Of course it’s the same struggle: “It’s the same people,” says Saru Jayaraman, the director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. “Young people working in fast food are the same people as those who are the victims of police brutality. So the Walmart folks are talking about #blacklivesmatter and the #blacklivesmatter folks are talking about taking on capital.”
Op-Ed by food journalist and columnist Mark Bittman: "What makes this an exciting time is that we are beginning to see links among issues that we have overlooked for far too long."
Food service workers at Harvard are members of UNITE-HERE Local 26. After two years, they earn $21.73 per hour on average, while for many years the DoubleTree hotel in Cambridge owned by the university non-union housekeepers earned only about $15 an hour. Last year, housekeepers at the hotel mounted a push to join Local 26 as well. Hilton, which owns the DoubleTree chain bumped salaries to $18 an hour— but has so far managed to avoid a unionized workforce.
The boundary separating white Anglo upscale school districts from the burgeoning non-white and non-Anglo populations in downscale communities is fast becoming a flashpoint inside America.
African-Americans are disproportionately likely to be poor, they are only a quarter of Americans living in poverty; whites make up about 41% of the poor. Those white Americans who don't want to help the poor because they'd be helping people of another race are actually screwing over white people big time. The wealth gap between /white and African-American families tripled between 1980 and 2009.
African-Americans are disproportionately likely to be poor, they are only a quarter of Americans living in poverty; whites make up about 41% of the poor. Those white Americans who don't want to help the poor because they'd be helping people of another race are actually screwing over white people big time.The wealth gap between /white and African-American families tripled between 1980 and 2009.
African-Americans are disproportionately likely to be poor, they are only a quarter of Americans living in poverty; whites make up about 41% of the poor. Those white Americans who don't want to help the poor because they'd be helping people of another race are actually screwing over white people big time. The wealth gap between /white and African-American families tripled between 1980 and 2009.
We've all been waiting for the grand jury's decision, not because most of us expected an indictment. District Attorney Robert P. McCulloch's convoluted statement resembled a victory speech. For a grand jury to find no probable cause even on the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter is a stunning achievement...If the police contributed to the "epidemic" of violent deaths, a case can be made for the complete withdrawal of the police from Black and Brown neighborhoods.
Reader Comments - Darren Wilson Acquittal - Reader Responses; Black Friday Protests; Election Lessons for the Left; Immigration Reform; Ursula K. Le Guin, Pension Reform(?); Water Grab; Facebook Drivers Vote Union; Berlin Wall's Fall - Reflections from the GDR; Israel Lobby and Ukrainian Fascists; Mexico - 43 students murdered; Israel, Palestine and Rasmeah Odeh; The Selfless Gene;
Announcement - New Politics Forum on the Environmental Crisis - New York - Dec. 9
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