Skip to main content
Tag

Inequality

Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, 1968

The Language of the Unheard: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Social Democracy

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By Robert Greene II, The Nation — Gone was the optimism of 1963. It had been replaced by a sense of disillusionment, a sense of urgency that America was about to lose the last chance to have its soul.” This was how Jet magazine described the climax of the Poor People’s Campaign, which reached Washington, DC, in the tumultuous summer of 1968. For Jet and for many early civil-rights activists, the Poor People’s Campaign…

Read More
‘If your anti-racism work prioritizes the ‘growth’ and ‘enlightenment’ of white America over the dignity and humanity of people of color – it’s not anti-racism work. It’s white supremacy.’

Confronting racism is not about the needs and feelings of white people

By Editors' Choice

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…

Read More
In Michigan, which accounts for nearly half of all committed federal funds for blight demolition, the average cost paid with federal dollars increased by 90 percent in less than three years.

‘The Divided City’ warns of Detroit’s inequality

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Bankole Thompson, Detroit News — Despite the revival taking place in cities like Detroit, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, they are being turned into “places of growing inequality where small, glittering enclaves of prosperity are ringed by larger areas of decline and where millions are relegated to lives of poverty and hopelessness.” That’s the message historian and author Alan Mallach conveys in his new book, “The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity…

Read More
Juan Guaidó engages supporters in Caracas, Venezuela, on February 2, 2019.

In Venezuela, White Supremacy Is a Key Driver of the Coup

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Greg Palast, Truthout — On January 23, right after a phone call from Donald Trump, Juan Guaidó, former speaker of Venezuela’s National Assembly, declared himself president. No voting. When you have official recognition from The Donald, who needs elections? Say what? I can explain what’s going on in Venezuela in photos. Opposition leader and self-proclaimed ‘acting president’ Juan Guaido (2-L) talks to the press as he holds his daughter Miranda (3-L), next to his wife…

Read More
‘Housing is central to the ‘good life’ in the United States.’

Housing market racism persists despite ‘fair housing’ laws

By Commentaries/Opinions

In the US, where homeownership speaks to class, African Americans are being denied mortgages at rates much higher than their white peers By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The Guardian — As a new year begins and the 2020 presidential election looms closer, our political focus will start to narrow around the issues thought to be most urgent and likely to mobilize voters. One issue surely to be glossed over, if not completely…

Read More
‘Freeing a Slave from the Slave Stick Jamaica’ circa 1876. From the International Mission

How slaveholders in the Caribbean maintained control

By Reparations

By Christer Petley, Edited by Nigel Warburton, Aeona — It is no surprise that the whip is synonymous with New World slavery: its continual crack remained an audible threat to enslaved workers to keep at their work, reminding them that their lives and bodies were not their own, and that they should maintain (outwardly at least) a demeanour of dutiful subordination to their overlords. The whip was a cruel and effective instrument…

Read More