Racism

According to a new report, the United States federal government has taken a massive step back from its role in protecting civil rights across the country.

On Thursday, the nonprofit Human Rights Watch issued a 112-page analysis of the government’s civil rights activities from January 2025 through the start of 2026, a period that captures the opening months of President Donald Trump’s second term.

The report concludes that the federal agencies responsible for stopping discrimination have largely been gutted of their staff.

Additionally, top-down directives by Trump have de-emphasised the federal government’s role in protecting civil rights across the country, according to the group.

“While claiming to protect all Americans, the administration is rolling back systems that communities have long turned to for relief,” Trey Walk, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Which agencies did the report analyse?

The report examines four key agencies within the federal government dedicated to civil rights.

They include the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, the Office of Civil Rights at the Education Department, the Fair Housing Office at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Human Rights Watch spoke with current and former federal workers, lawyers, complainants and community groups who had been involved in cases alleging discrimination.

It also reviewed court filings and federal agency directives that illustrated the pivot in priorities under the second Trump administration.

What is the history of civil rights enforcement in the federal government?

The federal government’s role in civil rights protections goes back centuries, starting with the US Constitution.

In 1791, Congress ratified an addition to the country’s founding document that established civil protections like the freedom of religion. Those first 10 amendments became known as the Bill of Rights.

Over the decades, more amendments were added, most notably after the US Civil War, to guarantee rights like equal protection under the law.

While the Constitution contains explicit language about religion and race, critics point out that there is no language that confers equal protection based on sex or gender.

The history of the Department of Justice is closely entwined with the need to enforce civil rights law after the Civil War.

Created in 1870, the department addressed several needs, including a push to professionalise and centralise the country’s federal law enforcement. But it also helped prosecute violent white supremacist groups at a time when local authorities, particularly in southern states, sometimes refused to.

The US Civil Rights Movement, starting in the 1950s, also spurred a surge in federal infrastructure. It was the Civil Rights Act of 1957, for instance, that established a dedicated civil rights division within the Justice Department.

How did federal policy change under Trump?

Trump’s second term ushered in a backlash towards policies broadly considered to be part of the “diversity, equity and inclusion” movement, or DEI.

That movement gained popularity in the early 2020s, particularly after the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, sparked a public reckoning over racial inequality.

Trump, however, has called DEI “racially discriminatory”. During his campaign for a second term, he argued that there was a “definite anti-white feeling in this country”.

Since starting his second term, Trump has sought to undo policies that his administration argues give unfair advantages to demographics like women and minorities.

In addition, federal agencies like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division suspended certain cases they were pursuing, including some involving sexual harassment and transgender rights.

New investigations were opened instead, including against the footwear giant Nike, which was accused this year of discrimination against white employees.

In May 2025, the Department of Justice also announced it would halt investigations and reform agreements involving police departments accused of racial discrimination.

Such measures had been taken in places like Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, after public outcry over the police killings of unarmed Black people, including Floyd.

What did the Human Rights Watch report find?

The report chronicled an overall weakening in the federal bodies designed to protect civil rights.

Job cuts and resignations were part of that trend. The Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, for instance, boasted about 365 lawyers in January 2025, when Trump took office.

By the end of that year, three-quarters of those lawyers had left the agency, an exodus driven by what Human Rights Watch called a “coordinated effort to undermine career staff”.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department told Al Jazeera its Civil Rights Division “remains dedicated to protecting the rights of all Americans”.

The department also said it had added 100 personnel since the 2025 departures.

According to the spokesperson, the Civil Rights Division is currently focused on “protecting religious liberty, Second Amendment rights, and women’s and girls’ spaces, standing against illegal race-based policymaking and DEI, and defending parents’ fundamental right to direct their children’s upbringing and education”.

What other offices were affected?

Other agencies in the Human Rights Watch report likewise saw a decrease in their ranks as well as a reduction in their civil rights work.

The Office of Fair Housing went from 31 staffers to 11 by mid-2025. Some 115 complaints prepared by the office and referred to the Justice Department for possible legal action were quashed, according to the report.

At the Department of Education, the Office for Civil Rights initially had 568 workers across 12 offices when Trump took office in 2025. Within a few months, seven of those offices were shuttered, and half of the civil rights-related workers were gone.

Between May and September 2025, the office dismissed about 90 percent of the nearly 10,000 complaints it received, a higher rate than it would have in the past, the report said.

What has been the impact of these changes?

Human Rights Watch found that many victims and communities grappling with discrimination no longer had the benefit of a federal agency to help them in their cases.

One community housing group told Human Rights Watch that the Department of Housing and Urban Development no longer responds in a timely fashion to reported instances of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

Some federal agencies also appear to have walked away from their role in monitoring discrimination and overseeing reforms around the country, according to the report.

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has a long history of investigating discrimination claims and working with school districts to enact change.

But Human Rights Watch observed that the office has largely stopped dealing with complaints under Trump.

While the Office of Civil Rights required policy changes or monitoring in response to 336 cases in the first half of 2024, only 59 cases received such a remedy over a similar period in 2025.

In Springfield, Massachusetts, for instance, parents complained after white students held a mock “slave auction” on the social media platform Snapchat, where they bid for the sale of their fellow Black students. That case is no longer being pursued by the Office of Civil Rights as of last year.

The United Nations human rights agency and the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates have condemned a days-long Israeli settler siege of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra.

The two statements were issued on Thursday, as dozens of Israeli settlers continue to besiege three Palestinian families in the Ras al-Ain area in western Qusra for a fifth night.

“These criminal actions by the settlers, supported or acquiesced to by Israel, the Occupying Power, are making life unbearable for these Palestinian families and are clearly aimed at forcing them to leave their homes and their land,” the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said.

The three families – comprising 15 people, including two children – have been confined to their homes with their water and power cut off since Sunday, the agency said.

“Time is running out for these three families before they are forcibly displaced,” it warned.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the settlers for carrying out “systematic assaults that can only be described as terroristic”.

It also accused Israel of using the settlers as an “unchecked tool to implement its criminal policies” of forced displacement and annexation of the occupied West Bank.

Earlier on Thursday, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also referred to the settlers’ actions as acts of “terror”.

‘This is all a charade’

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from the scene of the siege on Thursday, said Israeli soldiers initially tried to move the trapped families out of their homes while settlers remained camped outside.

The families refused, not trusting that the Israeli soldiers would allow them back into their homes, and were eventually grouped together in one home. Residents have watched settlers push families out and then take over their properties in the past, she reported.

Qusra has faced settler attacks for decades, Ibrahim explained, and residents tie the rise in violence to the spread of illegal settlements and the lack of accountability for attackers.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said its troops dismantled “two illegal outposts” in Qusra and a nearby village, and detained one Israeli. It said more soldiers were sent to “carry out defensive missions and patrols”.

However, Ibrahim said most Palestinians believe the Israeli army is staging its response to the settler siege for the cameras, and they expect the settlers will eventually return.

Abdel Azim Wadi, the mayor of Qusra, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli army has been protecting and helping the settlers. “We saw them praying together, barbecuing together and dancing together,” he said. “They are not very interested in helping the besieged families.”

Qusra resident Abdul Kareem Hassan told Al Jazeera that he had been sleeping in his car for seven months in order to protect his home.

“This is all a charade,” he said. “If they [the Israeli army] were serious, the whole operation would not take them one hour. We’re talking about 20 settlers. If they would treat them the same way they treat Palestinians, they could finish in less than an hour.”

