War on Teachers is Not a War on Poverty
By Mark Naison The movement to unionize America’s low wage workers is an important compliment to the movement to strengthen and protect public education.
Monthly Archive: September 2014
The Sociopathic President
By Alexander N. Riccio On September 23rd, the United Nations hosted a climate summit in New York that brought together political leaders from 125 nations including U.S. President Barak Obama. The event was intended to highlight the realities of an existential crisis to the human species, but our president made it a moment to reveal his sociopathic dismissal of life…
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The Job of the Writer
By Alex S. Morgan The job of the writer, the speaker, the artist, is to communicate. It’s only important that they like you enough to listen to what you’re trying to say.
Why I Won’t Discourage My Students from Becoming Teachers
By Mark Naison Every day, I get personal messages from teachers describing how their jobs have been turned nightmarish by tests, assessments, scripting and micromanagement and abusive treatment by administrators.
Justice for John Crawford: Treating Black Men as Human Beings and Not as Animals
By Chris Crass While white people in open carry states walk around with real guns, John Crawford, a Black man, is murdered by cops for holding a toy gun in Walmart, which he picked up off the shelf. The white man who called the police has since admitted that he lied about Crawford threatening people with the gun. This video…
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Immigrants and the Global City
By Mark Naison The first wave of anti-immigrant hysteria in the US took place before the Civil War and was directed at Irish Catholic immigrants. It led to the formation of the Know Nothing Party and also sparked mob attacks on Catholic institutions in many northern cities
Poverty and Eating Well: It’s Not So Easy
By Phoenix Calida I’ve always hated the food shamers.The people who think it’s easy for a family in poverty to eat healthy/vegan/vegetarian. The articles that talk about poor people food and then showcase recipes actual poor people can never afford.
Are Public Schools Focal Points of Failure In a Successful Society?
By Mark Naison Many critics of our public schools imply that public education is an ugly center of failure in a largely successful society. However, singling out public schools for failure relative to other spheres of America economic and social life, such as our banking system, housing market, and medical system does not hold up on close scrutiny.
Learning from June: New Self-Love and Respect
By Chris Crass “I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.” – June Jordan
Football, Violence, and the Language of Male Domination
By Mark Naison Some of the best times of my youth and well into my 20’s took place on a football field. Like many young men who played the game, I needed an outlet for the violence inside me. An outlet that would bring me respect, camaraderie and the friendship of other men, a friendship that crossed racial and…
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How to Respond When Someone Says They are “Colorblind”
By William J. Jackson First, you must apologize for not being mindful of their disability.