A Statement by the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) — The novel Coronavirus Pandemic has revealed the longstanding disparities in health conditions for African Americans in the United States. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she was “shocked” and “disturbed” upon learning that black Chicagoans, who make up 30 percent of the city’s residents, accounted for 70 percent of the fatalities. “Those numbers take your breath away,” she declared. These…
By Sue Sturgis, Facing South — This week marked a decade since the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others and triggering the worst oil spill in U.S. history. From the initial blast on April 20, 2010, until the well was sealed four months later, 200 million gallons of crude oil poured into Gulf waters…
By Benjamin Barber, Facing South — Earlier this month, after Wisconsin’s Republican-led legislature refused to allow an expansion of mail-in voting, GOP officials and judges forced the state’s voters to choose between casting their ballot and risking their health during the coronavirus lockdown. Milwaukee health officials have already identified seven people who have contracted the coronavirus because of in-person voting during the April 7 state primary. Voters were also forced to endure difficult…
Vantage Point Radio April 27, 2020 — On this edition of Vantage Point, host Dr. Ron Daniels aka The Professor talks with guests Dr. Iva Carruthers, Kamm Howard and callers. Topics: China Insults African Diplomats, The Inter-generational Damage to Black DNA and The Professor on the Soap Box.
By Dr. Julianne Malveaux — The daily White House coronavirus briefings have made me cringe, scream, shake my head, and even laugh. The President of the United States offers medical…
Research center needed urgently to address Trans-Generational Epigenetic Injury By Kamm Howard National Co-Chair of N’COBRA and NAARC Commisioner Transgenerational Epigenetics is a new field of science, about 15 years…
National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice Position Statement on Personal Protection for Frontline Workers in the Correctional Arena from COVID-19 By NABCJ — NABCJ is an affiliated organization of…
By Max Elbaum, Organizing Upgrade — I have never been prouder of the people of my home state than over the last twelve days. I went to John Marshall High School in Milwaukee, class of 1964. It was after coming home from school one day that I watched on television as non-violent Civil Rights protesters were attacked with dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham, Alabama. A few weeks after I…
For the playwright and activist, neither liberal reform nor countercultural art were enough. The very foundations of American democracy needed to be transformed. By Elias Rodriques, The Nation — In October of 1964, three months after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Lorraine Hansberry’s play The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window opened on Broadway. At the time, Hansberry was already famous for A Raisin in the Sun, but the intervening years had…
Meharry Medical College President James Hildreth has been advocating for advanced or pre-emptive screening in black neighborhoods for weeks. By Curtis Bunn, NBC News — Meharry Medical College was founded in 1876 in Nashville, Tennessee, to teach medicine to former enslaved Africans and to serve the underserved. Now, in one of its laboratories, a scientist says he is two weeks away from testing an anti-virus to prevent COVID-19, the disease…
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson — Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Bidden made it perfectly clear more than once that he will pick a woman as his VP running mate. Then…
By K. Sabeel Rahman, Demos — The escalating COVID-19 pandemic impacts all of us, but for Black and brown people in particular, the combined health and economic devastation is truly…