Episodes of three popular Adult Swim series—Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Boondocks, and The Shivering Truth—have been removed from streaming due to current “sensitivities,” The Daily Beast has learned exclusively. Eagle-eyed Redditors first noted the absence of Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Season 6 episode “Shake Like Me” from the series’ page on HBO Max in June. In the 2009 episode, titled in homage to John Howard […]
Racism in the United States
102 posts
While one could fairly question how much influencers have given to us—as a species and a society—it’s undeniable that they’re real innovators when it comes to finding ways to be weird about race. Whether it’s blackfishing or posting black squares on Instagram as though that somehow supports Black Lives Matter, influencers just have a knack for being thoroughly embarrassing. And now they have a new medium: […]
When a Louisville grand jury chose not to charge any of the police officers involved in the killing of Breonna Taylor for their role in killing a 26-year-old Black woman, it was confirmation that, to many, my life as a Black woman does not matter. And as a native Kentuckian, that shattered me. I spent my early years and every summer in Southeastern Kentucky. As I […]
When the cuffs came out and my head was slammed onto the hood of my rented car, I knew this was more than a traffic ticket. True, I was doing 40 in a 30 zone or something like that. I’m not sure. The signs changed so quickly and so often, some obscured by trees, it was hard to tell. The first thing I learned was that […]
In October of 2006, the FBI released an intelligence assessment titled, “White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement.” Though the document—culled from FBI investigations and open sources—was heavily redacted, it reached a number of disturbing conclusions. The assessment revealed that white supremacists “have historically engaged in strategic efforts to infiltrate and recruit from law enforcement communities”; that many of these white-supremacist infiltrators are known as “ghost skins” […]
Appearances are everything down South, part of the region’s noted cordiality and social decorum. Yet on coastal Alabama’s Mobile Bay, a group of residents is determined to peel back their languid locale’s veneer of colonnaded mansions and Spanish moss-draped oaks to confront the proverbial “ugliness that cuts to the bone.” And to build something better from those truths. A cross-section of faces spanning age, sex and […]
Trump’s four-year mantra to Black voters, people like me, has been “what do you have to lose?” He has proclaimed it loudly since the summer of 2016 to all who will listen. Trump has stepped up that refrain in recent months, saying, “I have done more for Black Americans than any President, maybe with the exception of Abraham Lincoln.” What about old Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin […]
When the coronavirus began ravaging New York City, Chenghui Zhang’s parents begged her to return to China. But Zhang, who is 25 and also goes by the adopted first name Helen, would not leave her adopted home of nearly seven years. “It was very scary, but I told them that it was better for me to not move for now,” Zhang told The Daily Beast on […]
It is, allegedly, the last time we will see Richard Nelson’s Apple family during the pandemic. How are the liberal, white, arty, upstate-dwelling American upper-middle classes feeling as lockdown eases and the election approaches? The last of a trio of plays, Incidental Moments of the Day suggests the answer is, as confined and confused as the rest of us. Here again, discussing, needling, laughing, and consoling […]
As we come to the 19th anniversary of 9/11, the New York City Fire Department has renamed its highest award for bravery from that of an avowedly racist newspaper publisher who supported slavery to that of the chief who died while directing operations at the World Trade Center. After he nearly perished in the collapse of the South Tower, Chief Peter Ganci remained in harm’s way […]
Give the players credit. The first two teams to take the field for the 2020 NFL season—the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans— knew a lot of eyes would be on them Thursday night. After a summer of athlete protests, including postponed NBA, MLB and NHL games, they could have refused to play. They could have all taken a knee during the national anthem. But instead […]
In the fall of 2018, I returned to my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to help fix a broken health department. Among other scandals, the agency had failed to follow through on monitoring for possible lead poisoning among local children. As the only Black woman health officer in the state, the luster of being in the role wore off rather quickly. Mostly, I found myself praying that […]
As she was putting together her portfolio collection during her last year as a fashion student at Parsons School of Design, Najla A. Burt called her mother for help. She needed to come up with a name for her clothing line. “We had a conversation around why she should not make her label her name,” Cynthia Burt, Najla’s mother, recalled in an interview with The Daily […]
