From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Nixon’s ‘racist mayhem’ lingers today

May 18, 2016

Our era, when racist police gun down Black men, women and youth, continues a history as old as the U.S. The piece excerpted here shows some of that history and how racism can be spurred on by this country’s leaders and would-be leaders, out for power. It takes up how Left movements respond to racism and the attempt to answer the question by funneling liberatory impulses into the dead end of electoral politics. The relationships between the Black freedom movement, anti-war youth, workers, and philosophy of revolution remain as critical today as when this article was written.

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Readers’ Views, May-June 2016

May 17, 2016

Readers’ Views on Women as Reason; Harriet Tubman; Racism and Internationalism; Bisexual Health; Trans Liberation and Feminism; Chinese State vs. Workers; Nuclear Arms Threaten All; Ireland’s Red Banner; Remembering Olga Domanski; Haggard but Not Tired; Voices from Behind the Bars.

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Hugo “Yogi” Pinell (1945-2015)

September 3, 2015

On Aug. 12, Hugo “Yogi” Pinell (1945-2015) was killed in the California State Prison-Sacramento. Pinell was a comrade of George Jackson, W.L. Nolen, James Carr, and other founders of the modern prison movement.

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World in View: Charleston terrorism

July 8, 2015

The racist murder of nine people at the historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C., is the characteristic U.S. form of terrorism, directed against the expression of Black self-determination.

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Readers’ Views, July-August 2015

July 4, 2015

Black lives as Subject; Russia in crisis; Nothing about us without us; Homelessness in L.A.; Central Canada Alliance; Perspectives and philosophy; Elderly to the streets?; Women and Yemen half-peace; Labor and climate justice; Dialectic and women’s liberation; Voices from behind the bars

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Editorial: Black Lives Matter NOW!

June 28, 2015

The video of Cpl. Eric Casebolt’s June 5 attack on Dejerria Becton and other kids at a pool party in McKinney, Texas, went viral because it was simultaneously shocking and commonplace. In 2015 USA, protests were inevitable and were heard around the world.

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30 Years Later: AIDS activism and ACT UP Chicago

May 9, 2015

ACT UP Chicago grew out of an organization that began in 1984 of Dykes and Gay Men Against Racism and Repression. We became an AIDS activism organization, first called Chicago For Our Rights, then by spring Chicago for AIDS Rights. We pushed for lowering the prices of AIDS drugs, and the release of more of them. By October and the national action in Washington, D.C., we had become ACT UP Chicago. AIDS is a global issue today. This time around, I’d like to see an AIDS activist movement that’s organized by poor, working-class, mostly people of color.

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The todayness of Selma, USA, 1965

In acquainting readers with coverage of the forces of revolution in News & Letters over its first 60 years, we present “Continuing Magnolia Jungle terror exposes reality of ‘Great Society,’” written by Charles Denby in February 1965, in the midst of the bloody campaign for voter registration in Selma, Alabama.

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Chicago teachers’ strike reviewed

January 29, 2015

Review of “Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity” by Micah Uetricht and “How to Jump-Start Your Union: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers” from Labor Notes.

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Essay: ‘We all can’t breathe’–Reflections on Marx’s Humanism and Fanon

As a Black man, I asked myself: Why—through the dialectical crises of the social relations of production and the subsequent implosion of multiple outlived modes of production—has racism persisted? Why, despite the relations of property literally bursting asunder, does racism survive? How and why does racism, sexism, homophobia survive revolution after revolution? Will we again be left behind after the next revolution?

