Category

black lives matter

The Global Power of Protest

By Angelo Franco

Throughout human history, protest has always held a center-stage role, shaping the narrative with the timbre of collective voice and action. From the rugged cobblestone streets of colonial Boston to the sunbaked squares of Tahrir, the black soil of Selma to the neon-lit expanses of Hong Kong, the power of protest has reverberated through time and across continents, shifting paradigms and confronting the status quo.

Jennifer Lopez and Spanish Linguistics in the Age of Black Lives Matter

By Angelo Franco

To what extent, then, can she claim the language and specially to use it within the deep cultural context in which the word negrita lives? I don’t know that there’s a specific barometer here or even if there should be one. Likewise, Christina Aguilera has not actively distanced herself from her Latine roots, but that didn’t stop the criticism when she released a best-selling Spanish album even though she infamously doesn’t speak the language.

What Joe Biden’s Victory Means for Race Relations, the Supreme Court, and U.S. Foreign Policy

By Brian J. Purnell, Morgan Marietta, and Neta C. Crawford

One area that the Biden administration will surely address is policing and racial justice. The Justice Department can bring accountability to police reform by returning to practices the Obama administration put in place to monitor and reform police departments, such as the use of consent degrees. More difficult reforms require redressing how mass incarceration caused widespread voter disenfranchisement in Black American and Latino communities.

How COVID-19 Changed America and the World Forever

By Kenneth Foard McCallion

So what would have happened if the federal government had acted with the degree of vigilance that we had come to expect from the Ebola crisis and other pandemic threats? What if those sweeping measures imposed on or after March 15 — a federal warning against large gatherings, health screenings at airports, states of emergency declared, etc. - had been announced one or two weeks earlier?

In Black Lives Matter, Iraqi-Africans See Parallels With Their Own Oppression

By Ibrahim Al Marashi

The movement seeks to amend Iraq’s constitution to ban discrimination against black people, and have the state improve their representation in parliament.  Most Iraqi-Africans continue to hold menial jobs, serving as cleaners or musicians and dancers. They are denied a chance to serve and advance in the army and police, as well as local bureaucracies.They continue to seek social awareness about their plight, asking for access to the national media to address their grievances.

The Latest Legal Challenge to Removing Confederate Statues in Virginia

By Allison Anna Tait

To many locals, especially Black Richmond residents, the sculptures have always been colossal reminders of the South’s history of enslavement and the violence wrought on Black lives. The governor and city leaders now seemingly agree, saying that monuments glorifying the region’s white supremacist history should not be displayed on public land. Nevertheless, Richmond’s Lee statue still has its defenders.

The Trump Administration and the Problem of Small-Town Police Abuses

By Ian MacDougall

But Jeff Sessions, who took office as attorney general just months after the Justice Department report, has a different view. He considers his predecessors’ reform efforts, particularly via consent decree, to be gross federal overreach that denigrates and demoralizes police. Sessions all but declared that the Justice Department was getting out of the business of meaningful police reform.