We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Israeli protesters demonstrate against the right-wing government outside the Knesset in Jerusalem.
Hard Numbers: “Anarchy” in Israel, Michigan State University shooting, the plight of Black mothers and babies, alleged abuses in Portuguese Catholic Church, the new promised land for Scotch
90,000: As Israel’s Knesset began a contentious debate over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms on Monday, a whopping 90,000 people hit the streets of Jerusalem to protest against the measures, with another 100,000 joining demonstrations nationwide. Netanyahu accused his opponents of “pushing the country to anarchy.” Here’s more from GZERO on the back story.
3: At least three people were killed, and five injured, when a gunman opened fire at Michigan State University on Monday night. The assailant then turned the gun on himself. It is the latest in a string of mass shootings on college campuses and schools across the country in recent years.
87: New data on US childbirths shows that, even when correcting for income, Black mothers and their babies fare worse than white ones. The infant mortality rate for rich Black mothers is 87 points higher than that for poor White mothers, according to a decade-long study, which was conducted in California.
4,815: A new report commissioned by the Portuguese Catholic Church alleges that its priests and other authority figures sexually abused at least 4,815 children over the past seven decades. The investigating commission says this number is merely the “tip of the iceberg.” But under Portuguese law, only 25 of those cases are recent enough to be prosecuted.
219 million: India is now the world’s leading importer of Scotch by volume, taking in 219 million bottles of the stuff last year. An increase of some 60% over 2021 helped to push India past France for the top spot. Still, billion-strong India remains a tiny part of the global scotch market — the industry hopes that a long-awaited UK-India trade deal could help to crack things open more.
Biden’s promise to name a Black woman to SCOTUS isn’t unprecedented
US President Joe Biden has gotten pushback from some Republicans for honoring his campaign pledge to nominate a Black woman to replace outgoing Justice Breyer on the Supreme Court.
But for Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Clarence Page, how is that different from when Ronald Reagan promised to pick the court's first woman in Sandra Day O'Connor?
"Biden isn't saying that just being black is enough, or just being a woman is enough. I think they've got to be qualified first," he tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
Page believes the three names that have come forth on the president's shortlist are all qualified. It's too bad, he says, that they can be stigmatized by those who think they will get the job because of their race.
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: Black voter suppression in 2022
- The history of Black voting rights in America - GZERO Media ›
- Why do Black people feel "erased" from American history? - GZERO ... ›
- The Graphic Truth: SCOTUS vacancies in presidential election years ... ›
- Biden's SCOTUS pick to replace Breyer must appeal to Senate ... ›
- SCOTUS confirmation hearings no longer serve a purpose - GZERO Media ›
Nikole Hannah-Jones blames backlash against 1619 Project, CRT on the myth of US "exceptionalism"
Why is there such a strong conservative reaction to the 1619 Project and critical race theory?
For Nikole Hannah-Jones, the New York Times journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work as creator of the 1619 Project, a big part of the problem is that we, "as Americans, are deeply, deeply invested in this mythology of exceptionalism.
"We really are indoctrinated into this idea that these intrepid colonists broke off from [...] Great Britain so that they could advance the ideas of liberty and individual rights. And to believe in that, then you have to downplay the role of slavery."
In other words, she adds, you must gloss over the fact that America has been "plagued by racism and inequality from our beginning."
What Hannah-Jones calls the white backlash against that narrative, she says, should not surprise us. Even after the horrific killing of George Floyd, which could have been an inflection point, Hannah-Jones laments, some politicians seized the opportunity to divide us even further on race.
"How do we divide these people who were finding common cause in Black equality? And you do that by saying, you know, we, we believe, you know, what happened to George Floyd was wrong, but it's gone too far now. Now they're trying to make you feel like there's something wrong with your whiteness. Now they're taking away your icons, they're knocking down your statues and they want to tell your children that your children are evil."
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: Counter narrative: Black Americans, the 1619 Project, and Nikole Hannah-Jones
Nikole Hannah-Jones: America chose slavery — and benefited from it
Many people today still think US slavery was only prevalent in the South. They are wrong, says Nikole Hannah-Jones. All 13 colonies had slaves upon America's independence.
It's not just that the Founding Fathers were slave-owners, which we all know. Slave labor, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist points out, powered the US Industrial Revolution by producing cheap cotton for textiles.
"We've kind of tried to section slavery off as if it was just in the realm of the backwards South, but this wasn't American endeavor and our nascent capitalism, [which] was really built on the institution of slavery."
In her view and that of the 1619 Project she created, slavery is central to the American story because it wasn't accidental at all.
"We did not need slavery to be successful, but we chose slavery. And that led to our success in many ways."
Watch this clip from her interview with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
Watch the full episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: Counter narrative: Black Americans, the 1619 Project, and Nikole Hannah-Jones
Why do Black people feel "erased" from American history?
Growing up, New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones only learned a little about the plight of Black people in America during Black History Month. The Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project studied some usual suspects such as Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass, and then discussed slavery to cover the Civil War.
But then Black people like herself, she says, vanish from the narrative until the civil rights movement.
“There was no really larger understanding of how Black Americans fit into the larger story of America. And there certainly wasn't the teaching of Black people as actors in the American story."
For Hannah-Jones, this explains why white Americans don't know what it means "to be erased" from US history as well as broader American culture and literature.
"That erasure is really demeaning, and it's really powerful.”
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: Counter narrative: Black Americans, the 1619 Project, and Nikole Hannah-Jones
- US global reputation a year after George Floyd's murder; EU ... ›
- Nikole Hannah-Jones pushes back against "disqualifying" 1619 ... ›
- Breathing while Black: WaPo's Karen Attiah on racial injustice ... ›
- The Graphic Truth: Black representation in the US Congress ... ›
- The history of Black voting rights in America - GZERO Media ›
- The problem with China’s Zero COVID strategy | GZERO World Podcast - GZERO Media ›