A few weeks ago, I re-watched Jordan Peele’s racial thriller Get Out. The movie still elicits a visceral response of horror, mostly due to its banality and familiarity. The upper-class liberal white family is creepy, but they are given the benefit of the doubt, repeatedly. The situation is familiar to many of us who move in racially mixed social and work spaces. We ignore the uneasiness […]
Theatre for One: Here We Are boils drama down to essentials: one viewer, one actor, and a visceral live-wire connection that manages to transcend physical space. Presented by Arts Brookfield and billed as a digital theatrical experience, the eight micro-plays burn fast and bright, pairing one performer with one audience member for a live two-way video call. Written, performed, and directed by Black, indigenous, and other […]
Two House Democrats are urging the nation’s top intelligence official to make public what they argue is crucial information about the extent to which foreign actors are exploiting recent racial and social unrest in the U.S. to advance their own agendas. In a September 1 letter obtained by The Daily Beast, Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Val Demings (D-FL), members of the House Intelligence Committee, thank […]
Here we go. It’s law and order week. And with the eyes of the nation fixed on Kenosha, Joe Biden is going to… southwestern Pennsylvania, to give a speech on why you aren’t safe in Donald Trump’s America. And Trump is going to Kenosha on Tuesday. So we confront one of the enduring questions of American presidential politics, which goes back to Richard Nixon’s time: Can […]
As a Black queer millennial, I’m often told I’m strong. For my mere existence alone is often said to be an act of resilience. I live in a world where people who look like me are being extrajudicially killed by cops on viral videos. A global pandemic is taking away my skinfolk more rapidly than any other population. And bigotry, H.I.V., gun violence, opioids, and poverty […]
I attended my very first Sundance Film Festival in January of 1997. I loved the energy and the community that came together around a shared passion for independent film and the discovery of new filmmakers. But when the lights came on, I saw very few people in the audience who looked like me. It was mostly white men. Were there Black filmmakers who didn’t know about […]
What can definitively be said about the Republican National Convention’s weaponizing of Blackness and poverty to spout predictable American mythology? Trump and his cronies say again and again that he has “done the most for black people.” In fact, every U.S. government has failed and brutalized Black Americans and countless racialized people in the country and outside of it. The most significant positive change to Black […]
I dare you to examine the 1989 murder of Yusuf Hawkins and tell me America has changed. Yusuf Hawkins was a 16-year-old Black teenager who, along with three friends, went to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, one summer night to look at a used car his buddy Troy had found for sale in the newspaper. Yusuf didn’t know anyone in Bensonhurst, but he and his friends found themselves surrounded […]
Stephen Colbert opened his show Wednesday night with a confession. “Now, full disclosure: I did not watch much of the convention tonight. And fullest disclosure: I did not watch any of it,” the Late Show host said. “Because right now in America, we’re facing a global pandemic that has killed 180,000 Americans, heavily armed Rambo wannabes are murdering people in our streets, the strongest hurricane in […]
Before the NBA kicked off its rebooted season in Disney World, promises were made. The league and Commissioner Adam Silver swore that despite being ensconced in a semipermeable bubble in Orlando, Florida, players would in no way be hindered from participating in the nationwide uprising against police brutality and state-sanctioned violence largely inflicted upon people of color. In fact, their voices would not only be heard, […]
After the NBA suspended all playoff games on Wednesday night following a protest walkout by the Milwaukee Bucks over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, Charles Barkley shared his uncensored reaction on CNN. The former basketball star and current co-host of TNT’s Inside the NBA said the Bucks “deserve a lot of credit” for their “courageous” act of refusing to play, but his biggest question is […]
More than once in our conversation, the Broadway producer Brian Moreland qualifies an optimistic thought with, “I know that sounds very Pollyanna of me.” Moreland, one of the few Black producers working on Broadway, is hopeful for not just the healthy, post-pandemic return of Broadway, but also for a renewed kind of commercial theater which looks, sounds, and feels more diverse. “I feel there’s change in the […]
