Information is power. Our mission at Portside is to seek out and to provide information that empowers you -- that empowers the left. Every day we search hundreds of sources to connect you with the most interesting, striking and useful material. Just once a year we appeal to you to contribute to make it possible to continue this work. Please help.

 

Archives

For posts before June 2012, please follow these links to our archives.

Nominative Determinism--A found poem*

Ellaraine Lockie Poetrysuperhighway.com
Nominative determinism, explains poet Ellaraine Lockie about a certain president, is the hypothesis that people gravitate towards areas of work that fit their name.

Walking the Tightrope: Latin America’s Pink Tide

Frederick B. Mills New Politics
The lessons of the Pink Tide of leftist and leftish governments in Latin America that marked much of the period following 1998 but were undone by rightist movements, US meddling, world economic crisis and internal weaknesses are aptly told....

Why Caste? And Why Now?

Zillah Eisenstein Portside
Wilkerson, in this new book, asks us to rethink our current discourse on race. Reviewer Eisenstein is skeptical, and finds the book's argument unconvincing.

Bacurau Is the Most Must-See Movie Since Parasite

Eileen Jones Jacobin
Movies about class and inequality have made it into the global mainstream recently and are picking up major prizes. The genre-busting, edge-of-your-seat Brazilian film Bacurau is the latest. You've gotta see it.

On Media and the Idea of Advocacy

Alicia Kennedy AliciaKennedySubstack
The thing about food is that everyone eats, whether it’s written about or not; knowing how to cook can be political because in times of economic uncertainty, it can sustain you not just with nourishment, but with the money needed to survive.

A Fragment of the Quilt

Geoffrey Philp Rattle
“After living 60 years…as a Black man from Jamaica,” writes poet Geoffrey Philp, “a DNA test … [revealed} my Jewish ancestry. I am astounded by the endurance of Nazi propaganda and the need for constant vigilance.”