders after Anthony’s conviction and sentencing. But I am seeing that same old mob’s bloodlust moving through the comment sections across social media pages, including my own.  

I am not being hyperbolic when I say that racist white folks stalking Black people’s social media pages want to drag Anthony from the courtroom and hang him or put him in the electric chair. They want Anthony offered up to the old lynching ritual. They want the state to finish what the Jim Crow mobs used to do with rope, fire, photographs, picnic baskets, and souvenirs preserved in formaldehyde. 

I have also been seeing memes featuring Anthony in a lace slip and fantasizing about him being raped by a hulking future cellmate named “Bubba” during Gay Pride Month. This is the same old racial bloodlust dressed up in homoerotic, pedophilic spectacle where “law and order” means imagining a Black teenager being sexually violated, feminized, bent over, and broken for public pleasure. The lynching fantasy embedded in these memes is obfuscated by the humor.

But Black folks recognize it. And we are not surprised by the verdict or by the bloodlust and depraved sexualized projections surrounding Karmelo Anthony. We know that whiteness requires Black punishment and periodic ceremonial purification through the abuse of Black bodies. As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in Between the World and Me: “In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body — it is heritage.”  Whiteness wants the Black body destroyed, humiliated, or contained so it can feel restored to itself. 

Listen, I am no longer interested in writing think pieces begging this country to recognize Black childhood. I am not interested in performing another careful explanation of how Black youth are expedited into perceived maturity, or innocence denied, or racial bias, or the long history of Black children being lynched by mobs and the state. All of that is true, but we are well past the point where shame can do any work on people who are too depraved and diseased to feel any shame.

We are living among ghouls.

We are living among people who no longer even bother to hide their appetite for Black pain and death. They do not want justice. They want Black youth to be monsters so they can purify themselves and feel clean. They want the ritual and old satisfaction they brought with them from Europe. They want the reassurance that the racial order still works and that Black life can still be made to absorb the terror, guilt, rage, and moral sewage whiteness refuses to locate in itself.

That is what this entire week has revealed.

Alongside Karmelo Anthony’s conviction in Texas, Chikei “Rick” Chow in South Carolina was found not guilty after chasing down and shooting 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton, whom he wrongly suspected of stealing water. In Colorado, we also saw the homicide convictions of the paramedics who restrained, sedated, and killed Elijah McClain reversed.

Three cases. One week. One message.

I don’t know about y’all, but to me, these cases feel like a get-back or a snapback. It feels like the backlash that has been waiting underneath the Black Lives Matter movement, all the hashtags, murals, removal of statues, the corporate statements, black squares, DEI trainings, all that kneeling and playing dead on yoga mats, tearful speeches, and all those temporary performances of racial reckoning after George Floyd was murdered in 2020. It feels like America has been itching to prove that nothing actually changed. The system has just been holding its breath for a few years, as it waited out the outrage and protests, and then returned to its unapologetic self.

All that performance has been followed by restoration politics and White America reminding Black folks that our protest is permitted only as theater, and mourning is tolerated only when it changes nothing. And, and . . . and . . .  accountability will be treated as an aberration to be overturned, reversed, neutralized, or punished. At the end of the day, these latest cases involving Black youth send a clear message that Black suffering must never be allowed to interrupt the racial machinery for too long.

That is why all these verdicts are so satisfying to racist America. Once the Black body is killed or locked up, whiteness can feel clean again. It can feel restored, vindicated, re-centered, back on top, and call itself innocent, civilized, and human while pretending that snatching Black youth from the future is justice instead of another season of purification. Because whiteness knows it is a crime scene built on stolen breath and masquerading as civilization.

SEE ALSO:

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Karmelo Anthony Murder Trial: Teen Found Guilty For 2025 Stabbing

Vance Boelter, the man accused of fatally shooting Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, has pleaded guilty to their killings.

NBC News reports that Boelter, 58, initially pleaded not guilty, but decided to change his plea after prosecutors said they wouldn’t pursue the death penalty. Boelter appeared in federal court on Thursday morning, where he pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking, two counts of murder, and two counts of discharging a firearm relating to a crime of violence. 

Prosecutors recommended a sentence of two consecutive life sentences plus 40 years, though U.S. District Judge John Tunheim will ultimately decide Boelter’s final sentence. He did not set a date for sentencing. 

On June 14, 2025, Boelter arrived at state Sen. John Hoffman’s home dressed as a police officer. He wore tactical gear, a police-style badge, and a silicone mask, according to CNN. When Hoffman answered the door, Boelter shot Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, critically injuring them. The shooting spurred Minneapolis police to conduct a wellness check at Melissa Hortman’s home. By the time they arrived, Boelter was already firing shots into the home, killing Hortman and her husband.

Boelter managed to escape by firing at the officers, leaving behind a hit list with over 70 names on it, along with three AK-47s. 

Minneapolis law enforcement conducted a 43-hour manhunt, the largest in the state’s history, before finding Boelter in a field only a mile away from his home. Prosecutors said Boelter went to the homes of two other Minnesota lawmakers after the initial shootings, but was unable to make contact with them. Investigators found a handwritten letter in Boelter’s abandoned car addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel, where Boelter admitted to the shootings, but didn’t give a reason for why he did it. 

Boelter’s friends and family have described him as a devout Christian and politically conservative. Investigators believe the shootings were politically motivated, as the victims were both Democratic state legislators, and Boelter’s hit list consisted of other state lawmakers as well as abortion rights advocates and health care officials. 

Federal prosecutors accused Boelter of conducting “a planned campaign of stalking and violence, designed to inflict fear, injure, and kill members of the Minnesota state legislature and their families,” in an affidavit. 

John Hoffman filed a lawsuit against Boelter in April, where he disclosed that his left arm and hand will probably never fully recover, with his digestive and urinary systems also suffering permanent damage due to the shooting. The lawsuit added that Hoffman’s wife, Yvette, was left with permanent physical weakness and that their adult daughter, Hope Hoffman, who was home at the time of the shooting but was not shot, suffered severe psychological trauma.

Hoffman and his family were present in the courtroom when Boelter pleaded guilty. 

KARE 11 reports that Boelter still faces state charges, including two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and four counts of attempted first-degree murder, though those charges were put on hold pending the results of the federal trial. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office told AP that Boelter’s guilty plea won’t have any impact on his state charges. 

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History does not always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it arrives through a primary win in the Nevada heat on a Tuesday night in June, with a man standing at a victory party making a promise to the working-class voters who put him there. Aaron Ford just won the Democratic nomination for governor of Nevada and if he wins in November, he will become the state’s first Black governor in its entire history. Read more about Aaron Ford inside.

As PBS News reported, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo — a Republican — will face Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford in a battle to hold onto his seat in November. This is considered one of the most competitive governor’s races in the country. Ford secured the Democratic nomination with the backing of the congressional delegation — Former Vice President Kamala Harris — and defeating county commissioner Alexis Hill in the primary. He is now squarely in the most consequential race of his career and potentially one of the most consequential races for Black political representation in recent American history. 

So who is Aaron Ford? The answer starts not in a boardroom or a law firm but in a household that relied on food stamps, Medicaid and public schools to get by. As his official campaign site, Ford for Nevada, states directly: “Aaron Ford knows what it means to fight for a better life because he has lived that struggle.“

Raised in a working-class family, Ford relied on public assistance early in life to get ahead. He later became a public school teacher, earned five degrees, and worked his way up to lead Nevada’s Senate before serving as Attorney General. That is not a political biography constructed for optics. That is the actual arc of a man who used every resource available to him and then spent his career making sure those resources stayed available for the people who came after him. 

As Nevada’s Attorney General, Ford built a track record of taking on the powerful on behalf of the powerless. He has taken on opioid profiteers, corporate landlords and anyone who tries to exploit Nevada families. His campaign for governor is built on the same foundation. Housing affordability, public safety, cost of living, education and jobs are the pillars of his platform. It maps directly onto the concerns driving voters in a state where the affordable housing shortage, some of the highest gas prices in the country and cuts to federal healthcare and food assistance programs are the defining kitchen table issues heading into November. 

At his primary victory party, Ford did not pivot to vague language or campaign slogans. He went straight to the point. 

“This is all about strengthening the working class,” he said. “And we will once again be a state where you can afford to live your own version of the American dream.” 

The path to November is real, but it is not easy. Lombardo is considered one of the most vulnerable governors in the country this fall, as both parties expect Democrats to do well nationwide, but he will not simply hand over the office. The race is competitive precisely because Nevada itself is competitive, a swing state where margins are thin, turnout is decisive and every vote matters. 

What makes this race significant beyond the electoral math is the history attached to it. Nevada has never had a Black governor. If Aaron Ford wins in November, he does not just flip a seat. He writes a new chapter for a state that is more diverse and more working-class than many of its national political representations have reflected. Ford wants to build a Nevada where every family in every neighborhood can get ahead, and he is asking voters to trust that the same resilience that carried him from food stamps to the Nevada attorney general’s office is the same resilience he will bring to the governor’s mansion. 

The general election is in November. Pay attention to Nevada. Meet Aaron Ford. 