Another day without respite

Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Israeli settlers and soldiers continued their elevated campaign of violence against Palestinians, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Israeli forces issued demolition notices for homes in Kafr Sur, the Jalazone camp and farmers’ shelters in al-Jiftlik.

In Qalqilya, soldiers detained seven relatives of a Palestinian fighter killed in a 2024 strike. Soldiers also detained three Palestinians amid a settler incursion in Burqa, east of Ramallah.

Settler attacks took place across several towns and villages, including an incident in which three Palestinians, including a child, were pepper-sprayed in their car.

Settlers also re-established a settlement near Jenin and erected a new outpost on land belonging to a town near Tulkarem.

In the days since he charged a Los Angeles police officer with a crime for capturing evidence of his co-workers’ racist remarks, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman has been the subject of withering criticism from Mayor Karen Bass, former cops and even some of his own prosecutors.

The chorus of voices decrying the filing of 16 counts of felony eavesdropping against Officer Daniel Flores — who caught fellow officers on tape using slurs and making derogatory remarks about Asians, Mexicans, Black people and women in the LAPD’s Training Division in 2024 — say the charges will dissuade other officers from reporting corruption and raise questions about Hochman’s commitment to police accountability.

“The bottom line is that the alleged racist, sexist, and homophobic comments made are outrageous and unacceptable,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement to The Times on Tuesday. “While I understand that it is inappropriate and a crime to record colleagues without their consent, those charges certainly send the wrong message that calling out egregious behavior could land you in prison.”

Six L.A. County prosecutors — all speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the case candidly — also said in recent days they were shocked by Hochman’s decision to charge Flores.

One referred to the filing as “insane,” while another suggested Flores’ case should have been dismissed in the interest of justice.

On Friday, the district attorney’s office made public a 27-page motion asking for a lengthy preliminary hearing in the case. The filing alleged Flores deceptively edited the recordings to hide his own insensitive remarks. Several of the officers whom Flores taped said he often talked about wanting to win the “LAPD lottery,” meaning he intended to sue the department and retire on his winnings, according to the motion.

“[Flores] often starts the recordings in mid-conversation,” the district attorney said in an interview Friday. “Many people talk about the fact that he initiated some of these discussions, that he participated in some of these discussions. You’ll hear references to comments he made. Usually he has edited out his comments.”

The motion — which relies heavily on representations made by the officers whose comments Flores exposed — alleges Flores “manipulated conversations by initiating or participating in discussions about a particular topic before activating the recording device, then ceasing his own participation.”

Hochman said the recordings contain evidence that Flores made sexist remarks and referred to a group of people as “f—ing Crips.” It was not clear how referencing the infamous L.A. gang was, on its own, racist.

Flores’ attorney, Alan Jackson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Flores is due in court for an arraignment on Monday.

Some of Hochman’s own prosecutors said the charges look bad considering the district attorney’s suspect record in police accountability cases.

“Optics are terrible,” one prosecutor said, questioning whether Hochman was pressured to act by police unions, which made heavy contributions to his 2024 campaign.

Since taking office, Hochman has moved to dismiss a number of violent use-of-force cases against police and resolved others with lenient plea deals. He also either dismissed charges or offered no-jail plea deals to four former Torrance police officers who had been accused of crimes after they were implicated in the department’s infamous racist text scandal.

One prosecutor also said the Flores case is unwinnable and will certainly fail before a jury.

“Just because a law is broken doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to get 12 jurors in L.A. to convict,” the prosecutor said.

Flores turned over 122 recordings of his colleagues’ commentary to the LAPD Office of the Inspector General early last year, according to the motion filed Friday. An amended criminal complaint submitted in late July suggested the recordings were then used as evidence against Flores by LAPD officials who sought to punish him.

Flores has said he heard co-workers refer to Black people as “monkeys” who like grape soda and eat watermelon between basketball games, according to a retaliation lawsuit he filed last year. The suit claims Flores also heard colleagues call female officers “bitches” who couldn’t be trusted and alleged a supervisor said Mexican L.A. Dodgers legend Fernando Valenzuela died of septic shock because he “ate too many” tacos.

In the motion made public Friday, Hochman argued that Flores made the recordings, in part, to support his civil suit. Several of the officers quoted in the motion said Flores said he had anxiety about wearing a police uniform or going on patrol and wanted to retire to become a “stay at home Dad,” according to the motion.

The motion also provided more information about the alleged insensitive discussions than has been previously reported. One of the officers recorded by Flores admitted to describing a potential LAPD recruit as “rapeable” because they were “someone who could be taken advantage of,” according to the motion.

“The use of the phrase ‘rape’ was not in a sexual context,” the motion read.

The officers also suggested in the D.A.’s motion Flores was a habitual liar. He became embarrassed after he was caught fabricating or embellishing stories about playing college baseball, responding to protest scenes and an award he won in the police academy, according to the motion.

The motion said that an internal affairs sergeant found many of the allegations Flores made concerning officers in the recruitment unit improperly disqualifying candidates based on appearance and falsifying time sheets were not supported by evidence.

When he announced the charges last week, Hochman said that while the comments captured by Flores were deplorable, he couldn’t turn a blind eye to a blatant violation of the state’s two-party consent recording statute. With few exceptions, it is a crime in California to record a conversation without the consent of all parties involved.

Hochman said Friday that Flores is not protected by whistleblower laws because, although the recordings exposed bigoted speech, they did not prove evidence of a crime by any of the other officers. He also said the comments were not hateful in nature. At multiple points, the motion refers to the comments as “locker room” talk.

Many of the officers told investigators they made the crude comments “in a sort of joking, sort of locker room banter context. In hindsight these things are insensitive … but you’ll have for instance a Black individual making comments about Blacks,” Hochman said. “You’ll have an Asian individual making insensitive stereotypical comments about Asians.”

Hochman said the prosecution was meant to deter rogue police actions rather than silence whistleblowers. He likened what Flores did to a detective using illegal means to record a drug dealer or gang member.

Hochman said Flores should have reported his colleagues’ misconduct to internal affairs or the LAPD’s inspector general. But California Department of Justice records show there were 4,878 allegations of racial bias made against LAPD officers in the last decade, and the department upheld only three of those complaints.

Presented with those statistics at a news conference Thursday, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell did not respond directly to a question about how Flores could possibly have faith in an internal probe. McDonnell said Flores’ complaint triggered an investigation into 18 other officers, all but one of whom faced sustained disciplinary complaints.

He declined to say what sanctions the officers faced. An LAPD spokesperson declined to elaborate.

The district attorney’s office has been less aggressive in prosecuting those who made surreptitious recordings in the past.

When asked to pursue charges against those who secretly recorded several City Council members making racist remarks during a meeting at the L.A. County Federation of Labor’s headquarters, the district attorney’s office found a crime had been committed but referred the case to the L.A. city attorney’s office for misdemeanor filing in 2024. Ultimately, no charges were filed.

Last year, the D.A.’s office opted not to bring charges in a different case involving an LAPD officer in possession of a secret recording.

In that case, the ex-girlfriend of Brandon Tilford provided the department with an audio recording he had texted her in January 2024, according to a rejection memo by prosecutors. In the recording, an unidentified police officer is heard saying, “Officer walks through processing and goes, man, this is f— Planet of the Apes in here” in an apparent reference to Black inmates. Tilford texted his former girlfriend, “That’s my sgt btw lol.”

But prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to bring charges because the girlfriend couldn’t identify the officers in the recording or say who made it. Thus, prosecutors reasoned that they could not prove Tilford created the recording and did so without the others’ knowledge.

Retired LAPD Cmdr. Lillian Carranza said she understood why Flores “might feel compelled to gather evidence to substantiate serious allegations,” given how the department has handled past whistleblower cases.

“For me, the difficult question is not whether evidence should be gathered, but where the line should be drawn,” said Carranza, a 36-year department veteran who successfully sued the city several times for misogyny and sexual harassment. “Gathering evidence over days or even weeks to document ongoing misconduct is one thing. Doing so over many months raises different legal and ethical questions.”

Hochman said the sheer volume of recordings, and the fact that Flores is a sworn law enforcement officer, played a role in the decision to file felony charges.

The union that represents front-line public defenders also seized on the controversy, saying in a statement that Hochman’s decision sent a clear message to others who may want to report wrongdoing: “keep quiet, or you will be the one facing trial.”

The department has long had a policy that forbids retaliation against officers who report misconduct.

But in practice, LAPD insiders say, those who come forward with compromising information get little support. The department is facing scores of lawsuits by officers who claim they faced retaliation after speaking out in the form of poor job evaluations, harassment, demotions and even termination.

A powerlifter who alleged she was subjected to a racially motivated act that she says led to her disqualification from an event has said she “does not feel safe” when competing.

Belgium’s Sonita Muluh was attempting a record 334.5kg squat at the Powerlifting Championships in Lithuania in June when Ernestas Kusinas – a ‘spotter’ who helps to ensure the validity of an attempted lift – touched the weights with his knee.

Muluh was disqualified and not allowed to reattempt the lift by judges, who ruled on a separate technical infringement.

But police in Lithuania have launched a criminal investigation after Kusinas later wrote on Instagram: “I am racist, and ⁠I did it intentionally.”

A police spokesperson told Reuters the investigation will focus on the Instagram message and events at the championship, with a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

Kusinas told Reuters his Instagram comment was written out of anger after he was accused of racism by an unidentified social media user, and was intended not as a statement but as a mockery of the accusation.

He has been handed a lifetime ban by the Lithuanian Powerlifting Federation, and his social media accounts have since been switched to private.

“It’s shocking to wake up five weeks later and it’s all over the internet that he did it on purpose because of the colour of my skin,” Muluh told BBC Sport.

“I feel unsafe and uneasy that this person is standing beside me with massive weight, with what can go wrong, with the amount of weight on your back.

“I was lucky when I realised [it hit his knee] and I could stabilise it. Not everyone could. It was the heaviest ever squat for a female.”

A devastated Muluh initially refused to blame Kusinas for what she thought was a mistake.

“He did not reach out afterwards to apologise, but he is not obliged to. I thought it was a human mistake, that cost me a lot on the day.

“But there was no hatred [from me]. I didn’t lash out; didn’t curse at him. There was a video of it posted afterwards and I said: ‘I hope he does not get hate.’ I believed it was an honest mistake.

“And then I find out five weeks later that he said this.”

Muluh, 29, also says she feels the sport’s world governing body, the International Powerlifting Federation, “failed” her following the incident, and that swift action is only happening now as the story has grown.

“I feel like the federation needs to do background checks. If you are going to put my life in someone else’s hands, at least make sure that person is well equipped to be able to protect me or keep me from harm.

“But they failed me [through] negligence and putting my life in danger.

“[Kusinas] doubled down in his racist behaviour [afterwards]. Only now is he saying it was a joke. There’s nothing jokey about any of what he said. He put my life in danger. Nobody spots like that, with their knee.

“It’s never going to feel justified… I trained through injuries just to prepare. I’ve put my body through a lot for this to happen. There’s never going to be any real justice.”

Muluh, who has won multiple accolades in the sport, went on to say she did not feel welcome at the event in Lithuania.

“I hope [the IPF] do things differently – that they consider the safety of athletes more and especially minority people. I feel that’s what has been missing – we have been made to compete in places we didn’t feel welcome.

“People looked down on us in Lithuania in a very disgusting way. When I competed in Poland someone sneezed in my face at the airport.

“Some black athletes are booed in competition, we have to worry about our skin colour while competing.

“Powerlifting has been a very supportive niche sport, so far. But who is standing up for athletes against racism? This situation has changed my view a lot. There’s a lot of people who didn’t speak out about it. A lot of big names didn’t say a word about it. They didn’t reach out to me. All the black athletes reached out, so we all supported each other.”

Speaking to Reuters, Kusinas added he ​unintentionally interfered with Muluh’s and other athletes’ attempts because he was tired after his duties at the event.

In a statement the IPF said: “The IPF unequivocally condemns racism, discrimination, and hateful conduct in all its forms. Such behaviour has no place within the IPF or the global powerlifting community.

“We acknowledge and commend the Lithuanian Powerlifting Federation for its prompt and decisive response to this matter, including its immediate action to permanently ban the individual from participation within the federation.

“In addition, the IPF will co-ordinate with the relevant IPF commissions, the IPF safeguarding officer, and the IPF Championships Team to identify opportunities to strengthen the recruitment, screening, accreditation, and oversight of volunteers supporting IPF events.

“The IPF remains steadfast in its commitment to equality, inclusion, integrity, and fair play. Racism, discrimination, and hate have no place in our sport.”

Following Kusinas’ lifetime ban by the Lithuanian Powerlifting Federation, it said in a statement: “We would like to address the situation that unfolded on socal media. We reviewed available information relating to Ernestas Kusinas and were deeply shocked by the views and activities addressed publicly which contradict the principles we stand for.

“The federation takes full responsibility for addressing this matter.”

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters is facing backlash after telling a Chinese-born MP to ‘go back to your own country’ during a parliamentary debate. The remarks drew criticism at home, while China urged New Zealand politicians not to invoke Beijing in domestic disputes.

This episode examines how mass violence in Darfur has been constructed over time and why many activists, governments and courts have labelled it genocide, even as that term remains politically contested. It traces how environmental stress, neglect of the peripheries and competition over land fed grievances between communities. It shows how Khartoum armed and mobilised militias, how racialised language framed “Arabs” and “Africans” as enemies and how aerial bombing, burning of villages and mass displacement became tools of policy. Through survivors’ testimony and legal analysis, the film follows the path from counterinsurgency to crimes against humanity and alleged genocide and asks what justice has – and has not – been delivered for Darfur.

Exploiting racism has been a profitable strategy in Hollywood since the dawn of filmmaking: 111 years ago, D.W. Griffith’s film “The Birth of a Nation” was incredibly popular and influential, while also being so racist that it was considered controversial even in its own day.

The industry saw immediately just how lucrative fear could be. More than a century later, there is always someone in the entertainment media willing to trade in racist tropes for money, as well as an audience ready to receive them.

Two new films, “Citizen Vigilante” and “Run, Fight, Hide: Infidels,” demonstrate that streaming platforms and social media no longer simply distribute controversial content but in fact thrive on content that provokes, polarizes and sustains attention, regardless of the social cost.

Both of these xenophobic and Islamophobic films are being pushed as “anti-woke” vehicles, deliberately engineered to bypass traditional critical reception and capitalize on a fractured media ecosystem. “Citizen Vigilante,” which features an American protagonist killing dark-skinned immigrants and Muslims in an unnamed European setting, was denied a rating certificate by the German government for inciting violence. Yet despite that determination, the film secured global reach through decentralized digital distribution and high-profile promotion from Elon Musk.

