The Obama Justice Department thought Ville Platte, Louisiana — where officers jail witnesses to crimes — could become a model of how to erase policing abuses that plague small towns across the nation. Jeff Sessions decided not to bother. By Ian MacDougall, ProPublica — On a chilly morning in December 2016, 12-year-old Bobby Lewis found himself sitting in a little room at the police station in Ville Platte, a town…
By Ian Williams — UNITED NATIONS, (IPS) — Looking at the deserved outpouring of eulogies over Kofi Annan I could not help remembering the advice of the old Latin saying, “Say nothing about the dead unless it’s good.” But one can’t help wishing that there had been more support of Kofi Annan when he was alive, not least when the Murdoch media Faux News fabricators persecuted him…
On Tuesday, inmates across the country launched a strike to protest labor conditions in prisons. Only three days into the strike, some inmates have experienced retaliation. By Tarpley Hitt, Daily Beast — Inmates are already experiencing retaliation for alleged participation in the nation-wide prison strike that launched August 21, representatives from the prison labor advocacy group Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) told The Daily Beast. The strike, organized by a…
Vantage Point Vignettes Comments and Commentary by Dr. Ron Daniels — With all the vile acts that Donald Trump, “the orange man,” has committed and the barrage of media coverage…
Donald Trump may be right to be surprised. As a self-styled bigshot businessman, the law was never so tough on him. By Bob Hennelly, The Salon — President Trump’s ruminations…
Forget all the arcane theories about Russian collusion. It’s simpler than that: Donald Trump is a mobster. By Andrew O’Hehir, The Salon — All sorts of melodramatic language has been…
By Zipporah Osei, Boston Globe — The Old Burying Ground in Stoneham is one of those classic New England cemeteries with markers honoring the memory of Colonial settlers as well as activists in the abolition movement. For much of the year, sections of the nearly 300-year-old cemetery are closed to the public. But every so often, the Stoneham Historical Commission opens up the space for guided tours of the tombstones…
“African history is considered rather unimportant, but the history of the African diaspora isn’t considered at all,” Hakim Adi said. By teleSur — “Pan-Africanism: A History” a recently released book…
The Transatlantic slave trade is regarded by Pan-Africanists as the Maafa, a Swahili term meaning “great disaster.” By teleSur — Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of the International Day of…
The League of the South hates black people, Jews, and lots of other people. But there’s one country, and one man, it really, really likes. By Mark Potok, Daily Beast…
Video — Prof. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, a Kenyan Law professor, addresses the 2018 National Security Symposium in London on Europe’s enduring influence and interference on the continent of Africa….
By “dangling the carrot” to improve worker productivity, businesses are taking a page from slavery’s playbook. By Caitlin C. Rosenthal, Boston Review — In 1911 a congressional special committee convened…