What is it about courtside at the Oakland Arena that really brings out the worst our country has to offer? You may recall, during the 2019 NBA Finals, when Golden State Warriors’ part-owner and venture-capitalist scumbag Mark Stevens took a second out of his night to shove Raptors guard Kyle Lowry and then call him a “piece of shit,” all for the crime of trying hard […]
On September 11, 2017, Jemele Hill tweeted, “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounding himself w/ other white supremacists.” And, even though the 99-character pronouncement came a few weeks after Trump referred to a group of white nationalist protesters as “very fine people,” pearls were firmly clutched. A vocal faction of conservatives, including the president and his then-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, called […]
Citing health concerns, the president of the National Organization for Women stepped down Sunday, amid a flurry of allegations of racism at the nation’s oldest and largest feminist organization. In an email to the NOW board, state presidents, and staff on Sunday night, President Toni Van Pelt announced she would be stepping down with two weeks’ notice effective Aug. 28. Vice President Christian Nunes will take […]
The only thing more dangerous than monsters in Lovecraft Country are racists—although there are plenty of both in HBO’s new series, and sometimes they’re one and the same. Blending comedy and drama, horror and sci-fi, social commentary and genre thrills, showrunner/writer Misha Green’s adaptation of Matt Ruff’s 2016 novel tackles American intolerance through the prism of author H.P. Lovecraft, whose famed work about ancient, incomprehensible evils […]
Since he was in elementary school summiting flagpoles, eating his lunch at the top of basketball hoops, and wriggling his way up the exposed seams of brick buildings, Kai Lightner has been a fearless climber. The 20-year-old professional from Fayetteville, North Carolina, has tackled some of the hardest routes in the world, ascending the formidable Era Vella in Margalef, Spain, when he was just 15. Still […]
It’s clear enough that Ben Shapiro and Republican candidate James P. Bradley’s puritanical pearl clutching over Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s (censored!) music video “WAP,” which stands for Wet-Ass Pussy, is largely irrelevant. Shapiro’s and Bradley’s statements decrying the explicit message of the song and the (un)dress in the video constitute the kind of performative moral panics that are so baldly opportunistic as to render […]
Warning: This post contains content that may be disturbing to viewers. Newly released video shows a North Carolina man’s final moments in a county jail, where he called out, “I can’t breathe,” as detention officers held him face down for 12 minutes and made jokes while trying to remove his handcuffs. The footage was made public on Wednesday after a group of news outlets, including The […]
Fox News star Tucker Carlson—currently facing outrage from network colleagues over his racist rhetoric—upped the ante on Monday night, claiming it was “probably illegal” for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to prioritize Black women in his running mate search while calling those candidates unqualified. Carlson, whose former head writer was recently outed as an outspoken racist, kicked off Monday night’s broadcast of his hit primetime […]
On Sunday night, John Oliver kicked off the latest edition of his acclaimed late-night show Last Week Tonight by addressing the ongoing brutalizing of Black Lives Matter protesters by Trump’s federal agents in Portland, Oregon. “The protests in Portland have actually been going on daily for nearly two months now, since the killing of George Floyd,” said Oliver. “But the deployment of federal agents was a […]
During one of the many contentious exchanges that occurred with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday this weekend, President Donald Trump randomly invoked Al Sharpton’s name in response to an unrelated question about renaming military bases. Now the reverend and MSNBC host is firing back. When Wallace asked Trump if he really plans to veto a bill that would rename bases like Fort Bragg that are […]
Roger Stone appeared to use a racial slur during a live interview Saturday with a Black radio host who pressed him on whether he got special treatment from President Trump. Morris W. O’Kelly, the host of The Mo’Kelly Show, told Stone he believed his close ties with the president “weighed more heavily” in his commutation than Trump simply wanting to right a wrong in the justice […]
After Minneapolis, Minnesota, became the nucleus of Black Lives Matter anti-racism demonstrations across the United States, many state and local authorities have looked at new measures to correct existing racial inequalities. The Minneapolis City Council determined on Friday that racism is a public health emergency, pledging increased funding and resources to “name, reverse, and repair the harm done” to people of colour in the city, the Star […]