Similarly, “Run, Fight, Hide: Infidels” — a campus siege narrative evoking 1980s action film nostalgia that leans heavily into outdated, post-9/11 anxieties — relies on a built-in conservative media apparatus to guarantee financial returns. The film is produced by the conservative media figure Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, which he co-founded. It is a sequel to a 2020 film that was their film company’s premiere.

But while promoters of such films frame their work as a brave rebellion, the reality is much more sinister: rehashing 40-year-old tropes while invoking conspiracy theories of Muslims bringing sharia law to America, because outrage is cheap to produce and easy to monetize.

Stories matter. Stories shape how we see one another. They influence what we love, what we celebrate, whom we trust, whom we understand and whom we fear.

Since January, the Muslim Public Affairs Council has documented a sharp escalation in threats and attacks targeting Muslims and Islamic institutions across the United States, including vandalism, shootings, bomb threats, attempted assassinations and physical assaults. These are not isolated incidents. They reflect a broader climate in which dehumanizing representation increasingly manifests as real-world violence.

Entertainment and politics increasingly employ the same tactic as one another, recycling narratives of fear and “otherness” to mobilize audiences, voters and consumers. When political leaders encourage those narratives, as President Trump recently did by amplifying and commenting on a photo of young Muslim American students in hijab, they further normalize the same stereotypes that entertainment companies have learned to monetize.

Yet while the social costs continue to mount, the economic incentives remain firmly intact. “Citizen Vigilante” earned a 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes despite receiving just a 6% critics’ score. More tellingly, it quickly climbed to the top of Amazon’s and Apple TV’s paid video-on-demand charts.

And this isn’t just a Muslim and immigrant issue — and it’s not only about who is portrayed on screens, but also who is not. Representation has been backsliding, and audiences are left with fewer opportunities to see the reality and humanity of diverse communities, making them more vulnerable to fear-based narratives.

According to a 2026 report from the nonprofit Define American, which tracks representation across television and film, Latinos account for only 23% of immigrant characters represented on screen, even though they make up more than 40% of the immigrant population in the United States. In 2020, 50% of immigrants on screen were Latino.

The industry’s defense is that whitewashed and xenophobic films reflect audience demand. But the recent research by Define American challenges this assumption. Data show that nuanced, multidimensional storytelling, in which immigrants and minority characters are woven into the fabric of everyday narratives rather than tokenized or villainized, actually leads to greater audience engagement and deeper systemic understanding.

Entertainment doesn’t simply reflect culture; it teaches us who belongs within it. Studios, distributors, streaming platforms and filmmakers all have a responsibility to reject narratives that portray immigrants as enemies and instead embrace stories that reflect the diversity and complexity of our world. At the same time — as with voters — the power ultimately rests with consumers. The choice to demand storytelling that challenges prejudice rather than profits from it belongs to all of us.

Sue Obeidi is the senior vice president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council Hollywood Bureau. Jose Antonio Vargas is the founder of Define American.

Thousands of Zimbabweans are returning home after xenophobic violence in South Africa, describing beatings, robbery and threats from anti-migrant groups. Nearly 21,300 have been repatriated by the government in five weeks, with 56,800 more self-repatriating.

French soccer superstar Kylian Mbappé took to social media Monday to respond to racist remarks a Paraguayan senator made following her country’s 1-0 loss to France in a World Cup knockout round game over the weekend.

Mbappé called Celeste Amarilla, a 61-year-old senator from Paraguay’s Liberal Radical Party, “a despicable woman and unworthy” of her position.

And he was just getting started.

“You do not represent Paraguay, that country which has sweated passion and honor throughout the competition,” Mbappé wrote on X. “Through your recklessness and your brazen racism, the entire world has already forgotten the journey and the historic effort that your players accomplished during this World Cup, making way for an incompetent woman who gives the worst possible image of her country.

“I will never allow people like her the freedom to spread their hatred and racism across the world.”

The 27-year-old French captain scored the only goal of Saturday’s round of 16 game on a penalty kick in the 70th minute. Mbappé is tied with Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Norway’s Erling Haaland with a tournament-high seven goals. He also has 19 overall World Cup goals, one behind Messi for the all-time record.

Amarilla apparently wasn’t impressed, taking to both Instagram and X to make comments about Mbappé ‘s cultural background, appearance, education and more. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Times.

The Paraguayan government said in a statement Monday that it “deplores and rejects” the senator’s remarks.

“These statements are contrary to the values and principles that inspire peaceful coexistence and respect for human dignity, which our country promotes,” it said, adding that Amarilla’s words “in no way represent the position of the Government of the Republic of Paraguay or of the Paraguayan people.”

The French Football Federation said in a statement that Amarilla’s comments were racist, as well as “utterly despicable and unacceptable” and “criminal and reprehensible.”

“These remarks are abhorrent, unworthy, and all the more unacceptable given that they come from a political figure. In the face of racism, we will not remain silent,” France’s sports minister Marina Ferrari wrote on X. “By targeting Kylian Mbappé, the senator is attacking everything our captain embodies and everything our country stands for: liberty, equality, and fraternity.”

France plays Morocco in the World Cup quarterfinals Thursday in Foxborough, Mass.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Another former bombshell has apologized for past use of a racist slur that got her ousted from the villa.

Fired “Love Island USA” contestant Alannah Keyser posted a video to TikTok on Saturday addressing a past video that showed her using the N-word as she sang along to the Roddy Ricch song “The Box.” On Friday, Peacock confirmed to The Times that Keyser had been dismissed from the hit reality dating show after the resurfaced video began circulating online.

“I do want to begin by addressing the video of me singing along to a Roddy Ricch song that contains a racial slur,” Keyser says in her video. “I’m sorry to whoever has seen that video and has been offended by it; that was never my intention. The video is from six years ago, and that word is just not in my vocabulary anymore.”

A USC film student from Miami, Keyser also addressed some of the other social media chatter about her that had been making the rounds prior to her dismissal. Included were accusations of racism due to screenshots of her alleged use of the racist slur on Snapchat and Instagram as well as observations that alleged she had interacted less with Black men on the show.

She said those screenshots had been “falsified.”

“What has been shared does not reflect the truth, and it’s never been in my character to discriminate against anybody’s skin color,” Keyser said. “I do want to say directly that I do not support racism or discrimination of any kind, and I never have.

“When I first found out that these things were going around online, it really broke my heart, and I couldn’t do anything about it. But this has definitely been a learning lesson for me, and it sucks that I didn’t get a chance to really show my personality and who I am,” she added.

In the caption of her TikTok video, Keyser wrote that “reality tv is HEAVILY edited & [her] chats/kisses with the other boys were unfortunately not aired.”

Keyser was the second “Love Island USA” contestant who was dismissed from the show this season after video of them using the N-word surfaced on social media. Earlier this month, Peacock axed Oregon-based beauty technician Vasana Montgomery just days after it announced its slate of Islanders for the show’s eighth season. She has since apologized, saying, “There is no excuse” for her use of the slur.

Last year, contestants Cierra Ortega and Yulissa Escobar were dismissed from the show for their use of racist slurs. Ortega had been caught repeatedly using a derogatory slur for Chinese people (and Asian people in general) on social media, while Escobar had used the N-word in a couple of podcasts. Both have since apologized.

