News & Features

From the Fringe to the Mainstream: The Disturbing Rise of American White Supremacy

Angelo Franco

All of these seemingly random acts point to the fact that white supremacy isn’t just a “white is better” belief ingrained in misguided and stubborn opinions; but rather that white supremacy takes many forms. Some white supremacy groups are specifically anti-government; others don’t mind other ethnicities too much, but despise Jews; others are rooted in religious fanaticism (see Christian Identify above); while others still renounce the rigidity of religion (see Hitler and his ambivalent stance on Catholicism and religion in general).

What Joe Biden’s Victory Means for Race Relations, the Supreme Court, and U.S. Foreign Policy

Brian J. Purnell, Morgan Marietta, and Neta C. Crawford

One area that the Biden administration will surely address is policing and racial justice. The Justice Department can bring accountability to police reform by returning to practices the Obama administration put in place to monitor and reform police departments, such as the use of consent degrees. More difficult reforms require redressing how mass incarceration caused widespread voter disenfranchisement in Black American and Latino communities.

Steve Bannon, the Right-Wing Prince of Darkness, on Politics and Fate

Adam Gravano

That mystique -- and controversy -- still cling to the movie producer, investor, and political adviser. With his one-time employer Donald Trump now in the fight for his electoral life, and Bannon embroiled not only in a fraud case but the uproar of the discovery of a computer alleged to be Hunter Biden’s, now is an opportune time to revisit Bannon and look for that vital spark imparted on the 2016 Trump candidacy through the lens of Errol Morris's interview documentary American Dharma.

How a Town in Norway Copes With Winter Depression

Linda Geddes

Even so, there’s some evidence that light therapy may have a similar effect on the brain to many antidepressants. In a study published in 2016, 11 patients with SAD treated with two weeks of light therapy saw plunging levels of serotonin transporter binding – a measure of how quickly serotonin’s activity is curtailed. Their levels became similar to those seen during summertime. There is other evidence, besides. At the back of our eyes, an unusual type of photoreceptor has been found that seems to help synchronize our circadian rhythms to the 24-hour cycle of light and dark.

Joseph Pilates’ Lasting Legacy in the World of Fitness

John Howard Steel

Some people, dancers mostly, knew him as a savior—the person who kept them dancing, or stopped their back pain, or put a zip in their step, or some other career enhancing or enabling therapy. He helped professional golfers eliminate pain in their swing; he helped hairdressers and barbers work pain-free all day with their arms raised. He improved singers’ breath control. As the person who worked his obscure magic to solve a physical problem that ofttimes doctors, chiropractors, or massage therapists couldn’t, he was a medicine man.

How COVID-19 Changed America and the World Forever

Kenneth Foard McCallion

So what would have happened if the federal government had acted with the degree of vigilance that we had come to expect from the Ebola crisis and other pandemic threats? What if those sweeping measures imposed on or after March 15 — a federal warning against large gatherings, health screenings at airports, states of emergency declared, etc. - had been announced one or two weeks earlier?

The Importance of the 2020 Election: How to Save Our Democracy

Mac Regan

After years of legislative and social gridlock, these failings are at a critical stage. But irreversible damage to our historical values, our democracy, and our capitalism can be avoided. The last line of defense now, as in 1776, is citizens who can make informed decisions and have the patriotic courage to sacrifice, compromise, and overcome bias in the service of America. The 2020 revolution for America will depend on objectivity and critical thinking rather than firelocks and cannons.

The Problem of Anti-Blackness in the Latinx Community

Angelo Franco

And so here we are, in the American landscape of race wars, with many of our (mainly older) brethren trying to contend with the fact that here in the U.S. they are people of color, condemning racism while holding racist beliefs, and screaming at the top of their silenced voices that we too are white --please love us, America! We can be almost white-passing if we hide our mestizo and mulatto heritage an ignore the plight of other non-white POCs, while actively repudiating Black skin the way we are already used to doing anyway.

The Fragile State of Contact Languages

John Wenz (Knowable Magazine)

The origin stories of these linguistic mashups vary. Some are peaceful, such as when groups meet for trade and need a lingua franca: Nigerian Pidgin English, for example, allows speakers of over 500 tongues to communicate. But others were born of tragedy and violence — like Haitian Creole, Gullah Geechee, Jamaican Creole and many others that arose from the Atlantic slave trade, when West African peoples combined several tongues with English, creating everyday languages often used among slaves.

How Political Conventions Went From Selecting Party Nominees to Pageantry and Partying

Barbara Norrander

Presidential primaries became somewhat more influential after World War II, when some candidates adopted a strategy of running in presidential primaries. Other candidates avoided running in primaries and relied on a traditional strategy of courting the party’s elite who would be delegates at the convention. Running in presidential primaries was a risky strategy: A candidate who lost in a primary could see their presidential bid end, but even someone who won every single primary would not earn enough delegates to secure the nomination.

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