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Racial Justice

Unions Take Up The Fight For Racial Justice

May 21, 2021 Stephanie Luce, Organizing Upgrade. , , ,
Labor organizations are taking up the fight for racial justice in many ways. They’re developing in-depth member education on racial capitalism. They’re using bargaining to address structural racism and developing new leadership.

Prosecutor Quits Trump’s Law Enforcement Commission

September 17, 2020 Ryan J. Reilly, Huff Post. , , ,
An elected prosecutor who took a role in Donald Trump’s presidential commission on law enforcement has resigned, telling Attorney General William Barr that he is concerned the commission was “intent on providing cover for a predetermined agenda that ignores the lessons of the past” and will issue a final report that “will only widen the divisions in our nation.” Trump formed the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice late last October, announcing its formation at the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s annual meeting.

All Civilian Lives Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others

July 22, 2020 By Danny Sjursen, Antiwar.com. , , ,
Washington’s record speaks for itself. Seen from the Potomac’s shores, the value of a civilian life almost directly correlates with how the US Government of the moment feels about the regime that man, woman, or child momentarily lives under. Consider it the obscenity of the arbitrary. A few examples should suffice, but one could fill volumes with consistent exemplars. "Heroic" Libyan rebels – and proximate civilians – mattered once, and only once, President Barack Obama decided their bizarre but harmless-to-the-homeland dictator Colonel Gaddafi had to go. Yet, ten times as many Yemeni lives-extinguished (including at least 85,000 starved-to-death children) didn’t and don’t, because their killers are Washington’s oil-rich Saudi allies. In fact, a complicit US military even lent those theocratic state-terrorists a vital murder-logistics hand. See how the macabre game works?

Cancel All The Student Debt: It’s About Economic And Racial Justice

October 16, 2019 Naomi Zewde and Darrick Hamilton, Rewire.news , , ,
Only full cancellation completely protects the vulnerabilities of Black students and students in general, while at the same time establishing higher education as a universal right and offering restitution to all those who have had to rely on debt finance. You might feel desensitized to the swelling student-debt figures, but guess who’s not? Graduates—who are paying an average of $400 a month for approximately forever. There are two major proposals from Democratic presidential candidates on this problem. One gets rid of it all, canceling the whole student-debt balance nationally.

The Forgotten, Radical Martin Luther King Jr.

January 21, 2019 Matt Berman, www.nationaljournal.com , , ,
By Matt Berman for National Journal. Martin Luther King Jr. was not just the safe-for-all-political-stripes civil-rights activist he is often portrayed as today. He was never just the "I Have a Dream" speech. He was an antiwar, anti-materialist activist whose views on American power would shock many of the same politicians who now scramble to sing his praises. The total spectrum of his beliefs may not be as easy as "let freedom ring," but the full MLK was much larger than the safe-for-everyone caricature that is often presented today. King's more radical worldview came out clearly in a speech to an overflow crowd of more than 3,000 people at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. "The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: 'A time comes when silence is betrayal,' " he began.

Create Positive Traditions To Celebrate Our Values Of Justice And Peace

December 25, 2018 By Alexandra Holmstrom-Smith, Truthout ,
‘Tis the season…for leftist ambivalence toward commercialist and patriarchal holiday traditions. It’s no wonder that many leftists have mixed feelings about holiday festivities, given their link to oppressive institutions and crass cooptation by capitalism. Celebrating the virgin birth of a male deity who was to become king can be alienating for those who have anti-hierarchal, feminist values, and likewise many anti-Zionist internationalists struggle with ethno-nationalist expressions of the Passover holiday.

Racial Justice Must Be Central To Our Movements

August 29, 2017 Sonali Kolhatkar, www.truthdig.com ,
By Sonali Kolhatkar for Truth Dig - If progressives are to learn one lesson about American politics in the period between last November’s election and the recent Charlottesville, Va., clashes, let it be this: To win social progress on many fronts at once, we have to address racism first and foremost. That’s because this nation was founded on the white domination of people of color, and especially African-Americans and Native Americans. Until we collectively face this fact and work for a redress of the impacts of persistent and relentless racism, we will continue to witness the emergence of white populist racists like Donald Trump and the resurgence of white supremacist and Nazi groups. Meanwhile, a minority of wealthy elites will continue to laugh all the way to the bank, smug over having avoided blame for capitalism’s built-in failings once again. There is no better symbolism of our failure to address the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow segregation than the current controversy over Confederate statues. Yohuru Williams, history professor and dean of the University of St. Thomas’ College of Arts and Science, explained to me in an interview that many Confederate statues were not erected before or during the Civil War but soon after, “by groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy, who were doing this to commemorate a lost cause—the idea that the South would rise again.”

