The UK faces a stark reality of empowered anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim racism. Riots have been spreading in Northern Ireland, as well as in Southport, Liverpool, London and other cities in England.
racism
Detroit Dispatch #11
July 23, 2024Retired women in Detroit speak for themselves about Project 2025, whose authors are connected to Trump.
World in View: South Africa’s Masses Reject the ANC
June 26, 2024Thirty years after the ANC took power, defeating the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, the party decisively lost its majority in the parliamentary elections. How could this happen?
Women WorldWide: June 2024
June 5, 2024Takes up: In memoriam Faith Ringgold, a seven-decade Black American artist; research by Dr. Debby Herbenick about violent sexual behavior among college students; a paper by the Snow Leopard Trust about “Applying a Gender Lens to Biodiversity Conservation in High Asia”; and the documentary ‘You Are Not Alone: Fighting the Wolf Pack’ (2024) about the trial inspiring Spain’s #MeToo movement.
Black bookstore forced to close
April 17, 2024Liberation Station, a Black-owned children’s bookstore in Raleigh, N.C., is closing less than a year after it opened on Juneteenth 2023, due to a series of threats.
Review: A We without State
March 15, 2024The pamphlet ‘A We without State” by Yásnaya Aguilar Gil, a voice of the Mixe people, deconstructs the word “Indigenous” and poses the idea of a world “not as a sum of national States…but as an ever-changing, collaborative and adaptable conglomerate of tiny social structures, as my community.”
Universities under far-right attack
January 26, 2024The “resignations” of presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard revealed the philosophical failings in academia, which is under attack by the far right for not suppressing criticism of Israel. Why didn’t academia know how to respond to the events in Israel/Palestine?
Readers’ Views: November 2023
November 24, 2023Readers’ Views on: Israel/Palestine; Revolt in Iran; in Canada for 2SLGBTQIA+; Trump, Biden too old to run; Racism in Tennessee; Prisoners miss ‘N&L’; Memorial for Paul Geist and Dan Bremer; Texas targets pregnant women & refugees; Ohio targets women and democracy; Revolutionary history; and Raining on those with disabilities.
World in View: France: Police murder sparks mass youth protests
July 7, 2023After Nahel Merzouk, a teenager of Algerian-Moroccan descent, was killed by police at a traffic stop in a Paris suburb, French youth, many of North African descent, responded with outrage. How did France come to this explosive moment?
Readers’ Views: May-June 2023
June 15, 2023Readers’ Views on: Violence and Racism Still Put U.S. in the Dock; American Civilization on Trial; Critical Race Theory; Critical Thinking and Education; 2SLGBTQIA+ Good and Bad News; Is Covid Over?; Remembering the Vietnam War; Syria Genocide Whitewashed; Fanaticism of Reactionaries
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2023-2024: Polycrisis and the need to transform reality. Part I
Society’s crying need for radical transformation makes itself felt day after day. In response, ruling classes across the globe have split into two main factions with differing strategies for heading off the threatened transformation from below: counter-revolution spawning new flavors of fascism with rough new figureheads, or non-transformational transformation to patch up the status quo while saving the powers that be. This thesis is about what is happening in the world and what to do about it.
Million Women Rise
June 3, 2023On March 4, over 2,000 women marched through London, organized by Million Women Rise (MWR). MWR is thousands strong and led by a collective of Black women in the UK. It is autonomous, run on donations with no corporate funding or ties to political parties.
Woman as Reason: Save democracy, save abortion
Republicans have to destroy democracy if they want to rule because a robust majority of the U.S. population supports legal, safe, accessible abortion; are for gay rights and don’t despise Trans people. So how do you trash their rights? You do it by destroying a government by the people and for the people. Let us count the ways.
Million Women Rise and march
May 22, 2023On March 4, over 2,000 women marched through London, organized by Million Women Rise (MWR). This organization is led by a collective of Black women in the UK with regional subgroups. It is autonomous, run by volunteers on donations with no corporate funding or ties to political parties.
Police murder of Tyre Nichols puts U.S. civilization on trial yet again
March 16, 2023The murder of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police reveals the racism permeating police departments and sparked protests across the U.S. calling into question the system in which the violence is rooted. The police murder of tree-sitter Tortuguita in Atlanta showed how deep the rot is and the uprooting needs to become.
