News – Page 29

LATEST POSTS

An American Casualty of U.S. Economic Sanctions on Iran

March 11, 2019 No Comments

I went to Iran in late February with a peace delegation of 28 Americans organized by CODEPINK, a women-led peace activist group. The first day in Iran we had a very fruitful hour-and-half conversation with Javad Zarif, the Foreign Minister of Iran. He listened to our thoughts and concerns and then shared his perspectives about what is needed to help

Bayard Rustin believed in affirmative action and systemic political change

March 5, 2019 No Comments

No one is perfect. That includes civil rights icon Bayard Rustin. That’s the message columnist Coleman Hughes and video producer Taige Jensen tried to send in a multimedia New York Times opinion piece titled “The Gay, Black Civil Rights Hero Opposed to Affirmative Action.” Confronting the headline’s truth made clicking play difficult for me — until I realized the headline

Following the Methodist Decision: Breathe in Suffering, Breathe out Peace

March 1, 2019 No Comments

The United Methodist general conference is over and a new day has begun. People are still suffering, struggling with addiction of all sort, striving to stay in recovery, and being stopped, vilified and incarcerated at our borders. Queer folks, people of color, women all are still facing violence just for existing. But one of the vehicles on earth meant to

Bayard Rustin’s views on affirmative action: A critique

March 1, 2019 No Comments

On February 28, 2019, The New York Times published a 6-minute multimedia video, narrated by Times contributing opinion writer Coleman Hughes, titled “The Gay, Black Civil Rights Hero Opposed to Affirmative Action: How would Bayard Rustin be judged today?” Text accompanying the video states, Bayard Rustin was a chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and thought reparations, and

Restoring Voting Rights for People with Felony Convictions Is Essential to Reparations

February 28, 2019 No Comments

The most critical reparation issue is certainly financial, but I have been working this legislative session on the restoration of voting rights for those with felony convictions here in Washington state. Although we decided not to explicitly include restoration language in our testimony, disenfranchisement is clearly a reparation issue. The theft of suffrage, primarily as a racist policy, has been

Restoring Voting Rights for People with Felony Convictions Is Essential to Reparations

February 28, 2019 No Comments

The most critical reparation issue is certainly financial, but I have been working this legislative session on the restoration of voting rights for those with felony convictions here in Washington state. Although we decided not to explicitly include restoration language in our testimony, disenfranchisement is clearly a reparation issue. The theft of suffrage, primarily as a racist policy, has been