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USA Today
08-08-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Why rising Black unemployment should worry us all
There's an old saying in the Black community: last hired, first fired. And the way the U.S. labor market is looking there might be reason to believe that is happening. Greetings, This Is America readers, Phillip M. Bailey here. There are plenty of reasons the job market is being called resilient, but a noticeable crack has emerged among Black Americans, who have reached their highest level of unemployment since the COVID-19 pandemic days. The jobless rate for hit 7.2% in July among Black workers, up from 6.3% a year ago and 6.8% the month before, according to the most recent jobs report. It's a troubling sign mainly because historically speaking Black people are often hit first economic downturns. "The Black unemployment rate is always the first to go up. That's always the canary in the coal mine, Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told USA TODAY. For more on what's happening in the U.S. economy, check out the USA TODAY Network's coverage: Trump's political war in Texas is escalating Don't take your eyes off Texas and their attempts to redraw congressional maps. This is a fight that could determine the future of Donald Trump's presidency, but also one that might open up a larger conflict among Democratic and Republican-controlled states. Prompted by the prospect of losing control of Congress, the president wants a rare mid-decade redistricting in Texas, where Republicans have come up with boundaries for U.S. House districts that could give the GOP five more seats. Now more than 50 Texas Democratic legislators have skipped town to break quorum, and Trump's allies want to send the FBI after them in order to bring them back to Austin, the Lone Star State's capitol. Both parties are portraying this as a battle for the future of the country that could expand to other states, as Trump administration officials -- namely Vice President JD Vance -- visited Indiana to urge Republicans there to do the same thing as Texas. Asked if any agreement had been reached on making new maps for the Hoosier State, Gov. Mike Braun said "we listened." Don't forget blue state governors in California, Illinois and New York are thinking about adopting this same strategy, which ultimately will make Congress even more divided. Thanks for reading! See you back next week with more stories of justice from across the country. You can find me on social @phillipmbailey.
Boston Globe
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
In the Trump era, where have all the protest songs gone?
Some of the most prominent and popular 21st-century songs with sharp political critiques are from the Black community, including Beyonce's 'Freedom,' Kendrick Lamar's 'Alright,' and Childish Gambino's 'This Is America.' They're all at least seven years old. No recent music has captured the current political climate, at least not in the way that civil rights anthems of the 1960s, rap hits of the '80s, or even the anti-Bush wave of the '90s and 2000s were able to. Some of those songs dominated the charts and set the cultural tone of social movements. Bob Dylan's 'Blowin' in the Wind,' the Temptations's 'War,' and Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' were explicit in their purpose, and all were in the US Billboard Hot 100 Hits. But protest music has been on an inexorable decline since the highs of the '60s and '70s. Advertisement President Trump has taken office amid silence, centralizing power and influence while blaring 'YMCA' by Village People. There's plenty to protest: the detainment, without due process, of immigrants nationwide; the blatant self-enriching crypto schemes launched by the Trump family; the struggles of everyday Americans with inflation; even the COVID-19 pandemic (remember the disastrous 'The explanation is simple. You can't make much money off these songs,' Ted Gioia, a prominent music historian, Protest songs are now often met with indifference from a cautious music industry, while social media have opened up new opportunities to scrutinize even mildly controversial viewpoints. As mainstream audiences have become generally less receptive to musicians promoting causes, many listeners now shrug off entertainers who dabble in activism as performative, or, even worse, preachy. 