Racism in America - Page 2
Learn more about racism in America, the events, the laws, the violence and how racism helped shape America.
Racism in the United States has been widespread since the colonial era. Legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights were given to white Americans but denied to all other races. The KKK, white mobs and other white supremacist groups have killed more Americans than terrorist have. The KKK may have given up their sheets for suites and changed their name to the alt-right or other names to hide who they are, but at their core, they are white people who hate black people, people whose skin is not white and Jews. White Racist Have Been Killing and Terrorizing Black People for Over 150 Years; if black lives mattered in America, the KKK and other white supremacist groups would be branded as the domestic terrorist groups they are and government resources would be devoted to combating them. #WhiteSupremacist, #WhiteNationalist, #RightWingExtremists, #KKK,#Racism, #Hate
Story by Kimmy YamAnew law in Florida mandates the teaching of Asian American and Pacific Islander history in public schools. But many Asian Americans are not celebrating, pointing to how other marginalized communities are being impacted by the state heavily limiting the instruction of systemic racism and gender identity in the classroom.Asian American academics and civil rights organizations are speaking out after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill last week, requiring that Asian American and Pacific Islander history to be included in the K-12 curriculum. The measure coincides with another bill signed into law on Monday to no longer permit public colleges to spend money on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. It also limits the way race and gender will be taught in the state’s higher education institutions.Gregg Orton, national director of National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, a coalition of 38 AAPI organizations, said the history law is far from a “win” for the Asian American community, adding that “racial justice can’t be a zero-sum game for communities of color.”
Story by Carron J. PhillipsNever go anywhere you aren’t invited. This week, Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis did his best to uninvite anyone that isn’t white to the state’s colleges and universities. It’s time educators of color, Black athletes, and the NCAA boycott baby Trump.“If you look at the way this has actually been implemented across the country, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination,” DeSantis said at a news conference earlier in the week. “And that has no place in our public institutions. This bill says the whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in the state of Florida.”The state will no longer spend money on DEI initiatives at its public institutes of higher learning. In case you didn’t know, DEI programs help predominantly white institutions (PWIs) increase diversity amongst their faculty and student body. Race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status all fall under the DEI umbrella. Florida is joining 19 other racist states where politicians have aimed at similar programs. The only saving grace is that the new law doesn’t affect schools spending money on DEI programs if they’re federally mandated.
Story by David Oliver, USA TODAYActions speak louder than words. But words spouted through literal and figurative megaphones can still be heard for miles – especially in a polarized political climate. Take GOP Sen. John Kennedy's comments about Mexico at a recent hearing."Without the people of America, Mexico, figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback," the Louisiana congressman said. He was questioning Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram and inquired about fentanyl moving from Mexico to the U.S. while also comparing the countries' economies.The Mexican ambassador to the U.S., Esteban Moctezuma, called Kennedy's words "vulgar and racist." Experts say these comments are a reflection of our current political era – but people need to remember that words have consequences. A small ripple could soar into a tidal wave, especially if speakers have a high-wattage platform.
Opinion by Rex Huppke, USA TODAYRon DeSantis, Florida’s governor, did the white thing Monday, signing a bill that pulls all state funding from diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the state’s public universities.For people who have never once had to worry about or value diversity, equity or inclusion, this was definitely the white move. It protects students who don’t want to be told things they don’t want to hear from potentially hearing things they don’t want to learn.Ron DeSantis is merely asking the most diverse generation ever to forget this whole 'diversity' thingThat’s what DeSantis and his supporters would call “progress,” and they’re absolutely white. If there’s one thing we know about the current crop of Generation Z college students, according to the Pew Research Center, it’s that they “are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation.”
Story by ashoaib@insider.com (Alia Shoaib)The Pentagon leak suspect Jack Teixeira was preparing for what he envisioned would be a violent "race war," according to The Washington Post.Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard member, was arrested last month in connection with the leak of dozens of top-secret Pentagon documents about the war in Ukraine and other national security issues.The Washington Post said it uncovered his racist views and suspicion of the government by interviewing several of his close friends and reviewing previously unpublished videos and chat logs."He used the term 'race war' quite a few times," a close friend of Teixeira's, who spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity, said."He did call himself racist – multiple times," the friend said. "I would say he was proud of it."The Post obtained a video of Teixeira shooting a semiautomatic rifle, using antisemitic and antiblack language, and saying his response is to "mag dump."
Story by David Badash, The New Civil Rights MovementMississippi’s Republican Governor Tate Reeves, who has the highest firearm mortality rate in the entire country, this week launched his re-election campaign with a video depicting him as Clint Eastwood shooting people of color. Although the video (below) was released Tuesday, few seemed to notice until a Talking Points Memo article was published Friday afternoon.“Reeves’ face is superimposed on Eastwood’s in clips from the classic Dollars trilogy movies. He’s seen cosplaying the white anti-hero, the Man with No Name, shooting at Mexican bandits with a Colt revolver and puffing on a cigarillo,” TPM’s Emine Yücel writes.In addition to the inherent racism and violence in the video, there is no policy discussed, and not even any bragging about Reeves’ record. There may be a reason for that. Governor Reeves almost from the start of the coronavirus pandemic – due to policy choices he made – has one of the absolute worst records on COVID in the country.
Story by Kelly McClureMississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) solidified a theme of targeting people of other ethnic backgrounds beyond Wonder Bread white when he dedicated the month of April to the celebration of Confederate heritage in 2020.To announce that he'll be seeking a second term, Reeves is furthering that theme with a troubling campaign video featuring his face superimposed over Clint Eastwood, gunning down people of color with a Colt revolver.Mississippi governor takes break from pandemic to declare "Confederate Heritage Month" Response to the video, which Tate shared to Twitter on Tuesday, ranges from "Vile" and "Who thought this was a good idea?" to "You can put a poncho on a potato, but it's still a potato."