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Olivia Miles is making this WNBA transition look a little too easy. Every rookie is supposed to have an adjustment period — the speed, the physicality, the scouting reports, the pressure of being a top pick — but Miles has stepped into Minnesota and played like she’s been here before. Through the first month of the season, she’s averaging around 15 points, five rebounds, and more than five assists per game, while giving the Lynx exactly what they needed: pace, control, scoring, playmaking, and a whole lot of confidence from the guard spot.

And the crazy part is, it hasn’t just been empty numbers. Miles has already put her name in the record book, most notably when she drilled eight 3-pointers against the Golden State Valkyries, setting a new WNBA rookie record in the process. She finished the night with a career-high 28 points, seven assists, and four rebounds, helping Minnesota stretch its win streak to six at the time. For a rookie who came into the league known for her feel, vision, and ability to run a team, suddenly turning into a flamethrower from deep is the type of development that makes the rest of the league nervous.

After that, another stamp proved the takeover wasn’t just something fans were noticing. Miles was named WNBA Western Conference Player of the Week for games played June 1-7, becoming just the third rookie in Lynx history to win the award, joining Seimone Augustus and Napheesa Collier. During that stretch, she averaged 22.0 points, 7.7 assists, 4.7 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks, while shooting 64.1% from the field and helping Minnesota go 3-0. That’s not just “good for a rookie” production — that’s star production, period, and it’s another reason the Rookie of the Year conversation is starting to feel like it has a clear frontrunner.

Then came Tuesday night, and Miles made another statement without needing anybody to dress it up. In a matchup against the Dallas Wings and No. 1 overall pick Azzi Fudd, Miles completely controlled the conversation. Minnesota rolled to a 100-76 win, pushing its streak to eight straight, while Miles put up 24 points, seven rebounds, and six assists. Fudd, meanwhile, struggled through a rough night with just six points on 2-of-12 shooting. That doesn’t decide a career, of course, but for one night, the No. 2 pick didn’t just outplay the No. 1 pick —she made the gap look loud.

That’s why the Rookie of the Year talk is already feeling less like a debate and more like a countdown. Fudd is still talented, still dangerous and still capable of getting hot at any moment, but Miles has been the more complete rookie so far. She’s scoring, setting the table, rebounding at a high rate for her position, making winning plays, and doing it all for the team with the league’s best record. When a rookie can put up numbers, and those numbers directly translate to wins, that’s when the hype starts turning into something real.

What makes this run even more impressive is that Minnesota is doing it without Napheesa Collier, who was the MVP runner-up in both 2024 and 2025. She has not been available, and most teams would use that as a built-in excuse to slide back a little. The Lynx have done the opposite. They’ve been sharp, balanced and dangerous, and while Cheryl Reeve deserves plenty of credit for keeping everything steady, Olivia Miles has been a major reason why the offense hasn’t looked scared without its superstar.

That’s the real story here. Olivia Miles isn’t just having a cute rookie moment or putting up fun highlights while her team figures things out. She’s helping lead a contender, stacking records, winning head-to-head battles, and making the Lynx look like a problem before Collier even gets back. For a player who is only a few weeks into her WNBA career, that’s not normal. She’s taking over and we’re all getting a chance to witness it firsthand.

RELATED: Paige Bueckers Makes History After Her Game-Worn WNBA Debut Jersey Sells For Staggering Amount

See the support she’s getting from social media below.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker says her administration is investigating the Philadelphia Police Department’s response to post-Pride celebrations in the Gayborhood after 15 people were arrested Sunday and videos of officers using force sparked outrage across the city’s LGBTQ+ community.

In a public statement Tuesday, Parker acknowledged the anger and pain surrounding the police response and said city officials are now gathering information and preparing to meet with community leaders.

“I know that members of our LGBTQ+ community are hurting, frustrated, and looking for answers,” Parker said. “I want everyone to know that I hear you, I see you, and my Administration is taking your concerns seriously.”

The mayor said senior members of her administration, including LGBTQ+ Affairs Director Tito Valdes and Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, had already met to review what happened and determine next steps. “We must reject the notion that public safety and accountability are mutually exclusive,” Parker said.

The response follows a chaotic end to Pride weekend, when police moved to disperse crowds in the Gayborhood after the city’s official Pride festival on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Images and videos posted online showed officers on motorcycles and horseback pushing through crowds, while others formed lines to clear barricaded streets near 13th and Walnut.

Police later said five officers who wore face coverings during the enforcement had violated department policy, and the department is now determining what discipline, if any, they may face.

Commissioner Bethel said officers had been responding to mounting safety concerns, including fights, disorderly behavior, blocked roadways and the difficulty of managing large crowds in a confined area. He said the decision to clear parts of the neighborhood “was not made in any way, shape, or form because people were celebrating Pride.”

Still, the tactics drew immediate backlash. City Councilmember Rue Landau said, “Police brutality has no place at Pride.”

This year’s celebration was already different before the arrests began. For the first time, the main Pride festival was moved from the Gayborhood to the Parkway, with organizers citing security concerns tied to growing attendance. Even so, many attendees returned to the Gayborhood afterward, only to find several blocks barricaded, creating tight pedestrian corridors that some said worsened confusion and tension.

The city now faces a familiar but urgent question: how to safeguard large public celebrations without turning a Pride gathering into a flashpoint over policing.

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Remember three months ago when President Donald Trump said the conflict in Iran was only going to take two to four weeks? It’s become incredibly apparent that Trump’s optimism was misplaced. 

While Iran and the U.S. have ostensibly been under a ceasefire since April, the two countries have yet to reach a deal to permanently end the conflict. The negotiations don’t seem to be going anywhere, as Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday to threaten more strikes against Iran, as well as declaring the U.S. will assume control of the country’s oil. 

According to AP, Trump wrote that the U.S. military will be hitting Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT” in his famously eloquent fashion. “At some point in the not-too-distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America,” he added. 

The threats came after the U.S. launched several airstrikes against Iran on Wednesday night. The strikes targeted Iranian radars, air defenses, and several other military targets. The strategic goal of the strikes was to weaken Iran’s ability to identify and attack commercial vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a senior U.S. official told The New York Times. 

The Times adds that Trump doubled down on his threats in a phone call with Fox and Friends, though he seemed somewhat noncommittal about taking Kharg Island. “My preference has always been to take Kharg Island,” Trump said, adding, “I don’t know that America has the stomach for that. I think they’d like to see us come home.” 

This is not the first time Trump has made a bombastic threat against Iran. In April, Trump posted that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if Iran didn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Shortly after that post, the U.S. announced it had reached a temporary ceasefire with Iran. 

While Trump is famous for announcing his potential moves on Truth Social, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has famously been remiss in providing reporters with any information about potential U.S. military action. Hegseth appears to have changed his tune this week, as The Times notes that on Wednesday, Hegseth told reporters about the airstrikes planned for Wednesday evening before they occurred. 

“So those strikes that will happen tonight will be strong. They will be clear,” Hegseth told reporters traveling with him to the U.S. Central Command’s headquarters in Tampa, Florida. “If they happen to happen tomorrow night, they will be strong, and they will be clear.” 

The Strait of Hormuz has been the primary holdup in peace negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. Nearly a quarter of the world’s oil supply moves through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been under a blockade for the last three months. The closure has caused oil prices to spike globally, as well as the cost of goods. Oil prices, in particular, have been on a roller coaster as Trump continues to say a deal is only a few days away, only for no agreement to be reached. 

The longer the conflict in Iran goes, the larger the impact it will have on the global economy. CNBC reports that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has said that the war in Iran could trigger a global recession if a permanent ceasefire isn’t reached within the year. 

For his part, Trump doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the economic consequences of the war in Iran. Inflation has reached its highest level in four years, greatly outpacing wage growth. When asked by reporters on Wednesday if he was concerned about the growing inflation, Trump said, “No, I love it, the numbers were great. I love the inflation.” 

We’ll see if he’s still loving it come the midterm elections in November. 

SEE ALSO:

Iran Rejects US Terms To End War, Offers Terms Of Its Own

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Ever since the story of Karmelo Anthony and Austin Metcalf emerged in the news cycle, after the former stabbed the latter resulting in his death in Frisco, Texas, last year, we have endured a predictable yet still despicable level of anti-Black racism, which, incidentally, we also have to deal with when white people use deadly force and claim self-defense against a Black man (Chud the Builder, anyone?).

Now that Anthony has been convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison, that anti-Blackness has only become more celebratory, which we should also have expected. What we should not expect or accept, however, is a local news reporter getting in on the racism by making absurd “gorilla” references regarding the trial, but that’s exactly what happened when a WFAA reporter discussed the racial tension surrounding the case, and, for no discernible reason, decided to add to it.

“Let’s talk a little bit about the big, uh, gorilla so to speak,” WFAA’s Rebecca Lopez said Tuesday outside of the courthouse. “There were people out here on both sides shouting racial slurs at one another. But it was very clear that the defense and prosecution did not want this to be about race. They said this was not about race.”

Nah, but seriously, WTF was that? Why wouldn’t Lopez address “the elephant in the room” like a normal non-racist instead of going out of her way to address the “big, uh, gorilla so to speak”? Why the gorilla? It was a choice.

