As conservative politicians and judges widen their focus — targeting not just critical race theory but diversity, equity, and inclusion programs — Kimberlé Crenshaw is wrestling with a lot of emotions: frustration, sadness, distress. But surprise? Hardly. After all, she said, what’s playing out right now happens in any war. “If you attack an opponent […]
Brandon Tensley
Brandon Tensley is Capital B's national politics reporter.
Posted inHistory, News
Possibly the Final Insult in a Yearslong Reparations Fight
“If we want to be on the right side of history, then America — the city of Tulsa — needs to make it right,” Tiffany Crutcher, a native of the Oklahoma city that was the site of a deadly race massacre more than a century ago, recently told Capital B. But things won’t be made […]
Posted inCourts
Your Guide to This Year’s Major Supreme Court Cases
Her words sounded ominous, like a warning. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the bench’s most senior liberal member, recently recalled that, on some days, she returns to her office after the announcement of a gut-wrenching decision, closes her door — and cries: “There have been those days,” she lamented. “And there are likely to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics & Policy
The Racial Inequality of Felony Convictions
Depending on one’s politics, you could describe former President Donald Trump in many ways, but now he has a new descriptor: felon. On Thursday, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a hush-money scheme involving the adult film star Stormy Daniels. He’s the first former president […]
Posted inHistory
Inside the Battle to Preserve the Legacy of Tulsa’s ‘Black Wall Street’
It’s time — past time — that Tulsa’s historic Greenwood neighborhood be granted national monument status, said Tiffany Crutcher, a native of the Oklahoma city that more than a century ago was the site of a white supremacist massacre. Her hope is that the district, known as “Black Wall Street,” will soon secure that history-honoring […]
Posted inEverything's Political, Politics & Policy
Everything’s Political, Including a South Carolina Map
Welcome back to Everything’s Political, Capital B’s weekly news, culture, and politics newsletter! In this edition, learn about the U.S. Supreme Court’s devastating decision on a South Carolina congressional map, the pardon of a man who killed a Black Lives Matter protester, voting rights in Louisiana, the search for a missing Black woman in Mississippi, […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
How Some States Are Responding to the Worst Attack on Voting Rights in Decades
To Minnesota state Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, the mission was obvious: He had to do something to bolster protections against racial discrimination in voting. When a panel from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling limiting who can sue under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party member and […]
Posted inEverything's Political, Politics & Policy
Everything’s Political, Including the Name of a School
Welcome back to Everything’s Political, Capital B’s weekly news, culture, and politics newsletter! In this edition, learn about two Virginia schools renamed after Confederate generals, a Texas county’s fight for a fair voting map, the killing of a Black airman in Florida, a Black mayor’s fight to govern his Alabama town, and the Trump campaign’s […]
Posted inEducation, History, Politics & Policy
Revisiting Brown v. Board of Education’s Legacy in a New Era of Massive Resistance
Exactly 70 years after some of the greatest Black legal minds in the U.S. challenged racial segregation in public schools, the assault on diversity in the classroom and beyond is gaining fresh momentum. Black students have long been subtly pushed out of schools thanks to disciplinary policies with roots in widespread resistance to desegregation efforts. […]
Posted inCulture, Everything's Political, Politics & Policy
Everything’s Political, Including the L.A. Rebellion
Welcome back to Everything’s Political, Capital B’s weekly news, culture, and politics newsletter! In this edition, learn about how a pioneering Black actor lived up to the idea that all art is political, what an Arkansas ruling means for two Black educators in the state, why Louisiana might backtrack on its voting map, what’s next […]