By Oliver Darcy, CNN BusinessNew York CNN — Tucker Carlson sent a racist text message that “set off a panic at the highest levels of Fox” and ultimately led to his firing, The New York Times reported Tuesday. But the abhorrent racism Carlson put on display should not have surprised anyone at Fox.After all, Carlson openly employed white nationalist rhetoric on his Fox News program for years. Groups like the Anti-Defamation League, GLAAD and Black Lives Matter repeatedly warned Fox executives and pleaded with the network to take action, all to no avail.In the January 2021 text message first reported by The Times and later confirmed by CNN, Carlson wrote to a producer about an online video of a group of Trump supporters “pounding the living s**t” out of a protester. The text, which was redacted in court filings, was just one of several private conversations collected in the massive defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News.“It was three against one, at least,” Carlson wrote to the unidentified producer. “Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it.” Soon after, “an alarm went off” in his brain, Carlson added, telling his producer he realized he was “becoming something” he didn’t “want to be.”
Story by Marisa SarnoffThe governor of Oklahoma is calling for the resignation of county officials who were reportedly caught on tape complaining that law enforcement can no longer “take a damn Black guy and whoop their ass” and comparing the burned body of a fire victim to “barbecue.”Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) says that McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, county Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning, and Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix must step down after the recordings, taken by longtime local journalist Bruce Wellingham, were published, The Associated Press reported. A transcript of the recordings, which includes links to the audio files, provided to the AP purportedly revealed the disturbing conversations between county officials after a county commissioner’s meeting had closed to the public on March 6.The officials are apparently heard complaining that they can’t commit violence against Black people without repercussions.
Story by Cheyanne M. DanielsOklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) has called for the McCurtain County sheriff and multiple county officials to resign after leaked audio showed the county leaders discussing killing local reporters and lynching Black people.Sheriff Kevin Clardy, his investigator Alicia Manning, Commissioners Mark Jennings and Robert Beck, commissioners’ secretary Heather Carter and jail administrator Larry Hendrix were speaking with one other after the March 6 meeting of the county Board of Commissioners, according to the McCurtain Gazette-News.“There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office,” said Stitt. “I will not stand idly by while this takes place.
Story by Kalyn WomackA Travis County judge unsealed court documents that revealed a series of racist social posts and messages shared by Daniel Perry, the man convicted in fatally shooting a Black Lives Matter protester, according to Austin American-Statesman. Perry’s conviction was recently challenged by Gov. Greg Abbott who sought to pardon him.Perry issued a number of anti-BLM messages ahead of the shooting that seem to support his guilty conviction way more than the governor’s notion that he killed the demonstrator in simple self-defense. “Black Lives Matter is racist to white people...It is official I am racist because I do not agree with people acting like monkeys,” he wrote in one post.In other posts, he slammed the BLM movement for promoting a “victim mentality,” he argued that George Floyd wasn’t a martyr and made threats against BLM demonstrators believing they’d attack him because he is Jewish. He even made a post saying if people believe the Confederate flag represents racism, then so does the NAACP logo. Yes, you read that correctly. All these red flags and desperate attempts to justify his own racism sound more like he was looking for a problem July 26, 2020.
Story by Ny MaGee*A Texas man has reportedly been sentenced to 70 years in prison for spitting at police officers during a 2022 arrest. The incident occurred last May when Larry Pearson, 36, was arrested on domestic violence charges after allegedly repeatedly striking a woman in the face and leaving her with "multiple visible injuries," according to EverythingLubbock.com.Pearson allegedly threw a wild tantrum when Lubbock police refused to arrest the victim. While detained in the police cruiser, he reportedly kicked the door and spat at two cops who demanded he stops. Pearson continued to spit at officers once at the Lubbock County Detention Center. Pearson, who had prior convictions, was ultimately found guilty of two counts of harassment of a public servant.
Story by Jolie McCulloughDaniel Perry, whom Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pledged to pardon for the murder of an Austin protester, often made racist comments and regularly made clear his desire to kill protesters in the months leading up to Garrett Foster’s death, according to social media posts and texts contained in newly unsealed court documents. On May 29, 2020, days after George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer prompted nationwide protests, Perry sent a text message saying, “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”Two days later, according to the records, Perry said in a Facebook message that when he is in Dallas, “no protestors go near me or my car.” “Can you catch me a negro daddy,” the other man replied. “That is what I am hoping,” Perry said. In June, Perry sent text messages from an unknown area detailing bars closing and “the blacks … gathering up in a group I think something is about to happen.” “I wonder if they will let my cut the ears off of people who’s decided to commit suicide by me,” he added. The court records, released Thursday, contain evidence pulled from Perry’s phone records and social media accounts. Prosecutors had filed the sealed 82-page document in March, but much of it was not brought before jurors. Information depicting a defendant’s character is often not allowed to be introduced while a jury weighs guilt versus innocence, but becomes relevant in a sentencing hearing.
Opinion by Jarvis DeBerryFew people are looking better right now than Tennessee state Rep. Justin J. Pearson, one of two Black Democratic legislators who were reinstated to the state House days after Republican colleagues expelled him for standing with residents demanding gun control legislation. And few people are looking worse than those Tennessee Republicans who in their attempt to heap shame upon two young Black men brought shame upon themselves. Those Republicans also lost the ground they were trying to defend. Tuesday, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order strengthening background checks in the state.
Opinion by Tommy ChristopherFox News host Tucker Carlson fired off a rant about expelled-then-reinstated Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson that was so racist, his critics declared it “Shockingly racist even for Tucker Carlson” — a mighty big claim.Rep. Pearson is the Black lawmaker whom the Tennessee House voted to expel along with Rep. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson over a protest calling for gun reform in the wake of the shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School that killed six people. They spared Gloria Johnson, a 60-year-old white woman who participated in the protest. That disparity has been flagged by the Tennessee Three and others as a racist double standard.On Wednesday, Pearson was reinstated to the legislature, days after Jones, too, was reinstated. Also Wednesday, conservatives continued a collective freakout over the fact that Jones used to not have an afro, and now he has an afro, and he was less militant seven years ago in a student council campaign video than he is now.
