Why The 'Race Card' Is Played

America's Racial and Ethnic Tensions Reflected at School Sporting Events Upon looking at my headline, some of you may have thought, you know, you could have ended that with that last prepositional phrase. But given youth sports is my domain, and it seems like there is a never-ending supply of racist incidents at school and youth sporting events, I’ll focus on what possibly can be done about it. Racism at school sporting events long predated the current times, but it seems to have made a roaring, much more open comeback since Donald Trump announced his run for president. Even now, “Trump” is used as a threatening chant and symbol by fans of overwhelmingly white high schools when they play schools that, well, aren’t, a by-product of a political movement in which, as The Atlantic noted, “the cruelty is the point.” I’ve written about the issue many times, but I’ll note USA Today’s recent roundup for racist incidents at high school football games, including a marching band rearra...

In this Louisiana town, racist policing, bogus arrests and story of community's eroding trust Krystallynn, 4, Deondre', 2, and Ramona Washington look out the window of their home in New Iberia's West End, one of dozens of blighted "Mixon homes" lining the block. The Mixons, a local lumber family, built the shotguns in the early 1950’s as rentals with no running water. Several of them on Shot Street were torn down last year. They’d become vacant magnets for crime. Many more like these remain, renting for about $200 a month. Gunshots had become an almost daily feature in the historic black core of New Iberia in 2017. The neighborhood had once been under siege from police. Now most days, residents said, policing in the West End was drive-thru only. The shotgun shacks and narrow alleys of the West End had been home to a flourishing drug market since the early 1990s. Not coincidentally, these streets were also where Iberia Parish sheriff’s d...

Cops kill 21-year-old black man he mistakenly thought was a gunman. At least one suspect remains at large in a Black Friday mall shooting in Alabama after a police officer killed a 21-year-old man authorities mistakenly thought was the gunman. Officials initially said Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr. had fired the rounds that injured an 18-year-old man he was fighting with at the Riverchase Galleria in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover. Hundreds of people fled the crowded mall after the gunshots rang out Thanksgiving night. Although Bradford, of Hueytown, Alabama, fled the scene while armed with a handgun and was shot by a uniformed Hoover police officer, he did not likely fire the rounds that injured the 18-year-old and a 12-year-old girl, police said Friday night. "We regret that our initial media release was not totally accurate, but new evidence indicates that it was not," police officials said in a statement. They said they realized the error after Jefferson Coun...

Gina Rodriguez Says Black Actresses Get Paid More Than Asian and Latina Stars and Social Media Users Light Her Up Actress  Gina Rodriguez  is in hot water with social media users again after she made a declaration about equal pay among women actresses of varying races. During a roundtable talk with fellow TV actress  Ellen Pompeo ,  Gabrielle Union   and  Emma Roberts , who are also movie stars, Rodriguez explained her fears with discussing the Hollywood pay gap. “I get so petrified in this space talking about equal pay especially when you look at the intersectional aspect of it, right? Where white women get paid more than black women, black women get paid more than Asian women, Asian women get paid more than Latina women, and it’s like a very scary space to step into. Because I always feel like I fail when I speak about it because I can’t help but feel already so gracious to do what I do and I feel like, culturally, I feel ...

NYPD allows cop who was filmed planting drugs in Black teen’s car to keep his job T h e G r i o   h a s l a u n c h e d a s p e c i a l s e r i e s c a l l e d # B l a c k o n B l u e t o e x a m i n e t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n l a w   e n f o r c e m e n t   a n d A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n s . O u r r e p o r t e r s a n d v i d e o g r a p h e r s   w i l l i n v e s t i g a t e p o l i c e b r u t a l i t y a n d c o r r u p t i o n   w h i l e   a l s o e x p l o r i n g l o c a l   a n d   n a t i o n a l   e f f o r t s t o   i m p r o v e   p o l i c i n g i n o u r c o m m u n i t i e s . J o i n   t h e   c o n v e r s a t i o n , o r s h a r e y o u r o w n   s t o r y , u s i n g t h e h a s h t a g   # B l a c k o n B l u e . A dramatic video that went viral showing proof that an NYPD cop planted drugs in a Black teen’s car still s...

Hillary Clinton says curbing immigration can halt racism... O P I N I O N : W I L S O N D I Z A R D Hillary Rodham Clinton has served up a recipe for disaster by suggesting Europe should stop offering “support and refuge” to people fleeing death in wars she supported.  Clinton’s callousness marks a new low point in loathsome victim blaming that assumes the worst about human beings and tries to appease fascism rather than confront it.  Beyond the moral cowardice and indifference to suffering, her plan wouldn’t even work. Europe’s nationalists will not settle for a halt to immigration, just as Hitler did not settle for Czechoslovakia.   The former secretary of state, who famously lost the race for president to Donald Trump in 2016, believes that the rise of right-wing populism in Europe and the United States was the fault of immigration policies that let in too many Syrian refugees, and encouraged racist and xenophobic views to take over politics a...