Racism

Is Western Media’s Perception Of Africa Racist?

August 25, 2023 Ramzy Baroud, Counter Punch. Educate! Africa, Coups, Media, Racism, Wars and Militarism

Racism goes beyond the use of certain words or the discriminatory practices of everyday life. It is also about political perceptions, intellectual depictions, and collective relationships. Consider the way that Africa is currently portrayed in the news. From a political viewpoint, Africa is seen as a totality, and not in a positive way, as in a united Africa. For example, mainstream Western media coverage of the US-Africa Summit, held in Washington last December, presented all of Africa as poor and desperate. The continent, one can glean from headlines, was also willing to pawn its political position in the Russia-NATO conflict, in exchange for money and food.

Juvenile Sentencing In The US Is Barbaric, Racist, And Ineffective

August 15, 2023 Mansa Musa, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Human Rights, Juvenile detention, Legal System, Racism, Supreme Court

“The United States is the only country in the world that permits youth to be sentenced to life without parole,” the Juvenile Law Center notes. “Sentencing children to die in prison is condemned by international law. For children or adults, a sentence of life without parole is cruel, inhumane, and denies the individual’s humanity. For children, the sentence also defies law and research confirming that youth are different than adults and must be treated differently by our legal system.” While many individual states have banned the practice of sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole, 22 states still permit it, and the conservative majority of the US Supreme Court has shown a troubling openness to overturning past precedents regarding juvenile sentencing.

Post-Conviction Review Could Correct Three-Strike Law Injustices

August 4, 2023 Raymond Williams, Scheer Post. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Development, Legal System, Racism, Youth

Earlier this year, Washington lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow for post-conviction review for incarcerated people serving long sentences for crimes they were convicted of while under the age of 25. Washington’s Senate Bill 5451, locally known as the Emerging Adults Bill, would extend an already existing parole law that offers review for those convicted of crimes committed while under the age of 18. Many recent studies have shown that the prefrontal cortex—the area of the brain responsible for decision-making and impulse control—continues to develop in most human beings past age 18.

Hotel Workers Strike Against Scab Staffing App And Anti-Black Racism

August 2, 2023 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. Resist! California, Housing, Racism, Service Industry, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

When Thomas Bradley showed up for his third shift at Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort and Spa in Dana Point, California, on July 2 he encountered something new: a picket line. The picket was part of a wave of strikes at Los Angeles-area hotels by members of UNITE HERE Local 11. Their contracts at 62 hotels expired June 30. The hotel workers’ top demand is for pay that will allow them to secure housing in a market that is pricing them out. Bradley, who had been a hotel union member years before, stopped to talk to the picketing workers and then joined them, exercising his right to strike under labor law. But there was a problem.

RFK, Jr.: It’s Not Genetics, It’s Racial Capitalism

July 20, 2023 Jacqueline Luqman, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Black America, Capitalism, COVID-19, Racism, RFK

I know that opinions about COVID-19 and the vaccines related to it are still as varied as they are passionate, at least in the US where this government did absolutely nothing under two presidents to protect people and save lives in the midst of a global pandemic. But let me just be the one to say it if you were afraid to. Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s recent comments about the virus are wackadoodle, but should not be dismissed outright because of his dismissal of US racialized capitalism that fueled the deadly outcome of the pandemic in the US among certain groups of people.

Fallout From Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Decision Has Begun

July 11, 2023 Nadra Nittle, The 19th. Educate! Affirmative Action, Higher Education, Racism, Supreme Court

After the Supreme Court’s ruling last month effectively ending affirmative action in higher education, lawmakers and organizations on both sides of the ideological divide strategized next steps ranging from challenging legacy admissions to barring minority scholarships. In a consolidated decision in two cases — Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College — the Supreme Court decided that affirmative action is unconstitutional. Harvard is now under fire for admissions policies that activist groups say disadvantage students of color

Tesla: The Cars That Racism Built?

July 9, 2023 Ethan Baron, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Accountability, Racism, Tesla, Worker Rights and Jobs

Complaint after complaint alleging anti-Black racism at Tesla’s factory in Fremont has not stopped such abuse and discrimination, with Black workers segregated into the hardest, most dangerous, lowest-paid jobs and subjected to a barrage of racist treatment, language and images, according to claims in recent court filings and employee interviews. Black workers at the plant — Tesla’s biggest California facility, which employs thousands to build its four electric car models — alleged such abuse often began soon after they started, excited at landing a job at the famed automotive pioneer.

Beyond Affirmative Action, Toward Black Unity

July 8, 2023 Austin Cole, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Affirmative Action, Higher Education, Racism, Supreme Court

“Affirmative action” is, at this point, a loaded phrase. Strictly speaking, affirmative action typically refers to sets of policies/procedures that attempt to “even the playing field,” most commonly in education or employment decisions, by stopping present and future discrimination against marginalized or underrepresented groups while making up for past discrimination and injustices. For some in the U.S., affirmative action that considers race is representative of ‘reverse racism’ and political ‘wokeness’ run amok, and for others, it is a major victory that our elders and ancestors struggled for for years.

