The Takeaway

During J. Edgar Hoover’s nearly 50 years as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, he transformed the FBI from a small enterprise mainly investigating interstate crimes to one of the nation’s most formidable intelligence institutions. But during his tenure, Hoover became more than just the agency's leader — he became its spiritual general.

"Hoover baptized the FBI in his own image," says Lerone Martin, the Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial professor and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. 

Martin uncovered thousands of internal FBI documents using the Freedom of Information Act, and these documents paint a picture of Hoover’s FBI as not just a force of the law, but a force of white Christian nationalism. 

Martin's new book is "The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism."

Last week, Seattle became the first U.S. city to pass a ordinance banning caste discrimination. The caste system in India is a division and hierarchy of people which is determined by birth and descent, and originated from Brahmanism, a spiritual philosophy which is considered a predecessor of Hinduism.  Although caste discrimination was banned in India in 1948, in many ways the caste system still persists in India. 

Here in America, activists say that as South Asians have emigrated to America, caste discrimination persists. Critics of the bill say that it will lead to more anti-Hinduism discrimination, and that it’s a painful reminder of the caste system which some believe to be obsolete in America. The Seattle ordinance gives legal recourse for those who have been discriminated against in the workplace, with housing, or in other circumstances. It passed by a 6-to-1 vote.

We speak with Kshama Sawant, member of the Seattle City Council who proposed the ordinance, and Prachi Patankar, a community activist and writer who has been an advocate against caste based discrimination.

Here are statements by two Hindu-American organizations critical of the bill, Coalition of Hindus in North America and the Hindu American Foundation. 

The Takeaway also received a statement from Sara Nelson, the lone Seattle Councilmember who voted against the ordinance: 

I voted against this legislation because it links caste discrimination with Hinduism and people of South Asian descent and we received hundreds of emails from opponents who argued that enshrining caste as a protected class here in Seattle will perpetuate racist and colonialist stereotypes and serve only to generate more anti-Hindu discrimination.

This perspective was not represented in any of the materials provided to Councilmembers and I could not support creating a new protected class for a culturally and historically complex concept when the community the legislation is supposed to protect believes it will do more harm than good. 

BLACK.QUEER.RISING. is a special series where The Takeaway looks at Black, LGBTQ+ trailblazers and changemakers. We've gotten the chance to talk to artists like Big Freedia and Moore Kismet about their music, activist like #BlackLivesMatter founder Alicia Garza, and New York Congressman Richie Torres.

George M. Johnson was a member of 2022's TIMES 100 Most Influential People list, and they are an author, journalist, and activist. Their New York Times bestselling young adult, nonfiction “memoir-manifesto” “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” centers on growing up Black and Queer in America, and it is the second most banned book in the U.S. right now, as book bans are on the rise all over the country.

Recently, the book was banned in Escambia County, Florida at a time where the state's governor has taken drastic moves to ban the teaching of Black history; diversity, equity, and inclusion education; and critical race theory.

To close out our Black History Month special series, we revisit our conversation with George M. Johnson who joined us back in October 2022 to discuss their banned-book and what Black.Queer.Rising means to them.

Last Monday, parts of Syria and Turkey were once again struck by a fatal earthquake, of a 6.4 magnitude. More than 50,000 people in both Turkey and Syria have been killed by the impact of these now three quakes and their aftershocks. 

We'll hear how the new quakes impacted ongoing rescue and recovery efforts; how international aid to Syria continues to face obstacles due to the war; and how Turkey's government is handling transparency and accountability in their responses.

We're joined again by Shirin Jaafari, reporter covering the Middle East for The World. Jaafari has been speaking with survivors in Syria in the aftermath.

Earlier this month, the Mississippi House passed House Bill 1020. The bill would expand the police force as well as create a new court system within the CCID — or Capitol Complex Improvement District — of the capital city of Jackson, where judges and prosecutors would be appointed by state officials, instead of elected, as they are in every other county in Mississippi. 83-percent of residents in Jackson, Mississippi are Black, and those state officials who would be appointing Jackson’s judges and prosecutors are both white. 

We speak with Rep. Ed Blackmon, Mississippi state representative representing the 57th District about the bill.

But UMWA and Warrior Met are still at a standstill on contract negotiations, all while the mines are still operating with replacement workers, and still earning a profit. 

Last week, UMWA leadership informed the remaining members on strike that the union would be ​​entering a new phase to win a fair contract, and sent a letter to the CEO of Warrior Met announcing that the striking miners were willing to return to work on March 2.

Now, those coal miners who choose to return to work will be working under their old contract, while the UMWA and Warrior Met continue to negotiate.

We get updates from Kim Kelly, an independent labor journalist and author of the book, "FIGHT LIKE HELL: The Untold History of American Labor." Kim has been covering the Warrior Met Coal strike since April 2021.

Here is our previous coverage of the Warrior Met Strike:Alabama Union Coal Mine Workers Enter Fifth Month of StrikeAlabama Miners Are Still on Strike Nearly Nine Months Later

It has been a year since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the brutal invasion of Ukraine. A country on the border of NATO and the European Union. And while the future of geopolitics is still up in the air, one twelve-year-old girl took it upon herself to tell the stories of children caught in the war.

Yeva’s diary began on her 12th birthday– only a handful of days before the invasion that displaced her and her grandmother. She is now 13. We spoke with Yeva Skalietska, author of You Don’t Know What War Is: The Diary of a Young Girl from Ukraine.

Dr. Samuel Ramsey believes entomology is the study of diversity since insects are the most diverse species on the planet.

In 2022, he was featured on Hulu's Black History Month special Your Attention Please which shines a light on Black innovators in art, science, culture, and more. And he has used social media to help the world better understand insects and their importance.

Dr. Sammy is also the founder and director of the Ramsey Research Foundation, which is closely studying communicable diseases in bees and plans to make all of this research openly accessible to the public, an unprecedented move in the scientific community.

Through his work in entomology, Dr. Sammy has found some interesting connections between humans and insects, and he joined The Takeaway for the next edition of Black.Queer.Rising. to discuss all of this and more. 

Wilmot Collins was born and raised in civil war-torn Liberia. Being witness to political violence and corruption in his own country, he became fascinated with America’s system of government in college.  Confronted with violence, and hunger, he eventually fled with his fiance, Maddie, to Ghana in 1990, finding work as a teacher. Still struggling, they then decided to go to America. Maddie, pregnant at the time, got a student visa to go to nursing school in Montana. Wilmot would join her, and meet his young daughter, almost two years later in Helena. 

Today, Wilmot Collins is the first Black mayor of Helena, Montana's capital city with a population 33,000. Montana state has a less than 1-percent Black population. 

We speak to Mayor Collins about his journey to America as a refugee, the hope and worry he sees in America's democracy, and leading a predominantly white city as a Black mayor.

Technology is touted as the future but one thing the industry has not been able to solve is its lack of gender and racial diversity within the field. Black Girls CODE was founded in 2011 to improve the pipeline of Black girls in tech. To change the landscape of what technology looks like and to build a new generation of computer programmers.

Today, Black Girls CODE aims to deepen their impact by showing the world that Black girls can code, lead, innovate, and engineer their own futures. 

We spoke to Sofia Mohammed, Interim Executive Director of Black Girls CODE