Review: ‘The 1619 Project’

May 14, 2022

‘The 1619 Project’ tackles U.S. history since the first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia—from multiple perspectives. Each essay is grounded in original sources, scholarly works, interviews and oral histories. Historical events, photographs of ordinary African-Americans and poetry surround each essay, adding a human touch.

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Avalanche of book bans

April 16, 2022

As banning books that take up racism, feminism or LGBTQI+ subjects alarmingly escalates, students fight back, creating groups to read censored books.

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Teachers fight for health

February 7, 2022

Account of the struggle between the Chicago Teachers’ Union and Mayor Lori Lightfoot over returning to remote learning while COVID-19 infections are surging, from Jan. 4 to 12.

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Jeep pollutes Detroit

Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler before merging with Peugeot, practices environmental racism with increased emissions from the Mack plant in a Black Detroit neighborhood, which it “offsets” in a less polluted suburban area.

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Agony of Afghanistan

Half a year after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the Taliban purges women from public life, brutally murders its opponents and has forced thousands to go underground or leave their country. Women have been especially creative in the widespread, multidimensional resistance.

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Readers’ Views: January-February 2022, Part One

February 5, 2022

Readers’ Views on: Labor: Teachers Face Politician Bosses; Labor: Automation and the New Humanism; Socialism, Statism and Philosophy; Fake ‘Right to Life’; Eviction Tsunami; Agribusiness vs. Planet; Afghanistan Exploited; Taiwan Faces China and U.S.; Desmond Tutu; With the Migrant Caravan; U.S. vs. Palestinians

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Readers’ Views: November-December 2021, Part One

November 19, 2021

Readers’ Views on Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives 2021-2022; Labor shortage?; Workers as reason; Support El Milagro workers!; Detroit women’s march; Chapelle’s sexism; Afghans dead and buried; Betrayal of Haitians; and Which side are you on?

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Readers’ Views: September-October 2021

September 21, 2021

Readers’ Views on: Solidarity with Palestinians; Attacks on Democracy; Iranian Revolt; Musicians’ Labor; Damage to Homeless; Covid-19 Killers; Trump and Taliban; Far Right in Portland; Critical Race Theory; Prisoners under Fire; Voices from Behind Bars; Only the Dialectic Can Save Us

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Politics erases science

The City of Detroit COVID-19 vaccination accessibility is far superior to the surrounding suburbs, yet Detroit’s vaccination rate is only 28% compared to 40-50% in nearby suburbs. Why?

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Stop illegal evictions!

Detroit Eviction Defense (DED) and Detroit Will Breathe/Black Lives Matter held a rally of over 100 people near Detroit Police Headquarters on April 10 to stop illegal evictions perpetrated by the police.

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Pandemic prompts rethinking education

January 31, 2021

The pandemic challenges assumptions about the purpose of schooling, creating an opportunity to address basic issues, including ways to help students reflect and build on what they have learned, in school or out, and to figure out how to allow those experiences to “count.”

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Black homes matter

January 30, 2021

Report 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.

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Pandemic changes education

January 14, 2021

The pandemic challenges assumptions about the purpose of schooling, creating an opportunity to address basic issues, including ways to help students reflect and build on what they have learned, in school or out, and to figure out how to allow those experiences to “count.”

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Detroit voters speak truth to power

November 26, 2020

People in Detroit, Mich., involved in counting the vote of the 2020 presidential election speak for themselves of their pride in fighting Republican intimidation and their anger and determination to keep fighting against racism.

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Detroit teachers vote safety strike

August 29, 2020

The Detroit Federation of Teachers voted to authorize a safety strike, which means they will not teach face-to-face but are willing to work remotely. Most parents, students, and educators want to return to classroom learning, but COVID-19 forces everyone into choices unthinkable six months ago, choices that could mean life or death.

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Detroit dispatch #9: Children learning during the pandemic

July 25, 2020

Educator Susan Van Gelder breaks down the difficulties and political realities of what happens to school children, teachers, and others trying to educate children during the crisis caused by the pandemic and Donald Trump’s and Betsy DeVos’ attempts to destroy public education.

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Detroit dispatch: ‘Mourning delayed’

July 1, 2020

Detroit is still struggling with the pandemic as water is still shut off to over 3,000 residents. Funerals and hospitalizations are the most difficult for families because they can’t be together in a meaningful way.

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Detroit dispatch #7: art, protests and evictions

June 29, 2020

Detroit dispatch #7 saw a multiplicity of daily Black Lives Matter protests, in both city and suburbs, illuminating revelations of and resistance against systemic racism. Art flourishes while evictions loom, Fiat-Chrysler workers walk out while speed-up of workers continues and social distancing and mask wearing fall by the wayside.

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Detroit Dispatch #6: Hospitalizations, funerals and the need for justice

May 26, 2020

In Detroit most people have been practicing social distancing, enforced by the police who recovered from their own COVID-19 outbreak. The most difficult situations are hospitalizations and funerals, and sadly, Detroit’s “Right to Literacy” case was short-lived, overturned by the full panel of judges. Plaintiffs are regrouping to resume the struggle.

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Detroit Dispatch #5: Education and individualism

May 14, 2020

Susan Van Gelder reports on Detroit including: a Supreme Court ruling saying Detroit children have been “deprived of access to literacy”; how children are faring in obtaining internet access so they participate in distant learning; and how “individualism” needs to be framed in relationship to society as a whole.

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Detroiters dis rally

April 29, 2020

Most Detroiters were dismayed by the “reopen” rally at the state capital, where hundreds of people got out of their cars to flout social distancing guidelines, scream conspiracy theory propaganda, and flaunt assault weapons.

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Detroit dispatch #3: a pall over the city

April 27, 2020

Two weeks of chilly weather—including a little late-spring snow—combined with increasingly dangerous Presidential “leadership,” a quarter of Michigan’s workers claiming unemployment, and more deaths of friends and relatives has cast a pall over the city and state.

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Detroit Dispatch #2: Easter Sunday

April 13, 2020

As elsewhere, in Detroit numbers of cases and deaths continue to rise, the lockdown is intensified, school is on hold, Black citizens are sick and dying in large numbers, and unemployment grows.

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COVID-19 Detroit dispatch

March 21, 2020

Most Detroiters are adjusting to new habits of sanitation and social distancing required because of the coronavirus, but the response of city government has been mixed.

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Art out of genocide

January 21, 2020

Review of the multimedia exhibit: “Stories Never Told: Yemen’s Crises and Renaissance,” in which Yemeni artists and hundreds of others spoke truth to power through their art.

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Green Detroit!

Susan Van Gelder reports on a rally of youth, workers, and native people in Detroit demanding ”Make Detroit the Engine of a Green New Deal.”

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Pride confronts Nazis

June 26, 2019

Participants at Detroit’s Motor City Pride March were shocked and horrified to confront 15 armed Nazis protected by a cordon of mostly Black police officers.

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