Racial Justice

PBS Documentary: White with Fear

by WaterGirl| April 3, 202611:15 am| 3 Comments

This post is in: Justice, Open Threads, Politics, Racial Justice

There’s a new documentary out – White with Fear – and it looks really interesting.

One phrase really stands out in the trailer below: Strategic Racism

“White with Fear”: That’s the clever name of the new PBS documentary premiering at 10 p.m. Tuesday. Directed and written by Andrew Goldberg, and recently nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for best documentary screenplay, the film explores the GOP’s dark mastery of selling racism without being overtly racist — except, of course, when they just say the quiet part out loud. (The Boston Globe)

The concept is not new to us, of course, but the documentary is getting rave reviews.

It appears to be free to watch online at PBS for the next 18 days. (expires 4/21) It’s also available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime, and likely on other streaming platforms, as well.

I plan on watching, and I’m wondering if any of you guys might be interested in having a zoom to talk about it?

I think it would make sense to do it in the last week of April – if you are interested in a zoom on this topic, let us know in the comments, and send me an email with a tentative RSVP.

Open thread.

PBS Documentary: White with FearPost + Comments (3)

Sunday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie| March 8, 20266:46 am| 242 Comments

This post is in: Black Lives Matter, Movies, Open Threads, Sports, Trumpery, War

This is the weekend when clocks move ahead, causing angst, lost sleep and health issues for many. Over the last decade, at least 19 states have passed laws to let them stay in daylight saving time if the federal government allows it.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) March 6, 2026 at 1:00 PM

61 years ago today at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma, Alabama.

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— Michael Li (???) (@mcpli.bsky.social) March 7, 2026 at 8:01 AM

A day after former presidents, sitting governors and local Chicago residents alike attended a vibrant, televised celebration for the late Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., the family and friends who knew him best hosted a more intimate gathering Saturday.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) March 7, 2026 at 7:00 PM

The Academy Awards are Sunday, March 15. That means time is running out to watch the nominees before the Oscars get handed out.
Here's a guide to finding the films on streaming or in theaters.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) March 6, 2026 at 8:00 PM

The Winter Paralympics officially open on Friday and bring a record number of athletes and medals to the Milan Cortina Games.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) March 6, 2026 at 1:30 PM

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Sunday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (242)

Open Thread: Trump Promoting Jeremy Carl, Professional Bigot

by Anne Laurie| February 22, 20265:12 pm| 64 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Post-racial America, Republican Politics, Trump Crime Cartel

Behold, the genetic superiority of the master race. bsky.app/profile/chri…
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— Adam Serwer (@adamserwer.bsky.social) February 12, 2026 at 4:27 PM

With any luck, and if GOP Sen. Curtis doesn’t chicken out, Mr. Carl won’t actually get the new job… but the Trump administration is certainly promoting his abhorrent views. Per the NYTimes, “Trump Nominates an Apostle of ‘White Erasure’ for the State Department” [gift link]:

Jeremy Carl, President Trump’s nominee for a senior State Department post, struggled at his confirmation hearing on Thursday to answer what should have been an easy question, since he wrote an entire book about it: What is white identity and why is it under threat?

After nervously rambling about white food and Black food, white music and Black music and white worship styles, Mr. Carl told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that a loss of a dominant white culture is weakening the country. That notion has become an intellectual framework animating much of what has been described as the New Right, and Mr. Carl, who would if confirmed be the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, is one of its most prominent proponents.

But Mr. Carl’s halting defense of his theory on “white erasure,” along with previous statements about race and Jews, has put his nomination in danger. A Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee chairman, John Curtis, Republican of Utah, came out in opposition immediately after the hearing was gaveled closed…

On Friday, Mr. Carl defended himself on social media from the accusation that he is a white nationalist. “White culture,” he wrote, “was simply the culture of the overwhelming majority of Americans who lived here” before the 1965 immigration reform “radically transformed American demographics.”…

If confirmed, Mr. Carl would lead outreach to institutions such as the United Nations. He previously served in the first Trump administration’s Department of the Interior after making a name for himself as an international energy expert at Stanford University.

Mr. Carl sits at the intersection of several movements and institutions gaining power and prominence within the Republican Party. He is a proponent of “national conservatism,” a movement that holds that American society lost its moorings when it drifted from a core power structure centered on the Christian white men who founded the nation and instead embraced diversity, multiculturalism and feminism.

