The ghastliness of the new Texas abortion law is difficult to express in words. It prevents women from aborting their pregnancies after six weeks and creates legal avenues for the punishment of those who assist a woman in her efforts to obtain an abortion. Texas has opened a multidimensional Pandora’s box that threatens marginalized communities across the country. Continue reading
The lesson of the 2020 U.S. election cycle was clear: Do not underestimate the influence of Black voters. At a time when the electoral process was characterized by voter suppression, Black voters in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin gave this country renewed hope by securing the presidency for President Joe Biden. Thanks to the Black voters who pushed Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff over the electoral edge in Georgia’s runoff elections on January 5, Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. With Democrats in control of the executive and legislative branches, the promise of much-needed progressive change with respect to racial justice seemed to be on the brink of becoming reality. Continue reading
Public outrage immediately followed the enactment of the new Texas law designed to undermine abortion rights. While the law bans abortions beyond six weeks into a pregnancy, it, perhaps most perniciously, allows private citizens to collect bounties from anyone who helps a person obtain an abortion. The category of persons who “knowingly… [engage] in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion” potentially extends from the doctor who performs the procedure to the rideshare driver who transports the patient to the facility to abort the pregnancy. Continue reading
Texas’s cruel new anti-abortion law is more than just an unconstitutional restriction on reproductive choice. It’s also an egregious new frontier in late capitalism. Continue reading
This summer featured at least a dozen stories of black Americans across the country having the police called on them for little or no reason at all. Continue reading
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The Democrats in D.C. promised consequential racial justice reform—where is it?
The message to Black Americans expecting more progress has largely been to wait—for a better political opportunity, for the racial wealth gap to widen, for another Black American to die at the hands of the police.
Posted on November 9, 2021 by Ebony Slaughter-Johnson
The lesson of the 2020 U.S. election cycle was clear: Do not underestimate the influence of Black voters. At a time when the electoral process was characterized by voter suppression, Black voters in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin gave this country renewed hope by securing the presidency for President Joe Biden. Thanks to the Black voters who pushed Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff over the electoral edge in Georgia’s runoff elections on January 5, Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. With Democrats in control of the executive and legislative branches, the promise of much-needed progressive change with respect to racial justice seemed to be on the brink of becoming reality. Continue reading →