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IBW21

IBW21 (The Institute of the Black World 21st Century) is committed to enhancing the capacity of Black communities in the U.S. and globally to achieve cultural, social, economic and political equality and an enhanced quality of life for all marginalized people.

From Left to Right: Photo by Jessica Simmonds; Photo Courtesy of Dash Harris Machado; Javier Wallace by Sarmia Osbourne

For Some Black People, The Term ‘Latinx’ Is Another Form of Erasure

By Commentaries/Opinions

Black diasporans discuss the ways the label can be overly broad—and leave out an important part of their identities. By Janel Martinez, Vice — For many Black people, their identification with Latinx identity is complicated—the term, meant to be all-inclusive, has the exact opposite effect. Though Black and Indigenous Latin Americans have contributed significantly to Latinx culture (think musical genres like rumba, tango, and reggaetón, to name a few, or the masterful creations…

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Protest outside the Minnesota State Capitol demanding reparations, St Paul MN, June 19 2020.

It’s Time for Reparations and Transitional Justice for African Americans

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

The country needs truth-telling and acceptance of our moral, legal, political, and sociocultural responsibilities. By Joyce Hope Scott, BU Today — This is a transformative moment in history in the United States as well as in the rest of the world. Despite myths of a post-racial society as a result of many positive social transformations, we are today again forced to examine our inheritance of America’s great sin—slavery and its…

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The Queen and Prince Philip in Barbados in 1966. The island plans to remove her as head of state and become a republic by November 2021.

Barbados revives plan to remove Queen as head of state and become a republic

By News & Current Affairs

Barbados has announced its intention to remove the Queen as its head of state and become a republic by November 2021. A speech written by its prime minister, Mia Mottley, quoted a warning by the Caribbean island nation’s first premier, Errol Barrow, against “loitering on colonial premises”. Reading the speech, governor-general Dame Sandra Mason said: “The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind. Barbadians want a Barbadian…

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Barbara Lee

It’s Time to Repeal the President’s License for Endless War

By Commentaries/Opinions

Passed by Congress 19 years ago, the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force, along with the 2002 AUMF, is still being used to justify wars that have not made us, or the world, safer. By Barbara Lee, Newsweek — More Americans have now died from COVID-19 than from the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Yet the United States is poised to continue spending more money on…

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People await help with unemployment claims at an event in Tulsa, Okla., on July 24.

The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% — And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure

By COVID-19 (Coronavirus), News & Current Affairs

A new report shows that a $50 trillion redistribution of income to benefit the richest has made America less healthy, resilient, and secure. By Nick Hanauer and David M. Rolf, TIME — Like many of the virus’s hardest hit victims, the United States went into the COVID-19 pandemic wracked by preexisting conditions. A fraying public health infrastructure, inadequate medical supplies, an employer-based health insurance system perversely unsuited to the moment—these and other afflictions are surely contributing…

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Nigerian migrants arrive in Lagos from Libya. Nigeria has, in the last two years, evacuated thousands of its citizens from Libya and Lebanon after they suffered several forms of abuses, including enslavement. Trafficking has resulted in at least 80,000 Nigerian women being held as sex slaves and forced labour in the Middle East.

The Exploitative System that Traps Nigerian Women as Slaves in Lebanon

By News & Current Affairs

By Sam Olukoya, IPS – “I need help, right now I cannot walk properly,” trafficking victim Nkiru Obasi pleaded from her hospital bed in a video she posted online. The young Nigerian woman had been injured in the Aug. 4 Beirut blast, which ripped through the Lebanese capital, killing 190 people injuring a further 6,500 and damaging 40 percent of the city. However, it’s not…

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