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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, ploy, or scheme, is a plan or agreement between people (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder, treason, or corruption, especially with a political motivation,[2] while keeping their agreement secret from the public or from other people affected by it. In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of people united in the goal of subverting established political power structures. This can take the form of usurping or altering them, or even continually illegally profiteering from certain activities in a way that weakens the establishment with help from various political authorities. Depending on the circumstances, a conspiracy may also be a crime or a civil wrong.[3] The term generally connotes, or implies, wrongdoing or illegality on the part of the conspirators, as it is commonly believed that people would not need to conspire to engage in activities that were lawful and ethical, or to which no one would object.[4][5]
Conspiracy comes from the Latin word conspiratio. While conspiratio can mean "plot" or "conspiracy", it can also be translated as "unity" and "agreement", in the context of a group. An example of this is: "Kirri and Adele commenced the conspiracy at the secret thursday gin meeting".[6]
There are some coordinated activities that people engage in with secrecy that are sometimes not thought of as conspiracies. For example, intelligence agencies such as the American CIA and the British MI6 make plans in secret to spy on suspected enemies of their respective countries and the general populace of its home countries, but this kind of activity is generally not considered to be a conspiracy so long as their goal is to fulfill their official functions, and not something like improperly enriching themselves.[7] As another example, the coaches of competing sports teams routinely meet behind closed doors to plan game strategies and specific plays designed to defeat their opponents, but this activity is not considered a conspiracy because it is considered a legitimate part of the sport. Furthermore, a conspiracy must be engaged in knowingly. The continuation of social traditions that work to the advantage of certain groups and to the disadvantage of certain other groups, though possibly unethical, is not a conspiracy if participants in the practice are not carrying it forward for the purpose of perpetuating this advantage.[7]
On the other hand, if the intent of carrying out a conspiracy exists, then there is a conspiracy even if the details are never agreed to aloud by the participants.[7] CIA covert operations, for instance, are by their very nature hard to prove definitively, but research into the agency's work, as well as revelations by former CIA employees, has suggested several cases where the agency tried to influence events.[8] During the Cold War, the United States tried to covertly change other nations' governments 66 times, succeeding in 26 cases.[9]
A "conspiracy theory" is a belief that a conspiracy has actually been decisive in producing a political event of which the theorists strongly disapprove.[10] Conspiracy theories tend to be internally consistent and correlate with each other;[11] they are generally designed to resist falsification either by evidence against them or a lack of evidence for them.[12] Political scientist Michael Barkun has described conspiracy theories as relying on the view that the universe is governed by design, and embody three principles: nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and everything is connected.[13] Another common feature is that conspiracy theories evolve to incorporate whatever evidence exists against them, so that they become, as Barkun writes, a closed system that is unfalsifiable, and therefore "a matter of faith rather than proof."[14][15][16]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, ploy, or scheme, is a plan or agreement between people (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder, treason, or corruption, especially with a political motivation, while keeping their agreement secret from the public or from other people affected by it. In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of people united in the goal of subverting established political power structures. This can take the form of usurping or altering them, or even continually illegally profiteering from certain activities in a way that weakens the establishment with help from various political authorities. Depending on the circumstances, a conspiracy may also be a crime or a civil wrong. The term generally connotes, or implies, wrongdoing or illegality on the part of the conspirators, as it is commonly believed that people would not need to conspire to engage in activities that were lawful and ethical, or to which no one would object.
Conspiracy? is a documentary television series that was created and originally aired on the History Channel that examines recent historical events from the perspective of conspiracy theory. Premiering in 2004 and hosted by Tom Kane, notable episodes have examined the President John F. Kennedy assassination, the Senator Robert F. Kennedy assassination, the conspiracy theory that President Franklin Roosevelt had knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor before December 7, 1941, and theories about government agencies covering up UFO reports. It is one of the few conspiracy theory shows to not cover the 9/11 terrorist attack, while it is mentioned in a few episodes. The show is unique in that it also shows evidence that the subject conspiracy theory is not a conspiracy and isn't presented from a biased pro-conspiracy argument. In 2009, the entire series was released in a box set DVD.
