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Police officers monitor activity outside as protesters demonstrate inside a Philadelphia Starbucks, where two men were arrested.

A Starbucks arrest shows how black Americans are robbed of their power

By Commentaries/Opinions

Men arrested for ‘loitering’ had no choice but to keep their heads down, out of fear for their lives. For black people, it’s a familiar situation. By Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez — After video footage went viral of two black men being arrested in Starbucks for “loitering”, many were outraged. The two men had entered Starbucks for a meeting and were instead faced with the profiling and discrimination black people experience on a daily basis.

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Cuba's First Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel listens to Vietnam's Communist Party Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong at University of Havana.

Who Is Miguel Diaz-Canel, Cuba’s New President?

By Commentaries/Opinions

Cuban National Assembly elected Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez to succeed Raul Castro as country’s head of state. By teleSUR— The Cuban National Assembly elected Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez, a 57-year-old Cuban born two years after the island’s socialist revolution, as the country’s new head of the Council of State and therefore the president of the Caribbean country. During his speech after he was sworn-in, Diaz-Canel vowed to be faithful to the legacy of late Cuban President Fidel Castro and…

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"Here we're proving—with data and analysis spanning 50 years—that the problem is both structural barriers for the poor in hiring, housing, policing, and more, as well as a system that prioritizes war and the wealthy over people and the environment they live in," said John Cavanagh, director of the Institute for Policy Studies. (Photo: Poor People's Campaign/Twitter)

Decrying System That Favors ‘War and the Wealthy,’ Poor People’s Campaign Unveils Agenda to Combat Poverty, Racism, and Militarism

By Commentaries/Opinions

“The Democrats talk about the middle class. The Republicans talk about the military. No one’s talking about the poor.” By Jake Johnson — In the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s original campaign against poverty that kicked off 50 years ago next month, leaders of the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) on Tuesday announced plans to revive Dr. King’s radical moral vision with mass action nationwide and unveiled a series of ambitious demands aimed…

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Black people simply do not see the same response to our complaints as we do when the victims of injustice include white people.

Make Change by Hitting the National Wallet: Reparations for Racial Injustice

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

There’s reckoning around our toxic culture of sexual abuse. But Black Americans are left waiting for remedies for white supremacy past and present. It’s time to #PayUp. By Bertha Lewis — #MeToo and #TimesUp are more than hashtags. They are movements to hold sexual harassers accountable and to deliver justice to victims and survivors of sexual abuse and harassment. While the call for justice for women who have been sexually…

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South African military personnel bring in the coffin at Orlando Stadium in Soweto for the funeral ceremony of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Huge crowds turn out for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s funeral

By News & Current Affairs

Tens of thousands attend emotional service for veteran anti-apartheid activist. By Jason Burke — Tens of thousands of South Africans have filled a stadium in Soweto for the funeral service of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a heroine of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa but also one of its most controversial figures. Shouts of “Long live Comrade Winnie”, “the struggle continues” and “power to the people” rang out around the stadium on Saturday throughout…

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Maurice Mitchell, left, the new national director of the Working Families Party, with his predecessor, Dan Cantor, at the Working Families Party office in Brooklyn, New York. Rafael Shimunov / Working Families Party

Economic vs. Racial Justice Is a ‘False Choice,’ Says the New Working Families Party Director

By Commentaries/Opinions

Maurice Mitchell wants the WFP to be a political home for working-class people of every race. By Collier Meyerson — The Working Families Party, a progressive political political party that is active in 19 states, just announced that its longtime national director, Dan Cantor, has been succeeded in the role by Maurice Mitchell. The first black person to hold the post, Mitchell has two decades of experience in political and…

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Image: Ronald Reagan, with Nancy Reagan, signing the Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1988

The Untold Story of Mass Incarceration

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Vesla M. Weaver — Two new books, including National Book Award nominee ‘Locking Up Our Own,’ address major blind spots about the causes of America’s carceral failure. Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman, Jr.; Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform by John F. Pfaff

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Kimberlé Crenshaw, American civil rights activist.

Is it time for black women in America to take up arms?

By Editors' Choice

An interview with scholar-activist Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term ‘insersectionality,’ on gender, race and armed militancy. By Nimmi Gowrinathan — For most American audiences, the female fighter exists in a land far, far away. To consider female militancy in this country, in our movements, requires a reckoning: the need to see police brutality against black women as state violence, checkpoints in school cafeterias as militarization, and the death rates…

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A demonstration in Rome on March 25 to remember Brazilian councilwoman and activist Marielle Franco.

We Must Not Let Marielle Franco’s Killing Go Unpunished

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Jurema Werneck — My sister in struggle Marielle Franco was shot to death on March 14. I was abroad, working alongside other brave women who campaign against police killings of black youth in Brazil, Jamaica and the U.S. We had joined forces and were planning to make our voices heard in order to stop the constant stream of killings committed by some of those who are supposed to protect us. The news hit…

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Brazilian president Michel Temer (L) and Argentine President Mauricio Macri arrive to pose for the official picture at the end of the Mercosur Summit in mendoza, 1080 km west of buenos Aires on July 21, 201

The Trumpification of the Latin American Right

By Commentaries/Opinions

South American conservatives have an unlikely new role model. By Omar G. Encarnación — Since Donald Trump became president, much has been said about the “Latin Americanization” of U.S. politics. The Washington Post, remarking on Trump’s nationalist demagoguery, referred to him as “the U.S.’s first Latin American president,” while an essay I wrote in Foreign Affairs shortly after the 2016 election termed Trump “A Caudillo in Washington,” a reference to the prototype of the Latin American strongman.…

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Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and Prime Minister of Jamaica Andrew Holness speak during a bilateral meeting at 10 Downing Street, London, Tuesday April 17, 2018

UK leader sorry for Caribbean citizens immigration mix-up

By News & Current Affairs

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May made a personal apology Tuesday for the treatment of long-term U.K. residents from the Caribbean who have been asked to prove their right to stay in the country or face deportation. The plight of legal residents wrongly identified as living in Britain illegally has erupted as the country hosts leaders from the 53-nation Commonwealth of the U.K. and its former colonies. May…

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