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Black America

Fear Is Still The Motivation For Black Voters

December 1, 2024 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , , , , , ,
The always prescient Glen Ford wrote those words in February 2016 as he correctly hypothesized that Black voters would continue their tradition of supporting the candidate they believed was most likely to defeat a republican in that presidential election year. Eight years later his words still ring true. Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris has engendered anger, fear, and retrograde politics, but surprisingly little criticism of the Democratic Party which failed its most loyal voters so spectacularly. The Kamala Harris/Tim Walz campaign raised more than $1.5 billion , more than the Donald Trump/J.D. Vance campaign was able to raise.

Requiem For A Failed Presidential Campaign And A Party

November 9, 2024 Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Trump has prevailed…AGAIN! Why?  Don’t ask why Harris lost; ask yourself why did this “race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot,” win. AGAIN! It’s too easy to chalk this up to or write this off as being a “masterclass in white privilege.” It’s too simplistic to attribute this cataclysmic failure to “hatred towards Black women.” Too many Democrats, their pundits, and some analysts are trying to write this historic blunder off as America will “never elect a Black woman as president”. Stop it! The bad lies are the lies you tell yourself. Even worse are the ones you tell yourself and believe.

How Trump Won And What Black People Should Do

November 8, 2024 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
On the evening of November 8, 2016, this columnist realized that Hillary Clinton had lost. She hadn’t yet conceded, the polls were still open on the west coast, but she lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to Donald Trump. When he turned these formerly democratic states republican, he secured a victory in the electoral college and became the 45th president of the United States. Late that night and in the early morning hours I wrote, “Dump the Democrats for Good” and pointed out what is still true eight years later. “Black people are now in fear and in shock when we ought to be spoiling for a fight.

Clark Atlanta University Launches New Black Southern Labor Institute

October 31, 2024 Mirtha Donastorg, Portside. , , ,
Clark Atlanta University has launched a new institute focused on labor issues and training a new generation of leaders to help Black Southern organizing and collective bargaining efforts. Jobs With Justice, a nonprofit network of labor unions, community groups and activists, is partnering with Clark Atlanta on the new Institute for the Advancement of Black Strategists, which was announced in late September. Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice, said policies against organized labor disproportionately impact Black workers because more than half of Black Americans live in the South.

Louisiana’s CRT Ban Continues Long History Suppressing Black Education

October 16, 2024 Jesse Hagopian, In These Times. , , , , , ,
As more than 700,000 students across Louisiana recently headed back to the classroom, a troubling reality looms: Black history wasn’t allowed in with them. In an increasing number of states, books on Black history and lesson plans about systemic racism are barred from schools — and Louisiana has followed suit. Gov. Jeff Landry’s executive order in late August bans critical race theory (CRT) — on top of previous restrictions already in place — and makes Louisiana the latest state to pass a law prohibiting antiracist education. Incredibly, laws preventing honest education about race impact nearly half of all public school students in the United States.

Black Residents In Cancer Alley Try A Last Legal Defense Against Pollution

October 16, 2024 Lylla Younes, Next City. , , , , , ,
On the banks of the lower Mississippi River in St. James Parish, Louisiana, on sprawling tracts of land that break up the vast wetlands, hulking petrochemical complexes light the sky day and night. They piled up over the past half century, built by fossil fuel giants like Nucor and Occidental. In that time, they replaced farmland with concrete and steel, and threaded the levees with pipelines that carry natural gas from as far away as West Texas. When the plants came, the lush landscape of this part of south Louisiana deteriorated. “The pecans are dry. They don’t yield like they used to,” said Gail Lebouf, a longtime resident of the region.

From Axis Of Resistance To Political Cuckolds

October 10, 2024 Jon Jeter, Black Agenda Report. , , , , , , ,
The assault on the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in the West Bank occurred only days after Israel began its siege of Gaza in October of 2023, leaving the building pockmarked with bullet holes. It might be surprising to know, however, that the assailants were not the Israeli Defense Forces, nor any settler mobs but the throngs of Palestinians who live under occupation and assembled outside the government building in Jenin to protest Israel’s control of the quisling Palestinian Authority, known as the Sultah. The Los Angeles Times wrote of the dispute: Disgusted with the authority’s inability to protect its own people or stand up to Israel, militants in the crowd aimed their bullets at the government compound after its security forces tried to break up the demonstration.‘

How Feed Black Futures Is Challenging Structural Racism

September 19, 2024 Tina Jenkins Bell, Resilience. , , , ,
Don’t call it a food desert. “Food apartheid” is closer to the truth. Describing a place as a food desert, says food sovereignty activist Sophi Wilmore, “implies that this is a natural phenomenon—that the lack of healthy, fresh, nutritious foods in certain neighborhoods is par for the course, normal, organic.” On the contrary, says Wilmore: The real issue is structural racism, and unjust systems that keep people impoverished, hungry, and positioned for incarceration. Wilmore is the co-executive director of Feed Black Futures, a community-based, Black, queer-led food sovereignty organization in California that connects Black and brown farmers with Black mamas and caregivers whose lives and families have been impacted by incarceration and the criminal legal system.

