More than a month has passed since two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, but the fear and anti-Muslim fervor generated by the attack continues to ripple through the United States.
Activism
In the Name of God: Interfaith Activism, Immigration Reform, and the Dangers of Pragmatism
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A key component of the “Gang of Eight” immigration proposal would entail a strengthening of the very system of immigration control and exclusion that has given rise to the current “crisis” and underlies the push for change. It will also permanently bar many now living and working in the United States—regardless of their ties to the country—from ever having the possibility of regularizing their status, while making their lives, and those of future unauthorized immigrants, more difficult.
Activism
Twenty Years After the Gay March on Washington: Time for a Spiritual Progressive Paradigm to Affirm Homosexuality
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With the gay pride and rights marches of yesteryear, the responses from mainstream society to homosexual people marching down city boulevards or the National Mall was either the sound of vitriolic hatred, or a tepid tolerance. Now, a slight majority of Americans favor full marriage equality for same-sex couples, and there is an outside chance that the Supreme Court may declare state bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, or at least end same-sex marriage discrimination in California.
Articles
The Natatorium
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But in class all she could see was Jacob, his lithe movements, the panicky heat of his body when she swam beside him and let their legs kick against each other in an ecstasy of splash.
2013
The Criminal Caste
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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, Review by Ben Bloch
2013
A Visual Critique of Racism: African American Art from Southern California
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One of the most valuable functions of socially conscious art is its power to personalize and humanize what can easily become an abstraction. This power was evident again and again at BAILA con Duende, a recent Los Angeles exhibition featuring the works of seventy-four black artists.
Articles
Overcoming the Sexual and Religious Legacies of Slavery
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Because of the U.S. history of slavery, assumptions about the sexuality of African American women in the United States differ from those made about European American women. The sexual stereotype of enslaved women as licentious extends far back into history; modern racism extended it to all Black women and also used the myth of Black hypersexuality as a reason to enslave Black people.
2013
Searching for Solidarity in an Atomized Society
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We desperately need to build up an ethic of accompaniment. But we must do it while consciously understanding ourselves to be operating in a profoundly countercultural context.
Activism
A sad but humorous account of the divisions in Germany’s left-wing activist forces
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Ed note: Victor Grossman is a frequent writer for Tikkun and has an insider understanding of the dynamics inside the German Left. A VALIANT PHONY, VALIANT PROTESTS AND A VALIANT DOG
Victor Grossman, Berlin Bulletin No. 51, January 15, 2013
First a glance at long-past history – at the American hero Friedrich Wilhelm Augustin von Steuben, known as Baron Steuben. In many ways he was really a phony. His noble title and rank as “Prussian Lieutenant General” were inventions; he had really been dropped from Friedrich the Great’s army as a lowly captain.
Activism
Psyche and System: The Peace Movement Evolves
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The fact that the streets are not crowded with protest does not mean the peace movement has grown weary or gone to bed. I passionately believe that something far more dynamic is emerging. We are learning that peace is never a quick-fix.
Activism
Post-Election: Build Power, Act Strategically, and End the Rule of Concentrated Wealth
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Now it is time to educate, organize and mobilize around a strategy that will build the power of people and put in place the kind of sustainable economy and participatory government we urgently need.
Activism
Stop-and-Frisk in New York and the Politics of Crime in America
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To deny that race and class do not matter in contemporary America and its criminal justice system is to deny the most obvious political, scientific, and moral reality of our society.
27.4 Fall
They Must Call Us To Sacrifice: A Christian Perspective on the 2012 Election
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In short, it’s time for Democratic and Republican candidates to treat us citizens as adults who are strong enough to hear truth from our leaders and patriotic enough to sacrifice some important things on behalf of more important things.
27.4 Fall
Practical Curiosity and Democratic Leadership
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I contend that it is our failure to cultivate practical curiosity, our inability to reckon with the complexity of democratic governance and leadership that is responsible for the low numbers of people within the United States who identify as liberal or progressive.
2012
Crucifixion and the Blues
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Some say the crucifixion is abhorrent—too bloody, too brutal, too cruel to contemplate. We have to shield our eyes and look away or—as in Mel Gibson’s blockbuster movie The Passion of the Christ, stare fascinated through our fingers at the spectacle. In either case, we avoid reckoning with the real power of the crucifixion, which is a blues power, a truth-telling power that not only holds a mirror up to the blood, the brutality, the cruelty that is our daily fare, but also opens up a way out of the carnage.