The Daily Show host Trevor Noah checked in on Tuesday with Tucker Carlson, “Fox News primetime star and mom haircut model.” The previous night, Carlson finally addressed the controversy surrounding his show’s top writer, Blake Neff, who was fired by Fox for a history of racist, misogynistic and homophobic online posts. “So Fox News got rid of the guy,” Noah said, “but it appears Tucker Carlson […]
Whoopi Goldberg assumed that Meghan McCain might want to take a pass on talking about the resignation of Tucker Carlson’s top writer because she used to work for Fox News. She was wrong. “I’m happy to speak on this,” McCain said, setting herself up for a rant against “cancel culture.” “I think about cancel culture a lot,” she said. “I think every person who’s in mainstream […]
There’s a joke that Richard Kind likes to tell about himself. It goes like this. The executive in charge of actor contracts comes home one night and asks his wife, “You know that guy who you like so much? He was on Mad About You and then you liked him on Spin City, and then he was on Curb Your Enthusiasm?” The man’s wife says, “Oh, […]
CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty “She fucks Black dudes? She probably has something.” Those were words said to me in high school — by a friend. I spun on my heels and told him how those words were racist, and my friend, who was nice and would give someone the shirt off his back, listed every reason why he couldn’t possibly be racist. He wasn’t a card-carrying […]
“She fucks Black dudes? She probably has something.” Those were words said to me in high school — by a friend. I spun on my heels and told him how those words were racist, and my friend, who was nice and would give someone the shirt off his back, listed every reason why he couldn’t possibly be racist. He wasn’t a card-carrying Klan member, like the […]
A Wilmington, North Carolina police officer who was fired for taking part in a violently racist conversation has filed an appeal, claiming his comments were protected religious speech. Wilmington Police officer James “Brian” Gilmore was one of three officers fired last month for taking part in recorded racist conversations. One of those conversations, for which Gilmore was not present, involved racist slurs and talk of massacring […]
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump demanded an apology from Bubba Wallace for supposedly perpetrating what he falsely labeled a hate-crime “hoax” after what looked a lot like a noose was found in the Black NASCAR driver’s garage stall. Wallace responded on social media with a message of positivity and love, but he had a bit more to say when he appeared as a guest on […]
When one of Bloomington, Indiana’s most prominent Black activists filmed a harrowing encounter by men who allegedly threatened to hang him, locals held a protest in his defense. But that same Monday night, the protest was met with a car plowing through demonstrators. Bloomington, like many American cities, is undergoing a public reckoning over racism. One Bloomington incident made national news this week, after activist Vauhxx […]
Meghan Markle has ghosted her sometime best friend Jessica Mulroney after the latter was caught up in a dispute over white privilege. Mulroney now believes that being ditched by Markle may see her lose her career, according to a report in British newspaper the Sun. However, Mulroney, who was accused of trying to “silence” a Black Canadian influencer and lost her job as a TV host […]
After years of doubling down on racist jokes and choosing to “opt out” of critical conversations about her portrayals of people of color, Tina Fey’s work has finally caught up with her. Last Tuesday, the Saturday Night Live alum joined a chorus of Hollywood comedians and showrunners trying to rectify acts of racism and racial miscasting by requesting the removal of certain 30 Rock episodes containing […]
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty The archetypical Karen has ruined countless cookouts and lemonade stands, and she’s made a mess of a few telltale accessories. Close your eyes and think of the kind of privileged woman who might call the cops on any slight, perceived inconvenience: spiky bob haircut, chunky highlights, oversized sunglasses from Nordstrom Rack propped upon her head to communicate a self-bestowed […]
If the sky is the limit, as the saying goes, a striking performance this weekend will harness those lofty ambitions quite literally. “In Plain Sight” is a complex and politically-charged nationwide choreography that involves skytyping powerful phrases, selected by 80 artists and activists, across the United States. With a sense of irony and provocation, the performance is timed with Independence Day weekend on July 3rd and […]
In a podcast episode published Wednesday, seven Barstool Sports employees of color spent 80 minutes talking around the fact that their boss Dave Portnoy, whose racist videos had gained attention this past weekend, had not apologized publicly or in private to them. Objectively, the discussion was pathetic. Former NFL player Willie Colon and Brandon Newman had five of their co-workers on The 2Biggs Podcast for a […]
