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The Pittsburgh Steelers’ sideline at Soldier Field was almost vacant, save for a few stray workers and four members of the coaching staff who stood at attention as the Star-Spangled Banner was sung in a deep bass by Lyric Opera of Chicago veteran Wilbur Pauley. The only Steelers player within range of his voice was offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva, a West Point graduate and former Army Ranger who stood just outside the tunnel to the locker room, near the corner of the end zone. The rest of the Steelers chose a unique protest in response to Donald Trump’s unprovoked verbal...

At a political rally in Alabama, President Donald Trump encouraged American football fans to “leave the stadium” when they see “those people” taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem. The predominately white crowd chanted “U-S-A” in affirmation, and Trump urged NFL owners to “Get that son of a bitch off the field” for “disrespecting” the flag. Again, we see that President Trump is stoking white prejudice and fears to position himself as the heavy-handed authoritarian who can reclaim order - even in the NFL. Trump threw down the gauntlet and the NFL needs to decide: is it...

(Note: Strong language in paragraphs 2 and 5) NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s call for National Football League owners to fire players who protest during the U.S. national anthem revealed an “unfortunate lack of respect” for the NFL and its players, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said on Saturday. Goodell, in a statement released a day after Trump suggested any protesting football player was a “son of a bitch” and should lose his job, never mentioned the president by name but made a clear reference to his remarks at a political rally. “Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate...

Democratic Rep. John Lewis said Thursday he sometimes feels like “taking a bullwhip” to people in order to make them care about civil rights. “It doesn’t matter whether they’re black, or white, Latino, Asian-American or Native American. When you see something that’s not right, not fair, not just, you have an obligation to do something, to say something. They’re just too darn quiet. I really wanna use some other words sometimes,” Lewis told the audience of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Town Hall on Civil Rights in Washington, D.C. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) “I believe in the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence,...

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) -- A UW junior says the clothing line is meant to start conversations about social justice, but many are calling messages on the clothing offensive, especially to law enforcement. Eneale Pickett created the "No Justice" clothing line in response to events such as the protests turn violent in Charlottesville last month. "Nobody really listens until you take it to the extreme," Pickett said. Shirts in his clothing line read things like "destroy the city that caused you to bury me," and "(expletive) the police they the biggest gang in Amerikkka."

Why Did the Judge Acquit a St. Louis Police Officer of Killing a Black Man? Bob Adelmann The decision on Friday to acquit a white St. Louis police officer in the fatal shooting of a black man back in December 2011 predictably set off rioting in the city. It didn’t occur to the rioters that, according to the evidence in the case, Officer Jason Stockley’s use of force was reasonable, to defend his own life against a potentially lethal threat exhibited by Anthony Lamar Smith. It didn’t matter that the judge found that the state failed to prove its allegation...

You could be forgiven for thinking the movement has gone quiet. But you’d be wrong. On June 1, the right-wing blogger and avowed white supremacist Jason Kessler and other alt-right activists met for dinner on the patio of Miller’s Downtown, a popular burger joint in Charlottesville, Virginia. The dinner was two weeks after white nationalists had gathered in the city’s Lee Park, wielding torches as a kind of dress rehearsal for the mid-August “Unite the Right” rally that left counterprotester Heather Heyer dead and dozens more injured. According to local reports, members of the white-led group Showing Up for Racial...

Destroying libraries? Sure. This is what the left supports. While the media keeps lying that the St. Louis race riots are "peaceful protests" (as it has been doing in response to every black nationalist race riot since Ferguson), here's what the left's racist black nationalist thugs are actuallu up to. Trashing libraries. The Schlafly branch in St. Louis suffered broken windows at the hands of the racist thugs. The library reopened at midday after the staff went "literally... book by book" to check for glass fragments, said library director Waller McGuire. He arrived at the library at 2 a.m. Saturday....

Jason Stockley, the former police officer whose acquittal sparked three days of riots and protests in St. Louis, says he did not murder Anthony Lamar Smith. “I did nothing wrong,” Stockley told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “If you’re telling the truth and you’ve been wrongly accused, you should shout it from a mountaintop.” Stockley, 36, was acquitted by Judge Timothy Wilson of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, a 24-year-old black man with a lengthy police record. During his 28 years on the bench, Judge Wilson has ruled both for and against police. Before the shooting,...

A university president in Tennessee apologized Friday for hosting black students in his home, which displayed a cotton decoration. Randy Lowry, president of Lipscomb University, apologized for showing centerpieces bearing cotton stalks while hosting black students at his home in an email sent to the school Friday and posted on Facebook. “The content of the centerpieces was offensive, and I could have handled the situation with more sensitivity,” said Lowry. “I sincerely apologize for the discomfort, anger or disappointment we caused and solicit your forgiveness.” The president reported that multiple students confided in him about the cotton decoration displayed during...

