By Joseph Orosco (December 21, 2018) Jason Wilson has written a good piece in The Guardian outlining how nonviolent action against far right and neo Nazi groups has been effective so far in dismembering those movements. This has been on my mind this week since news broke that notorious Springfield neo-Nazi Jimmy Marr was hospitalized after an altercation with Corvallis…
Read more
By Nicole Berland (November 7, 2018) To other white and white-passing women, here goes a long and potentially unpopular post: I’m stoked on many of the results from yesterday’s election, but, per usual, the returns saw the majority of white women voters cast our ballots for Republicans who legislate against women’s interests in places like Texas, Georgia, and Florida. Whether…
Read more
By Mark Naison (November 5, 2018) There are going to be a lot of people who are going to wake up November 7 shocked at how many people voted for candidates who embraced a message of hatred and division. I won’t be. I am an historian of race and immigration in the United States. Electoral majorities passed the Jim Crow…
Read more
By William J. Jackson (November 1, 2018) I’m so tired of that tacky azz saying that has gained popularity among the pompous left: “If someone disagrees with you, it doesn’t make them evil”. Fool. We ain’t talking pizza toppings. We’re talking about if a person’s life matters, the school to prison pipeline, rapist and murderous cops investigating themselves. We’re not…
Read more
By Sean Gelles (November 1, 2018) Hopefully it’s not too soon to address some of the reactions I’ve been seeing to the tragic racist attack in Pittsburgh on October 27th. I’ve been seeing a lot of ideas expressed which are the result not of conscious reflection but of sheer panic and dread. Perhaps right now is not the time to…
Read more
By Joseph Orosco (October 29, 2018) Robin D.G. Kelley explains Cedric Robinson’s groundbreaking concept from Black Marxism: “Building on the work of another forgotten black radical intellectual, sociologist Oliver Cox, Robinson challenged the Marxist idea that capitalism was a revolutionary negation of feudalism. Instead capitalism emerged within the feudal order and flowered in the cultural soil of a Western civilization…
Read more
By Mark Naison (September 27, 2018) I didn’t watch Christine Ford’s testimony, but the pain it has inspired among so many friends, which they have expressed with an eloquence and courage that has moved me to the core, is something I will never forget. This is a profound historical moment. I just ask for the wisdom and strength to show…
Read more
By Teka Lark (September 27, 2018) I remember back when I had my newspaper and a blog and commented on Laist for making a comment on the coverage of Watts that was not only plagiarized from Wikipedia with photos from a moving car, but was also amazingly racist. I was called a stupid bitch and banned from ever commenting again,…
Read more
By Teka Lark (September 18, 2018) Dismantling racism in your community/your org/your place of religious worship isn’t about you personally taking a journey and discovering everyone really is a human being, this isn’t about you, but yet –it is. Dismantling racism is also not about the first Black capitalist, the first Black general, or the first Black supermodel. Dismantling racism…
Read more
By Chris Crass (September 7, 2018) Talked with a Mom who reached out for support about her teenage son who she sees drifting towards the alt-right. My heart ached listening to her story. I shared how when I was 15, I was deeply confused, angry and felt alienated. I was trying to figure out who I was and what meaning…
Read more
By S. (September 5, 2018) Dear White Liberal Friends, Welcome to the crazy-making world of trying to interpret the actions of those in power. Is Ms. Bash sending a white power signal or are we reading too much into her hands? Black people have had to deal with so many dog whistles and so many excuses to explain away racist…
Read more