Race Relations

Give Wes Bellamy a Break

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Charlottesville City Council Member Wes Bellamy is being widely denounced for tweets he tweeted years ago. I think he should be given a break.

I don’t know Bellamy well and have not communicated with him about this. I don’t support everything he’s done even in recent years. I have almost nothing but contempt for the Democratic Party. I don’t believe Bellamy deserves more of a break than would anyone else from some other demographic. I don’t sympathize in the least read more

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Millennials Organize Gun Violence Prevention Intersectionality Summit

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Millennials Organize Gun Violence Prevention Intersectionality Summit to Bring People Together Post-Election to Combat Divisiveness and Hate for a Day of Education, Organizing, Solidarity, and Art

Strength in Synergy Summit to be help December 10th at American University, DC

WASHINGTON, DC – On Saturday, December 10 from 9:30am – 7:30pm, a gun violence prevention summit organized by millennials will hold workshops, panel discussions, breakout grassroots organizing sessions, and conclude read more

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Registering Japanese Americans Is Precedent Only for Crime

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Since World War I and the initiative of J. Edgar Hoover, and right up through all the no-fly and terrorist-watch lists of today, the U.S. government has kept unconstitutional lists of people, largely or in part on the basis of their national or ethnic heritage or their political activism. These lists were part of the process of interning in camps Germans and German-Americans during World Wars I and II, and Japanese-Americans and Japanese during World War II.

In 1936 President Franklin Roosevelt read more

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Born on Home Plate

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Remember the satirical “Billionaires for Bush” protesters? Around this time in 2008 I asked them to become Oligarchs for Obama, and they refused. But I predict Tycoons for Trump will be born this month. Inequality, like war and climate destruction, has its face now.

Chuck Collins’ book, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good, presents the problem of inequality as well as any I’ve read more

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Slavery Was Abolished

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By David Swanson, World Beyond War

I recently debated a pro-war professor on the topic “Is war ever necessary?” (video). I argued for abolishing war. And because people like to see successes before doing something, no matter how indisputably possible that thing is, I gave examples of other institutions that have been abolished in the past. One might include such practices as human sacrifice, polygamy, cannibalism, trial by ordeal, blood read more

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Police Brutality against Blacks Rooted in US Foreign Policy

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By Tasnim News Agency

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A senior American peace activist and author said the killing of African American people by US police has its origins in the country’s foreign policy.

In an interview with Tasnim, David Swanson, who is the director of the “World Beyond War” website, said that the institutionalized “culture of immunity “for police officers in the United States has led to fatal shootings against African Americans, who are in most cases “unarmed, non-threatening and non-law-violating people.”

Highlighting the role the Israeli military plays in the training of US law enforcement forces, Swanson related the shooting culture to read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Benjamin Madley on the California Indian Catastrophe

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https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-benjamin-madley-on-the-california-indian-catastrophe

Benjamin Madley is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is also chair of American Indian Studies. He discusses his new book, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe.

Total run time: 29:00

Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.

Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.

Pacifica read more

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Protests of National Anthem Restore My Faith in Humanity

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Speaking out against racism is one thing — and a wonderful and admirable thing it is — but choosing to do so by sitting out the U.S. national anthem, and then having others join in, or “come out” as routine national anthem sitters: this is fantastic!

A self-governing republic of thinking people (whose first thought should be “My god, what are we doing to the rest of the planet with all this pollution and all these wars?”) ought to have no use for mandatory flag read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Maurice Carney and Harvey Wasserman on Racism, Environmentalism, and Ending War

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  https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-maurice-carney-and-harvey-wasserman-on-racism-environmentalism-and-ending-war

Maurice Carney is co-founder and executive director of Friends of the Congo. He has worked with Congolese for two decades in their struggle for peace, justice, and human dignity. Carney served as the interim Africa Working Group coordinator for Jesse Jackson while Jackson was Special Envoy to Africa. Carney has worked as a research analyst read more

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ISIS and U.S. Weaponry: At Home and Abroad

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When someone commits mass murder in the United States and is tied, however significantly, to a foreign terrorist group, there remains a section of the U.S. population willing to recognize and point out that no ideology, fit of hatred, or mental derangement can do the same damage without high-tech weaponry that it does with it. Why does this understanding vanish into the ether of ignorance and apathy at the water’s edge?

