Walter Dean Myers was lauded for his work, which often centered on young black people struggling in tough environments. Myers, a best-selling children's book author whose crystalline prose often depicted the gritty lives of young people, died on Tuesday in Manhattan.
Reader Comments - Iraq; Ruby Dee; Cecily McMillan and Wall Street; Ukraine; Detroit Shuts Off Water to Thousands; Working Families Party; Civil Rights Movement; Children's Literature and Diversity; Common Core; Testing; Support Philly Jewish school teachers; Gabriel Kolko; Hatriot Politics and Las Vegas Killers; Argentina and US Banks; The Presbyterian Church and Divestment; Net Neutrality; Historic Slave Cemetery Bulldozed In Houston; Freedom Summer 2014
Kids' books are missing the diversity of modern America. In children's books, it can be easier to find talking pandas than characters of color. Only 6 percent of children's books published in 2012 featured diverse characters.
Japanese-American activist and Malcolm X Ally, Yuri Kochiyama, has died at the age of 93. She spent two years in an internment camp and helped win reparations for Japanese-Americans. She was with Malcolm X when he was assassinated. She inspired generations. Tributes from 18 Million Rising and the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA; links to some of her writings and interviews.
Reader Comments - Edward Snowden, NSA and NBC; Police Crimes; U.S. Cuba Policy; Tiananmen Anniversary; Ralph Fasanella's Art; Prisons and Solidarity Confinement; Workers and Labor; Taxes and Economic Growth; Carbon Pollution; New Populism; Sexual Harassment; Sexual assault of women protestors in India; Les Orear - R.I.P.
National Forum on Police Crimes held earlier this month in Chicago. Speaking at the closing rally Angels Davis said, mass incarceration and police killings stem from "structural and systemic racism rooted in the failure to fully abolish slavery." Global capital expansion and its pursuit of profit, she said, fuel the prison-industrial complex. Call issued for legislation to create Civilian Police Accountability Councils.
Reader Comments - Cecily McMillan; Prison Labor; William Worthy; Syria; Timothy Geithner and Wall Street's Bailout; College Debt; U.S. Subversion in Latin America; Venezuela;
Announcements - This Weekend - Left Forum (May 30 - June 1) - Reform and/or Revolution: Imagining a World with Transformative Justice;
Raising America's Pay - Launches June 4; Meet UnionWiki; Call for Papers - Fighting Inequality: Class, Race, and Power
Millennials and racism; Gap hoax; Koch vs Detroit; Indigenous women missing; Swedes and Pop; M.I.A. won't let you miss her new video
Freedom Summer 50th is a five-day convening to learn from the past, evaluate our present, and strategize for the future. The international conference and youth congress will be held June 25th - 29th, 2014 in Jackson, Mississippi on the campus of Tougaloo College. Work sessions will examine each issue area and explore its context in the present-day struggle for justice not only in Mississippi, but globally.
Reader Comments - Boko Haram; Portside articles on
the Ukraine; Brown v. Board-what still needs to be done; Redistributing Income; NRA, Second Amendment; John Oliver; Jon Favreau - a correction; Whiteness of Liberal Media; Was the American Revolution Really Just A Counter-Revolution; THE REAL WORLD - a graduation address never given;
Announcements - DIE LINKE, SYRIZA, Future of the European Left - New York - May 28; New Book -- Torture is still an urgent moral issue
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