All the Racist BS Black Folks Put Up With in 2025... So Far
We're only three months in the year, and already the country has been torn apart by what seems like a rise in blatant racist attacks against Black Americans. The verbal, physical, and political violence towards our people has many in fear of what the future of America will entail, especially in the midst of President Donald J. Trump's second term .
But while attacks on DEI and legislation from the Civil Rights Movement are all cause for concern, just like always, Black people have fought back and bounced back from adversities against us. In this list, The Root is taking a look at all the racist attacks that occurred in 2025. But don't feel discouraged, you'll be more than surprised to see exactly how Black folks fought back.
Back in 2020, then-18-year-old activist Miracle Boyd was struck in the face by a police officer during a protest. The cop, who has since resigned, even knocked out Boyd's tooth. Five years later, Boyd received a $280,000 settlement, according to Fox 32 News. But just one day after her settlement was announced, Boyd was sent a letter full of racially motivated attacks. The person even told her 'Miracle Boyd deserves to be knocked unconscious and be hanged from a tree.'
During a kindergarten graduation ceremony in Florida, a white woman took things a little too far during an altercation with a Black woman. The Karen threatened the Black woman, allegedly saying 'I will f***ing kill you.' But to make matters even worse, the white woman eventually leans over and spits at the Black woman.
Police say two MO schools were vandalized this month. The first attack occurred on March 7 at Affton High School, when officials discovered swastikas and other offensive messages had been spray painted on an outside wall, according to Fox 2 News. On March 12, officers were called to Rogers Middle School where racial slurs, including a threat to kill Black people, swastikas, the words 'wite power,' and the numbers '88,' which means 'Hail Hitler' were all painted on the building, according to KSDK. Eventually, 18-year-old Patrick Sloan was arrested and charged with the crimes after his mother recognized him from wanted posters and turned him in.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as the Secretary of Health and Human Services on Feb. 13, despite his documented history of being anti-vaccine and perpetuating racist ideas. As The Root previously reported, his confirmation represents an unprecedented regression in the American health system. Most notably, the Trump nominee claimed a 'series of studies' in Poland showed Black folks have 'a much stronger reaction' to 'particular antigens.' Meaning in his mind, Black Americans should be on a different vaccine schedule than other Americans.
A heated exchange between two women in Iowa took a racial turn when the white woman told the Black woman filming her 'You wouldn't be here if we didn't bring you here.' From there, the women excused her offensive statement saying 'Hey, I'm Jewish... So you know what? Big deal.' The Black woman stood her ground and was not afraid or threatened by the woman's attacks.
As The Root previously reported, the LAPD was exposed after a formal complaint was filed citing racism, sexism, and homophobia. 'In one conversation, a Latina LAPD officer offered this advice on how to fight African Americans: You hit black people in the liver; I heard they got weak livers,' according to the complaint filed Jan. 5 with the Los Angeles Police Department's Professional Standards Bureau and the inspector general's office.
On Jan. 31, the Department of Defense announced all 'identity months dead at DoD.' This came just days after the president signed an executive order to ban DEI at the federal level. Because of the DoD memo, celebrations like Women's History Month, Pride Month, and even Black History Month will not be recognized within the department.
It all started when the alleged attacker, Wilfred Francis Hutson IV, spotted a Black man sitting in his own car. According to an affidavit obtained by MLive.com, the Black man was waiting inside his vehicle when Hutson allegedly accused him of staring at him. That's when the white man began hurling racial slurs at the Black man, eventually prompting the victim to drive off. Hutson chased the Black man down and even physically attacked him. He was later arrested and charged with felony ethnic intimidation and misdemeanor assault and battery.
On Feb. 10, Military.com reported that the Army and other service branches will get rid of recruiting efforts at this year's Black Engineer of the Year Awards (BEYA). The annual conference has had a long-running public partnership with Army Recruiting Command, as we previously reported. In response, an Army general told Military.com they found halting recruiting efforts discriminatory. 'It's f***ing racist. For the Army now, it's 'Blacks need not apply' and it breaks my heart,' they said.
In early February, a Uhaul van full of neo-Nazis gathered in the predominantly Black Cincinnati suburb of Lincoln Heights for a demonstration. They wore masks and carried guns as they called residents racist slurs. The group of white supremacists also waved flags with red swastikas on a highway overpass. Soon afterwards, someone went as far as to spread racist pamphlets from the Ku Klux Klan all over Lincoln Heights, as we previously reported.
