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Detroit's Downfall: Beyond the Myth of Black Misleadership

Marilyn Katz In These Times - Web Only Features
How federal policy and Big Auto drove black blight and white flight. Detroit's first black mayor, Coleman Young, and those that followed may not have known it, but Detroit was already on life support and they were the hospice team.

Media Bits & Bytes - I Spy Edition

Portside
WikiLeaks Rescues Edward Snowden (Literally!); Correcting Bruce Sterling's Revisionist Cyber-History; Lavabit Email Encryption Service, Bites the Dust; Turf Wars in the Internet Underworld; Pirate Bay Turns Ten!

Fear and Rewriting Trayvon: Educator Thoughts

Mica Pollock Teaching Tolerance - Blog Prejudice Reduction
Research shows that to prevent next harms to young people, it helps to analyze individual tragedies as part of patterns we can counteract collectively. FBI data shows African Americans comprise around half of all youth arrests for murder. Conclusion: African American youth commit around 2 percent of homicides in the United States--you'd think it was 92 percent from media coverage.

Fear and Rewriting Trayvon: Educator Thoughts

Mica Pollock Teaching Tolerance - Blog Prejudice Reduction
Research shows that to prevent next harms to young people, it helps to analyze individual tragedies as part of patterns we can counteract collectively. FBI data shows African Americans comprise around half of all youth arrests for murder. Conclusion: African American youth commit around 2 percent of homicides in the United States--you'd think it was 92 percent from media coverage.

Bayard Rustin: '63 March on Washington; His Role and Today

David McReynolds Portside
David McReynolds, co-worker with March on Washington organizer Bayard Rustin, in the War Resisters League, remembers the march, the country and Washington, D.C. in 1963. The slogan was "Jobs and Freedom." The link was very deliberate - for what was freedom without a job? He is also critical of Rustin's rightward turn after the march and his support of the war in Vietnam.

Israel Everyday Racism - and How American Jews Turn a Blind Eye to It

Larry Derfner The Jewish Daily Forward
Israeli author Larry Derfner says American Jewish community must refocus anti-Semitism outrage on it's own "dirty laundry." The ADL goes after anti-Semitism with a fist, it goes after Israeli racism with a sigh. When the Jewish state is this riddled with racism, its advocates abroad should be a little less outraged over the offenses of gentiles. They should be a little more humble - and a lot less hypocritical.

The Workers Defense Project, a Union in Spirit

Steven Greenhouse New York Times
The Workers Defense Project, founded in 2002, has emerged as one of the nation's most creative organizations for immigrant workers. Its focus is the Texas construction industry, which employs more than 600,000 workers. It is one of 225 worker centers nationwide, aiding immigrant workers. Workers Centers show what is possible, and may help infuse new life into the labor movement.

Landmark Decision: Judge Rules NYPD Stop and Frisk Practices Unconstitutional, Racially Discriminatory

Center for Constitutional Rights
In a landmark decision today, a federal court found the New York City Police Department's highly controversial stop-and-frisk practices unconstitutional. Today is a victory for all New Yorkers. After more than 5 million stops conducted under the current administration, hundreds of thousands of them illegal and discriminatory, the NYPD has finally been held accountable. It is time for the City to stop denying the problem and work with the community to fix it.