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To paraphrase Queen Elizabeth II, 2025 is not a year we’ll look back with undiluted pleasure

It was indeed a challenging year, or as the late queen said in 1992, an “annus horribilis,” for postsecondary education. It was a particularly distressing year for many historians, especially those of us who focus their scholarship on racial, gender, social, and cultural history.

Since his inauguration, Donald Trump wasted no time dismantling many progressive and apolitical institutions benefiting a wide variety of Americans. Organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, the US Institute of Peace, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts have witnessed Trump’s callous destruction of their institutions.

The Trump administration also attacked the 179-year-old Smithsonian Institution, authoring a disingenuous executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Trump argued (without proof) the Smithsonian had come under “the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology” and had attempted to “rewrite history” in an effort to discredit various segments of the population. Interestingly, although not surprisingly, Trump specifically targeted the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the forthcoming Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum for derision and criticism.

More recently, the Trump administration dismantled a display featuring nine Black people whom the nation’s first president, George Washington, enslaved in Philadelphia. The exhibit was removed from the president’s house in Independence National Historical Park in accordance with a White House directive to remove or obscure material that “inappropriately disparages Americans.”

Yes, you read that correctly.

Let’s be honest. For centuries, large segments of white Americans described slavery as a benevolent institution developed to improve the behavior of and civilize supposedly “savage and heathen-like” Africans. Such reductive and intellectually dishonest rhetoric was routinely taught in churches, schools, private clubs and memorialized in statues.

Such retrograde mythology was largely easy to promote in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when slavery had only been abolished for a few decades and President Rutherford B. Hayes and his Vice President Samuel Tillman effectively dismantled Reconstruction (1866–1877). White southerners made ample excuses to defend the institution.

For many individuals below the Mason–Dixon Line, slavery was not the issue. Rather, it was the “the War of Northern Aggression” aka the Civil War that bestowed freedom on Black people, who, according to this perverse historical narrative, neither desired nor were worthy of any sort of emancipation.

When I began teaching at my local university, I could walk into certain bookstores and see titles like “The South Won the Civil War” and “The War of Northern Aggression” promoting the institution of slavery. Discussions with some of my students were intense, revelatory, and riveting. The truth is, in many ways, one could make a relatively feasible argument that the south did indeed win the Civil War, particularly after Reconstruction was dismantled and the region returned to its previous practices of blatantly subjugating, discriminating, demonizing, terrorizing, and humiliating Black citizens for the better part of a century right up until the late 1950s. From a historical perspective, that is comparatively recent.

Our current political and cultural climate virtually necessitates the need for such reinforcement. Right-wing politicians are adamantly igniting the flames of racial and cultural animosity and division. Since the time of this nation’s inception, Black Americans have had to wage a long and arduous battle, fighting to obtain rights that the constitution was supposed to guarantee and that many other groups have taken for granted. The mountains and minefields that our ancestors faced head-on and, in many cases, triumphed over  —  despite seemingly unrelenting adversity  —  are a testament to their indomitable strength and spirit.

Racism is deeply ingrained in our culture’s fabric and is as American as apple pie. What we have witnessed over the past several years is blatant, undisguised bigotry  —  the type that many white people had to keep disguised and leashed since the 1950s or at least the early 1960s  —  that is now unapologetically permeating various sectors of our society, in many cases without consequences. We are enduring the same bigotry today in the 21st century. Being Black in America often means waging an ongoing battle. It means dealing with history and people that blood, sweat, tears, pain, occasional dashed dreams, setbacks, and periodic victories have defined.

Black history should not be confined to discussions about servitude and feel-good stories to assuage the frail and fragile sensibilities of those who desire to avoid the dark and sordid chapters of our nation’s history. The history of Black people, like other ethnic groups, is one that deserves full and unalloyed acknowledgment.

Despite sinister efforts by some on the right to suppress and nullify Black history, such efforts will never reach fruition. The history of Black Americans is one that is deeply interwoven and firmly etched in the political, social, cultural, religious, economic and all aspects of the nation.

No amount of perverse revisionism or fierce efforts to whitewash the stoic, powerful and esteemed history of a fiercely impervious and undeniably resilient peoples will succeed.

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Copyright 2026 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

It’s been less than a week since federal agents murdered Alex Pretti, a registered nurse working in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, which serves veterans.

This was the second fatal shooting this month in Minneapolis as a result of a major crackdown by federal agents. And Trump administration officials wasted no time demonizing him. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller accused Pretti of attempted murder, while Director of Homeland Security Kristi Noem referred to him as an illegal immigrant with a violent criminal history who attempted to assault ICE officials, despite solid evidence refuting such a claim.