Even with DEI being banned by the president, Trump and his supporters still managed to blame DEI for the fatal collision between a D.C. bound passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter last month. 'The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative,' Trump said during a press conference. And because of it, the president claimed DEI caused a lowering of standards for FAA employees, leading to the crash.
James Rodden, an attorney who worked for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was accused of allegedly operating a 'racist, bigoted, xenophobic, hateful, harassing and dishonest' X account, according to a legal complaint filed against him. As The Root previously reported, the account, which boasts over 17,000 followers, contained tweets including, 'America is a white country, founded by whites,' and 'Migrants' are all criminals.'
The Chicago rapper caught everyone off guard when he called himself a nazi, saying 'I LOVE HITLER NOW WHAT B*TCHES' and flat out confessing 'IM A NAZI.' In a rant on X, Ye even addressed his past social media posts sexualizing former Vice President Kamala Harris. Now, he says 'I DONT KNOW KAMALA AND I AINT GOT NOTHING AGAINST THAT LADY SHE WAS JUST BEING USED FOR WHAT THEY CALL 'THE BLACK VOTE.'' The rapper has since continued spewing racist and homophobic language attacking Black Americans, Jewish people, and the LGBTQ+ community.
John Chong Uk Moon, 54, and Cindy Kim, 58, are in police custody after being caught on video hurling racial slurs at a couple eating.'What are you looking at, n****r?' Moon asked the woman recording him. Apparently, the beef began before the woman pulled out her phone. She alleged Moon started verbally attacking her and calling her names. Moon's sister, Kim, jumped in and told the Florida duo 'Don't be a n****r, don't act n****rly.'' Moon then called the male tourist 'white trash' among other things. The video of the siblings eventually went on to help identify Moon and Kim as suspects in the murder of a 66-year-old family man, The Root reported.
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USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Reunited, a family bands together to care for a lost sister's kids
Chapter 3 | Reunited, a family bands together to care for a lost sister's kids A tragedy means Amy must take in her nieces and nephews. She and her sisters fight to give them a better childhood than they had. The last time Kay K called the older sister who raised her, she asked for help. 'I hated she had been through so much,' Marlena, 44, said. 'She would go from foster homes to the street to self medicating and being mentally unstable.' The 31-year-old was pregnant with her tenth child and wanted to straighten out her life. But she disappeared after that call. A few months later, her remains were found rolled in a rug on an overgrown Mississippi hillside. 'I know I can't save the world,' Marlena said. 'But I tried to save her.' Kay K's four sisters had hoped taking in eight of her kids would be temporary. That she'd stabilize enough to care for her children and be an aunt to theirs. But now, it was up to them to raise the nieces and nephews, ages 1 to 13, alongside their own daughters and sons. To protect the privacy of sensitive health and social information of minors too young to consent to having it appear online, USA TODAY used first names for adults and middle names for kids. USA TODAY does not name survivors of sexual assault. An estimated 2.4 million American kids are being raised by relatives, not their parents. Most 'kinship families,' or "grandfamilies," are formed suddenly, without planning. Grandmas, aunts, brothers and cousins take in young relatives amid crisis. When parents die from car wrecks or overdoses. When mom is jailed or loses the job that pays for rent. Sometimes, government child welfare agencies take kids from parents if social workers decide they can't provide basic needs and safety. An update to federal law in 2018 re-emphasized that agencies should provide the same assistance to relatives that is given to strangers who foster or adopt. Kids taken into foster care have better outcomes when raised within their family. Yet not all relatives are offered help to do so. And those who seek aid could instead be deemed unfit to parent. Amy, 37, had never planned to raise eight kids, four of whom are Kay K's. She is determined to keep the family together despite broken government promises and America's blind spot for kin caregivers. She doesn't want her nieces and nephews to lose family bonds like she did by growing up with strangers in foster care, living hundreds of miles from her sisters. 'If we'd had a family member that thought like that, we woulda never had to go to the shelter,' Amy said. 'It's a lonely life.' Kinship caregivers keep family together but don't get help they need A Mississippi couple took in a relative's kids to keep them out of the foster care system. They say parents like them deserve more support. Trying Kay K's sisters reported her to child welfare officials for neglect several times but saw no intervention. Marlena called the state hotline instead, after seeing her infant nephew left playing alone with a cup of water and an uncovered outlet. Kay K's three children went to a foster home in a city an hour away. Their mother had a breakdown and was committed. It was almost a year before Marlena convinced the children's caseworker to grant a family visit in a state office. She was shocked to see they were 'a mess.' The baby's diaper was full, and she was 'raw from front to back.' Makay, 4, had bright white scars on her head, neck and hand from severe burns sustained while in foster care. Soon after, a caseworker called on a Saturday and asked, Can you get the kids today? They arrived with a small duffel bag of clothes. Marlena took the girls. Amy cared for the boy. An official told the family that they could become licensed foster parents if they wanted to receive monthly assistance payments for the kids' care. Today, Mississippi pays between $750 and $5,600 a month to foster parents or group home companies, depending on age and therapeutic needs. The sisters decided they didn't need the cash or the headache of getting licensed. Their own experience with 'the system' as kids had been rough. Anyway, they were too busy with college and family to attend the infrequent, mandatory classes. 