Portside

Universities giant and small, public and private, bring African-American men to campus at grotesque levels to earn the school millions in football and basketball revenues. Stories about academic freedom and free speech have been appearing in newspapers more frequently over the last few weeks. And curiously enough political actors on and off campus who traditionally have been least likely to be concerned about these subjects are becoming its major advocates.

Reader Comments: Donald Trump - Anti-Muslim policies are steeped in racism, anti-communism and fascism; Chicago - CITYWIDE WALK OUT PART 2!! Rahm Emanuel & Anita Alvarez Must Resign - Friday, Dec. 18; End of Jewish History?; The Wal-Mart Effect; Kohler strike; Barbara Ehrenreich, working class, race, class, and privilege; Lincoln Brigade; Climate Change and Oil Wars; Cuba; The Big Short; Multicultural trip to Cuba; No Tidbits for next three weeks

Using original source material Brian Dolinar arrives at a different explanation of why the popular front of 30s and 40s broke up, than that of mainstream media of that time, and since. The key agents of disunity were not the Communists but the manifold assault by the rightwing establishment. The US ruling class used opinion-molding Red-scare and Red-baiting campaigns in the mass media and culture. A lesson for today with the re-growth of the radical right.

One book that's making it onto lots of people's best-of-the-year lists is Counternarratives, a collection of stories and novellas by John Keene. It's an extraordinary collection that uses historical fiction to make visible the human beings that racism and imperialism have pretended were not there. Not only that, but, as McDowell shows us in his review, this is a set of awfully good stories, too.

UNITE HERE's Culinary Union Calls for Immediate Contract Negotiations. We voted yes to make our jobs good jobs with fair wages and job security, said Celia Vargas, a housekeeper at the property. We won that vote, so our voices and votes should be respected.

The pair talked pot, poverty, guns, social justice, universal healthcare and more in a wide-ranging conversation at Killer Mike's Atlanta barber shop.

In a united voice, Puerto Rican society has called on President Obama to release López Rivera. Members of the Puerto Rican diaspora and others in the US have also joined this campaign. As part of this growing support, New York attorneys Juan Cartagena and Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan accompanied attorney and activist Jan Susler, who represents López Rivera, on a legal visit in November. The attorneys' last image of the political prisoner made a deep impression.

Republicans, voters and yes, Democrats are to blame for making Muslims feel like second-class citizens

At the launch of the Stuart Hall Foundation in London, journalist Gary Younge spoke of our present, stating, "If politics is the art of the possible then radical politics, the kind of politics that Stuart espoused, must at very least engage with, showcase and promote new possibilities. And right now we are in need of imagining and articulating new possibilities."

The Seattle City Council voted 8-0 Monday afternoon to enact an ordinance giving taxi, for-hire and Uber drivers the ability to unionize. The backdrop for the council’s vote is a nationwide conversation about what role governments should play in the country’s growing app-powered gig economy.