Handicap This!: January-February 2023
January 24, 2023Takes up: Vanuatu, a Pacific island country, developed a national sign language, Storian wetem han; in Minnesota personal care assistants have won a wage increase through the SEIU Healthcare Minnesota union; the UN celebrated the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Dec. 3.
Michigan MAGA threats
November 12, 2022Curtis reports on the state of electoral politics in Michigan, including racism, violence, misogyny and fraudulent Trump supporters.
Prison and structural racism
Prisoner Comrade Easley argues that structural racism and the prison industrial complex thrive on over-policing and racial profiling Black and Brown communities.
Queer Notes: November-December 2022
November 11, 2022The Ohio LGBTQ+ community protested a meeting of the Ohio State Board of Education delaying a vote on a “don’t say gay” bill; Israeli playwright Yochai Greenfeld’s autobiographical play about conversion therapy opened in Israel; there was a memorial on Chicago’s south side for several LGBTQ+ people killed by a hit-and-run driver; and murdered Palestinian Gay man Ahmad Abu Marhia’s body was found in Hebron in the West Bank, and a suspect has been arrested.
Youth in Action: September-October 2022
September 24, 2022A high school protest in Denton, Texas; a demonstration in Lindblom Academy in Chicago; a protest in Oklahoma against dress codes; a students’ occupation at Marquette University, and the creation of a woman-friendly, LGBTQ+ inclusive skate crew in Chicago.
War on teachers is a war on students
September 10, 2022In school districts across the nation all eyes are on 4,500 striking teachers in Columbus, Ohio, who agreed to return to the classroom after a three-day strike under a “conceptual agreement.” This army in red T-shirts sparked widespread parent refusal to log in to remote classrooms set up while the teachers were out.
Voices from the Inside Out: Agents of lawlessness
July 19, 2022Prisoner’s critique of police brutality and how it impacts Black communities and is “a tangible reminder of the incompleteness of formal equality.”
Gerrymandering locks out democracy
Gerrymandering is an antidemocratic practice that Republicans have used to give themselves an advantage expected to last at least for another 10 years.
World in View: Progressives elected in Colombia
The stunning electoral victory of Gustavo Petro as President and Francia Márquez as Vice President marks a new moment for Colombia.
Down with gun culture
July 12, 2022Until recently, the outrageous power and impunity of the NRA dominated U.S. thinking on guns, opposing ANY measures to improve gun safety as a Second Amendment violation. But millions are determined to build a more humane society.
Essay: Society in the grip of genocidal ideology
July 5, 2022Genocidal ideology, which was manifested differently in the Buffalo mass shooting and in Putin’s war on Ukraine, has spread throughout our society, pervading the Right but also polluting the Left. How to fight this retrogression in all its forms?
Editorial: Abortion bans show need for new society
With the gutting of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court has taken away a human right and stripped bodily autonomy from half the population. It is a giant step towards fascism. What is the answer to such an outrage? It is not the Democratic Party, who couldn’t even rid us of the Hyde Amendment.
Abortion bans upheld: Our task–a new human society
June 24, 2022With the gutting of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court has taken away a human right and stripped bodily autonomy from half the population. It is a giant step towards fascism. What is the answer to such an outrage? It is not the Democratic Party, who couldn’t even rid us of the Hyde Amendment.
Film review: ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’
June 18, 2022Review of ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,’ states that it missed a great chance to be political in a meaningful way. Writer Katy Brand left out the hard part, creating characters who live in a safe world that doesn’t exist. You can’t comprehend prostitution, sex work and sex workers without talking about capitalism and how it alienates and destroys human relationships.
Workers self-organizing at Amazon
May 20, 2022Workers at Amazon’s JFK8 facility on Staten Island voted in the first union shop in Amazon’s history. By talking to and supporting each other, the workers were able to stand up to unionbusters and create a union by self-organization.
The French election
On April 24, Emmanuel Macron won a second five-year term as president of France. The rise of right-wing politicians posing as populists is a worldwide phenomenon aided by the neoliberal economic policies of centrist candidates such as Macron and Joe Biden
Avalanche of book bans
May 14, 2022As banning books that take up racism, feminism or LGBTQI+ subjects alarmingly escalates, students fight back, creating groups to read censored books.