UPDATED at 7 p.m. to reflect downtown protests dissipating, protesters in Central West End. ST. LOUIS • Police pepper-sprayed demonstrators Friday afternoon as they declared the ongoing protest at Tucker Boulevard and Clark Avenue downtown as "no longer peaceful". By early evening, protesters had dissipated from downtown and were gathering in the Central West End. Hundreds filled the street there as they marched through the neighborhood. Four police officers sustained minor injuries downtown, mainly as a result of protesters throwing things at them, and more than a dozen protesters were arrested, acting Police Chief Lawrence O'Toole said. He said one...

At first glance, nothing differentiates Vernetta Robinzine from passers-by in the Beverly neighborhood on Chicago's Far South Side. On a recent evening, like most people on a workday, she donned business casual attire with a loose, bright blouse. But her daily wardrobe includes something unseen that gives her confidence. Robinzine, 51, is a gun owner with a concealed carry license. Since she received her permit in late spring, she carries her firearm wherever she goes. ADVERTISING "It's like a part of me now," Robinzine said with the smile. Data show Robinzine is part of a burgeoning group in Cook County:...

Arguably, the only thing better than Maxine Waters’ skewering of White House weasel and Treasury Department Secretary Steve Mnuchin was the song it inspired—a gospel spin on Waters’ infamous remarks, performed by Broadway actor Mykal Kilgore that immediately went viral. It turns out that New York City’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, is also a fan of the song and its message. This past Sunday, which was World Suicide Prevention Day, McCray used the concept of “reclaiming my time” to urge viewers to take better care of their mental health. (TWEET-AT-LINK) In the public service announcement, McCray appeared opposite Kilgore, who’s...

The quarterback’s future has become a political cause over the last year. When the top black lawmakers and operatives in America meet later this month at an annual, days-long conference in Washington, they want Colin Kaepernick there, too. The chatter in the lead up to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference in two weeks is that there's a plan in place for Kaepernick to be involved somehow, a half-dozen independent sources told BuzzFeed News. Both Kaepernick and the CBC find themselves in an entirely different position than just a year ago: The now former NFL quarterback has become...

The Congressional Black Caucus will hold a meeting next week to discuss whether to call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. Following Trump’s response to deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month, the CBC chairman, Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, said the 49-member caucus would have a discussion on Trump’s possible impeachment when Congress reconvened after the August recess. Those talks will take place next Wednesday, a CBC staffer confirmed to Newsweek on Thursday. While it was initially anticipated that the discussions would happen at this week’s meeting, relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey and...

The world was appalled when fanatical members of the Taliban blew up ancient Buddhist statues carved into a mountain in Afghanistan. They destroyed the priceless artifacts as part of an effort to eliminate items they didn't considered politically correct. More recently ISIS members have been doing the same thing in Iraq. They have even been destroying historical artifacts other Muslims consider acceptable. Unfortunately, this vandalism oriented mental condition has begun infecting people in the South. The southern vandals have begun destroying Civil War related art such as statues remembering the men who led the Southern states into the disaster known...

Some Thoughts on Recent Tragedies and Racial Tensions Msgr. Charles Pope • July 10, 2016 • For some twenty-four of my twenty-seven years as a priest I have lived in and ministered to largely African-American parishes and communities. It has been a great blessing to me spiritually, liturgically, and personally.As you may imagine, I get a lot of questions from people when racially charged events appear in the news. I’m asked what my parishioners think as well as what I think.This past week began with the death of two African-American men, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, in interactions with...

This weekend, leaders from Ole Miss Greek life convened upon Camp Hopewell in Lafayette County for a three-day retreat designed to build leaders and bring campus closer together. The retreat was cut short Saturday night, however, after three black students found a banana peel in a tree in front of one of the camp’s cabins. The students shared what they found with National Pan-Hellenic Council leaders, sparking a day’s worth of camp-wide conversation surrounding symbolism, intended or not. In the midst of the open and sometimes heated discussion, senior accounting major Ryan Swanson said he put the banana peel in...

It wouldn’t be an election cycle without Cynthia McKinney’s lunacy, and fortunately she hasn’t shied away from providing it. Here, we watch as the Green Party’s endorsed presidential candidate accuses National Guard soldiers of committing 5,000 murders of prisoners in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: If you think that this is the kind of insanity one normally hears from Alex Jones, well … you’d be right. The conspiracy theorists on the Left and the Right tend to embrace each other at a certain point, just south of rationality. For these people, little points like evidence and common sense provide no...

The House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi now wants to tear down all the Confederacy-related statues in the U.S. Capitol, in solidarity with the Antifa (anti-Fascist) movement. So we have to ask, where are the statues of prominent black Republican pioneers like Joseph Rainey or Hiram Revels?