Black and Brown
Why do we hate and kill each other at a rate that’s disproportionately higher than that of other people? Sure, we’ve heard the excuses before that we’re “prone to crime, violent by nature, poor and oppressed ”but what are the real causes? Here we are, countless articles and news reports later, and our precious communities are still in a state of distress. It seems that the problem of black vs. brown crime doesn’t seem to be improving... More...
Zapatism, Immigrant Struggles and the U.S. Social Forum
As immigrants become a growing force in the US in terms of labor and politics, this influence can be
seen in a number of US organizations that are emerging. Third World political discourses are resonating
in communities of color, especially of immigrants of Latin American origin.
Many such movements had a
powerful presence at the US Social Forum. While immi-grants had the strongest presence of any group at
the social forum, it is difficult to discuss the issues of immi-gration without discussing...
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TRANSCOMMUNAL COOPERATION NEWS-
Justice, Legal Systems, and Transcommunal Social Action
In this issue of Transcommunal Cooperation News we focus on justice, inequality, and activist organizing: inside the prison system and inner city neighborhoods of California (Nate Williams); through Zapatista outreach from southern Mexico to Los Angeles (Clara Zugman); to the grassroots democratic aspects of those creating new jury sytems around the world (Hiroshi Fukurai). The strength of student activism in the U.S. (largely ignored by mainstream media) as an aspect of social justice organizing is explored by Daniel Curtis-Cummins.
Transcommunal Cooperation
Contrary to much media imagery, it is not diver-sity, such as the term “ethnic conflict” implies, that in some absolute sense is the cause of problems in the world. Certainly there are those whose cold-hearted and malicious use of group identities has acerbated terrible conflicts. As I point out in my book about "transcommunal cooperation: The strong desire for rooted affilia-tions is not the source of the problem The real dilemma we face is the lack of constructive and mutually respectful interaction among those diverse settings, rather than the diversity itself. More...
The Importance
of Collaboration
The future is collaboration. To some, this statement may seem simple, or unrealistic, but in our globalized
political economy based on self-interest, competition, and divisive modes of thought, surely if there is to
be a bright future it will depend on social justice advocates and environment- alists working together, among
various other gen-eralized groups. However, with social organizations, environmental sustainability groups,
and academic communities, many in these groups are...
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Power to Check
the Government
and Its Authority...
French legal philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville once said that people’s respons-ibility places jury service in a special role of ensuring popular oversight of the judicial and govern-mental process. “The institution of the jury raises the people itself or at least a class of citizens, to the bench of judicial authority and invests the people … with the direct-ion of society,” his critical work on the American demo-cracy in 1831 once declared More...
