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The New Denial: How much of partisan gridlock is driven by race?
Recently, historian Taylor Branch said, “Everybody says partisan gridlock is poisoning America, but nobody asks how much of it, underneath, is driven by race and racial resentment?” Speaking on CBS’...
View ArticleMO hurries up death sentences before death drugs die: Insane
The very existence of the death penalty in American law is troublesome, to say the least. But, to make matters worse, the 32 U.S. states that persist in executing people are now looking for a new way...
View ArticleFour ways Republicans are guilty of attempting to murder democracy
American democracy—or, at least, the flawed, but better-than-the-alternative system that we call democracy—is under attack, and not from Muslim terrorists. Our democratic system, with all of its warts,...
View ArticleVoting rights watch: Suppressing the vote by targeting voter registration
The assault on voting rights is moving upstream. A recently released report by Project Vote [September 2013] lists legislation introduced—and in some cases, passed—in state legislators and in...
View ArticleVoting rights watch: KS and AZ have scary plans for “two-tier” voting
Republican Secretaries of State in Kansas and Arizona are devising a whole new way to make voting harder. Thwarted by the U.S. Supreme Court in their attempt to require proof of citizenship for voter...
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Marching on Washington: Then and now
You’re at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August, 1963. In November, 1967, you’re on the Mall in Washington petitioning the government to end the war in Vietnam. You feel that by making...
View ArticleVoting rights watch: Texas makes voting harder for women
A classic country/western song says: “If you want to play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band.” Well, if you want to vote in Texas on November 5, 2013, you gotta have a photo ID in your...
View ArticleThe “admitting privileges” fraud
To be an abortion provider in Texas, you have to have “admitting privileges” at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility. That restriction, which recently was first overturned by one judge and then,...
View ArticleWhat to expect when you’re expecting
By Sarah Casteel, Clayton High School senior, St. Louis MO While our society still faces sex-based workplace discrimination — clearly most often targeted at women — one would still think that enough...
View ArticleWhat it’s like to be a 12-year-old activist
If you are not familiar with Madison Kimrey, you are already behind the times. She is a young but outspoken activist who took on North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory this past summer/fall over his voter...
View ArticleWaiting for the next revolution: What “The Chicago 10” taught me about modern...
I was 17 and skeptical when I saw the movie poster for Chicago 10 at the Missouri History Museum where I work. The exaggerated cartoon figures seemed almost comical and when my boss tried to tell me...
View ArticleSouthern ministers lose their Christianity when it comes to Obamacare
I’m always interested in what the mainstream press has to say. If there’s anything that progressives and conservatives can agree on, it’s that the mainstream media is not fair. I recently saw a post on...
View ArticleWill a dearth of death drugs kill the death penalty? Let’s hope so.
Just a few hours before convicted serial murderer Joseph Paul Franklin was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 19, 2013, two federal judges granted a stay. Then that stay was reversed...
View ArticleUN Treaty on Disability Rights: Obama says yes; so should Congress
Perhaps you haven’t noticed. Our current president is an unwavering optimist. Whether we see Obama’s optimism as a character trait or a belief system doesn’t really matter. What does matter is...
View ArticleVoting rights watch: Missouri now allows on-line voter registration
Sorry, vote suppressors: Missouri–yes, deep red Missouri–is offering a granule of good news on the voting -rights front. Secretary of State Jason Kander [a Democrat] has announced that Missouri...
View ArticleHow American is “American”?
Before we start, I have a little… activity. Close your eyes. Well, maybe not; I need you to keep reading. Anyway. In your mind’s eye, picture a Chinese person. Just focus on the face- skin, hair, nose,...
View ArticleMass incarceration–the new Jim Crow
I think it’s time to talk about an issue that isn’t glamorous or infamous, but it is so subtle and so completely off the radar, for a girl from the St. Louis suburbs, that my comprehension of it is...
View ArticleRule of law? MO executes a man while his appeal is pending
The Bill of Rights may have been passed over 220 years ago, but it seems to still not have been fully enacted. “Missouri executed this man while his appeal was pending,” in The Atlantic, tells the...
View ArticleLesser-known heroes of the civil rights movement
We’ve all heard the timeworn speeches eulogizing the 16th president of our great nation for his iconoclastic measures to end slavery and admired his stone beard gracing the face of Mount Rushmore....
View ArticleVoting news: 17-year-olds can vote in primaries and caucuses in 22 states
In a trend that adds a nice dose of fairness to election laws, 22 states now allow citizens who will be 18 years old on or before a general election to vote in their party’s corresponding primary or...
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