ICE agents are fiercely and brazenly enacting their Gestapo agenda throughout the state of Minnesota. On January 22 in Minneapolis, ICE’s detention of Liam Ramos, a five-year-old boy wearing a Spider-Man backpack, rapidly emerged as the definitive image of the Trump administration’s draconian immigration enforcement practices. A masked agent manipulated five-year-old Liam, a supremely innocent child, into knocking on the door of his own home before immediately shipping him across the country and incarcerating him. This is hardly an administration interested in tackling and targeting criminals.

Instead, what ICE is doing is designed to evoke and instill fear and terror within children and their families. The young child and his father are now in a detention center in Texas, while the mother and his brother remain in Columbia Heights facing the dilemma of being a broken family. One can only imagine the intense psychological trauma this young child has endured because of our government’s overbearing, regressive tactics. Photos of tiny Liam bundled up against the brutal cold, looking clueless and frightened, would make even the most indifferent and heartless person perform some deep soul searching and repair their moral compass.

Amid all the sinister drama, the Trump administration has tried to depict its unjustified deportations as an evacuation of violent criminals from the nation. However, statistics demonstrate the majority of arrested individuals possess no criminal record at all. The administration’s attempts to discredit anyone who dares to criticize bands of inadequately trained federal thugs are bereft of any level of conscientiousness.

Despite such disingenuous efforts, there has been bipartisan criticism toward the administration’s stance.

Among the Republicans challenging Trump are Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Still, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, Kentucky Rep. James Comer, and former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, to name a few. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison referred to the administration’s narrative of events as flat out insane.

Independent analyses by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, CBS News, and other organizations conclude videos contradict the Trump administration’s description of the murder.

Maybe it’s working. Trump has signaled he’s considering scaling back ICE operations in Minneapolis and sent back Gregory Bovino, his commander-at- large, back to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Americans voted for Trump because he told them he would lower food prices, return manufacturing jobs to the nation, and provide affordable health care. He has failed to deliver on any of these, but he and his advisors have succeeded in managing to transform Minneapolis and St. Paul into cities where unrestrained chaos reigns. They have arrogantly dismissed the horrific murder of an innocent American mother and an intensive care nurse, referring to both victims as domestic terrorists.

My question to MAGA voters is was this the sort of violent, callous, monstrous activity you voted for or endorsed? Did you not see, in your mind’s eye, the frightened expression of a blameless child who was being dragged away from their family?

For a segment of diehard, nativist, and isolationist right-wingers, the administration is behaving exactly as they desire. They probably want ICE aggressiveness to continue. But what about the bulk of conservatives, who are generally anti-immigration and are put off, if not downright revolted, by such wanton Gestapo-like tactics? Some people would disagree, but I believe they must feel some degree of sympathy within their souls.

It has been three weeks since the horrific murder of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman and a mother of three children, by an armed agent. Since then, footage of violent arrests and assaults by ICE operatives dispatched to specific states by an administration claiming to reestablish “law and order” has become disturbingly routine. Nevertheless, the dystopian images of an unarmed man having several bullets pumped into his body or a small child finding himself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s inhumane approach to mass deportations still have the ability to jolt the conscience.

I, like many Americans, are feverishly asking one question: When will such gut-wrenching carnage end?

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Copyright 2026 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

As has been customary for decades, millions of Americans celebrated the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. earlier this week. But his legacy goes well beyond a single day.

Forty years ago, after one of the longest legislative battles in its modern history, the U.S. established Martin Luther King Jr. Day in recognition not only of Dr. King’s leadership but also of the Civil Rights Movement’s moral force. This year marked the 40th anniversary of the national holiday.

Despite the increasingly hostile racial climate and backlash the Trump administration is engineering, America is considerably more racially integrated than the hyper-racially segregated nation in which Dr. King resided. Almost 60 years after his brutal assassination, the nation has witnessed Black Americans become mayors of the majority of its largest cities as well as governors, senators, vice president and president.

In 1954, upon receiving his doctorate from Boston University, Dr. King could have pursued a relatively comfortable life as a pastor by becoming part of the leadership of Ebenezer Baptist Church, following in his father’s footsteps. He could have led a well-respected, upscale, middle-class lifestyle in Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood. Although he was the product of upper middle-class southern Blacks, Dr. King opted to begin his own ministry as the spiritual leader of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

Sadly, there are many individuals today quick to quote selectively King’s rhetoric and messages. Members of the political right have feverishly attempted to rail against and disassemble the policies King supported. More than a few perversely invoke his landmark 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he stated his hope that children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” to denounce DEI and programs designed to help historically marginalized groups. Such disingenuous interpretations grossly misrepresent Dr. King’s true feelings about the issue of race. He steadfastly perceived race to be a crucial and pertinent factor in American life that had to be aggressively confronted, not minimized.

