Portside

The upsurge of protest in communities of color against the increasingly visible pattern of unrestrained police brutality revealed in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, combined with the rise of student activism over the climate on a variety of campuses in recent months have evoked memories of the civil rights movement in the 1950s.

From an interview with Mphatheleini Makaulele, an award-winning indigenous leader, farmer, and activist, and Director of Dzomo la Mupo, a community organization in rural South Africa. She is also part of the African Biodiversity Network.

Reader Comments: New Threat to Voting Rights before Supreme Court; The Portrayal of African Americans on Stage and Screen - Tonya Pinkins the Real Mother Courage; Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and Oregon Thugs; Left Gains Ground, Can It Hold; Trump and Fascism; Readers Respond to poem about Berlin Wall - The GDR, A Different Perspective; The Real Northern Student Movement; Shostakovich; Vivian Stromberg Presente.(Sorry for length, three weeks since Tidbits last appeared)

Never before the period 1918-60 had so many young people, from so many sections of society, danced so much. In Britain, as in the United States, dancing morphed from a craze to part of daily life. Before that, dancing as frequent social activity was reserved for the privileged. This changed followed the opening of specially built dance halls after World War I, influenced by US styles and catering to a lower-middle and working-class public with rising wages.

The combination of fed-up workers, motivated organizers, and political opportunity created a perfect storm for New York City's carwasheros and fast-food workers in the fight for $15.

The fate of police officers who kill often rests in the hands of the prosecutors they typically work alongside. A Guardian analysis reveals district attorneys cleared colleagues in more than 200 cases this year

Honesty may be poetry's best gift in the coming year, as these writers and others say what needs to be said about guns, anger, racism, family, and how we can think and feel more precisely and truthfully about one another.

Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera reminds Americans of a colonial and imperial past whose contours are still visible. Despite a stingy record for commutations and pardons, President Barack Obama could and should use his constitutional powers to commute Oscar’s punitive sentence and grant his immediate release.

Milwaukee's Turners -- founded by German refugees fleeing political repression and economic hard time in the late 1840's -- issued a statement denouncing racism and xenophobia in calls to exclude Muslim refugees from Wisconsin and called upon all Wisconsinites, including the vast majority of us who are of immigrant stock, to support humane and safe admission of our proportional share of refugees from Syria and other nations.

Patricia Highsmith published "The Price of Salt" in 1952 under the name "Claire Morgan," a pseudonym. Since then, the book has become a classic of lesbian literature. Filmmaker Todd Haynes has recently released "Carol," his film adaptation of the novel, to wide acclaim. John Copenhaver reconsiders the original novel, guiding us through this suspenseful tale.