Search results for: black lives matter

Where Movements Meet: Black Lives Matter Organizers Visit #NoDAPL

photo above: by Melinda Lee By Kelly Hayes, Truthout | News Analysis an excerpt: Last weekend, as thousands of Indigenous protesters continued their efforts to ward off construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a delegation from another life-and-death struggle visited the Native encampments in Standing Rock, North Dakota. While there have been numerous expressions of […]

Cornel West: Black Lives Matter Is an Indictment of Neoliberal Power

By George Souvlis, openDemocracy | Interview photo above: Dr. Cornel West speaks at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on April 3, 2009. (Photo: James Stewart; Edited: LW / TO) an excerpt: George Souvlis: What is the legacy of the Obama administration? Cornel West: We are at a crossroads in American history. We must choose […]

Driving While Black is still a death sentence

By BRAKKTON BOOKER 04/13/2021 WN: Words fail. . . . Please also see here and here: Black Toronto residents 20 times more likely to be shot dead by police, study says. Canada is also deeply racist: rampant in the criminal justice system. excerpts: Some were already aware that a DWB — Driving While Black — […]

Is abortion the only thing that matters to Jesus?

Blog / Paradigm Shift Guest Contributor September 4, 2020 “I have felt a heaviness in my soul lately.” by Jennifer Abel WN: This is powerful! I also highly recommend another powerful piece addressing the same issues, that I posted about four years ago: White, Conservative, Christian Friend—I Wish You Really Were Pro-Life. Abel writes below: […]

The TSN anchor is a proud voice for the Black community

Kayla Grey is using her platform to fight racism By Claire Sibonney October 5, 2020 WN: The article highlighted below is immensely hopeful! With all colours represented in our extended family, my greatest yearning is that the world over be inflicted with an enduring colour-blindness. Sadly it needs to start in that same extended family, […]

George Yancy: To Be Black in the US Is to Have a Knee Against Your Neck Each Day

By Woojin Lim,Truthout Published July 18, 2020 photo above: reddit.com WN: A close relative saw the post, The Case for Reparations, ((a long essay about the history of Black repression in the U.S.),  and in response merely indicated that these things happen and moved on  . . . Another close relative who did not read […]

Why Solidarity Between the Movement for Black Lives and Palestine Makes Sense

By David Palumbo-Liu, Truthout | News Analysis Image above: Lauren Walker / Truthout an excerpt: Why is the claim that the common causes of Black Americans and Palestinians are centered on rights, and that the broader view that social justice issues for people of color in the US “intersect” with those of the Palestinians such […]

23 Ways You Could be Killed While Being Black

The video features celebrities such as Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, and Rihanna. Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn Jul. 13, 2016 6:50 PM In the week after shootings that left two black men dead, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé and other notable celebrities have teamed up to create this powerful video on the everyday interactions that can get black people killed in […]

Easter Song and Reflections on the Resurrection

***NOTE: Please check out the footnotes for additional, more detailed commentary. Also, there are poetry and songs in the final footnote; and four additional songs below that.*** Please also see two great sermons, one on Good Friday, the other on Easter Sunday, by my colleague Randy Klassen: both in the context of criminal/restorative justice. Easter […]

Extensive Commentary On: What white Christian support for Trump reveals about systemic racism

By Robert P. Jones | November 12, 2020 WN: Beyond tragic the pullquote to the right, this means four-fifths of American white evangelical Christians subscribe to “heresy” (an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth—Merriam-Webster). And this not limited to America! And many religious white non-evangelicals (Catholics, mainline Protestants, other faith members, etc.) also are […]

Commentary on: “Gomez, painting Catholics as victims, goes after his woke oppressors”

Nov 10, 2021 by Thomas Reese, Religion News Service Opinion Politics photo above: Wikipedia WN: I felt gobsmacked by the Archbishop’s earlier speech. More: I felt embarrassed to identify as a Christian alongside such seeming anti-Christ sentiments (though I’m not Roman Catholic). As I read that article, I kept thinking, surely he’ll pull up from […]

This Is Why America Needs Catholicism

By Matthew Walther Mr. Walther is the editor of The Lamp, a Catholic literary journal, and a contributing editor at The American Conservative. image above: Vartika Sharma WN: Cogently presented and inspiring. Amen! excerpts: When I began reading through the archives of Triumph several years ago, I found these arguments striking. This was not because […]

Houses of hate:

Dangerous, racist and falling apart. By nearly every metric, the nation’s penal system is not just failing, it’s making things worse. By Justin Ling February 28, 2021 photo above: Medium security range at Stony Mountain Institution in Stony Mountain, Manitoba (Correctional Services Canada/Flickr) WN: The article highlighted does not sugar-coat the reality: Canadian prisons (and […]