In a statement after the Trump administration released her father’s files last summer, Dr. King’s daughter, Bernice King, commented, “A 1967 poll reflected that he was one of the most hated men in America.” She further stated, “Many who quote him now and evoke him to deter justice today would likely hate, and may already hate, the authentic King.”

Speaking of hate, Dr. King would undoubtedly have been a vociferous critic of the alarming nationalist and fascist ideology increasingly saturating and dramatically capturing the conservative right’s political soul in America and the Western hemisphere.

To be sure, there are individuals across the political spectrum who perceive Dr. King’s efforts (and the civil rights movement) as a failure or, at best, a pyrrhic victory. These people believe America, as a nation, is so vehemently racist that Black Americans will never achieve genuine equality and freedom. They believe that, in spite of good and noble intentions, the Civil Rights Movement accomplished little to nothing in eradicating endemic structures of domination.

Although Dr. King would have been 97 years old this year, his age wouldn’t have stopped him from being on the front lines with other activists to denounce ongoing injustices. Unlike many of today’s so-called leaders, he would not have sacrificed his people or political constituencies for his own personal gain, but would have seen that, despite the progress made, there was still considerable work to do to “get to the Promised Land.”

Given the fact Dr. King has been dead for almost 60 years, many people tend to forget the progressive messages he attempted to convey. He was an ardent champion of economic justice, a fierce anti-militarist, and a tireless proponent for revolutionary and systematic transformation that confronted racism, anti-Semitism, poverty, and war. Unlike many of today’s so-called leaders, Dr. King was willing to confront standard orthodoxies of the status quo and endure personal consequences for his beliefs.

Today’s public figures could take a page from Dr. King’s playbook.

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Copyright 2026 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

Millions of Americans continue to mourn the tragic death of Renee Good, the Minneapolis mother fatally shot by a federal immigration agent last week mere blocks from her home.

Good, who was driving a maroon Honda near the protest, was confronted by ICE agents in several vehicles. One agent approached her, walked up to her car, tugged at her door handle, and screamed “Get the f— out of the car!” Good attempted to back up her car and then drove forward, speeding around an ICE officer who pumped three bullets into the car.

“Renee Nicole Good was a mother of three, including a 6-year-old boy who is now an orphan,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) said in a statement. “Renee was deeply loved by many . . . by refusing to coordinate with local law enforcement, ICE is not making our community safe. It is making it less safe. “Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison described the ICE agents’ actions as an “escalation” and said Good was trying to get away from the situation without being aggressive. “I think the use of force I saw raises such serious questions that there needs to be an intense investigation and perhaps this officer should face charges,” Ellison said. “But that needs to be determined through an investigation.”

To no one’s surprise, the commentary on the right took a largely contrasting tone.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem argued Good had committed an “act of domestic terrorism.” “At a very minimum, that woman was very, very disrespectful to law enforcement,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One. Routinely irascible Fox News host Jesse Watters perversely and inexplicably chose to focus on the fact Good was a supposed troublemaker and member of the LGBTQIA+ community who “leaves behind a lesbian partner and a child from a previous marriage.” Understandably, such a senseless tragedy has shocked, shaken, horrified and outraged much of the nation.

Millions of Americans have reacted by taking to the streets, protesting and voicing their rage at such a violent incident. Networks of citizen patrols in cities such as Portland, Oregon, Chicago, and Boston are employing whistles, car horns, bull horns and other devices to alert immigrants and likeminded neighbors in an effort to abort aggressive, heavy-handed activity from ICE agents.

These efforts have quickly become deeply entrenched in communities all over the nation, creating a network of ICE monitoring groups all over the nation, particularly in blue states and racially diverse areas. Information on how to monitor activity and track specific locations and license plates on vehicles used by ICE agents are being provided to citizens. Data demonstrating where sweeps have previously occurred have been shared.  In numerous locales, instructions have been meticulously reviewed by attorneys to ensure that ICE monitors do not overstep their boundaries.

There are those who argue the tragedy has received outsized attention and a notable degree of compassion due to the fact Renee Good was a white, blond woman. Did Good’s race, gender and physical attributes play a role in the outpouring of empathy she has received? To be sure, such realities could very well be true. The attractive, missing white woman syndrome is hardly a mythical proposition.

