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The Unmet Promise of Equality

Fred Harris and Alan Curtis The New York Times
“Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal.” Fifty years ago, on March 1, 1968, these were the grim words of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, called the Kerner Commission after its chairman, Gov. Otto Kerner of Illinois. Today the situation is worse.

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....

Tidbits - January 11, 2018 - Reader Comments: Puerto Rican Foreclosures; Israel - Teens Refuse New Ban on BDS Supporters; Pensions; Second Amendment; Jim Crow history; Women's March 2018 - January 20; and more.....

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Reader Comments: Puerto Rican Foreclosures; Israeli Teens Refuse Army; Israel Bans BDS Supporters; Worker Safety; Pension; Free Market; Settler Colonialism and the Second Amendment; Nuclear Testing; Pollution from U.S. Military Bases - in our country; U.S. history - Jim Crow South; Record Numbers Visit Cuba last year (from the U.S.); Women's March 2018 - January 20; Resources, Announcements; and more.....

Tidbits - Sept 7, 2017 - Reader Comments: Long Arc of Protest; DACA; KKK Terror; Differing views: How Should We Protest Neo-Nazis; Health Plan that We Need; Spam Filtering; Healthcare Growing - Workers Not Sharing; Children's Book to get; Announcements; a

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Reader Comments: The Long Arc of Protest; DACA; Korea; KKK Terror; Differing views: How Should We Protest Neo-Nazis; Fukushima Leak; The Health Plan that We Need, With No Copays; Spam Filtering is a free speech issue; Resources: Healthcare Sector is Growing, But Workers Aren't Sharing; Children's Book Celebrating Labor Movement; Anti-BDS legislation impacts You; Announcements: Conversation: "The Color of Law"; 60 Years of Peace Action; and Union Day of Action - Oct. 19

books

Class & Inequality: The Book that Explains Charlottesville

Marshall Steinbaum Boston Review
The University of Virginia has long been a bastion of white supremacy and its validating scholarship. The book’s author identifies how such antidemocratic sentiment has long gestated in academia generally, encapsulated in neoclassical economics and its validation of alleged rational economic behaviors -- theories that originated in opposition to the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement and predominate in today's conservative and far-right movements today.

The Invisible Segregation of Diverse Neighborhoods

Jake Blumgart Slate
Today, segregation in America looks different than it did a generation ago. Neighborhood-level diversity is increasingly common and, correspondingly, that all-white neighborhoods aren’t as prevalent. However, even in diverse neighborhoods, divisions of race and class still exert their power. Most social institutions, churches, recreations centers, restaurants, barber shops and hair shops, schools, and civic associations remain segregated.

Let Black Kids Just Be Kids

Robin Bernstein The New York Times
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.
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