Local and state governments spend $1 billion annually to market the lottery, and in return Americans spend $70 billion each year on lottery tickets alone, 6 times what they spend going to movies. Almost all of it comes from people with low incomes, and the lower their incomes are, the more people play the lottery. When unemployment goes up, so do lottery sales. Lotteries marketed to the poor have taken the place of tax revenue extracted in more egalitarian ways.
Hosts Nina Shirazi and Adam Johnson talk to John Balzarini, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Delaware State University and Les Bernal National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling.
Navid Zarrinnal is an Iranian journalist and host of The Colony Archive podcast. He joins us from Tehran to discuss the US and Israeli aggression and explains why the left must be in solidarity with…
The United States attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran began on February 28. Our guest provides analysis on this U.S. aggression from an anti-imperialist and Black left perspective. Erica Caines is…
The U.S. is careening towards economic and military disaster, a moment when the Black radical tradition is missing but badly needed.
“We salute all peoples who are fighting/We honor all those who have died/For the cause of freedom.”
This lecture was delivered on February 3, 2026, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada) for the monthly series “Black History and the Project of Black Studies.”
