In his courageous book Between the World and Me, written as a letter to his 15-year-old son, Ta-Nehisi Coates explains to him the “justifiable” verdict in the killing of Michael Brown, a black teenager who was shot eight times by a white police officer and then left in the streets. This fatal shooting came on… Read more »
Posts in: people of color
Anti-racist politics finish first at 1968 Olympics
The little-known story of an Australian runner’s solidarity with U.S. Black athletes.
Review of Hardly War — Memories of the “Forgotten War”
Hardly War, by Don Mee Choi / Wave Books, 2016 / Illustrated; 97 pages Don Mee Choi is a South Korean poet, translator and anti-militarist now living in the U.S. Through a startling, kaleidoscopic collection of prose, poems, and photographs in her new book, Hardly War, she makes a powerful case against the U.S. justification… Read more »
In solidarity with protesting athletes
Hats off to Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback who refuses to stand for the national anthem at NFL games. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.” He’s also spoken out for police accountability and against cop… Read more »
Affirmative action = class solidarity
The election to the presidency of a man who stoked the fires of racial resentment and misogyny sparked protests by thousands in cities across the U.S. Now working people need to plan the next steps in stopping a potential right-wing dystopia. High on the list should be a drive to restore affirmative action, one of… Read more »
Blood at the Root book review: Forsyth County, Georgia — a saga of racial cleansing
Southern trees bear strange fruit, / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Using these lyrics from a poem by Abel Meeropol, immortalized in Billie Holliday’s song about lynching, author Patrick Phillips opens his tale of terror, theft and racial apartheid in one Georgia county, USA. Following a brutal assault on a white… Read more »
Fighting spirit shines at post-election forums
Activists and organizers from every social justice movement were stunned by the election of right-wing billionaire businessman Donald Trump. Angry demonstrations tens of thousands strong filled streets in cities and towns across the country and the world. In December the Freedom Socialist Party sponsored forums in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and… Read more »
The art of Black working-class life
After last year’s hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, it’s refreshing to see two fine films about African American working people. Loving’s true story shows a brave couple persevering with their 9-year Supreme Court case that finally struck down laws against inter-racial marriage in 1967. Fences, by playwright August Wilson, delves into the strengths and tensions of a Black… Read more »
Intersectionality: its meaning and its potential for movement-building
“Intersectionality” is a term that has been coming up a lot in political movements and in the news, especially in regard to the Women’s March on Washington in January. It means examining how the intermingling of all forms of discrimination that people experience — based on race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality and more — affect… Read more »
Civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer: her unstoppable war against Jim Crow
“I guess if I’d had any sense I’d a been a little scared, but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do to me was kill me, and it seemed like they’ve been trying to do that ever since I could remember.” That was the ringing voice of Fannie Lou… Read more »
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