'It is not just that people have lost faith in any performer to help bring about change, it is that they resent anyone who attempts to do so,' Dorian Lynskey But as Gioia points out, protest music hasn't totally disappeared — it's just flourishing outside the United States. Beyond the confines of American music charts, movements filled with music are still alive and continue championing global causes. Today, Palestinian rappers like Advertisement In Hong Kong, 'Glory to Hong Kong' became the soundtrack of the 2019 pro-democracy protests and was later This is the kind of music America needs, especially now that the Trump administration has actively targeted musicians. On May 19, Trump called for a Some protest music is still being made, such as Nemahsis's 2023 album 'Verbathim' and Macklemore's 2024 single 'Hind's Hall,' both independently released pro-Palestinian projects. But their impact and reach is limited. As Lynskey writes, 'The right question is not, 'Where have all the protest songs gone?' but 'Is anybody listening?'' In the age of filtered algorithms and tailor-made playlists, the only stars with enough cultural cachet to break through audiences' information siloes are juggernauts like Taylor Swift, Lamar, Beyoncé, Post Malone, Charli XCX, and Ariana Grande. They have little financial incentive to protest. Advertisement Now Swift and Grande stick to writing about their love lives. Post Malone is playing low-stakes pop country on tour with Jelly Roll. And despite a link with the Harris campaign, Charli XCX's 'Brat' is made for clubbing, not marching. In this era, if artists are globally popular, they're not singing protest songs. And if they're singing them, they don't reach the mass audiences they might have commanded in previous decades. The levers of mass media influence for political music don't seem to exist anymore, and if listeners want to tune out politics, they can. 'I began this book intending to write a history of a still vital form of music,' Lynskey concludes in an epilogue. 'I finished it wondering if I had instead composed a eulogy.' Rebecca Spiess can be reached at
Daily Maverick
01-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Violence of whiteness laid bare in Trump-Ramaphosa meeting for all the world to see
This week marks two years since journalist and sociopolitical commentator Eusebius McKaiser died, a loss to both journalism and South Africa's critical intelligentsia community. I yearned to hear his unfiltered take on the humiliating events in the White House's Oval Office during the meeting between Donald Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa. What unfolded there made me feel quite ill. McKaiser was never one to baulk at challenging racial prejudice and discrimination, particularly the weaponisation of whiteness, and that is exactly what we were made to endure on Wednesday, 21 May. The whole engagement enraged me, not only as a South African but also as a black woman watching the all-too-familiar dance of slave and master playing out live on international television, forcing our President to have to beg and perform for his humanity. No amount of cool, calm and factual interventions from his side stood a chance against the dismissive and irrational Trump onslaught. I guess that, at this point, these kinds of things should not still be eliciting such visceral reactions from me, as they have been happening since before I was born. My response, however, came from a sense of anger at the spectacle of white violence demonstrated by Trump, who could not be bothered to know the difference between African countries, never mind listen to the government delegation Ramaphosa led. Instead, he chose to listen to privileged white golfers and a fellow bullish businessman because they have more in common. I also found myself thinking that American people are the ones who gifted the world with Trump after electing him at the polls last November, something I attribute to a culture of worshipping celebrity and money as opposed to reason and moral values. The likes of Trump are what happens when a society lets popular culture dictate people's aspirations amid disinformation and fearmongering. A song titled This Is America by actor and musician Donald Glover, AKA Childish Gambino, has been playing in my head, illustrating this point. 'We just wanna party (yeah) Party just for you (yeah) We just want the money (yeah) Money just for you (you)… This is America Don't catch you slippin' now Don't catch you slippin' now Look what I'm whippin' now' Time magazine explained that, after Gambino's lighter 'We just wanna party, party just for you', 'things quickly take a darker turn… as he investigates just what that 'party' really means, alluding to everything from police violence to racial stereotypes and social media obsession as components of the modern American experience'. Though I was heartened by South African journalists' spirited defence of our country on various US news stations, what continued to gnaw at me was the bold-faced violence that is the constant psychological warfare against black people. The suffering of millions of black people tossed aside simply because of the colour of their skin and the elevation of 49 white lives defy any laws of logic. But in a world run by brash billionaires and celebrity adoration, what is even logical? DM This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Eric Church Says Las Vegas Shooting 'Broke' Him
