NEW YORK // If the 2008 United States presidential election was prematurely described as the country's "post-racial" moment, the recent election and its aftermath can only be described as its latest hyper-racial moment.
The political post-mortems have uniformly focused on how the Democrats won by appealing to, and mobilising, a "coalition of the ascendant" - Latinos, Asians, blacks, women, progressive urban whites - and how Republicans have shrunk into the politics of white identity as the organising principle for their base. It has become clear that a paradigm shift is under way.
But beyond the electoral calculus that is now front and centre, how does race colour everyday experiences in this rapidly diversifying US?
From the post-industrial Rust Belt in Ohio to the "buckle" of the Bible Belt in western Missouri, the changes in the American "heartland" are visible in the small fragments of everyday life.
One morning, after an interview with a geologist in southern Illinois oil country, I asked for directions to St Louis, where I planned to stop en route to western Missouri to visit a tiny Muslim community whose mosque had been torched during Ramadan.
"Has anyone told you about this area?" he asked. "From here clear to Kansas it's predominantly European-American."
Passing through the Ozarks of Missouri, my worst suspicions were confirmed: ubiquitous signs supporting Todd Akin, of "legitimate rape" fame, for Senate; churches with virulent anti-Obama messages on their signs lined the motorway; an inordinate number of Confederate flags were stuck on car bumpers. More shocking still was one radio station, which referred to African-Americans as "negroes".
Rural and ex-urban, not college educated, mostly southern or Midwestern, often poor or middle class - this is the America that Republican candidates rely on for votes and many within this narrow demographic are attracted by the party's implicitly racial rhetoric.
But in Joplin, Missouri, for example, this America is being subtly changed. In 2002 there were only two Muslim families in this city of 50,000. By 2010, there were 30, mostly immigrant doctors from Pakistan, and they built a mosque. There was a surge that year in Islamophobia spouted by Republican candidates during the midterm elections.
One reaction by some in this America to the newly visible Muslims was to burn down their mosque. Then, out of a sense of common decency, Christian values and embarrassment, there was the opposite reaction by others within the same demographic. Conservative Christian Republicans reached out to their Muslim neighbours, told them to rebuild the mosque and to trust them.
An evangelical Christian told me his son, after an interfaith dinner with Muslims, had become close friends with the imam's son. Later in my trip, in Cincinnati, Ohio, a Democratic stronghold, I saw how race was far from irrelevant.
Over-the-Rhine is a poor, African-American neighbourhood rapidly gentrifying. On the cold, clear morning of election day, dozens of residents filed into a gymnasium to cast their votes. Leading up to the election, there had been national media coverage of a self-described voter fraud watchdog group, closely linked to the Republican party, called True the Vote.
The group had been caught erroneously accusing black Cincinnati residents of falsifying their voter information. Under a new voter registration law, people so accused have to appear in court to defend themselves. Many did not, and they lost their right to vote. At the poll in Over-the-Rhine that morning, the official Democratic observer was irate. He told me that one of the election officials running the voting station was also a member of True the Vote and that he was unfairly telling dozens of black voters that they were ineligible to vote because of small flaws in their registration material.
"This is the second time they've done this to me," said one young woman with dyed blonde hair as she left the poll in frustration. Nearly every African-American person I spoke to told stories of people they knew being disqualified from voting in past elections.
Despite the best efforts to limit the minority vote, however, it seemed that this tactic was already obsolete. Later that night, at a bar only a few blocks away, hundreds of people of every race - but the majority of them black - celebrated Barack Obama's re-election.
tkhan@thenational.ae
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
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- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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THE SPECS
Engine: 3-litre V6
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 424hp
Torque: 580 Nm
Price: From Dh399,000
On sale: Now
Friday’s fixture
6.15pm: Al Wahda v Hatta
6.15pm: Al Dhafra v Ajman
9pm: Al Wasl v Baniyas
9pm: Fujairah v Sharjah
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.
SPEC SHEET
Display: 6.8" edge quad-HD dynamic Amoled 2X, Infinity-O, 3088 x 1440, 500ppi, HDR10 , 120Hz
Processor: 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1/Exynos 2200, 8-core
Memory: 8/12GB RAM
Storage: 128/256/512GB/1TB
Platform: Android 12
Main camera: quad 12MP ultra-wide f/2.2, 108MP wide f/1.8, 10MP telephoto f/4.9, 10MP telephoto 2.4; Space Zoom up to 100x, auto HDR, expert RAW
Video: 8K@24fps, 4K@60fps, full-HD@60fps, HD@30fps, super slo-mo@960fps
Front camera: 40MP f/2.2
Battery: 5000mAh, fast wireless charging 2.0 Wireless PowerShare
Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC
I/O: USB-C
SIM: single nano, or nano and SIM, nano and nano, eSIM/nano and nano
Colours: burgundy, green, phantom black, phantom white, graphite, sky blue, red
Price: Dh4,699 for 128GB, Dh5,099 for 256GB, Dh5,499 for 512GB; 1TB unavailable in the UAE
Queen
Nicki Minaj
(Young Money/Cash Money)
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Veere di Wedding
Dir: Shashanka Ghosh
Starring: Kareena Kapoo-Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania
Verdict: 4 Stars
The rules of the road keeping cyclists safe
Cyclists must wear a helmet, arm and knee pads
Have a white front-light and a back red-light on their bike
They must place a number plate with reflective light to the back of the bike to alert road-users
Avoid carrying weights that could cause the bike to lose balance
They must cycle on designated lanes and areas and ride safe on pavements to avoid bumping into pedestrians
Banned items
Dubai Police has also issued a list of banned items at the ground on Sunday. These include:
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Political flags or banners
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Bikes, skateboards or scooters
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
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Sri Lanka Test squad:
Dimuth Karunaratne (stand-in captain), Niroshan Dickwella (vice captain), Lahiru Thirimanne, Kaushal Silva, Kusal Mendis, Kusal Janith Perera, Milinda Siriwardana, Dhananjaya de Silva, Oshada Fernando, Angelo Perera, Suranga Lakmal, Kasun Rajitha, Vishwa Fernando, Chamika Karunaratne, Mohamed Shiraz, Lakshan Sandakan and Lasith Embuldeniya.
BABYLON
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5