'I wasn't there for the money,' Marlena said. 'I was there for the kids.' Still, it would have helped. Marlena, a registered nurse, worked nights at the hospital five days a week. Amy was in nursing school and working part-time jobs. They lived near or below the federal poverty line for families with so many kids. When the kids needed clothes, or the grocery budget was a little tight, relatives, members of their church or a community nonprofit would help. Sometimes, after repeated calls, the kids' caseworker would take Amy to Walmart to buy necessities, like a car seat or diapers for a newborn. Around the same time, Mississippi officials had to change how the state foster care system handled relatives in response to a 2006 settlement that is still under court monitoring. The original lawsuit was filed on behalf of thousands of former foster youth. One of their complaints was that social workers placed kids with relatives without background checks and home-safety reviews. Because relatives weren't put through the licensing process, they had to care for children without the aid given to strangers who foster kids. Sometimes, case workers closed cases after a relative agreed to take in a child, lowering the official number of kids in state care by shifting the responsibility to unsupported families. Researchers call this diversion tactic 'hidden foster care.' Amy and Marlena were caught in an awkward transition as Mississippi began to change state policy. A couple years after taking in their nieces and nephews, Marlena received a letter telling her the kids would be taken unless she attended a training session in two days. They weren't licensed foster parents so they could not have their nieces and nephews. The child welfare agency issued a removal order a few days before Christmas. A judge, however, sided with the sisters. He said they needed to be given reasonable time to complete the training and home inspections. It took months, but they did just that. Now that they were licensed foster parents, the sisters began receiving foster board payments, which turned out to be less than the rates they saw posted. The kids stayed with family. For now. Licensed Many kinship foster parents say being licensed is a hassle and a risk. When the state has custody of kids, caseworkers and birth parents must sign off on decisions about education and health care. Legally, foster parents, including relatives, have the same power as babysitters. Often, each child has a separate caseworker, who is supposed to visit at least once a month. Sometimes other officials do, too. And then foster parents must schedule their lives around calls and case review meetings. Social workers seem to nitpick the kind of child safety locks on cabinets, how old kids must be to sleep in a top bunk and the rating of a fire extinguisher kept in the kitchen. Since 2023, federal rules have given states flexibility on some of these details when licensing relatives, but not all of them use it. As state officials placed more of her sister's kids with Amy, their apartment no longer met licensing standards for the number of children in each room. The paradox was frustrating. 'You requested I take in my niece and nephews,' she said. Being in the child welfare system also means kids could be taken away at any moment. About two years after starting to raise her sister's kids, Amy was told her license was at risk because of cockroaches at her apartment. Amy provided proof that the property manager had sprayed repeatedly at her request. But because of neighbors' uncleanliness, the bugs kept coming back. Still, caseworkers terminated her license and removed the kids – biological and fostered. To Amy, it was the same kind of faulty premise as the first time caseworkers removed her from home as a child. 'You're taking my children because I'm poor,' she said. 'I'm in public housing and there's roaches running around here. That's everywhere you go, pretty much. That's something you really don't have control over.' Luckily, state officials let the kids stay with an aunt. Amy lawyered up and got them back within two weeks. Stability Soon after, Amy bought her first house, moving in with her husband and seven kids. The 1,300-square-foot home had tan brick and four bedrooms. A garage was converted into extra living space. Three chest freezers lined the wall under the dining room window, stocked with food for the large sat on a large lot in a quiet neighborhood outside of town with mature trees and green lawns. An eighth child moved in about a year later. And Kay K's ninth kid stayed there after birth before being taken in by another relative. For years, the kids built family memories at this house. Makay, now 16, remembers the birthday when she came home from the skating rink with her friends to find a tent filling the living room. "We had pillows in there and drinks and all our snacks and all that," she said. For another birthday, she vaguely remembers Kay K, her biological mom, came to the house. She's not sure which birthday it was. She can't picture it. 