A Genealogy of White Privilege

An essay on the politics of confession & guilt

_____ How much shame and guilt should a movement for social justice try deliberately to cultivate?  In recent years, this question, superficially abstract, has again become personal for me, both in my ongoing involvement in political protest movements, and my job as a teacher, working at an institution devoted to promoting equity, ...
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A Genealogy of White Privilege

Poland’s Abortion Ban Protests Are a Harbinger of a Wider Social Movement

Channelling the grievances of women and of the LGBTQ community

The pro-choice protests that started on October 22, 2020 are the beginning of a wider social movement channelling the grievances of women and of the LGBTQ community, as well as other marginalized groups in Poland, write Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer and Roch Dunin-Wąsowicz. What’s more, the protests are not only taking place ...
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Poland’s Abortion Ban Protests Are a Harbinger of a Wider Social Movement

The Children’s Rights Movement Is Here

Are You Paying Attention?

It’s occurring around the world. The movement can be found throughout Europe. It’s observable across the United States, from New York to California. It’s occurring throughout Asia, including India and Hong Kong. Youth activism can be found in Australia, Africa, Mexico, Central America, and South America. The children’s rights movement is not a fad. It’s not unidimensional. It is a multifaceted movement that has been ...
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From Raunchy to Respectable and Back

PRIDE marches on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot

The first PRIDE marches were quite raunchy, in a time when displaying pubic hair or female nipples was considered obscene and could lead to arrests.  Over the decades what was publicly acceptable changed. PRIDE marches became more like Mardi Gras with costumes, floats and flashy dressing.  There have been many schisms over ...
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Coming Out of the World

The 19th-century activist tactic that queers should reclaim (again)

In opposition to generations of concealment and shame, the story goes, the Stonewall protesters came out of the closet and into the streets, agitating for the decriminalization of homosexuality, but more broadly, for the social transformation of gender and sex. Indeed, “coming out” was a core strategy for the achievement ...
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French Feminism at the Barricade

An Excerpt from “Daughters of 1968”

Daughters of 1968: Redefining French Feminism and the Women’s Liberation Movement is the story of French feminism between 1944 and 1981, when feminism played a central political role in the history of France. The key women during this epoch were often leftists committed to a materialist critique of society and were ...
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French Feminism at the Barricade

The Tyranny of Structurelessness

We must accept the idea that there is nothing inherently bad about structure itself — only its excess use

The earliest version of this article was given as a talk at a conference called by the Southern Female Rights Union, held in Beulah, Mississippi in May 1970. It was written up for Notes from the Third Year (1971), but the editors did not use it. It was then submitted to several ...
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The Tyranny of Structurelessness

Banned for Life – from Mississippi

Review of Brenda Travis, written with John Obee

At age 17 Brenda Travis was banned from the state of Mississippi, or so she was told. Forced to leave family and friends behind because she got involved in the civil rights movement she spent most of her life someplace else, but always felt like an exile. Brenda was just 16 ...
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Banned for Life – from Mississippi

Teacher Insurgency

What Are The Strategic Challenges?

The following post was the basis for a talk by Leo Casey, the Executive Director of the Albert Shanker Institute, which was delivered at “The Future of American Labor” conference held February 8th and 9th in Washington, D.C. There is every reason to celebrate the “Teacher Spring” strikes of 2018 and the more ...
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Teacher Insurgency