Ethnicities

By Sharon Austin | – On Apr. 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, while assisting striking sanitation workers. Back then, over a half century ago, the wholesale racial integration required by the 1964 Civil Rights Act was just beginning to chip away at discrimination in education, jobs and public […]

Arab Americans

With Trump’s Iran Attack Abroad, Iranian-Americans and Muslim-Americans are Unfairly Targeted at Home

Aliyya Zahidi

Irvine, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment) – A day under the Trump Administration typically consists of angry tweets, an absurd amount of misinformation, and reckless decisions made by an egotistical maniac. Just three days into the new year we saw exactly that as the Trump Administration launched an attack on Iran, killing the nation’s top […]

African-Americans

James Baldwin’s Journey from Engagement with Israel to Pro-Palestinian Activism

Shalom Goldman

(Special to Informed Comment) – James Baldwin was one of the first African American writers to visit Israel. In the fall of 1961, he spent two weeks in Israel as a guest of the government. Baldwin was thirty-seven at the time, and already well-established as an essayist and novelist. He had published his first full-length […]

African-Americans

How Turkish Muslims at Atlantic Records Marketed Motown, Jazz, Black Music to America

Shalom Goldman

(Special to Informed Comment) – To those outside of the music business the title, “The House that Ahmet Built” might sound like the name of a Turkish folktale for children. But for those in the know, the ‘house’ was Atlantic Records and ‘Ahmet’ was Ahmet Ertegun, the great record company’s co-founder. In 1947 along with […]

African-Americans

The Fate of the Nation depends on Dems Turning out the Black Womens’ Vote

Yes! Magazine

By Tasha Williams | – ( Yes! Magazine ) – Turnouts demonstrate that when we are effectively engaged, our work can make seemingly impossible victories possible. A volunteer checks off voters as they arrive at the Beulah Baptist Church polling station in Montgomery, Alabama, on Dec. 12, 2017. Tasha Williams posted Nov 21, 2019 Democratic […]

Featured

On How Latinos are America’s Greatest Hope for Economic Growth and Renewal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Hispanics or Latinos have been a key population in North America for four hundred years. They are now often coded as immigrants by white Americans, but they were in what is now New Mexico, Arizona and Texas centuries before English-speakers arrived. Spaniards founded San Antonio in 1718, long before the […]

Arab Americans

No, John McCain’s Response to Obama being Called “an Arab” was not Exemplary: Here’s Why

Juan Cole

A video of Sen. John McCain from the 2008 presidential campaign wherein he disagrees with a woman at one of his campaign rallies about Obama being “an Arab” has gone viral again. It is being contrasted with Trump’s insouciance as his blackshirts chanted “send her home” concerning Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). People who are holding […]

African-Americans

No African-American has won Office in Mississippi in 129 Years– Here’s Why

The Conversation

By John A. Tures | – Mississippi is home to the highest percentage of African Americans of any state in the country. And yet, Mississippi hasn’t elected an African American candidate to statewide office since 1890. That’s 129 years. John Stuart Mill wrote about “the tyranny of the majority” – the idea that an electoral […]

Ethnicities

Yes, US Birth Rate is Dropping – But Why that is Not A Problem

The Conversation

By Caroline Sten Hartnett | – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on May 15 that the number of births in the U.S. is down 2% – “the lowest number of births in 32 years.” These reports were met with surprise and alarm. USA Today, for example, led with the headline “A lot […]