Thousands of undocumented migrants in South Africa are rushing to leave after anti-immigrant protests, xenophobic tension and a June 30 deadline set by activist groups for them to leave. Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller reports from Cape Town.

US prosecutors reach into Somalia for a suspect in US fraud case.

Mogadishu, Somalia – United States prosecutors have reached across the world to seize a leading suspect in a Minnesota fraud case, arresting him in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh, 42, was taken into custody on Thursday, with US authorities announcing the arrest on Friday. His capture is the clearest sign yet that the pursuit of those behind the scheme has gone international.

Neither US nor Somali officials have disclosed how Eidleh was located. However, the Department of Justice said his arrest was the result of cooperation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency.

Prosecutors describe Eidleh as the alleged second-in-command to Aimee Bock, the convicted mastermind of a scheme built around Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota nonprofit that channelled federal money meant to feed needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2022, the US charged 47 people over a roughly $250m fraud that exploited a federal child-nutrition programme, the largest pandemic-relief fraud prosecuted in the country to that point.

Eidleh fled to Somalia as the scheme unravelled. Bock was recently sentenced to more than 40 years in prison.

According to prosecutors, Eidleh recruited operators into the scheme and collected bribes and kickbacks, often disguised as consulting fees and funnelled through shell companies.

He is accused of setting up his own meal sites under the names of stand-in owners, falsely claiming they were serving thousands of children a day, and inventing supplier firms to bill the government for food never delivered.

“This is a big fish,” US Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen told CBS News, calling Eidleh a key figure who recruited businesses and paid bribes to loot public money.

Crackdown on Somali community

The Trump administration has seized on the Feeding Our Future case to target Minnesota’s Somali community, the largest in the country, with about 84,000 people of Somali descent in the Minneapolis-St Paul area.

Most were born in the US or are naturalised citizens.

Somalia was placed among a list of countries on Trump’s travel ban when he returned to power in 2025 and he has also threatened to revoke the citizenship of naturalised Americans convicted of fraud.

Late last year, he also described Somalis as “garbage” in one of his many rhetorical attacks on both Somalia and the Somali American community.

Federal immigration enforcement agents flooded the Minneapolis area, and two people were killed by ICE agents – Renee Good in early January and the nurse Alex Pretti weeks later – igniting weeks of protest.

In January, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem moved to end Temporary Protected Status, a designation shielding people from deportation to dangerous homelands, for about 1,100 Somalis, ending protections that had stood since 1991.

A federal judge blocked the termination in March, and the legal fight continues.

An Israeli court has convicted seven men over the 2021 lynching of Sa’id Moussa, ending a five-year trial. Moussa was dragged from his car and beaten unconscious by a mob during the May 2021 riots.

“In my humble opinion, you have never known how to make coffee or Negroes. The former you leave too light, the latter too black.”

– Venezuelan poet and politician Andrés Eloy Blanco to US visitors, 1944

Contemporary racist attitudes in Venezuela have deep roots in the colonial period (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries). After independence, Venezuela constructed a national narrative that claimed to have overcome racism through miscegenation. We were (are) a “café con leche” (coffee with milk) nation, a blend in which racial differences had dissolved. But this supposed harmony concealed a persistent idea: whiteness remained the ideal, while African and Indigenous identities were seen as something to be diluted and gradually eliminated. 

This whitening process was not only biological, but also cultural and political. Paradoxically, racism in Venezuela became invisible to those who practiced it and even to those who suffered from it, masked under the pretext that “here we are all mestizos.” However, we have seen that when political conflicts intensify, the mask of mestizaje falls away and colonial prejudices resurface. 

The origin of an ideology

Although the validity of the term “race” has been questioned – on the grounds that we all belong to the human race and differ only in phenotypic traits – according to Venezuelan historian Luis Felipe Pellicer, “…if racism exists, race exists,” but only as an ideological construct of domination, and by no means as a scientific truth.

Racism emerged in Venezuela as a result of an exploitative and extractive economy that created a need for enslaved labor. Initially, this labor force consisted of Indigenous people and was later supplemented by individuals brought from the Atlantic coast of Africa. Countries such as present-day Ghana, Togo, Benin, Angola, and the Republic of the Congo were particularly affected. 

Now, the issue of slavery in Africa has deeper roots that warrant a more comprehensive examination, but in the Americas this system underwent a transformation, and what began as an economic activity ultimately established ideas that created negative associations around those subjected to slavery, thereby inventing the political and social category of “blackness.” By merging the condition of slavery with skin pigmentation into a single concept, the colonial mindset ended up stigmatizing every cultural and vital expression of these groups, considering them inferior, ugly, and despicable.

One of the characteristics of enslavement in the Americas was dehumanization and its racial justification. That is to say, here the idea of enslavement due to war or debt repayment was abandoned. The automatic association was: you are a slave because you are a Black African, and vice versa. This phenomenon created the idea that all Africans and their descendants were predestined for servitude and forced labor. 

The racist backlash

The recent incident in Madrid that saw supporters of far-right leader María Corina Machado shout slogans against Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez reflects a deep social divide. Sectors of the opposition who identify – whether phenotypically or aspirationally – with a Eurocentric worldview and the ideal of “whiteness” believe that the exercise of power by groups they associate with or perceive as people of African descent constitutes a historical affront. For decades before the Bolivarian Revolution, epithets like “monkey,” “mulatto,” “zambo,” “bembón,” and “bad hair,” among others, paraded across TV screens and in the national press with complete normality and often disguised as jokes – another mechanism for propagating Venezuelan racism. Following his government’s post-2001 radicalization of revolutionary reforms, Hugo Chávez was himself notoriously called a “monkey” and prominently caricatured as such by Venezuela’s right-wing opposition.

It is no surprise, then, that the presence of figures such as Venezuela’s current acting president transcends the issue of political ideology to constitute a rupture in “quality,” a term used in eighteenth-century Venezuela. “What is quality or race?” asks Pellicer. “It is an idea of inferiority regarding a human group that is transmitted, corporeally, through sexual reproduction.” It is an affront, then, to the natural order of things, to the pyramid of colonial society that placed peninsular Spaniards at the apex and people of African descent at the base. 

With the chant “Fuera la mona” (“Out with the monkey”), the Venezuelan far-right hurled an insult that reveals their undemocratic nature. But more importantly, these insults are not even linked to any incompetence in governance, but rather to what these groups perceive as “racial incompetence.” It is the expression of a wounded “whiteness” that uses racism as a defense mechanism against what they see as a displacement of their traditional privileges. It is, in essence, an attempt to restore a colonial order. 

Racism is a power structure. “Colonial thought,” Pellicer observes, “invents the other, whether Indigenous, mestizo, mulatto, or Black, as well as the white self … thereby establishing the ideology of race as the primary marker of inequality, beginning with the invasion of the Americas.” The struggle for honor in the colony was a struggle for differentiation and political recognition. Today, the “animalization” of non-white political leaders is the continuation of that colonial war, which is why the Madrid slur is not a simple rudeness; it is an act of historical violence. It is the voice of the eighteenth century trying to silence the twenty-first. And at this point, one must ask: what is admirable about the idea that, based on skin color, some are more or less fit to govern a country? 

The slave owner/racist does not see a person; he sees a tool, a piece of property, and for this to happen, the mind must adopt a psychopathic and callous mindset. The racist needs to strip the oppressed of their status as subjects in order to invoke a visceral fear of otherness that, if acknowledged, threatens their illusion of superiority. Choosing to be part of this ideological operation of domination today should be a source of shame, for it is the most glaring expression of a violence that heralds the end of humanity.

