THE TRAGIC, FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF BLACK MILITARY VETERANS
By Peter C. Baker
“We do so much in this country to celebrate and honor folks who risk their lives on the battlefield,” Stevenson told me recently. “But we don’t remember that black veterans were more likely to be attacked for their service than honored for it.” To be a soldier is to receive training in weapons, in organizations, in tactics: the skills of self-assertion. It is also to lay claim to the reverence that America sets aside for its former warriors. For these reasons, the return home of black soldiers after war has infuriated and terrified white America, setting the stage for reactionary aggression.
When the Civil War broke out, the Union was reluctant to let black soldiers fight at all, citing concerns over white soldiers’ morale and the respect that black soldiers would feel entitled to when the war ended. But, as the Union death toll increased, the skeptics relented. By war’s end, almost two hundred thousand black men had enlisted. This is widely known today, thanks in large part to works of art like the 1989 film “Glory.” Unfortunately, less cultural bandwidth has been devoted to what happened to those black troops after the fighting stopped. Few high-school or college students, when they learn about military history, learn about the lynching of black veterans.
In 1867, when Reconstruction ended, black veterans living in Southern states quickly became targets for white violence. White newspapers spread rumors of black soldiers assaulting white police. States across the South prohibited blacks from handling weapons. Compared to those who had not served, former soldiers were disproportionately assaulted, driven from their homes, and, in the most extreme cases, lynched in public. “Targeting Black Veterans” traces this trend in coolly objective prose, occasionally detailing shocking examples. “At Bardstown in Nelson County, Kentucky, a mob brutally lynched a United States Colored Troops veteran,” we learn. “The mob stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and then cut off his sexual organs. He was then forced to run half a mile to a bridge outside of town, where he was shot and killed.”
Confessions of a Bad Dad on the Eve of His 2nd Child Sometimes, I’m just not good at my job. By Corey Richardson
As my wife and I careen into the last few weeks of her pregnancy and prepare for life with our new little girl, it’s beginning to dawn on me just how bad a job I’ve been doing as a parent for our first daughter. Four, almost five, years into the game, and I’m finally coming to grips with the fact that, as a dad, I’m not very good at my job sometimes.
So, in the spirit of clearing the slate for this new life to come, I feel like I owe it to my eldest to confess my sins and seek something like forgiveness for being a s–tty, although involved, dad. So, in the spirit of Usher Raymond, these are my parental confessions (although imagine me as DMX on the cover of Flesh of My Flesh) laying myself bare for your judgment.
I’ve exploited my child’s illiteracy for my own gain. Throughout my life, I’ve had to use a variety of ruses as tools to get my way, get what I want or get out of a jam. Most of the time, when I had to run game, I was dealing with adults with some modicum of education who required a lot of thought to pull off a con. Then, God gifted me this little person, who came into this world knowing essentially nothing. But most importantly, this lil bama doesn’t quite know how to read yet.
Man, is that liberating. Driving down the street and you see a sign for a fast-food place she recognizes? I tell her that the sign says it’s closed and she just can’t read it. At the store and she’s getting ready to get her Ezell on for some cookies or some chips? Flip that bag over and tell her, “Oh no, these say they’re spoiled,” then keep on truckin’. And then there’s my favorite move–when she pulls out that long-ass bedtime story to try to prolong the magic and keep from going to sleep (bruh, there’s this book that’s called Grandfather Ghandi that’s like the goddamn Odyssey for children), I skip pages and make up a new story on the spot. What’s she gonna do; stop you? She can’t read and I know the jig is gonna be up any day now, so I might as well get it in while I can.
I’m pretty sure I’m gonna pay for this when she gets a neck tattoo that I’m forced to read for the rest of my life. I’m sorry.
How to Tell Someone’s Age When All You Know Is Her Name
By Nate Silver and Allison McCann
Picture Mildred, Agnes, Ethel and Blanche. Perhaps you imagine the Golden Girls or your grandmother’s poker game. These are names for women of age, wisdom and distinction. The median living Mildred in the United States is now 78 years old.
Now imagine Madison, Sydney, Alexa and Hailey. They sound like the starting midfield on a fourth-grade girls’ soccer team. And they might as well be: the median American females with these names are between 9 and 12 years old.
To keep alive the perception of white superiority, these white Americans tuck their heads under cone-shaped hats and American flags and deny themselves the dignity of face-to-face confrontation, training their guns on the unarmed, the innocent, the scared, on subjects who are running away, exposing their unthreatening backs to bullets. Surely, shooting a fleeing man in the back hurts the presumption of white strength? The sad plight of grown white men, crouching beneath their (better) selves, to slaughter the innocent during traffic stops, to push black women’s faces into the dirt, to handcuff black children. Only the frightened would do that. Right?
All-American Killer: How the AR-15 Became Mass Shooters' Weapon of Choice An assault rifle designed for the battlefield has become a windfall for the gun industry and common in mass shootings By Tim Dickinson
The Cowgirls of Color: the black women's team bucking rodeo trends
By Annalies Winny
In a sport dominated by white men, the all-female, all-black team is a rarity. At the Bill Pickett rodeo, the only black rodeo in the country, high-octane events such as bull riding and steer wrestling remain almost exclusively male. But every year brings more female contestants than the last.
Pennie Brown of Cowgirls of Color gathers speed during the barrel relay. Photograph: M Holden Warrenhttps://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/nov/20/rodeo-black-women-cowgirls-of-color?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1
The Story Behind Jared Kushner’s Curious Acceptance into Harvard ProPublica editor Daniel Golden wrote a book a decade ago about how the rich buy their children access to elite colleges. One student he covered is now poised to become one of the most powerful figures in the country. By Daniel Golden
I would like to express my gratitude to Jared Kushner for reviving interest in my 2006 book, “The Price of Admission.” I have never met or spoken with him, and it’s rare in this life to find such a selfless benefactor. Of course, I doubt he became Donald Trump’s son-in-law and consigliere merely to boost my lagging sales, but still, I’m thankful.
My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their under-achieving children’s way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations. It reported that New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner had pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University in 1998, not long before his son Jared was admitted to the prestigious Ivy League school. At the time, Harvard accepted about one of every nine applicants. (Nowadays, it only takes one out of twenty.)
All of the Black Owned Brands You Can Shop at Target for Under $20
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