By Julianne Malveaux — October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the proliferation of pink ribbons is about to start. Predatory capitalists will make breast cancer their cause, producing pink…
By Nick Mirzoeff, Hyperallergic — Almost two years after the 2017 fascist rally at Charlottesville around a mediocre statue of Robert E. Lee, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) opened its…
By Nicholas Powers, Truthout — We had a direct existential threat with…Nazi Germany,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said at a 2018 event. “We chose to mobilize our entire economy…. We have to do the same thing in order to get us to 100 percent renewable energy.” She was promoting a Green New Deal, but her war analogy eerily fit our current political situation. The left is facing a two-front struggle: On one side is…
Unemployment rate tells a different story about the economy when race is considered, even when job numbers are strong. By Lauren Aratani, The Guardian — What I’ve done for African Americans in two and a half years, no president has been able to do anything like it,” Donald Trump boasted in August, the latest in a series of statements in which he has claimed to be the best president for…
It rhymes with ‘schneo-liberalism.’ It was an economic disaster and a political dead end. It was an economic disaster and a political dead end. In the early days of his presidency, Barack Obama had the power to overhaul the economy, but instead he focused on smaller, less effective fixes. By Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times — In 2009, Barack Obama was the most powerful newly elected American president in a generation. Democrats controlled the House and, for about five months in the second half of the year, they enjoyed a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority in the Senate. For the first six months of his presidency, Obama had…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — This is a sankofa retrieval of thoughts on an anniversary past that still reveals positions and principles as relevant and real as rain in monsoon…
By Zachary R. Wood, The Washington Informer — “I think the Democratic Party could stand a liberal George Wallace — someone who’s not afraid to stand up and offend people,…
By Wade Nobles, PhD — Part I The newly wide-ranging discussion of reparations is being stimulated by the recognition of the 400th anniversary of the introduction of kidnapped captive Africans…
The NFL is Colin Kaepernick’s antagonist. Expecting billionaire team owners to be serious about social justice, with or without Jay-Z, is a mistake. By Jamil Smith, Rolling Stone — “Inspire Change” could be something you say if you are trying to make people aware of a particular problem. But with regards to the National Football League and racial injustice, that job is already done. Colin Kaepernick, along with his fellow football…
They attract money and attention to the predominantly white universities that showcase them, while HBCUs struggle. What would happen if they collectively decided to go to black schools? By Jamele Hill, The Atlantic — In the summer of 2018 Kayvon Thibodeaux, who was then ranked as the top high-school football player in America, visited Florida A&M University, in Tallahassee. When a player of Thibodeaux’s caliber visits a perennial football power—say,…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — On this the 54th anniversary of our coming into being, September 7, 1965, as the organization Us, we look back on the long, difficult, dangerous…
In the Emmy-nominated virtual reality project, viewers are given an immersive historical experience on the depressingly topical dangers of being black in America. By Dream McClinton, The Guardian — The theatre has luxurious red velvet upholstered seats, grand ceilings and gilded trimmings. The rows of chairs stretch back into the ostensible blackness, with light beaming from the projector room. Ahead, archival footage of stylish black travelers pack the screen as…