He is a fellow at the Claremont Institute, a Trump-aligned research organization that became the intellectual nerve center of the American right…

Mr. Carl has argued that white people should organize as a group to protect their rights.

“White Americans are increasingly second-class citizens in a country their ancestors founded and in which, until recently, they were the overwhelming majority of the population,” he writes in his 2024 book, “The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart.”

He also accused the Democratic Party of waging an “all-out assault on the rights of white people.” (About 64 percent of the people who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 were white, compared to Joe Biden’s 61 percent in 2020, according to Pew Research.)…

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Open Thread: Trump Promoting Jeremy Carl, Professional BigotPost + Comments (64)

Saturday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie| February 21, 20266:39 am| 149 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Post-racial America, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Politics

you don't have to like it, but this is what peak progressivism looks like
the left will go so much farther if it embraces patriotism and joy as a rallying cry to aspire for the country to be better

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— Thorne ?? (@ens0.me) February 20, 2026 at 10:35 AM

Speaker Mike Johnson denies request for the Rev. Jesse Jackson to lie in honor in Capitol www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol…

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— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd.bsky.social) February 20, 2026 at 6:27 PM

Happy Black History Month. To put it in terms he might recognize, Self-styled ‘Speaker Moses’ cravenly denies the claims of an actual prophet:

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has denied a request for the late Rev. Jesse Jackson to lie in honor in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Jackson’s family made the request to Johnson after the civil rights icon and two-time presidential candidate died Tuesday at the age of 84, the sources said. CNN was first to report the development…

A GOP leadership source said that in denying the family’s request, the speaker looked to precedent where the practice has been reserved for former presidents, military leaders and other top government officials.

The GOP source noted that recent requests for former Vice President Dick Cheney and Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk to lie in honor had been denied.

Yet a handful of private citizens have lain in honor in the majestic rotunda. That short list includes civil rights leader Rosa Parks in 2005 and Capitol Police officers who died in the 1998 shooting and after the Jan. 6 attack. The Rev. Billy Graham, the Southern Baptist minister and evangelist, lay in honor in 2018.…

[Billy Graham]

Black leaders slammed Johnson’s decision to deny the Jackson family’s request.

“Mike Johnson will defend a president who wants to unlawfully nationalize elections, but won’t authorize a civil rights legend to lie in honor. That tells you everything you need to know about Mike Johnson and his gross disregard for our Constitution and our democracy,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

“Rev. Jesse Jackson preached to all Americans to Keep Hope Alive, and to dream of a nation where all people are treated with dignity and respect. No message could be more fitting for all Americans to embrace at this time,” the NAACP leader said.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson will lie in state for two days next week before he is laid to rest following services at his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition headquarters in Chicago. https://to.wttw.com/46TFZmT

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— WTTW – Chicago PBS (@wttw.bsky.social) February 19, 2026 at 1:42 PM

Big victory for the American people.
And another crushing defeat for the wannabe King.
www.cnbc.com/2026/02/20/s…

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— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social) February 20, 2026 at 10:33 AM

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Saturday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (149)

Rest in Power, Rev. Jesse Jackson

by Anne Laurie| February 19, 20265:13 pm| 69 Comments

This post is in: Absent Friends, Post-racial America

The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. was a legendary voice for the voiceless, powerful civil rights champion and trailblazer extraordinaire.
He inspired us to keep hope alive in the struggle for liberty and justice for all.
We are thankful for his service to the nation.
May he forever rest in power.

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— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social) February 17, 2026 at 8:07 AM

Oh, I have been waiting for this piece! You throw a stone at a presidential campaign, and it has a staffer who cut their teeth on Jesse Jackson's campaign, particularly Black women.

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— Eric Michael Garcia (@ericmgarcia.bsky.social) February 17, 2026 at 6:09 PM

… Part of the civil rights legacy of Jackson, who died Tuesday at 84, is the expansion of Black women’s political power at the voting booth and within Democratic Party politics.

