criminal justice and policing, immigration, labor, health, housing, education
by Ellen Isaacs
February, 2017
The word is being thrown around glibly now, but is Trumpism really fascism or isn’t it? And exactly what is fascism?
Most of us tend to think of Hitler and Nazi Germany as typifying this phenomenon, complete with the SS and concentration camps. We also think of fascism as a separate political system, distinct from capitalism or socialism. But both of these formulations are incomplete and decrease our ability to discern the true direction of our society.
by Al Simpson
The struggle for women’s suffrage was long and admirable but it wasn’t without serious flaws. For the most part, it did not overcome racism or fear of foreigners or recognize the class basis of sexism. Despite universal suffrage today, white women workers still earn about 77% of the wages of white men, and black women workers earn about 61% of the wages of white men. All women suffer sexism on the job, and black women also suffer racism. We will examine the history of the women’s suffrage movement in detail and discuss what has been won, how the movement could have been stronger, and whether true equality is possible under U.S. capitalism.
Continue reading “How Racism Weakens the Fight for Women’s Suffrage: Multiracial Unity Is Crucial to Stopping Sexism”Karyn Pomerantz, March 25, 2019
The Johns Hopkins University plans to hire its own armed private police force to patrol the campus and residential streets around its properties in Baltimore, MD. The Hopkins medical campus in East Baltimore has expanded into surrounding neighborhoods for years displacing hundreds of people and allowing developers to move in with their expensive real estate. Universities have become large real estate companies with education on the side, gobbling up working class homes and destroying community bonds. Police forces serve the wealthy, protecting property and profit. Continue reading “STOP HOPKINS PRIVATE POLICE : ACTION ALERT”
by Ellen Isaacs
Although no form of racism in the US can compare to the barbarism of black chattel slavery and its consequences that persist to the present, racist practices and ideas have cruelly affected other groups. One such is Asians, whose immigrant history is little known today. Moreover, there is a prevalent notion that Asian-Americans no longer suffer discrimination, and that they in fact fare better than many whites.
Continue reading “ANTI-ASIAN RACISM, ANOTHER AMERICAN TALE”
by Al Simpson
February 12, 2019
The Racist Nature of Education in the United States
According to the Center for American Progress report Unequal Education of 2012 (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/news/2012/08/22/32862/students-of-color-still-receiving-unequal-education/), schools are just as segregated in unequal now as they were in 1954 when Brown versus Board of Education was decided. The average white student attends a school where 77% of students are white, and fully 40% of black and Latin students attend schools where over 90% or students are non-white. Especially in the big cities, racist segregation and differences in school funding have led to a dual education system, good in the suburbs and white upper income areas — where the students are prepared for college and professional, technical or managerial jobs — and poor elsewhere, especially in neighborhoods where there are people of color. Let’s look more deeply into this.
Continue reading “THE LOS ANGELES TEACHERS’ STRIKE AND OTHER TEACHER ACTIONS AROUND THE NATION”
by Ellen Isaacs
The premise of this blog is that US capitalism cannot live without racism, which is also true of many other racialized societies, such as South Africa or Israel, with histories of settler colonialism and large non-European populations. And racism is also basic to imperialist exploitation of the darker nations of the world, be it pre- or post-colonialist, for their resources and markets.
Continue reading “WHOSE SIDE ARE THEY ON? WE CAN’T RELY ON THE NEW “SOCIALIST” POLITICIANS”By Karyn Pomerantz, January 2019
Selected non-fiction books that provide an analysis of racism in US history. Continue reading “Books on Structural and Personal Racism: Favorites I Read in 2018”
