Politics
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Russian Artists Explore Soviet Union’s History With Black People
Claude McKay was a young writer exploring the possibilities of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics when he addressed the 4th Congress of the Comintern in the Kremlin’s Throne Room in 1922. A key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, the Jamaican writer wondered if the USSR could offer him what the United States did not:…
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Russia’s Recent Facebook Ads Prove the Kremlin Never Loved Black People
Thousands of Russian-bought Facebook ads that the social media company is preparing to deliver to Congress reveal a very sound knowledge of America’s racial discord. With some of the ads calling for protections of gun rights, warning of the so-called dangers of immigration and of promoting Black Lives Matter groups, the Kremlin has shown a…
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March for Black Women Organizers Want to Put Our Issues Front and Center During March for Racial Justice
There’s another social justice march this weekend, and black women are refusing to be left behind. The March for Black Women will take place Saturday in Washington, D.C.—smack in the middle of the March for Racial Justice. While the March for Racial Justice is billed as a “black and indigenous led multi-community movement” that 30,000…
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JusticeLA Coalition: Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Black Lives Matter Co-Founder, Partners With Organizations to Halt Los Angeles Jail Expansion [Retracted]
RETRACTED (6/12/18): This story has been removed because we have discovered it was in breach of our editorial standards. If you’d like to know more, you can read an editor’s note here. A cached version of the story is available here for transparency.
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How to Protest Without Offending White People
Many people were surprised when President Donald Trump suggested that NFL team owners fire players who quietly choose to sit out the national anthem before games, but I was not one of them. Even though they thought they’d solved the anthem problem by blackballing protest starter Colin Kaepernick, the residual insolence displayed by the players…
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More Black Women Are Realizing That the Democratic Party Is Full of Shit, New Poll Finds
The Democratic Party has experienced an 11 percent drop in support from black women, while “the percentage of black women who said neither party represents them jumped from 13 percent in 2016 to 21 percent in 2017,” according to the 2017 Power of the Sister Vote poll, conducted by the Black Women’s Roundtable, an intergenerational…
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Black Women and Girls May Run the World, but They’re Not Safe in It
In black America during the 1970s, the portraits of MLK, JFK and Jesus hung on every family’s wall. Today, the new trinity of Oprah, Beyoncé and Michelle Obama could almost replace them. But the increasing power and cultural influence of black women don’t equal protection. Black women’s accomplishments, despite their continuing struggle, illuminate how sexist…
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Should Black Folks Trust the FBI’s Russia Investigation, Given Its History of Targeting Our Communities?
Why trust the FBI or any intelligence agency on Russia? They targeted civil rights activists for years. We really don’t have proof of the Russians doing anything. Why trust these agencies now? These are completely legitimate questions that I hear from black folks from time to time on social media and in person. I get…
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Ala. Mayoral Candidate Randall Woodfin Is a Sign of the Growing Progressive Movement in the South
Randall Woodfin believes any political revolution that takes off across the nation starts in cities like his hometown of Birmingham, Ala., where he is running as a progressive candidate for mayor. Sure, Donald Trump literally encouraged local police to abuse people in their custody, but the people with real power to ensure that doesn’t happen…
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To White Folks Who Dance With Devils: ‘What Kind of Extremists Will You Be?’
In a press conference during which Donald Trump shed any pretense of being anything other than a white supremacist demagogue deploying his power in the service of fascism, hate-mongering and violence wrought from the desperate need whiteness has to preserve itself, he said this: Trump: Well, George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington…