This is The Dossier.
Each Sunday we deliver the latest developments in world affairs, political economy, and culture straight to your inbox, served with a generous side of soul.
We spend the week scouring the internets for essential information and meaningful content to keep you informed, inspired and mildly entertained.
For more than 20 years, the cover of O, The Oprah Magazine has featured one person: Oprah Winfrey.
The September 2020 issue will be different:
Breonna Taylor. She was just like me. She was just like you. And like everyone who dies unexpectedly, she had plans. Plans for a future filled with responsibility and work and friends and laughter.
I think about Breonna Taylor often. Imagine if three unidentified men burst into your home while you were sleeping. And your partner fired a gun to protect you. And then mayhem.
What I know for sure: We can’t be silent. We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice. And that is why Breonna Taylor is on the cover of @oprahmagazine.
The September issue honors her life and the life of every other Black woman whose life has been taken too soon.
📰 Toplines
CBSN: House cancels August recess until coronavirus bill is passed
Axios: Senate adjourns without extending expiring unemployment benefits
Bloomberg: Amazon Plows Through Pandemic With Record Profits
Forbes: Six HBCUs Receive Gifts Totaling More than $100M from MacKenzie Scott
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: St. Louis County Prosecutor Reopened Michael Brown Shooting Case But Won’t Charge Darren Wilson
NYT: Mail Delays Fuel Concern Trump Is Undercutting Postal System Ahead of Voting
POLITICO: Rep. Sanford Bishop allegedly misused more than $90,000 in campaign and official funds
Texas Tribune: Thousands of Texans remain without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Hanna
Miami Herald: Tropical Storm Isaias scrapes along South Florida coast after drenching Grand Bahama
🦠 COVID-19
As coronavirus cases surge to nearly 18 million globally, the U.S. reports more than 4.7 million cases and nearly 160,000 deaths.
The COVID tracking project reports that Black Americans have the highest death rate in the country.
🔥 Invitation to the Cookout (Live)
The blue wall is back! Season 4 of The Terrell Show is here.
Terrell Grice has made a name for himself by highlighting emerging talent and becoming a popular stop for established artists. His love of music, wit and cheeky charm has endeared him to more than half a million fans. (His YouTube channel has more than 69 millions views).
To preview the 4th season of his show, Terrell released a live set of his first studio album, An Invitation to the Cookout.
💰 Black wealth and racial terror
In 1954, in a small town called Marion on the Arkansas Delta, there lived a man named Isadore Banks. Banks was a leader in his community. He was also one of the wealthiest men in the county. He owned 1,000 acres of farmland, a trucking business, a café and a grocery store.
Isadore Banks was Black.
In June of 1954, Banks’s body was found chained to a tree, mutilated and scorched.
Banks lost his life. He also lost all of his land.
It just disappeared into thin air.
Lynching isn’t about murder. It’s about trying to erase someone.
- Unfinished: Deep South
Banks’s murder was never truly investigated. It has been a cold case for 66 years.
Those who commit the murders, write the reports.
- Ida B. Wells
The Marion sheriff at that time controlled taxes, voting, public records and the local newspaper. You’ll also learn that when the sheriff’s widow died, she bequeathed $7 million dollars to her local Baptist church.
Unfinished: Deep South investigates the lynching of Isadore Banks, explores the history of Black migration to Arkansas, tells the story of Black prosperity along the Delta and reveals the state’s role in dismantling it.
This 10-part podcast, executive-produced by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Lynn Nottage, is a must-listen for 2020—or any year, for that matter.
📚 Wandering in Strange Lands
Writer Morgan Jerkins set out to reclaim her roots. The result is her latest book, Wandering in Strange Lands:
I entered into Louisiana as Morgan Jerkins. I returned to New York City as Morgan Simone Regis Jerkins. I am a Black and Creole woman, a descendant of slaves, slave owners and free people of color. I need to say this not only for myself, but for those fighting for Creole preservation and for my numerous family lines out there, those whom I may never meet due to racial boundaries or lack of time or travel opportunities. I know my father, my father's father and the fathers before him.