According to Atlanta Black Star, Lopez is the senior crime and justice reporter for WFAA, where she has been employed since 1998. She’s a seasoned journalist with nearly three decades on the job. She should have known better. Comments like hers are what happens when people get so comfortable with casual racism and anti-Blackness that they become unafraid to perform it even when they’re on the job.

A look through her social media account shows that she seems to have relationships with many Black people, which makes this all the more baffling, but not at all surprising.

Anyway, WFAA released the following statement regarding the incident, via ABS:

“Yesterday while reporting on the track meet stabbing trial, our reporter used an idiom to describe dynamics in the courtroom that was inappropriate. We apologize for that error and are committed to ensuring this doesn’t happen in the future.

This mistake in no way reflects the culture of our newsroom or tenure of our coverage. Our reporters are held to high standards and abide by the principles of ethical journalism. We hope our long track record of fair, balanced, and sensitive reporting, specifically on this case, speaks for itself.”

So far, there doesn’t appear to be an apology from Lopez herself, nor is there any word on whether she will be held accountable for what she said.

SEE ALSO:

Karmelo Anthony Murder Trial: Teen Found Guilty For 2025 Stabbing

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Karmelo Anthony Will Get His Diploma, But His Legal Battle Looms

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Op-Ed: I Get Karmelo Anthony, I Carried A Knife To School Too

What Is A Batson Challenge? The Legal Tool That Failed Karmelo Anthony

Racism is so deeply baked into white American culture that some white people forget that everywhere isn’t a safe space for their racially tinged humor and exclamations.

To put it plainly, there is no safe racism.

The now-former chairman of the Haywood County School Board, in Haywood, Tennessee, just found this out the hard way after making a remark about hanging a Black teen that he appeared to believe would be accepted as safe racism, because the remark was made regarding a Black teen who has been charged with a horrific crime.

According to WREG News 3, HCSB chair Allen Currie announced Tuesday that he is stepping down after he sparked community-wide outrage by posting  “Get a rope” on social media, along with a news release announcing the arrest of an 18-year-old Black man charged in a mass shooting in Brownsville, Tenn., that killed one teenager and injured several others as they took pictures before prom.

“I am stepping down due to poor judgment,” Currie, who is white, said in a statement announcing his resignation. “This has caused great pain for my school board, my community, as well as my family and me.”

Before we get into the rest of his statement, it’s worth reiterating that the teen in question, Dequarius Dushun Lax, stands accused of shooting seven individuals at a pre-prom picture gathering at Webb F. Banks Passive Park in Brownsville on May 8, killing 17-year-old Saturah Hayes. Lax is charged with first-degree murder in perpetration of a crime, six counts of attempted first-degree murder, six counts of employment of a firearm with intent to go armed, six counts of aggravated assault – use or display deadly weapon, tampering with evidence, reckless endangerment – deadly weapon involved.

Indeed, if Lax is guilty, he should pay for his crimes, but that doesn’t change the fact that white people never immediately start invoking lynching language unless the suspect charged with a violent crime is a Black man. Currie thought he had stumbled across an opportunity to get in a little safe racism, but he was wrong.

From WREG:

The comment resulted in calls from the Haywood County Branch NAACP for Currie to be removed from the school board and issue an apology.

“Such language is unacceptable from any member of the community, and it is especially unacceptable from an elected official entrusted with the care, safety, and leadership of our public schools,” the group said in a statement. “The phrase ‘get a rope’ is not innocent language. It carries a long and painful history tied to lynching, racial terrorism, mob violence, intimidation, and the denial of due process to Black Americans.”

Fitzgerald Mann, President of the Haywood County Branch NAACP, commented on Currie’s resignation and apology: “I am pleased that Mr. Currie accepted responsibility for the statements that he made and that he is doing what is best for the school board and for our community, and this will allow us to start the healing process.”

“And I will say this again, it was never our call that Mr. Currie was racist, his statement was a racist comment. It was a statement that was tied to a racial history that has a very different meaning to folks that have been impacted by statements like that. And again, it’s not about him being a racist, his words were racist in that moment,” said Mann.

You can read Currie’s full statement and apology below:

“After serving Haywood County Schools and our community for 14 years, effective immediately, I am resigning from the school board. I did not intend for the social media post to be hurtful or insensitive. I realize now that it was and I am truly sorry. I certainly did not mean for it to be racist. For that you have my heartfelt apology.

I have spent my entire career trying to make our schools good and safe for our students.

I am stepping down due to poor judgement. This has caused great pain for my school board, my community, as well as my family and me.

At the end of the day the NAACP and I are fighting for the same kids. Our children and Haywood County should not have to worry about being shot at a party, at home, or at a pre-prom photo shoot. Gun violence has got to stop. I want our students to live in a town without fear. The pre-prom mass shooting caused devastation and chaos in our town. So, when I saw that we had apprehended the person responsible I acted out of anger instead of thought. Once I realized how it could be interpreted, I took it down.“

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One of the stranger elements of President Donald Trump’s second term has been his administration’s focus on removing “improper ideology” from national parks and museums. In addition to an executive order focused on rewriting how American history is told at the nation’s parks and museums, the Trump administration also began a survey last year asking visitors to flag exhibits that present a “negative” portrayal of America. That survey doesn’t seem to have gone as planned, as the majority of responses instead attacked the Trump administration for conducting the survey in the first place. 

AP examined the 35,000 public comments, and the large majority of them attacked Trump and his administration’s attempt to downplay or outright erase the more uncomfortable aspects of American history. The comments were released due to a FOIA request by KOAA News. 

“Hey Donald Trump!” wrote a person in North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park, “Trying to erase history doesn’t mean it didn’t still happen!” 

“Trump’s idea of having Americans call in and snitch on each other … is straight out of the fascist playbook he’s literally acting like Hitler or Mussolini,” wrote one visitor.

A visitor to Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis had a thoughtful response to why showcasing the horrors of American history is necessary. “We had a great time learning about the development of this site, including the difficult parts of our American story,” the visitor wrote. “We need those reminders to help us become even better in the future.” 

Of the 35,000 comments submitted, only 47 of them actually flagged exhibits and supported their removal.

From AP:

Considering that the National Park Service logged some 323 million visits at more than 400 sites last year, the 35,000 initial public comments received from June to January and released following a lawsuit was a tepid response.

An order by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last year targeted “inappropriate content” including any signs and exhibits “negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.”

The order following one by President Donald Trump on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” sought to emphasize the achievements of America and splendor of its landscape.

The goal, Burgum wrote, was to restore sites to “solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.”

As a result of that order, the Trump administration has already taken steps to remove exhibits it deemed “improper” ideology from national parks, museums, and monuments. An exhibit dedicated to the slaves owned by George Washington at the President’s House in Philadelphia was briefly removed earlier this year before a judge ordered it to be restored. 

The comments make it abundantly clear that the public is overwhelmingly against this effort to rewrite United States history. Considering that each time the Trump administration tries to remove an exhibit, it’s met with backlash and lawsuits, you’d think it’d move on from it. But since the Trump administration has no solutions to address the cost-of-living crisis, the stagnant job market, or any of the issues facing working-class Americans, I guess racist distractions are the only move it can make. 

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The trial of Karmelo Anthony ended on June 9 when a Collin County jury found the 19-year-old guilty of fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf in 2025. The jury sentenced Anthony to 35 years in prison. Before jurors decided on the punishment, Anthony’s lawyers argued that he acted under “sudden passion,” a legal claim that can reduce a sentence if a person acted in the heat of the moment. Sadly, the jury rejected that argument and imposed the 35-year sentence. Now people are wondering: if a Batson challenge had been in place, could there have been a different outcome for the teenager?

Ahead of Tuesday’s verdict, experts raised alarms about the racial makeup of the jury. Although more than 500 potential jurors were considered, the final 12-person jury did not include any Black jurors. During the selection process, prosecutors used peremptory strikes to remove the last three remaining Black prospective jurors despite Anthony’s attorneys calling for a Batson Challenge, according to Courthouse News. But what is this legal strategy and how does it work?

What is a Batson Challenge?

A Batson challenge is a legal tool used when one side believes the other is excluding jurors because of race or another protected characteristic, according to the Appeals Law Group. The rule comes from the 1986 Supreme Court case Batson v. Kentucky, which prohibits attorneys from removing jurors solely because of their race. When a Batson challenge is raised, the judge must decide whether the jurors were removed for legitimate, race-neutral reasons or whether discrimination played a role.

In Anthony’s case, prosecutors argued that the three prospective jurors, who were “qualified” Black women, according to legal analyst A.B. Burns-Tucker, were removed because they were educators of school-aged children, not because they were Black. Judge Angela Tucker accepted that explanation and denied the Batson challenge. As a result, the trial moved forward with the jury that ultimately convicted Anthony.

A successful Batson Challenge may have led to a different outcome for Karmelo Anthony.

A successful Batson challenge could have given Anthony a different verdict or a lighter sentence, but now we’ll never know. It could have changed the makeup of the jury and introduced different perspectives into the deliberations. If the judge had found that the strikes were discriminatory, the excluded jurors could have been seated, or the court could have taken other steps to assemble a different jury panel. Because jurors can interpret evidence, witness testimony, claims of self-defense, and appropriate punishment differently, a more diverse jury may have approached the case from a broader range of life experiences.

