Union for Reform Judaism declares its support for reparations for the descendants of slaves in the US. By Ben Sales, TGA — The Reform movement declared its support for reparations for African-Americans at its biennial conference. The resolution, which was approved Friday by voice vote at the 5,000-person gathering of the Union for Reform Judaism, calls for “a federal commission to study and develop proposals for reparations to redress the…
America’s first impeachment proved it’s hard to impeach for behavior alone. By Dahlia Lithwick, Slate — On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick spoke with Kate Shaw, a professor of law at Cardozo Law School and co-director of the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy. The two discussed impeachment (what else) and assessed what impeachment inquiry is the best comparison for the current investigation—along with what the founders meant when they decided to…
By Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald — Harvard University and the island of Antigua and Barbuda are talking about an educational partnership following a letter the Caribbean island’s prime minister sent to the university requesting slavery reparations. A Harvard University spokesman confirmed to the Miami Herald that the school’s president, Lawrence Bacow, recently reached out to Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Sanders, to discuss how the prestigious university…
By Real Times Media — Surrounded by dozens of criminal justice reform advocates and lawmakers at Cabrini Green Legal Aid, Governor JB Pritzker signed legislation today to strengthen the most…
By Jonah Pesner, Chicago Tribune — Americans in general and faith groups in particular increasingly find ourselves reckoning with our nation’s bigoted history and struggling with how to dismantle the racist systems and structures that persist to this day. As the largest Jewish denomination in the United States, it’s time for the Reform movement to join this conversation. It’s time for us to talk reparations. When I first read Ta-Nehisi…
The president’s tweets are an invitation to a racial conflict that pits citizen against citizen, under the calculation that racism itself is a winning political strategy. By David A. Graham,…
By Bob Lord, CounterPunch — Wealth in America has concentrated — and dramatically so — over the past four decades. Since 1980, note wealth researchers Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the top…
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq. — Whenever Black people bring up the subject of white Americans acting to cure years of discriminatory acts against Black people when our ancestors were forced to work without compensation, they usually pivot to the term “reverse discrimination” or they question whether reparations would be constitutional. My good friend, Gloria Dulan Wilson, responded to the constitutional argument by saying, “It was once constitutional to beat,…
By Antigua Observer — Prime Minister Gaston Browne, as The CARICOM lead Head of Government on Financial matters, has gotten assurances from Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Chairperson for the US House Committee on Financial Affairs, that the House Committee, “to take actions that may be necessary to preserve the mutual interests of the U.S. and the Caribbean.” Representatives of the government of the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM) had a fully attended…
By Dr. Julianne Malveaux — The November 20th Democratic presidential debate took on a much different tone than the previous debates. I’m not sure if it was because the panel…
The law is sometimes characterized as a clear set of rules, but it isn’t always so straightforward. By Jamal Greene and Elora Mukherjee, Los Angeles Times — The Morgan children were in their pajamas, probably dreaming, when four men broke into their home before daylight, loaded them into the back of an open wagon and forcibly took them across Pennsylvania’s southern border. The year was 1837. “DREAMERS” attend a news…
Consider the physical, financial, mental, even spiritual deaths inflicted on black Americans. By Ben Crump, The Guardian — In the weeks since the release of my book, Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People, the question I’ve been asked most often is whether my use of the word genocide in the title was meant to be intentionally provocative, rather than reflective of reality. Surely, genocide is too strong a word…