Varied assumptions aside, the outright falsehoods about the Minneapolis incident being spewed by the Trump administration and the right-wing media echo chamber are problematic for many reasons. Such misinformation espouses the bogus perception federal agents are in an ongoing state of physical jeopardy from unhinged protestors and citizens, and thus have every right to employ lethal force at the most minimal assumption of harm. It also reassures federal agents they can inflict violence upon or even murder American citizens with impunity and sends an ominous message to individuals inclined to take to the streets to express their displeasure toward the Trump administration’s immigration policies that they can be easily exposed to various types of potentially lethal situations

The issue of ICE and immigration will likely continue to fester, with politicians of every stripe and sizable segment of the larger public retreating to bipartisan positions. Nevertheless, heavy patrolling and occupation by federal agents in our nation’s cities, targeting our nation’s citizens and engaging in Gestapo-like tactics, is disturbing, alarming, and unsettling. It sets a harrowingly precarious and politically dark precedent for the nation’s future.

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Copyright 2026 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

Conservatives are currently embroiled in an acrimonious fight between Republicans of color and racists embedded within the far-right movement.

Take the Republican gubernatorial primary in Florida, which is getting meaner by the minute. Rep. Byron Donalds, who has received the president’s endorsement, is encountering fierce levels of hostility from fellow nominees desperate to promote and distinguish themselves. That includes rival Republican candidate James Fishback referring to Donalds as a “slave” to corporate interests and tech bros.

Fishback argued Donalds had “no right to complain” and shouldn’t be upset by such racially charged comments because his ancestors were not subjected to slavery in America.

Fishback’s quote invoked themes popularized by Black conservatives in the “American Descendants of Slaves” movement, who’ve sought to drive a wedge among Black people by differentiating those with recent immigrant histories from those without such histories.

Donalds is one of just a few Black Republicans in Congress, and he’s often taken great pains to minimize racism in American society. Last year, he disingenuously diminished and whitewashed the Jim Crow era as a period “where Black families were fully intact” and voted conservatively. Mind you, this was an era where most Black people were deprived of the right to vote and were legally discriminated against, lynched, forced to endure oppressive sharecropping systems in the South, and subjected to numerous indignities, injustices, and impositions.

Donalds isn’t the only conservative of color facing augmented resistance from the conservative right. At Turning Point USA’s flagship event late last month, Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy denounced racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and xenophobia deeply festering within the MAGA movement and the larger conservative right. Ramaswamy condemned the notion of “Heritage Americans,” the nationalist belief those with Anglo-Protestant ancestry are more American than the children of recent immigrants.

Ramaswamy’s attacks on the more rabid forces infecting the MAGA movement appear to be a massive 180-degree turn from how he addressed duplicative bigotry during his less-than-stellar 2024 presidential campaign.

He further agreed with the philosophy tracism is “emergent in certain corridors of the online right.” But Ramaswamy was deafeningly silent when Trump attacked Haitian immigrants and Venezuelan refugees. In fact, during his dismal presidential campaign, Ramaswamy adamantly vouched for draconian immigration policies, among them the deportation of American-born children of undocumented immigrants. While he has made some miniature overtures, such as denouncing far-right activist and white supremacist Nick Fuentes (hardly demonstrates any significant degree of courage), the reality is Ramaswamy is either reluctant or refuses to take a full-throttle stance and call out racism for what it really is.

Then there’s Rob Smith, a Black and gay Republican influencer who adopted a “hear no evil, fear no evil, see no evil” stance and attacked fellow Black people whenever he had the opportunity to do so. Smith was heckled and verbally pelted with racist, homophobic slurs while attending a Republicans for National Renewal (a conservative advocacy and MAGA group) event.

He said the group hurled racist and homophobic slurs at him, and he told CNN he was a victim of a hate crime. Smith shared a video on social media in December showing him at an event in Phoenix as he commented being “confronted and surrounded by White Supremacists that don’t like gays or blacks in the Republican Party.” He recounted the experience resulted in his feeling “exposed” and that he had no intention of attending similar events in the future.

The harrowing incident prompted him to leave the Republican Party, declaring he was “betrayed” by MAGA and saw what the movement really thought of him. Though it’s hard to believe Smith was really that racially naïve.