Listen to her interview with NPR’s Leila Fadel.
🧠 Mind games
Tamar Braxton has been released from her contract at WE TV following a recent suicide attempt. The singer and reality television star posted a statement on Instagram saying she had been “betrayed, taken advantage of, overworked, and underpaid.” Braxton starred in WE TV’s “Braxton Family Values” from 2011 to 2019 and “Tamar & Vince” from 2012 to 2017. Prior to her suicide attempt and hospitalization, Braxton was working on another show “Get Ya Life!” that will still air.
On Twitter, Tamar changed her name to Tamar “Slave” Braxton as indication that she feels the toxicity and systematic bondage in television is something akin to slavery. Braxton said her cries for help were completely ignored by the network.
Kanye West has similarly been in the news recently concerning what appears to be continued mental struggles that some say could have been triggered by the death of his mother, Donda, in 2007. West was formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2016. His latest rant connected to his candidacy for President was especially troubling.
The conversation around mental health continues to be elevated around celebrities and common folk alike. In 2008, July was designated as Minority (“BIPOC”) Mental Health Month by mental health organizations and advocates in honor of author and journalist Bebe Moore Campbell.
This year Black folks suffer traumas related to COVID-19 in addition to the relentless stressors of systemic racism and state violence in normal times.
Historically, a cultural narrative of strength and resilience stigmatized mental health treatment but, the dark cloud around seeking counseling and therapy has seemingly lifted. In terms of actually getting access to care, resources have popped up all over the internet to help Black folks get the care they need.
Therapy For Black Girls is a website that helps Black women find therapists, counselors, and psychologists in their area. Black Men Heal is a site that provides access to mental health treatment, psycho-education, and financial assistance for Black men. The National Mental Health Alliance has released a comprehensive list of resources for Black people including the Association of Black Psychologists directory.
There are countless podcasts and blogs that examine mental health from a Black perspective. It is vitally important that Black people talk about the importance of mental health.
As the hosts of the Between Sessions Podcast recently said: “self care is a form of resistance.”
🚨 Houston, we have a problem
As eviction moratoriums expire across the country, millions of renters face being kicked to the curb. This comes as a surge of coronavirus cases prompts a new wave of shutdowns and restrictions.
The situation is especially acute in Houston, where the Census Bureau estimates nearly 40% of adults are housing insecure because of the economic impacts of the pandemic, compared to 36% statewide. Nationally, the Census Bureau estimates 27% of adults face housing insecurity.
According to the Census Household Pulse Survey, 29% of Black renters in the Houston area did not make their rent payment in June; 38% of Black renters have either no confidence or only slight confidence they will be able to pay the rent in August. The Census Bureau has been surveying the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on American households since April.
With both state and federal eviction moratoriums having expired on July 25 and a new federal relief bill being blocked by Republican intransigence, Houston faces the real prospect of hundreds of thousands of families losing their homes during a pandemic.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has so far declined to support an emergency eviction ordinance, instead opting to “encourage” landlords not to evict tenants who are behind on their rent. On Friday, Mayor Turner announced a second $15 million rental assistance fund. In May, the city’s first $15 million rental assistance fund ran out of money in 90 minutes.
Some members of the Texas Legislature are pressing Governor Greg Abbott to call a special session to address the coming eviction crisis. Otherwise, the earliest evictions protections can be even introduced is January 2021.
Abbott, whose approval ratings are plummeting on account of his poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the world’s 10th largest economy, is unlikely to call a special legislative session.
Government inaction at the federal, state and local level in the face of an unprecedented public health emergency and economic crisis has clear consequences: some people lose their lives while others lose their livelihoods and, eventually, their homes.
CNBC has more on America’s growing eviction crisis:
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