Black People

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      What’s a ‘Black Job’? Trump’s Anti-Immigration Remarks Are Met With Derision

      by

      Former President Donald J. Trump claimed during the presidential debate on Thursday that immigrants entering the United States illegally were taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs,” a claim with little basis that Democrats immediately seized on as evidence that Mr. Trump and Republicans were not serious about cultivating support from voters of color.It also touched off a host of internet jokes and memes over what, exactly, a “Black job” is.“They’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs and you haven’t seen it yet but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday, speaking of migrants crossing the southern U.S. border. He then repeated the reference during a campaign rally in Virginia on Friday, adding that Black Americans who have had jobs “for a long time” are losing employment to immigrants.Black political strategists, elected officials and heads of organizations quickly joined hundreds of social media users to post photos of themselves at their workplaces and to crack jokes about the reductive and racist nature of the former president’s comments.Among them was, Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic House delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, who posted a photo on X alongside two women in her congressional office on Friday that was captioned, “Another day in Congress doing our ‘Black jobs.’”Malcolm Kenyatta, a Black Pennsylvania Democrat and surrogate for Mr. Biden’s campaign, quipped: “Did we ever figure out what a ‘Black job’ is? Asking for me.”And Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., also criticized Mr. Trump’s remarks, writing on X that Black Americans “are not confined to any one #BlackJob.”Republicans, who have sought to take advantage of President Biden’s softening support among Black voters, have made the issue of immigration a cornerstone of their appeals to the bloc, whose turnout in November could decide the election. Mr. Trump has said migrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country, and has repeatedly claimed that the migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are escapees from prisons and mental institutions, something the evidence does not support.Immigrants have made up an increasingly large portion of the American labor force in recent years, but economic experts say their presence has been healthy for the nation’s economy. And while Mr. Trump claims that migrant workers are taking jobs from American citizens, the population of foreign-born workers in the country is not large enough to offset the job creation of the last three years.Democrats have increasingly gone on the offensive. In a statement, Mr. Biden’s communications director Michael Tyler pointed to the online fray of responses to Mr. Trump’s comments, saying Black voters “dragged Trump throughout the night for his racist rant.”“They know Trump has done nothing for Black communities, so he tries to pit communities of color against one another as a distraction,” he said. “We aren’t distracted. We see Trump’s racism clearly, and it’s why Black voters will reject him this November.” More

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      At Rickwood Field, Willie Mays Is the Star of the Show, One More Time

      by

      Earlier this week, as Major League Baseball prepared for a tribute game in his hometown Birmingham, Ala., Willie Mays said that age would keep him away but that he would be watching from afar.“Rickwood Field is where I played my first home game, and playing there was it — everything I wanted,” he said in a statement to The San Francisco Chronicle.Mays died the next day, at 93, and as fans walked into the ballpark on Thursday, it felt like he was there in spirit, watching from afar.“I’m sure he’s here,” said his son, Michael Mays, who rushed to California from Alabama to pray over his father’s body and then returned in time for the game. “He figured out a way to be the center of attention like he always did. He’s the star of the show. He’s Willie Mays.”His death added poignancy to M.L.B.’s celebration of the Negro leagues at Rickwood Field — the nation’s oldest professional ballpark, where Mays got his start as a professional — and to the game between the San Francisco Giants, Mays’s old team, and the St. Louis Cardinals.Willie Mays’s death added poignancy to M.L.B.’s celebration of the Negro Leagues at Rickwood Field, the nation’s oldest professional ballpark, where Mays got his start as a professional.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Willie Mays, Birmingham and Rickwood Field: Baseball Honors a Legend in His Hometown