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Readers’ Views, November-December 2014, Part 2

November 23, 2014

From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters

Readers’ Views, Part 2

PHILOSOPHY, ACTIVITY, ORGANIZATION AND SOCIALISM

I appreciate how Dunayevskaya relates Hegel’s Absolutes with the concrete tasks of building a revolutionary organization. History is the process of becoming. Hegel said that Being and Nothing are abstractions, whereas [=>]

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Picketing for jobs

August 29, 2014

From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters

Chicago–Altgeld Gardens residents picketed the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) on June 26. They told News & Letters that the CHA contracts with Walsh Construction to work on housing projects like Altgeld Gardens, which is 97% Black. But Walsh refuses to follow Section 3, which requires 30% [=>]

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Justice for Ezell Ford

From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters

Los Angeles—On Aug. 17 over 1,000 protesters gathered at the downtown LA Police Department (LAPD) headquarters. We were there not only in support of Michael Brown, but also to protest the many killings over the years of Black, Brown and even a few white youths [=>]

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We march in Oakland for #NMOS14

From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters

Oakland, Calif.—Several hundred came out on Aug. 14 to a vigil in Oscar Grant Plaza, as part of a national day of protest over the police murder of Michael Brown. We read out the names of a growing number of unarmed young Black men executed [=>]

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NYC Police murder Eric Garner

From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters

New York, N.Y.–There are certain facts in the case of the police murder of Eric Garner which are not in question. The use of the chokehold by the NY Police Department (NYPD) has been illegal for over 20 years. Eric Garner was a 43-year-old father [=>]

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‘A Dreadful Deceit’ and unceasing rebellion

March 30, 2014

Jacqueline Jones’ new book, A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America, is not a call to ignore effects of the concept of race in law and practice. She finds the definition of race repeatedly twisted to suit the needs of the ruling class and wielded as a tool for subjugation of Black and white labor alike.

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Women fight for freedom against growing retrogression

March 13, 2014

While experiences in the squares of the Arab Spring, in Turkey’s Gezi Park, in the streets of Spain and Greece, and in the U.S. Occupy Movements have revealed moments of what new human relations between women and men could look like, those moments of hope and exhilaration have been followed by devastating reaction and retrogression.

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Charles Denby, worker-editor

February 8, 2014

As a contribution to Black History Month we reprint Raya Dunayevskaya’s memorial for Charles Denby (1907-1983), her comrade of 35 years, Editor of News & Letters from its founding in 1955 until his death and the author of Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal.

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Readers’ Views, Nov.-Dec. 2013, Part 1

December 14, 2013

Readers’ Views from Nov.-Dec. 2013 N&L: U.S. RACISM AND BLACK AND LATINO STRUGGLES; LABOR UNDER ATTACK; CTA vs. THE HOMELESS; DISABILITY AND HUMANITY; ABORTION IS A HUMAN NEED; EGYPT’S CONTRADICTIONS; DETROIT CRISIS; NUCLEAR PERIL; WHY A NEWSPAPER LIKE N&L?

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Youth on the move

December 1, 2013

Whenever you go to demonstrations, whether it is fast food workers demanding a living wage and a union where they work, or immigrants demanding total legalization now instead of a phony 14-year “path to citizenship,” or marches after the Trayvon Martin verdict, young people are playing a major role in the struggles for social justice and equal rights.

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Recreating Detroit

September 12, 2013

A different Detroit is struggling to be realized in the minds and hearts of its citizens: individuals (unrecognized thousands of whom routinely maintain nearby abandoned property) as well as organizations—from churches and small businesses to youth and athletic programs, block clubs and neighborhood associations, and social and environmental justice organizations.

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September-October 2013 issue of News & Letters available

September 3, 2013

The new September-October 2013 issue of News & Letters is online.

News & Letters, Vol. 58, No. 5

Lead
Racism and the fight against it take center stage in the U.S.

Nationwide protests erupted immediately after the outrageous July 13 acquittal of George Zimmerman for murdering 17-year-old African-American high school student Trayvon Martin last year. Within three days, thousands [=>]

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American Civilization on Trial

April 8, 2013

Raya Dunayevskaya’s sublimely researched American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard (ACOT) deserves a place among the U.S.’s most honest historical treatises.

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Readers’ Views, January-February 2013, Part 1

March 9, 2013

RAVAGES OF CAPITALISM SHOW NEED FOR NEW WORLD

The article on “Climate chaos and capitalism” (Sept.-Oct. 2012 N&L) is very relevant, especially the conclusion about how capitalism’s contradiction is that the growth of the economy, of capitalist production, means more global warming and climate change worldwide.
Activist for humans and environment
Los Angeles

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The technologies we [=>]

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