Veiled by comfortably coded references to local control, curricular discretion, and choice, racial bias subsists throughout the educational status quo. The threads of racism are deeply woven into the fabric of American schooling. To start with the most obvious targets, school district lines and property taxes largely follow patterns of racial and income segregation, with wealthier, whiter districts often getting even wealthier by disproportionate access to […]
Fox News host Tucker Carlson continued his relentless attacks on social justice movement Black Lives Matter on Wednesday night, likening the protests over police brutality to coronavirus while describing the city where George Floyd was killed as “our Wuhan.” Carlson led off his top-rated Fox News primetime program by referencing COVID-19, a disease that has currently killed roughly 130,000 Americans, in an effort to draw a […]
Cops lie, not just often, but with the bravado and confidence of people who know they will neither be caught nor held accountable. And plenty of those lies are made against people working for crap wages and no benefits in the service industry. In recent weeks, New York City officers fabricated poisoned Shake Shack milkshakes, a Georgia cop paranoia-conjured a tainted McMuffin, and a Los Angeles […]
Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of lower Manhattan on Sunday for the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality, a rallying cry against police violence that combined the spirit of Pride with the ongoing calls of the Black Lives Matter movement. Late afternoon reports on social media showed disturbing moments of confrontation after a largely peaceful march, with the police pushing through […]
If you love The Daily Beast’s royal coverage, then we hope you’ll enjoy The Royalist, a members-only series for Beast Inside. Become a member to get it in your inbox every Sunday. Whatever the state of the relationship between Prince Harry and Prince William, two things are most certainly not helping: royal “sources,” and an expanse of miscommunication-facilitating ocean between them. The apparent fraternal conflict is being […]
This year’s season of “Pride Plays,” produced by Rattlesticks Playwrights Theater in New York City, is showing online at Playbill.com. This is the first of two articles focusing on the Black queer playwrights with plays in the season. Rodney Hicks’ play, Just Press Save, is about the hopes, fears, and intrigues of a group of six high school seniors, including twins who are undocumented immigrants and a […]
NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace appeared Tuesday night on CNN to respond to the FBI’s conclusion that he was not the target of a racist hate crime, saying he was “pissed” that people are doubting his character and integrity. Days after NASCAR announced that a noose was found hanging in the garage of Wallace, the league’s only Black racer who has recently been outspoken on racial justice […]
The president of the United States is facing a vexing problem: the racism he ran on is no longer in style. In fact, “76 percent of Americans—including 71 percent of white people—called racism and discrimination ‘a big problem’ in the United States.” This is an enormous shift in the America Donald Trump was elected to govern just three years ago. And while Trump’s base may be […]
On Sunday night, John Oliver took a break from his ongoing flame war with “racist” Fox News host Tucker Carlson to roast President Trump over the embarrassingly low attendance at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night. Prior to the event, White House officials—along with Trump—boasted repeatedly that over a million people had registered for the ego-stroking endeavor, and that the crowd would be so […]
If you love The Daily Beast’s royal coverage, then we hope you’ll enjoy The Royalist, a members-only series for Beast Inside. Become a member to get it in your inbox every Sunday. Prince William’s 38th birthday today has been happy and also a tad dramatic, with reports claiming royal aides fear a new book about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will see William “painted as the bad […]
The inaugural Antonyo Awards chose the evening of Juneteenth to honor the work of Black theater artists on and off Broadway with a virtual celebration. With the 2020 Tony Awards postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, and in the midst of a global uprising calling out the value of Black lives, the streaming event was a welcome moment to acknowledge the extraordinary achievements of Black […]
This week, Soledad O’Brien releases the documentary Outbreak: The First Response—a look at how public health cared for its most vulnerable in the place where COVID-19 first arrived in the U.S. The documentary airs on Hearst Television’s NBC and CBS stations at 8 p.m. on Friday, and on Hearst Television’s ABC stations on Wednesday at 8 p.m. America is burning. Or, more correctly, America has been […]