Story by Josephine HarveyTucker Carlson went on an overtly racist tirade against a Tennessee state lawmaker on Wednesday night, suggesting Democratic Rep. Justin Pearson speaks like a “sharecropper” and got into college only because he’s Black.Pearson is one of two Black lawmakers recently expelled from the state legislature by the GOP supermajority for joining protesters who chanted in the House chamber in support of gun control following a school shooting that left six people dead in Nashville last month. Pearson was reinstated Wednesday by the Shelby County Board of Commissioners in Memphis, and state Rep. Justin Jones was reinstated Monday by Nashville’s Metro Council.In a Fox News segment attacking Pearson and other Democrats for what he called “mimicking civil rights leaders,” Carlson said Pearson had changed his demeanor over the years from that of a “crypto white kid” into “the “modern incarnation of Martin Luther King Jr. himself.”
Story by Heather Digby PartonThe last few years have seen a new round of vigilante killings in America, the likes of which we haven't seen since the civil rights movement. And under a new interpretation of the meaning of self-defense, many are getting away with it.Recall a few years back when an armed man named George Zimmerman down in Florida thought a young Black kid named Trayvon Martin looked suspicious so he jumped him and when the startled teenager fought back, Zimmerman shot and killed the boy. He said he felt threatened and was only defending himself. The jury acquitted him.More recently, a young white man named Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of murder charges in Kenosha, Wisconsin when he waded into a protest armed with an AR-15 and killed two unarmed men, wounding a third. Rittenhouse may have been the one armed with a semi-automatic rifle but he said he felt threatened by the protesters so he opened fire. The jury found that to be a reasonable reaction.
Story by Jessica WashingtonIt’s no secret that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has a contentious relationship with Black Americans. And the Republican Governor certainly didn’t help his case when he went on a tirade against African American studies. But some of his more public moves aside, it’s what he’s done to voting rights in the state that has got Black Floridians on edge.Since entering office, DeSantis has waged an unprecedented attack on Black voters and Black political power in Florida.The accusations against DeSantis include allegations that he gerrymandered Black voting power into oblivion and pushed through voting restrictions in an attempt to scare and confuse Black voters into staying home.Let’s start with his gerrymandering strategy. We now have ample reporting from ProPublica and The Guardian that DeSantis was deeply involved in redrawing the new congressional district maps last year. According to reporting from The Guardian, DeSantis’s new map not only heavily favored Republicans, but it also cut the number of districts where Black voters had a chance to elect a candidate in half.
Story by Brad ReedNewly revealed text messages sent by police in Antioch, California show that officers for years engaged in racist conduct and celebrated their own brutality while facing no pushback at all from superiors. Among other things, the Mercury News reports, officers in Antioch made racist jokes about offering a "prime rib dinner" to anyone who shot Mayor Lamar Thorpe with projectors often used on protesters.Other messages show officers boasting about violence they inflicted on others while at times lamenting they didn't go further in making alleged perpetrators suffer. One particularly egregious text sent by Antioch Officer Eric Rombough lamented that the injuries he inflicted on a suspect wouldn't be as readily visible as he had hoped.
Story by Brianna HoltSince the rise of Instagram, a new form of physical cultural appropriation has grown in popularity among non-Black women who make cosmetic alterations or edit their photos in ways that present themselves as less European-looking, racially ambiguous, or of mixed ancestry. The phenomenon has a name: blackfishing. Coined in 2018 by journalist Wanna Thompson after she realized a new wave of white women was cosplaying as Black women on social media, blackfishing describes someone who is accused of pretending to be Black on social media by using makeup, hair products, and in some cases surgery to drastically alter their appearance to achieve a Black or mixed-race look. With the additions of deep self-tanner and filler-injected lips, coupled with manipulated hairstyles and wigs, and sometimes surgery to widen the hips or enlarge the butt, the previous look of white women with naturally pale skin, classic European facial features, thin bodies, and straight hair has transformed into a look that appears mixed-raced of some sort. Some Instagram influencers, like Swedish model Emma Hallberg, @emmahallberg (who is infamous for being the first documented example of the practice of blackfishing), have been able to fool their fans, white and Black, into believing they are not white. Meanwhile, some non-Black celebrities, like Kylie Jenner and Ariana Grande, have quietly adopted the look, causing some fans to associate their sudden change in features with puberty as opposed to some of the alterations found in blackfishing.
Story by SimoneIn today’s episode of audacity is at an all-time high, a Georgia football coach and trainer filmed his own racist rant seen in now-viral video clips. Mark Taylor, the owner of Speed Edge Sports, is under fire after posting several videos online of him making deplorable remarks about Atlanta residents, even saying he’d get someone to hang Black people in the city.The man in question is known for training high school and college football players, preparing them for the next level. On his personal Facebook profile, he’s seen posing for photos with Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney, Alabama’s Nick Saban, Florida’s former coach Dan Mullen and numerous black players, including Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts.In the clips posted to social media, Taylor is driving around and recording while saying, “I ain’t seen a white person in sight. Homeless ones on the street. Every restaurant looking in here is Black. Every car beside them is Black. They can have Atlanta.”
Story by Brad ReedFormer President Donald Trump on Monday morning wasn't just content to attack the man whom he appointed to be his attorney general, he also lashed out at prosecutors of all stripes for purportedly leading political investigations into his conduct.Shortly after he criticized "slovenly" former Attorney General Bill Barr for saying he would likely be indicted for refusing to return top-secret government documents he'd stashed at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump took aim at every person investigating him with an all-caps rage post on his Truth Social platform.
Tennessee GOP lawmakers expelled the two Black Democrats but not the White DemocratBy Kerry BreenRepublican lawmakers in Tennessee voted on Thursday to expel two Democratic legislators who joined a protest on the House floor last week after a deadly school shooting in Nashville. On March 30, protesters gathered at the State Capitol, and Democratic Reps. Justin Jones, Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson led a chant of "power to the people" from the House floor.On Thursday, lawmakers first voted 72-25 to expel Jones, 27, one of the youngest members of the legislature. The resolution to expel Johnson failed by one vote, 65 to 30. But Pearson, 28, was also expelled, in a 69-26 vote. The GOP supermajority had accused the representatives of breaking house rules on conduct and decorum. "A state in which the Ku Klux Klan was founded is now attempting another power grab by silencing the two youngest Black representatives," Jones said after the votes.
