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The Long Debate Over Black Artistry Behind ‘American Fiction’

Performing Race

Can’t Black writers write what they want to write in the 21st century? In the world of Percival Everett’s 2001 “Erasure,” the answer was no. In 2023, with the novel’s adaptation into the movie “American Fiction,” the answer is still no.

The Curious Case of the Kerman Attacks

Blame Games and Anxieties

The Iranian authorities appeared confused about whom to blame for the Kerman attacks. There is little evidence or precedent for their claim that Israel is likely to have been behind them, but the regime remains hopeful that Iranians will draw together in a response of national unity.

The Lasting Legacy of Bayard Rustin

The Lasting Legacy of Bayard Rustin

From the 1956 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, until Martin Luther King’s assassination 12 years later, Bayard Rustin was a central — and controversial — figure in the civil rights movement, always pushing the movement in general, and King in particular, to take stances as bold and transformative as possible.

Making It Work From the River to the Sea

Making It Work From the River to the Sea

Negotiations and wars have demonstrably failed to bring any resolution to Israel and Palestine. But while history is littered with failed partitions, there is another way. The challenge is to decouple peace from land, and recognize that security depends not on territory but on equal treatment.

A New Holiday Heralds a More Complex Understanding of Saudi Arabia’s Origins

A New Holiday Heralds a More Complex Understanding of Saudi Arabia’s Origins

The kingdom’s new Foundation Day plays down the false idea that the Saudi state legitimized itself through Wahhabism, with political authority divided between the ruling Al Saud dynasty and the religious establishment, and helps to reveal how it gained its legitimacy via a hybrid normative tradition that included Arabist and Salafist elements.

The Mass Psychology of Trumpism

The Mass Psychology of Trumpism

In the eyes of his supporters, Trump possesses extraordinary powers that are wielded for good and against evil. Who cares if he is flawed? So what if he lacks certain distinctively human qualities? What does it matter that he is rude, authoritarian or even a criminal?

The Erasure of Palestinian Society

The Erasure of Palestinian Society

Israeli leaders, and Western discourse at large, have long reduced the Palestinian national struggle to particular leaders or factions. Palestinian people, according to this perspective, are little more than puppets manipulated by those leaders, human shields behind which they hide or collateral damage of Israel’s military campaigns.