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On a recent episode of Hard Knock Radio, host Davey D Cook engaged with renowned anti-racist author and advocate Tim Wise to delve into the complexities of racial relationships, civil rights legislation, and the undercurrents of white resentment in America.

The conversation opened with Wise critiquing how figures like Donald Trump have tapped into white racial grievances, a sentiment amplified by allies like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. Wise illuminated the real intent behind civil rights lawsnot just to protect minorities but to safeguard everyone, including whites. He expressed concerns about efforts by figures like Miller to reinterpret these laws, potentially undermining their original purpose to favor white populations.

Davey and Wise discussed the growing sentiment of white resentment, particularly how its leveraged against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Wise pointed out the irony in how some white individuals perceive efforts to include more diverse voices as discriminatory against them. This misconception has unfortunately influenced public opinion and policy, setting back progress in racial equity.

Furthermore, the discussion ventured into the realm of media portrayal and sensationalism. Both Wise and Davey criticized mainstream media for often resorting to sensationalist narratives that lack nuance and fail to represent diverse perspectives accurately. They highlighted the medias tendency to focus disproportionately on white, middle-class demographics, neglecting the stories and voices of other communities.

The dialogue also touched on the presence and representation of white anti-racist groups like Surge. Wise noted that these groups are underreported, which skews public perception and discourages broader participation in anti-racist movements. He emphasized the importance of showcasing these efforts to inspire more inclusive activism.

Finally, the conversation tackled the broader implications of promoting a multiracial democracy and countering right-wing extremism. Wise argued that despite the vocal minority supporting MAGA ideologies, the majority of Americans do not endorse such views. He stressed the necessity of distinguishing informed conservative voices from those merely inflammatory, underscoring the urgency of understanding historical precedents like Bacons Rebellion to better navigate contemporary challenges.

Throughout the episode, both speakers reflected on the historical and ongoing struggle for racial justice, emphasizing the need for a candid and inclusive dialogue to address these deeply entrenched issues.

Hard Knock Radio is a drive-time Hip-Hop talk show on KPFA (94.1fm @ 4-5 pm Monday-Friday), a community radio station without corporate underwriting, hosted by Davey D and Anita Johnson.

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Tim Wise delves into the complexities of racial relationships, civil rights legislation, and the undercurrents of white ... - KPFA - 94.1FM

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ATLANTA--

Hundreds of Black scholars gathered in Atlanta over the weekend to participate in the 11th annual conference of the Black Doctoral Network (BDN).

Now in its 11th year, this years conference included keynote addresses by author and entrepreneur Dr. George Fraser, and Dr. Kris Marsh, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. Past speakers have included a wide range of prominent scholars, most notably Drs. William Julius Wilson, Cornel West, Julianne Malveaux and anti-racist writer and activist Tim Wise.

This is our biggest conference where weve had the most first-time attendees, said Dr. Deandra S. Taylor, executive director and conference chair of the BDN. One of the big things with our conference is networking and collaboration, she said, adding that dozens of sessions from all academic disciplines were included across the three-days of the conference.Jessica O. Stamps, a doctoral student at Howard University presents at the conference.

Whether youre a student, a scholar, a veteran in your field, there is always something here for you either to deposit or to receive, said Taylor, who noted that BDN is looking to expand its programming efforts beyond the national conference held every October and will continue to host its Western Regional conference in Los Angeles in the spring.

The BDN conference has become the go-to place for Black scholars looking to address some of the nation's most vexing challenges. The sessions are solutions- oriented and participants are strongly encouraged to take an interdisciplinary approach to tackling some of these issues through participatory research.

This years conference was supported by a number of institutions and organizations including Vanguard Sports Academy, the Educational Testing Service (ETS), Loyola Marymount University and Nova Southeastern University.

Some of the workshop topics included Marginalized & Minoritized: Perspectives on Serving Students of Color in Higher Education, Optimizing STEM Throughout the United States, and Strategies to Support Black Transgender Students.

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Scholars Gather in Atlanta for Black Doctoral Network - Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

A federal judge refused to dismiss religious discrimination claims against a private university that dumped an art history professor after she showed her class "Islamophobic" depictions of the Prophet Muhammad commissioned by Muslims, saying the "novelty" of Erika Lopez Prater's argument didn't make it implausible.

