Diehard Trump supporters represent at most a quarter of the electorate, but dominate media discussions of the president’s standing. They shouldn’t. By Joan Walsh, The Nation — Most of us try to live our lives following the best advice of Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” Most of us voted that way in 2016—against Donald Trump. Since then, sadly, we’ve had to watch as the…
By Ian Williams — UNITED NATIONS, (IPS) — Looking at the deserved outpouring of eulogies over Kofi Annan I could not help remembering the advice of the old Latin saying, “Say nothing about the dead unless it’s good.” But one can’t help wishing that there had been more support of Kofi Annan when he was alive, not least when the Murdoch media Faux News fabricators persecuted him…
By “dangling the carrot” to improve worker productivity, businesses are taking a page from slavery’s playbook. By Caitlin C. Rosenthal, Boston Review — In 1911 a congressional special committee convened…
Recalling a time when the empowerment of the most oppressed in our society paved the way for other social struggles also gives weight to today’s slogan that all lives will…
This episode delves into the extraordinary life of reparations advocate Callie House. Despite her status as a former slave, a woman, and a widower with five children, Callie House defied…
A growing group of leftists wants to get rid of the entire prison industrial complex in America. By Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna, Politico — It’s no secret that the criminal justice system…
By Aida Alami, The New York Review of Books — Women and men press against the barbed-wire gate, waiting for the guards to let them in. Twice a week, the border crossing opens so that Haitians can get access without a visa to a market located on Dominican land in the northern city of Dajabón, just a short walk from the crossing point. Behind the crowd at the gate, a…
Economic inequality is an urgent problem. Deeper still is our loss of mutual respect, the foundation of a fair society. By Richard Reeves, Aeon — At the end of 2017, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority launched a new ad campaign. The Authority wasn’t selling anything. It was asking, on behalf of its bus drivers, for something; something that liberal societies need in order to flourish, that underpins social equality, and…
As warming temperatures caused by climate change is strengthening hurricanes, leaders in the region plead with Trump to rejoin the Paris climate deal. By Oliver Milman, The Guardian — Caribbean states and territories have rounded on the Trump administration for dismantling the US’s response to climate change, warning that greenhouse gas emissions must be sharply cut to avoid hurricanes and sea level rise threatening the future of their island idylls. The…
Police killings of unarmed African Americans have created a mental health crisis of enormous proportions. By Tasha Williams, YES! Magazine — Following several nationally publicized police killings of unarmed Black Americans in the United States, Eva L., a fitness instructor who identifies as Black, started to experience what she describes as “immense paranoia.” She would often call in sick, because she feared risking an encounter with police upon leaving her…
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, The Hutchinson Report — Trump could care less about LeBron James’s new I Promise public school. He could care even less about his IQ. What he…
By Ashley Farmer, The Chronicle of Higher Education — Among the things 2018 will be remembered for is mainstream culture’s realization that white Americans use the police to challenge black entry into “white” spaces. Countless viral news stories detail how white people have called the police on black people for cooking, shopping, driving — basically for existing while black. A black body in a space presumed to be white is…