The major issue with many non-white conservatives, in addition to their intellectual dishonesty, is their frantic attempt to convince white people who are indisputably racially bigoted that they are not racist. This is not to say all Black or other non-white conservatives demonize other Black people for profit. Republican strategist Raynard Jackson, journalist Tony Brown, and the late Colin Powell are examples of individuals on the political right who had no problem calling out what they saw as the shortcomings of the conservative movement regarding race.

Racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other social ills do indeed exist in America and in all nations. Most honest Americans know this, regardless of their race or ethnic backgrounds. There is far too much concrete evidence to indicate otherwise.

The blood and soil politics and rhetoric that has seized the current conservative right is morally sinister, draconian, degenerate and  morally abominable. Deep down, despite adamant denials, these non-white conservatives know this to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

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Copyright 2026 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

Modern-day conservative politics is deeply populated with those who have demonstrated fierce and unmistakable allegiance toward Donald Trump.

These backers offer their support with the expectation Trump would reward such loyalty, who instead doesn’t hesistate to throw them to the wolves when they need his support the most.

At this point, it’s a long list of Republicans, including Mike Pence, Kevin McCarthy, Reince Priebus, Mo Brooks, and Ronna McDaniel. They all suffered from the same realization: Loyalty is something Trump expects to receive, not reciprocate.

You can add Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to the list of politically jilted allies. Stefanik, who recently and unexpectedly announced her retirement, was previously known for her moderate positions and bipartisan approach in Congress. She made the opportunistic calculation that to forge forward in Republican politics, she had to abandon and sacrifice her principles and embrace the draconian values and philosophy of the far right. By the end of Trump’s first term in 2020, she professed a persona as a partisan right winger and MAGA Trump supporter.

Her Faustian-like transformation certainly benefitted her career. Republican lawmakers ousted then-House Republican Conference leader Liz Cheney and rewarded Stefanik with the position after Cheney demanded American democracy be supported by defending the legitimacy of election results.

A couple 0f years ago there was serious conversation about Stefanik being considered as a running mate to Trump. It was at this juncture Stefanik further engaged in more reactionary theatrics, abandoning previous principled positions she was genuinely committed to.

Who can forget the searing committee hearing in which she disingenuously alluded that former university presidents Claudine Gay of Harvard, Elizabeth McGill of the University of Pennsylvania, and Sally Kornbluth, currently president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is Jewish herself, tolerated and perhaps supported anti-Semitism on their campuses. Mind you, this was the same Elise Stefanik who latched onto the the “great replacement theory,” a late 19th-century doctrine that argues that Jews and certain specific Western elites are conspiring to replace white Americans and Europeans with people of non-European descent, particularly Asians and Africans.

Given the fact Stefanik had the audacity to accuse these individuals of supporting such a historically despicable cancer as anti-Semitism, while she herself subscribed to such an abominable belief, was nothing short of arrogant and obscene.

Most of us remember when Trump nominated her to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in his second term. But he later withdrew the nomination in an effort to secure her vote as political insurance for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Consequently, Stefanik lost her spot in the House leadership, which she had given up to take the U.N. post, and was rewarded with a ceremonial leadership position instead.

Again, when the congresswoman declared a gubernatorial campaign, the political calculus among the pundit class was that she would receive an endorsement from the president, for whom she went out of her way to engage in such a disturbing and ample degree of intellectual dishonesty to support. Guess what? Such an endorsement was not forthcoming! Trump held his cards close to his vest, a party primary rival entered the scene, and the president’s noncommittal stance made Stefanik’s journey to the governor’s mansion considerably more arduous.

To add insult to previous political injury, during a White House event with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, the president also publicly undermined her. “Commie Mamdani,” the president’s derogatory term for the incoming mayor,  was suddenly a wonderful person, thus undercutting Stefanik’s attempt to associate current governor Kathy Hochul with the supposedly “socialist/communist” Mamdani.

Public personal slights aside, Stefanik is just 41 years old, a considerably young age for politics. If she were a Democrat, she would be an infant. Thus, there is no reason why she could not return to the political arena at some point down the road. New York state politics looks pretty fluid at the moment. The possibility of running for the Senate in 2028 or governor in 2030 are feasible possibilities.

Nonetheless, Stefanik’s current state of affairs is a grim reminder of how quickly, and without hesitation, President Trump will often cast aside allies when they are no longer of use to his agenda.

Perhaps Stefanik will step back, do some serious soul searching, and determine that such opportunistic behavior resulted in little more than public humiliation. Perhaps others who are tempted to sacrifice their core principles for political expediency should take heed.

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Copyright 2025 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

The horrific and senseless deaths of beloved Hollywood icon Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry and across the nation.

