Is the country more or less racist? How can the percentage of people holding anti-black attitudes have increased from 2006 to 2008 at a time when Obama performed better among…
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.
Is the country more or less racist? How can the percentage of people holding anti-black attitudes have increased from 2006 to 2008 at a time when Obama performed better among…
By Bill Bigelow, Zinn Ed Project — Once again this year many schools will pause to commemorate Christopher Columbus. Given everything we know about who Columbus was and what he launched in the Americas, this needs to stop. Columbus initiated the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in early February 1494, first sending several dozen enslaved Taínos to Spain. Columbus described those he enslaved as “well made and of very good intelligence,” and recommended…
The Vantage Point Radio Show is a weekly current affairs program hosted by Dr. Ron Daniels, President of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and Distinguished Lecturer at York College City University of New York. The show is broadcast each Monday from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM on Pacifica Radio WBAI (99.5 FM) in collaboration with York College Radio.
By Brandi Miller, HuffPost — This has been a week of tantrums. The last 10 days have been a picture of what it looks and feels like when white men…
Trump and his ilk are channeling a noxious strain of patriotism that creates a nostalgia for a past that never existed. By Robert Scheer, Alternet / Truthdig — In a compelling…
Yes, Democrats are preferable to this. But they’re still spineless. By Jim Sleeper, Salon — Although I’ll vote for any Democrat in November to keep Donald Trump’s Republican vassals from finishing off the American republic at his bidding, what I saw in the performance of most Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee last week reminded me that any victory by that terminally pusillanimous, corrupt, suppurating party, which is only a…
The justices again appear poised to pursue a purely theoretical liberty at the expense of the lives of people of color. By Adam Serwer, The Atlantic — When the Louisiana State Militia finally arrived at the Colfax courthouse on April 15, 1873, all it could do was bury the bodies. Two days earlier, a large force of white supremacists had taken control of the courthouse from the mostly black faction…
At a moment when few Brazilians trust their government, the controversial, ultra-conservative Jair Bolsonaro looks poised to win. By Chayenne Polimédio, The Atlantic — Tomorrow, Brazilians head to the polls for the first round of presidential elections. Running on the Social Liberal Party slate is Jair Messias Bolsonaro, an ultra-conservative military officer-turned-politician and likely top finisher. If he’s one of the top two vote-getters, he’ll be the favorite in the…
By Miles Kampf-Lassin, In These Times — “We are far from done. This is the beginning and we should use this momentum to keep going forward.” Chicago has long been a city on the brink. Decades of racial stratification, disinvestment, segregation and endemic poverty have left large swaths of the population struggling to survive, while new development has disproportionately favored wealthier residents. The communities left behind by this process are…
We must make reparations to the African-American community. By Ruth A. Zlotnick, Seattle Times — The Jewish community has just emerged from our holiest days, when we celebrate the New Year and make teshuvah, or atonement, for the wrongdoings of our past. I believe as a nation, the United States also must make teshuvah, atoning for our legacy of slavery by making reparations to African Americans. I came to this…
By Brendan Skwire, Raw Story — Avisibly outraged Kamala Harris (D-CA) went into prosecutor mode as she eviscerated her Republican colleagues for ramming through Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation, saying…
“If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell.” By Zack Beauchamp, Vox — Usually, comparisons between Donald Trump’s America and Nazi Germany come from cranks and internet trolls. But a new essay in the New York Review of Books pointing out “troubling similarities” between the 1930s and today is different: It’s written by Christopher Browning, one of America’s most…