Anthony, who argued he acted in self-defense after allegedly being pushed by Metcalf during an argument last year, did not testify at trial. During the sentencing phase, the only witness called by the defense was his mother, who told jurors her son was remorseful and asked for mercy. Supporters of Anthony’s Batson challenge contend that a jury that included Black jurors may have brought additional perspectives to both the deliberations and the sentencing decision, potentially influencing how the case was viewed.

Karmelo Anthony’s fight for justice is far from done. Attorneys for the teen are expected to file an appeal, challenging aspects of the trial, the sentence and the final conviction, according to WFAA. 

SEE MORE:

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Primary elections were held on Tuesday in Maine, Nevada, South Carolina, and North Dakota. From Rep. James Clyburn securing a nomination for his 18th term to Rep. Nancy Mace falling well short of success in her gubernatorial bid, here are the big stories from last night’s election.

Perhaps the biggest story of the night came from Maine, where AP reports that Graham Platner secured the Democratic nomination for Senate. This is unsurprising as his main opponent, Janet Mills, dropped out of the race due to a lack of momentum in fundraising. 

Platner has been under fire in recent weeks, with stories emerging about sexual text messages he sent to other women while married, as well as former partners speaking out about his behavior during their relationships. Platner didn’t shy away from the controversy when speaking to his supporters on Tuesday night after securing the nomination. 

“Any of those who feel let down or disappointed or disillusioned, it is my job to earn your trust, faith, and support,” Platner said. He later added, “I’ve made mistakes in my life, mistakes that I regret, that I live with, that I continue to learn from.” 

Platner will go on to face Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in a race that is crucial to the Democrats’ bid to flip control of Congress this November. 

In South Carolina, Rep. James Clyburn handily secured a victory over a little-known primary challenger. Clyburn is South Carolina’s only Democratic House representative, though it was unclear if he would secure an 18th term as a result of the state legislature pushing for a last-minute redistricting effort in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act. While Clyburn’s seat is secure for the moment, the state legislature has signaled it will revisit redistricting ahead of the 2028 election.

Elsewhere in South Carolina, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace was handed a truly embarrassing L. Mace. Mace decided not to run for reelection in the House to pursue a bid for governor. Her gubernatorial aspirations were cut short last night after placing fifth in the race. 

South Carolina’s gubernatorial race also had mixed results for President Donald Trump. Pamela Evette, Trump’s pick for governor, is heading to a runoff election against state Attorney General Alan Wilson after failing to secure the majority of the vote. Evette is ahead of Wilson by nearly three points, so the runoff will likely be a close race. 

State Rep. Jermaine Johnson handily secured the Democratic nomination for Governor in South Carolina. While South Carolina has only elected Republican governors for the last 23 years, Johnson is hoping there’s a Blue wave in the state. Should Johnson win in November, it could derail plans by the Republican led state legislature to implement the aforementioned redistricting effort. 

The New York Times reports that Nancy Lacore, a former Navy admiral whom Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired in his purge of anything he felt represented DEI, advanced to a runoff election for the Democratic nomination in the district Mace formerly represented. The Republican nomination will also advance to a runoff, which is unsurprising given that the field to replace Mace was crowded. The two front-runners, Jenny Costa Honeycutt and state Rep. Mark Smith, received only 22% and 18% of the vote, respectively. 

So the night more or less went as expected. As always, the real test is going to come in November, when we’ll see how the Republican-led redistricting efforts will fare against the growing, widespread disapproval of the Trump administration. 

SEE ALSO:

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Listen, even with all of the chaos and utter ridiculousness that has occurred under the second Trump administration, I still didn’t have Stephen A. Smith beefing with the president on my 2026 Bingo card. Seriously, who would’ve thought that ESPN’s resident shucker and jiver — who occasionally veers off into discussing politics long enough to let the world know he doesn’t know anything about politics — would grow enough of a spine to actually speak ill of President Donald Trump, who he usually defends against Black people accusing him of racism? This truly has become the strangest timeline.

As we previously reported, ahead of Game 3 of the NBA finals, which the San Antonio Spurs won 115-111 over the New York Knicks, Smith had one message for the president: stay your ass at home!

Smith claimed his wish that Trump abstain from attending the game was not about politics but logistics, vibes and what’s best for New Yorkers. He even said he would blame Trump if the Knicks lost, which they did. In response, Trump, who was loudly booed before the game began — and was predictably in denial of that fact after the game — told reporters that Smith is a “nice guy,” but that he lacks the “aptitude” and “high IQ” to run for president, which Smith occasionally muses about doing, not that literally anyone takes him seriously. (Although, to be fair, many of us once said the same of Trump.)

Well, to my delightful surprise, Smith’s tap-dancing shoes came to a grinding halt and he was having none of Trump’s shade, especially as it pertained to his IQ.

“You wanna talk about IQ,” Smith said Tuesday, during an episode of ESPN’s First Take. “I could put my IQ against yours. I got something even better — I could ask you why you been running from me for the past year since I asked you to talk to me. I could ask you to debate me since you think you’re that dude. We could go a myriad of ways.”

Now, I don’t know when Smith challenged Trump to a debate, because I don’t get involved in blowhard-on-blowhard crime, but apparently Smith has been trying to make a political rival out of Trump for some time. Again, who would’ve thought?

Smith did say he appreciated Trump calling him a “nice guy, till you tug at me a little bit, then after that I’ve got to show my other side.” But before all of that, Smith was roasting the president for being asleep at Maddison Square Garden, even going as far as to poke the MAGA bear by invoking former President “Sleepy” Joe Biden.

From the Hill:

“And guess what he was doing during the game, ladies and gentlemen. Go online, look at the videos,” Smith said on ESPN’s “First Take.” “I’m not going to accuse him of snoring because I wasn’t in earshot. The brother wasn’t awake.”

He pressed on, saying that if it was so important for the president “to be there, why did you look like you were asleep? Didn’t you call out former President Joe Biden, ‘Sleepy Joe’? Well, what should we call you. Because you weren’t awake.”

I mean, he wasn’t lying.

Now, y’all know damn well the second Smith even mentioned Biden, Trump’s tone was going to go from “I think he’s a nice guy,” to “Smith is an arrogant fool,” a “low-IQ individual,” and “dumb as a rock,” which, as I noted previously, are insults Trump tends to reserve almost exclusively for Black people.

Somewhere, Biden is wondering why Trump can’t seem to beef with anyone without him catching a stray.

Now, look, I noted in my last report that “Smith could grow a spine and clap back at Trump by pointing out that the president doesn’t know the difference between IQ tests and a dementia screening, and thinks it’s a flex that his doctors keep having him take the latter.” I concluded, however, that he wouldn’t do it, because “he’s just too much of a good old boy when he knows white folks are watching,” but, now, I don’t know. Perhaps a couple of personal attacks on his intelligence are all it takes for Smith to go full-anti-MAGA. We shall see.

SEE ALSO:

Trump Calls Stephen A. Smith Low-IQ In Response To Criticism Over Him Showing Up At The Knicks Game

Trump Storms Out Of ‘Meet The Press’ Interview Because Some Journalists Are Actually Doing Their Jobs

UPDATE — Tuesday, June 9, 2026, 4:45 p.m. EST

A verdict has been reached in the trial of Karmelo Anthony.

June 9, 2026: Karmelo Anthony Found Guilty of Murder: 

After nearly three hours of deliberation, a jury on Tuesday found 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony guilty of fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf in 2025, according to NBC DFW.

Anthony showed little visible emotion as the verdict was announced and was escorted from the courtroom shortly afterward. The same jury will now determine his sentence. Under Texas law, a murder conviction carries a prison term ranging from five to 99 years.

As the case entered into the sentencing phase, Anthony’s mother, Kala Hayes, took the witness stand. Defense attorney Mike Howard offered her water and tissues before questioning her.

“He’s my oldest,” Hayes said. “He’ll always be my baby. I love him very much.”

Hayes became emotional and began crying while testifying. Observers in the courtroom noted that Anthony also appeared to be in tears.

As sentencing proceedings continue, the defense is expected to argue that the killing occurred under the immediate influence of “sudden passion.” Prosecutor Dewey Mitchell referenced the legal concept during jury selection, describing it as “a situation when someone is in such a state of emotion, based on something that just happened, that they don’t have time to cool off.”

If jurors determine that Anthony acted under sudden passion, the offense remains murder but the punishment range is reduced from that of a first-degree felony to that of a second-degree felony, carrying a potential prison sentence of 2 to 20 years.

June 9, 2026: Jury Instructions Take Shape & Closing Arguments Begin.

During closing arguments on Tuesday, defense attorney Mike Howard argued that Austin Metcalf had no legal right to use force to remove Karmelo Anthony from the Memorial High School tent. While Howard acknowledged that Metcalf was within his rights to ask Anthony to leave, he contended that Metcalf had no legal authority to physically touch or eject him, noting that the incident occurred in a public setting. Anthony has pleaded not guilty to the incident.

Collin County First Assistant District Attorney Bill Wirskye challenged Howard’s argument, telling the jury:

“Do not let them turn a threat into a warning,” according to NBC DFW. “Do not let them turn a taunting, provoking threat into some kind of benign warning.”