Story by Kalyn WomackThe Florida chapters of the NAACP has warned Black people to not move to or visit the state of Florida amidst their aggressive legislation against African American studies, per NBC Miami. Their concern is that these education bills may roll over into socioeconomic legislation affecting Black people.Can we be honest? The only reason to visit Florida is for the theme parks and maybe the beach for spring break, but even that is becoming tired. Gov. Ron DeSantis has been signing bills left and right for the past two years that could convince any Black person not to move there unless they were fine with their kids being barred access to books like it’s Fahrenheit 451. Given the restrictions of anti-racist learning, the NAACP Miami-Dade branch voted this month to ask the national NAACP to advise Black folks to avoid the Sunshine state completely.
Story by Mark Joseph SternFollowing their successful effort to nullify the District of Columbia’s revised criminal code earlier this month, House Republicans set their sights on a new target: a set of modest reforms designed to increase accountability and transparency in D.C. law enforcement. Republicans were clearly hoping for a do-over of the criminal code debacle, forcing a difficult vote that would divide the Democratic Party and subject moderates to “soft-on-crime” smears.It appears that they badly miscalculated. A Wednesday hearing on the GOP bill went disastrously for Republicans as white GOP congressmen lobbed blatantly racist insults at the District (whose population is majority-minority). Just one day later, after intense lobbying from the Congressional Black Caucus, President Joe Biden declared that he would veto the override bill if it reached his desk. The Democrats’ united front provides a night-and-day contrast to their treatment of the criminal code nullification bill. It’s a sign that the party is shifting back to its previous support for D.C. autonomy. It’s also evidence that Biden hasn’t abandoned support for police reform despite his tough-on-crime rhetoric earlier this month. And just as importantly, it’s proof that even as he shifts right in advance of 2024, the president will still stand up to a belligerent police union that will pillory his position as an attack on cops.
Story by Stephen SilverDonald Trump calls Alvin Bragg, the district attorney who may soon indict him, an “animal”: In a racially-tinged tirade on Truth Social, the former president also highlighted Bragg’s links to billionaire and conservative boogeyman George Soros.Donald Trump and His Latest RantDonald Trump predicted last week that he would be indicted this week, although, with the delay of a pair of grand jury proceedings, it’s likely that any criminal charges for the ex-president will arrive next week at the earliest.But in the meantime, Trump has been teeing off against the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in increasingly personal and cruel terms, going so far as to denounce Bragg as a “Soros-backed animal.”“WHY WON’T BRAGG DROP THIS CASE? EVERYBODY SAYS THERE IS NO CRIME HERE. I DID NOTHING WRONG! IT WAS ALL MADE UP BY A CONVICTED NUT JOB WITH ZERO CREDIBILITY, WHO HAS BEEN DISPUTED BY HIGHLY RESPECTED PROFESSIONALS AT EVERY TURN,” Trump said in an all-caps Truth Social post Thursday. “BRAGG REFUSES TO STOP DESPITE OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY. HE IS A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL WHO JUST DOESN’T CARE ABOUT RIGHT OR WRONG NO MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HURT. THIS IS NO LEGAL SYSTEM, THIS IS THE GESTAPO, THIS IS RUSSIA AND CHINA, BUT WORSE. DISGRACEFUL!”
Opinion by Sarah PosnerNorth Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, according to a report from Talking Points Memo, has for years used his Facebook feed to promote racist, antisemitic, homophobic and transphobic viewpoints and memes. Elected in 2020, the Republican is reportedly considering a run for governor next year. He is a rising star on the Christian right, and his cache of appalling social media posts is further evidence that there is no daylight between the movement that bills itself as being committed to “family values” and “religious freedom” and the swamps of the bigoted far right.The lieutenant governor’s prolific Facebook posts promoted a hodgepodge of familiar right-wing conspiracy theories, blaming “globalists,” the “occult” and “the New World Order” for America’s woes. He used racist epithets against the Revs. William Barber and Al Sharpton, the civil rights activists, and claimed expressions of “white pride” aren’t racist. He rejected his own membership in the Black community, writing, “Why would I want to be part of a ‘community’ that sucks from the putrid tit of the government and then complains about getting sour milk?” He dabbled in antisemitic conspiracy theories and regularly posted homophobic and transphobic statements, among them calling homosexuality “a FILTHY ABOMINATION, that satisfies your degenerate, un-natural lust.” (Robinson hasn’t responded to requests for comment from Talking Points Memo or other outlets covering the story.)
Opinion by Amanda MarcotteGov. Ron DeSantis made a name for himself by bragging that his state of Florida is where "woke goes to die." He, like most Republicans, sprints away from anyone asking him what exactly he means by the word "woke." Still, the past year in Florida, where educators have been crushed under various "anti-woke" laws signed by DeSantis, has made the parameters quite clear: "Woke" is acknowledging that racism is a thing that ever happened and/or accepting that LGBTQ people exist. DeSantis' vision for Florida is very much Disney in its most reactionary, "Song of the South" era. But probably with fewer kids reading since books are categorically viewed with suspicion in DeSantis' "anti-woke" paradise.Despite DeSantis' Florida-centric language when he talks about schools, however, it's long been clear that the ambitious plans to decimate education extend past the Sunshine State's borders and across the U.S. He's not a lone figure who just happens to have a crippling obsession with keeping kids from reading. DeSantis is really just the most prominent figure in what is a national GOP campaign to destroy the educational system, remaking it into a propaganda system for various right-wing hobbyhorses, no matter how disassociated from reality they may be. The GOP war on education dramatically expanded last week in when the Republican-controlled state government in Texas wrested control of the House Independent School District from local leaders.
