Progressive Media Advocates
The articles in this category deal with Institutional racism. It is here that you find discussions about the kind of racism that continues to operate relentlessly on its own, like a machine, in spite of the intentions of people of good will. De factor racism, silent racism, covert racism, microaggresive behavior, there are lots of names for what we continue to battle in the United States - racially based unearned advantages and disadvantages.
Robert Fuller: What is Rankism? It is a collective name for the various ways power can be abused. Whereas rank is meant to serve, rankism is a self-serving perversion of service. There are many varieties of rankism — sexism, racism, and ableism are a few.
Anthony Samad: The same dignity Dorner had in his work, he lost in his death. But he made his point. The system he once believed in, and defended, is still broken and nobody seems to care.
Antony Samad: The book is an examination of American Institutions (Race, Religion, Education and Politics) and the cultural shifts taking place in our society (national identity, racism, sport, social stigmatism, sex, redemption, counter-culturalism, popular acceptance and tragedy)
Sharon Kyle: 20 years after Los Angeles erupted in civil unrest, still with major differentials in employment, housing, healthcare, education, and wealth between whites and blacks, are we sitting on a powder keg again?
Mark Naison: Richie, a tough, working class kid from Chicago who had played basketball at Marquette, approached this campaign as if it might be the last of his life because, in fact, it was.
Sheria Reid: The depth of depravity that feeds racism at this level counts on being able to stay in the shadows. They don’t want those of us who find their beliefs repulsive to see them.
Sheria Reid: No matter how well intentioned, burying one’s head in the sand and pretending that the monster doesn’t exist never works out well.
Lauren Nile: I wish America’s Caucasian population could experience American society as African-Americans experience it for 24 hours.
Lauren Nile: Mitt Romney’s speach at the NAACP Convention this week revealed his unconscious racism of low expectations
Lauren Nile: Our misunderstanding of race is one of the most significant factors that has greatly decelerated our evolution as a species.
Vijay Prashad: One of the great triumphs of the past two decades has been the gradual and by now almost total demise of the legitimacy of the current phase of capitalism, in other words, neo-liberalism.
Walter Brasch: Mistrust and distrust, often fueled by the mass media with their own agendas, may lead some to irrationally believe that entire demographics of people — White, Black, Hispanic, gay, Jew, Muslim — may pose threats to their own safety, leading them to react as if the threats were real rather than imagined.
Jonathan Farley: The National Review’s John Derbyshire pointed out that no black mathematician had ever won the Fields medal. There are a few reasons for that.
Randy Shaw: Many white Americans yearn for the days when racism was not “an issue.” White attitudes toward George Zimmerman’s actions confirm this.
Anthony Samad: The week after President Obama was elected in November of 2008, the FBI reported a 49% jump in background checks for gun and assault rifle purchases. Some 374,000 people sought to buy guns between November 3rd and 9th, 2008.
Carl Matthes: The President’s most personal message to the family – “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” – is a metaphor. Trayvon represents my son, your child. None of us want any unarmed child, who is walking home from the store while chatting on his cell phone to a girl friend, shot down under any circumstances.
Steve Hochstadt: Once the enforced segregation of black and gay Americans into closets and ghettos was broken, discriminatory ideas have lost their persuasive power.
LA Progressive’s Publisher, Sharon Kyle, had a big week this week, placing two articles in the top 10 most read articles: “Why “The Help” Is Little Help” and “Black History Month, Who Needs It?”
Steve Hochstadt: That mixing in Jacksonville was regulated by the racism of stores and restaurants which black families could not enter, of high school dances for white students only, of neighborhood covenants which allowed only whites to buy property.
Carol Lutness: This is not just a struggle for the African American. It is a struggle for all but the very few. Never was there a greater crisis than we all face now economically, politically and environmentally.
Sharon Kyle: I have this gnawing sense that with the exception of official national holidays, the only time our nation honors people with a special day or month is when they are members of an exploited group.
Bill Fletcher: For right-wing populists and for too many of our own people, it is easier to blame the immigrant for our suffering than to recognize that capitalism will use whoever it can to weaken the power of working people.
David Love: Over one-third of people say that a relative is married to someone of a different race, and nearly two-thirds say it would be fine if a family decided to marry someone of a different race or ethnicity.
Steve Hochstadt: Those who have argued for excluding some Americans from full rights, who have urged some Americans to leave because they weren’t American enough, who wanted to separate and classify and dominate people, have always been wrong.
Anthony Samad: By intellectualizing racism, Gingrich is leaving his signature card with Americans that still have a race problem with Obama. We can’t let it work.
Tom Degan: Newt had spent the entire primary subtly pressing all of the right racial buttons and it worked out for him better than even he anticipated.
Thursday evening, LA Progressive Publisher Sharon Kyle appear on “The Point,” hosted by The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur to discuss Rick Santorum’s “Blah” People and Ellen Barkin’s tweet about being manhandled by New York’s finest.
Mark Naison: Ron Paul’s presidential run, either as a Republican or an independent, cannot gain traction without gaining support from at least some people of color, leftists and liberals.
We’re working from all angles to get the word out and drive turnout to pass Proposition C in Los Angeles on May 21st (vote by mail begins May 1st).
Walter Brasch: “The gas companies pay a one-time fee for your land, but you lose the right to utilize it as anything more than grassland forever. . . . You can never build on those easements. They took my retirement away by eminent domain.”
Tom Hayden: Newcomers like Senator King worry that the Obama administration has “essentially rewritten the Constitution,” giving rise to a new Imperial Presidency, buffered by an expanded security state.
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Defending Teachers and Teaching
Mark Naison: Every time I walk into a classroom, I am trying to do for my students what the best teachers I had did for me; to capture my imagination to such a degree that what went on in that class would be etched in my memory for life.