As an undergraduate student, at his father’s house in Atlanta, a young inquisitive Martin Luther King Jr. read Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and therefore Marx’s critique of capitalist social [...] Continue Reading
BIPOC
Hate Is in the Heart
Each month—no, each day—it seems the ugly face of hate forces itself upon us. Senseless violence, heartless killings, stone-cold murders. Last year, we had 647 mass shootings in the United States. [...] Continue Reading
Let the Healing Begin!
On Jan. 12, the U.S. Board of Geographical Names (USBGN) gave the 93675 zip code a new name: Yokuts Valley. This marks the culmination of a two-year process that began with local Indigenous activists. [...] Continue Reading
Community Unites Against Hate
Speakers at the Jan. 25 Stop the Hate Town Hall identified the path to ending the violence against marginalized communities: Report all incidents of hate crimes, increase solidarity between impacted [...] Continue Reading
Black Wealth Then and Now
On June 1, 2021, President Joe Biden gave a speech commemorating the 1921 Tulsa (Greenwood) Race Massacre. This incident was chronicled by Scott Ellsworth in his 1982 book, Death in a Promised Land, [...] Continue Reading
Victory for Yokuts Valley
The old name of Squaw Valley (hereafter S-Valley) is out. The new name for the 93675 zip code is Yokuts Valley. On Nov. 18, the California Advisory Committee on Geographical Names (CACGN) voted 8-0 [...] Continue Reading
Voters of Color and Women Saved the Democrats from Disaster
Despite new laws to keep people from voting and gerrymandering election districts to take away the power of minority communities, the Republican “red wave” that pollsters predicted ahead of last [...] Continue Reading
Beyond Racism and Resignations
Recent disclosures that Los Angeles City Council members and a union official racially denounced others compels us to deal with racism, colorism and anti-Blackness interwoven with classism for it [...] Continue Reading
Board of Supervisors Out of Touch
At the Oct. 11 meeting of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors (BOS), the supervisors showed how out of touch they are with the demographics of the county and seemingly out of touch with reality. [...] Continue Reading
Stopping Hate Crimes in the San Joaquin Valley
The Community Alliance newspaper’s campaign to stop hate crimes is starting with a town hall in Huron on Nov. 17 that will address institutional racism. Why is it that this country can spend trillions [...] Continue Reading
The Enemy Within When Racists Are Your Own People
In early October, during so-called Hispanic Heritage Month, the Reddit Internet account released an audio file in which four Latinos can be heard making racist remarks about indigenous immigrants from [...] Continue Reading
Madera Proclaims Indigenous People’s Day
Madera is the first city in the Central Valley to issue an Indigenous People’s Day proclamation. The historic event took place on Oct. 5 during the regular City Council meeting before an emotional [...] Continue Reading