Story by Rachel SharpOne day in October, Rasheem Carter sent a chilling final text message to his mother. The Black 25-year-old told her he was being chased by a group of white men in pickup trucks while they hurled racist abuse at him. She never heard from him again. One month later, Carter’s remains were discovered in a wooded area – his head completely severed from his body, according to the family. So why are Mississippi authorities saying that there are “no signs” of foul play? Here’s what we know so far about the case:DisappearanceIt was 1 October when Carter sent an ominous text message to his mother. Carter, a welder who lived in Fayette, Mississippi, had gotten a short-term job as a contractor around 100 miles away in Taylorsville. His mother Tiffany Carter said that he was saving money to try to get his seafood restaurant back up and running after it was shuttered during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Story by Travis GettysSome parents in New York are unhappy with the response of school officials to a series of TikTok videos depicting a shooting and making violent threats against Black students. Three students allegedly made the videos, one of which shows George Fischer Middle School principal John Piscitella talking with a 37-second racist rant overdubbed and a school shooting threat against Black students, and another formatted the same way with the overdubbed voice slurring Black and Hispanic people and making lynching threats, reported the Rockland/Westchester Journal News."I'll hang you like the KKK," the voice says. "The KKK legacy will return." The Putnam County sheriff's office investigated and quickly determined the students hadn't broken any laws, but parents are worried the threats weren't being taken seriously enough by school officials or law enforcement. "Who's to say these teens won't retaliate when they return?" said parent Abigail Santana. She said her middle-schooler and others had seen a recording that showed a video game with characters shooting at Black and brown students in a classroom at the Carmel school, and one legal expert said the videos could be considered terroristic threats.
Story by Ken MeyerJoe Scarborough led Morning Joe in denouncing Dilbert creator Scott Adams for the “flat-out racism” of his recent comments about Black people. Newspapers around the country have been dropping Dilbert ever since Adams invoked a Rasmussen poll as the pretense for claiming that African Americans are a “hate group” that White people should “escape” from. “Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people,” Adams said on his YouTube show. “This can’t be fixed. You just have to escape.”As Morning Joe reviewed the blowback on Monday, Scarborough turned to Al Sharpton to say “this is just racism being called out,” and that Adams is also facing condemnation from opponents of cancel culture. Sharpton agreed, saying Adams “has the right to say” what he said, though Dilbert publishers have the right to reject the cartoonist as a consequence of his comments.“This is not a question of being taken out of context. This is not a question of saying something that you want to take back. This guy absolutely, unequivocally, advocated ‘Stay away from black people,'” Sharpton said. “For Elon Musk and others to come to his defense makes us really question where their stand is and when do they consider something bigoted and racist? Do you have to use the N-word outright? Even then, they may find a way to justify it.”
Is Elon Musk a white national or just racist? Elon Musk is wrong to call the people who removed a racist; racist, unless he supports the racism the racist guy was saying. Would that not make him a racist or just a racist sympathizer?By Sheila Dang(Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk on Sunday accused the media of being racist against whites and Asians after U.S. newspapers dropped a white comic strip author who made derogatory comments about Black Americans. The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and USA Today were among newspapers that canceled the cartoon "Dilbert" after its creator Scott Adams said Black Americans were a hate group and posted racist comments on his YouTube channel on Wednesday.In replies to tweets about the controversy, the Tesla and Twitter chief executive said the media had long been racist against non-white people but are now "racist against whites & Asians." "Maybe they can try not being racist," Musk tweeted. In response to an account that said white victims of police violence get a fraction of media coverage compared to Black victims, Musk said the coverage is "Very disproportionate to promote a false narrative."
Story by Brittany BernsteinHundreds of newspapers across the U.S. will no longer publish the Dilbert comic strip after cartoonist creator Scott Adams said black Americans are a “hate group” and encouraged white Americans to “get the hell away” from them. Adams’s comments came in response to a Rasmussen poll that found only a slight majority of black Americans agreed with the statement “It’s okay to be white.”“If nearly half of all blacks are not okay with white people — according to this poll, not according to me, according to this poll — that’s a hate group,” Adams said on his YouTube show on Wednesday. “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people . . . because there is no fixing this.” Adams went on to accuse black people of not “focusing on education.”“I’m also really sick of seeing video after video of black Americans beating up non-black citizens,” he later added. The video sparked widespread backlash, leading a host of newspapers to pull the long-running cartoon, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The USA Today network, which includes more than 300 newspapers, has canceled the comic strip as well saying it “will no longer publish the ‘Dilbert’ comic due to the recent discriminatory comments by its creator.”
Story by Gibson PreciousBlack ranchers who have documented the racial harassment they’ve endured were arrested Monday by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. For months, married couple Courtney and Nicole Mallery, who own acres of land in east El Paso County in Colorado, have documented the discrimination they’ve faced from white neighbors. They were thrust into the spotlight in January when a story published by the Ark Republic highlighted how their animals were brutally killed and racists vandalized their property while the Sheriff’s Office has seemingly turned a blind eye. However, with the Mallery’s Monday arrest, it appears law enforcement has picked a side.The Mallerys have a restraining order against neighbors Teresa and Bonnie Clark for harassing them. The Clarks have a protective order against the Clarks. However, according to the arrest documents, Deputy Sergeant Emery Gerhart says it was the Mallery’s that frequently bothered their neighbors. Gerhart claims a video shows Nicole stopping her car in front of the Clark property. She then exits and places her hands in the air saying, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” In another event, Nicole is seen on video using a loudspeaker to address Clark, insinuating that she that she should get ready “for Heaven.” Probably the most damning evidence against the Black couple was “unusual wiring coming from one of the transformers on one of the power poles.” The South East Power Company Association confirmed the power hook-up was not conducted by them.