The Paradox Of Progress For Black Americans

September 8, 2024 Algernon Austin and Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Counter Punch. , , ,
As the country moves rapidly toward the 2024 elections, Black Americans are experiencing the best economic conditions they’ve had in generations. Record low unemployment rates, record low poverty rates, and record high levels of income and wealth paint a picture of Black prosperity. Yet African Americans remain mired in great economic insecurity, reflected in their low opinion of the economy, widespread asset poverty, and ongoing economic inequality between Black and white households. The best Black economy in generations, in short, isn’t enough. To overcome centuries of inequality, we’ll need dedicated public policy.

Farming While Black

August 29, 2024 Next City. , , ,
Once upon a time, 14%of farmers in the United States were Black. That was in 1910. But that number has dwindled. Today, Black farmers comprise less than 2% of all growers across the country. On this week’s episode, our host Lucas Grindley notes: “That's more than 14 million acres of lost land.” This loss, along with the discrimination and violence perpetrated against African-American farmers and the current movement of more Black people returning to agriculture and land stewardship, is the subject of the documentary “Farming While Black,” which was released in 2023. Mark Decena, the writer and director of the documentary, describes it as a Venn diagram of social justice, climate justice and food sovereignty.

James Baldwin At 100

August 15, 2024 Patrick Lawrence, Scheer Post. , , ,
James Baldwin would have celebrated his 100th birthday on Aug. 2, had he lived so long. He didn’t: He died young. He was but 63 on Dec. 1, 1987, the day he slipped away at the shabby-grand house in Saint–Paul-de–Vence, France, where he had lived since 1970, a refugee from … from a lot of things, not least America and what it was on the way to becoming.  There is a long, strange story behind the house and Baldwin’s residence in it, told satisfactorily in Jules Farber’s not-brilliantly-written James Baldwin: Escape From America, Exile in Provence (Pelican Publishing, 2016).  Harlem, Paris, a Swiss hamlet where he was the first black man the townsfolk had ever seen...

The Farmers Who Can’t Afford Farms

August 14, 2024 Joseph Bullington, In These Times. , , , ,
Running a small farm is complicated enough. For Tessa Parks — who raises cattle and hay with her spouse, Wyatt, on the gentle, farmed-over hills outside Northfield, Minn. — the challenges include bottle-feeding calves, braving bad weather to check on the herd at pasture and dealing with customers at the farmers market. Climate change doesn’t make it easier, as it lends intensity to droughts and storms and increases livestock disease risks. But for Parks, a 28-year-old beginning farmer, the complexities don’t end there. Farming, for her, also means juggling relationships with five different landowners the couple rents a patchwork of hayfields and pasture from.

Developers Halt Grain Elevator That Would Disrupt Black Historic Sites

August 12, 2024 Seth Freed Wessler, ProPublica. , , ,
A development company abruptly halted plans for a sprawling grain export facility in Louisiana this week after a three-year campaign led by members of a Black community who said it would have ripped through rural neighborhoods, old plantation tracts and important historic sites. At the start of a meeting on Tuesday, Greenfield LLC announced that it was “ceasing all plans” to construct the $400 million, milelong development in the middle of the town of Wallace in St. John the Baptist Parish. After a company spokesperson made the announcement in a small Wallace church, community members seated in the pews burst into jubilant cheers.

Waves Of Protests Follow Police Killing Of Sonya Massey

August 5, 2024 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , ,
On July 6, 36-year-old Black woman Sonya Massey was shot and killed by white police officer Sean Grayson after inviting the police into her own home, seeking protection from a potential intruder. On July 22, body camera footage was released to the public of Massey’s killing, shocking the nation and harkening to previous examples of police violence against Black people. The body camera footage that has emerged has shed light on a particularly disgusting case of police impunity. As a result, protests have erupted over the past few weeks across the country, including in major cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Community Holds Public Hearing For Police Murder Of John Zook Jr.

August 4, 2024 Emma Boyhtari, Left Voice. , , , ,
On Wednesday, July 10 in Westland, MI, several organizations, along with family and community members, organized and attended a public hearing about a young Black man — John Zook Jr. — who was killed by police on June 18 after he called emergency services on himself in the midst of a mental health crisis. The event, organized and sponsored by several groups, including Survivors Speak, Black Coffee, Detroit Will Breathe, Washtenaw County General Defense Committee, and others, began with speeches by family members. Attendees heard from John’s sister, his brothers, and his father. John’s brothers were the first to arrive at the scene of the shooting.
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