The order Fridayby U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez means ongoing scrutiny of Hamline University, whose President Fayneese Miller announced her scheduled retirement two months after an overwhelming vote of no-confidence from faculty in the wake of Prater's non-renewal.

The Higher Learning Commission ended its relatedaccreditation probeof Hamline a month after the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a complaint because the commission does not "typically" investigate third-party complaints, according to a Feb. 3 response letter FIRE provided to Just the News on Monday.

HLC has "nothing to report" about Hamline and any accreditation change would be reflected on the university's HLC page, a spokesperson told Just the News before FIRE responded.Hamline does not come up for "reaffirmation" until the 2027-2028 academic year.

An American Association of University Professors' investigation found that Hamline denied Prater "a legitimate academic rationale" for withholding "any further teaching assignments."

AAUP's May report accused the university of a "de facto campaign of vilification" against Prater that "appears to have engaged outside entities and may have encouraged student involvement," with "repercussions" that seem to have "followed" her to a "neighboring institution." (Prater's LinkedIn page says she's an associate lecturer at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.)

The lawsuit's continuation into legal discovery could spook other colleges that took actions to purportedly protect Muslim students from depictions of Muhammad, the subject of an ongoing 1,400-year dispute within Islam, after one or a handful of students complained.

San Francisco State University opened an investigation of professor Maziar Behrooz this spring for showing students a depiction that is commonly sold near holy sites in his native Iran, promptly drawing a legal warning from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

Behrooz told Just the News the "case has been dismissed and is now closed" but declined to share the letter he received stating his conduct was protected by "academic freedom." He said that "no one interviewed me and asked for my side of the story" but that he has since "showed the portrait again" with no consequences.

Another Minnesota liberal arts college, Macalester, temporarily shut down, then added privacy curtains to an art exhibit by another Iran-born professor, Taravat Talepasand, "to prevent unintentional or non-consensual viewing" of the partially exposed figures in hijabs and niqabs.

Such colleges may also be breathing a sigh of relief, however. Judge Menendez threw out Prater's reprisal, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and retaliation claims against the university, and rejected her motion to remand the lawsuit to state court because the claims "substantially depend upon the interpretation" of her collective bargaining agreement under federal law.

In a brief analysis of the ruling, UCLA First Amendment law professor Eugene Volokh said that forcing employees to follow religiously motivated but "secularly defined" employment rules doesn't equate with religious discrimination.

But Volokh wrote that Prater may have an opening at a later stage of litigation in her "non-conformance" argument, that requiring an employee to "avoid what some religious people see as blasphemy" is akin to illegally forcing them to "affirmatively engage in religious worship."

Alex Morey, director of FIRE's campus rights advocacy, told Just the News "it will be very interesting to watch [Prater's] religious discrimination claim play out in court" while cautioning this was uncharted legal territory.

"The Muhammad painting controversy was a brazen violation of academic freedom and a huge, international-headline-making embarrassment for Hamline," she wrote in an email.

after becoming a "huge, international-headline-makingembarrassmentfor Hamline," a cautionary tale for other universities. "The Muhammad painting controversy was a brazen violation of academic freedom," she said.

Hamline didn't respond to Just the News queries Monday but told Minnesota nonprofit newsroom Sahan Journalon Friday that it was reviewing the order. Prater's lawyers didn't respond to queries.

President Miller has waffled on the controversy, first claiming Prater didn't have a job to lose,then admitting officials made a "flawed" characterization of Prater's opt-out lesson after the Council on American-Islamic Relationships sided with the professor.

CAIR's national office weighed in after its state affiliate sided with Prater's student who filed the complaint, Muslim Students Association President Aram Wedatalla.

Only in June did Miller publicly claim her scheduled retirement next year was unrelated to the Prater controversy. She told the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder that "most of my goals" will have been accomplished by June 2024 and Hamline already exceeded its "comprehensive campaign" fundraising goal.

