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Black Women Democrats Are Pushing Joe Biden to Cancel $50,000 of Loan Debt per Borrower, Citing Increasing Racial Inequality
As the nation waits for congressional lawmakers to reach a resolution on a second stimulus bill—nine months after the coronavirus pandemic began disrupting the lives of Americans around the country—a group of Black female House Democrats is challenging President-elect Joe Biden to offer more substantial relief to student loan borrowers. The charge comes in the…
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Feds Join Probe Into Police Killing of Casey Goodson, Who Family Says Was Shot While Carrying a Sandwich
The FBI and the Department of Justice will join the Columbus police investigation into the police killing of Casey Goodson Jr., a 23-year-old Black man who was fatally shot last week in Columbus, Ohio by a sheriff’s deputy. U.S. Attorney David DeVillers announced federal authorities’ involvement in the investigation, which will be conducted alongside the…
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Black Google Employee Said She Was Fired for Calling Out the Company's Treatment of Minority Employees
A Black woman known as a “rare voice of public criticism” at Google has been fired by the tech company after sending an internal email calling out the company’s treatment of minority employees—and in particular, those who are Black and female. Timnit Gebru, who co-led the Ethical Artificial Intelligence team at Google, is considered a…
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At Least 130 of Trump's Secret Service Staff Have Coronavirus or Are Quarantining After Being Exposed
Even after being hospitalized for COVID-19, President Donald Trump and his senior staff didn’t appear to take concerns about spreading the virus seriously—continuing to campaign furiously while eschewing masks and hosting large indoor events. The possible fallout from those decisions: The Washington Post is now reporting that more than 130 Secret Service officers charged with…
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The Winner of the 2020 Election Was Drug Reform
The clear victor on election night was neither President Donald Trump nor Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden—it was drugs. Voters in six states across the country backed more progressive drug laws, continuing a long march toward legalization. Among them are New Jersey, Arizona, Montana and South Dakota, who each voted to legalize recreational marijuana, and…
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Robocall Disinformation Campaign Tells Flint Voters to Avoid Long Lines and Vote After Election Day
Modern-day voter suppression takes many forms: Disproportionately long lines at precincts in majority-Black neighborhoods, biased voter ID laws, and requiring the formerly incarcerated to pay off all their fines before voting, to name just a few. Political disinformation campaigns, in which individuals and groups spread information they know to be false or misleading, can also…
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Anguished Protesters Confront Police After Officers Fatally Shoot Black Man in West Philadelphia
As soon as Walter Wallace Jr. collapsed on the ground, his mother rushed to his side. In his final moments, the 27-year-old Black man was standing on a porch in West Philadelphia at around 4 p.m. Monday, a knife in his hand. Two police officers, responding to a report of a man with a knife…
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Dawn of a New Day? Bon Appétit Names Dawn Davis, Award-Winning Publishing Exec, to Helm Magazine
Nearly three months after Bon Appétit cut ties with then-editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport over accusations of racial discrimination—including a stint in brownface—Condé Nast has named a new top editor to run the renowned food publication: Dawn Davis, an influential editor and top executive in the publishing industry. Davis, who is Black, comes from Simon & Schuster,…
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ProPublica Publishes Database Containing Thousands of Police Misconduct Complaints After Federal Judge Blocked Their Release
In the weeks following the first Black Lives Matter uprisings, criminal justice reform advocates scored several major legislative wins. In New York state, one of these was the repeal of Civil Rights Law 50-A, which shielded the misconduct records of law enforcement from the public. Last week, however, a federal judge paused the release of…
