Author: YES!

Abortions and guns. Few issues are as polarizing or have so completely dominated the national discourse in recent years. Across the country, states have passed hundreds of measures to either curb or expand access to both. In certain states, conservative lawmakers—mostly men—are busy restricting access to abortion for women, with an eye toward eventually overturning Roe v. Wade. Missouri is a textbook example of a Republican-controlled state on both: hostile toward abortion access and lax toward guns. It is one of nine states where lawmakers voted to ban abortion this year. Missouri’s ban, which prohibits the procedure after eight...

Despite racist and anti-immigrant scapegoating, data shows that most American terrorists are resentful White men inspired by White supremacist and misogynist rhetoric. “Invasion.” President Trump has used that very word about immigration at the southern border 19 times at rallies since he took office, according to a recent USA Today analysis. And six tweets between October 2018 and June 2019 use the word “invasion” that way. An arrest affidavit for 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, the man charged in the August 3 mass shooting in an El Paso, Texas, Walmart that left 22 people dead and 24 wounded, reportedly says Crusius...

Immigrant children are dying in federal custody. Children in detention are being denied basic supplies like soap and blankets—and the Trump administration says that is fine. Trump threatened then delayed mass immigration raids across the country, using the plan as a bargaining chip with Congress, while families are left in an ever-heightened state of uncertainty. While Congress is continually being called to act, you can take other kinds of actions to help immigrants in transition, in detention, and in crisis. Here are 20 ways: March and protest. Japanese internment camp survivors recently protested outside of an army base and former internment...

Photo by Gage Skidmore and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 The recent spate of anti-abortion legislation is rooted in White extinction anxiety and carries on a long tradition of White people controlling the lives and reproduction of people of color. Last year, White people constituted 60% of the U.S. population, down from about 90% in 1950. It’s projected that by 2050, they will be the new minority and people of color will be the majority—a nightmarish prediction to some White people. Senator Lindsey Graham voiced his concern of a demographic dilution at the 2012 Republican convention, when he said,...

“We will never achieve racial justice in America if this country does not examine the impact and legacy of slavery, and make strides toward achieving reparatory justice.” – Jeffery Robinson, ACLU deputy legal director For nearly 250 years, enslaved Africans and their descendants toiled on the land and in the homes of White enslavers in the United States. They planted, fed, weeded, mowed, and harvested crops that were not theirs. Cared for and fed children they did not birth, and cleaned homes and tended lands they did not own. We’re all familiar with this uncomfortable but sanitized image of...

Slavery made America wealthy, and racist policies since have blocked African American wealth-building. 40 acres and a mule would be at least $6.4 trillion today. African-Americans have been free in this country for less time than they were enslaved. Blacks have been free for just over 150 years, which means that most Americans are two to three generations removed from slavery. However, former slaveholding families have built their legacies on the institution and generated wealth that African-Americans have not been privy to. Their enslaved labor was forced, segregation maintained wealth disparities, along with overt and covert discrimination that limited...