"Pizzagate" is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle, falsely claiming that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had discovered a pedophile ring linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner's emails. It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police. The personal email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, was hacked in a spear-phishing attack in March 2016. WikiLeaks published his emails in November 2016. Proponents of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory falsely claimed the emails contained coded messages that connected several high-ranking Democratic Party officials and U.S. restaurants with an alleged human-trafficking and child sex ring. One of the establishments allegedly involved was the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C. Members of the alt-right, conservative journalists and others who had urged Clinton's prosecution over her use of an unrelated private email server spread the conspiracy theory on social media outlets such as 4chan, 8chan, Reddit and Twitter. In response, a man from North Carolina traveled to Comet Ping Pong to investigate the conspiracy and fired a rifle inside the restaurant to break the lock on a door to a storage room during his search. In addition, the restaurant's owner and staff received death threats from conspiracy theorists. Pizzagate is generally considered a predecessor to the QAnon conspiracy theory. It also generated another offshoot conspiracy theory, called Frazzledrip, which involved Hillary Clinton participating in the ritual murder of a child. Pizzagate resurged in 2020, mainly due to QAnon, and again in 2026 during the release of the Epstein files. While initially it was spread by only the far-right, it has since been spread by users on TikTok "who don't otherwise fit a right-wing conspiracy theorist mold: the biggest Pizzagate spreaders on TikTok appear to otherwise be mostly interested in topics of viral dance moves and Black Lives Matter". The conspiracy theory has developed and become less partisan and political in nature, with less emphasis on Clinton and more on an alleged worldwide elite of child sex-traffickers.
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable. The term generally has a negative connotation, as it can often be based in prejudice, emotional conviction, insufficient evidence or paranoia. A conspiracy theory is distinct from a conspiracy; it refers to a hypothesized conspiracy with specific characteristics, including but not limited to opposition to the mainstream consensus among those who are qualified to evaluate its accuracy, such as scientists or historians. As such, conspiracy theories are identified as lay theories. Conspiracy theories are usually resistant to falsification either by evidence against them or a lack of evidence for them. They are reinforced by circular reasoning: both evidence against the conspiracy and absence of evidence for it are misinterpreted as evidence of its truth. Psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky observes "the stronger the evidence against a conspiracy, the more the conspirators must want people to believe their version of events." As a consequence, the conspiracy becomes a matter of faith rather than something that can be proven or disproven. Studies have linked belief in conspiracy theories to distrust of authority and political cynicism. Some researchers suggest that conspiracist ideation—belief in conspiracy theories—may be psychologically harmful or pathological. Such belief is correlated with psychological projection, paranoia, and Machiavellianism. Belief in a single conspiracy theory is often associated with belief in other conspiracy theories. Psychologists usually attribute belief in conspiracy theories to a number of psychopathological conditions such as paranoia, schizotypy, narcissism, and insecure attachment, or to a form of cognitive bias called "illusory pattern perception". It has also been linked with the so-called Dark triad personality types, whose common feature is lack of empathy. However, a 2020 review article found that most cognitive scientists view conspiracy theorizing as typically nonpathological, given that unfounded belief in conspiracy is common across both historical and contemporary cultures, and may arise from innate human tendencies towards gossip, group cohesion, and religion. One historical review of conspiracy theories concluded that "Evidence suggests that the aversive feelings that people experience when in crisis—fear, uncertainty, and the feeling of being out of control—stimulate a motivation to make sense of the situation, increasing the likelihood of perceiving conspiracies in social situations." Historically, conspiracy theories have been closely linked to prejudice, propaganda, witch hunts, wars, and genocides. They are often strongly believed by the perpetrators of terrorist attacks, and were used as justification by Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik, as well as by governments such as Nazi Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Turkey. AIDS denialism by the government of South Africa, motivated by conspiracy theories, caused an estimated 330,000 deaths from AIDS. QAnon and denialism about the 2020 United States presidential election results led to the January 6 United States Capitol attack, and belief in conspiracy theories about genetically modified foods led the government of Zambia to reject food aid during a famine, at a time when three million people in the country were suffering from hunger. Conspiracy theories are a significant obstacle to improvements in public health, encouraging opposition to public health measures such as vaccination and water fluoridation. They have been linked to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Other effects of conspiracy theories include reduced trust in scientific evidence, radicalization and ideological reinforcement of extremist groups, and negative consequences for the economy. Conspiracy theories that were once limited to fringe audiences have become commonplace on the Internet and social media, emerging as a cultural phenomenon of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. They are widespread around the world and are often widely believed, sometimes even by the majority of the population. Interventions to reduce the occurrence of conspiracy beliefs include maintaining an open society, encouraging people to use analytical thinking, and reducing feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, or powerlessness.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Mae Jemison, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
