Race

Wednesday

Jesse Longman

The whitewashing of Jussie Smollett

From our US edition

Justice is blind. But, as it turns out, she’s not unwilling to negotiate. If it buys her some silence, she’ll play ball.Yesterday, Jussie Smollett was exonerated by the District Attorney for the state of Chicago. Like Trump, the celebrity victim has been cleared of all charges, though not cleared of wrongdoing. Whatever that means. Dead or alive? It’s Schrödinger’s cat.No one knows what to say exactly because the truth may be too damaging. After all, who knows what happens when you jail a young black gay celebrity? How much abuse would he endure? And if they do kill him, what will happen to our prison system? How much will all of this cost? Oh Jesus, make it go away!Or that’s what I figure happened. Closed doors won’t answer.

jussie smollett

Friday

Andy Ngo and Wael Taji

Black lives matter, until they’re ended by black people

From our US edition

On December 30, seven-year-old Jazmine Barnes was killed in a brazen drive-by shooting in Houston while in her family car, driven by her mother. Barnes’s teenage sister provided the sole description of the shooter to media and police: ‘He was white and had blue eyes.’ In interviews, the family expressed fears that they had been targeted because of their race. The response was immediate: national media, celebrities, politicians, and activists launched a crusade to find the racist white killer. Within days, activist Shaun King and his attorney Lee Merritt used social media to raise $100,000 as reward money for information leading to an arrest. Houston Texans star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins committed one of his paychecks to the Barnes family.

jazmine barnes

Thursday

Taki

50 years after Bobby Kennedy’s murder, the ‘deep state’ still reigns supreme

New York This week 50 years ago saw the assassination of Robert Kennedy, a man I met a couple of times in the presence of Aristotle Onassis, whom some Brit clown-writer once dubbed Bobby’s murderer. (Bad books need to sell, and what better hook than a conspiracy theory implicating a totally innocent man?) I once witnessed Bobby, at a Susan Stein party, asking Onassis for funds — the 1968 election was coming up — and Ari showing Bobby his two empty trouser pockets. Bobby’s assassination did alter American politics. Violence, black anger and despair spilled out on to the streets of American cities.