News

Crosspost: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Admits Clothing, Speech, And Conduct Help Determine If Someone Is ‘Illegal’

Written by Cloee Cooper

Last week, we looked at an allegation by the Earl Warren Institute of UC Berkeley that 287(g) programs increase racial profiling. Since, it has become public attention that DHS is proposing to strip Sheriff Joe Arpaio, one of the leading “enforcers” of 287(g) in Maricopa county, of some of his enforcement powers. If it passes, now, instead of police officers pulling someone over in the street because of their “clothing”, Arpaio’s deputies will only have the power to turn inmates over to ICE. Whether that will stop Arpaio from conducting raids and sweeps, is yet to be seen. Andrea Nill wrote a great post at The Wonk Room revealing how even Arpaio admits… Read more

Pinata Protest: Suckcess, San Antonio Style

Written by George Garza

As a second year media justice advocate, my qualm with commercial radio stirs within me a certain bias when it comes to identifying their underlying scheme in hosting public events. It’s easy to question whose interests are being served when business is involved.

My latest unsettling feeling came by way of the all too familiar ‘Battle of the Bands’ predicament. In San Antonio, the phrase alone incites uproarious hissing when mentioned to any musician no longer in high school.

The typical rundown of these GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES (promising anything from studio time to cold hard cash) is that promoters lure unassuming hopefuls into a competition in which the best band takes top prize. Usually the profiteers… Read more

Sports

Soccer Brings Us Together

Written by Guest Blogger

By Tom Dunmore – Editor of Pitch Invasion and Vice Chair, Section 8, Chicago

Last week, we looked at how immigration patterns globally have been critical to the growth of soccer as the world’s game, and the reflection of this in American soccer. The question is, can the sport be a productive place for embracing the diversity that makes America great? Today, we look at one of America’s most diverse cities, Chicago, to find out.

Soccer in Chicago has a long if little-known history from the formation of the Chicago Football (soccer) Association in 1890 to MLS’ Chicago Fire Soccer Club today.

The mix of ethnicities playing the sport together in… Read more

Minneapolis Neighborhood Stands United Against White Nationalism

Written by Stephen Piggott

A few months ago, I wrote about how a small community in Ohio was fighting back against the rise of hate crimes by creating a diversity task force. Last weekend the neighborhood of Midtown, in Minneapolis held a day long workshop entitled, “More Than Skin Deep: Uprooting White Privilege and White Supremacy One Cell at a Time” at the local Young Women’s Christian Association, YWCA. The workshop was designed “for white people who already have an understanding of white privilege and white supremacy (WP/WS) and want to learn more about how to dismantle WP/WS through embodiment work, education, visioning and practical action.” The workshop was completely booked, filling all 40 seats available. The event… Read more

Health

Big Beef, Bad Burgers, FAIR Fellow

Written by Rev. David L. Ostendorf

It’s not that we didn’t already know that the nation’s industrial food system is a toxic network of dangerous, low-paying jobs, often yielding dangerous products. But sometimes it helps to be jarringly reminded, as Michael Moss did yesterday in his New York Times story on e-coli in hamburger—a sober reminder that the enforcement of policies and laws to protect eaters from contaminated food is a sham and that, as always, bottom-line profitability rules over food quality and safety.

Like the big banks that are “too large to fail,” big beef—the four corporations that now control over 83% of all U.S. beef slaughter—seem to be relatively immune from government oversight and enforcement.… Read more

Health

What are the children drinking?

Written by Amy Spicer

Nearly four decades after the clean water act was passed drinking water at thousands of schools across the country has been found to contain lead, pesticides, arsenic, and other toxins.

Not surprisingly, schools that have their own wells are the ones with the most apparent contamination; however it’s a widespread issue affecting schools in all 50 states. It’s also affecting both private and public schools in cities and small towns alike.

But the problem has gone largely unmonitored by the federal government, even as the number of water safety violations has multiplied.

Marc Edwards, an engineer at Virginia Tech who has been honored for his work on water quality, calls it an outrage but also… Read more

News

Marek Eldelman Death Reminds Humanity Why We Resist

Written by Eric Ward

I first grieved when friends in Poland informed me of the passing of Marek Eldelman on Friday, October 3rd. Marek was one of the last known leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance. From 1939 well into 1943, Marek and others fought against the eventual successful attempt by Nazis to liquidate the Jewish community that resided in Warsaw, including those who had been forcibly relocated.

Struggling as the population of the Warsaw Ghetto was reduced from half a million to less than 60,000, Marek and over two hundred others did what many European nations could not—for three weeks in April 1943; they physically defied the Nazi movement and its goal of genocide against the… Read more

News

Crosspost: Hero of Warsaw Uprising Dies

Written by Sarah Viets

A respectful blog by West Midlands Unity highlights the heroic life of Marek Edelmen, a man who helped lead an uprising in a Warsaw ghetto during World War II.

Marek Edelman, the last living leader of the uprising by Jews incarcerated in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II, has died in Warsaw. He is thought to have been 87.

Edelman was imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto, an area walled off by Poland’s Nazi occupiers in 1940 to separate the city’s Jews from the rest of the population. As a member of the Bund labor organization that worked underground to spirit Jews into hiding or out of the country, he was one of

… Read more

Pirate Radio Station in San Francisco

Written by Katie Bezrouch

I believe in responsible media. I spend a good portion of my week fighting for media accountability. I humbly attempt to create factual, amenable media myself, every week. When newspapers and magazines quote white nationalists, I publicly argue that they should be cited that they are white nationalists. When radio stations and news channels give a microphone to bigots who transmit racist propaganda, (that in turn generates violent hate crime) the public should hold those stations accountable. But responsible media doesn’t have to mean bound, or censored communication with the public. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. The amount of genuine alternatives to pre-produced, syndicated corporate radio and TV stations is multiplying rapidly,… Read more

Sports

Soccer Fans Give Red Card to Tanton Network

Written by Guest Blogger

By Tom Dunmore – Editor of Pitch Invasion and Vice Chair, Section 8, Chicago

To be anti-immigrant and to still be a fan of soccer, the game that has depended on open borders worldwide, is a contradiction in itself. A recent article by David Seminara of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), “Why Is the U.S. National Soccer Team So ‘American?”, immediately set-off an alert: after all, CIS was created as a project of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigration organization that promotes near-zero levels of immigration.

Seminara asks “why aren’t immigrants making a bigger impact playing soccer for the Stars and Stripes?”, citing the low numbers… Read more