How women’s trauma is used against them
May 11, 2022Review of ‘Sexy but Psycho’: Taylor is trying to change how institutions and the public view the effects of trauma. Drawing upon years as a feminist therapist in rape crisis, domestic violence, and child trafficking centers, she describes staff’s success calming distressed clients and helping them live their lives after abuse.
Review: ‘Sexy but Psycho: How the Patriarchy Uses Women’s Trauma Against Them’
April 29, 2022Taylor is trying to change how institutions and the public view the effects of trauma. Drawing upon years as a feminist therapist in rape crisis, domestic violence, and child trafficking centers, she describes staff’s success calming distressed clients and helping them live their lives after abuse.
Avalanche of book bans
April 16, 2022As banning books that take up racism, feminism or LGBTQI+ subjects alarmingly escalates, students fight back, creating groups to read censored books.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2022, Part Two
March 19, 2022Readers’ Views on Absolute Idea and Self-Liberation; Labor and Ecology; Avoiding Race; and Voices from behind Bars.
Youth in Action: January-February 2022
February 7, 2022Youth in Action on militant demonstrations against the military in Myanmar; students walked out of class at Chicago high school over racism; and the marking of the ninth anniversary of the gruesome murders in Paris of three Kurdish women activists.
Queer Notes: January-February 2022
Queer Notes on Nobody’s Darling, a new Queer bar in Chicago; the death of Rebecca Juro, radio host and advocate for Trans rights; LGBTQ+ reaction to the election of Gabriel Boric in Chile; and LGBTQ+ discrimination in South Korea.
Thoughts from the Outside: Homelessness & the needed humanism
February 5, 2022Faruq observes that the money going into the “homeless problem” is spent on mediators, not the people who are homeless, who must be related to as human beings, as part of setting afoot a new human being for the whole world.
Voices from the Inside Out: Criminal priorities
November 19, 2021Robert Taliaferro denounces the exacerbated inequalities of capitalism in the U.S.: while, in a Midwestern prison, hundreds of pounds of organically grown vegetables and fruits were allowed to rot, one out of five Black families face food insecurity.
Thoughts from the Outside: Whitewashing history
November 16, 2021The opposition to “critical race theory” is an old idea in new clothes, whitewashing U.S. history based on a mythical past. We can’t find a way out until we face the horrors of reality, not just in history but in life.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2021, part two
July 5, 2021Readers’ Views on Covid-19 in Prisons; Labor and Capitalism; Weeds and Flowers; Censorship; Politics of Snitching, and Voices from Behind Bars.
Los Angeles police insist on their right to kill
July 4, 2021Police brutality and murders have continued in the U.S. as District Attorneys rarely prosecute criminal police. Los Angeles is no exception where the Los Angeles Police Association and Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva are behind the petition to recall progressive LA County District Attorney George Gascon.
A Review: ‘Men Who Hate Women…’
Adele favorably reviews “Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth About Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All by Laura Bates. The book exposes the extreme damage caused to society by online misogynist communities, or the “manosphere.”
Editorial: Republicans savage democracy and history
July 1, 2021The worldwide protests over George Floyd’s murder and other protests of Republican-led policies led them to erode, stifle, obfuscate, erase from memory and repress democracy, passing laws to subvert elections and teaching. Republicans decided that democracy must be destroyed so that they can rule in perpetuity, representing the 1% in the name of white Christian America.
Colombian strikers reject dispossession and repression
June 29, 2021In-person report on the revolt in Colombia and the history of displacement, repression and revolt from which it flows.
Voices from the Inside Out: Targeting anti-racism
Black prisoner Robert Taliaferro critiques the attack on critical race theory, which he sees as helping “a nation to understand how far it has come, and how far it needs to grow, when it comes to issues of racial equality.”
Voices From the Inside Out: Debating Trumpism
February 2, 2021Prisoner Robert Taliaferro explores what it is like to argue with white racists immersed in Trumpist propaganda.
Review: ‘Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements’
A feminist review of “Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements.” The author, Charlene Carruthers, sees it as “a book for all people who are curious about and committed to the struggle for Black liberation.”
Black homes matter
January 30, 2021Report on “#Black Homes Matter” podcast with experts taking up how one in three Detroit families have lost their homes, often due to the fact that Detroit homes continued to be assessed as if no change in market value had occurred and that one of the highest property tax rates in the nation.