After Attempted Coup, We Must Fight White Supremacy and Sow Revolutionary Love

After Attempted Coup, We Must Fight White Supremacy and Sow Revolutionary Love By adrienne maree brown, Truthout January 10, 2021 Photo by Vlada Karpovich from Pexels WN: These are beautiful words, and a call to “revolutionary love” not only for fellow Blacks, but for all–Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beloved Community”. All I can add: Amen!!! […]

An Open Letter To Joe Biden

Dear Mr. Biden. If I might be so bold, I wonder about connecting some dots at this incredible kairos moment of U.S. and world history. I was moved by your empathetic videoed message to the Floyd family during the funeral service in Houston. You have deeply suffered multiple losses as this article sensitively points out: […]

Freedom, Valor, Love: On Snowden’s Permanent Record

November 20, 2019 by Michelle Renee Matisons WN: Former Canadian Member of Parliament Chuck Strahl once remonstrated at a workshop when I had the temerity, as facilitator, to suggest that the United States was hardly a democracy… It most decidedly is not, and has never been. Then again, as Astra Taylor argues in Democracy May […]

American Jews Divided On Israel Are Uniting — In Anti-ICE ‘Never Again’ Protests

American Jews Divided On Israel Are Uniting — In Anti-ICE ‘Never Again’ Protests July 16, 2019 by Aiden Pink and Ari Feldman photo above: Getty WN: Wonderful! excerpts: [su_dropcap size=”5″]I[/su_dropcap]f you’re liberal, Jewish and Zionist, it has been difficult to find a home in the earth-shaking activist movements of the past decade. A leading Black […]

Millennial Evangelicals Diverge from Their Parents’ Beliefs

The separation of families at the border, climate change, and various progressive causes have galvanized young Christians. By Eliza Griswold August 27, 2018 WN: I have a white Canadian Evangelical friend who expresses being fed up with white Evangelical-bashing — in particular towards white Evangelicals south of the border1. I argue on the contrary that […]

The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism

The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean August 24, 2018 Slavery and the Origins of Capitalism by Louis Proyect WN: I wrote the following in introduction to a book similar in its findings about 19th-century American capitalism to 17th-century colonial capitalism, entitled The Half  Has Never […]

CAMPAIGN NONVIOLENCE WEEK OF ACTIONS 2017

TAKE ACTION SEPTEMBER 16-24, 2017! Campaign Nonviolence is a long-term grassroots movement for a culture of peace and nonviolence free from war, poverty, racism, environmental destruction and the epidemic of violence. We invite people and organizations in the U.S. and worldwide to take action during CNV Action Week around the International Day of Peace, September […]

White Supremacy Is Anti-Gospel. I’m Glad the Southern Baptist Convention Agrees

WN: I copied the entire article below. It is about an historic decision by the Southern Baptist Convention. Russell Moore has been the head of the (SBC) Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission since 2013. As you can see from the links, he has been an amazing voice within those ranks for actually […]

Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

September 26, 2014 by CHARLES R. LARSON WN: There is someone of my acquaintance who rails against the US Black community for its violence of Black on Black, while almost completely downplaying police violence against Blacks. He also rails against them for their poverty: they just are not enterprising, and therefore deserve their state, end […]

Beyond Dallas and Orlando, a Global Arc of Violence

Thursday, 14 July 2016 00:00 By Michelle Chen, Truthout | Op-Ed photo above: Motorcycle officers in a motorcade escort for the coffin of Dallas police officer Lorne Ahrens, one of the five victims of the gunman-involved shooting that took place at an otherwise peaceful protest, after funeral services at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, […]

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 356 pages WN: This is one of the few times I also posted a book review to this Blog. This is a highly disturbing–and informative–book. In an interview with Religion […]

The Great Sumas Lake Heist: A Guilty Little Secret in Plain Sight

Sumas Lake until a century ago covered about 10% of the Fraser Valley’s fertile farmland. Then it was ‘disappeared.’ Whatever happened? And what to do about it? NOTE: There are several footnotes that add related material to the article, that for some may be of interest. NOTE 2:It was exactly a year ago that the […]

How America Fractured Into Four Parts

By George Packer July/August 2021 Issue The Atlantic image above: Lucy Jones WN: Wow! The essay is stunning as it is brilliant. At least read my excerpts below. Better though, purchase the book it is excerpted/adapted from: Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal. It challenges understanding about America’s past and present place in […]

9/11 was a test:

Essay by Carlos Lozada Illustration above: by Patrik Svensson Sept. 3, 2021 WN: Below are excerpts from an outstanding essay by a Pulitzer Prizer winner for criticism in 2019. But the last lines, though intended to be hopeful, ring perversely hollow–especially given what one can read on this website about the horrors of American Expansionism/Exceptionalism/Empire: […]

This entire country is haunted

By Alicia Elliott July 12, 2021 photo above: The Mohawk Institute Residential School, referred to by former students as ‘the Mush Hole’ (Photograph by Alex Jacobs-Blum) WN: This statement from the article highlighted below haunts me: These acts were done on behalf of every non-Indigenous family who proudly calls themselves Canadians, because this is what […]

Haiti’s fate is intertwined with the U.S.