He added:

“He took a knife to a track meet,” Wirskye said. ‘He had a secret, he kept it hidden… He was the only one with a knife that day. He was always going to come out on top that day.”

Earlier in the morning, Judge John Roach informed the court that he had been working with attorneys on the final jury instructions that will guide deliberations. Howard objected to the inclusion of a “provoking the difficulty” instruction, a legal doctrine that can limit or eliminate a defendant’s right to claim self-defense, according to NBC DFW. Under the rule, a defendant may lose the ability to assert self-defense if jurors determine that the individual intentionally provoked a confrontation as a pretext to use force.

Judge Roach denied the defense’s objection and allowed the instruction to remain.

The court also rejected the defense’s request to include criminally negligent homicide as a possible verdict. However, Roach approved the inclusion of manslaughter as a lesser-included offense.

Under the jury charge, a murder conviction would require jurors to find that Anthony intentionally or knowingly caused death or serious bodily injury through his actions. To convict Anthony of manslaughter, jurors would need to determine that he acted recklessly or consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk that resulted in death or serious bodily injury.

Jurors may also conclude that Anthony is not guilty.

June 8, 2026: Defense Rests Its Case.

The jury has a lot to consider ahead of deliberations. The defense concluded its case Monday after prosecutors challenged the credibility of a key witness regarding whether Anthony was surrounded by students before the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf.

A Centennial High School student and teammate of Anthony testified that the defendant appeared visibly emotional in the aftermath of the incident.

“He was crying and there was a coach comforting him,” the witness said. “I would say distraught is the best way to describe it.”

The student testified that members of Frisco Centennial’s track team (Anthony’s team) had gathered inside a nearby baseball dugout to avoid the rain. According to his testimony, Anthony later walked toward the Memorial High School tent, where Metcalf was stationed. Defense attorneys have maintained that Anthony entered the tent to speak with a friend and acted in self-defense when confronted by Austin Metcalf and his twin brother, Hunter, to leave the area.

“I heard loud voices over there and when I looked, people were not facing the field anymore,” he said. “They were looking back.”

The witness said he moved toward the Memorial tent after noticing the commotion.

“What I saw was Austin pull up his shirt and say he got stabbed,” he testified, adding that he did not witness the actual stabbing.

During cross-examination, Wirskye challenged the witness’s earlier claims that Anthony had been surrounded before the stabbing occurred. Prosecutors presented surveillance footage that appeared to show the witness was not looking toward the tent during the critical moments.

“My impression when we first met you was that you thought when you saw Karmelo surrounded it was before the stabbing?” Wirskye asked.

“Yes, sir,” the witness said.

“That was actually after the stabbing?” Wirskye asked. “When you and I met you told me you thought it was before the stabbing?”

“I could not really tell,” the witness responded. “I thought it was as the stabbing was happening.”

“You know you’re wrong?” Wirskye asked.

“Yes, sir,” the witness said.

The defense also called Frisco Police Detective Beau Riley, who responded to the scene and interviewed witnesses. Riley testified that the knife Anthony carried was legal to possess in Texas, including at athletic venues.

June 6, 2026: Prosecutors Focus on Alleged Provocation before resting.

Earlier in the trial, prosecutors presented testimony suggesting Anthony provoked students after being asked to leave the Memorial High School tent during the weather delay.

During Saturday’s trial, a 16-year-old Memorial High School student testified that Anthony became confrontational when asked to leave. According to the witness, Anthony referred to students as “a bunch of pussies” and claimed they were “not going to do nothing about it.”

When questioned by prosecutors about who initiated the confrontation, the witness testified:

“Yes, Karmelo put his hand in the bag and said five times, ’touch me and see what happens,” the witness testified. “Austin said he was not going to touch the guy; he was calm.”

The same witness later testified that Metcalf “did not deserve” to be killed and characterized Anthony’s actions as murder.

Another 17-year-old Memorial High School student testified that Anthony was unknown to those gathered inside the tent.

“If you are a guest, you are supposed to be on the other side of the stadium,” the witness said.

Wirskye then asked whether it appeared Anthony was intentionally provoking Metcalf.

“Yes,” the witness testified. “He put his hand on his shoulder … you do not expect to see someone get stabbed at a track meet.”

“Was there any reason you saw for Karmelo Anthony to stab Austin Metcalf?” Wirskye asked. “Was Karmelo Anthony acting in self-defense?”

“No,” the witness said. “That’s lethal force against non-lethal force.”

With testimony now complete, jurors will soon begin deliberating over a case that has attracted national attention and sparked intense public debate. Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys have publicly commented on the proceedings due to a gag order that remains in effect.

If convicted of murder, Anthony faces a sentence ranging from five years to life in prison.

June 4, 2026: Trial Kicks Off.

According to CBS, the first day of testimony featured coaches, an athletic trainer, and other individuals who rushed to help Metcalf in the moments after the stabbing. Jurors were also shown video footage from the track meet, shedding new light on the events leading up to the deadly encounter while raising additional questions about what transpired before the incident.

Before testimony began, Anthony, now 19, entered a not guilty plea. The defense maintains that Anthony acted in self-defense, while prosecutors argue the stabbing was an excessive and unjustified response to a physical altercation.

Inside the packed courtroom, members of both the Anthony and Metcalf families sat on opposite sides of the gallery, underscoring the emotional weight of the proceedings. The tension only intensified as prosecutors and defense attorneys delivered sharply contrasting opening statements.

Addressing the jury, prosecutor Bill Wirskye rejected the notion that race or self-defense were central issues in the case. He claimed Anthony “provoked” Metcalf’s death. 

“This case has nothing to do with race, this case has nothing to do with self-defense … This was an unprovoked, unjustified murder, it is senseless,” Wirskye said, according to CBS.

Defense attorney Mike Howard offered a sharply different perspective, acknowledging that there had been a great deal of “noise” surrounding the case before shifting the focus to Anthony’s character. Referring to his client by the nickname “Melo,” Howard tried to paint a picture of the teenager beyond the headlines and public controversy.

“Melo is a son, he’s a brother, the oldest of four,” Howard said, according to NBC DFW. “He’s a friend, boyfriend, he’s an A student with a 3.7 GPA. He’s holding down two jobs while being an athlete and student… baseball, football, track.”

Later in the day, the prosecution called expert witness Mark Porter to analyze surveillance footage from the track meet. Porter walked jurors through a timeline of the events captured on video, noting that Anthony first appeared on camera at approximately 9:52 a.m. and was later seen approaching the entrance of Kuykendall Stadium.

Additional footage showed Metcalf arriving at his school’s tent around 9:54 a.m. Porter testified that at approximately 10 a.m., movement could be seen beneath the tent where the confrontation occurred. According to Porter, the video appeared to show one person pushing another under the tent. However, he acknowledged that viewers could not determine from the footage whether a verbal argument had begun prior to the physical interaction.

The state’s next witness, Robert Starr, head track coach at Memorial High School and an assistant football coach, provided context about the district track meet. Starr explained that the event featured seven competing schools and served as a qualifying meet for future competitions.

Starr told jurors that Austin and his twin brother, Hunter Metcalf, competed in shot put and discus events. As the host school, Memorial High School relied on several student-athletes to assist with setup and logistics throughout the day. Starr testified that he specifically asked Austin and other athletes to step into leadership roles that morning by helping transport equipment and set up tents.

He later recalled noticing a “commotion” near one of the tents and attempted to make his way toward the area.

One of the day’s most emotional testimonies came from athletic trainer Tiffany Whiteaker, who described the moments immediately following the stabbing. Whiteaker testified that she initially heard screaming and commotion from the stands before rushing toward a crowd gathered on the field.

She said a student, Hudson Dean, informed her that Anthony had stabbed Metcalf and “threw the knife into the stands.”

Whiteaker testified that she immediately recognized Metcalf and began lifesaving efforts. While her partner performed chest compressions, Whiteaker administered rescue breaths and continued CPR until paramedics arrived.

Although she observed Metcalf regain some color, Whiteaker said she quickly realized the severity of his injury.

The prosecution also called Joshua Rebmann, an Army veteran and Liberty High School defensive coordinator, who was working as a throwing coach at the meet. Rebmann testified that he rushed to assist after hearing the commotion and used his military medical training to apply pressure to what he described as a “good-sized wound” in Metcalf’s abdomen.

He recalled having to move Hunter Metcalf away from his brother in order to provide treatment, describing Hunter as “freaking out.”

Rebmann further testified that Austin’s gasping breaths indicated his brain was being deprived of oxygen. Though he recognized the signs, he chose not to voice his concerns aloud because he did not want to extinguish the hope others still held for Metcalf’s survival.

According to Rebmann, he already knew Austin was gone.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Toby Shook highlighted Anthony’s behavior immediately following the incident. Whiteaker agreed that Anthony did not attempt to flee the scene, remained near the track, and appeared visibly upset and emotional.

The final witness of the day was Heritage High School head football coach Vincent Hooper, who testified that students alerted him that someone had been stabbed. Hooper said Whiteaker brought Anthony to him and instructed him not to allow the teenager to leave.

According to Hooper, Anthony immediately admitted what had happened.

“He put his hands on me. I stabbed him,” Anthony allegedly told the coach.