'I don't really remember a lot about her,' she said. 'Amy is my mom. I really love her. 'She's been taking care of me and providing for me,' she said. 'Her and my dad have been trying to guide me.'Amy wanted to adopt her nieces and nephews. They deserved stability. After years of repeated delays, a state worker finally filed the court paperwork Amy had waited on. It wasn't what she expected. State officials had decided to terminate Kay K's parental rights for one child, but not the rest. At the time, she was alive and caseworkers hoped she might one day be prepared to parent. Amy decided not to waste more time under state supervision. The court agreed to release the kids from foster care, letting them live with Amy as their legal guardian. Caregiving This spring, Amy parked outside the garage-turned-office where she works seasonally as a tax preparer. Before going in, she planned the monthly budget in a notebook propped on her steering wheel. She would have to skip buying a costly lupus medication and risk an episode because the state had recently terminated the family's Medicaid coverage. Two teens who needed therapy might have to wait. It was on Amy's to-do list to visit the local office to sort out the issue. A few minutes after settling at her work desk, Amy received a call from Marlena about their mom. The woman had gone to the county courthouse to pick up routine paperwork. But the visit triggered her paranoid schizophrenia and she began yelling, making threats. She was detained and taken to the local hospital. Marlena said their mom would be sent to an out-of-town psychiatry facility unless she could quickly secure power of attorney. She needed Amy's help, including to make sure their mom's home was locked up while she was away. More: The caregiving crisis is real. USA TODAY wants to hear from you about how to solve it. Amy's phone dinged often. Her husband checking on how she was doing. The teen twins asking for a ride to get their nails done. Her oldest son, living on his own, talking about trouble finding work that paid enough to cover rent. The high school called about one of the boys. A resource officer had misinterpreted an autistic reaction, escalating a communication difference into a chase down the hall. Amy left work early to try to talk school officials out of suspending him. Home Back at home, dinner prep started. Amy dumped a package of cornbread mix into a plastic bowl while Bertram, 15, waited to add milk and stir. Lamar, 13, but just as tall as his cousin-brother, waited near the stove for water to boil so he could pour in three boxes of spaghetti. The teen twins had left early for a hair appointment. They had to look Gucci for their 18th birthday the next day and high school graduation in a few weeks. Ronald walked in from work and gave her a hug before going to shower and change. Makay, 16, and Nicole, 10, leaned on the kitchen island as they watched Nathaniel, 5, ham it up, waving his arms with oven mitts up to his elbows. We didn't have this growing up, Amy said when reflecting on the kids. The closeness. The dependability. Somebody to talk to. To lean on. 'I tell them all the time,' Amy said. 'You don't have anybody else. Rely on your brothers and sisters.' Amy was proud of the kids. They still had struggles. They were kids after all. Kids who had been through a lot in their short lives. She tried to pass on what she'd learned in college and therapy about brain development, healthy relationships and healing from trauma. Her kids have more stability than Amy had known. At about Nathaniel's age, a cop and caseworker took her from home into foster care. By Nicole's age, she had spent years apart from her sisters and had lived in many shelters and strangers' homes. She had just reunited with her family at Lamar's age, trying to build bonds with people she barely knew and starting to care for a nephew. Makay is a little younger than Amy was when she moved out of her sister's house to live on her own with her infant son and to attend college. Amy was glad to see her children have kid-sized problems: school gossip, playful digs at each other and requests for more snacks they could sell at school for a profit. 'That's all we ever want, if you have children: Them being able to be successful in life,' Amy said. 'That's my ultimate goal. That's what makes me happy. When they succeed, I succeed in what I was meant to do.' Amy sat in her computer chair and leaned back as she watched her kids spoon spaghetti onto paper plates. They all sat at the folding table or the island, eating together. Caring for Kin, Chapter 3: Rebuilding | Earlier: Chapter 1: Breaking | Chapter 2: Surviving This article was produced as a project for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism's 2025 Child Welfare Impact Reporting Fund. Jayme Fraser is an investigative data reporter at USA TODAY. She can be reached on Signal or WhatsApp at (541) 362-1393 or by emailing jfraser@
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
DOGE gets failing grade