From Cortés to Díaz Ayuso

This exclusionary mindset is part of a transatlantic trend toward neocolonial revival that seeks to re-legitimize old hierarchies. A telling example is Spanish right-wing politician Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s recent visit to Mexico, where her proposal to celebrate the figure of Hernán Cortés serves as an ideological parallel to the “Fuera la mona” chants heard in Madrid. By attempting to portray the invasion and genocide in the Americas as a “civilizing” feat, Ayuso revives the logic of the “society of qualities”: a structure where moral and political superiority is an exclusive Hispanic and white inheritance, while Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples are reduced to a state of barbarism remediable only through paternalistic tutelage.

This narrative is not merely a historical debate, but a contemporary validation of the racial hierarchy and justification for overthrowing processes of popular sovereignty in Latin America. Ayuso’s discourse seeks to reaffirm a “Hispanic identity” that views ethnic otherness as a threat to the values of Western civilization. In this sense, what happened in Madrid is a clear symptom of the reactionary neo-fascist wave sweeping large parts of the Global North and South.

Racist remarks

The trauma of Venezuela’s War of Independence (1810–1830) and the Federal War (1859–1863) created the need to invent a narrative in which Venezuelan society was free of conflicts and differences, and thus the persistence of racial and social tensions has been glossed over. However, it resurfaces in comments such as: “Fuera la mona”; “We need to improve the race”; “Black but refined”; “Money whitens.” 

In 1948, conservative writer Arturo Uslar Pietri responded to Rómulo Gallegos’s presidential campaign by stating: “Anyone who speaks of blacks or whites, anyone who invokes racial hatred or privileges, denies the essence of Venezuela. In Venezuela, in political and social matters, there are neither whites nor blacks, neither mestizos nor Indigenous people. There are only Venezuelans .” This argument was almost exactly the same as that put forward by María Corina Machado when asked about the event at La Puerta del Sol, stating that it had occurred because of the fissures of hatred that Chavismo introduced into its discourse over 27 years in power. 

The end of denial

As part of the commemoration of the Day of Venezuelan Afro-Descendance, established under the Hugo Chávez government in 2005 to be celebrated every May 10 [on the anniversary of the 1795 slave uprising led by José Leonardo Chirino], it is both pertinent and necessary to reflect on and understand that racism in Venezuela is a long-standing phenomenon that surfaces with particular virulence during times of political crisis. The historical association between power and whiteness, inherited from the colonial era and reinforced by twentieth-century positivist thought, remains alive in the minds of sections of society that refuse to accept the nation’s diversity, including among working-class communities through what is known as endoracism. 

Understanding the origin of this phenomenon is the first step toward dismantling it. We must move from the false harmony of “café con leche” to true decolonial justice, where a person’s “quality” is not dictated by their “whiteness.” The Madrid incident reminds us that the battle for Venezuela’s mental independence far from over.

Rosanna Álvarez holds an MSc in History of Republican Venezuela from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). She is a researcher at the Centro de Estudios Simón Bolívar and Fundación Hugo Chávez, as well as a writer at the Libertador 8 Estrellas magazine. She is the author of Venezuela vista e imaginada. Un recorrido visual por nuestra historia and host of the Bolívar Nuestro show on Radio del Sur.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Suggestions that criticism of the State of Israel is anti-Semitic in Australia risk hardwiring a dangerous confusion. Questioning the behaviour of a foreign state is not the same as denigrating or attacking a people who may have links with that state. The State of Israel is represented by its embassy in Canberra, not by the Jewish community in our cities and suburbs.

But the knee-jerk reaction to the attack on a Jewish celebration in Sydney is solidifying that confusion. On December 14, 2025, as Jewish families gathered near Sydney’s Bondi Beach to celebrate Hanukkah, two gunmen opened fire, killing 15 people and injuring many others in one of the worst attacks in Australia’s history. In response, the federal government set up a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, led by former High Court justice Virginia Bell. On April 30, 2026, the commission delivered its interim report, raising serious concerns about how we define anti-Semitism.

The commission has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism. The IHRA offers examples that include criticism of Israel as evidence of anti-Semitism. But such a broad definition collapses critical commentary on Israel’s policy in Gaza, its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli officials’ dehumanising comments about Palestinians into a racist attack on Australia’s Jews. How does that make sense to anyone?

This is not an abstract question. The blurring of these categories acts as a brake on public debate. It narrows the range of permissible language used to describe Israel’s conduct in Gaza, where Australians have watched entire neighbourhoods destroyed and tens of thousands of civilians killed.

The official line from governments in relation to Israel is that Israel has a “right to exist” and an obligation to defend its citizens, which appears to give Israel carte blanche to decimate the entire Gaza Strip and kill tens of thousands of Palestinians. But no other state enjoys this exceptional treatment. No other state can do what it wishes simply because it has a “right to exist”. Australia has that right, but that right has never shielded governments in Canberra from fierce criticism, whether over First Nations dispossession, offshore detention or climate inaction. When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations in 2008 for the wrongs past governments had done to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Australia’s legitimacy as a state was not under threat. Rudd was reflecting the public mood by distancing his government from the policies of the past. It was not seen as challenging Australia’s right to exist.

Yet in debates about Israel, the invocation of the “right to exist” and anti-Semitism operates as a conversation stopper. It closes the door to a frank discussion about the State of Israel and its behaviour. We cannot talk about occupation, apartheid and war crimes because that is anti-Semitic. This is a troubling precedent that insulates Israel from moral and political accountability.

The commission was established in response to a real and deeply upsetting surge in anti-Semitic violence. But its framework could cast suspicion on genuine inquiry into the behaviour of Israel. It entrenches a form of exceptionalism that actually weakens Australia’s democratic norms.

A liberal society must be able to draw a clear line: hatred, discrimination or violence against Jews is anti-Semitic and unacceptable; criticism of a foreign government is not.

There is also a cost to Jewish Australians when that line is blurred. Public debate routinely treats “the Jewish community” as a single, pro-Israel bloc, represented by a handful of bodies. This is simply not true. Many Australian Jews are alarmed to see the destruction of Gaza in their name. Some have mobilised against Israel’s actions.

To assume unanimous Jewish support for Israeli actions is to deny Jewish Australians their agency. Worse, it risks casting Jewish dissenters as inauthentic. If the policy settings shaped by this commission casts such voices as anti-Semitic, they will be erased twice over: excluded from the definition of the community and penalised for speakingup. This is silencing dissent, masquerading as protection.

If public institutions reinforce the idea that criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews, they risk feeding anti-Semitism.

Images of Gaza’s destruction on the news have galvanised global public opinion. Many young Australians have marched for an end to Israeli policies and freedom for Palestine. The message that such protests against Israel are anti-Semitic could not be any more counter-productive and harmful for Australian democracy. That will only breed resentment against the Australian political system for ignoring what everyone sees on their TV screens, and, dangerously, feed the very anti-Semitic narratives the commission should be challenging. Those who already hold anti-Semitic views will feel confirmed in their belief that Jews act collectively through Israel. The commission cannot afford to fall into this trap.

To the credit of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), they have avoided the conflation of Israel and Jewish people and have not adopted the IHRA definition. The interim commission report has not embraced the most heavy-handed proposals in circulation; there is no rush to ban protest slogans or criminalise political expression. There is room for optimism that the commission can still address the issue in its final report.

