The first time I heard the racial trope “go back to where you came from,” I was getting off of a school bus in a White section of town in Brooklyn, N.Y. Little did I know then I’d hear those words from kindergarten through 12th grade, and the N-word was usually coming at the end of the phrase than the beginning. By my senior year in high school, very few White students and … [Read more...]
Studies expose destructive housing inequities
From the rapidly urbanizing cities of the global South to the former Rust Belt cities in the Midwestern United States, millions of people face housing insecurity and/or live in substandard housing. — Jackie Smith and Emily Cummins The Government of the United States of America has provided financial support primarily through tax … [Read more...]
Trump’s attempt to erase Harriet Tubman
With uniquely American hypocrisy, the Trump Treasury Department has pushed back the 2016 plan to put escaped slave and Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Tubman would be the first African American woman featured on U.S. currency. The $20 currently features a former president, Andrew Jackson, who not only owned slaves, but ordered the death march of … [Read more...]
Highland Park Middle School teacher placed on leave after using ‘racist’ language to describe Black students
A Highland Park High School teacher has been placed on administrative leave after a video surfaced on social media showing the teacher using “racist and foul” language at the school, according to school officials. In the 24-second video, the teacher can be heard using the N-word. “They’re Black. And they’re the only f*cking N-word doing any work,” the teacher appears to say … [Read more...]
From ‘40 acres and a mule’ to the 2020 election, a brief history of reparation promises
Several 2020 presidential candidates have called for reparations for slavery in the U.S Does the United States owe descendants of slaves reparations? It’s a question being asked more frequently of Democrats running for the 2020 presidential nomination. Many have expressed varying degrees of support for reparations, giving the idea the greatest prominence it’s ever had … [Read more...]