The couple’s son, Nick Reiner, faces two counts of first-degree murder, among other charges.

Reiner’s movies, including “Stand by Me,” “The Princess Bride,” “This is Spinal Tap,” “When Harry Met Sally,” and “A Few Good Men” are personal favorites of millions of Americans. To his last, Reiner remained a fierce, innovative force, and the Reiner couple embodied one of Hollywood’s most wonderful real-life love stories.

Tributes to the deceased flowed in across social media honoring his tremendous impact on and contributions to the entertainment industry. Most people delivered messages of condolence and recalled fond memories of the Reiners, regardless of their political leanings.

Regrettably, the commander-in-chief, as is frequently the case, could not resist engaging in bitter and distasteful rhetoric and making the tragedy about himself.

Barely 24 hours after the Reiners’ bodies were found, Donald Trump implied that the director’s death was connected to his prior criticism of the president. Trump posted the following on social media: “He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

Trump’s callous, tasteless comments drew bipartisan backlash from some prominent figures on the right, including former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, former senior advisor to Trump’s campaign David Urban, and Representatives Mike Lawler of New York, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. To their credit, these Republicans wasted no time condemning Trump’s abrasive and acrimonious language.

Amid the outrage, Reiner’s relationship with the Black community received little coverage. Taking to X, former President Barack Obama himself expressed commiseration with the Reiner family: “Michelle and I are heartbroken by the tragic passing of Rob Reiner and his beloved wife, Michele. Rob’s achievements in film and television gave us some of our most cherished stories on screen. But beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people — and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action.”

Given their liberal political affinities and affluent social circles, it is hardly surprising the Reiners and the Obamas were close friends. However, the reason that many Black Americans felt an affinity for Reiner was his racial conscientiousness.

The son of Hollywood legends Estelle and Carl Reiner, Reiner first became famous playing Michael (Or Mike) Stivic, Archie Bunker’s liberal son-in-law, in the iconic sitcom All in the Family. The show was groundbreaking in its willingness to address socially explosive issues of the era, including race, by pitting Michael, a progressive “free-thinking hippie” against his father-in-law Archie Bunker, a blatantly defiant bigot. Rather than cede ground to Archie’s prejudices, Mike openly challenged him and called him out. Mike and his wife Gloria (Sally Struthers) had numerous friends of various races, religions, and sexual orientations, an unusual phenomenon on early 1970s television.

One of Reiner’s more notable creations was “Ghosts of Mississippi.” Released in 1996 and starring Whoopi Goldberg (as Myrlie Evers), Alec Baldwin, and James Woods, the film is based on the 1994 trial of Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist accused of the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers.

Though one could argue that Goldberg and Woods were miscast, the film was powerful in its acknowledgement of the brutal and searing ethnic violence and vehement injustice saturating the South and much of the United States during the racially perilous years of the mid-20th century. Few other Hollywood directors were addressing such topics at the time. Additionally, Reiner’s friendships with Morgan Freeman, Oprah Winfrey, and former Vice President Kamala Harris are well known.

Reiner’s political activism and unyielding advocacy for progressive causes endeared him to a sizable segment of the Black community. He fought steadfastly against racism; supported early childhood development; and acted as a fierce advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights and marriage equality, environmental rights, and equal rights under the law. Black America and the larger world will never forget the legacy of one of the entertainment industry’s most prominent voices. May he and Michele rest in peace.

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Copyright 2025 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

There’s an intense war going on at the moment among members of the online MAGA-verse, far-right figures who have been largely supportive of Donald Trump.

From politics to religion to support for Trump, the MAGA community is in serious disarray over a range of issues.

One of the most intense battles involves right-wing commentators Benny Johnson and Milo Yiannopoulos. The first shot was fired on December 6, when Yiannopoulos — who has unabashedly prided himself on being an openly gay far-right bigot — accused numerous conservative influencers (including Johnson and the late Charlie Kirk) of being closeted gay men on the Tim Pool Podcast during a conversation with swindler and former MAGA representative George Santos, who is also gay.

Johnson, a husband and father of four (and soon to be five) children, has denied the claims and threatened to sue Yiannopoulos over his accusations.

The contentious exchange between these two men illustrates a larger issue that has long plagued the Republican party and the conservative right: rampant and rabid homophobia. While neither major political party can claim to be purely progressive on LGBTQIA+ issues, the Republican party has been more hostile to them. Indeed, for a number of conservative donors or voters, any appearance of singlehood or the lack of a family can be grounds for being “suspect.”

