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Barbara Smith, Isra Hirsi, Aja Monet, Kenidra Woods, and Rachel Gilmer (L-R),

Bernie Sanders Earns Support From Black Women Activists

By Editors' Choice

In this conversation, moderated by the Dream Defenders’ Rachel Gilmer, Black women activists explain their support for Sanders’s campaign. By Teen Vougue — Senator Bernie Sanders has attributed his success in the 2020 presidential campaign to his “multigenerational, multiracial coalition” of supporters. Sanders’s win in Iowa has been credited in part to his support among the minority and immigrant voters who turned out to the “satellite” caucuses set up for those who couldn’t make it to…

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Attendees wear buttons supporting Sen. Elizabeth Warren at a campaign event at Clark Atlanta University on November 21, 2019, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Black America May Decide the Fate of the Democratic Party

By Editors' Choice

By Nicholas Powers, Truthout — “There are seven white people on this stage talking about racial justice,” said former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg last night at the Democratic debate in South Carolina. The debate in Charleston quickly became a rhetorical tug-of-war between presidential candidates vying for Black votes. They fought over stop and frisk, loyalty to Obama and redlining. The high–stakes backdrop of the February 25 debate was the collapse of neoliberal politics in the face of a rising progressive wing led by Sen. Bernie…

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Africa

Why Africa’s Industrialization Won’t Look Like China’s

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It won’t be able to rely on low-wage manufacturing. By Ndubuisi Ekekwe, Harvard Business Review — China designed and executed a policy that shrank the industrialization process in a mere 25 years — something that many economies took at least a century to do. That redesign has brought immense dislocation in global commerce and industry, enabling China to become one of the world’s leading economies. China’s success has led many African capitals to pursue…

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Kara Walker: What Do We Want History to Do to Us?

Kara Walker: What Do We Want History to Do to Us?

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By Zadie Smith, NYREV — This essay appears in somewhat different form in the catalog of “Kara Walker: Hyundai Commission,” an exhibition at Tate Modern, London, October 2, 2019–April 5, 2020; the catalog is edited by Clara Kim and published by Tate Publishing. *** Two women are bound at the waist, tied to each other. One is a slim, white woman, in antebellum underskirt and corset. A Scarlett O’Hara type.…

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Reggae brothers … from left: Ky-Mani, Damian and Julian Marley perform at Marley 75 in Kingston, Jamaica.

Bob Marley at 75: how a ghetto reggae star rebranded Jamaica

By Editors' Choice

Seeing fans and family gather in Kingston to celebrate the late musician’s 75th birthday, music writer Vivien Goldman reflects on his indelible legacy. By Vivien Goldman, The Guardian — At 7am on 6 February, on what would have been Bob Marley’s 75th birthday, the abeng conch shell blows at his old home at uptown Kingston’s 56 Hope Road – now the Bob Marley museum – as it did in the days…

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Assembly line workers put final touches on 2018 Ford Expedition SUV at the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Ky

African-Americans and the driving forces in the American auto industry

By Editors' Choice

By Herb Boyd — When Africans were forcibly brought to America, they worked at the points of production. And whether as a multitude of enslaved workers on small farms, large plantations, in mines or elsewhere, black laborers were vital cogs in creating wealth for their owners. On a national scale, enslaved black laborers provided a workforce vital for the development of the American republic by bringing wage-free economic success and…

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