The school hasn't shied away from controversy since then. Last week, its Office of Inclusive Excellence, whose director called Prater's lesson Islamophobic, hosted an "Academic Freedom and Cultural Perspectives" forum that has not been made available except for a day-of livestream limited to registered attendees.

The forum included critical race theory popularizers Robin DiAngelo, who this year urged nonwhites to "get away from" whites and earns upwards of $20,000 per workshop, and Tim Wise, who once said "sorta kidding" that Christians "deserve to be locked up."

Hamline failed to convince Judge Menendez, nominated by President Biden, that Prater had not "plausibly allege[d] that Hamline discriminated against her because she was not a Muslim or did not conform to a belief that certain Muslims share," according to Friday's order.

The Minnesota Human Rights Act, under which Prater brought the claim, prohibits discrimination "because of religion" whether or not the plaintiff adheres to that religion, the professor argued.

Menendez said she has support in binding precedent from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, including a case in which an employer imposed a "no-beard" policy based on "the preference of third parties."

The judge also noted the 7th, 9th and 10th circuits have "dispensed with the need to plead membership in a protected class altogether" for "reverse religious" discrimination.

While the professor "may have difficulty proving her case at later stages," especially that Hamline would have treated her differently as a Muslim, Menendez said Prater's allegations offer "many suggestions" that the university knew she wasn't Muslim.

Liberal arts dean Marcela Kostihova, for example, told Prater that showing the Muhammad depictions to Muslim students was like using the n-word in front of black students. President Miller herself told all staff that Prater did not show "respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom."

The judge also cited the "temporal proximity" between the classroom incident and her non-renewal notice, just two weeks, as evidence of "discriminatory motive."

Administrators "continued" their description of her conduct as Islamophobic, suggesting "it was a problem" that Prater "did not conform to the belief that one should not view images of the Prophet Muhammad for any reason," Menendez wrote.

The professor is out of luck on her defamation claim, however, in part because different Muslim traditions disagree with one other on the propriety of Muhammad depictions, according to the judge.

Administrators calling her conduct "Islamophobic" and "acts of intolerance" are simply "opinions that cannot be characterized, let alone proven, as true or false," though Menendez said she "sympathizes with how difficult it has been" for Lopez to be branded as such.

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Dumping professor for showing class Muhammad art may be ... - Just The News

Joe Cortez, in red, lines up across from Anuraag Gopaluni for a game of tennis at Hoyt Field in Cambridge on Tuesday. (Photo: Kate Wheatley)

A city decision to bring pickleball to the Hoyt Field tennis courts in Cambridges Riverside neighborhood has brought opposition from a small group of impassioned tennis players who worry about competition for court time and that the sound of pickleball will disturb neighbors and are upset they received no notice before the project was decided.

Pickleball, a hybrid of tennis, badminton and pingpong played with a paddle and a hard plastic ball, was called the fastest-growing U.S. sport last year by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. Inquiries for pickleball courts in Cambridge picked up starting in 2020 and 2021, said director of Cambridge recreation Adam Corbeil, when residents also made several calls for spending on courts during the citys participatory budgeting process. In October 2021, city councillors called for a hearing on finding more space for players.

Noise complaints seem to be a common pickleball byproduct; residents by a court in Wellesley have demanded its relocation; residents near one in Falmouth filed a lawsuit because of the noise of the solid-faced paddles hitting the games hard ball. According to the Pickleball Database, a game can be heard 200 feet away at almost the same decibel as a conversation with a person less than 10 feet away. The Hoyt courts are 50 feet from houses, meaning those residents will hear pickleball from their homes. A pickleball game is significantly louder than tennis, with a difference of 22 to 28 decibels, the site says.

While resurfacing two Hoyt courts June 15-16, the city added painted pickleball court lines. Neighbors and tennis players say theyll be paying the price for the citys actions.

Decades of history

Some Hoyt tennis players have been coming for decades. Born and raised in Cambridge, David Rivera grew up watching people play tennis at Hoyt from his bedroom window and became a ranked player in the U.S. Tennis Association New England and coach for the mens team at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Despite living in Connecticut, he comes to Cambridge every weekend to visit his parents and return to Hoyt.

