It’s always darkest before dawn
COMMENTARY BY DOPPER0189, BLACK KOS MANAGING EDITOR
When events are seemingly hopeless, I always remember English clergyman and historian Thomas Fuller’s proverb “It’s always darkest before dawn”. The question America must ask is do we want 3 more years of unfettered Trumpism or only 1 more year? As crazy as Trump’s Project 2025 rampage across America has been, we’ve only lived through less than a year of it.
The midterms 2026 will determine how much worse things will be until 2028. The courts will not save us, the media will not save us, institutions will not save us, only the American voter can save us. Every other policy disagreement is secondary to this issue. We need to save American democracy.
In 2025 opening I wrote, THE 92% is tired of protesting when voting is more effective. By dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor. This sentiment still stands. My favorite and most effective form of protest is to march to the voting booth and cast my ballot against what I don’t want and cast my ballot for what I do want.
Black Kos 2025, Even THE 92% Can't do it alone
There is a place for marching, organizing, and protesting, but the left often has what I call a protest fetish. We need to instead have a voting fetish. Vote every election. I fully support a vigorous and contentious primary and open debate. This is what true democracy requires. But what we on the pro-democracy side must end is failing to unify after the primaries. Cutting off our noses to spit our faces has mutilated lady liberty. You don’t have to agree 100% with a candidate to support them. In fact if you want to have a candidate that you agree with 100% you need to enter the political ring yourself. I’m tired of repeats of 1988, 2000, 2016, 2024 where we lose because of political infighting that doesn’t change or improve the situation. Failing to unite behind the 2024 Democratic nominee was never going to yield a single positive result for any cause, progressive, leftist, liberals, or moderates profess to care about. We need to stop doing this. Protesting is means to make overlooked voices heard. Protesting is a means to organize. Protesting without action will not bring change.
Benjamin Franklin after the 1787 Constitutional Convention when asked what form of government America has, replied "A republic, if you can keep it". The question America must ask itself in 2026, is do we cherish our republic enough to keep it?
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The table is crowded with card decks, dice and custom playmats. Around it sits Joseph Johnson, a Black content creator behind the meetup, alongside a diverse group of players laughing, trash-talking and explaining rules to anyone who needs them.
The cameras are rolling, too. What looks like a casual Magic: The Gathering night is also the latest episode of Tabletop Jocks, Johnson’s online series built to make room for Black and queer players in a hobby in which they haven’t always felt represented.
For a growing group of Magic: The Gathering players, the fantasy card game has become something more than a fun pastime. Through events, online platforms and intentional mentorship, they’re trying to make a historically exclusive space more accessible.
Among them is Keontaye Williams, another Black content creator based in Columbus, Georgia, who said the game saved his life and thinks it could do the same for others.
A motivational speaker, Williams works with kids and teens to steer them away from a dangerous lifestyle. His next goal: bringing Magic: The Gathering into youth detention centers as a tool for connection and mentorship.
It’s a message that resonates with Johnathon Jones, known as "Kurohitsuki" online, who is “just a Blerd,” a term of endearment for Black nerds, trying to build a community his heroes would be proud of, according to his Twitch bio.
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Four days after being sworn in as Detroit’s first woman mayor, Mary Sheffield unveiled an innovative program that marks Detroit as the nation’s largest city to participate in a state program that could potentially pay Detroit moms and their babies $105 million in cash.
During Monday’s announcement, Sheffield said Detroit will join Rx Kids, a Michigan State University program launched in 2024, to support families at a critical stage of a child’s life. Families can use the money for essentials like utilities, diapers, food and medical care.
Within Sheffield’s first 100 days, expectant moms in Detroit will receive $1,500 during pregnancy and $500 a month for the first half-year of their baby’s life– no strings attached. The program is funded by a mix of public and private local investment, including a $500,000 annual city commitment over three years and contributions from philanthropic foundations, corporations and financial institutions.
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This week, a Harvard University resident dean was removed from his position after a far-right-wing blog resurfaced years-old, controversial tweets. Gregory Davis served as dean for Dunster House, one of the Ivy League’s undergraduate residential houses. However, on Monday, Davis announced that he had been removed from his role in a message reportedly shared with students through the affiliates of the residential house.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as the Resident Dean for Dunster,” Davis wrote as reported by the Harvard Crimson. “I will miss my work with students and staff immensely.”
The university later confirmed Davis’ removal in a separate email, writing: “We are writing to confirm that Gregory Davis is no longer serving as the Allston Burr Resident Dean of Dunster House, effective today. We thank Gregory for serving in this role and wish him and his family the best in their future endeavors,” per Fox News.
Davis’ removal comes months after the far-right blog, Yard.Report resurfaced a series of old controversial tweets and Facebook posts written by the former Harvard residential dean, claiming that he is “not as ‘open and inclusive’ as he makes himself out to be.”
In the posts which were shared between 2019 and 2021, one of the many peaks of the Black Lives Matter movement following George Floyd’s murder, Davis criticized President Trump, law enforcement, and shared his thoughts on the growing racial tensions at the time.
“I find myself in the limited space. I don’t-at all- blame people wishing Trump ill. I also don’t blame (Black) people who steadfastly don’t wish death on anyone,” he wrote in one of the resurfaced tweets.
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On a snowy afternoon, following a day of watching top-level ski racing, the teenage triplets took a moment to relax on a couch next to a roaring fire near the slopes at Beaver Creek. A rare chance to just do nothing.
It’s been a whirlwind winter for Helaina, Henri IV and Henniyah Rivers in their quest to represent their mother’s country of Jamaica, a nation associated more for sprinting than skiing, at the Winter Olympics next month.
Their dream was put in motion long ago by their father, who, appropriately enough, was born in a neighborhood known as Jamaica in Queens, New York. It’s a dream that comes with significance, too: As Black ski racers in a predominantly white sport, the triplets see making this team as a way to open doors for more racers of color to follow in their tracks.
The 18-year-olds born minutes apart in Brooklyn have been all over the globe competing in lower-tier races in an effort to qualify for the technical events, slalom and giant slalom. Henri already has a spot, in the slalom, and his sisters are close. The deadline is Jan. 18.
“It would just be groundbreaking for three 18-year-old Black triplets to represent Jamaica, a non-snow sport country, on the global stage,” Helaina said. “I think about that every time I go to bed.”
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Two weeks after the US carried out Christmas Day airstrikes in north-west Nigeria on what it described as Islamic State fighters, questions remain over the specific group that was targeted and the operation’s impact.
In the aftermath of the strikes, Donald Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that “ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians” were hit with “numerous perfect strikes”.
The operation, coordinated with Nigeria, targeted an Islamist group known as Lakurawa, which extorts the mainly Muslim local population and enforces a strict version of sharia law that includes lashes for listening to music.
Very little information has been shared by either the US or Nigeria about the strikes’ impact and it is unclear how many Lakurawa fighters, if any, died. The US Africa Command branch of the US military said on 25 December that its “initial assessment is that multiple Isis terrorists were killed in the Isis camps”.
Malik Samuel, a researcher with Good Governance Africa, said he had spoken to a Lakurawa member who said about 100 fighters were killed in a forest camp in the Tangaza area of Sokoto state. He said he was told that about 200 were missing, with many of the remaining fighters now trying to cross into Niger. This could not be independently confirmed.
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