Here are the standards it needs to uphold to protect social cohesion in Australia:

First, an unambiguous distinction between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. Second, a recognition of the diversity of Jewish opinion, including among those who oppose Israel’s actions, and the inclusion of those voices in efforts to combat anti-Semitism. Third, a defence of political space for Palestinians and their allies to describe their experiences of occupation, dispossession and siege in their own terms, while  rejecting any dehumanising or racist language about Jewish people.

Anti-Semitism in Australia is a threat to the Jewish community (regardless of political views) and the very foundation of our social cohesion. But seeking to address the scourge of anti-Semitism by conflating critical views of the State of Israel with hatred of Jews will only make matters worse. Such approach will suppress debate, limit freedom of speech and inquiry that has already led to self-censorship at our universities and entrench the very confusion that sustains anti-Semitism.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Weekly protests in Dublin are growing as people demand justice and accountability for Yves Sakila, a Congolese man who died after being restrained by security guards outside a shopping centre.

Just one of the nine Supreme Court justices thought it was appropriate for Roger Goodell — whose primary job as NFL commissioner is to protect the league — to decide whether the NFL’s hiring practices are still racist.

And it happens to be the same justice whose close friend is an NFL owner.

In fact, the friendship between Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill dates back decades, to high school. So when President Trump nominated Kavanaugh for the highest court in the land, Bidwill used the team’s official website to advocate for his confirmation. Not sure how the “stick to sports” crowd feels about it, considering how they react when players express opinions, but it felt like an overreach to me.

Obviously when a decision related to NFL owners came before the court, Kavanaugh should have recused himself. But by now we’re used to justices ignoring their own ethics rules. What I find most disturbing in this instance is Kavanaugh’s dissent.

Here’s how the hiring discrimination case came to be: Former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick texted the wrong Brian with congratulations for getting the New York Giants’ head coaching job, according to a lawsuit filed by former Dolphins head coach and former Patriots assistant coach Brian Flores, who is Black. In the 2022 suit, Flores said the Giants interviewed him for their vacant head coaching job under disingenuous circumstances. How can we tell? Because Belichick’s congratulations came three days before Flores’ interview with the Giants. The team had apparently already decided to hire Brian Daboll, who is white.

The NFL has spent the last three-plus years attempting to settle the dispute through NFL-controlled arbitration and fought to keep it out of court. The league lifted its appeal to the Supreme Court after failing to get Goodell in position to handle it via the lower courts.

In addition to the damning text exchange, Flores also has history on his side.

During one 60-season stretch, the NFL had no Black head coaches. To address the glaring discrepancy, the league established the “Rooney rule” in 2003, requiring teams to interview at least two minority candidates for head coach and other senior management vacancies.

Prior to that, most teams interviewed only white men.

The results have been mixed.

Yes, more minority candidates get interviewed now — perhaps after a white man has quietly been chosen for the job, but still … they get interviewed.

And yes, Tony Dungy and Mike Tomlin, both of whom are Black, not only got hired but also led their franchises to Super Bowl victories after the rule was put into place.

Still, two decades into the Rooney-rule era, roughly a third of the league’s owners had never hired a minority to lead their team. This includes the century-old New York Giants, who after firing Daboll at the end of the season, hired another white man to take his place. This is the backdrop of the discrimination lawsuit filed by Flores.

And still Kavanaugh felt this case could be handled internally by the organization that allowed it to happen.

Even Clarence Thomas, a judge known for ruling against anything that helps Black people, thought the NFL should have to defend itself in court.

Consider this: The year before Flores filed his suit, the NFL settled a different discrimination lawsuit for $1 billion. That case arose because for decades, to help determine the payout from a concussion settlement between retired players and the league, the NFL used “race norming” — a methodology that assumes Black players are less intelligent than white players, making it more difficult for Black men to prove brain damage than white men. In a league that is roughly 70% nonwhite, the racist practice saved the billionaire owners millions.

Or how about this: After the Supreme Court ruled that Duke Power Co. used a controversial cognitive test to prevent Black employees from getting higher-paying jobs back in the 1970s, the NFL began using it. The league kept it in place until 2022.

And still Kavanaugh felt the league should handle Flores’ case.

I’m not sure what factors the justice was considering before his dissent, but it could not have been league history.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

“In my humble opinion, you have never known how to make coffee or Negroes. The former you leave too light, the latter too black.”

– Venezuelan poet and politician Andrés Eloy Blanco to US visitors, 1944

Contemporary racist attitudes in Venezuela have deep roots in the colonial period (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries). After independence, Venezuela constructed a national narrative that claimed to have overcome racism through miscegenation. We were (are) a “café con leche” (coffee with milk) nation, a blend in which racial differences had dissolved. But this supposed harmony concealed a persistent idea: whiteness remained the ideal, while African and Indigenous identities were seen as something to be diluted and gradually eliminated. 

This whitening process was not only biological, but also cultural and political. Paradoxically, racism in Venezuela became invisible to those who practiced it and even to those who suffered from it, masked under the pretext that “here we are all mestizos.” However, we have seen that when political conflicts intensify, the mask of mestizaje falls away and colonial prejudices resurface. 

The origin of an ideology

Although the validity of the term “race” has been questioned – on the grounds that we all belong to the human race and differ only in phenotypic traits – according to Venezuelan historian Luis Felipe Pellicer, “…if racism exists, race exists,” but only as an ideological construct of domination, and by no means as a scientific truth.

Racism emerged in Venezuela as a result of an exploitative and extractive economy that created a need for enslaved labor. Initially, this labor force consisted of Indigenous people and was later supplemented by individuals brought from the Atlantic coast of Africa. Countries such as present-day Ghana, Togo, Benin, Angola, and the Republic of the Congo were particularly affected. 

Now, the issue of slavery in Africa has deeper roots that warrant a more comprehensive examination, but in the Americas this system underwent a transformation, and what began as an economic activity ultimately established ideas that created negative associations around those subjected to slavery, thereby inventing the political and social category of “blackness.” By merging the condition of slavery with skin pigmentation into a single concept, the colonial mindset ended up stigmatizing every cultural and vital expression of these groups, considering them inferior, ugly, and despicable.

One of the characteristics of enslavement in the Americas was dehumanization and its racial justification. That is to say, here the idea of enslavement due to war or debt repayment was abandoned. The automatic association was: you are a slave because you are a Black African, and vice versa. This phenomenon created the idea that all Africans and their descendants were predestined for servitude and forced labor. 

The racist backlash

The recent incident in Madrid that saw supporters of far-right leader María Corina Machado shout slogans against Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez reflects a deep social divide. Sectors of the opposition who identify – whether phenotypically or aspirationally – with a Eurocentric worldview and the ideal of “whiteness” believe that the exercise of power by groups they associate with or perceive as people of African descent constitutes a historical affront. For decades before the Bolivarian Revolution, epithets like “monkey,” “mulatto,” “zambo,” “bembón,” and “bad hair,” among others, paraded across TV screens and in the national press with complete normality and often disguised as jokes – another mechanism for propagating Venezuelan racism. Following his government’s post-2001 radicalization of revolutionary reforms, Hugo Chávez was himself notoriously called a “monkey” and prominently caricatured as such by Venezuela’s right-wing opposition.

