Portside

1. Racial Justice Defunded
2. Suburban Women Support Abortion Rights
3. AIPAC Won’t Just Go Away
4. Insurers and Wall Street
5. Disabled Oppose Mask Ban
6. Whitewashing the Military-Industrial Complex
7. Fallacies of Racism in the Classrooms
8. Protesting for Palestine at the DNC
9. MAGA Meltdown Over Gus Walz
10. Dirty Olympics

Racial Justice Defunded

By Erin Aubry Kaplan
LA Progressive

In 2024, Black nonprofits say funders and foundations are in retreat. They are either reducing racial equity granting or watering down the language of Blackness and anti-racism or both. The fate of racial equity funding is at a serious crossroads. Without money and, more importantly, without the public interest in equity, the battle for racial justice would be severely marginalized and set back. 

Suburban Women Support Abortion Rights

By Nicole Karlis
Salon

About abortion rights, J.D. Vance said: “I think most suburban women care about the normal things that most Americans care about.” According to a poll, 53 percent of Republican women voters someway or strongly oppose leaving abortion rights up to the states. Seventy-four percent of urban and suburban women said they opposed leaving abortion rights to the states. 

AIPAC Won’t Just Go Away

By Akela Lacy
The Intercept

As the Democratic National Convention entered its final day in Chicago, the topic of the war on Gaza and the role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in elections had been largely absent from the main stage. Progressives held protests to hold convention delegates’ feet to the fire. And victims of AIPAC’s political campaigns were on hand to add their voices to the demonstrations.

Insurers and Wall Street

By Josh Freeman
Medicine and Social Justice

There is already evidence that the pressure from investors to go back to making not just great but obscene profit margins is affecting CIGNA, CVS/Aetna, and other insurers, who are denying more claims, making it even harder to get the care that you need. 

Disabled Oppose Mask Ban

By Julia Métraux
Mother Jones

Nassau County, on New York’s Long Island, became the first county in the US to ban the public wearing of masks. Disability Rights NY argues in a lawsuit that the ban as written is unconstitutional, and violates both the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, both key items of federal civil rights legislation, by denying disabled people access to their own communities.

Whitewashing the Military-Industrial Complex

By William Hartung
Responsible Statecraft

A new piece in The National Interest by Arthur Herman of the arms contractor-funded Hudson Institute, entitled “Three Cheers for the Military-Industrial Complex.” The article repeats many of the stock arguments of current advocates of higher Pentagon spending while throwing around misleading statistics and dubious assumptions along the way.

Fallacies of Racism in the Classroom

By Jennifer Patrice Sims
Truthout

Inaccurate ideas like “Immigrants don’t pay taxes,” when sales taxes are a thing in most states, are frustrating; but racist/sexist ideas like “Black women should stop having children,” especially when stated matter-of-factly to my face in the middle of class, represent one of the hardest parts of teaching.

Protesting for Palestine at the DNC

By Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!

After the Democratic National Committee denied their request for a Palestinian American speaker onstage, uncommitted delegates and their allies staged a sit-in outside the convention hall. They remained throughout the night. These are some of the voices from that sit-in, beginning with the co-founder of the Uncommitted movement, Abbas Alawieh.

MAGA Meltdown Over Gus Walz

By Christina Wyman
MSNBC

In a brief amount of time, Tim Walz has offered us a clear alternative to the subpar, and I dare say pathetic, “masculine” identities that have historically been available to boys and men. Walz and his wife, Gwen, raised a joyful son. The result of their raising him that way is a young man who knows that healthy boys aren’t afraid to cry and they’re not afraid to show love.

Dirty Olympics

By Mireia Garcés de Marcilla
London Review of Books

It is no surprise, and certainly not a coincidence, that non-Western athletes have been unfairly and disproportionately targeted by eligibility rules. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, all the athletes who have been banned or restricted from competing internationally as women (that we know about; it’s supposed to be confidential) have been from the Global South.