Author: TheConversation

By Timothy D. Lytton, Regents’ Professor & Professor of Law, Georgia State University The government of Mexico is suing U.S. gun-makers for their role in facilitating cross-border gun trafficking that has supercharged violent crime in Mexico. The lawsuit seeks US$10 billion in damages and a court order to force the companies named in the lawsuit – including Smith & Wesson, Colt, Glock, Beretta and Ruger – to change the way they do business. In January, a federal appeals court in Boston decided that the industry’s immunity shield, which so far has protected gun-makers from civil liability, does not apply...

By James D. Long, Professor of Political Science and Co-founder of the Political Economy Forum, University of Washington The death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, announced on February 16, 2024, laid bare to the world the costs of political persecutions. Although his cause of death remains unknown, the 47-year-old died while serving a 19-year sentence in a Siberian penal colony. “Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband,” said Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, in a Feb. 19 video. As an anti-corruption activist turned opposition leader, Navalny shone a light on the brutal excesses of President Putin’s regime. Like Navalny,...

By Donovan Schaefer, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania In October 2023, nearly seven years after the deadly Unite the Right white supremacist rally, the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, was melted down. Since then, two more major Confederate monuments have been removed: the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery and the Monument to the Women of the Confederacy in Jacksonville, Florida. Defenders of Confederate monuments have argued that the statues should be left standing to educate future generations. One such defender is former President Donald Trump, the likely GOP presidential nominee...

By Joshua F.J. Inwood, Professor of Geography and Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State; Derek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee When historian Carter Woodson created “Negro History Week” in 1926, which became “Black History Month” in 1976, he sought not to just celebrate prominent Black historical figures but to transform how white America saw and valued all African Americans. However, many issues in the history of Black Americans can get lost in a focus on well-known historical figures or other important events. Our research looks at how African American communities struggling for...