racism

Racial Fearmongering and Ferguson: US Stereotype of “violent” African-American Men as old as Slavery

By Peter Bloom, The Open University (The Conversation) The decision not to charge police officer Darren Wilson with the unlawful shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown has reignited protests across the US. The judgment was met by violent outrage on the streets of Ferguson. After months of deliberation, a grand jury ruled that there was […]

African-Americans

Race inequality between US Whites and African-Americans by the Numbers (Again)

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | — With regard to employment, African-Americans got hit harder by the Bush Depression than did whites, and jobs have not come back for them at nearly the same rate: This vast difference between Euro-American and African-American rates of employment holds true regardless of educational level; college-educated African-Americans are also twice as […]

Buddhism

Militant Buddhist Monks stir attacks on innocent Muslims in Myanmar

contributors

AJ+ “Buddhist monks were a symbol of hope and defiance during the dark years of Myanmar’s military dictatorship. But as the country opens up to the world, some have taken a radically sectarian turn. Since 2012, violence has uprooted more than 150,000 members of the country’s Muslim minority. And in July 2014, Buddhist mobs attacked […]

Epidemics

Ebola’s not the First Racial Germ Panic: The Long History of Xenophobia and Scapegoating

contributors

By Dan Dinello The attempt by some GOP politicians to tie the ebola outbreak to immigration issues is nothing new in American or European history. Immigrants have often been despised, feared and stigmatized by the native-born as harbingers of disease or even death. Conflating disease carriers with foreigners and social outcasts is a practice that […]

Epidemics

Dear USA: Liberian-Americans don’t Have Ebola

contributors

By Philippa Garson (Follow @PhilippaGarson ) NEW YORK, 17 October 2014 (IRIN) – Africans living in the US from the three Ebola-affected countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, are under enormous pressure trying to help their families and ravaged communities back home. And they face an additional challenge: stigma. For the residents of “Little […]

Health

Ebola & Immigrants and Muslims, Oh My! Operating the Fear Machine

contributors

by Rebecca Gordon Like many people around the world, four-star Marine General John Kelley is really worried about Ebola. But he’s not worried about the more than 4,000 people who have died of the disease in western Africa. And he’s only tangentially worried about people dying in this country. What is the real threat Ebola […]

Featured

Ben Affleck on Bill Maher’s Muslim Problem

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Bravo to Ben Affleck and Nicholas Kristoff for telling Bill Maher off about his chronic case of Muslim-hating bigotry. (He would say he doesn’t hate Muslims, only their religion, but then those who hate gays say much the same sort of thing). Maher and Sam Harris like to demonize Islam and by […]

Colonialism

Lessons from French Morocco: “Fanaticism Anxiety” about Muslims has been with us since the Colonial Era

Juan Cole

By Edmund Burke III Today we hear a great deal about the question of what went wrong in Middle Eastern societies. For an historian of the early twentieth century world, it’s déjà vu all over again. Similar questions and similar anxieties were being voiced a century ago. Very much like fin de siècle Europeans, we […]

Christians

Tony Blair obsessed with Religious “Crusade” against Iraq, like Bush: Former British Dep’ty PM

contributors

Channel 4 News: “Former deputy prime minister John Prescott calls his ex boss Tony Blair a ‘crusader’ because of Blair’s recent calls to send troops back into the Iraq.” ‘Tony Blair is a crusader’ says John Prescott | Channel 4 News