African-Americans

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ilhan Omar handily won the Democratic Party primary for Minnesota’s 5th District, encompassing Minneapolis and some of its suburbs. Indeed, she improved her margin of victory over 2018, winning by 57% to 39% for her rival, Antone Melton-Meaux, whose campaign was funded in part by a usually pro-Republican organization of […]

African-Americans

Kamala Harris is the America that Trump tried to Stop: the Best of Jamaica and India and born in Oakland

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Kamala Devi Harris says she is just an American, and that is certainly true. She identifies Black, and that is certainly true. Here I would like to explore her Americanness by considering two of her ancestors, a grandfather and a great-grandmother, neither of whom had much to do with the […]

African-Americans

Before Kamala Harris became Biden’s running mate, Shirley Chisholm and other Black women aimed for the White House

The Conversation

By Sharon Austin | – U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, the American daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is Joe Biden’s choice for vice president. If Biden wins in November, Harris would break three centuries-old barriers to become the nation’s first female vice president, first Black vice president and first Black female vice president. Geraldine Ferraro […]

African-Americans

The Suburban Vote: Why Trump threatened Detroit, America’s most Segregated City, with Federal Officers

Jamal Dillman-Hasso

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – Donald Trump initially threatened to deploy federal agents in the city to clamp down on protests, though later tried to switch reasons in the hope that we already forgot. This is not aimed at rural voters, though—it is aimed at suburbs. Trump has long realized that by raising […]

African-Americans

How the Black Lives Matter movement uses creative tactics to confront systemic racism

The Conversation

By Nimalan Yoganathan | – The police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have galvanized anti-racism protests throughout the United States, Canada and elsewhere. As a result, lawmakers have made pledges to divest from police and school districts have cut ties with law enforcement. The organizing of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and […]

African-Americans

John Lewis knew that Democrats must build a Cross-Race Coalition against Plutocrats that Honors the Victimization of Minorities

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Rep. John Lewis lay in state at the Capitol on Monday, after a lifetime devoted to racial justice issues. With racial injustice now more obvious than ever, steps both by business and government to redress the systemic failings may be possible. Nonetheless some of the best current […]

African-Americans

John Lewis and C.T. Vivian belonged to a long tradition of religious leaders in the civil rights struggle

The Conversation

By Lawrence Burnley | – With the deaths of Rep. John Lewis and the Rev. Cordy Tindell “C.T.” Vivian, the U.S. has lost two civil rights greats who drew upon their faith as they pushed for equality for Black Americans. Vivian, an early adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died July 17 at […]

African-Americans

Maskless in the Red Death: The Pathology of Trump’s Racism is turning our Pandemic into Negligent Genocide

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – As Donald Trump sits idly by, the nation is experiencing both a catastrophic public health collapse that has brought international humiliation as well as a convulsive, impassioned protest movement that indicts police brutality and systemic racism. Trump’s negligent response to the pandemic — morally amounting to genocide — has […]

African-Americans

How racism in US health system hinders care and costs lives of African Americans

The Conversation

By Tamika C.B. Zapolski | – As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the U.S., the virus hit African Americans disproportionately hard. African Americans are still contracting the illness – and dying from it – at rates twice as high as would be expected based on their share of the population. In Michigan, African Americans are […]