      by

      Major League Baseball is in Birmingham to honor the legacy of the Negro Leagues. With Mays’s death, the celebration at ancient Rickwood Field takes on new meaning.In the late innings of a minor league game on Tuesday night at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala., fans throughout the grandstand, suddenly and almost in unison, began staring at the news on their phones: The great Willie Mays had died, at 93, in California.An inning later, a tribute video played on the scoreboard overlooking the outfield where Mays played his first professional game as a teenage phenom for the Birmingham Black Barons, and the loudspeaker blared “Say Hey (the Willie Mays Song),” recorded in 1954 by the R&B group the Treniers.“I was shocked,” said Randy Ferguson, 70, a member of the Friends of Rickwood, the nonprofit organization that oversees the ancient ballpark. He was standing outside a small museum underneath the stands, where the next day fans would line up to see Mays’s flower-draped Hall of Fame plaque, the first time it has left the wall in Cooperstown since it was installed at his induction in 1979. “I have chill bumps. I can’t think of any place to be than here.”At 114 years old, Rickwood Field is the nation’s oldest professional ballpark, the first place Mays played pro ball and the last ballpark still standing that he called home. To honor the legacy of the Negro Leagues, Major League Baseball scheduled a game in Mays’s hometown between the San Francisco Giants, Mays’s old team, and the St. Louis Cardinals, that will be played on Thursday.The Rev. William H. Greason, 99, who was the first Black pitcher for the Cardinals in the 1950s, has been a pastor in Birmingham for more than a half-century since retiring from baseball. He had been hoping to see his old friend this week, at the ballpark where they played together.At 114 years old, Rickwood Field is the nation’s oldest professional ballpark and the first place Mays played professional baseball.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Inside a Writer’s First Ride on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Disney World

      by

      When Walt Disney World replaced a ride that was based on a racist film with a new attraction, Brooks Barnes, who covers entertainment, was first in line.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.I suppose I qualify as a Disney Adult, the pejorative term for grown-ups who visit Disney theme parks without children in tow.Disney has 12 theme parks and two water parks around the world, and I’ve been to all of them. I was at Walt Disney World in Florida when the theme park reopened in July 2020 after closing for four months during the coronavirus pandemic. And I was at Disneyland in California in 2022, when Mickey Mouse was allowed to share hugs again after a two-year pandemic-induced hiatus. I also hung out at the Turkey Leg Stand in Disneyland’s Frontierland for an entire afternoon.And this month, when Disney World began testing its newest ride, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, I was on it.But I didn’t do any of those things as a dewy-eyed Disney fan. I go to the company’s parks because, as a reporter who covers the entertainment business, it’s part of my job.Early in my career, in the late 1990s, I covered “hard news,” including cops and courts in Philadelphia. That posting was a picnic compared with my current one. Disney does not respond well, to put it mildly, when articles puncture its Happiest Place on Earth mythmaking. I once tried to get information out of a Toy Story Mania ride operator — I wanted to know how Disneyland employees felt about new safety procedures — and a corporate communications officer appeared out of nowhere and curtly put an end to the conversation.As of 2021, the Walt Disney Company had a 500-person global media relations team. There is just one of me. Still, I aim to cover all the big news.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      With the Help of Whales, a Choreographer Falls Into an Abyss

      by

      Whales, Black bodies, the ocean, climate change, protest movements — over the past few years, they have all made their way into work by Mayfield Brooks, a choreographer, dancer and vocalist.The latest setting for Brooks’s ever-evolving dance project is a majestic one: the Tall Ship Wavertree, the last iron-hulled, three-masted cargo ship in the world. Built in 1885 and docked at Pier 16, the Wavertree extends about the length of a football field.This week, as part of the River to River Festival, Brooks (who uses they/them pronouns) finishes their whale journey with two works: “Whale Fall Abyss,” a dance performance on the ship, which is part of the South Street Seaport Museum; and “Whale Fall Reckoning,” a companion installation at a gallery — a former munitions room storage space — on Governors Island.In “Abyss,” Brooks, wearing white, performs a compass dance — named for its circular choreography — on one end of the ship while Camilo Restrepo, in a long, swirling mint skirt that trails to the deck, is poised on a high platform, his torso undulating in what Brooks calls a spine dance. Under an American flag rippling in the breeze, Restrepo looks a little like the Statue of Liberty. Eventually Brooks, now in the same skirt, makes their way to him and they conjoin for an extended spine duet. Slowly they mesh into each other, one cradling the other in grief. It’s like their bodies are melting.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Remembering Willie Mays as Both Untouchable and Human

