Feature Archives - Page 86 of 150

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The Trump Tax Trap: Can New Yorkers Escape It?

Urban Matters talks with James Parrott

January 13, 2018 • by James Parrott

On Jan. 16th, Governor Andrew Cuomo will present New York State’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year. Earlier this month, in his State of the State address, he previewed some possible major tax overhauls designed to offset the potentially punishing blows to State finances resulting from the recently passed ...

The Trump Tax Trap: Can New Yorkers Escape It?

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“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”

Reflections on a provocative presidential question

January 12, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Some of my best friends come from “shithole countries.” “Oriental,” Latin American and African: they’re not white, wealthy or Christian. They don’t come from countries like Norway. According to the President of the United States, they are undesirables. When considering immigration, Trump reached, yet again, a new low. The racism and ...

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Thinking After C’ville

A meditation on more of the same

January 12, 2018 • by Marcus Toure B. McCullough

Reverend Marcus Toure B. McCullough is a pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He is a graduate Morehouse College, and has earned masters degrees in divinity and sacred theology from Harvard Divinity School and Boston University School of Theology.

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Racial Preference and Grindr

The enduring erotics of colonialism

January 11, 2018 • by Dominic Reilly

Beyond preference vs. prejudice At what point does preference become discrimination? This question was used to frame a recent video produced by Grindr exploring the increasingly prominent topic of “race” and so-called “racial preferences” on hook-up and dating apps. That increasing attention is being paid to the racialized aspects of our partner selections ...

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African-American Intellectuals, Southern Democrats, and LaCroix Sparkling Water

Past Present Episode 113

January 11, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this episode, Natalia, Niki, and Neil discuss a feud between African-American intellectuals Cornel West and Ta-Nehisi Coates, the electoral prospects for southern Democrats, and why LaCroix Sparkling Water has become an obsession.

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African-American Intellectuals, Southern Democrats, and LaCroix Sparkling Water

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Oprah for President?

Can a celebrity’s civic religion heal our divided nation?

January 10, 2018 • by Claire Potter

I turned off #GoldenGlobes2018 about 45 minutes into the show. I was impressed by what I was hearing from the awards stand. But I was also offended by Seth Meyers’ repeated jabs at Kevin Spacey, the only gay man other than the elderly George Takei to have been accused of ...

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3.2 Million Older Workers Trapped in Unemployment

December 2017 Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55

January 10, 2018 • by Teresa Ghilarducci

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an unemployment rate of 3.3% for workers age 55 and older for the month of December, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from November. While this headline unemployment rate is still at historic lows, it only counts as unemployed those who actively sought employment in the ...

3.2 Million Older Workers Trapped in Unemployment

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Martin Luther King’s “False God of Nationalism”

Today’s animus against migrants is a legacy of Jim Crow

January 9, 2018 • by Vaughn A. Booker

A version of this essay was originally published on January 9 2018. Speaking on the first black-owned radio station in the US in 1953, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached on “The False God of Nationalism.” In the sermon, preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church and broadcast on Atlanta-based WERD radio ...

Martin Luther King’s “False God of Nationalism”

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NAFTA’s Long Shadow

Where immigration and economic policy meet

January 9, 2018 • by Sarah McNamara

Congressional Democrats and Republicans regularly play the blame game about why there’s no immigration reform. But each party fails to point the finger at one of the major culprits behind the contemporary immigration waves and this political morass: NAFTA. The signing of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) in the 1990s ...

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Reclaiming the Values Vote

Religious Critiques of Economic Inequality in American History

January 8, 2018 • by Paul Harvey

The celebration, the parsing and analysis, and the prognostications were not long in coming after Doug Jones’s upset victory over the Republican favorite Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate contest. Historian Neil Young has already summarized much of the immediate reaction here on Public Seminar. Twitter soon trended with variations of #thankblackwomen; ...

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The Power of Affects in Democratic Politics

Manuel Puig’s ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ and the affective turn in democratic theory

January 8, 2018 • by Gustavo Hessmann Dalaqua

The so-called “affective turn” in political theory has recently propelled several scholars to cast aspersions on the deliberative model of democracy. [i] By affirming that democracy should be conceived solely as an exchange of arguments between “reasonable” persons guided by the ideal of “impartiality,” deliberative theorists such as Habermas and Rawls, it ...

The Power of Affects in Democratic Politics

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The Canadian Option

Trump year 1

January 7, 2018 • by Anne Balant-Campbell

What have you done in the last year to respond to the upheavals in American politics? This is an installment in a series of short essays that reflect on the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency. I am living a double life. When I am in front of a class, or going through ...