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.
Charles Barron dissects the NYC mayoral race, Mamdani’s struggles with Black voters, and why independent Black radical politics are essential.
"Killing the Kennedy Center softly for the Reich?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
The Israeli government isn’t failing to feed Palestinians in Gaza. They are deliberately starving them. Starvation is their weapon.
The U.S. exports repression like a global franchise, outsourcing violence while claiming benevolent intent. Kenyan police, trained by American forces and armed with U.S. equipment, are now occupying…
B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, makes clear that a genocide is taking place in Gaza. But their observations are not in any way unique. Millions…