Opinion by Mike Freeman, USA TODAYThe NHL recently had what seemed like a sensible idea. It was a job fair that was scheduled to be held on Feb. 2 called "Pathway to Hockey Summit." "Participants must be 18 years of age or older, based in the U.S., and identify as female, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and/or a person with a disability. Veterans are also welcome and encouraged to attend," the event description said. The NHL, a majority white league, was trying to take small steps to diversify itself. It's a noble cause and good business.However the press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Bryan Griffin, didn't think so, saying in a statement: "Discrimination of any sort is not welcome in the state of Florida, and we do not abide by the woke notion that discrimination should be overlooked if applied in a politically popular manner or against a politically unpopular demographic. We are fighting all discrimination in our schools and our workplaces, and we will fight it in publicly accessible places of meeting or activity."
Story by QueertyGay, New York Rep. Ritchie Torres saw one of his tweets go viral yesterday. Torres’ target was Florida’s Ron DeSantis. Torres claims DeSantis has followed up ‘Don’t Say Gay’ with a ‘Don’t Say Black’ schools policy. The tweet comes after Florida rejected proposals for a new Advanced Placement (AP) African-American studies course. The course has been devised by the College Board. The organization sets SAT tests and other programs. A pilot of the course is running in 60 schools nationwide. The College Board wrote to officials in Florida seeking approval to run the course in the state. However, a letter sent by the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Articulation to the College Board on January 12 said “as presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.”Ouch.According to Time, it’s the first new AP course since 2014. It spans 400 years of African American history. On hearing the news, Torres tweeted, “SHOCKING: Ron DeSantis has BANNED the teaching of AP African American Studies in Florida. Florida has gone from Don’t Say Gay to Don’t Say Black.”
Opinion by Jesse J. HollandStephen Miller was one of the most strident anti-immigrant, white-nationalist sympathizers in former President Donald Trump’s administration. And, believe me, sticking out for that reason in that administration is really saying something. After spending his time in Trump's administration maligning foreigners who want to come to America and promoting a zero-tolerance policy that ripped children from the arms of undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border, Miller is now on a mission to use the courts to eradicate what he says is bigotry targeting white men.“I think that it is inescapably true that there is insidious and explicit discrimination against White Americans, Asian Americans, Indian Americans and Jewish Americans based on their skin color and their ancestry,” he told The Washington Post. Note the people he included on his list of people he says are being discriminated against, and the people he excluded. His list makes clear the groups he’s targeting: African Americans and Hispanics and the laws that were crafted to help them overcome racism.
CNNMissile attacks have been reported across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, Odesa, Poltava, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv and Sumy. CNN teams in Kyiv have reported hearing explosions, as well as seeing and hearing missiles. They also heard the air defense systems working in the Ukrainian capital. CNN’s Will Ripley reports.
Opinion by Chauncey DeVegaAmerican democracy is in peril, teetering between democracy and authoritarianism and under siege by Donald Trump, the Republican Party and the larger white right. To call them "conservative" is an insult to language. In a recent Salon essay, historian Robert McElvaine addressed this directly, calling out "the media's ingrained tendency to aid and abet the enemies of democracy through the careless use of language," and especially "the ubiquitous use of the word 'conservative' to describe extreme right-wing radicals and their beliefs, which only seek to conserve white supremacy — and more specifically the class or caste supremacy of a small minority of wealthy and nominally Christian white men."Even President Biden, a career politician and a conflict-averse lifelong moderate who still yearns to "unite" America, has publicly warned that the "MAGA Republicans" — which at this point means nearly all Republicans — are the greatest internal threat to the country since the civil war. America's democracy crisis is a drama of raw political power, and a nationwide campaign by the Republican fascists to end America's multiracial democracy. If they prevail, Black and brown people, most women, LGBTQ people, those with disabilities, non-Christians (or liberal Christians), immigrants, poor people and anyone else targeted as the Other more generally (and thus deemed "un-American") will literally become second-class citizens both under the law and in daily life.
By Alex Henderson | AlterNetOn Wednesday, September 28, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) published the results of a study of White Americans and racial attitudes. The report is titled “Creating More Inclusive Public Spaces: Structural Racism, Confederate Memorials, and Building for the Future.” Washington Post opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin analyzes the report’s findings in a September 28 column, arguing that they show how deep racism runs in the MAGA movement. “It has long been understood that the MAGA movement is heavily dependent on White grievance and straight-up racism,” Rubin explains. “Hence Donald Trump’s refusal to disavow racist groups and his statement that there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ in the violent clashes at the White supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Now, we have numbers to prove it.”Rubin continues, “The connection between racism and the right-wing movement is apparent in a new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute. The survey asked respondents about 11 statements designed to probe views on racism…. The pollsters then used their answers to quantify a ‘structural racism index,’ which provides a general score from zero to 1 measuring a person’s attitudes on ‘White supremacy and racial inequality, the impact of discrimination on African-American economic mobility, the treatment of African- Americans in the criminal justice system, general perceptions of race, and whether racism is still significant problem today.’ Higher scores indicate a more receptive attitude to racist beliefs.” According to PRRI’s study, the “the median value on the structural racism index is 0.45, near the center of the scale.” And PRRI found that “the median score on the structural racism index for Republicans is 0.67, compared with 0.45 for independents and 0.27 for Democrats.” One of the things the surveyed “captures,” Rubin observes, is efforts “to rewrite the history of the Civil War and downplay or ignore the evil of slavery is on the right.”
Kalyn WomackWhen the students of Charles Page High School returned for the school year, they were greeted by a number of other students handing out “white privilege cards” in the hallways. According to Fox23 News, the BIPOC students who were fed up with the nonsense hosted a walk out in protest of the racism. The report says these cards, sold on Amazon, were seen nationally but this is the first time they were spotted locally in Oklahoma. The cards read, “White Privilege Trumps Everything. Member since birth. Good thru death. Card holder, Scott Free.” One student, Fabian Gaytan, said he was handed a card and called a racial slur in the same moment. Previously, a picture of a Black student circulated Snapchat, offering a cash reward “if caught.” Parents had previously complained about racism within the Sand Springs school district. This time, the students had enough.
