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'The Get Down' is the Queer Hip-Hop History We've Been Waiting For

Jamilah King Mic
Hip-hop has always been queer. Some of its very first hitmakers were part of, if not closely adjacent to, queer communities, and some of its first musical and technical innovations premiered at gay clubs. But it's not the history fans usually read.

Workers School Lifts Up Southern Organizing

Dante Strobino Workers World
The Southern Workers Assembly has been building the Southern Workers School as an important institution to train and develop rank-and-file workers to organize the South. The school has held eight sessions since March tackling issues and basic organizing skills such as learning how to map your workplace and tips for one-on-one discussions with co-workers.

Uber and Lyft Want to Replace Public Buses

Joshua Brustein Chicago Tribune
In Uber's early days, it said it wanted to be "everyone's private driver." Now the company and its main U.S. competitor, Lyft, are playing around with the idea of becoming the bus driver, too.

Haecceity

Joshua Clover Red Epic
Haecceity is derived from a medieval philosophical word meaning the "property" of something that makes it unique to itself--in the case of Joshua Clover's poem, the meaning of the word and principle of "Revolution."

For Unions, Sometimes a Lockout Is Better Than a Strike

Peter Olney Labor Notes
Whether you’re expecting a strike or lockout, the steps are similar—and there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Union-busting law firms pass around the same employer playbook. Our side has rich experience in preparation. Ask for advice and help from combatants who’ve been through a strike or a lockout and emerged victorious.

Homage to E.P. Thompson

Joseph White New Politics
Labor historian E.P. Thompson is perhaps best known for his monumental and path-breaking work, The Making of the English Working Class. The collected essays reviewed here, many either out-of-print or difficult to obtain, were written between 1955 and 1963. They show Thompson as also a dedicated educator of workers, a sharp polemicist, a skilled political theorist and a tireless agitator for peace, against nuclear weapons and for a rebirth of the socialist project.

‘White Trash’ — The Original Underclass

Alec MacGillis ProPublica
Much of the political debate this election season concerns who will win the support of working class white voters. At the same time, as Alec MacGillis notes in this review of two new books on the history and present conditions of this sector of the population, much of this discourse strains under the influence of condescension, sentimentalism, and a host of explicitly or implicitly stated biases.

Free-From Foods Have Become a Movement

Lauren R. Hartman Food Processing Magazine
More ingredients are designed to accommodate free-from foods, a hot trend for 2016 as Americans continue to be affected by food allergens and intolerances.