During an appearance with Martha MacCallum on Fox News Wednesday night, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson accidentally made the exact opposite argument of the one he was trying to make. After once again defending the police officers who have now been charged with the killing of Rayshard Brooks, saying there was “wrong on both sides,” Carson addressed the larger debate over “systemic racism” in […]
Cities across the world have erupted in protest against police violence and anti-Black racism, but who are they marching for? In the wake of the killings of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, global communities have participated in themed protests to honor their lives. From #IRunWithMaud to celebrity-led comedy specials, there’s no shortage of coverage of their deaths. But since these protests picked up steam, I’ve noticed […]
In the weeks since the Minneapolis police killed George Floyd—an unarmed, restrained Black man—in broad daylight, as he begged for his life, there has been a sort of cultural atonement for the myriad ways white power structures have routinely exploited people of color. Some white folks have resigned; other have joined book clubs; and Hollywood, never to be outdone in the performative allyship department, recorded a […]
In a new interview with The New York Times, Jon Stewart insisted that he does not miss hosting The Daily Show. “If you’re asking, Do you wish you had a show? Sometimes I do,” he said. “But not the one that I had. The one that I had is in wonderful hands and continues to elevate in a way that I couldn’t have.” That statement has […]
In a new, massive federal survey of novel coronavirus cases in the United States, a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers an in-depth breakdown by gender, race, ethnicity, and health factors. Among 1,320,488 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases considered by the CDC between January 22 and May 30, 2020—of which only 45 percent had race or ethnicity data—33 percent were Hispanic or Latino of […]
It happened in Atlanta. In San Francisco. In D.C. and in Charlotte. Over and over again in recent weeks, black female mayors have stepped onto the national stage—and been forced to publicly face their contradictory roles. Not only are these women in positions of power and obligated to uphold the law, but they also find themselves promoting racial justice in a movement that does not always […]
On Sunday night, John Oliver took some more shots at his new favorite target: Tucker Carlson, the white nationalist-adjacent Fox News anchor, former bow tie enthusiast, and heir to the Swanson TV dinner fortune. Two weeks ago, when Carlson claimed that the protests in Minneapolis were worse than “police brutality,” Oliver said, “OK, first: Fuck you, Tucker… people like Tucker love to venerate order at moments […]
When President Donald Trump announced his plan to restart his 2020 campaign rallies in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 19, it was met with widespread disgust. Not only is the date he chose one that honors the freedom of all enslaved African Americans in the U.S., but the Juneteenth rally was to take place in a city that was home to what may have been the most […]
As the tear gas clears across America, the nation is facing an unprecedented reckoning about systemic racism and, particularly, the criminal justice system. What makes this moment even more unique, though, is how it’s unfolding not because of presidential leadership—but, almost uniquely in American history—in spite of the president. There are moments when history unfolds quickly, when America’s foundational quest to strive toward becoming a more […]
As hundreds of protesters gathered in Palmdale, California, on Saturday to demand more investigation into the death of a 24-year-old black man found hanging from a tree, questions emerged about a similar death 10 days earlier and 50 miles away. The family of Robert Fuller, whose body was discovered by a passerby on Wednesday, said they don’t believe he would take his own life. And now […]
On the same day President Trump is scheduled to give his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination at the big arena in Jacksonville, Florida, another group will meet in a nearby park where Klansmen in Confederate uniforms handed out ax handles for a racist rampage exactly 60 years before. The permit for the Aug. 27 gathering at Hemming Park was secured by one of that murderous […]
Da 5 Bloods is, like BlacKkKlansman, another attempt by the prolifically astute Spike Lee to blend fact and fiction so to better tell the truth of our times. But with this film, streaming on Netflix now, the subject is the complex and differing experiences of four black Vietnam War vets—the eponymous Bloods—who return to the country to uncover a lost treasure as well as the remains […]
Thousands of theater professionals assembled this week for #BwayforBLM, a three-part online forum that was raw, emotionally charged, and bracingly frank about the systemic problems plaguing the medium’s white-dominated spaces and institutions. The forum took place amid a global uprising over the death of Black Americans at the hands of police, and a reckoning with anti-Black racism across a growing number of industries—including media, retail, and […]
