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Claudia Rankine and the Racial Imaginary Institute

Steven W. Thrasher The Guardian
Claudia Rankine is extremely interested in whiteness, believing that “it’s important that people begin to understand that whiteness is not inevitable, and that white dominance is not inevitable.”

Fifty Years Later, Black Panthers’ Art Still Resonates

Angelica McKinley and Giovanni Russonello The New York Times
The Black Panther Party was founded 50 years ago in Oakland, on Oct. 15, 1966, and within two years it had chapters across the country. The New York Times is taking this opportunity to explore the Black Panthers’ legacy, through their iconic use of imagery and how they were covered in its own pages. The Black Panther Party is often associated with armed resistance, but one of the most potent weapons in its outreach was its artwork.

The Many Costs of Campus Carry

Minkah Makalani The New Yorker
Last June, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 11. The law, which went into effect in August, allows anyone with a license to carry a handgun to bring a handgun onto campus, and even into the classroom. Private universities and colleges can ban guns on their campuses, but public universities must comply.

Does Gareth Stedman Jones Inflate or Deflate Marx's Heritage?

Alex Callinicos International Socialism
The reviewer faults the book's author for deflating both Marx's and the author's own earlier stance as a creative British Marxist historian of the working class. While the reviewer grants that Jones offers solid accounts of developments in the British working class movement and in European radical politics that made the First International possible, he faults Jones for relying on a narrow reading of Marx's political economy at the expense of its revolutionary core.

Chimes of Freedom: The Politics of Bob Dylan’s Art

Stephan Schindler Political Animal Magazine
The Nobel Prize to Bob Dylan is the Nobel committee's first literature prize to a musician, an almost revolutionary break with tradition. Dylan’s originality as a surrealist lyricist was elevated by his engagement with profound social and political themes.

The Realest Thing You've Ever Seen

Robert Christgau Barnes & Noble Review
With this book, Springsteen has joined the ranks of those musicians who have also produced first-rate autobiographies. Indeed, the musician's biography has developed into its own literary genre. Long-time music critic Christgau offers a detailed appreciation of this important memoir.

Social Democracy and the Radical Left: Why We Continue to Build Left Unity

Kate Hudson Defend Democracy
Many on the left who have opted to join the Labour Party take the view that in addition to the struggle to restore the its original remit and ethos, it is also crucial for an alternative left politics to be expressed – anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist – as it has been in politics in Britain and globally, for a century or more

Two Federal Unions Cling to Trump, Despite Everything

Joe Davidson The Washington Post
If his racist, misogynistic, narcissistic campaign does win, two unions representing thousands of federal law enforcement officers will have been accomplices. Even as dozens of Republican stalwarts flee Trump, no longer able to stomach the latest vulgar demonstration of his character, the National Border Patrol Council and the National ICE Council remain in his throng.

With Help From ALEC and Bayer, Monsanto Is Poised to Take Over the Global Food System

Jamie Corey, Lisa Graves Alternet
A massive portion of the planet's seed stock could soon be in the hands of a single company. Bayer announced last month that it plans to purchase Monsanto, the controversial chemical corporation that has been sued around the world over its products. Nowadays, Bayer has a more consumer-friendly corporate reputation, but has a checkered past too.