ISIS videos display U.S. guns, U.S. Humvees, U.S. weaponry of all sorts. read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Jean Trounstine and Karter Reed on Murder, Juvenile Injustice, and Redemption

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  https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-jean-trounstine-and-karter-reed-on-murder-juvenile-injustice-and-redemption

Jean Trounstine is the author of Boy With a Knife: A Story of Murder, Remorse, and a Prisoner’s Fight for Justice.

Karter Reed is the subject of and the author of the Epilogue to the book. He was convicted of murder as a child in an adult court, and was sent to adult prison.

read more

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What's the Truth Hidden by the "Super Predators" Lie?

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The desire to punish for the joy of punishing, for revenge, or for racist or sadistic domination has always had certain difficulties hiding behind the pretense of punishing for protection from danger. Creating fear of (young, black, male) “super predators” was a propaganda tactic for politicians like Hillary Clinton that bore some similarity to the efforts by politicians like Hillary Clinton to create fear of Iraqi weapons that didn’t exist. The latter was meant to hide U.S. read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Bill Fletcher Jr. on Justice for the People of Western Sahara

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  https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-bill-fletcher-jr-on-justice-for-the-people-of-western-sahara

Bill Fletcher Jr. has worked for several labor unions in addition to serving as a senior staffperson in the national AFL-CIO. Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; an editorial board member of BlackCommentator.com; and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the co-author read more

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Living With Racism in the USA

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I thought Deepa Iyer’s new book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future, would be about positive and jarring cultural contributions from immigrants, how their literature, music, myths, cooking, clothing, and cultural practices are merging with and influencing wider U.S. culture. I think that would be a good book. Maybe someone’s written it.

This, too, is a good book, and I recommend it. But it is mostly about the all-too-familiar read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Khury Petersen-Smith on Black Solidarity with Palestine

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https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-khury-petersen-smith-on-black-solidarity-with-palestine

Khury Petersen-Smith is an activist who lives in Boston. He traveled to Gaza in 2009 as part of the Viva Palestina medical relief delegation. He also traveled to Iraq on a peace delegation in 2004. His organizing and writing focus particularly on Black liberation, Palestine solidarity, and U.S. empire. He was an organizer of a new statement of black solidarity with Palestine: read more

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Talk Nation Radio: James Kilgore on Understanding Mass Incarceration

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https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-james-kilgore-on-understanding-mass-incarceration

James Kilgore discusses his new book, Understanding Mass Incarceration: An Introduction to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time.

Total run time: 29:00

Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.

Download from Archive or LetsTryDemocracy.

Pacifica stations can also download from AudioPort.

Syndicated by Pacifica Network.

Please encourage your read more

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Seven Ways Racism Is Built In

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1. WEALTH GAP: The playing field is not level. The median wealth of a white household in the United States is over 13 times that of a black household, and the gap is widening. Most black households have less than $350 in savings. It takes money not just to make money but to get a start, to live near good schools, to live free of lead paint poisoning, or to address the special needs that every person has.

2. EDUCATION: Black students are three times as likely as whites to attend schools where fewer read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Karen Dolan on the Criminalization of Poverty

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https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-karen-dolan-on-the-criminalization-of-poverty

Karen Dolan is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and directs the Criminalization of Poverty project there. She also is a member of the team at the Economic Hardship Reporting project. Her public scholarship and activism is focused on domestic poverty and local democracy/empowerment. Karen’s latest publication is The Poor Get Prison: The Alarming Spread of the Criminalization read more

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