Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
The New York Review of Books
Food, housing, health—is what the revolution fought for. A drowsy old sugar island whose slaves’ descendants were now mostly farmers and fisher-folk became vibrant with people crowding revolutionary rallies to dance and chant slogans that sounded like reggae songs and were affixed to brightly colored signs around the island: “Forward Ever, Backward Never”; “It takes a revolution, to make a solution”; “Not a second, without the people.”
In Detroit, a recent study found that one in four Detroit properties have been subject to property tax foreclosure between 2011 and 2015—many of which may have been illegal. As downtown Detroit becomes increasingly gentrified, thousands of the city’s longtime residents—mostly African-American families—have lost their homes to foreclosure. For more, we speak with Bernadette Atuahene, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Listening to the testimonies of the aging A-bomb survivors (Hibakusha) and nuclear testing victims from the Marshall Islands and Australia, witnessing the emergence of new groups of in-vitro and 2 nd and 3 rd generation Hibakusha who are experiencing high levels of radiation-related health issues, one realizes with horror, that the 1945 atomic bombings are not a thing of the past, but an ongoing, still unfolding event.
Donald Trump's campaign and presidency have ushered in a tide of blatantly racist, classist, sexist and politically repressive nostalgia, encapsulated by his ominous slogan, "Make America Great Again." As Trump and his Republican allies work to dismantle civil, voting, reproductive and immigration rights, another vestige of the past -- anti-communism -- has begun to reappear.
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