This was the dilemma facing Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) when he made a run for the Republican nomination. Party bigwigs were anxious as to why the 57-year-old remained a bachelor. Similar rumors have abounded in regard to his colleague Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is 70 years old, also single and never been married.

In an effort to quell the furor, Scott responded, “The fact that half of America’s adult population is single for the first time, to suggest that somehow being married or not married is going to be the determining factor of whether you’re a good president or not — it sounds like we’re living in 1963 and not 2023.” Scott’s statistics were somewhat off. A 2022 Pew Research Center poll revealed that 30%, slightly under a third of the United States’ adults, identify as single.

Although Scott may have recent statistics on his side, a large segment of the conservative right still reside in pre-1965 America, in spirit if not in reality. Frankly, this mentality is hardly surprising for a party that, for some reason, is chronically obsessed with what individuals do in their bedrooms. For right-wing conservatives, anyone who deviates from the traditional, standard script of holy matrimony is viewed as “abnormal” or “suspect.” The 2024 Republican National Convention was suffused with anti-gay rhetoric, with a number of speakers made references attacking same-sex marriage. Despite such animosity, certain groups such as the Log Cabin Republicans and Gays For Trump still pledge allegiance to the party.

When it comes to political candidates’ sexual orientation, it is obvious that the question on the minds of some voters and donors on the right is, “Is he, or isn’t he?” Because of their outright callousness and hypocrisy, many conservative men (and some women) do not feel that they can be their true selves. Thus, they have to live a life filled with hypocrisies and facades, participating in sham marriages while sheltering, disguising, and obscuring their sexuality, denouncing their fellows, and practicing self-hatred.

There are certainly liberal and left-leaning men and women who remain closeted for varied reasons, but the larger Democratic Party at least does not engage in inflammatory, hostile, and personally demeaning rhetoric. I, and presumably a healthy segment of the population, believe that a person’s sexuality is their business and no one else’s and couldn’t care less about another adult’s sex life. Further, a recent Gallup poll indicated that homophobia is less commonplace among millennials and generation Z adults regardless of their political ideology.

Homophobia and sexuality in general are issues that the Republican Party and the larger conservative movement need to acknowledge and confront with forthrightness. For the party to remain politically viable on the national stage, this self-reflection may very well be necessary.

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Copyright 2025 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

Given all the political drama that has saturated the nation the last few years, it should hardly come as a revelation the heated rhetoric dominating the public discourse has alarmed many Americans.

A Gallup poll released December 3 revealed a majority of voters of the nation’s two major political parties believe acerbic, inflammatory criticism and vile, cruel political language has gone too far.

Not surprisingly, voters on either side of the political spectrum are more inclined to believe the opposing party has been more extreme in spouting such rhetoric. There is also widespread consensus this rhetoric and the growing hostility that accompanies it is dramatically augmenting political violence. The poll was conducted between October 1 and 16, a few weeks after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during an event at Utah Valley University.

Jeffrey Jones, a Gallup employee, wrote in an analysis of the poll, “Gallup said it used questions similar to what it asked in a poll 14 years ago, after former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot during a 2011 political event. A larger majority of Americans than in the past believe that both the Democratic and Republican parties and their supporters have gone too far in using inflammatory language to criticize their opponents.”

69% say this about the Republican Party and Republicans, while 60% say it about the Democratic Party and Democrats, a 16- and nine-percentage-point increase from 2011, respectively.

Partisans are generally in agreement about the major causes of political violence:

– Two-thirds or more of Republicans, Democrats, and independents say the spread of extremist views on the internet deserves a great deal of blame for political violence, with Democrats most likely to say so (79%).

– Democrats (72%) are also more likely than Republicans (58%) and independents (63%) to see provocative oratory from political leaders as a major cause of political violence.

– Slim majorities of the three party groups (between 51% and 54%) blame the mental health system’s failure to identify dangerous individuals as a major reason for political violence.

Democrats and Republicans demonstrate stark differences in their perceptions of whether easy gun access is a primary factor for the recent spate of political violence (74% of Democrats vs. 14% of Republicans). Republicans are more prone than Democrats and independents to consider drug use, inadequate public security, and media violence as the primary factors.

Predictably, a segment of Americans feel they have been granted permission to engage in unhinged behavior, thanks to a commander-in chief who excuses excessive and incendiary remarks from supporters. Trump has himself done things, like singling out a young female reporter by attacking her appearance. Meanwhile, his vice president has described a group of Republican operatives using scurrilous, racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic idioms as “young people doing stupid things.” These operatives ranged from 30 to 42 years old.

