Portside

Reader Comments: Daunte Wright Murder; Jim Crow Then and Now; Georgia voter suppression; Prince Philip, Cuba, New York Health Act, "Working-Class New York" Revisited conference, African American Women, Cold War, Ben Fletcher,Black Wobblies, more...

Reader Comments: Senators Against Minimum Wage; New Jim Crow - Voter Suppression; Capitol Rioters; Cornel West; Iran Nuke Deal; China; British Royal Racism; Student Activism Scholarships; International Women's Day history, resources; resources; more

In state after state, Republicans want to suppress voting because they know they are a minority party. It took decades to overcome the Jim Crow laws imposed at the end of Reconstruction. We can’t wait decades this time.

Loot the labor and very being of people of African descent. When they rise in response, resist, and give as little as possible. Then wait for things to “calm down” and take back as much as possible.

Anyone who imagined, after Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton, that the Republican right had maxxed out the possibilities for suppressing the votes of people unlikely to vote for its candidates was sorely mistaken.

As long as white children are constructed as innocent, we must continue to demand that children of color are as well. The idea of childhood innocence carries so much political force, we can’t allow it to be a whites-only club. We argue that black and brown children are as innocent as white children, we assume that childhood innocence is purely positive. The idea of childhood innocence itself is not innocent: It’s part of a 200-year-old history of white supremacy.

A Mississippi legislator called for lynchings on the same day that a black student was stabbed on campus. We are facing a crisis of racism.

Another Black man murdered by police. This time in Charlotte, North Carolina, one of the nation's 20 largest cities, The Queen City has tended to see itself as a beacon of New South moderation, but from slavery to segregation to police violence, it faces the same pressures as many other metropolises. Reporters on the ground say, that skepticism toward the police narrative on all counts is 'definitely in order.'

As a discipline, urban planning is dedicated to understanding and addressing the complex problems of the city. Yet public safety is rarely taken up as a sphere of concern. Rather than rationalizing people’s failed life outcomes in a way that blames individuals for poor life choices, urban planners must help hold society accountable for past failures to construct real opportunity structures.