This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.
This list covers the week of July 16 - 23. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.
1) When Black Hair Violates The Dress Code
Kayla Lattimore, NPR
Raising teenage girls can be a tough job. Raising black teenage girls as white parents can be even tougher. Aaron and Colleen Cook knew that when they adopted their twin daughters, Mya and Deanna.
See the full article.
2) R. Kelly Is Holding Women Against Their Will In A “Cult,” Parents Told Police
Jim DeRogatis, BuzzFeed
As the R&B legend tours the country this summer, parents have told police that R. Kelly is running an abusive "cult" that's tearing families apart. Three former members of Kelly’s inner circle told BuzzFeed News similar stories.
Read the full article.
3) How Would Jagmeet Singh’s Ban on Racial Profiling Work?
Manisha Krishnan, Vice
Last week, NDP leadership hopeful and presumed frontrunner, Jagmeet Singh wrote an impassioned Twitter thread calling for a "federal ban on racial profiling."
Read the full article.
4) How could we cope if capitalism failed? Ask 26 Greek factory workers
Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian
A brave group have become an example for Britain, and all of Europe, in taking back workplace control.
Read the full article.
5) I'm Done With Anti-Native Racism I See In Local Newspapers
Terese Marie Mailhot, The Huffington Post
The Barrie Examiner has been publishing numerous racist editorials by Joffre McCleary, whose bold statements include how 'savage' Indigenous people were.
Read the full article.
6) Police brutality jumped a racial fence with Minneapolis cop shooting of Justine Damond
Shaun King, New York Daily News
More than 660 people have been killed by American police so far in 2017. This year is on pace to be the deadliest on record for people killed by American police since national databases began keeping track in 2013. No other developed nation in the world has 10% of that number. We are experiencing a full-blown crisis of police brutality in this country, but it's hardly getting any coverage as Donald Trump absolutely sucks the wind out of the news cycle every single day.
Read the full article.
7) My Mother Wasn't Trash
Joshua Wilkey, AlterNet
My mother died the day she turned 55.
This Sunday will be my first Mother's Day without her, but nearly a year after she died, I still find it impossible to be heartbroken over her passing. As I wrote in her obituary, she suffered from both mental and physical illness for much of her life. However, despite her struggles, she selflessly loved and supported those who meant the most to her. In so many ways, she loved those who society deemed outcast and unloveable, and through her relentless love of others, her relationship with God was readily apparent. While I miss her dearly, it would be selfish of me to wish that she were still alive and suffering rather than at peace.
Read the full article.
8) Cops ordered to pay brutalized woman $254K
Colin Perkel, Canadian Press
A woman brutalized by Ottawa police during her wrongful trespassing arrest and left naked for hours in a holding cell nine years ago has been awarded $254,000 in damages.
Read the full article.
9) The troubles in Thunder Bay should trouble all Canadians
Perry Bellegarde, Maclean's
In the wake of several unexplained student deaths and an attack that took the life of a young Indigenous woman, First Nations chiefs, leaders, educators and parents gathered in a school gymnasium at Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School in Thunder Bay in early July to talk about a subject most Canadians probably prefer not to think about: racism.
Read the full article.
10) Government 'denying sexually abused children compensation'
Owen Bowcott and Kevin Rawlinson, The Guardian
Sexually abused children as young as 12 are being denied compensation by a government agency on the grounds that they gave consent, according to a coalition of charities.
Read the full article.
11) Toronto police officer charged after man, 19, beaten and blinded in left eye
Lorenda Reddekopp, CBC News
A Toronto police officer has been charged and is suspended with pay in connection with an attack on a 19-year-old man that left him with broken bones and a serious eye injury last December in Whitby, Ont.
Read the full article.
12) We're too late to stop global warming with renewables. We need to do something much more drastic, say scientists
Ian Johnston, The Independent
Humans must start removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as soon as possible to avoid saddling future generations with a choice between extreme climate change or spending hundreds of trillions of dollars to avoid it, according to new research.
Read the full article.
13) Renaming Ryerson University is not about sanitizing our history
Doug George-Kanentiio, CBC News
It's about removing the name of a man who was integral to one of the most shameful aspects of our past.
Read the full article.
14) Mike Vick was actually right about Colin Kaepernick
Shaun King, New York Daily News
Earlier this week, appearing alongside a cast of Fox Sports clowns who pretty much make a living off of hating Colin Kaepernick, Mike Vick auditioned for the lead role in "Get Out 2" — revealing in front of the whole world just how comfortable he is in the sunken place. It was a strange, painful thing to watch.
Read the full article.
15) More than half of black residents in GTA have been stopped by police in public, new report says
Alexandra Sienkiewicz, CBC News
A new report is shedding light on the types of interactions members of the black community in the GTA have with police officers.
Read the full article.
16) ‘Don’t rob yourself of your future’: Conservatives try to scare 12-year-old rape victim into giving birth
Travis Gettys, Raw Story
A former Alabama court official and a pregnancy counselor blasted a state court ruling that allowed a 12-year-old girl to have an abortion without parental consent after an adult relative raped her.
Read the full article.
17) Mélenchon, "La France Insoumise", populism: questions about the 2016-2017 electoral cycle and its implications
Pierre Rousset, International Viewpoint
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s presidential and legislative campaign this year was different from the previous ones. There was a huge change in the relationship to political parties in general and to his former Left Front allies in particular. It’s important to understand the reasons for this change, as well as the implications and the specific context in which it took place.
Read the full article.
18) In Flashy New Film, NATO Celebrates Nazi Collaborators Who Murdered Jews in the Holocaust
Ben Norton, AlterNet
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has come under fire for portraying Baltic Nazi collaborators as anti-communist heroes in a flashy new film.
Read the full article.
19) Pedro Hernandez is Rikers Island's new Kalief Browder
Shaun King, New York Daily News
New York City loves to brag about its liberal reputation. We have a progressive mayor. Democrats dominate the City Council. The city is so firmly anti-Trump that it seems he's literally afraid to come home nowadays. We have a Democrat in the governor's mansion. The state has a truly liberal attorney general. Yet, in spite of all of that, the justice system here continues to chew people up and spit them out every single day, ruining families and futures in the process. Our reputation does not match our reality.
Read the full article.
20) OPP charge Thunder Bay mayor, two others, with extortion
Tanya Talaga, David Bruser & Ainslie Cruickshank, The Toronto Star
The Ontario Provincial Police has charged Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs, a former police officer, with extortion and obstruction of justice in connection with an investigation into “allegations of criminal wrongdoing that include a municipal official and local resident.”
Read the full article.
21) Why I’ve never reported being sexually assaulted on public transport
Poppy Noor, The Guardian
The first time I was sexually assaulted on public transport, I was 12 years old. Though at the time I wasn’t sure whether I had been. Like many young women, I’ve never felt too confident in calling out these events with certainty.
David Bush, Rank and File
Watching the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs hearings on the Liberal government’s Bill 148, Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act this week you can see the louder parts of the business community time and again push a narrative that if the minimum wage goes up to $15 by January 1, 2019, and if the ESA is strengthened, the economy will be in shambles.
Alyshah Hasham, The Toronto Star
When Philip Alafe entered the Brantford police station at 6:50 p.m. on July 3, 2015, after being arrested, he told the booking officer he had mental health issues — depression and anxiety — as well as sickle cell anemia, a disease that leaves him in excruciating pain without his medications.
See also: Venezuela, Omar Khadr, Climate Change & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List July 9 - 16