From one vantage point, the death of Akai Gurley was a familiar story. On Nov. 20, 2014, while walking down a darkened stairwell with a companion in Brooklyn’s Pink Houses projects, the unarmed 28-year-old black man was shot by a New York City Police Department officer. Though ambulances were called to the scene, Gurley didn’t survive. At a present moment in which George Floyd’s murder has […]
United Skates, a 2019 documentary film highlighting the history of black roller skating rinks, opens with a shot that is all-too-prescient for this summer of Black Lives Matter demonstrations: police sirens. As black families, many of them with children, wait to enter a roller skating rink, they are monitored by officers. Even at a recreational space long associated with nostalgia and good clean fun, the cops […]
Fox News host Harris Faulkner gave President Donald Trump every opportunity to calm tensions over racist police brutality during an interview in Dallas that aired, in part, Friday afternoon. He either had no interest in doing so or was ultimately incapable. Faulkner began her interview by asking Trump if he was the right president to “unite all of us, given everything that’s happening right now.” “Well, […]
A 24-year-old black man was found hanging from a tree in Palmdale, California, this week, sparking a massive public outcry and demands for a more thorough investigation after officials almost immediately described it as a suicide. Robert Fuller was found by a passerby at about 3:39 a.m. Wednesday near Palmdale City Hall in Poncitlán Square, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Homicide investigators said […]
Taylor Swift has no interest in preserving and protecting statues of racist leaders. In a lengthy Twitter thread posted Friday, the singer condemned several “racist” monuments in her home state of Tennessee. As protests have erupted across the country in support of Black Lives Matter, demanding justice for black Americans murdered by police, statues of various racist figures, most of them Confederate leaders, have toppled. As […]
There are few actors as accomplished, or as effortlessly cool, as Delroy Lindo, who for more than three decades has brought a commanding intensity, sharp humor and easygoing magnetism to a wide variety of film, TV and stage roles. That charisma is once again on grand display in Da 5 Bloods, Spike Lee’s Vietnam War film about four vets—played by Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr. […]
Another fashion brand reportedly preaching inclusion online has been called out for its allegedly real-life racist practices. Anthropologie, the retailer owned by Urban Outfitters known for its overly dainty selection of candles and cardigans, has been accused of profiling customers and not paying black content creators for their work. As first reported by the Instagram fashion watchdog account @DietPrada, Anthropologie’s June 1 Instagram post—a Maya Angelou […]
Jessica Mulroney, the Canadian stylist, Good Morning America correspondent, and close friend of Meghan Markle, has been fired from her Canadian TV gig after black influencer Sasha Exeter dubbed her an “Amy Cooper.” Equating Mulroney to the white woman who called the cops on a birdwatcher in Central Park last month, Exeter took to Instagram to tell a story of alleged online bullying at the hands […]
The two-night special OWN Spotlight: Where Do We Go From Here? that was hosted by Oprah Winfrey Tuesday and Wednesday night was remarkable. It aired across 19 different Discovery-owned networks simultaneously in primetime, which means on outlets like OWN, HGTV, Food Network, Animal Planet, and the Travel Channel—in other words the channels that program content that people typically flock to in order to escape the harsh […]
At least three black Liberty University employees have resigned directly as a result of President Jerry Falwell Jr.’s tweet in which he declared he would only wear a COVID-19 mask if it were one depicting the 1984 photo of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam allegedly wearing blackface. Falwell, the long-time head of the evangelical Virginia school founded in 1971 by his father, tweeted the infamous photo of […]
GoFundMe suspended pro-Trump personality Candace Owens from its fundraising platform on Sunday, after Owens raised more than $200,000 on the site for an Alabama cafe whose owner called George Floyd a “thug.” Owens has become one of the right’s most prominent critics of Floyd and the protests held after his killing, with one video she made highlighting his criminal record going viral on Facebook. Those same […]
If you love The Daily Beast’s royal coverage, then we hope you’ll enjoy The Royalist, a members-only series for Beast Inside. Become a member to get it in your inbox every Sunday. Prince Charles “terribly sad” Former coronavirus patient Prince Charles finds it “terribly sad” to be disconnected from family and friends because of the pandemic lockdown. Charles told Sky News, “I haven’t seen my father (Prince […]