Hooper testified that he tried to explain the gravity of the situation, warning Anthony that if Metcalf died, he “had changed the rest of his life.”

Anthony responded, “He’s not going to die,” but Hooper said the teen became emotional and started crying when he replied, “But if he does…”

Hooper told jurors it appeared the reality of the situation was “not registering in his mind” at first. He said the two embraced as they stood together near the track. However, after seeing Metcalf lying in a pool of blood, Hooper said the seriousness of the situation finally appeared to sink in.

The trial is expected to continue with additional witness testimony and evidence in the coming days as jurors work to determine whether Anthony acted in self-defense or committed murder.

Karmelo Anthony Trial: June 1, 2026: Jury selection began.

The trial officially kicked off on June 1 at the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney, where attorneys began the difficult task of selecting 12 jurors from a pool of roughly 250 candidates, according to reports from ABC News and WFAA. Anticipating heavy public interest, Judge John Roach Jr. has taken extraordinary measures to control the proceedings. Cameras, livestreams, and audio recordings have been banned from the courtroom, a security perimeter has been established around parts of the courthouse to prevent protests from erupting. Notably, video and photos obtained by the Dallas Morning News on June 1 captured protesters chanting in favor of Anthony outside the courtroom.

Additionally, a gag order remains in place, preventing attorneys, investigators, witnesses, and others involved in the case from publicly discussing it. Only a team of reporters from WFAA will be allowed to cover the case from inside the courtroom, the outlet noted.

“Due to the significant public and media interest in this case, the Court finds that specific procedures are necessary to ensure the Defendant’s right to a fair and impartial trial, the orderly administration of justice, the safety and security of all participants, and reasonable public access consistent with constitutional requirements,” Roach wrote in an order governing the proceedings, according to ABC News.

Karmelo Anthony’s age has already become a big challenge among potential jurors.

Almost immediately, jury selection revealed one of the biggest challenges facing both sides: Anthony’s age. Although he is now 18, he was only 17 when the stabbing occurred. Under Texas law, however, 17-year-olds are prosecuted as adults. Per WFAA, on day two of jury selection, which took place Wednesday, prosecutors reminded potential jurors that Anthony faces a first-degree murder charge carrying a punishment range of “five to 99 years to life” if convicted.

“Is there anybody who cannot consider life for a punishment?” chief felony prosecutor Dewey Mitchell asked prospective jurors.

The question exposed a clear divide among the panel. Several jurors struggled with the idea of imposing such a severe sentence on someone they viewed as a teenager. Some remarked that “he looks like a child,” while others admitted they would have difficulty considering a life sentence regardless of the evidence.

One prospective juror acknowledged the internal conflict many seemed to share, saying: “People are going to think I’m a monster but…I have a hard time just considering five [years].”

As questioning continued, concerns about Anthony’s youth surfaced repeatedly. Mitchell asked potential jurors whether the defendant’s age would affect their ability to fairly judge the case.

One panelist responded: “I don’t think I can make a decision about somebody so young. One mistake, one argument, one conflict, you can’t say he’s a bad person.”

Another prospective juror drew a visible reaction from observers when he stated: “I don’t know if I feel right putting a brother in jail.”

Mitchell also appeared to hint at a central prosecution argument by challenging the boundaries of self-defense. “You don’t get to provoke someone and then use force,” he told the jury panel.

What happened between Karmelo Anthony and Austin Metcalf?

At the center of the case is what happened on April 2, 2025, at David Kuykendall Stadium. According to investigators, Anthony, then a student-athlete at Frisco Centennial High School, was sitting beneath a Memorial High School team tent when Metcalf approached him and told him to leave. Police say the encounter quickly escalated. Anthony allegedly reached into his backpack, produced a pocketknife, and warned Metcalf, “Touch me and see what happens.”

Authorities allege that Metcalf then pushed or grabbed Anthony while attempting to remove him from the tent. Seconds later, prosecutors say, Anthony stabbed Metcalf once in the chest. The wound pierced Metcalf’s heart. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but died shortly afterward. Anthony has consistently maintained that he acted in self-defense and feared for his life, while prosecutors argue the stabbing was an excessive and unjustified response to a physical confrontation.

One lawyer claimed there was video evidence of the incident, which could be a game-changer.

Adding another layer of intrigue to the trial is the possibility that video evidence exists. During an interview with Fox Live Now on Monday, Defense attorney Jaqueline Goodman suggested that footage of the altercation may have been reviewed by the court but remains unseen by the public.

Goodman also stressed the importance of finding jurors capable of setting aside preconceived opinions in a case that has become a lightning rod for public debate. She noted that jurors must be able to “set aside their own biases” in order to reach a fair verdict.

Other concerns.

Outside the courtroom, the case has become a flashpoint in broader discussions about race, self-defense, and the criminal justice system. Anthony’s family reportedly moved from their home after facing harassment tied to the case. His supporters have frequently compared his situation to that of Kyle Rittenhouse, arguing that Anthony deserves the same presumption of innocence and opportunity to argue self-defense before a jury. Rittenhouse was acquitted in 2021 after jurors found he acted in self-defense during the fatal shootings that occurred amid unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

While the legal battle plays out, Anthony remains free on bond. His original $1 million bond was later reduced to $250,000 by a Collin County judge. Court records show he remains under strict conditions, including house arrest, constant supervision by a parent or designated adult, and a prohibition on contacting Metcalf’s family. He must also obtain court approval before leaving his home. 

Now, after months of legal filings, public debate, and national attention, the case is finally moving toward the moment that matters most: 12 jurors weighing whether Anthony’s actions amounted to murder or self-defense.

SEE MORE: 

Op-Ed: I Get Karmelo Anthony, I Carried A Knife To School Too

‘Decoded’: Breaking Down The Myth Of Black Criminality

The Trump administration continues to find new and inventive ways to be racist. On Monday, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) denied Omar Artan, a Somali World Cup referee, from entering the United States. 

According to AP, CBP issued a statement that Artan was denied entry at Miami International Airport due to “vetting concerns.” When Artan arrived at the airport, he was interviewed for 11 hours by border officials. They asked him questions about why he was traveling to the U.S., his view on Somali politics, and the al-Shabab militant group currently fighting an insurgency against the Somali government. 

Artan explained he was a World Cup referee and showed photos from his career, but that did little to help, as CBP placed him in a holding cell before sending him on a flight back to Istanbul, where his connecting flight originated. 

The CBP justified Artan’s interrogation by calling it an “additional inspection” and “a routine part of CBP’s inspection process when officers need to verify information or determine admissibility.”

“Following inspection, the traveler, a referee for the FIFA World Cup, was determined to be inadmissible due to vetting concerns and was denied entry,” CBP added. CBP’s statement doubled down on its actions by saying all travelers, including World Cup players, coaches, and staff, were subject to CBP inspection and vetting.

“Admissibility determinations are made on a case-by-case basis using law enforcement, national security, and immigration information available at the time of inspection,” the CBP statement said. “CBP officers have the authority to question travelers, conduct inspections, and determine admissibility consistent with U.S. law.” 

“I am very, very disappointed,” Artan said in a telephone interview with the New York Times. “I’m just simply a referee who’s trying to live his dream, the biggest dream of my life, to come to the World Cup.” Artan is one of Africa’s top referees and was named the continent’s best male referee in 2025.

What makes this move even more despicable is the fact that Omar Artan was going to be the first Somali to ever referee a World Cup game. This should’ve been a fun, feel-good story ahead of the World Cup, but it has only validated concerns that Trump’s immigration policies were going to derail the proceedings. 

“I think that they have a problem with my country,” Artan told the Times, adding he had the correct documents and visa. He’s not wrong, as Somalia is one of 40 countries that Trump put travel restrictions on last year. He said he wasn’t told why he was refused entry, according to the Times.

Any hope that FIFA would work to remedy the situation has been dashed, as they have removed Artan from the referee pool. “In line with previous FIFA events, a host government ultimately determines who receives a visa and who is admitted into their country,” FIFA said in a statement. 

Considering this is the organization that gave President Donald Trump a made-up peace prize, this is sadly unsurprising. 

The way the Trump administration is handling the World Cup raises serious concerns about how they’re going to be moving. Events like the World Cup and the Olympics are meant to unify the world through sports. It’s a shame that Trump’s policies are undermining that principle. 

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Is Blocking Promotions For Black And Women Navy Officers, Too

In today’s episode of Anti-Blackness Is A Global Phenomenon, apparently, people in China are purchasing Black stress-relief dolls so they can relieve their angst by carrying out their fantasies of abusing Black people on inanimate objects.

Yes, it’s weird. Yes. It’s racist. No, no one who has been Black their entire lives should be surprised.

From NJ.com:

A popular squishy decompression toy known as the “Natasha doll” has triggered global condemnation after videos surfaced showing users in China subjecting Black versions of the doll to physical abuse.

Clips shared on Chinese social media platforms feature individuals punching, stomping on, and pouring boiling water over the dark-skinned dolls. While lighter-toned variants were largely left untouched, OkayAfrica reported.

An alleged explanation circulating online from a social media user in China suggested that the dark-skinned doll is preferred for mistreatment because its lighter-skinned counterpart appears too human-like and elicits more sympathy when damaged, according to Bored Panda.

