What is America at its best?We put this question to our team — to find out what version of America meets the potential of what we want America to be. Some of us answered, some didn’t. Some wondered if doing so could — in this America we’re living in right now — draw punishment from the powers that be.Some looked at history and others the future and others, songs. Here’s what we said: In my American history class, we learn […]
It was just some years ago, when in the previous Trump administration, we saw demonstrations for Black Lives Matter take over the streets to rightfully call out relentless injustices, the Women’s March crowd into D.C. and demonstrations in support of science march through hundreds of U.S. cities. But, now, as we say goodbye to 2024 and begin a new year and another Trump administration, we should not forget the lonely and persistent voices that led the movement of compassion and […]
Two of the most damning accusations a person can face are being called a terrorist and an antisemite. It’s true, terrorism is abhorrent and antisemites are abhorrent. There is no question about either.But there is something equally as abhorrent: Falsely throwing these labels at people simply to silence them. The horrifying truth, however, is several people – especially minorities – have recently had their words incorrectly called either terrorist-related or anti-Semitic or both, and are facing real-life consequences for the […]
Editor’s note: The following is being reprinted with permission for two reasons. One, in honor of Native American Heritage Month, and, two, as a celebration of free speech and the right to freedom of expression and thought. The speech was to have been delivered at Plymouth in 1970. Three hundred fifty years after the Pilgrims began their invasion of the land of the Wampanoag, their “American” descendants planned an anniversary celebration. Still clinging to the white schoolbook myth of friendly […]
The images are shocking, but are they really all that shocking by “today’s standards”? In one propaganda poster, a cartoon depicting a Japanese person’s face is getting punched by a muscled up “American” laborer. The words above the drawing: “Don’t save his face! Every blow counts in the battle for production.” In another cartoon, a Japanese person is depicted as a rat – the most despised of all animals – crawling into a trap that reads, “Army, Navy, Civilian.”And one, […]
Immigrants, especially immigrants without all their proper paperwork, get blamed for many ills of our nation. But such scapegoating is not only dangerous to our shared humanity, it is often just plain untrue. In fact, immigrants — especially and including undocumented ones — contribute in many ways to our society and in many ways keep it running smoothly. It’s easy to scapegoat, but it’s difficult to look inward and ask questions like, where would our nation be without immigrants, even […]
“The doctrine of consular nonreviewability was born broken.” That’s how the Fred T. Korematsu Center and Asian Americans Advancing Justice described this little-known doctrine that gives significant powers to consular officials in immigration matters. The line was in a legal brief they submitted to the recently ruled Supreme Court case, “Department of State v. Muñoz,” which many see as a setback for immigration marriage rights. The groups make a strong case that the doctrine was built on a series of […]
America is failing its children.That is the undeniable takeaway from a report published earlier this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.Kids age one to 19 are overall dying at a faster rate than they have been in the past half century, found the team of doctors who wrote the report, “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality Among US Youth.”Between 1999 and 2020, nearly a half million kids in the U.S. died, and many from […]
“Many people feel that when they hear views that they deeply disagree with, that’s threatening to them. That’s not how universities operate. You are not entitled to feel intellectually safe. You are entitled to be physically safe.” That quote is from attorney and former Brandeis University president, Frederick M. Lawrence, as he spoke to Democracy Now! recently about the military-like response we’ve been watching at universities nationwide. Actual threats should be protected against, said Lawrence, but police in riot gear […]
