Racial Justice

#BlackWorkersMatter: A Better Movement For Economic Justice

By Chris Kromm in Southern Studies - In 2010, on the heels of the Great Recession — the nation's biggest economic calamity since the Great Depression — one out of 10 people looking for work couldn't find a job. The crisis was widely felt in communities large and small across the country. But the effects were far from equal. For example, the peak of unemployment for white workers who were unemployed in 2010 soared to 8 percent. But as Algernon Austin, a researcher at the Economic Policy Institute, noted in the report "#BlackWorkersMatter" [pdf] earlier this year, such devastating levels of joblessness were nothing new to African Americans. Over the last 52 years, Austin writes: [T]he annual unemployment rate for blacks has averaged nearly 12 percent. The typical African-American community faces a severe unemployment crisis year after year after year. The key role of race in chronic joblessness is just one of the reasons that African-American, labor and community leaders are calling for a new national commitment to organizing black workers.

The Sun As Center Of New Campaign For Economic & Racial Justice

September 22, 2015 George Lakey, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Economic Justice, Environmental Justice, Racial Justice

By George Lakey in Waging Non-Violence - Another indication of how crazy this country has become: Some people are coming out against solar energy. Solar technology has dropped in cost to become competitive with other sources for electricity. Some energy companies are apparently worried that their fossil fuel and nuclear sources will become financial liabilities; coal already is with the new EPA regulations. Instead of welcoming the opportunity to come into the new age of renewable energy, the dinosaurs among us are resisting the change. In over 20 states there is push-back, reportedly coordinated by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, supported by fossil fuel kings the Koch Brothers. One method is to take away subsidies given to homeowners who want to solarize their roofs. Another is to charge an additional fee for homeowners who succeed.

Student Hangs Jim Crow Restroom Signs To Protest ‘White Privilege’

September 21, 2015 I Love Black People, www.iloveblackpeople.net Resist! Racial Justice

A University at Buffalo student has sparked outrage and cries of racism after she put up “White Only” and “Black Only” signs on campus, hearkening back to the days of segregation. Ashley Powell, 25, who is black, admitted to plastering the Jim Crow-esque signs near several bathrooms and water fountains in a dorm as an art project to express her struggles with being a minority in the U.S. and to “expose white privilege.” “I am in pain,” the graduate student wrote in a lengthy explanation posted on Facebook and published by the UB student newspaper. “My art practice is a remnant of my suffering. White privilege and compliance only exacerbate my symptoms.” Powell said she hung up the signs to see how many white people would see the signs and do something about it, although she claims it was not a “social experiment.”

Ten Ten: Million Man March

September 20, 2015 Million Man March, www.justiceorelse.com Resist! Economic Justice, Human Rights, Racial Justice, Racism

By Million Man March. Washington, DC - On October 10, 2015 in Washington, D.C., at the National Mall, The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan will convene the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March under the theme: Justice or Else! We want justice! We want equal justice under the law. We want justice applied equally regardless to creed or class or color. Justice is the birthright of every human being. Justice is a prerequisite to life. We cannot live without justice and where there is no justice there is no peace. Justice is one of the eternal principals that the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth has decreed that every creature should have the freedom to be what God created it to be. Freedom, Justice and Equality are not conferred on us by the Constitution, but the Creator confers Freedom, Justice and Equality on every human being.

Marchers From Selma To DC Demand Restoration Of Voting Rights

September 19, 2015 Candice Bernd, www.truth-out.org Resist! Civil Rights, Racial Justice, Voting

By Candice Bernd in Truth Out - Clad in yellow shirts, hundreds of marchers streamed across the Arlington Memorial Bridge on September 15, and ended their nearly 1,000-mile "Journey for Justice" march at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Many of those marchers set out six weeks ago to retrace the historic "Bloody Sunday" civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, which was instrumental to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act (VRA) that year. More than 50 years later, activists have taken their own civil rights march even farther than Montgomery - to the halls of Congress, to demand that legislators pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA) and press for the advancement of a broader racial justice agenda around education, income inequality and reforms to the criminal legal system.

Jim Crow And Corporate Dictatorship

September 16, 2015 Ethel Long-Scott, www.weap.org Organize! Economic Justice, Racial Justice

By Ethel Long-Scott of the Women's Economic Agenda Project - The fight on America’s streets against police killings and for decent wages and job security cannot be won without a conscious fight to change the system. The old social order is in the grip of a revolutionary change. Work is changing forever as human labor increasingly cannot compete with robotics. Late stage capitalism with automated production simply does not need people in the paid workforce in the way that it used to, and permanent poverty is growing. What automation is exposing is what our national social discourse doesn’t discuss, the role class plays in keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer. The struggle for economic and social justice is taking many different forms but fundamentally, the poor of all races and ethnicities are hurting the most. More and more people are falling into poverty.

Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity

September 15, 2015 Forward Through Ferguson, www.forwardthroughferguson.org Educate! Ferguson, Racial Justice

By Forward Through Ferguson - As with any organization that works closely together on serious issues, the Ferguson Commission has found itself coming back to several phrases again and again. One of those phrases has been, “The only way forward is through.” By this we mean that if we are to move forward as a region, if we are to make true, long-term, sustainable progress, we can’t avoid our reality—we must confront it, and work through it. We believe that if we attempt to skirt the difficult truths, if we try to avoid talking about race, if we stop talking about Ferguson, as many in the region would like us to, then we cannot move forward. Progress is rarely simple, and it rarely goes in a straight line. But we are convinced that progress in the St. Louis region runs through Ferguson, and every issue that the phrase “Ferguson” now conjures.