“Why are Black dolls specifically being put through extreme physical abuse? …It isn’t enough that the features here are reminiscent of minstrelsy [and] caricatures that were used in times past to justify the systemic oppression of Black people,” content creator Tanaïssa Dee said in a TikTok video Friday.

She added, “This Africa baby doll lets you stretch it, hit it, squeeze it, debase it, and dehumanize it in anyway you want. …This is not ok. You can never get me to look at this and think it’s harmless.”

So, if the skin is too light, it’s too human-like, huh? Well, at least the white supremacists here in the U.S. can find some kind of common ground with the foreigners whom they already consider to be model minorities once they’re immigrants on this side of the Pacific — that is, when they’re not being unbelievably racist to them just like they are to Black and brown people.

Obviously, none of this is to say that all Asian’s are anti-Black, but just last week, we watched 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton‘s Chinese killer walk free, and it’s just one of the many stories and experiences we have that make the mock-lynching of Black dolls made in China not terribly shocking, although it’s disheartening all the same.

Then, of course, there’s the other bright red flag that needs to be addressed: Why are baby doll stress balls being made at all?

It’s not just racism we’re talking about here; it’s a complete lack of humanity, and it’s sad.

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Black People Have Been Boycotting The Same Insult For 40 Years

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President Donald Trump won the 2024 election largely due to his promises to lower prices amid dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of the economy. We’re firmly into year two of Trump’s second term, and much of his administration’s actions have only exacerbated the cost-of-living crisis. So it should come as no surprise that roughly half of Americans believe they’re worse off financially than they were a year ago. 

CBS News reports that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Survey of Consumer Expectations found that 48% of respondents said their finances were worse than they were last May. The survey also found a distinct lack of optimism among respondents, with the share of people expecting their finances to improve within the next year falling to its lowest level since October 2022. 

The lack of optimism isn’t terribly surprising, as the Trump administration has made several moves over the last year that have exacerbated the cost-of-living crisis. Trump’s pressure on congressional Republicans to allow tax subsidies for insurance purchased through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has resulted in a drastic increase in monthly premiums for marketplace plans. 

The ongoing war in Iran has only exacerbated the affordability crisis. The Strait of Hormuz, where nearly a quarter of the world’s oil is transported through, has effectively been closed since late February when the conflict started. Oil prices have skyrocketed as a result, with the average price of gas in all 50 states hitting $4 last month, the highest they’ve been in four years. 

The increase in oil prices has led to higher grocery and goods prices, since they are largely transported by diesel-fueled trucks. 

Confidence in finding a new job has steadily fallen, with 15% of respondents believing that they could lose their job within the next year. The Trump administration hasn’t exactly helped with this problem, as it spent much of its first year conducting rampant layoffs throughout the federal government. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers lost their jobs last year, with many of them still being unable to find new work. 

Even if someone has job security, they’re not insulated from the affordability crisis. While wages increased by 3.4% last month, inflation increased by 3.8%, effectively neutralizing those gains. Three-quarters of respondents to a poll conducted by CBS News believed that their wages weren’t keeping up with inflation. 

With all these financial roadblocks, it should come as no surprise that credit card delinquencies are hitting their highest rate since 2011, when the economy was still recovering from the Great Recession. The Trump administration continually points to the stock market as a sign of the economy’s strength, but it has largely been propped up by speculative investing in AI companies. When (former) shoe company Allbirds saw its stock price surge after announcing its pivot to AI, that should be a sign that current market conditions are unsustainable. 

This feeling has only been exacerbated this week after Bank of America advised investors to sell their stocks, as several bear market indicators have triggered. A bear market is when stocks decline 20% from a recent high. 

So whether you’re a working-class American or a white-collar investor, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Trump’s economy isn’t really working for anyone. 

SEE ALSO:

Senate Democrats Estimate Iran War Cost Americans $8.4B In Gas Prices

Poll Shows A Third Of Americans Skipping Meals To Cover Health Care Costs 

Voting is the linchpin of our democracy. But as the nation nears its 250th birthday, it is appropriate to question not only the strength of the franchise, but whether we are now living in an illusion of democracy itself.

To assess democracy in this moment without the benefit of a spiritual gaze is to become discouraged.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Louisiana v. Callais, struck down Louisiana’s former congressional map, which included two majority-Black districts, a change necessary given Black population growth in the state. The ruling did not merely reshape one state’s congressional map. It sent a signal to legislatures across the country that racial vote dilution can once again hide beneath the language of partisan advantage. The decision further weakened Section 2 of the landmark Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965.

In pursuit of the right to vote, the Honorable John Lewis, Hosea Williams, and others marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. They faced brutal retaliation that included beatings, fire hoses, and vicious attacks from dogs. The nation watched in horror. Some finally understood the pain that stalked Black bodies in a nation that espoused freedom and liberty for all.

To understand Louisiana v. Callais, you must also understand Shelby v. Holder. The assault on voting rights did not begin this spring. It did not even begin with the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision gutting Sections 4 and 5 of the VRA, which required federal preclearance of voting changes in states with histories of discrimination. These decisions are part of a broader effort to dilute the political power of Black Americans and other communities whose growing influence threatens entrenched power structures.

Even before Shelby, voting rights were undermined through restrictive voter ID laws, intimidation at the polls, insufficient polling place resources, and other suppression schemes. From slavery to Reconstruction to Jim Crow to the Southern Strategy, one tactic after another was deployed to deny and abridge the right to vote.

All of this was motivated by racial animus.

Missouri is not insulated from this moment. Recently, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the state’s Republican-drawn congressional map, allowing it to likely take effect for the midterms. The map was intentionally designed to target the Kansas City-area seat held by Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, a longtime Democratic member of Congress and former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. The newly drawn map is expected to shift Missouri’s congressional delegation from a 6-2 Republican advantage to a likely 7-1 advantage by fracturing Democratic voting strength in Kansas City.

At the same time, the court ruled against voting rights advocates who filed a referendum petition to place the map on the ballot before Missouri voters. A coalition gathered signatures to challenge the map through Missouri’s constitutional referendum process, arguing that voters, not legislators, should ultimately decide whether such aggressive gerrymandering should stand. But the Missouri Supreme Court determined that the filing of the referendum petition did not automatically suspend implementation of the map, the newly drawn districts will likely be used in upcoming elections even while legal and administrative disputes continue.

Each of these events reveals a deeper democratic crisis unfolding not only in Louisiana and Missouri, but across the country. Legislators are engineering district lines to predetermine political outcomes, they are diluting Black political representation despite population growth, and maps are taking effect before voters have a meaningful opportunity to challenge them. It is all quickly becoming an illusion of democracy where elections still occur, but representation itself is increasingly manipulated and decided long before ballots are cast.

There is no question that this moment is a bitter blow, but history also reminds us that there has never been a period in this nation where voting rights were enjoyed broadly and uncontestedly. Black people have always had to organize, litigate, mobilize, and sacrifice to protect the franchise.

I am not naïve. But I am also not without hope.

What lies before us cannot simply be a return to the pre-Shelby status quo. Even at its height, the Voting Rights Act did not fully protect Black political power from dilution and backlash. The future must be larger than restoration.

Congress has to restore and modernize the Voting Rights Act with protections responsive to contemporary suppression tactics. Federal legislation alone will not be enough. States have to fully lean into the power granted to states and adopt their own Voting Rights Acts, establish independent citizen-led redistricting commissions, expand early voting, implement automatic and same-day voter registration, restore voting rights for formerly incarcerated citizens, and create enforceable standards for equitable ballot access.

The next era of voting rights work must be both defensive and imaginative. We must protect the franchise while building a democracy robust enough to withstand demographic change, racial backlash and authoritarian impulses.

History reminds us that every major expansion of democracy in this nation was once dismissed as unrealistic.

And yet people organized anyway.

The right to vote has never been secured because powerful institutions voluntarily surrendered power. It has been secured because ordinary people insisted that democracy become more honest than the nation was willing to be.

We have now been invited to do the same.

Rev. Bethany Johnson-Javois is president & CEO of the Deaconess Foundation.

SEE ALSO:

Le[e]gal Brief: How To Protect Black Voting Rights

SCOTUS Callais Decision Delivers Major Blow To Black Voting Rights

 Come, go back with me to Los Angeles, March 16, 1991. 

It’s barely two weeks after the videotaped beating of Rodney King. Latasha Harlins, 15, stops inside a convenience store with money in her hand. She tries to buy a bottle of orange juice as she is profiled by the store’s Korean-American owner, Soon Ja Du, who is watching the teen reflected in mirrors mounted around the store. Latasha put the orange juice in her backpack, not to steal it, but to carry it up to the counter.

As the teen reaches the counter, Du accuses her of stealing the juice before she could give her the money. Security footage shows the grown woman and teenager fighting. Latasha tries to leave after getting the best of the grocer. Du shoots her in the back of the head and she dies on the floor. 

A Black child was killed over a bottle of orange juice that cost $1.79. Read that sentence again.

Latasha’s killer was convicted of voluntary manslaughter but she never spent a day in prison. In the deep, ugly language of American racial permission, the message was clear. A merchant’s suspicion could outweigh a Black child’s life and it instructed everybody watching that if they ever feared a Black youth, the law might find room for their sympathy. 

