Subjects Archives: Race

Playgrounds are wonderful. I saw the joy when my child was between ages 3 and 8 playing on the playground. Here we have the science of physics and engineering used for the sole purpose of creating see-saws and swings designed to hold a child’s weight, manufacturing squeals of joy from children, not bombs.

On the 40th Anniversary of Banned Books Week, Jim Mamer examines the way in which more school districts are banning books that are narrowly focused on LGBTQIA+ issues, sexual identity issues, and the roots of racial tension.

In 2002, Cuba’s President Fidel Castro Ruz visited the country’s National Ballet School to inaugurate the 18th Havana International Ballet Festival.

The FBI harassed Black revolutionary Darren Seals and compiled a 900-page report on his organizing against racism and police brutality in Ferguson, Missouri, birthplace of Black Lives Matter. He was shot to death in 2016, then set on fire in his car.

The recent incident of refugees being stranded in the Mediterranean without assistance from coastal forces exemplifies a larger pattern of cruelty by European nations towards those fleeing conflict zones

Real and lasting economic opportunities for Black families will come only through a serious national reckoning on race.

Scientific advances are not always linear; they zigzag in unexpected ways. This is particularly true of genetics, which has a dark history of being coopted into eugenics and race science.

Malcolm X reminds us of the deceit of liberals, the power of international thinking, and the coming of Black revolution.

Juneteenth was a people’s holiday with deep meaning for the descendants of enslaved people. But the declaration of an official federal holiday has turned it into an opportunity for corporate exploiters and cynical politicians to show pretend concern for Black people. At best Juneteenth provides a history lesson and an opportunity for much needed political education.

Kuwasi Balagoon is one of the most heroic and remarkable figures of the historic Black Liberation struggle. He was born Donald Weems in 1946 in the predominately Black community of Lakeland in Eastern Shore, Maryland and was inspired by the powerful Gloria Richardson and the Cambridge (MD) movement in his youth.

Two mass shootings in quick succession brought out the worst in Americans. The anger and grief were followed by the usual lies and pretense that violence here is somehow mysterious. Political leaders advocate state violence all the time, calling for new victims to be created here and around the world.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation expresses our deepest condolences to those impacted by the horrific massacre that was committed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. We condemn in the strongest possible way this atrocious attack, and express our solidarity to the families, children, teachers, and community members who experienced and witnessed the tragedy and its aftermath.

The gains and setbacks in the movement for Black lives prove how racism is woven deeply into the fabric of capitalism and US society.

Although the cases of Billie Holiday, Paul Robeson, and Tupac Shakur may seem like cautionary tales for musicians who may be inclined to politicize their lyrics they have served as an inspiration; especially Tupac.

The latest mass shooter in Buffalo, New York was clearly a racist, and identified with Ukrainian and other neo-Nazis. But white supremacy has a stronger hold on European and U.S. society than is commonly acknowledged. The avowed racist is not the only problem.

Barack Obama recounts in his memoir ‘Dreams from my Father’ reading a book about Africa as a young man. He remembered how he was filled with ‘an anger all the more maddening for its lack of a clear target’ at the way that the dominant images of the book shifted from the independence struggles of leaders like Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah to ‘famine, disease, the coups and counter-coups led by illiterate young men wielding AK-47s like shepherd sticks’ (p.515).

In 1974 Walter Rodney and his family returned to Guyana. Rodney immediately faced a country divided between the Indian and African working class, and the brutal and divisive regime of Forbes Burnham. Rodney produced an impressive body of historical work which provided a Marxist explanation for the divide of the country’s working people. Chinedu Chukwudinma continues the story of Rodney’s revolutionary life.

If history should be any teacher, it has taught us this: the state has no interest in serving the needs of the masses of Black people in this country, who are poor and working class.

Political education is absent from our current system. The left should be providing alternative means of obtaining it, writes Shamime Ibrahim.

It is not surprising that a settler colonial state would practice racism for centuries or that race would be the major factor determining who lives and who dies.