Paper Crowns
American Poetry Review
“All blindness and much worse,” writes Illinois poet Joanne Diaz of the invisibility of Black life to oblivious white people.
Interview: 'White People Are So Fragile, Bless 'Em' … Meet Rhiannon Giddens, Banjo Warrior
The Guardian
While much has changed in the 40 years that Rhiannon Giddens has been alive, her latest album, Freedom Highway, is a powerful testament to the inequality and injustice that remain. Other songs span various aspects of African American history.
'Black Identity Extremists' Report Is FBI's Cointelpro 2.0
Decades ago, the FBI targeted Black activists who were fighting for equality — now, this sad chapter of history is repeating itself.
Creating a Viable Black Left: Sixteen Lessons Learned in Building the Radical Black Congress
The Black Commentator
A viable, active left-wing formation is very much needed in Black America. A formation that has a grassroots membership rather than just a non-profit staff; a formation that is militant, if not audacious, challenging racial capitalism and imperialism
NFL Owners Seek to Outlaw Protest - Shortsighted Anthem Policy Spits in the Face of American Ideals
Chicago Tribune
Billionaire NFL owners seek to outlaw protest and civil liberties. The move comes after players across the league have locked arms, raised fists, and knelt during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.
Can My Children Be Friends with White People?
New York Times
As against our gauzy national hopes, I will teach my boys to have profound doubts that friendship with white people is possible. When they ask, I will teach my sons that their beautiful hue is a fault line. Spare me platitudes of how we are all the same on the inside. I first have to keep my boys safe, and so I will teach them before the world shows them this particular brand of rending, violent, often fatal betrayal.
Year One: When Black Women Lead
The New York Review of Books
Black women have long known that America’s destiny is inseparable from how it treats them and the nation ignores this truth at its peril.
Tidbits - November 9, 2017 - Reader Comments: Election Day Victories - Lessons Going Forward; Painters Union Supports Nicaraguan Workers; Why Soviet Union Collapsed?; Lots of Announcements; and more....
Portside
Reader Comments: It's a New Beginning - Election Day Victories; AFL-CIO Delegates Support #BlackLivesMatter; Lessons for Democrats; Painters Union Support Nicaraguan Workers and their Families; Readers Debate: Why Soviet Union Collapsed; Workers' Tips; Lots of Announcements: Los Angeles, Pasadena, Culver City, New York, and Cuba; and more....
books
Police are the Problem, Not the Solution
The Indypendent
The author argues convincingly and in graphic detail that the problem with police in civil society is not just the lack of adequate training, police diversity, increased militarization or even police methods such as the routine brutalization of many people of color, but the dramatic and unprecedented expansion in the last four decades of the too-accepted social role of police. The problem, the sociologist-author insists, is policing itself.
Eight-Year-Old Football Players Kneel During National Anthem Amid St. Louis Protests
Washington Post
Amid protesting in St. Louis over the acquittal of a white police officer accused of murdering a black man after a car chase, a youth football team decided to take a knee during a pregame rendition of the national anthem. The team's coach said that the decision was made by the eight-year-olds following "a good teaching moment" about what was happening in the nearby city, and why.
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