labor

Stop Blaming Black Women for the Black Maternal Health Crisis and Start Blaming American Workplaces

Roselyn Miller Slate
Racial discrimination manifests itself in the workplace through unequal treatment. Even when black women have good jobs and benefits, they often are expected to do more than white colleagues, constantly facing assumptions that they are unqualified. The ramifications of work-life imbalance are stressful for women with resources, but for black women and their children, it can be deadly.

Yes, Your Ancestors Probably Did Come Here Legally — Because 'Illegal' Immigration is Less Than a Century Old - No Visas Were Required Until 1924

Kevin Jennings Los Angeles Times
There were no federal laws concerning immigration until 1924. When a massive influx of new immigrant groups came at the turn of the 20th century — Italians from Southern Europe and Jews from Eastern Europe — a backlash developed. A new law required for the first time that immigrants to the U.S. have visas, introducing the concept of “having papers” to American immigration policy.

Taxing Puerto Rico to Death

Nelson A. Denis Orlando Sentinel
Puerto Ricans on the island are the most heavily taxed of all U.S. citizens. From 2013 to 2014, 105 different taxes were raised in Puerto Rico. Over a 19-year period, from 1990 to 2009, Puerto Rico paid more federal taxes than six U.S. states. Puerto Rico is projected to have the worst economy on the entire planet in 2018.

Tidbits - January 18, 2018 - Reader Comments: Nuclear Disarmament; Trump's Racism; Radical lessons of Martin Luther King; #TimesUp; Sports; Oprah; report from Austria; The '60s; War or Peace with North Korea? and more....

Portside
Reader Comments: Nuclear Disarmament - Again on the Agenda; Trump's Racism - recalling Martin Niemöller's dire warning in Nazi Germany; Radical lessons of Martin Luther King; #TimesUp; Traditional Labor Organizing - sharp disagreement with Portside Labor post; Sports in Colleges; Oprah - more disagreement with Portside posts; Grim Times in Austria; Announcements: The '60s-Years that Changed America; Concert for Puerto Rico; War or Peace with North Korea? and more....

books

John Edgar Wideman's "Writing to Save a Life"

Charles R. Larson CounterPunch
Wideman's mixed-genre work examines the lives and legacies of the young Till, his father, Louis Till, and what they can tell us about racism and about families.

books

Race and the Logic of Capital

Alan Wald Solidarity
Shortly before his death, James Baldwin wrote that in the U.S., “White is a metaphor for power,” an observation that is deep background for much of the discussion in the masterly book under review, where race and class are intertwined, yet surface differences are used to split the labor force and maintain capital’s hegemony. The book can usefully inform debate on race and class and aid in reconstructing a revolutionary project in the context of Trumpworld.

Making The Case That Discrimination Is Bad For Your Health

Gene Demby NPR
Having a longer life expectancy and averting death and averting hypertension, or diabetes, or their complications are good things. But without dealing with the kind of more structurally rooted factors that lead to weathering across class, we're not going to end weathering.

food

The Food World and America's White Supremacy Problem

Tunde Wey San Francisco Chronicle
In America, white supremacy is the establishment — not part of it, but all of it, our politics, prisons, schools. And white supremacy dominates our food, our media, even our escapism.

#ShitHoleDon Captures the Disgust

Jon Queally Common Dreams
Image of Donald Trump "We can now we say with 100% confidence that the President is a racist who does not share the values enshrined in our Constitution or Declaration of Independence."
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