Jackson, who worked with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and led key organizations in the push for civil rights, including the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, also mounted two ultimately unsuccessful presidential bids, in 1984 and 1988. Through those runs, Jackson helped reshape American political power by building a diverse coalition centered on those long excluded from national leadership — including Black voters, women, young people, and the working class. It was a coalition that would become the foundation of modern Democratic Party politics…

“He used to say, ‘Our patch ain’t big enough,’” Daughtry said of Jackson. “Any one community, there aren’t enough of us to make electoral change. We have to build a quilt that has bigger patches, and all of us together means we can get the change we all need. We are much stronger when we are together, and there are more of us — even if they may not come where you come from, or look like what you look like. There is common ground, if you look for it.”…

Black women elected officials are also part of Jackson’s legacy. Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters co-chaired Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 campaigns. She was elected to Congress in 1990 and is serving her 18th term in California’s 43rd District.

In a tribute to Jackson, former Vice President Kamala Harris wrote: “He let us know our voices mattered. He instilled in us that we were somebody. And he widened the path for generations to follow in his footsteps and lead.”…

By inviting Black women into national politics, Jackson helped ensure they would help shape its future. His approach holds lessons for the Black women organizers and political strategists who carry his work forward, said Glynda Carr, president of Higher Heights for America.

“His two campaigns were built on this notion of coalition, to elevate the voices of the working poor, the working class, the middle class, and insisting that Black voters and our communities were centered in a national conversation,” said Carr, whose political action committee mobilizes Black women voters to elect Black women to office. “If we’re actually going to rebuild America, what does true coalition-building look like?”

I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is

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— Ben Phillips (@benphillips76.bsky.social) February 17, 2026 at 6:41 AM

Do Not Be Cynical About Jesse Jackson – The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0…

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— Sue Stone (@knittingknots.bsky.social) February 17, 2026 at 6:15 PM

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Gift link:

… “There has developed among many, for sure, a kind of attitudinal air-barrier of cynicism” around Jackson, Marshall Frady, a journalist and the author of Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson, once said. “Part of it is, no doubt, a reflection of the abiding, if not steadily deepening, racial schism in the country since the ’60s.” Jackson was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s youngest lieutenants; he came of age when many considered racial injustice history, an issue the country had already dealt with. He reminded Americans that King’s dream had not yet come, and that created for him enemies. In hindsight, it seems strange that people would assume that the effects of centuries of slavery and segregation would be entirely wiped away in fewer than two decades. Jackson had grown up in poverty in the shadow of Jim Crow segregation; it must have seemed even more absurd to him….

Yet this caricature of Jackson as an anti-white, anti-Semitic demagogue never reflected the man. The entire point of Jackson’s “Rainbow Coalition,” his vision of Americans from all backgrounds coming together for social justice, was overcoming such differences. Jackson’s political vision was always inclusive, always multiracial, and always opposed to bigotry and prejudice of all kinds, even if the man himself sometimes fell short.

For one thing, Jackson’s egalitarianism and support for a strong welfare state—including universal health care—did not contradict his emphasis on personal responsibility and the importance of the Church in Americans’ lives. As Frady notes, the South Carolina reverend was constantly hammering on these conservative-friendly themes, long before they became part of Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns…

Many obituaries have emphasized Jackson’s hunger for publicity. He was, indeed, no wallflower. But neither did he simply pose for the cameras. Jackson’s decades of activism demonstrated that he was sincere about his vision. When workers were striking, Jackson was there. When it was unpopular to support LGBTQ rights, Jackson did so anyway. When both conservatives and liberals were outraged over illegal immigration, Jackson insisted on mercy and understanding for the undocumented. Despite the “hymie” incident, Jackson never stopped condemning the evils of anti-Semitism, even as he supported Palestinian rights and statehood. Before Pat Buchanan or Donald Trump ran for president, Jackson was condemning “American multinationals” who “hire repressed labor abroad and fire free labor at home.”

The critics who caricatured him did not understand this sincerity—or perhaps they understood it far too well. His commitment to the people he once described as “the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised,” was real, and he dedicated his life to it…

Democratic leaders credited Jackson’s work registering Black voters with making otherwise-difficult gains in the wilderness of the Reagan era. He was a genuinely transformative figure, inspiring not just a generation of Black voters but Black officeholders, helping usher in an era of Black self-determination that eclipsed the previous peak during Reconstruction a century earlier. His exhortation to “keep hope alive” in an era of backlash was precisely what he did. Frady quotes former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown calling Jackson “the Jackie Robinson of American politics,” who would “spawn a whole lot of Little Leaguers in many cities and counties that you and I will never hear about.” That was, we now know, an understatement…

i think jesse jackson was one of the most important american political figures of the post-war era and i think that his 1984 and 1988 campaigns for the democratic nomination still have a great deal to teach about forging a path to a more egalitarian world. RIP.

