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Going to APHA?

The American Public Health Association holds its Annual Meeting October 29-November 2 for over 13,000 members. Blog editors and other anti-racist public health workers will support 2 resolutions on police violence and cholera in Haiti. If you belong to APHA, come to the hearing on Sunday, October 30 from 3:30 to 6:00 in the Convention Center. Continue reading “Going to APHA?”

Union Organizing

Racism often characterized and determined the success or failure of union organizing and strikes. The Knights of Labor, formed in the 1880s, included black and white skilled and unskilled workers while the trades oriented AFL refused to admit black or unskilled workers. The IWW, the Wobblies, led by leftists, organized multiracial struggles in the mines and other industries. In the 1930s as the Depression deepened, the communist led CIO recruited black and white skilled and unskilled workers. However, its inclusionary practices didn’t often extend to fighting the extra exploitation black workers faced in more dangerous and lesser paid jobs. The labor movement reveals how workers overcame or capitulated to the racism the capitalists nurtured to maintain their own wealth and power. Continue reading “Union Organizing”

THE PLATFORM OF THE MOVEMENT FOR BLACK LIVES MISSING: A CLASS ANALYSIS OF RACISM

by Ellen Isaacs, August 7, 2016

Appeared on Counterpunch, 8/9/16

THE PLATFORM OF THE MOVEMENT FOR BLACK LIVES has been created by a large coalition of black activists and has caused a great deal of discussion and controversy, especially over the criticism of Israel. We admire the detailed way in which the oppression of black people in the U. S. has been catalogued, and note that the authors call for unity with other oppressed people – women, immigrants, gender-different, poor workers, and indigenous peoples. The platform also correctly assesses the ways in which the U. S. attacks and kills workers around the world, from Asia to Africa to South America to the Middle East. Continue reading “THE PLATFORM OF THE MOVEMENT FOR BLACK LIVES MISSING: A CLASS ANALYSIS OF RACISM”

ISRAEL: A STUDY IN RACISM AND NATIONALISM

Pal image Wall Aug 2016 by Ellen Isaacs, July 2016

Nowhere in the world today is there more evidence of the destructive nature of racism and nationalism than in Israel, a state that aspires to be exclusively Jewish. It is true that Jews were persecuted for many centuries, ostracized, isolated, and murdered, more so in Western countries than in the East. The culmination was the slaughter of 6 million by the Nazis. The mistake that Zionists (those who seek to build a Jewish state) make is believing that anti-Semitism is ineradicable and different from other forms of racism. Thus many have been won to believe that their security rests in isolating themselves and practicing racist persecution of Palestinians and other minorities within Israel. Continue reading “ISRAEL: A STUDY IN RACISM AND NATIONALISM”

The Free State of Jones Movie Review: Multiracial Attacks on the Confederacy

Free State of Jones rachel and newton knight

by Karyn Pomerantz

The Free State of Jones is an amazing story of an organized revolt against the Confederacy during the Civil War in Mississippi by white farmers and escaped black men and women (maroons). They organized themselves into an armed fighting squad that dominated 1/3 of Mississippi, one of the most racist states. Continue reading “The Free State of Jones Movie Review: Multiracial Attacks on the Confederacy”

Turn Grief into Action

by Karyn L. Pomerantz

The massacre at Pulse of Latin youth has revealed the realities of living Latin, gay and transgender. Author Justin Torres contrasted the safety and sacredness of Pulse with the fear and vulnerability of life in the outside world (Washington Post, June 15, 2016, Op Ed, page A23): Continue reading “Turn Grief into Action”