      by

      Mays, who died on Tuesday at 93, had been perfect for so long that the shock of seeing baseball get the best of him was the shock of seeing a god become mortal.At the end, the Say Hey Kid looked nothing like the extraordinary force who had been at the center of the American imagination for much of the 20th century.The Kid — Willie Mays — struggled at the plate and stumbled on the basepaths. A line drive arced his way, easily catchable for Mays during most of his career. But he fell. Another outfield mistake caused the game to be tied in the ninth inning.He was a creaky-kneed 42 years old on that October afternoon, Game 2 of the 1973 World Series — Mays’s New York Mets in Oakland facing the A’s. On the grandest stage, the ravages of time had settled upon the game’s most gilded star.That he would redeem himself at the plate three innings later is often forgotten. The unthinkable had happened. Mays had not only failed, he had appeared lost, clumsy and out of sorts.The shock of seeing him that way would linger long past his playing days as a warning: Don’t be like Willie Mays, sticking around too long, stumbling in center field, a shadow of his former self. Such became the axiom, uttered in so many words by everyone from politicians to business leaders to commentators weighing in on great athletes who yearn to play into their twilight.Quit before it is too late.In retirement, Mays, who died on Tuesday at 93, did his best to ignore the game that would be his last. But there is another way to view its echoes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Arizona Man Plotted Mass Shooting to Trigger ‘Race War,’ Officials Say

      by

      Prosecutors said Mark Adams Prieto of Arizona planned to target Black concertgoers at an Atlanta venue. He was indicted on hate crime and firearm charges.An Arizona man who planned to commit a mass shooting at an Atlanta rap concert as a way of inciting a “race war” has been indicted by a federal grand jury on hate crime and firearm charges.The man, Mark Adams Prieto, hatched a plan in several discussions with two people working with the F.B.I. who posed as racist extremists to carry out a mass shooting targeting Black people and other people of color at a concert in Atlanta on May 14 and May 15, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.Mr. Prieto intended for the shooting to incite a “race war” before the presidential election, prosecutors said in a news release.Mr. Prieto, 58, was reported to the authorities last year by an acquaintance who said he had made concerning comments calling for mass shootings targeting Black people and others, according to officials.Mr. Prieto faces two counts of trafficking in firearms, one count of transfer of a firearm for use in a hate crime and one count of possessing an unregistered firearm.He faces a maximum 15-year prison sentence for each firearm trafficking and transfer charge and a maximum 10-year sentence for the unregistered firearm charge, prosecutors said. Mr. Prieto also could be fined $250,000 for each count.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Trump, in Pitch to Black Voters in Detroit, Casts Biden as Anti-Black

      by

      Former President Donald J. Trump, courting Black voters at a church on the west side of Detroit on Saturday, sought to harness animus toward migrants crossing the border, sanitized his track record on race and sold himself as the best president for Black Americans since Abraham Lincoln.As he spoke to roughly 200 people, Mr. Trump largely ignored his history of racist statements and his decades of calls for tougher policing that have fueled his three presidential campaigns.Instead, during short remarks before a panel with Black residents of Detroit at the city’s 180 Church, Mr. Trump tried to cast Mr. Biden as anti-Black, focusing intently on the president’s role in shepherding the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a sweeping bill that criminal justice experts have said laid the groundwork for mass incarceration that disproportionately hurt America’s Black communities.Though Black voters have overwhelmingly favored Democrats since the civil rights era, recent polls have shown the party losing some of their support.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesMr. Trump, at one point, seemed determined to ensure that Mr. Biden’s role in the crime bill would be the event’s main takeaway. He falsely accused Mr. Biden of coining the term “super predators” and then insisted that those in the audience should not forget Mr. Biden’s role, as a U.S. senator, in championing the bill and helping pass it.“He was the one with the super predators,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Biden. “So just please remember that if you’re going to vote Democrat — because you shouldn’t vote Democrat.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More