Historian, author and activist Paul Street has high praise for James Forman Jr.’s new book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Forman is a professor at Yale Law School and a former public defender in Washington, DC. His book “fills a giant hole in the literature,” illuminating the role played by “Black elites in the rise of the mass incarceration system,” said Street, himself an expert on race and the U.S. penal system. “Many ordinary, working class Black voters in the 70s and 80s have actively supported the racially disparate war on crime and drugs that ended up producing racist mass incarceration,” said Street, whose latest book is titled They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy.
After 120 members of the 193 members of the UN General Assembly called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Israel demonstrated its increasing isolation by declaring the UN illegitimate and irrelevant.
Any public statement which questions Israel's war against Gaza is potentially met with personal attack and punishment but the stamp of approval from the Biden administration is the real cause of the…
This week’s featured author is Orisanmi Burton. His book is Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt
Tropes about violent Black youth prevail but efforts to analyze the causes of firearm use are rarely seen.
The Black Alliance for Peace U.S. Out of Africa Network provides an update of events taking place on the African continent.
