Once elected, criminal justice reformers face nasty attacks. By Rashad Robinson http://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/opinion/george-floyd-prosecutors.html “District attorneys elected to carry out progressive policies over the last five years have been met with resistance from police departments and unions, as well as from judges, lawmakers and even some corporations. They have used their power to prevent these prosecutors from doing […]
MoreIf income inequality is getting worse, then the economy cannot be getting better because more people are worse off. Of course, this only matters if one is concerned with the lived experiences of real people in the real economy. Perhaps the stock market is (was) getting better and the very rich continue to get richer, […]
MoreBell, Vanderbilt, Edison, Walton, all started empires.
MoreThere are lessons for all of us in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Many of those lessons relate to issues of justice of all kinds: environmental, social, economic, housing, health. This is a learning moment. In post-Harvey Houston, what you do not know, just might kill you. Let’s try to learn from this disaster. We […]
MoreWhat will the victims of Hurricane Harvey have to look forward to after the storm? Will they have health care? Will they have rental assistance? Will they have extended unemployment insurance? Will homeless shelters have enough beds? Will Food Stamps and school lunches be available? Maybe. But, perhaps not. There was a time when our […]
MoreA few weeks ago Washington, D.C.’s African-American community was suffering the collective pain of at an alarming, seemingly unprecedented increase in the number of young black girls reported as missing. No Amber Alerts, no news features on television; nothing. D.C. police insisted that the rate missing black children had not increased. However, their statistics did not stem the […]
MoreI attended an event yesterday. The opening speaker began his remarks with this statement; “Michael Brown’s shadow is in this room.” It was a conference on fair housing and community development. After all of the panels and speakers–all excellent and informative–I left the event believing that we must do more than talk. This morning, I […]
MoreThe term “community development” became ghettoized and synonymous with low-income housing development for those disenfranchised by the mainstream economy and civic infrastructure. The class-based exit from older communities resulted in re-segregation and isolation both urban and rural. Communities are complex systems but recent practice has effectively relegated them to the raw materials of opportunistic housing […]
MoreJust finished “binge watching” the second season of “Orange is the New Black.” It is a finely crafted tapestry of social commentary, policy analysis, realism, questioning of generally accepted stereotypes, morality, and humanity–this series weaves this issues together into an entertaining dark comedy. It is a provocative body of work that should make us all […]
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