Portside

This piece was originally performed on July 6, 2016 at Sidewalk Cafe in New York City as part of a show by Jamie Kilstein & The Agenda.

#FreeOscarLopez: “It is now or never and President Obama holds all the cards.”

As the African-born mother of US-born black children, I am deeply aware of the impact African American pop culture has on them. I freely acknowledge that African American pop culture contributes significantly to the ways in which my children see their world and how they develop a sense of identity. My son immerses himself in hip-hop. My other daughter watches dancer WilldaBeast videos. For Ojurere, it is Beyoncé all the way.

When asked if they ever went without eating for an entire day because they lacked enough money for food, 7% of students at two-year colleges and 5% of students at four-year colleges said yes.

This memoir is last book written by the late Benedict Anderson, whose Imagined Communities (1983) was a major contribution to the modern understanding of the nation-state and of nationalism. As Joshua Kurlantzick shows, Anderson's life was as rich as his scholarship was provocative.

The 700,000 member Communications Workers of America has endorsed Secretary Hillary Clinton. They had formerly endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders. They wrote, We know that elections are about choices. the contrast between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, couldn't be greater."

"Ludlow: Greek Americans in the Colorado Coal War" and "The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble" -- two new documentaries, both of them stunning not only in their execution but in their implications, raise all the critical issues about the worth of human life. One takes place in the violent coal mines of the Southwest a century ago, and another takes place today in many locales leading up to appearances in concert halls all over the world.

Race and police violence – doing the math; Toxic testosterone; Hunting Muslims; BLM data; Libraries are back

People for Bernie’s statement on Bernie Sanders endorsement

 Sanders was clear early on that his campaign aimed to fortify a grassroots movement, not himself as a candidate. He identified the platform as a way to register the Democratic Party’s commitment to a progressive agenda—a kind of peace treaty between the DNC and the political revolution, but also an historical marker of dissent from the party’s neoliberal agenda.