Tactical thinking as Frederick Douglass practiced it is something of a lost art. We tend to think in stark binaries – either elections are everything or they are nothing.
Tactical choices in tough times
Are reforms useful?
In public conversations, those of us who argue that the racism and brutality of the police/mass incarceration system are essential features of that system, often say that reform is not the solution. […]
Experimenting With Our People’s Safety
The current attempt to challenge the powerful Minneapolis Police Department – by way of a city charter amendment known as Question 2 – is a “dangerous experiment.” At least, that’s the verdict of media pundits, downtown business interests and community gatekeepers.
Ilhan, Antone and the Price of Inclusion
Addressing childhood asthma on the north side won’t lead to lasting change unless it’s coupled with something like a Green New Deal, to ensure that we’re not fighting the same battle ten years from now. How will these children’s medical bills be covered as they grow, without a program like Medicare for All to completely replace the parasitic health insurance industry of today?
Of Winds and Borders
The other morning as I left my house, the temperature was zero degrees Fahrenheit. This was a relief. It meant it had warmed up 22 degrees since the previous day! The Polar Vortex, […]
A Future to Fight For: A Conversation with Frederick Douglass in the Shadow of Trump
In Douglass’ view, the unending deference of northern liberals set the stage for southern ascendancy. Their insatiable eagerness to “reach across the isle” (as we say today) produced a vortex of appeasement, given that the North was always ready to make concessions and the South unwilling to make any. “Under this so called practical wisdom and statesmanship, we have had sixty years of compromising servility on the part of the North to the slave power of the South.”
The Broken Mirror, a Fractured Movement and the 2016 Elections
It is 2016 and US radicals are unfriending each other by the thousands. Everyone is so incredulous that their one-time comrades could be as misguided as they are.
Ricardo Levins Morales
Ricardo Levins Morales Art Studio 