Too often whites at discussions on race decide for themselves what will be discussed, what they will hear, what they will learn. And it is their space. All spaces are. By Ijeoma Oluo, The Guardian — I was leaving a corporate office building after a full day of leading workshops on how to talk about race thoughtfully and deliberately. The audience for each session had been similar to the dozens…
More than 20,000 African American residents were displaced from low-income neighborhoods from 2000 to 2013, researchers say. By Katherine Shaver, Washington Post — About 40 percent of the District’s lower-income neighborhoods experienced gentrification between 2000 and 2013, giving the city the greatest “intensity of gentrification” of any in the country, according to a study released Tuesday by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. The District also saw the most African American…
Blaming the Internet alone for racist mass shootings is a naive delusion. By Brendan O’Connor, The Nation — At the juncture of blood-strewn history and a crisis-ridden future, 49 Muslims in New Zealand lie dead, executed at prayer by a white supremacist. A man has been charged with murder while others are being questioned over their involvement and the names of the victims have not yet been made public. The…
By Eric Levitz, New York Magazine — In recent days, as Democrats debated the definition of “reparations,”Joe Biden rationalized his opposition to integration, and socialist congresswomen started demanding the rebirth of a nation, inquiring minds wanted to know: What would Ta-Nehisi say? Throughout the Obama years, Ta-Nehisi Coates provided politics-watchers with a regular source of historically grounded, bracingly well-written punditry and reporting. But since 2016, the writer’s ambitions have led him off of…
By Todd S Burroughs — Gary Byrd turned 70 on Thursday, March 14, 2019. I thought this was as good an excuse as any to pull this out of my…
MSNBC VIDEO — Reparations for slavery is becoming a hot button issue in 2020. Joy Reid is joined by Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee on H.R. 40, which would create a commission to study reparations, and long-time participant in the legitimate movement for reparations, Rev. Mark Thompson.
Portland OR, March 11th – Members of the Minority Cannabis Business Association (MCBA) unveiled their latest model policy recommendation to lawmakers and cannabis regulators, this time releasing a Model Municipal Social…
Michelle Obama’s new book reduces racial inequality to a matter of psychological impairment that can be overcome through grit and grin. This is a dangerous proposition. By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Boston…
By Noah Smith, Bloomberg — The issue of reparations for African Americans is, of course, full of more moral and historical issues than one column, even by someone with much greater understanding and deeper knowledge than me, could ever resolve. But since the proposal is now being taken seriously, it’s worth thinking about the economics of how it could and should work. The idea of compensating the descendants of American…
Capitalism co-opts our best visions — through its soft hand, capital reforms its way out of crisis, putting forward more tolerable forms of exploitation. By Clara Mejia-Gamboa & Daniel Sullivan, Roar Magazine — These days, it seems customary to begin any political commentary with the laundry list of indicators of global decline: exploding wealth inequality, looming environmental collapse, and the resurgence of overt racial terror in far-right governments. We are…
By Hua Hsu, The New Yorker — In June, 1948, the H.M.T. Empire Windrush docked in the Port of Tilbury, near London. Among its passengers were approximately eight hundred West Indian workers, mostly from Jamaica, who had come in response to England’s postwar labor shortage. Some planned to earn money and return home; others wondered what it would be like to stay. There was a lot of work to be…
By Jamie Lovegrove, Post and Courier — SUMMERVILLE — The highest ranking African-American member of Congress has major problems with two prominent ideas to address racial disparities in the economy:…