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) February 17, 2026 at 8:36 AM

i wrote this last year about jackson and mamdani www.nytimes.com/2025/08/23/o…

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— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) February 17, 2026 at 8:36 AM

and i wrote this a decade ago about jackson as the model response to trump-style politics www.slate.com/articles/new…

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— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) February 17, 2026 at 8:36 AM

Jesse Jackson Knew Where We Were Headed share.google/Qn9GsxLG4SFQ…

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— C.S. Lang (@cslpoetry.bsky.social) February 17, 2026 at 10:54 PM

Mr. Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire:

… Erik Loomis over at Lawyers, Guns, and Money does a terrific job summarizing the long sweep of Jackson’s public career, including its very problematic episodes. (Among other things, Jackson was late to reproductive freedom, probably a vestige of his early religious education. But he got there, finally.) He even flirted with the Republicans for a spell. Once he moved into presidential politics, however, he proved to be the force that scared the Democratic party straight. His victory in Michigan in 1988 went off like a bomb. One of the party’s great blunders in the 2000 recount blood fight in Florida was the decision early on by Al Gore’s people to ask Jackson to cease agitating in Palm Beach County.

Nobody saw more clearly the direction in which the Republican party was heading than Jesse Jackson did, and nobody saw more clearly the eventual public policy failures of Democrats seeking to carve off conservative voters who already were in the process of losing their minds. Donald Trump is the creature at the end of that road, and Jesse Jackson, who passed away Tuesday morning, saw that before many allegedly shrewd political minds did. Sail on, Reverend. You were … somebody.

Rev. Jesse Jackson showed up for the family of Vincent Chin and Asian Americans when few others would.

His Rainbow Coalition showed us the way to solidarity.

May he rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/mRAy2HWE7p

— Chuck Park (@chuckforqueens) February 17, 2026

Financial columnist Michelle Singletary, at the Washington Post — gift link.

How the Rev. Jesse Jackson taught me to keep hope alive www.washingtonpost.com/business/202…

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) February 18, 2026 at 8:28 AM

How Jesse Jackson Took King’s Civil Rights Movement to Company Doorsteps
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/u…

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— Mike Walker (@newnarrative.bsky.social) February 18, 2026 at 7:06 AM

Gift link

Jesse Jackson's letter of support for the Americans with Disabilities Act via the Dole Archive:
"When the deaf can communicate more freely, through TDD
devices, we all benefit from what they have to say."
dolearchivecollections.ku.edu/collections/…

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— Eric Michael Garcia (@ericmgarcia.bsky.social) February 17, 2026 at 10:01 AM

thinking about the conversation I had with Jesse Jackson in 2019:
"The truth of slavery—that Africans subsidized America’s wealth—that truth will not go away. It’s buried right now, but as each generation becomes much more serious, it will be grappled with." www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc…

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— Adam Harris (@adamhsays.com) February 17, 2026 at 7:54 AM

C-SPAN thankfully has posted Jesse's whole 1988 speech at the DNC. Seriously. Go back and watch it and tell me you don't hear so much of what you hear now from folks like AOC, Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RCA…

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— Eric Michael Garcia (@ericmgarcia.bsky.social) February 17, 2026 at 8:41 AM

Rest in Power, Rev. Jesse JacksonPost + Comments (69)

Late Night Open Thread: If Everyone (That We Consider Important) Is Guilty, Is Anyone Really Guilty?

by Anne Laurie| February 7, 202612:19 am| 74 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Post-racial America, Assholes, Our Failed Media Experiment, Sociopaths

do not honestly know if this title is literal or metaphorical

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— post malone ergo propter malone (@proptermalone.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 9:18 AM

Central Air is Josh Barro’s podcast, which I have not listened to, because (a) I don’t do podcasts, and (b) life is too short. Nepobaby Josh interviews Ross Doubthat, with the assistance of nepobaby Ben Dreyfuss and Megan ‘McArgleBargle’ McArdle: Where insight goes to die!