The Supreme Court And Political Corruption

July 7, 2023 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Corruption, Politics, Racism, Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of the United States is enshrined in the Constitution as one of three branches of government, the other two being the Executive branch, the presidency, and the Legislative branch, the Senate and House of Representatives. In other words the Court is a lawmaking body. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was a landmark, a case that most Black people commit to memory. The Court declared that public accommodations could not be considered equal if they were separate, and thus began the long road to ending segregation in the law.

Police Brutality, Racism And Poverty Underlie Youth Rebellion In France

July 6, 2023 Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report. Resist! France, Mass Action, police brutality, Racism, State Repression

A 17-year-old youth of Moroccan and Algerian descent named Nahel M was gunned down by the French police on June 27 sparking a nationwide series of mass demonstrations and rebellions throughout the country. Several videos released on the shooting show clearly that Nahel, who was driving a vehicle, was posing no threat to the police. There were two other people in the vehicle with Nahel, one of whom has given evidence to the authorities while the third person is being sought by prosecutors. The policeman has been indicted for voluntary homicide. In addition, reports suggest he has apologized for the fatal shooting.

The Two-Sided Uprising Sweeping France

July 5, 2023 Nicolas Haeringer, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Environmental Justice, France, Mass Action, Racism

On June 27, Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old French boy of North African descent was murdered by a white police officer in a Parisian suburb. Since then, anger has erupted almost everywhere in the country, especially in poor neighborhoods. Young people are taking to the streets to protest against police violence and state racism. Their anger is eruptive. Recently, I helped organize support and solidarity for another uprising in France: Soulèvements de la terre, or Earth’s uprising. This movement, created in 2021, is fighting against large and useless infrastructure (like highways and giant tunnels under the Alps), transnational corporations and other sources of pollution and environmental destruction.

No Matter How You Frame It, The ADL Is A Racist Organization

June 21, 2023 Miko Peled, MintPress News. Educate! ADL, Israel, Palestine, Racism

The Biden administration has released the country’s first national strategy for combating antisemitism, a landmark plan aimed at addressing a growing problem.” This is from a piece in NPR titled, “The first national strategy for fighting antisemitism is finally here. What’s in it?” Spoiler alert: it is not about fighting antisemitism or any other sort of racism; it is a strategy to silence Palestinian voices in the U.S. in the service of Israel. The article starts with an outline of the Biden administration’s commitment to fighting Antisemitism. It then quotes the president, who referred to the plan as the “most ambitious and comprehensive U.S. government-led effort to fight antisemitism in American history.”

Black Brazilian Movement Leaders Lead Delegation To The US

June 11, 2023 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Organize! Black Liberation, Brazil, Racism, Violence, Women

From May 29 to June 8, 19 Brazilian Black movement leaders traveled to the US to meet with major international organizations to fight for an end to racist violence. These leaders, all of whom are women or people with diverse gender identities, have over 30 years of experience in Brazilian social movements. The delegates are all part of various groups within the Black Women Alliance to End Violence (Aliança Negra Pelo Fim da Violência), which aims to support “the strengthening of the national and international actions of cis and transgender Black women in their fight to end violence towards Black people.”

History Is A Human Right

June 6, 2023 Jesse Hagopian, Word In Black. Resist! #TeachTruth, Censorship, Education, History, Racism

With almost half of all students in the United States attending a school whose educators have been given educational gag orders to prohibit them from teaching honestly about the history of systemic racism, a grassroots network of educators, parents, and students across the country are organizing a #TeachTruth National Day of Action on June 10, 2023, to fight back. Research from the CRT Forward Tracking Project out of the UCLA Law School reveals that measures attacking truthful teaching about race have been passed at either the federal, state, or local level in every state except Vermont — laws that impact “over 22 million public school children, almost half of the country’s 50.8 million public school students.”

American Police Are Basically Untouchable; How Did It Get This Bad?

June 3, 2023 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Chris Hedges, Police, Qualified immunity, Racism

The terror of police power is a recurring fact of American life, particularly in this country’s poorest communities and in communities of color. The power of officers comes not only from the strength of arms, but also from a legal system that is swift to protect its enforcers, yet slow to hold them to account. Where did this virtual immunity from prosecution come from? Has it always been this way? And if not, how has police power and impunity changed through the ages? Historian Joanna Schwartz joins The Chris Hedges report to discuss her new book, Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable. Joanna Schwartz is a professor of law at UCLA, where she teaches civil procedure and courses on police accountability and public interest lawyering.

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