By Nicholas Ballasy, PJ Media — WASHINGTON – CNN political analyst April Ryan, Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, said past U.S. presidents like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush refused to formally “apologize for slavery” because it would lead to some form of reparations for descendants of slaves. “In my first book, I tackled the issue of reparations as a healing, as a possible healing, asking people……
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…
By David J. Harris, Houston Institute Executive Director — Several weeks ago the Boston Globe published an opinion piece by editorial and staff writer David Scharfenberg in which he called for an “honest” commitment to racial integration. He dismissed the “gauzy 1963 version” of integration, insisted that “harping too much” on its virtues “can feel paternalistic,” and lamented the “disastrous busing experiment of the 1970s” which proved that “forced integration…simply doesn’t work.” Even so,…
The flap of a butterfly’s wings really can cause a hurricane. By James Watkins, OZY — The very first immigrant from Thailand to Iceland arrived in 1979. Not a huge amount is…
Black Achilles — The Greeks didn’t have modern ideas of race. Did they see themselves as white, black – or as something else altogether? By Tim Whitmarsh, Aeon — Few issues…
Inside a raging debate that has split the country’s most exciting new political movement. By Miguel Salazar, The New Republic — On an afternoon in July, nearly 200 people packed into the ballroom of a local community center in northern Oakland for a general meeting of the East Bay chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). As they settled into folded chairs on the room’s faded wooden floors, the…
By Eugene Mason, PBS — The United States owes African-Americans reparations for slavery, a recent report by a United Nations-affiliated group said. The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said that compensation is necessary to combat the disadvantages caused by 245 years of legally allowing the sale of people based on the color of their skin. The U.N. group warned that the U.S. has not confronted its legacy of “racial terrorism.”…
How Staying Power shook British history. When it was published in 1984 Staying Power vividly captured the struggle for black British identity. Nearly 35 years on it still has lessons to teach. By Gary Younge, The Guardian — “The very serious function of racism is distraction,” Toni Morrison argued in a lecture in Portland, Oregon, in 1975: It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and…
By Gary M. Pomerantz, Signature — Today’s intersection of race, politics and sports harks back to the 1960’s. That time’s images live in our imagination: Muhammad Ali, loudly defiant, and sprinters…
Today’s far-right populists relish the idea that they can be morally contemptible, yet still prevail. By Keith Kahn-Harris, The Guardian — The concept of “white supremacy” is having a moment right now, and understandably so. White resentment, entitlement and bigotry never went away, but it is closer to the political mainstream now than it has been for decades. The rhetoric of the likes of Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Steve Bannon and…
The violent theft of land and capital is at the core of the U.S. experiment: the U.S. military got its start in the wars against Native Americans. By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,…
Democrats hoped for a huge rejection of Trumpism, but found two forces still hold an intoxicating political power. By Andrew Gawthorpe, The Guardian — The expectations we carry into elections always make it difficult to objectively assess their outcome. Before the midterms, Democrats hoped for a blue wave that would decisively hand them the House and perhaps more, while Donald Trump was poised to declare victory whatever the outcome. The morning…