A few of the women seemed nervous as the cameras began to roll and the orgy got underway—not unusual for newbies. Except there was one woman who appeared to be dodging a particular male performer. If he got too close, she’d walk off-camera or reposition, creating a buffer of other performers’ bodies between them. It seemed personal. His physical performance began to suffer. Ugh. Wood problems […]
Despite the Muslim and African-American communities both being minority groups, and the fact that nearly one third of the Muslim American community is black, there’s been a history of tension or mistrust between many in the two groups. And George Floyd’s tragic murder and the reaction that followed both conjure up the past challenges for these two communities—and offer an inspiring sign of hope for the […]
At the end of a day in which Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) was forced to excoriate his colleague Rand Paul (R-KY) for blocking an anti-lynching bill, he spoke frankly and emotionally about his own experience with racism and the police on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Booker began by saying he almost feels “embarrassed” that he wasn’t with the protesters in Lafayette Park this week […]
LinkedIn prides itself on being the highly professional, troll-free antithesis to all other social-media platforms. But on Wednesday, the company’s own internal meetings looked more like a “dumpster fire” Facebook comments section than anything on the company’s famously civil website. Earlier this week, the career networking website announced that it would hold a virtual global town hall to address the nationwide social unrest sparked by the […]
A professor at the University of Central Florida faces calls for his removal after claiming in a Twitter rant that “black privilege is real” and insisting that the answer to systematic oppression is to “stay in school” amid nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd. Charles Negy, an associate professor in the Psychology Department, has fired off over 30 contentious tweets about race, inequality, and […]
Jimmy Kimmel opened his monologue with some expected jokes about President Trump’s tear-gas-fueled photo-op Tuesday night. But things really got interesting when he shifted gears and looked at himself. “Over the past week, I’ve been hearing and reading very thoughtful posts and words from very smart people, some of whom say white people shouldn’t be talking now, they should be listening,” the late-night host told viewers […]
As protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody boiled over in New York City on Saturday and video of an NYPD vehicle driving into demonstrators sparked outrage, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he would not “blame” police officers facing such an “impossible situation.” “If those protesters had just gotten out of the way and not created an attempt to surround that vehicle, we […]
Minnesota law enforcement’s latest spate of terror started with the murder of George Floyd and has continued unabated with cops firing rubber bullets and tear gas—in the midst of a respiratory pandemic—at peaceful protesters. They’re far from alone. Officers have launched attacks against demonstrators in cities all over the country, Omaha, San Francisco, Portland, Columbus, Dallas, New York and Denver among them. People in Michigan protesting […]
After broadcasting from his New York apartment every weeknight for the past two months, Trevor Noah went on hiatus this week. But he couldn’t wait until Monday to share his take on the protests that have followed the police killing of George Floyd. In a long, no-frills, joke-free video, shot vertically, The Daily Show host connected the dots between Amy Cooper, Ahmaud Arbery and now Floyd. […]
MINNEAPOLIS—Hours after a now-fired Minneapolis cop was charged with murder in the death of 46-year-old George Floyd on Friday, protests exploded in major U.S. cities across the country, with demonstrators demanding that all police officers involved be brought to justice—fast. In New York City, where dozens were arrested in Manhattan a day earlier, hundreds of people swarmed to meet police officers outside the Barclays Center in […]
A protest in Denver on Thursday night over the death of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis police custody took a violent turn when a driver apparently plowed into a crowd of protesters on purpose—speeding up and nearly running over a man who just barely escaped being seriously injured. Video of the incident posted to social media shows a black SUV honking repeatedly and trying to […]
Eric Garner. Sandra Bland. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. Michael Brown. Their names, and those of far too many other unarmed African-Americans killed by police (or in their custody) have become a grim litany etched in the memories of a whole generation of Americans. And now, George Floyd, who was violently detained for a “forgery in progress” on Monday by as many as four Minneapolis police officers, […]