Alexandra JaneAfter a midsummer meeting in June 2021, newly hired police chief RaShall Brackney felt the need to double down on her personal safety, unholstering her gun as she left headquarters. Brackney’s fear however was not prompted by the activity on the streets, or even the ongoing public threats made against the police department over the years. Instead, she found herself afraid of her own subordinates, cops who wanted her gone after making some controversial, yet necessary shake ups throughout the force.That same year, an internal probe was being conducted of the 15 member SWAT team. According to a report obtained by The Washington Post, there were more than just a few issues that required addressing. There was evidence of several officers making racist remarks. One text in particular read that they should “take out” the command staff. And while Brackney found this concerning, most others on staff blew the comment off. The report additionally found an officer training a new hire on how to hide misconduct.
Celina Tebor and Maria Aguilar, USA TODAYThe last road 50-year-old Ricardo Valdez ever walked along had only two lanes, but the speed limit was 55 mph. There were no street lights to illuminate his way and no sidewalks for him on that cold, midwestern January night. His mother isn't sure where he was going, but she knows one thing that was on his mind at the time: Saving up to leave Ohio.He wanted to live somewhere like Trinidad and Tobago, where he spent most summers growing up visiting family, said Rhona Noel, his mother. Maybe he would have gone south with his girlfriend and son to a city by the ocean, where it was warm year-round. She wishes the cars went slower down that road on the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio. Or that there were streetlights. Maybe that would have helped prevent the truck from hitting her son.
Paul Livengood, WFAA StaffOne day after the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, which gave constitutional abortion rights to women for more than 50 years, a Texas senator is now going viral online for comparing it to another landmark ruling that was overruled related to racial segregation. Sen. John Cornyn responded to a tweet by former president Barack Obama that denounced the Roe v. Wade decision. Cornyn's tweet said "Now do Plessy vs Ferguson/Brown vs Board of Education." That tweet quickly went viral online, with most speculating the Texas senator was suggesting SCOTUS reverse the Board v. Board of Education decision, including Texas Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro. Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark SCOTUS decision in 1954 – which partially overruled its 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson – declaring that the "separate but equal" notion was unconstitutional for American public schools and educational facilities. WFAA reached out to Sen. Cornyn's office about the tweet, and a spokesperson directed us to this follow up tweet, which said, "Thank goodness some SCOTUS precedents are overruled."
by Nicole CarrProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. This story and accompanying videos were co-published by ProPublica and FRONTLINE as part of an ongoing collaboration. In April of 2021, Cecelia Lewis had just returned to Maryland from a house-hunting trip in Georgia when she received the first red flag about her new job. The trip itself had gone well. Lewis and her husband had settled on a rental home in Woodstock, a small city with a charming downtown and a regular presence on best places to live lists. It was a short drive to her soon-to-be office at the Cherokee County School District and less than a half hour to her husband’s new corporate assignment. While the north Georgia county was new to the couple, the Atlanta area was not. They’d visited several times in recent years to see their son, who attended Georgia Tech.
Ed MazzaBlake Masters, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona who is backed by former President Donald Trump, claims gun violence is largely a racial issue. “We do have a gun violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence.” Masters told “The Jeff Oravits Show” podcast in April in comments that were spotted this week by The Daily Beast. “It’s people in Chicago, St. Louis shooting each other. Very often, you know, Black people, frankly,” Masters said. “And the Democrats don’t want to do anything about that.” Just weeks after his comments, 10 Black shoppers were murdered in a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. The suspect, who is white, allegedly targeted Black people during his killing spree. He was also reportedly a believer in “replacement theory,” a conspiracy theory that has spread in conservative media circles such as Fox News. As The Daily Beast noted, Masters has pushed that same theory, which claims Democrats are trying to replace white voters with people of color via immigration.
Associated PressHERNANDO, Miss. - A flyer on behalf of the Ku Klux Klan was reportedly left on the steps of a mostly Black church in rural Mississippi. According to a community member’s Facebook post, the flyer is in support of “The Old Glory Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” and states that the group is “alive and growing” in 14 states, including Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina.
Wbbm Newsradio Staff Report(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A mother and her adult son are defendants in what the Illinois Attorney General says is the first-ever hate crime lawsuit filed under a 2018 state measure. Cheryl Hampton, 67, and her son, 45-year-old Chad Hampton, systematically harassed and intimidated a Black neighbor in Carroll County, culminating in the pair using a noose to lynch an effigy of the minority resident from a tree in their front yard, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said. Raoul’s office said Cheryl Hampton and Chad Hampton, who are white, also displayed a racial slur alongside a Confederate flag and swastikas in direct view of the neighbor’s home in far northwest Illinois. “Our complaint alleges the defendants intentionally used the shameful history of lynching and racism in America to terrorize and instill fear in their next-door neighbor simply because he is Black. No one should be subjected to this kind of hate,” Raoul said in a news release Wednesday.
Bill Keveney, USA TODAYLOS ANGELES — The harm to African Americans that started with slavery persists to this day through systemic discrimination that requires California to make "comprehensive reparations" and extensive reforms in housing, education and the justice system, according to a sweeping report scheduled for release Wednesday by a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force. The panel, whose recommendations pertain to California, also urged the creation of a special office charged with providing a pathway for financial reparations for Black residents, according to a draft version of the report examined by USA TODAY. At more than 500 pages, the task force interim report extensively chronicles centuries of racial oppression from the start of slavery here in the 1600s to present-day inequities experienced by Black Americans in California and the rest of the country. It includes recommendations for repairing the damage in more than a dozen categories.
Steven Lee Myers and Stuart A. Thompson | The New York TimesOn March 30, the young man accused of the mass shooting at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo surfed through a smorgasbord of racist and antisemitic websites online. On BitChute, a video sharing site known for hosting right-wing extremism, he listened to a lecture on the decline of the American middle class by a Finnish extremist. On YouTube he found a lurid video of a car driving through Black neighborhoods in Detroit. Over the course of the week that followed, his online writing shows, he lingered in furtive chat rooms on Reddit and 4chan but also read articles on race in HuffPost and Medium. He watched local television news reports of gruesome crimes. He toggled between “documentaries” on extremist websites and gun tutorials on YouTube. The young man, who was indicted by a grand jury last week, has been portrayed by the authorities and some media outlets as a troubled outcast who acted alone when he killed 10 Black people in the grocery store and wounded three more. In fact, he dwelled in numerous online communities where he and others consumed and shared racist and violent content.
