Billboards are everywhere in New York City. They’re on subway trains and in stations, and on top of and inside taxis. But few, if any, have been anything like a series of anonymous billboards that have popped up on bus shelters in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. They’re not selling anything but a delcaration: that racism [...]
Revolutionary Resolutions for 2013
Mark Twain once said, “New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.” Although there isn’t much evidence to dispute such a claim, perhaps it’s time to create some. With that in mind, we decided to reach out [...]
In Our Hands
Obviously as social change agents, activists are well aware of the power society holds. In that case, may these pieces inspire, inform, or incite you to approach the making of change differently. Why I Vote: Community Action Begins at the Ballot Folks hold voting in many different ways. I know of a staunch activist [...]
The Case for a 21-Hour Work Week
To save the world–or really to even just make our personal lives better–we will need to work less. Time, like work, has become commodified, a recent legacy of industrial capitalism, where a controlled, 40-hour week (or more) in factories was necessary. Our behavior is totally out of step with human priorities and the nature of [...]
So, What Now? Five Racial Justice Thinkers Make Sense of the Election
There was less swagger, but arguably more urgency as millions of people headed to the polls this week to re-elect President Barack Obama. It wasn’t so much a test of hope as it was one of patience, to give the man from whom so much was expected four more years to make good on his [...]
B. Loewe | An End to Self Care
Is the focus on self care driving us away from community care? Or not? B. Loewe’s article, which calls for the end of self care as a means towards collective change, gives us all something to think about. I’m going to say it. I want to see an end to “self-care.” Can we put a [...]
Fannie Lou Who? Why Voting Rights Still Matter
We all honor the Civil Rights Act and the hundreds of thousands of people who marched, spoke, or gave their lives to see the next generation into something better. So why do we still need to “take back the vote?” Defend the vote? Be concerned about what game they might play on us at the [...]
Low Benefits, Temporary Jobs — Work Is Getting Worse … But Hope for Labor Rights Is Emerging from a Surprising Place
A Labor Day interview with Ai-Jen Poo. Over the last 30 years, Americans have seen the very nature of work change. Working people used to expect to have a stable job with health benefits and a retirement plan, a job they’d keep for most of their lives. Now, though, workers bounce from job to job, employers have [...]
Cooperatives Put People—and Democracy—to Work
Shift Change—Putting Democracy to Work, a film by Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin about life outside the corporate framework, is slated for release in July 2012. Examining cooperatives in both the United States and Spain, it documents the growing number of employee-owned businesses. At a time when many people are out of work, job security [...]
96-year-old Woman Who Voted During Jim Crow Denied Photo ID
Voter ID may seem like a sensible request, but in many states issues like Voter ID end in complications that cut certain people out of the voting pool. At age 96, Dorothy Cooper is the new poster child for what’s wrong with the state’s photo ID voter law. A retired domestic worker living in Chattanooga, [...]
Politically Aware | Q&A with Congressman TIM RYAN
It may seem like an oxymoron, but it’s possible to be a mindful politician. Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan tells readers about his practice and how mindfulness could affect the nation in the Shambhala Sun. Tim Ryan, who is serving his fifth term representing Ohio’s 17th Congressional District, was first elected to the House of Representatives [...]