A prisoner speaks about the murders in South Carolina, President Obama’s reaction to them, and the needed philosophical direction for those still yearning for freedom.
race
Voices From the Inside Out: On prison and race
July 7, 2014From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
by Robert Taliaferro
Race has always been at the forefront of this nation since its founding. It seems ironic that the generation that produced the country’s first Black president is also the generation that is seeing the advances made in civil rights during [=>]
Women as thinkers and revolutionaries
March 18, 2012Editor’s Note: For International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we print below brief excerpts from Raya Dunayevskaya’s 1975-76 lectures on “Women as Thinkers and as Revolutionaries,” which were also excerpted in Women’s Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution: Reaching for the Future.
* * *
I. Mass Creativity and the Black Dimension
What today we call Women’s [=>]
Martina Noel Davis-Correia, 1967-2011
February 24, 2012I want people to know that we didn’t fail. As long as we keep hammering away at this thing, as long as we refuse to give up, we haven’t failed. We’ll be doing what Troy Davis wanted us to do. Our efforts made an impact and will continue to make an impact. —Martina Correia
A woman [=>]
Reverse convictions by tortured confessions
February 23, 2012Chicago—Twenty-four Black men are still in jail almost 40 years after the first allegations of torture were brought against the Chicago Police Department.
In every case, their confessions were obtained illegally through torture.
On Nov. 5, 30 people, including the mother of Javan Deloney and family members of four or five other torture victims, met at the [=>]
Readers’ Views, September-October 2011
October 7, 2011From the September-October 2011 issue of News & Letters:
Readers’ Views
Contents:
- REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION: ARAB SPRING AS CROSSROADS IN HISTORY
- KARL MARX AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
- REMEMBERING CHRISTINA SANTIAGO
- THELONIOUS MONK
- CANADA AS ‘CONTESTATAIRE’ SOCIETY
- MAN-MADE DISASTERS: NUCLEAR POWER AND WORLD WAR
- LABOR STRUGGLES IN 2011
- WHY WRITE FOR N&L?
- VOICES FROM BEHIND THE BARS
REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION: ARAB SPRING AS CROSSROADS IN HISTORY
The West supports any revolution where they [=>]
‘A Strange Stirring’ book review
September 26, 2011A Strange Stirring: ‘The Feminine Mystique’ and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, by Stephanie Coontz (Basic Books, New York), 2011.
A Strange Stirring is an examination of the situation of U.S. women during the years surrounding the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique and how it helped the feminist movement change our [=>]
Women as Reason: No power for bishops or mullahs!
September 24, 2011by Terry Moon
The racist U.S. Right has used the specter of terrorism in attacking Muslim religious law, Sharia, as a way to build and deepen fear of all Muslims and forward their reactionary agenda of racism against all minorities, sexism, and anti-immigrationism. Genuine feminist organizations like the decades-old Women Living Under Muslim Laws and the [=>]
World in View: British youth revolt
September 22, 2011by Gerry Emmett
The killing of 24-year-old Mark Duggan by London police on Aug. 6 set off the largest urban rebellion in Britain in decades. The situation was made worse by police lies that Duggan had pointed a gun at them, and by their rude, smirking response to family and community members who came to the [=>]
Somalia famine, climate and capitalism
September 18, 2011The famine in the Horn of Africa is finally getting attention, though it has been years in the making, now that shocking pictures of starving Somali children have become a regular feature on the nightly news. So far tens of thousands of people have died, half of them children under the age of five.
The suffering [=>]
Justice for Oscar Grant!
August 31, 2011Oakland, Calif.–On June 12 over 150 demonstrators marched to downtown Oakland from Fruitvale BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station, dubbed “Oscar Grant Station” by community activists. We were protesting the mild charge and minimal sentence handed down to Grant’s killer, former BART cop Johannes Mehserle. Mehserle was released from a Los Angeles County jail the [=>]
Straight, No Chaser
August 29, 2011Warner Brothers presents Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser directed by Charlotte Zwerin. Produced by Charlotte Zwerin and Bruce Ricker. Executive Producer Clint Eastwood.