And now, here we go again.

Thirty-five years later, 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton’s killing in Columbia, South Carolina, feels so hauntingly familiar. He too was profiled upon entering the store, and was suspected of stealing water by placing bottles inside his backpack. The store owner Chikei “Rick” Chow chased the boy 130 yards before shooting him dead in the street. A jury found Chow not guilty of murder on June 1, and sparked outrage across Black communities.

Once again, the legal system has reminded Black America that our children can be murdered in the marketplace and their killers can be afforded reasonable doubt. And once again Black communities are supposed to swallow our grief as the American legal system tells us that our children are disposable.

Orange juice. Water. Two Asian store owners. Two different cities. Two ordinary commercial spaces that depend on Black dollars. Two dead Black youth snatched from the future because they were considered a threat to property before they were recognized as human. That is the eerie and enraging throughline. The details are different, but the structure feels brutally familiar.

This is why Black folks are furious, and boycotts have erupted over the past few days. Once again, folks are saying, “Stop spending money with people who profile us, don’t respect or hire us, or see our children as human.”

I absolutely agree. But we also need to be honest and face a more painful truth because we’ve been fighting the same insult for decades.

The killings of Latasha and Cyrus did not emerge out of nowhere. 

Latasha’s killing happened in a city where Black folks had long complained about being followed, accused, overcharged, disrespected, and treated like criminals in Korean-owned stores planted inside Black neighborhoods. Korean immigrant merchants, many of them locked out of other parts of the American economy because of discrimination, had opened stores in Black communities that had been abandoned by white capital, redlined by banks, and starved by disinvestment. But there are no perfect victims in the history of American racism. You can be a non-white immigrant exploited by white supremacy and still learn to survive by practicing racism by standing on the backs of Black people.

In Columbia, South Carolina, where Cyrus was killed, there does not appear to have been a widely documented local history of Black–Asian boycotts. But the reaction to his death immediately tapped into a much older national memory of Black customers being racially profiled, assaulted, or killed in businesses that profit from Black communities.

Black communities have a long history of protesting and boycotting Asian-owned businesses over mistreatment, shoddy food, surveillance, violence, and economic extraction. The most notable protests and longest boycotts have taken place in  Los Angeles, Baltimore, and multiple Brooklyn neighborhoods.

The protests and boycotts are cycles that keep returning every few years. A Black customer is assaulted or killed. A video goes viral, and Black folks erupt. Influencers and community leaders call for a boycott, and folks share lists of Black-owned alternatives. People vow they are done this time. We hold strong for a few days or weeks, and then, the boycott fades because our anger is not infrastructure.

So we boycott.  Okay, and go where? 

Where are people supposed to go when the corner store, beauty supply shop, nail salon, carryout, gas station, and discount store are all owned by somebody else? Where are the Black-owned beauty supply chains with comparable inventory and prices? Where are the Black-owned nail salons in every neighborhood? Where are the Black grocers, distributors, wholesalers, lenders, landlords, and commercial corridors? Where is the capital? Where are the cooperative buying networks? Where is the political protection for Black business owners trying to enter industries where other groups already control supply chains?

Let’s keep it 100: the retail ecosystem has already been structured so that our choices are limited, externally owned, undercapitalized, and extractive.

And the data backs this up. Black-owned businesses have grown over the years, but they are still wildly underrepresented. The most recent Census data estimates that there are over 194,000 Black-owned employer businesses in the U.S., netting over $211 billion in annual receipts. Sounds impressive, right? But remember, Black people are roughly 14%of the country, and Black-owned employer firms remain only a small share of all employer businesses overall. According to the Pew Research Center, Black-owned businesses accounted for only about 3% of all classifiable U.S. firms in 2022. 

Black people are constantly told to “just boycott,” as if withdrawing our dollars is simple when we do not own the economic ecosystem around us. We are told to stop shopping at businesses that mistreat us while living in neighborhoods where those businesses often became dominant because banks, city governments, real estate markets, and white capital spent generations making Black ownership nearly impossible.

Now some Asian influencers are talking about anti-Black racism in Asian communities, and that’s good. That conversation is long overdue. And some Asian influencers have been spewing racist rants in viral videos, proving that anti-Blackness does not only wear a white hood. Sometimes it speaks another language and stands behind a plexiglass counter. Sometimes it performs immigrant struggle while treating Black customers like criminals. But that conversation cannot only surface when Black people threaten the cash register. It cannot only become urgent when there are calls for boycotts. 

But if our only response is “boycott Asian businesses,” we risk flattening a complicated history into a racial slogan that is too blunt to build anything lasting. The issue is not that Asian people own stores. The issue is that too many non-Black businesses have been allowed to extract from Black communities while treating Black people as criminals. The issue is racial capitalism and anti-Blackness in the marketplace. 

If Asian communities want to talk honestly about anti-Black racism, then the question cannot simply be, “Why are Black people angry at us?” The question must be, “Why have so many Black people had the same kinds of experiences in our businesses for generations?”

And if we’re going to boycott, we need demands, timelines, and community enforcement. We need public accountability standards for businesses operating in Black neighborhoods. We must demand that businesses hire from the communities they profit from. We must also create local Black business funds, cooperative ownership models, community land trusts, Black-owned distributors, and neighborhood investment networks. We need to build solid alternatives before the next child is killed, instead of scrambling while grieving after the blood dries.

So yes, boycott hostile businesses that degrade us. But let’s not confuse refusal with freedom. A boycott is a door slam, but infrastructure is an exit.

SEE ALSO:

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Cyrus Carmack-Belton’s Killer Found Not Guilty Of Murder

Welp, Game 3 of the NBA finals ended in the New York Knicks’ first loss of the series Monday night, as the San Antonio Spurs won 115-111, but hey, at least Knicks fans got to blow off a little steam by booing President Donald Trump.

That’s right, good people, the fine folks at Madison Square Garden hit Trump with the same reception he got at the U.S. Open, the Super Bowl, the Kennedy Center and, for whatever reason, in Scotland. But you know what, Trump will be fine. At this point, the president should be used to receiving more hate than love whenever he veers out of the safe confines of a MAGA rally.

You know who we should really be checking on? Stephen A. Smith.

Ahead of Game 3, the ESPN analysis declared that Trump should not be showing up for the game, suggesting that it would be bad for logistics, bad for the vibe, and generally bad for New Yorkers.

“This is strictly a basketball segment,” Smith said. “This president has no business showing up in New York City. I am dead serious. It is selfish. It is narcissistic. It is ridiculous that he is coming to this game. I would say the same thing if it were Obama, George W., or Clinton. I don’t give a damn if we went back to Reagan. This is not a football stadium in some space in Texas where you got a whole bunch of outlays and all of this. This is the garden. This is Midtown Manhattan. Do you have any idea what the congestion is gonna be like in New York City here?”

Smith even went as far as to say he would blame Trump if the Knicks lost.

“If it causes the New York Knicks to lose tonight, I’m blaming him. I’m blaming the president of the United States! And damnit, I hope the GOP loses votes because of it if we lose tonight!” he said.

Smith, of course, made sure to include that his position on the matter was “not about politics,” it was just all about the game.

“This is about an individual engaging in a level of narcissism that really rakes my freakin’ nerves. He’s got no business here tonight. It has nothing to do with politics,” Smith said. “It was everything to do with the fervor that exists around the New York Knicks and he is disrupting everything the Knicks have been vibing with.”

You have to understand, Smith generally likes Trump. He has thrown on a cape for our orangey-white nationalist president plenty of times, defending Trump against allegations of anti-Black racism, and even going at his political opponents for not checking their tone while talking about the president, who has never consistently been respectful to anyone, let alone his detractors.

But now, Smith appears to be one of Trump’s detractors, and because he’s a Black man, that means when Trump hits back at him, there will definitely be an attack on his IQ, because “low IQ” has been his default insult reserved almost exclusively for Black people on the wrong side of him.

After the game, a reporter asked Trump about the boos he received during the national anthem, and, as predicted, he retreated into his delusions, saying, “I think mostly cheers; it was loud and it was very enthusiastic.”

Then he was asked about Smith, and, to be fair, he did make a rare attempt at being cordial towards the sports analyst who usually speaks highly of him — before essentially calling him a low-IQ moron.

“I think he’s a nice guy, but you need a certain aptitude to run for president. You need a high IQ. I’m not sure that Stephen has that. I don’t think he does actually,” Trump told reporters.

So, there it is. As usual, Black people are only useful to Trump as long as they are shuckin’ and jivin’ and showering their MAGA massa with praises, but the second they start bucking, he will let them know they’re just another n*gga.

Now, Smith could grow a spine and clap back at Trump by pointing out that the president doesn’t know the difference between IQ tests and a dementia screening, and thinks it’s a flex that his doctors keep having him take the latter. But Smith won’t do that. He’s just too much of a good old boy when he knows white folks are watching.

Sad.

SEE ALSO:

Trump Storms Out Of ‘Meet The Press’ Interview Because Some Journalists Are Actually Doing Their Jobs

Don Lemon Slams Stephen A. Smith For ‘Making Excuses For White People’