Best Hope For The Future: Uniting Labor, Climate & Racial Justice

September 9, 2015 Aaron Mair, Estela Vazquez, and Lenore Friedlaender, www.sierraclub.org Strategize! Economic Justice, Environmental Justice, Racial Justice

By Aaron Mair, Estela Vazquez, and Lenore Friedlaender - This Labor Day, we are joining together to celebrate the contributions of workers of all races, ethnicities, and nationalities to the struggle to hold our country true to the promise of a political and economic democracy, "with liberty and justice for all." We recognize that the movement for a truly just society is much stronger when we join forces. The same interests who stand in the way of workers' struggles for economic justice are standing in the way of environmental justice and a clean energy economy, and they are standing in the way of racial and immigrant justice. Together, we are celebrating the burgeoning movements, many led by youth, people of color, and women but benefitting all of us. We embrace those who work to build bridges between our movements and reject the legacy of an outdated agenda that fosters institutionalized police violence, and social, economic and political inequalities that have systematically disempowered Native Americans and Communities of Color.

Until We Win: Black Labor & Liberation In The Disposable Era

September 5, 2015 Kali Akuno, www.counterpunch.org Create! #BlackLivesMatter, Autonomy, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Black Power, Racial Justice

By Kali Akuno in Counterpunch - What the combination of theses efforts will amount to is the creation of Black Autonomous Zones. These Autonomous Zones must serve as centers for collective survival, collective defense, collective self-sufficiency and social solidarity. However, we have to be clear that while building Black Autonomous Zones is necessary, they are not sufficient in and of themselves. In addition to advancing our own autonomous development and political independence, we have to build a revolutionary international movement. We are not going to transform the world on our own. As noted throughout this short work, Black people in the US are not the only people confronting massive displacement, dislocation, disposability, and genocide, various people’s and sectors of the working class throughout the US and the world are confronting these existential challenges and seeking concrete solutions and real allies as much as we do.

Why Food Belongs In Our Discussions Of Race

September 4, 2015 Kirsten Wartman, www.civileats.com Educate! Food and Agriculture, Racial Justice

By Kirsten Wartman in Civil Eats - In the wake of the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, after the death of Michael Brown, the Baltimore uprising after the death of Freddie Gray, and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, much has been written about the nature of poverty and violence in American cities. But one aspect that is chronically underreported is the lack of access to healthy foods in many of those same communities. Indeed, the reliance on a highly processed food supply is causing disease, suffering, and eventual death, especially to those in the poorest of neighborhoods. A report released this June by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future found that one in four Baltimore residents lives in an under-resourced area or “food desert” (a term that some food activists reject). This is not unusual or unique to Baltimore, but is the standard in urban centers throughout the country.

Activists Counter Feds Gathering, Push Against Interest Rate Hikes

September 1, 2015 Daniel Marans, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Federal Reserve, Inequality, Racial Justice

By Daniel Marans in The Huffington Post - Progressive activists and economists who want the Federal Reserve to prioritize jobs and racial justice brought their case to the central bankers' summer meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Thursday for two days of teach-ins and protests. The activists’ immediate goal is to prevent the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates until wages rise more significantly. The two-day event, Whose Recovery: A National Convening on Inequality, Race, and the Federal Reserve, is organized by the Fed Up campaign, a coalition of groups led by the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy. It serves as a counter-conference to the annual Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City symposium, where Fed officials come together to discuss monetary policy -- and which is currently taking place at the same resort as the Fed Up gathering.

Seattle: Students Lead Protests To Change School & Transit Policies

August 29, 2015 Ifrah Abshir, www.occupy.com Resist! Education, Immigration, Racial Justice, Student Activism

By Ifrah Abshir in Occupy - For so long we have been told that there is no funding in the district budget to give RBHS the support it needs. Built in 1960, our school is the only one in the district that has not yet received a full renovation. Just last year we had nearly 15 power outages, some of them causing us to attend school in the dark and cold, or even to close school for the day. Our school still has chalkboards, whereas schools in whiter and more affluent neighborhoods have smart boards and more advanced technological tools that enhance student learning. Each year, students here organize walk outs and protests, and attend school board and city hall meetings – but we only receive promises of a new building. Promises that go unfulfilled. Another public school policy that disproportionately affects students and families of lower income is the "Walk-Zone" rule.

Guess Which Region Suspends Black Kids From School Most Often

August 28, 2015 Joseph Williams, www.takepart.com Educate! Education, Racial Justice, South

By Joseph Williams in Take Part - It’s a problem that echoes the “black codes” of the nation’s Jim Crow era: African American schoolchildren nationwide are up to three times more likely than their white counterparts to be suspended or expelled from school. But a new study shows that things are even worse for black grade-school kids in the South, where they are up to five times more likely than whites to be suspended or expelled—an eyebrow-raising disparity experts say is a big factor in the school-to-prison pipeline. The assessment, made by the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, found that African American students were consistently suspended and expelled at higher rates than their peers in each of the 3,000 school districts in the 13-state region.

Georgia Activists Challenge Coke’s Support For ‘Heritage Of Hate’

August 28, 2015 Kate Aronoff, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Coca Cola, Corporatism, Georgia, History, Racial Justice

By Kate Aronoff in Waging Non-Violence - At a towering 1,600 feet, Stone Mountain is a majestic outgrowth from the suburbs of Atlanta. Less majestic, for many, is the three acre bas-relief monument to the Confederacy on its north side. Originally forged by Mount Rushmore creator Gutzon Borglum, the project was abandoned over creative differences in the 1920s, only to be completed once Stone Mountain’s grounds were purchased by the state of Georgia in 1958. The carving memorializes Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and the famed secessionist generals Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee, who led the charge to maintain slavery in the South. Fittingly, Stone Mountain has long been a home to the South’s nostalgic white supremacists, and in 1915 became the birthplace of the second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan.

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