Art is the eternal particular, the unmediated, mediating term in which the human face is recognized. A familiar tune, like a familiar face, catches us unawares and we smile in recognition. We find ourselves whistling.
To [=>]
Gil Scott-Heron’s life
August 25, 2011When Gil Scott-Heron passed on May 27, we lost one of the great artists of our time. As the “Winter In America” of which he sang stretches on, cold and brutal, his voice remains as relevant as his presence is missed.
Coming out of the Black Power movement, he had a keen understanding of where Black [=>]
Racist police murder two more people of color
August 23, 2011The continuing problem of racist, unaccountable police violence is highlighted by a recent pair of outrageous shootings in Arizona and Florida. Both illustrate the militarized, “search and destroy” mentality so prevalent among police officers, supported by the racist political climate in the U.S. today.
A Pima County Regional SWAT team killed Jose Guerena in his Tucson [=>]
California’s real history
June 9, 2011Rulers & Rebels: A People’s History of Early California, 1769-1901 by Laurence H. Shoup.
Laurence H. Shoup presents the history of California from the European incursion of Native America by the Spanish to the Great San Francisco Waterfront Strike of 1901. His interest is agency from below in the form of direct action: “The stories told in [=>]
Voices from the Inside Out: Remembering John Alan
May 18, 2011by Robert Taliaferro
John’s writings are strikingly poignant and timeless, with a prosody that is uniquely old-school. The body of his work is eloquently instructive and historically prescient.
In reading his columns we are challenged to look upon his words as more than philosophical constructs; there is a timelessness that reminds us that history–if left to its [=>]
The wars at home
May 8, 2011From the new issue of NEWS & LETTERS, May-June 2011
Part II of
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2011-2012
Revolution and counter-revolution take world stage
Contents:
- I. The Arab Spring
- II. The wars at home
- III. Japan: earthquake, tsunami and meltdown
- IV. Revolution, organization and philosophy
- V. Marxist-Humanist Tasks
(Part I was posted yesterday. Parts III through V to come in the next few days)
II. The [=>]
May-June 2011 issue of News & Letters is available online
May 6, 2011News & Letters, Vol. 56, No. 3
May-June 2011
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2011-2011
Revolution and counter-revolution take world stage
Revolution and counter-revolution have forced their way to the center stage of history. In Tunisia and Egypt, revolutions have opened tremendous possibilities and spread the fire of their passion all across the Arab world and from China to the [=>]
Harriet Tubman and the Civil War
February 18, 2011Editor’s note: We commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War with excerpts from John Alan on Harriet Tubman from the April 2004 News & Letters.
Since the 1960s there has been a growing interest in Harriet Tubman. Catherine Clinton in Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom (Little, Brown, 2004), lets her reader know immediately that the [=>]
American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard
December 16, 2010Part of the classic American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard, written by Raya Dunayevskaya, has been posted on the web at the Marxists Internet Archive. The entire book can be obtained from News and Letters Committees.
This was excerpted from Part V, “From Depression Through World War II.”
Source: American Civilization on Trial, Part V “From Depression Through [=>]
Is Black education related to freedom?
December 14, 2010by John Alan
Editor’s note: To highlight what is missing from current debates on education reform, we reprint John Alan’s column from the June 1993 N&L.
* * *
This June [1993] the New Jersey Educational Commissioner, Mary Fitzgerald, will take control of the Malcolm X Shabazz High School and the rest of the Newark, N.J., school system. [=>]
Mayor Bloomberg’s schools get an F
November 24, 2010From the Nov.-Dec. 2010 issue of News & Letters:
Mayor Bloomberg’s schools get an F
New York–In June 2009, Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, together with the president of the Council of School Administrators and United Federation of Teachers President Mike Mulgrew, announced an increase in the four-year high school graduation rate for New York [=>]
Race, class, gender and revolution: Gloria Joseph on the Centenary of Raya Dunayevskaya
August 14, 2010Essay
Race, class, gender and revolution
by Gloria I. Joseph
Gloria I. Joseph is an educator and feminist. Her most recent book is On Time and In Step: Reunion on the Glory Road (Winds of Change Press, 2008).
* * *
While perusing writings by Raya Dunayevskaya, I came across the following comment on her book, Women’s Liberation and the [=>]