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Commentaries/Opinions

Ahmad Aubrey

It was a lynching in the 21st Century

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Sen. Hank Sanders — It was a lynching. It was a lynching on February 23, 2020. It was a lynching in Brunswick, Georgia. It was a lynching in the United States of America. It was a lynching in the 21st Century. The video is so graphic. It makes my whole body draw up. It makes my mind shiver. It makes my spirit whither. It challenges my hopes for Black people in…

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Panel from the Florentine Cortex depicting smallpox outbreaks in the Americas during the 16th century.

Aztec Kings Had Rules for Plagues, Including ‘Do Not Be a Fool’

By Commentaries/Opinions, COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

But When Cortés’s Soldiers Arrived Carrying a Novel Virus, the Empire First Succumbed to Smallpox and Then Fell to Spain. By David Bowles, Zocalo Public Square — Every civilization eventually faces a crisis that forces it to adapt or be destroyed. Few adapt. On July 10, 1520, Aztec forces vanquished the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men, driving them from Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec empire. The Spanish soldiers…

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People who believe they have COVID-19, and who meet the criteria, wait in line to be pre-screened for the coronavirus outside of the Brooklyn Hospital Center on March 20 in Brooklyn, New York

Coronavirus Is Making the Case for Black Reparations Clearer Than Ever

By Commentaries/Opinions, COVID-19 (Coronavirus), Reparations

By William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen, Newsweek — The COVID-19 crisis only heightens the urgency of black reparations. Long overdue, they are now more essential than ever. Mounting statistics confirm disturbing evidence of racial disparities in reported coronavirus deaths. In Wisconsin, perhaps the state with the most extreme ratio of black morbidity, black people represent 6 percent of the population and 40 percent of the deaths. Those…

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The body of Ethel Freeman, in the wheelchair, was found outside the convention center in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

When Blackness Is a Preexisting Condition

By Commentaries/Opinions, COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

How modern disaster relief has hurt African American communities By Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, The New Republic — Ethel Freeman became famous in death, even though no one knew her name. For months, she was one of the many nameless people who lost their lives in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s deadly intersection of race and class. Her son, Herbert Freeman Jr., had successfully rescued the 91-year-old retired school employee from…

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