How did we get here? While we were still in early voting, two brilliant Black scholars made their case for why this race was so close considering all we know about Donald Trump. Isabel Wilkerson, the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize winning writer, recently reflected on what led to this moment. “When people look at this only as an election, then it doesn’t make sense. When you look at this as an existential crisis over what the country will be, then this makes more sense,” she shared.

With this race so close and the electoral college poised to play a defining role yet again, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have spent the last few weeks bouncing between Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and more. Though we are all exhausted by the endless stream of texts, calls, and events, undecided voters will be weighing their options up until the last moment. The campaigning and get out the vote efforts may not be for you, but the hope is that they will  reach someone who hasn’t yet made up their mind.

Many called on Harris to focus more on where she stands with men. This line of thinking signals the sexist and lazy approach to politics that has erased women from halls of power for so long.

No matter what happens this November, Vance (and many others coming behind him) will continue to capitalize on cosplaying as a working-class, relatable person. And just when he has half of America ready to have a beer with him, Vance will already be laughing his way to the top of the oligarchy that he’s currently propping up. We can’t fall for Vance's smoke and mirrors. Though he packages his rhetoric better than Trump, marketing and branding won’t change that he’s peddling poison and calling it the American dream. What's more dangerous than a well-spoken white man? 

We have been trying to petition our way out of a death machine. We can’t do it alone. If we raise millions of signatures and dollars to only save a handful of people, we are only slapping a band-aid on a gaping hole – and exhausting ourselves in the process. If our political representatives are not also championing a better world, who are they representing?

Outside pressure is a good thing for movements and an important aspect of civic engagement. Engaged voters don’t need to be silent about what isn’t working for them. On the contrary, feedback is a gift, invitation, and road map all in one. Praise and blind allegiance alone turns public servants into celebrities. A true democracy is strengthened through rigorous critique so that our leaders and representatives can hear directly from the people about what our society should look and feel like.  

Nearly 50,000 people packed into Chicago’s United Center for the 2024 Democratic National Convention. The words “our fight for reproductive freedom” were splashed across the biggest screen on the main stage. In front of the block lettering, a Black woman named Kaitlyn Joshua stood and told the story of how abortion bans left her bleeding out and fighting for her life eleven weeks into her pregnancy.

American politics have devolved to such a spectacle that we celebrate complete sentences and zingers without digging into policy proposals or the pathways to actual implementation. Harris won the debate because she stayed on topic and remained composed but the substance of what she had to offer Americans wasn’t too exciting. She spent most of the debate cozying up to Republicans which left me — and many other progressives — wondering whether Harris winning the battle was more important than the war she should be fighting: winning the people who will vote for her.

Donald Trump’s inability to speak in coherent sentences mixed with the outrageousness and irrelevance of his words at any given moment is so shocking that we sometimes laugh to cope. Memes are spurned and people think that by “owning” or making a fool of him online, they are engaging in some sort of digital activism. In actuality, while everyone else was getting in on the fun, Haitian-Americans paid the price.

In 1982, Banned Books Week was established in response to this “surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools.” More than forty years later, and with Project 2025 looming over our heads, the fight against suppression is just as fervent and urgent.

From Supreme Court cases to state-level legislation, the past year has brought unprecedented attacks on critical race theory, diversity, equity and inclusion, school curricula and the books available to the general public, as well as affirmative action.

Brea Baker is a writer and organizer. In this op-ed, she shares her perspective on the history and current movement of Black feminist support for Palestine.

March 21st, 2023 was a cool spring day in the Desoto suburb of Dallas, Texas. Supported by a doula and their two older children, Temecia and Rodney Jackson welcomed their new baby Mila in their home, completing their family.

Atlanta is a unicorn. A predominantly Black city with among the highest percentage of tree canopy of any major U.S. metropolis, the Georgia capital earns its nickname: the City in a Forest.

Today is the first day of Black History Month. It is also the day Tyre Nichols will be laid to rest. On Friday, people across the country watched and shared footage of police officers brutally attacking Nichols and leaving him without aid. The country witnessed as Nichols called out for his mom and asked the officers: “What did I do?”

Unbothered continues its look at the tangled history of Black culture and identity with ROOTS (Un)Banned, a series of stories on book banning for Black History Month. In 2023, we’re exploring efforts to censor Black stories across the country, the roots of what’s happening, those who are being affected, and those who are on the ground fighting to stop it.

There are certain world events that occur, and you just know that you'll always remember where you were when you first heard the news. Sept. 8, 2022, the day Queen Elizabeth II died, will certainly be one of those moments in time for many of us.

Update:

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, ordering that “all persons held as slaves” should “be free.”

Tracy McCarter says she was acting in self-defense when she stood up to her estranged husband. Now she’s being charged with murder.