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What Juneteenth Looks Like for Prisoners

Antoine Davis and Darrell Jackson Waging Nonviolence
As Black men in prison, we live the tension between celebrating the abolition of slavery and struggling inside the system that replaced it.

This Week in People’s History, June 20 . . .

Portside
President Reagan giving a speech about smuggling arms to the Contras
CIA impunity in 1988. U.S. imperialism's baby steps in 1898. Free speech for Nazis in 1978. U.S. responsibility for Vietnam War in 1971. Smallpox-infected presents in 1763. Voting wrongs, not rights, in 2013. Haymarket prisoners pardoned in 1893.

The Colonial Origins of the UChicago Police

Julian Go Rampart
Modern policing has its origin in colonial violence. The University of Chicago has long played a part in cultivating, promoting, spreading, and normalizing the tools of such state violence.

Mandela’s Black Marxism

An interview with Paul S. Landau by Chris Webb Africa is a Country
Nelson Mandela is deified everywhere. But typically missing is an account of his early years, when he insisted that Marxism be responsive to South African conditions.

Juneteenth, Explained

Fabiola Cineas Vox
The holiday’s 158-year history holds a lot of meaning in the fight for Black liberation today.

AI, Job Loss, and Productivity Growth

Dean Baker CEPR
The moral of the story is that there is nothing about AI technology that should lead to mass unemployment and inequality. If those are outcomes, it will be the result of how we structured the rules, not the technology itself.