A great deal of people tend to take their cues from those at the top of the political hierarchy. Left-wing bombast can be inappropriate, vile, callous, and unacceptable, including comparing all Republicans to Nazis and labelling all Trump supporters as “garbage.” Neither side has a monopoly on crass verbiage that is worthy of denunciation.

Astringent political hyperbole has been a part of the fabric of this nation since its inception. Nevertheless, we are at an inflection point. Sober adults must make a good-faith effort to temper their comments by using more diplomacy and less hyperbole. They must remember that future generations in America and the rest of the world are watching and learning from them.

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Copyright 2025 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

It’s hard to believe “The Breakfast Club,” the beloved film featuring a group of insecure, suburban Chicago high school teenagers forced to spend detention together, is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

Starring Molly Ringwald (Claire the princess), Emilio Estevez (Andrew the athlete), Judd Nelson (John the rebel), Ally Sheedy (Allison the basket case), and Anthony Michael Hall (Brian the brain), the film showcased different teen archetypes who had more in common than what their societal pecking order dictated.

“The Breakfast Club” still powerfully connects with middle-aged and older Generation Xers like myself, who were teenagers at the time. Its themes revolve around cliques, teenage angst, insecurities and competition, acceptance, and relationships. It tells the story of five high school characters stuck in Saturday detention, and as the day progresses, they discover they aren’t that different after all.

Before so-called identity politics became a term, producer John Hughes distinctly defined his characters in the most rigid terms. The film captures the suburban, upper-class, specifically white turmoil and is a less intense version of the 1980 film “Ordinary People,” another film based on the occasional anxiety of upscale, affluent suburbanites in Chicago. In both movies, the theme of anxiety was rampant. This was a common theme in many films of the decade.

“The Breakfast Club” was producer John Hughes’ second picture. Interestingly, he intended it as his directorial debut, but Universal executives were impressed with another script he wrote, “Sixteen Candles,” and they chose it to be his directorial debut. Both films were smash hits, followed by “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986), “Weird Science” (1985), “Pretty in Pink” (1986), and “Some Kind of Wonderful” (1987), resulting in Hughes’s becoming one of the decade’s most successful, celebrated and sought-after directors.

While the film features many memorable scenes, one that resonated with me was when principal Richard Verona, played by the late Paul Gleason, is deeply engaged in a tense conversation with the school custodian Carl Reed, portrayed by actor John Kapelos. When Verona laments to Reed about how the kids have changed over the years, Reed retorts pensively and confidently in a powerful, brilliant, and astute assessment, “kids haven’t changed, Richard, you have changed.”

What Carl was saying is that, no matter how music, television, medicine, and the larger culture transform society, teenagers remain teenagers psychologically and emotionally.

Another provocative and captivating scene is when the students are sitting in a circle during the afternoon conversing, exposing, and exchanging their vulnerabilities with one another. Anthony Michael Hall’s character, Brian, comments that, “we are talking to one another now, but will we speak to one another in the halls on Monday morning.” This was nothing short of a touchdown in its candor and underlying uncertainty, skepticism, and mild anxiety.

As with any popular culture entity, the film has garnered its share of criticism. Some decried the fact that the film featured only white actors, contained considerable homophobia, and was in certain instances overtly racist. Molly Ringwald, writing in the New Yorker in 2018 in the wake of the MeToo movement, revisited the perceived shortcomings in Hughes’s films:

“But I’m not thinking about the man right now but of the films that he left behind. Films that I am proud of in so many ways. Films that, like his earlier writing, though to a much lesser extent, could also be considered racist, misogynistic, and, at times, homophobic. The words “fag” and “faggot” are tossed around with abandon; the character of Long Duk Dong, in “Sixteen Candles,” is a grotesque stereotype, as other writers have detailed far more eloquently than I could.”

To be honest, the film was primarily a product of the era. It was made during the height of the Reagan years, an era fraught with racial, class, economic, regional and various other sorts of social fragmentation. It was also an era where Eurocentric culture was disproportionately promoted, prepped, and preferred in movies and on television.

Surprisingly, at least to me, there was never a sequel. It was the sort of film that could have been produced in so many variations — all athletes, all male, all females, racially diverse, socioeconomic diversity, sexual diversity, religious diversity, etc.

It has been rumored that John Hughes owned the film rights. Maybe so, but the truth is that “The Breakfast Club” was generally a splendid film. For many of us Generation Xers who were teenagers during the 1980s, several of the film’s messages hit close to home on multiple levels.

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Copyright 2025 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.