Issue: 147
July 21, 2005
Commentary
Think Piece: Economic Decline and the Color Line, Part Two
I. Our Blues as the Seeds of the Next Black Rebellion Black America has spent the past quarter century on the defensive against the conservative assault on equality – especially racial equality – inaugurated by the election of Ronald Reagan. The right’s program of reverse Robin Hood economics and smashing the limited instruments of fairness…
I. Our Blues as the Seeds of the Next Black Rebellion Black America has spent the past quarter century on the defensive against the conservative assault…
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Guest Commentary
Slavery, Reparations, and the Uses (and Abuses) of History
Guest Commentator
In the wake of recent apologies by Wachovia and other corporations for past ties to slavery, we have heard angry tirades much like those from a few years ago, when reparations opponents denounced those who sought redress for slavery in often heated rhetoric. Then, as now, the accusations center on history. The well-publicized criticism of…
In the wake of recent apologies by Wachovia and other corporations for past ties to slavery, we have heard angry tirades much like those from a…
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Guest Commentary
Relishing Freedom in the Face of Injustice
Guest Commentator
Our family recently celebrated Independence Day in classic American style, by hauling our two kids and grandma to upstate New York to take in the grandeur of Niagara Falls and a spectacular fireworks display. Along the way, we got a dramatic reminder of why certain American values embodied in July 4th’s celebration of freedom are…
Our family recently celebrated Independence Day in classic American style, by hauling our two kids and grandma to upstate New York to take in the grandeur…
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Commentary
Operation Dixie: Notes on a Promise Abandoned
This article originally appeared in Labor Notes. This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II. It’s important to reflect on the moment that this anniversary represents, for the war’s ending opened a watershed period in modern world history. In a sense it formally marked the end of the years of…
This article originally appeared in Labor Notes. This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II. It's important to reflect on the…
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Cover Story
Mass Incarceration is an Abomination
Editor
“A great force of suffering accumulated between the basement of heaven and the roof of hell…” Zora Neale Hurston wrote those words almost seventy years ago at the beginning of her great allegorical work on black America, Moses, Man of the Mountain. She could have been speaking about African America today. As black activists ponder…
“A great force of suffering accumulated between the basement of heaven and the roof of hell...” Zora Neale Hurston wrote those words almost seventy years ago…
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Commentary
Freedom Rider: Questions for the NAACP
Guest Commentator
There were two big stories coming from the recent NAACP annual convention. The first was that George W. Bush didn’t accept an invitation to appear. He made up for it by attending the Indiana Black Expo and getting plenty of good photo ops with brown faces. Bush sent Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman to…
There were two big stories coming from the recent NAACP annual convention. The first was that George W. Bush didn’t accept an invitation to appear. He…
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Guest Commentary
Understanding Pickaninnies and Improving the Race
Guest Commentator
Rather than just reacting to the Mexican government’s recent attempt to honor Memin Pinguin, a popular comic strip character who also looks every bit the pickaninny caricature, with moral outrage we should see it for what it is: an opportunity. The debate over the inherent racism of the stamps and what it says about the…
Rather than just reacting to the Mexican government’s recent attempt to honor Memin Pinguin, a popular comic strip character who also looks every bit the pickaninny…
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Guest Commentary
Mystery of The Negro Conservative
Guest Commentator
“I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open the Door, I’ll Get it Myself).” – James Brown “In the colonies the truth stood naked but the citizens of the mother country preferred it with clothes on.” – Jean-Paul Sartre, introduction to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth I double-dog dare anyone to solve…
"I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open the Door, I'll Get it Myself)." – James Brown “In the colonies the truth stood naked but…
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