Portside

There are a lot of root causes to Puerto Rico’s debt. But one overarching part of this narrative is the fact that Puerto Rico has been a colony of the United States since 1898.

Behind the three monsters featured in this book loom a vast, homicidal military empire, piloted by capitalist ideologues, who did not value human life, to put it mildly, especially if that life belonged to black, brown or communist people.

A half-century after it fed the Pinochet regime’s bonfire of heretical books, a celebrated “handbook of decolonization” has new relevance to a country on the brink of a momentous choice.

“In this society, safety and security will not be premised on violence or the threat of violence; it will be based on a collective commitment to guaranteeing the survival and care of all peoples.”

U.S. representatives have introduced two bills that would finally end Puerto Rico’s subordinate Commonwealth status. But continued colonial rule may be the only option Congress seriously considers.

Neoliberal counterinsurgency, an extreme form of waging repression through private means and for private interests, is subtler than judicial repression, and more difficult to trace and hold accountable.

I have lived it and I have suffered through it and I know that when people say “get in line,” there is no line. I am here to try to change the system so that people have a pathway and if they choose to become a citizen, they can.

The United States will be a multiracial democracy – a democracy in which people of color have full democratic rights — or it won’t be a democracy at all.

Only in the U.S.A. does a large section of the population think owning an assault weapon is a sacred right, but wearing a mask in a pandemic is a restriction on liberty.

Recent Black Lives Matter protests have sparked conversations about how to act in better solidarity with the Black struggle. How to move beyond rhetorical statements? How to address anti-Blackness among non-Black Arab communities?