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Politics

Politics

Erica Garner, Daughter of Eric Garner, Still Fighting for Life After Sustaining Brain Damage: Report

Updated Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, 4:55 p.m. EST: Erica Garner is still fighting for her life after suffering brain damage, following a heart attack over the holiday weekend. The activist remains in grave condition on life support, and the family is holding on and clinging to “a glimpse of hope,” the New York Daily News…

By

Kirsten West Savali

Published

December 28, 2017
Politics

Kwanzaa: Revisiting Maulana Karenga’s Legacy

Kwanzaa, like black America, was birthed in struggle and chaos, then bathed in blood. It was born in the freedom movement, against the backdrop of the Watts rebellion, the rise of the Black Panther Party, the FBI’s COINTELPRO and the assassination of Malcolm X (el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz). Maulana Karenga, professor and chair of Africana studies…

By

Kirsten West Savali

Published

December 28, 2017
Politics

The Top Criminal-Justice Wins of 2017

There’s no other way to put it: 2017 was bleak. Bleak because the country’s top public health organization is now prohibited from using the term “science-based.” Bleak because we’re surprised that a man accused of sexually harassing and assaulting young girls—and who extols slavery—lost an election. Bleak because the president of these United States stood in…

By

Kirsten West Savali

Published

December 25, 2017
Politics

#JailBedDrop: Los Angeles’ Fight Against a Multibillion-Dollar Jail

This Christmas Eve, JusticeLA is “dropping” beds outside shopping centers across Los Angeles County—from Inglewood to Calabasas—to encourage a public conversation about the fight for abolition. We are demanding an end to mass incarceration in the U.S. and our county’s investment in policing and jails. JusticeLA was formed on Sept. 26, 2017; we are a…

By

Kirsten West Savali

Published

December 24, 2017
Politics

Our Elected Officials Must Give Children 2nd Chances

Just last week, 71-year-old Henry Montgomery found out he would spend yet another Christmas behind bars in Louisiana. He has spent more than 50 Christmases there, but he thought this year might be different. The parole board was set to hear his case for release, but on the day of the hearing, the board delayed…

By

Kirsten West Savali

Published

December 21, 2017
Politics

#DanielShaver: It Is Not Black People’s Job to Create a White Lives Matter Movement

Daniel Shaver, 26, is dead. Mesa, Ariz., Police Officer Philip “Mitch” Brailsford, 27, a cowboy armed with an AR-15—with the words “You’re fucked” etched on the dust cover—executed him in a hotel hallway as he sobbed and begged for his life. The video of the 2016 shooting was not released until after Brailsford was acquitted…

By

Kirsten West Savali

Published

December 13, 2017
Politics, The National Interest

The Charter School Movement Is Complicit With Segregation

Charter schools didn’t create segregation, but the charter school movement isn’t helping to end it, either. When Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We must never adjust ourselves to racial segregation,” he wasn’t suggesting that black kids need white kids and white teachers in the classroom with them to learn. King was acutely aware that segregation…

By

Andre Perry

Published

December 12, 2017
Politics

Fear of the State, Fear of My Home: To Be Black and Queer in America

“I was called a faggot before I was ever called a nigger.” I’ve heard this statement from LGBTQ people hundreds of times across social media platforms, drawing various reactions from both hetero and homosexual communities alike. For many of us, this statement, albeit true, often lacks the full context and explanation of how both offensive…

By

George Johnson

Published

December 10, 2017
Politics

Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba Declines to Share Mississippi Civil Rights Museum Stage With White Supremacist in Chief

Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Jackson, Miss.’s revolutionary mayor, will not be sharing the stage with President Donald Trump at the grand opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum this Saturday, the Clarion Ledger reports. “I believe that Trump’s presence is a distraction. His policies don’t reflect his statements that this is a movement that will bring…

By

Kirsten West Savali

Published

December 9, 2017
Politics

Baltimore’s Latest Plan to Clamp Down on Crime: Tricking and Trapping Youths

With the number of lethal and nonlethal shootings, robberies and assaults on the rise in Baltimore, police and government officials are clamoring for ways to make sense of what is happening. But even with public finger-pointing and posturing, there still isn’t a consensus about who should be blamed for the current dilemma. Some say judges…

By

Kirsten West Savali

Published

December 8, 2017