As a poor Cambridgeport kid who grew up with very little, I owe a lot to tennis, especially those great people at Hoyt who coached me, and I also owe a lot to those two beat-up old tennis courts, Rivera said. Hoyt encompasses 4.7 acres near with softball, basketball, playgrounds and the Willis Moore Youth Center near the Riverside-Cambridgeport line.

Given how busy the park is with tennis, Rivera said hes worried pickleball traffic will cause tension on courts that have been home to a cohesive community.

Its not just the tennis court, really, Rivera said. Its kind of an institution of communal gathering place for a lot of people.

Lack of notice

Work on Hoyt Fields tennis courts in June took users by surprise, they say. (Photo: David Rivera)

There was no notice of the addition of pickleball lines until the decision to paint them, neighbors said.

Local players have cleaned and repaired the courts themselves for years, Rivera said, making the citys resurfacing to make them multipurpose a slap in the face. In a letter to Corbeil, Rivera said he was vehemently opposed to pickleball at Hoyt and found the citys lack of communication concerning and disturbing.

Cambridge resident Tim Wise, who has been playing at Hoyt for more than 40 years, called it insensitive.

We are not hard to find here. Weve made our presence known, Wise said. And you cant even ask us a question?

Bringing pickleball to Hoyt is the gentrification of public recreation, Wise said.

Councillor calls a meeting

City Councillor Marc McGovern said he hadnt heard of the project until Wise reached out to him for an explanation. He was blindsided too, McGovern said, and set up an online meeting for July 10 attended by 13 tennis players, a neighbor and Corbeil.

Maggie Cummings, who plays tennis at Hoyt and attended the meeting, said she saw no sign that the city intended to reverse what she called a recreation departments mistake. The players sent a letter afterward to Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, City Manager Yi-An Huang and the City Council emphasizing their desire for the lines to be removed from the courts, calling Hoyt the wrong place for pickleball.

Its just this pitting pickleball players against tennis players, instead of finding pickleball players their own courts, Wise said.

Rivera said pickleball should be doubled up with some of the citys many basketball courts instead of tennis courts.

Figure out how to all live together

Pickleball and tennis are played side by side Monday at Joan Lorentz Park in Mid-Cambridge. (Photo: Kate Wheatley)

While failing to alert the community wasnt good, Cambridge doesnt have space for all of the communitys diverse needs and desires, McGovern said.

Were not some big, sprawling suburban town that has tons of open space where everybody gets their own thing, and thats a challenge, McGovern said. Weve got to figure out how to all live together and share.

The community at Hoyt may not be willing. Claire White, Wises wife, plays pickleball and said she experienced animosity when she was at Hoyt.

One of the players was clearly irked by even the idea that anybody would play pickleball, so I think that thats how tense this whole thing is, White said. It was such a visceral reaction.

Rules for sharing

If the city is unwilling to remove the lines, the Hoyt players asked that they be included in the creation of new rules at Hoyt. McGovern said they are just painted lines and could be removed, but also saw the need for an updated protocol if the lines remained.

I think we have to do more than just throw some paint down and say, All right, youre all on your own to figure this out, McGovern said. I dont think thats gonna work really well.

Corbeil said he hopes the conversation about Hoyt continues. One of the great ways we get to learn from each other is hearing from each other, Corbeil said. [Im] open to learning and continuing the conversation with the community because I think thats the best way to move forward.

Since sending out their letter after the July 10 meeting, the Hoyt tennis players said they have received no substantive response as to what the city plans to do. The pickleball lines remain on the Hoyt courts and no rules have been set.

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Painted lines for pickleball serve up a conflict with the tennis ... - Cambridge Day

Editors note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the authors own.Read moreopinionson theGrio.

It takes a lot for a white person to be cookout-worthy. Im talking about the mythical cookout, a critical Black space, where the entire culture comes together as one and communes in peace and love. Its a place where we can luxuriate in Black culture and Blackness. If we invite too any white people, we risk ruining it the overwhelming Blackness of the space is the point. That said, we all know that there are some white people who are part of the extended family or who have given us some extraordinary example of allyship that makes them cookout-worthy. Here are 13 who I think could get in.

1. John Brown, the OG anti-abolitionist from the 1800s who murdered enslavers, freed enslaved people and gave his life for the cause. If there were more white people like him, we would have achieved racial justice already.

2. Ann Dunham, Barack Obamas mother. A single mom who taught him about the world, manhood, and life. Without her, we would not have had him.

3. Gloria Johnson, the Tennessee state Congresswoman who stood with state Congressmen Justin Jones and Justin Pearson. The only white lawmaker in that chamber to disrupt the chamber alongside them. True allyship.

4. Teena Marie, the quintessential example of white person whos cookout-worthy. She was a real part of Black culture in the 70s and 80s. She was a soul singer on Motown whose first single was released without a photo and many Black and white people heard that soulful voice and assumed she was Black. She was Soul Trains first white female guest and she was on the show more often than any other white artist. She is the godmother of Maya Rudolph, the daughter of Minnie Riperton, and Nona Gaye, the daughter of Marvin Gaye. If Minnie and Marvin made her part of their family then yeah shes part of the extended family.

5. Prince Harry moved into our extended family when he wed Meghan Markle and also learned to publicly challenge white privilege and also left his own family to support his Black wife. The man radically changed his life to accommodate her when she found the royals to be too racist to bear. The depths of his love for her is inspiring. Also, please miss me with the Meghan aint Black silliness. She is and she knows shes Black and shes beloved by lot of Black people.

6. Adele. One of the great soul music singers of the modern era.She doesnt just make soul, she embodies it in the way she sings.

7. Bobby Caldwell was also great soul singer (What You Wont Do For Love) who many incorrectly thought of as Black because they didnt know.

8. Jack White is one of the greatest musicians alive and a lover of the blues. His music has long been a deep celebration of the blues and bluesy rock. Hes not someone who uses Black music to seem cool; hes someone who loves Black music and seeks to honor it.

9. Gregg Popovich, the legendary coach of the San Antonio Spurs, is a loud and proud anti-racist who has spoken out against racism on many occasions, all while living and working in red state Texas.

10. Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors, and a friend and disciple of Popovich, has similarly used his platform to talk about racial justice on many occasions. This brand of talking back to white privilege is not the norm and it warms my heart to see it.

11. Tim Wise has made a career of talking to white people about anti-racism. Hes written a slew of books and given a ton of lectures on this. Hes deeply committed to doing anti-racist work in white peoples faces.

12.David Bowie. The man was cool as hell, he married the supermodel Iman, and he publicly challenged MTV at a time when they were only playing white artists and helped forced them to add Black artists to their playlists. Hes an ally who lived it.

13.President Bill Clinton. Yes, I know this is controversial, but Im personally escorting Clinton in and no one is stopping me. Millennials who only knew him as a historical figure try to reduce his legacy to the 1994 crime bill, which helped fuel mass incarceration and his welfare reforms, which also did not help Black people. As Melissa Harris-Perry wrote in 2008, As Clinton performed Blackness, real Black people got poorer.

Clinton made some huge mistakes but those bills are not the entirety of who Clinton was. Toni Morrison once called him our first Black president. She wrote that he was: Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our childrens lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonalds-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. Her explanation now feels problematic and, as you can see from the quote, at that point in history, even our most imaginative intellectuals did not envision an actual Black person getting elected anytime soon. But at the time Morrisons larger point that Clinton seemed cool and to have a deep affinity for Black culture and felt comfortable around Black people was shared by many Black people.

According to Andra Gillespite, political science professor at Emory University, Because of his Southern heritage, [Clinton] appeared to be very, very comfortable in African-American communities. It sort of hinted at a certain type of cultural fluency that was welcome to African-American voters. Clinton said he believed in affirmative action and appointed four black Cabinet secretaries. This does not erase the long-term damage done by some of his legislation, it just means that Clintons legacy is complex. I believe he belongs at the cookout.

Tour is a host and Creative Director at theGrio. He is the host of the podcast Toure Show and the podcast docuseries Who Was Prince? He is also the author of seven books including the Prince biography Nothing Compares 2 U and the ebook The Ivy League Counterfeiter. Look out for his upcoming podcast Being Black In the 80s.

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13 white folks who are worthy of an invitation to The Cookout - TheGrio