For these four, it is important to understand that this is all a joke. They are much happier volunteering to protect a system that enables and encourages sexual abuse than they are grappling, even a little bit, with how to fix it. Absolute moral degenerates.

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— Dale Waffle (@darkbrownwaffles.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 5:56 AM

Meanwhile, at Quilette, subhed “Human biological diversity: If we grant there are races, you must therefore admit that some must logically be lesser“:

The problem is, a week after you find the person to write this, they turn up in the Epstein files.

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— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 1:39 PM

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Late Night Open Thread: If Everyone (That We Consider Important) Is Guilty, Is Anyone *Really* Guilty?Post + Comments (74)

Monday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie| February 2, 20266:50 am| 204 Comments

This post is in: Black Lives Matter, C.R.E.A.M., Foreign Affairs, Proud to Be A Democrat, Shitty Cops, Trump Crime Cartel

I can officially confirm that the snow in NC is roughly one (1) corgi deep

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— Johnathan Lemay (@fankuan.bsky.social) January 31, 2026 at 4:46 PM

Black History Month is a time to recognize the lived, shared experience of all Black folks who have fundamentally shaped, challenged, and ultimately strengthened America. It’s about taking an unvarnished look at the past so that we can create a better future.

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— Barack Obama (@barackobama.bsky.social) February 1, 2026 at 12:09 PM

Happy Black History Month, Boston.

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— Office of Mayor Michelle Wu ?? (@mayorwu.boston.gov) February 1, 2026 at 8:06 AM

Congratulations to my friend and our newest State Senator from Tarrant County, Taylor Rehmet! I met Taylor years ago through labor organizing.
Don’t tell us what can’t be done in Texas. When we show up #TexasTough, we change the game. Today we proved what we’ve known all along: Texas is in play.

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— Jasmine Crockett (@jasmineforus.bsky.social) February 1, 2026 at 1:20 AM

EMOLUMENTS <COUGH>

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— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) January 31, 2026 at 11:54 PM

Marimar Martinez is a hero.
She was shot 5 times by ICE.
The agent told her to “do something b*tch” before opening fire.
He later bragged “5 shots, 7 holes”.
DHS tried to smear her reputation but video footage vindicated her.
Next week she will testify in Washington about ICE’s brutality.

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— Kelly (@broadwaybabyto.bsky.social) January 30, 2026 at 11:41 PM

Seems like a hyperbolic way of saying elections have consequences.

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— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) February 1, 2026 at 6:21 PM

Guys I think you can let the annoying but effective lib back into the group chats this shit's going global.

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— Zeddy (@zeddary.bsky.social) January 31, 2026 at 4:16 PM

hey everyone bitching about the text messages, the GOP has billionaire creepers bank rolling it so they can spread 1,000 years of darkness
the Dems have us and their annoying emails, so shut the fuck up and donate.

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— Henry (@henrythedog.bsky.social) January 31, 2026 at 11:39 PM

anntelnaes.substack.com/p/the-melani…

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— Ann Telnaes (@anntelnaes.bsky.social) February 1, 2026 at 6:39 PM

Monday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (204)

eclare on Open Thread: Banger Memes, Dude (Apr 3, 2026 @ 11:23am)

prostratedragon on Open Thread: Banger Memes, Dude (Apr 3, 2026 @ 11:23am)

WaterGirl on PBS Documentary: White with Fear (Apr 3, 2026 @ 11:21am)

different-church-lady on PBS Documentary: White with Fear (Apr 3, 2026 @ 11:20am)

A Ghost to Most on PBS Documentary: White with Fear (Apr 3, 2026 @ 11:19am)

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

I really should read my own blog.

“They all knew.”

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

You know he’s going to shit a cat.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

Let me file that under fuck it.

In after Baud. Damn.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

When we show up, we win.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Nothing worth doing is easy.

So many bastards, so little time.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

PBS Documentary: White with Fear

Sunday Morning Open Thread

Open Thread: Trump Promoting Jeremy Carl, Professional Bigot

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Rest in Power, Rev. Jesse Jackson

Late Night Open Thread: If Everyone (That We Consider Important) Is Guilty, Is Anyone Really Guilty?

Monday Morning Open Thread