ADAM B. COLEMANAmericans are losing faith that our society can heal from past racial wounds. A recent poll from Gallup found that Americans believe race relations are getting worse, not better. Gallup found that the perception of race relations by both white and Black Americans is at its lowest point in 20 years; only 43 percent of white adults and 33 percent of Black adults view race relations as "very good" or "somewhat good" in America. The key word here is perception. Because race relations aren't truly measurable in any objective sense, we measure them based on feelings and personal interpretation. Which also means it's easy to manipulate our perception of things by people crafting narratives for political ends. This is what I believe is happening with regards to our perception of race relations: Our perception is that race relations are getting worse because we're being told that race relations are getting worse.
Kevin E G PerryColson Whitehead brought his characteristic wit to the sensitive subject of America’s long history of racial tension as he opened the inaugural Santa Fe Literary Festival on Friday night. “For the next hour I’m going to talk about a subject very dear to my heart: Critical Race Theory,” he joked early on, sparking much laughter and applause from a captivated audience gathered at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Instead, Whitehead read from his recent novel Harlem Shuffle, a New York family crime saga that plays out between 1959 and 1964. To the delight of fans he also previewed material from forthcoming sequel Crook Manifesto which is set in the 1970s. The book is due to be published next summer as the second part in a planned Harlem trilogy centred on furniture salesman-turned-crook Ray Carney. Whitehead said he was pleased to preview his work in progress, but also wary. “That’s not a great line,” he remarked of one sentence during the reading. “I’m gonna fix that.”
Fox News exploits Buffalo shooting to further radicalize Republicans with "great replacement" theoryby Amanda MarcotteThe bodies of the mostly-Black victims of the white nationalism-inspired mass shooting in Buffalo weren't even cold on Saturday before the folks at Fox News identified the real victims here: White conservatives. As I predicted they would on Sunday, the whining from right-wing media has since reached ear-piercing levels of shrill in response to mainstream media correctly pointing out that Republicans and their media have been hyping the "great replacement" conspiracy theory that shooter Payton Gendron used to justify the killing of 10 people. But this isn't just an attempt to evade accountability. Fox News pundits are now exploiting the Buffalo shooting to draw their viewers further into white nationalism. Network personalities are romanticizing the hateful ideology that allegedly inspired a massacre as a dangerous truth that the "elite" are trying to suppress. This shooting really illustrates how Fox News has created a victim narrative for its viewers that is so potent that no event is so horrible or violent — including a deadly insurrection in the Capitol or the mass murder of innocent people — that can't be weaponized by the propaganda machine to further radicalize Republican voters.
Tucker Carlson Defends His Right to Spew Hate Speech Following Replacement Theory-Incited Hate CrimeColby HallTucker Carlson has been the subject of many cable news segments after a deadly hate crime shooting in Buffalo that left 10 people dead. Turns out the shooter left a document that espoused the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, something Carlson has repeatedly advanced on his show, which happens to be the top-rated program in all of cable news. Consequently, Carlsons’ first segment following the tragedy was the very definition of newsworthy. It is telling that Carlson decided the best use of all this additional attention was to argue for his right to spew — and his viewers’ right to hear — hate speech. No really. That is exactly what he did. Furthermore, his takeaway from this horrible racially-motivated hate crime? His audience is the real victim. Let me state here that I do not believe Tucker Carlson is to blame for this horrible tragedy. The responsibility lies solely with the unhinged individual who pulled the trigger while streaming the horrors on Twitch. That said, Carlson’s “replacement theory” conspiracy theories, and the existential threat he says they pose to “legacy Americans”? That is deeply irresponsible rhetoric that is entirely relevant. Not necessarily causal, but a corollary influence. Carlson opened his show by noting the weekend of violence, eventually pivoting to the Buffalo tragedy and making clear just how opposed he allegedly is to racism, and identity politics broadly.
Alex Hern and Dan MilmoThe Buffalo shooting has focused attention on the role of Twitch, the gaming platform used by the gunman to broadcast a live stream of the massacre, amid renewed calls for tighter regulation of social media platforms. Twitch allows creators, many with millions of followers, to stream themselves playing video games, chatting with fans, or simply going about their daily lives. The Buffalo suspect, a self-confessed white supremacist who allegedly shot 11 Black and two white victims, killing 10 people, in what authorities said was a racially motivated hate crime, used a Twitch channel to livestream the assault from a helmet camera. Amazon-owned Twitch said it took down the video within two minutes of the violence starting, but by that time it was already being shared elsewhere including on Facebook and Twitter. In a statement issued to the New York Times, Angela Hession, Twitch’s vice-president of trust and safety, said the site’s reaction was a “very strong response time considering the challenges of live content moderation, and shows good progress”.
Tourist, False Flags, crisis actors, blaming BLM and Antifa how the GOP and the right tries to protect white people from the horrible crimes they commit.Tim DickinsonBefore he went on a racist rampage in a Buffalo grocery store on Saturday killing 10 people, Payton Gendron is believed to have written a hate-filled screed promoting the conspiracy theory that white people are facing ethnic, cultural and racial displacement by immigrants — a.k.a., a “white genocide.” It is an extremist position promoted widely on the right, including by others who have carried out deadly attacks in places like El Paso and Pittsburgh. Among the “deplorable” set — those on the alt-right for whom this “great replacement theory” has true cultural currency — Saturday’s mass shooting is drawing a mix of denial and deflection. Nick Fuentes — the young white supremacist who also bemoans “white genocide,” leads the Groyper movement online, and organizes the annual America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) — took to his Telegram channel as news of the killings broke to immediately (and without evidence) insist it was a “false flag” attack.