US Policing Enforces White Supremacy

Police treatment of two CNN reporters at a George Floyd protest shows the US has opposite systems of justice – one for white people, one for people of color

African Liberation Day

This Pan-Africanism is, at its core, a people’s movement for the liberation of humanity from the exploitation of capitalism and imperialism.

Democratize the Crisis

This strategy of economic and social reconstruction necessarily involves not only equitable treatments of gender exclusion and reproduction, but social control or democratic governance for innovation, manufacturing, and the core “commanding heights”

The U.S. Can’t “Win” an Arms Race With Russia and China

Marshall Billingslea, Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control.
Trump’s childish nuclear gambling and obsessive jingoism have combined in a strategy that could end arms control as we know it. Trump is seeking to end the Obama-era nuclear arms treaty with Russia, and for election purposes, blame it on the Chinese.

Puerto Rico: Precursor to Trump’s Pandemic Response

Carmen Yulín Cruz, Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz talks of Trump’s criminal response to Puerto Rico’s hurricanes as a precursor to this moment. Trump politically disappeared the victims of Irma and Maria in 2017; and is trying to do the same to victims of Covid-19.

Friday Nite Videos | May 29, 2020

Rep. Al Green Calls for 'War on Racism' in Wake of George Floyd Death. Da 5 Bloods | Spike Lee Movie. Sarah Cooper Trump Impersonation. The Legal Marijuana Industry Is Rigged | Hasan Minhaj. How Coronavirus Spreads Outdoors vs. Indoors.

Officer Charged in Death of George Floyd

"Don't think for a minute that Derek Chauvin would have been arrested if people in Minneapolis weren't standing up and fighting."

Trump’s Warped Definition of Free Speech

Trump is seeking to build social-media companies such as Twitter and Facebook into part of an authoritarian infrastructure that amplifies his power and silences the opposition.

Why Trump and the GOP Don’t Want Mail Voting

The strongest tool Americans have to prevent Republican attempts at voter suppression is mail-in voting

Mourning and Organizing

Collective grief, from Minneapolis to vigils for victims of COVID-19, is inseparable from rebellion
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Culture

books

Unstable Histories

Steffan Blayney Radical Philosophy
In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, radical psychologists and psychoanalysts sought to transform their profession. This book shows how those efforts intersected with the radical cultural and political movements of the day.

film

Spike Lee and the Battlefield of American History

Regie Ugwu The New York Times
Spike Lee has spent nearly four decades and more than 30 films reckoning with the jagged and brutal course of history. Now, in the middle of a global calamity, and with a new film, “Da 5 Bloods", he revisits the Vietnam War.

food

America’s First Connoisseur

Edward White The Paris Review
Jefferson brought James Hemings to France and gave him a first-rate culinary education with some of Europe's most illustrious chefs. His legacy thrives today in kitchens across America.

poetry

So Much for America

Amaud Jamaul Johnson Southern Review
In a time when the murder of African Americans in plain sight terrifies the news, Poet Amaud Jamaul Johnson captures the feeling of capture.

Labor

labor

United Steelworkers on Solidarity and Justice for Black Lives

United Steel Workers
The murder of George Floyd, which was preceded by the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor illustrates the devastating impact racism. At moments like these, we in the labor movement cannot be silent and must express our outrage.

labor

The Case For Sectoral Bargaining Is Now Stronger Than Ever

Hamilton Nolan In These Times
Even if sectoral bargaining would not magically produce perfect unions with perfect solidarity, it would give unions the access they need to build those perfect unions by creating sector-wide labor groups.

Friday nite video

video

Da 5 Bloods | Spike Lee Movie

From Academy Award® Winner Spike Lee comes a New Joint: the story of four African-American Vets who return to Vietnam,  confronted by the lasting ravages of The Immorality of The Vietnam War.

video

The Legal Marijuana Industry Is Rigged | Hasan Minhaj

As rich, white business owners monopolize newly-available marijuana licenses, states continue to arrest people of color for cannabis crimes, even after it’s legal. This leads Hasan to ask: if cannabis can’t be legalized fairly, should it be legalized at all?