Portside

Dolezal’s primary offense lies not in the silly proffering of a false biography but in knowing this ugly history and taking advantage of the reasons that she would, at least among black people, be taken at her word regarding her identity.

There was no one like Ornette, this brilliant musical philosopher and singular voice who forged a path of revolt in a time when racism and inequity coursed through the nation unashamed. His musical journey inspired new generations of free improvisers and experimental composers and demonstrated that undeterred vision can conquer the status quo.

Black Friday for tech industry; Cable News for sale; Mud PACs; Digital union; Harvard’s Havana termite; Life after Snowden

Today, things are as tense on the island as they have been in years. Within days, the Dominican government is expected to round up Haitians — or, really, anyone black enough to be Haitian — and ship them to the border, where they will likely be expelled. The government has described it, in terms chillingly reminiscent of the Holocaust, as a "cleansing" of the country's immigration rolls.

Amid all that’s clearly wrong with Indiana’s current direction under right wing Republican rule, Quigley ( If We Can Win Here: The New Front Lines of the Labor Movement, Cornell University Press, 2015) finds cause for optimism. “Despite a state political climate that proved inhospitable to labor in the right-to-work debate, private sector workers are launching union organizing campaigns across the state’s capital,” and in smaller towns as well.

The specific reforms demanded by Greece's creditors today are a peculiar blend. They aim to reduce the state; in this sense they are “market-oriented”. Yet they are the furthest thing from promoting decentralization and diversity. On the contrary they work to destroy local institutions and to impose a single policy model across Europe, with Greece not at the trailing edge but actually in the vanguard. In this other sense the proposals are totalitarian . . .

It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. — Attributed to Henry Ford

Nobody expects an internship to make one rich — but for many, the entire experience has become simply unattainable.

We are not making the progress that Dr. King called us to achieve in the 1960s. It is time to declare once and for all: Black lives matter: on the streets, and on the job too.

Cries of “this means war!” echoed throughout Chicago’s financial district this Tuesday as teachers demonstrated against the Board of Education ahead of union contract negotiations this summer.