Colin Kaepernick Is Being Blackballed By Billionaire NFL Owners

June 17, 2017 Colin Jenkins, www.truthdig.com , ,
By Colin Jenkins for Truth Dig - Colin Kaepernick took a courageous and principled stand last season by kneeling during the national anthem before NFL games. This was done in response to a society that continues to systematically, culturally, and institutionally devalue black lives. This devaluation is played out in many areas, including politics, economics, housing, employment, and perhaps most notably, within the criminal punishment system. Black lives are routinely extinguished by police in the streets without recourse, in the courts without pause, and in the prisons without hesitation. Entire generations of black Americans have essentially been destroyed through the “school-to-prison pipeline” and a system of mass incarceration, for which author Michelle Alexander has properly deemed, The New Jim Crow. Kaepernick recognized this and felt compelled to bring attention to it. He openly protested the national anthem, donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to community agencies, and started a national youth camp program to teach children from marginalized communities about self-empowerment.

Walter Rodney And Racial Underpinnings Of Global Inequality

December 27, 2016 Tianna Paschel, www.items.ssrc.org , ,
By Tianna Paschel for SSRC - The concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands has been at the center of increased political contestation and media attention in recent years. In this period, massive protests have erupted in the global North and South against neoliberal reforms, the solidification of flexible labor regimes, and austerity policies. The current moment, in the global North and South, is also one where these new forms and sentiments of precariousness in economic life have come alongside a reconfiguration of the relationship between the state and the economy...

UN Report Highlights US History Of Slavery, Segregation & Racial Terror

September 29, 2016 Staff, www.ohchr.org , ,
By Staff for OCHR - The colonial history, the legacy of enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism, and racial inequality in the US remains a serious challenge as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent. Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another, continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today

Two Biggest Movements In U.S. Team Up To Demand Economic And Racial Justice

September 13, 2016 Bryce Covert, www.thinkprogress.org/ , ,
By Bryce Covert for Think Progress - On Monday, Rev. William Barber II’s Moral Mondays movement stormed the grounds of state capitols in 31 states, what he claims is the largest simultaneous protest of its kind in the country’s history. And low-wage workers who have been part of the rapidly growing Fight for 15 movement were part of the demonstrations to tie their fight for economic justice to other fights.

UN Finds Rights To Peaceful Assembly & Association Eroded

August 2, 2016 Thaddeus Talbot, www.aclu.org ,
By Thaddeus Talbot for ACLU - The U.N.’s special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association completed a 17-day mission to the United States this week, and he drew some concerning conclusions about the state of those rights in this country. Maini Kiai covered an impressive 10 cities in 17 days. He observed protests at the political conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia and visited cities rocked by the police killings of Black men, like Baton Rouge, Baltimore, and Ferguson.

‘Justice Or Else’ For Black, Brown And Indigenous Americans

October 2, 2015 Reggie Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com ,
By Reggie Harris for The Huffington Post - Twenty years ago, there was a gathering of men in the U.S. Capital to address the exact issues that Black, Brown and Indigenous Americans are struggling against today. That gathering is known as the Million Man March. Its purpose was to bring attention to the issues of mass incarceration, low-paying jobs, joblessness, poverty, police brutality, low-quality education and inadequate housing among many others. The Honorable Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam served as the lead organization in bringing all of the March participants together, and the country hasn't seen anything like it since. Twenty years later, the struggle of Black, Brown and Indigenous Americans is getting worse.

Black Activists Host Venezuelan President Maduro In Harlem

October 1, 2015 Sharmini Peries and David Dougherty, www.http://therealnews.com/
By Sharmini Peries and David Dougherty for The Real News Network - Leaders of African descendants convened in the historic black cultural center of Harlem, New York for the People of African Descent Leadership Summit. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro visiting New York for the United Nations General Assembly attended the summit, which coincides with the UN's declaration of 2015-2024 as the official decade for people of African descent. Black Lives Matter co-founder Opal Tometi was one of the invited speakers.

Morello On Ferguson: ‘Not A Humanitarian; I’m A Hell-Raiser’

September 28, 2015 Atlanta Jobs with Justice, www.facebook.com , , ,
By Brittany Spanos in Rolling Stone - Yeah, there are thousands of cases, countless cases of white police officers murdering unarmed black people and getting off scot-free. What happened in Ferguson was that the community reacted in a way that was newsworthy on a global scale. If there had been one prayer circle and everybody singing "Kumbaya," that would've been completely swept under the rug. The outrage of there being no indictment really cast a global light on the kind of racism that is America's original sin. The Michael Brown case was the first domino in the 21st Century that we've seen. I don't need to remind you how; all you have to do is turn on the news every two to three days. Horrendous incidents. But now people have their cameras. If there had not been an uprising in Ferguson, there would not have been indictments in Baltimore. There's a greater vigilance.
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