Trayvon Martin, Race and Anthropology

Leith Mullings Anthropology News
Those of us who research race, racism and inequality must continue to name racism without sugarcoating it; to analyze the ways in which racism is maintained and produced inside and outside of our discipline. Most important, we need to interrogate the new hidden forms of structural racism and deconstruct, in the best sense of the word, the ways in which racism expresses itself in the age of "post-racial color blindness."

A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold

David Kocieniewski The New York Times
By controlling warehouses, pipelines and ports, banks gain valuable market intelligence, investment analysts say. That, in turn, can give them an edge when trading commodities. In the stock market, such an arrangement might be seen as a conflict of interest — or even insider trading. But in the commodities market, it is perfectly legal. In 2011, an internal Goldman memo suggested that speculation by investors accounted for about a third of the price of a barrel of oil.

Farmworkers Come to Capitol Hill Seeking Safeguards

Earth Justice
Most workers in the U.S. look to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for standards to protect them from exposure to hazardous chemicals. Protection for farmworkers from pesticides is left to the EPA's authority under the Worker Protection Standard of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act ("FIFRA"), a standard that is far more lenient than OSHA rules and is fundamentally inadequate.

North Carolina's Moral Mondays

Ari Berman The Nation
An inspiring grassroots movement is fighting back against the GOP’s outrageous budget cuts and attacks on democracy.