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Commentaries/Opinions

Notes on the Capitalist Origins of Racial Oppression in the United States

By Commentaries/Opinions

By W. T. Whitney — When white people shed exculpatory myths and acknowledge the truth about slavery, they’ve arrived at what descendants of enslaved people know about only too well. But they need not stop there. They could test the proposition that historical memory contributes to undermining racial oppression. Members of a small family group – myself included – showed up September 25, 2017 at the Freedom House Museum in…

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Do guns preserve freedom?

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

By Ryan Cooper — Many conservatives believe they do. In one representative example, National Review’s David French argued that we need a heavily armed citizenry in case the government turns tyrannical and America’s private gun owners need to wield the threat of gunning down police and soldiers to preserve their liberty. For the Second Amendment to remain a meaningful check on state power, citizens must be able to possess the kinds and categories…

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After the Sale: Slaves Going South from Richmond by Eyre Crowe, 1853 (Now hanging in the Chicago History Museum)

The Second Amendment was ratified to preserve slavery

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

By Thom Hartmann, AlterNet — The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says “State” instead of “Country” (the Framers knew the difference – see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia’s vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.

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Movie Black Panther

The Tragedy of Erik Killmonger

By Commentaries/Opinions

The revolutionary ideals of Black Panther’s profound and complex villain have been twisted into a desire for hegemony. Black Panther is a love letter to people of African descent all over the world. Its actors, its costume design, its music, and countless other facets of the film are drawn from all over the continent and its diaspora, in a science-fiction celebration of the imaginary country of Wakanda, a high-tech utopia that is a fictive manifestation of African potential unfettered by slavery and colonialism.

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Latin American Presidents. From left to right: Evo Morales (Bolivia), José Mujica (Uruguay), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), Cristina Fernandez (Argentina), Rafael Correa (Ecuador) in 2014

The Strategic Challenge for the Latin American Left

By Commentaries/Opinions

Mass-Media has become the main opposition to the progressive governments of the region. By Rafael Correa, Telesur — After the long and sad neoliberal night of the 1990s – which broke entire nations like Ecuador – and since Hugo Chávez won the Presidency of the Republic of Venezuela at the end of 1998, the rightist governments of the continent began to be overthrown like houses of cards, bringing Popular governments and aligned with ‘Socialism of Good Living’ across our America.

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Black Women Are The Embodiment Of Black Glory

Black Women Are The Embodiment Of Black Glory

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Tyece Wilkins — In the basement of East City Bookshop on a brisk D.C. night, Morgan Jerkins filled the room with her signature blend of intellect and style. It was the fifth night of her 17-stop tour for This Will Be My Undoing, a book I’d stumbled upon only a few days prior and instantly fallen head over heels in love with. My copy was already beginning to wear at…

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Cosplayers portraying characters from the 2018 US superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character, Black Panther, pose in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi on February 14, 2018

“Black Panther”: Rip Off the Racial Mask

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Nicholas Powers, Truthout — Editor’s Note: This review contains spoilers. Was this the Promised Land? Black people partied on the escalator. I was going to my seat and asked if the movie was good. “Yooo,” they cheered; a teen mimed a silent explosion from his head. We laughed and slapped hands. Black Panther is more than a film. For two hours, it lets us leave the imagery of people of…

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