It is no surprise, then, that the presence of figures such as Venezuela’s current acting president transcends the issue of political ideology to constitute a rupture in “quality,” a term used in eighteenth-century Venezuela. “What is quality or race?” asks Pellicer. “It is an idea of inferiority regarding a human group that is transmitted, corporeally, through sexual reproduction.” It is an affront, then, to the natural order of things, to the pyramid of colonial society that placed peninsular Spaniards at the apex and people of African descent at the base. 

With the chant “Fuera la mona” (“Out with the monkey”), the Venezuelan far-right hurled an insult that reveals their undemocratic nature. But more importantly, these insults are not even linked to any incompetence in governance, but rather to what these groups perceive as “racial incompetence.” It is the expression of a wounded “whiteness” that uses racism as a defense mechanism against what they see as a displacement of their traditional privileges. It is, in essence, an attempt to restore a colonial order. 

Racism is a power structure. “Colonial thought,” Pellicer observes, “invents the other, whether Indigenous, mestizo, mulatto, or Black, as well as the white self … thereby establishing the ideology of race as the primary marker of inequality, beginning with the invasion of the Americas.” The struggle for honor in the colony was a struggle for differentiation and political recognition. Today, the “animalization” of non-white political leaders is the continuation of that colonial war, which is why the Madrid slur is not a simple rudeness; it is an act of historical violence. It is the voice of the eighteenth century trying to silence the twenty-first. And at this point, one must ask: what is admirable about the idea that, based on skin color, some are more or less fit to govern a country? 

The slave owner/racist does not see a person; he sees a tool, a piece of property, and for this to happen, the mind must adopt a psychopathic and callous mindset. The racist needs to strip the oppressed of their status as subjects in order to invoke a visceral fear of otherness that, if acknowledged, threatens their illusion of superiority. Choosing to be part of this ideological operation of domination today should be a source of shame, for it is the most glaring expression of a violence that heralds the end of humanity.

From Cortés to Díaz Ayuso

This exclusionary mindset is part of a transatlantic trend toward neocolonial revival that seeks to re-legitimize old hierarchies. A telling example is Spanish right-wing politician Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s recent visit to Mexico, where her proposal to celebrate the figure of Hernán Cortés serves as an ideological parallel to the “Fuera la mona” chants heard in Madrid. By attempting to portray the invasion and genocide in the Americas as a “civilizing” feat, Ayuso revives the logic of the “society of qualities”: a structure where moral and political superiority is an exclusive Hispanic and white inheritance, while Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples are reduced to a state of barbarism remediable only through paternalistic tutelage.

This narrative is not merely a historical debate, but a contemporary validation of the racial hierarchy and justification for overthrowing processes of popular sovereignty in Latin America. Ayuso’s discourse seeks to reaffirm a “Hispanic identity” that views ethnic otherness as a threat to the values of Western civilization. In this sense, what happened in Madrid is a clear symptom of the reactionary neo-fascist wave sweeping large parts of the Global North and South.

Racist remarks

The trauma of Venezuela’s War of Independence (1810–1830) and the Federal War (1859–1863) created the need to invent a narrative in which Venezuelan society was free of conflicts and differences, and thus the persistence of racial and social tensions has been glossed over. However, it resurfaces in comments such as: “Fuera la mona”; “We need to improve the race”; “Black but refined”; “Money whitens.” 

In 1948, conservative writer Arturo Uslar Pietri responded to Rómulo Gallegos’s presidential campaign by stating: “Anyone who speaks of blacks or whites, anyone who invokes racial hatred or privileges, denies the essence of Venezuela. In Venezuela, in political and social matters, there are neither whites nor blacks, neither mestizos nor Indigenous people. There are only Venezuelans .” This argument was almost exactly the same as that put forward by María Corina Machado when asked about the event at La Puerta del Sol, stating that it had occurred because of the fissures of hatred that Chavismo introduced into its discourse over 27 years in power. 

The end of denial

As part of the commemoration of the Day of Venezuelan Afro-Descendance, established under the Hugo Chávez government in 2005 to be celebrated every May 10 [on the anniversary of the 1795 slave uprising led by José Leonardo Chirino], it is both pertinent and necessary to reflect on and understand that racism in Venezuela is a long-standing phenomenon that surfaces with particular virulence during times of political crisis. The historical association between power and whiteness, inherited from the colonial era and reinforced by twentieth-century positivist thought, remains alive in the minds of sections of society that refuse to accept the nation’s diversity, including among working-class communities through what is known as endoracism. 

Understanding the origin of this phenomenon is the first step toward dismantling it. We must move from the false harmony of “café con leche” to true decolonial justice, where a person’s “quality” is not dictated by their “whiteness.” The Madrid incident reminds us that the battle for Venezuela’s mental independence far from over.

Rosanna Álvarez holds an MSc in History of Republican Venezuela from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). She is a researcher at the Centro de Estudios Simón Bolívar and Fundación Hugo Chávez, as well as a writer at the Libertador 8 Estrellas magazine. She is the author of Venezuela vista e imaginada. Un recorrido visual por nuestra historia and host of the Bolívar Nuestro show on Radio del Sur.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

The first flight carrying around 300 Ghanaians evacuated from South Africa following anti-immigrant tensions and reported attacks on foreign nationals has arrived in Accra. Authorities welcomed returnees with reintegration support and transport assistance.

Still a town at the time – it wasn’t granted city status until 1992 – Sunderland was a different world to the one in which Gregoire had grown up. Born in 1958 in the Toxteth area of Liverpool to Windrush Generation parents from the Caribbean island of Dominica, he was raised in Bradford, another multi-cultural city.

By contrast, according to the Census figures, barely 1% of a Sunderland population approaching 300,000 in 1981 was of African-Caribbean origin.

A fifth of the League’s 92 clubs had yet to sign a black player by 1978, the year Nottingham Forest’s Viv Anderson became the first to claim a senior England cap.

“I knew only one other black fellow in Sunderland, he was at the polytechnic,” remembers Gregoire. “Wayne Entwistle [a white striker, who signed the same day in a £30,000 deal from Bury] shared digs with me for a while and was a good guy, but it was quite a lonely time.”

Gregoire cites the club’s 1973 FA Cup-winning captain Bobby Kerr and experienced midfielder Mick Docherty as two colleagues who made him feel welcome, in a debut season where he made eight first-team appearances.

But he felt the dressing room attitude towards him change in the summer of 1978, with a couple of notable incidents on a pre-season tour of Kenya.

“After one game, all these children ran on to the pitch and went up to one of our players and gathered round him,” he says. “But when they’d gone he came to me and wiped his hands on my shirt. I thought that was disgusting.

“It was like he thought those children had disease, and wanted to wipe it on me! Why me? Because I’m black, is that why?”

Later, at a post-match reception at the home of a wealthy local white family, the team lined up to meet the hostess.

“She shook the hand of the players on my right, bypassed me, then shook the hand of everyone else,” he says.

“I didn’t waste a second. I just calmly and coolly walked out of the house and on to the team bus. I would rather be out there, with lions and hyenas, than be inside, being insulted like that.

“Not one person came to see how I was, or to offer some comfort. It was only when they’d finished eating and drinking, laughing and joking, that they came filing back on to the coach.

“I thought that was a disgrace. That woman insulted me, and by insulting me she insulted the club. There was no loyalty, no integrity – I felt abandoned.”

Two gunmen have killed three people at the Islamic Center of San Diego in what police are treating as a hate crime. Police say the attackers, aged 17 and 19, died from self-inflicted gunshots. A security guard was among those killed.