Activism Archives - Page 10 of 14

Activism

Varieties of Antifascism

Russian notes towards a global debate

October 15, 2020 • by Mischa Gabowitsch

_____ A question may bе raised as to why, if we wish to explore new resources for combating fascism, we do not give as much attention to the "potential antifascist." The answer is that we do study trends that stand in opposition to fascism, but we do not conceive that they ...

Activism

Remembering and Resisting the Age of Reagan

An activist historian advises his students that the choices they make now will shape their future

September 24, 2020 • by James Goodman

______ It was November 1980, two months after my girlfriend and I moved to New York City from Boston, where we had met a year before. I had just started in the M.F.A. program at Columbia and she had just started a job at a small press, managing the production of ...

Remembering and Resisting the Age of Reagan

Activism

A New Era in America’s Racial Politics

How a racial reparations alliance can prove that Black lives matter

August 27, 2020 • by Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King

Asheville isn’t the first American city to apologize for slavery and enact new policies to repair some of the damage it has done to Black families. For example, in November 2019, Evanston, Illinois, decided to levy a tax on marijuana to expand housing and employment opportunities for the city’s African ...

Activism

“Brother Doc,” a Co-Conspirator for Justice

For a physician who supported armed struggle in the 1970s and 1980s, a commitment to radical anti-racism was everything

July 30, 2020 • by Susan M. Reverby

But what kind of action? There have always been Americans who could imagine a world of racial equality and justice, and who worked in cross-racial alliances to make it happen, not just -- as we do today -- at a street protest, or by issuing heartfelt statements of support, or ...

“Brother Doc,” a Co-Conspirator for Justice

Activism

Trojan Horse

Misusing Greek mythology on a college campus sneaks white supremacy in the back door

July 23, 2020 • by Amelia Jones and Tania Modleski

These cultural forms act as “Trojan horses,” sneaking offensive, even racist and sexist ideas into the fabric of the university where they lie in wait to do harm. In our case, one has to begin, of course, with the hyper-masculine bronze statue of Tommy Trojan (erected in 1930) at the center ...

Activism

On Our Revolutionary Moment

Putting today’s revolt against institutional racism into historical context

July 22, 2020 • by James Traub

Protestors, who had been staging increasingly violent strikes, had assailed City College, CUNY’s flagship school, located in the middle of Harlem, as a racist institution that used academic standards to deny admission to all but a handful of Black and Puerto Rican students. They demanded that CUNY abandon those standards ...

Activism

Their Violence and Ours

Attacks on property do not always undermine a political cause

July 16, 2020 • by William E. Scheuerman

How should we make sense of the political violence that has sometimes accompanied Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests? What about the state’s violent response to peaceful protest, or the dangerous acts committed by right-wing counter-protestors? Speaking on Canadian radio in the wake of 160 riots that shook U.S. cities during the ...

Activism

Saying Goodbye to Aunt Jemima Is Not Enough

What we really need to do to address the economic impact of systemic racism in the United States

July 9, 2020 • by Elwood Watson

When Dinah Washington recorded “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” in 1959, the blues diva managed to imbue the Tin Pan Alley lyrics with a kind of haunted hopefulness, the same kind of soulful yearning that would reappear a few years later in Sam Cooke’s monumental ode to the civil ...

Saying Goodbye to Aunt Jemima Is Not Enough

Activism

What Will It Take for Black Lives to Matter?

Nonviolent, cross-racial coalitions are the way back to a decent America

July 9, 2020 • by Todd Gitlin

I wrote the article that follows three years ago. Since it first appeared in the American Prospect, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has generated the largest protest movement in American history. What has changed? And what hasn’t? It remains true that the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) is ill-defined. It has rough edges ...

What Will It Take for Black Lives to Matter?

Activism

Boarded Up

SoHo’s plywood protest art

July 2, 2020 • by Virág Molnár

Some New York retailers started boarding up their stores shortly after the city went into full lockdown. Some prosperous residents were offended that stores were expecting a starkly dystopian future to engulf the city, as the stay at home order stifled everyday urban routines. The mass protests that suddenly erupted ...

Activism

Protest as a Means of Political Change: An Indian Case Study

How the 2012 gang rape of Jyoti Singh and the protests that followed changed a nation

July 2, 2020 • by Natasha Behl

In this current political moment of mass protests for racial justice across America, many of us are wondering how effective these protests are. Can marching in the streets lead to enduring change? Can dissent and disruption help us achieve a more equal and just society? Consider what happened in India eight ...

Protest as a Means of Political Change: An Indian Case Study

Activism

Toppling Andrew Jackson From His Pedestal

A racist who championed ethnic cleansing

July 2, 2020 • by Mark R. Cheathem

In today’s moment of Black Lives Matter and peaceful protests over racial injustice, more Americans than ever are tearing down statues across the country: Confederate heroes, dismantled; icons of Jim Crow, removed. Now, even former presidents aren’t immune. Consider Andrew Jackson -- one of President Trump’s personal models, who is also ...