1: The DOGE numbers don't add up. Calculating how much DOGE has saved is difficult, but it's not at all hard to see that it didn't deliver what was promised. After Musk revised down his own early projection of DOGE savings from $2 trillion to $1 trillion, the department's website now estimates it has found more than $170 billion in taxpayer savings — Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up But even that figure should be taken with a grain of salt, given that past examinations of DOGE's ' Advertisement DOGE moved to correct the error, as well as change the website to make such errors harder to find. But a Advertisement And though it may seem counterintuitive, cutting jobs doesn't actually translate to savings if it results in less productivity — if fewer IRS workers means less tax revenue is collected, for instance. An And even some Republican lawmakers have expressed unease with backing many DOGE-recommended cuts in a $9.4 billion legislative 'rescissions' package to claw back previously approved funding. House lawmakers 2: DOGE has roiled the job market. According to the latest jobs numbers, DOGE cuts contributed to a 50 percent spike in layoffs in May over the same period last year, Exacerbating the damage the firings alone have created is the chaotic way in which they were implemented. Federal agencies like the State Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Food and Drug Administration, National Weather Service, and the IRS are among those rushing to rehire terminated employees. That's because many of the estimated 135,000 DOGE-axed positions are for critical functions, like approving drugs and forecasting weather disasters. The layoffs' often-disorganized manner has confused dismissed workers and overtaxed remaining ones, many of whom have been asked to work overtime, volunteer to take on additional roles, or be pushed into new positions, Advertisement One former FDA worker That's not to mention the blow to communities in states where the largest percentages of federal workers are located, as well as government contractors that face secondhand profit and job losses due to the cuts. Outside of the greater Washington, D.C. region, which includes Virginia and Maryland, the hardest-hit states when it comes to canceled government contracts based on anti-DEI initiatives alone include Texas, California, North Carolina, Georgia, and Colorado — affecting politically red communities as well as blue. DOGE's harms know no partisanship. 3: The incalculable costs. On Monday a 'This was a breach of law and of trust,' wrote Judge Denise Cote in issuing the temporary injunction. 'Tens of millions of Americans depend on the Government to safeguard records that reveal their most private and sensitive affairs.' Whether some or all of DOGE's efforts to gain access to Americans' most sensitive information through agency databases will be declared unlawful is still uncertain. Challenges are still being litigated, and in a lawsuit involving DOGE access to Social Security data, the Advertisement According to Some DOGE staff have been granted temporary 'edit-access' to data, which means the information can be altered or deleted entirely within the federal system. That says nothing of the broader global impact, particularly through the dismantling of agencies like the United States Agency for International Development, which once provided critical life-saving humanitarian aid across the world. DOGE has The government claims that shuttering the agency saved Americans nearly $60 billion, or less than 1 percent of the federal budget. According to Advertisement Musk is already back to playing with his cars and rocket ships as the federal government picks up the pieces from his DOGE tantrum. But the global ripple effect is a reminder that some of the damage can't be undone. Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us
Boston Globe
3 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Gavin Newsom stands up to President Trump
Neither Newsom, nor Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, nor Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell was consulted by the White House about federalizing the Guard, who arrived after protesters gathered in opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement's workplace raids in and around the city. Advertisement Newsom spent days jousting with Trump. When the president said it would be 'great' if border czar Tom Homan had Newsom Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up 'If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe,' Newsom said. 'Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.' Advertisement Neither did Newsom. 'I ask everyone: Take time, reflect on this perilous moment,' he said. 'A president who wants to be bound by no law or constitution, perpetuating a unified assault on American traditions.' Newsom ticked off the harms Trump has inflicted in his second term, from threatening to defund media organizations to waging 'a war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself.' 'The rule of law,' After encouraging Americans 'to stand up and be held to account,' Newsom said, " I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress, and fear. But I want you to know that you are the antidote to that fear and that anxiety. What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.' Like Trump, Newsom understands optics and how to seize a moment. But this time, the personal and political stakes are much greater. Newsom is now the face and voice of the Democrats' anti-Trump fury. In addition to Rob Bonta, the California attorney general When Advertisement On Thursday's edition of The New York Times podcast ' He also defended his conversations with far-right extremists, saying that Democrats can learn from how they mobilized Trump's support. (Incessant lies, racism, and anti-trans hate aren't, though, a path his party can take to consolidate its base and reclaim power.) But Newsom, who never met a camera or microphone he didn't like, clearly wants to be the Democrats' point man in challenging Trump. Much the way the president's 'I'm going to continue to push back, and I'm going to stay on the offense, Newsom said on 'The Daily.' For a time, the governor's voice was no longer one that some Democrats wanted. But so long as Trump's venomous policies continue to roil this nation, Newsom's, for now, has become the voice America needs to hear. Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