By Ishaan Tharoor with Claire Parker  Email photo above: A man speaks on the phone next to a mural in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami on July 8. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) WN: Haiti is a made-in-France-and-America tragedy . . . Please see Egberto Willies on this: My wife Esther and I visited there in 1991, […]

Opinion: Nikole Hannah-Jones just proved the correctness of critical race theory

Opinion by Paul Butler Contributing columnist July 8, 2021 photo above: Nikole Hannah-Jones during an interview in Brooklyn on Tuesday. (John Minchillo/AP) WN: The highlighted article is all tragically true. excerpts: Nikole Hannah-Jones, and the epic failure of the University of North Carolina to recruit the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist to its faculty, just proved the […]

Dear White America – “History Has its Eye on You”

By Community April 16, 2021 photo above: The quote is from The Talmud. WN: The above from The Talmud echoes Micah 6:8, seen to the left. It in turn is picked up in Matthew 23:23, featuring Jesus’ indictment of the religious establishment of the day: Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you […]

Compliance Will Not Save Me

April 19, 2021 Ibram X. Kendi, Contributing writer at The Atlantic photo above: Charmaine Edwards (left) speaks to supporters during a protest outside a courthouse in Dallas in 2017. Her stepson, Jordan Edwards, was a 15-year-old in Balch Springs, Texas, when he was shot and killed by police. LM Otero/AP WN: According to The Washington […]

Cornel West: The Whiteness of Harvard and Wall Street Is “Jim Crow, New Style”

By George Yancy, Truthout Published March 5, 2021 photo above: yankeewikis.com WN: I first became involved with men in prison in 1974, at a time the first prison I visited (Oakalla Prison, Burnaby BC, Canada) still operated under a military regimen with many ex-military hired as guards; with an ex-air force serviceman as chaplain who […]

Is This the Beginning of the End of American Racism?

Is This the Beginning of the End of American Racism? Donald Trump has revealed the depths of the country’s prejudice—and has inadvertently forced a reckoning. by Ibram X. Kendi September 2020 Issue Ideas image above: The Atlantic WN: I love the ironic optimism of this piece! As you will see excerpted in context below, I […]

The Unraveling of America

by Wade Davis August 6, 2020 Wade Davis holds the Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. His award-winning books include “Into the Silence” and “The Wayfinders.” His new book, “Magdalena: River of Dreams,” is published by Knopf. WN: This is an exceptional article! There is however a […]

The Case for Reparations

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole. Story by Ta-Nehisi Coates June 2014 Issue WN: NOTE: This piece appeared in The Atlantic  6 years ago. It […]

Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity

Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout Published March 14, 2019 photo above: CNN Politics WN: The article highlighted below describes a continuing horror story… Lord, have mercy. Then, I must confess that this article makes me hopping furious for another reason! I’m livid about the majority of […]

Pope revises catechism to say death penalty is ‘inadmissible’

Commits the church to working toward its abolition worldwide1 Aug 2, 2018 by Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service Theology   photo above: Pope Francis gestures before speaking about the death penalty at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, at the Vatican in this Oct. 11, 2017, file photo. […]

The Last Temptation

How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory Michael Gerson April 2018 Issue Politics WN: This is a greatly informed, wise and even hopeful assessment of what has happened to white Evangelicals in America since their embrace of Trump (81% voted for […]

Ajamu Baraka, “Uncle Tom,” and the Pathology of White Liberal Racism

AUGUST 24, 2016 by ERIC DRAITSER WN: White Supremacy has many disguised faces. One is “white liberal”, worn by those who supported a Black President because it is the “liberal thing” to be anti-racist, and who smugly know they do the right thing: end of all discourse. But the issue is far deeper – and […]

For Abolition: Prisons and Police Are More Than Brutality, They’re State Terror

Saturday, 12 November 2016 00:00 By Frank Castro, The Hampton Institute | News Analysis photo above: Jobs For Felons Hub; Edited: LW / TO This is an incredibly powerful assessment of “state terror” in arguably the most oppressive democracy of recent times: the United States of America. The author’s analysis rings true at every turn: […]

State Terrorism and Racist Violence in the Age of Disposability: Expanded Version

Sunday, 10 July 2016 00:00 By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed photo above: Demonstrators record a crowd of police officers on hand in New York’s Times Square, where a large crowd protested after fatal police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, July 7, 2016. (Photo: Christopher Lee / The New York Times) an excerpt: Note […]