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Issue: 642

February 25, 2016

Cover Story

Another White Male Shooter Taken Without Incident

By Perry Redd Columnist

I can’t begin to list the names of Black men shot and killed by police - unarmed or otherwise - where they could’ve been apprehended “without incident.” I imagine there have been many, but there have also been many others who were plainly killed.

If it were a script, you still wouldn’t believe it. Another mass shooting and the media does not mention the instrumental role of guns in the…

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Puppet Massa

Cartoon

Puppet Massa

By Chuck Siler

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Guest Commentary

The Supreme Court Vacancy: Constitutional and Political Issues

By Dr. Vinay Harpalani, JD, PhD Guest Commentator

It is Congress, not the Constitution, that determines the number of Justices on the Court. In the past, the Court has had six, seven, or ten Justices. The Court’s rules provide for a quorum of six Justices, so Scalia’s vacancy need not be filled for it to hear and decide cases.

With Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing on February 13, the U.S. Supreme Court is at a crossroads. America is also currently in the midst of a contentious…

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Color of Law

Malcolm X and the Black Lives Matter Movement – Black History Month

By David A. Love, JD Executive Editor

the way in which the victims of racism are treated in the U.S. reflects a refusal to come to terms with it. While institutional racism is hardwired into the fiber of America, the victims of racial injustice are left to prove that someone intended to discriminate against them.

February 21 marks the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, just over a half century ago. Malcolm X articulated a message of racial justice that…

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Commentary

Addict or Junkie?

By Dr. Julianne Malveaux, PhD Editorial Board

Should the issue of addiction be treated more compassionately and humanely now that it has “hit suburbia USA”? Wasn’t that “heroin junkie in the dark inner-city back alley” somebody’s brother, sister, mother, dad, son or daughter?

Nick Cocchi would like to be the Sheriff of Hampden County, an Eastern Massachusetts county of half a million people. Springfield, Massachusetts, a city that is…

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Guest Commentary

Intersections – A Poem

By Joe Navarro Guest Commentator

In my dreams I have Emulated the oratory traditions of Dr. King The winged disciple Of peace, equality and justice I have lived in the intersection The crossroad of ghetto and barrio

I am the configuration Of complex social relations Stemming from traditions Rooted in resistance to oppression My consciousness My cultural existence Sings the blues and sorrow…

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The African World

Bernie and the Movement

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. Editorial Board

There is a fruitful comparison to be made between Sanders’s campaign and Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988. Like Jackson, Sanders has positioned himself as the champion of the underdog — the champion of those being stepped on by the wealthy.

I met Bernie Sanders in the late 1980s when he was a visiting fellow at Harvard University still contemplating his political future. We had lunch, and…

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Commentary

Connecting the Dots: Cartel Privatization Strategies and the Corporate Charter Takeover of Public Schools, Part XII

By Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr., PhD, M.S.P.H. Columnist

parents have chosen and/or have been forced into corporate charter schools in droves, driving up charter funding and depleting the budgets of traditional public schools.

The Cartel of advocates for the privatization of public education is placing corporate charter schools on steroids. It is moving at warp speed to turn urban…

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Commentary

Real U.S. Opening to Cuba Starts With a Most Practical Factory

By John Funiciello Columnist

the lack of pesticides for agricultural production is likely to have a positive long-term impact on Cubans’ well being since such chemicals are often associated with various negative health implications such as certain forms of cancer.”

As manufacturing plants go, the planned factory for farm tractors is a rather modest affair, just like the tractors themselves, but the Alabama company that will…

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Commentary

Que(e)rying Harper Lee

By The Reverend Irene Monroe Editorial Board

one of the most frequently asked questions about Harper Lee was about her sexual orientation. Lee obviously wanted this answer hidden and on the down low from the public, but her reclusiveness and annoyance with the question only contributed to it.

The literary world is not the only ones mourning the passing of the reclusive author Nelle Harper Lee on February 19 at the age of 89.…

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