New Podcast: You're not paying attention

Guest Michael Harriot has been for a long time and his perspective will open your eyes

Florida is worse than you think

When it came out that the new Florida social studies curriculum block on Black history would include the ridiculous claim that many slaves learned skills they were able to use later people went justifiably insane. DeSantis can’t do criticism so he has rolled in to defend the change claiming that anyone who is angry hasn’t read the entire 200+ pages of the full curriculum.

Well, Michael Harriot did and he found the whole thing is much worse than even that and highlighted the top ten most egregious failures in an article for TheGrio last week which caught my eye, and shocked my brain. I had to have him on the show.

His commentary on white America is layered with hard facts, data, and lived experience that pulls the shades off your eyes especially f you’ve grown up with the whitewashed history that is so prevalent in the United States. I was raised with that exact history right through West Point where our history books still treated the Confederacy, and the many USMA graduates who turned against the nation, as simply opponents. Our lessons saw them revered for their military prowess with absolutely no thought given to the cause for which they fought: keeping humans in hereditary and permanent bondage.

In addition to his powerful writing on TheGrio, Michael has a hilarious and thought provoking podcast called Drapetomaniax: Unshackled History. The show not only offers unvarnished Black history but sprinkles with well known voices like Joy Reid and Roy Wood Jr. to portray key pieces of history we’ve likely not been exposed to.

You can also pre-order his upcoming book ‘Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America now before its debut in September from Harper Collins.

Check out the whole conversation

Michael Harriot

Michael Harriot is a writer, cultural critic, and the official Dean of Black Twitter. He writes extensively for The Grio and numerous other publications and is a regular guest on multiple news channels. His book, Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America, will be released in September. His new podcast Drapetomaniax: Unshackled History presents a significantly more accurate version of Black history than what was whitewashed from our social studies books. Michael holds a degree in mass communications and history from Auburn University and an MA in macroeconomics from Florida State University. You can follow him on Twitter at @MichealHarriot.

Check out all of his columns for TheGrio here. You will learn something in every paragraph.

The Numbers at the Top

Trump now faces 78 charges across multiple jurisdictions with more pending in Georgia and likely additional charges from Jack Smith if history is any guide. He was arraigned on Thursday for crimes leading up to January 6th. Has it hurt his standing in the Republican Party at all?

Nope. The New York Times has been trickling out their big mid-year poll all week and the results are not terribly shocking at all. 74% of Republicans don’t believe that Trump has committed any serious crimes at all while 86% of Democrats think he has

It says an awful lot about what has become of the Party of ‘law and order’ at this point. They continue to double and triple down on supporting a lifelong serial criminal. If there is hope in that you will see that 51% of Americans overall believe he committed crimes vs. 35% who don’t among registered voters.

But that is some slim hope. Especially when their poll then shows that the race for President is a virtual tie between Biden and Trump after all of this at 46% apiece. We have our work cut out for us all the way to November 5th, 2024.

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Latest Hot Take for MeidasTouch

Ben Shapiro had the most ludicrous defense yet for Donald Trump’s new charges in the Mar-A-Lago Espionage Act case. You see, he’s just a hoarder. That’s all. He’s not a spy. My take made me double facepalm half way through. Check it out.

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