Country singer Eric Church reflected on the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, saying it 'broke' him. 'It's still raw in a lot of ways, but it affects you,' Church said in a Sunday interview with 'Today.' 'It broke me in a way.' Church, who was one of the musical acts during the 2017 Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas, played his set Friday, Sept. 29, 2017. A few days later on Oct. 1, during Jason Aldean's set, a gunman opened fire from an above hotel room, killing 60 people and wounding hundreds more. It is the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in American history. Just a few days after the shooting, Church performed at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. During that performance, he performed the song 'Why Not Me' and dedicated it to the mass shooting victims. Church told the crowd he decided to go ahead with his Opry performance because of Heather Melton, one of his fans, whose husband died in the shooting. 'The reason I'm here tonight is because of Heather Melton,' Church said. 'What I saw, that moment in time that was frozen, there's no bullets that can take it away.' Church called the shooting 'indelible.' 'The relationship between the artist and the fans in that moment in time is sacred. And those bullets shattered that,' Church said on 'Today.' The shooting was the start of a bad year for Church, he said. In 2018, he had emergency surgery for a blood clot in his chest. Then in July 2018, Church's brother, Brandon, died. 'I think, up until that point, you can listen to the music, maybe, and you can see that I was brash, arrogant, in a lot of ways,' Church said on 'Today.' 'But it changes, when you have those things happen to you. And I think it made the music more humble and, maybe, more observant.' A Parkland And FSU Mass Shooting Survivor: 'This Is America' Country Star With Checkered Past Primed For Pardon
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Yahoo
Illinois Fourth of July Parade Shooter Sentenced To Life 7 Times
The gunman who opened fire during a 2022 Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, in a mass shooting that killed seven was sentenced Thursday to seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. 'The court finds he's irrevocably depraved,' Judge Victoria Rossetti said during the sentencing, according to NBC News. 'He is beyond any rehabilitation.' Robert Crimo III, who was not present during Thursday's sentencing, pleaded guilty last month to 21 counts of murder, three for each of the seven people who died, and 48 counts of attempted murder. After evidence was presented, victims read their impact statements. 'You took my mom,' said Leah Sundheim, the child of Jacquelyn Sundheim, according to The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. 'I will never be able to summarize how simply extraordinary she was, and how devastating and out of balance my life is without her.' Keely Roberts' son Cooper Roberts was 8 when he was shot in the back during the mass shooting and became paralyzed from the waist down. Keely Roberts called the shooter 'cowardly' for not attending the sentencing. 'You will not get my sad stories,' she said. 'You have no power over my life.' Lake County State's Attorney Eric Rinehart said in a news conference Thursday that the sentencing was about the victims, survivors and the Highland Park community. 'The amount of trauma and pain that they have gone through in this case is something that is hard to describe,' Rinehart said. He continued, saying the shooter has 'never shown one bit of remorse.' 'It was clear he was unable to confront what he had done,' Rinehart said about the shooter not showing up for his sentencing. Nancy Rotering, the mayor of Highland Park, Illinois, said at the news conference that the sentencing is another call to action for lawmakers to 'take decisive action to prevent future tragedies.' 'No community should ever have to endure this kind of devastation,' Rotering said. On July 4, 2022, the shooter opened fire with a rifle from a nearby rooftop during Highland Park's annual Fourth of July parade. The mass shooting killed seven people and injured 48 more and the shooter was arrested about eight hours after the shooting began. Victims of the shooting ranged in ages 8 to 88. The shooter's father was also charged in connection to the shooting. Robert Crimo Jr. pleaded guilty in November 2023 to seven counts of misdemeanor reckless conduct for helping his then-teenage son get a firearms license to buy guns. He served 60 days in prison and is still on two years of probation. The shooting resulted in lawsuits, including one from the victims who sued Smith and Wesson, the manufacturer of the rifle used in the shooting, for allegedly targeting its ads to young men who might commit mass violence. The case is ongoing. California Judge Found Guilty Of Shooting Wife While Watching 'Breaking Bad' A Parkland And FSU Mass Shooting Survivor: 'This Is America' Parkland Victim's Dad Shares Gut-Wrenching Discovery After Florida State Shooting
