Author: Henry Taylor

Selected Media

Perry lecturer calls for ‘true studies’ of racial health disparities

By Grace Lazzara

Read the full article from UBNow here.

“What, then, does drive disparities? ‘While we live in a country together, we experience that country in very different ways,’ LaVeist said. He displayed an infographic of the subway system in Washington, D.C., that showed that the particular subway lines people took effectively predicted their life expectancy because they correlate to ‘where people live.’ He also cited a study of Baltimore that tallied corner stores selling not much more than cigarettes and bottles of 40-oz. malt liquors, which LaVeist called ‘elixirs for the ills of poverty.’ Such stores existed almost exclusively in highly segregated, predominantly Black, low-income communities.”

Selected Media

Save Money, Save Lives: An Analysis of the Fiscal Impact of the HALT Solitary Confinement Act

From Partnership for the Public Good

Read the full report here.

“In New York State, a majority of state lawmakers support passage of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act (S.1623/A.2500), to restrict the use of solitary confinement in prisons and jails in line with international human rights standards. This report provides a fiscal analysis of the implementation of the HALT Solitary Confinement Act, estimating that implementing the HALT Act can save New York State and local governments an estimated $132 million dollars annually, or $1.3 billion dollars over 10 years.”

Selected Media

Shrinking Jails, Rising Costs: Erie County’s Wasteful Jail Budget

By Colleen Kristich

Read the full brief here.

“This policy brief presents data on the makeup of the Erie County jail population, which has reduced by 48% since 2017. It examines the capacity of both jails and determines that one jail could be closed, with savings redirected to other community-based harm reduction services. The brief compares Erie County spending on jails with spending on mental and public health, and makes recommendations for County leaders to further reduce the jail population and solicit public input into the jail closure process.”

Selected Media

Juan González: The Media Has It Wrong. Record Latinx Turnout Helped Biden. White Voters Failed Dems

By Juan Gonzalez

Watch the video and read the full article from Democracy Now here.

“‘The main story is that people of color, especially Latinos, flocked to the polls in numbers that far exceeded what the experts had expected, while the total number of votes cast by white Americans barely increased from the last presidential election,’ says González. ‘How come none of the experts are asking why white voters underperformed the Democratic Party?'”

Selected Media

Trump’s Pathology Is Now Clear

By James Hamblin

Read the full article from The Atlantic, here.

“To look on, inert, as Americans suffer and die is one thing; to deny that it is happening is another. This is a clear and ominous glimpse of how the pandemic will continue to play out if Trump remains in power. During America’s final lurch into the election, the president has become an even darker caricature of himself, laying bare his willingness to abandon Americans’ health and well-being for his own self-preservation. He is now even more dangerous as a vector of disease than when he was actively shedding the virus.”

Selected Media

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Inzajeano Latif

Essay by Henry-Louis Taylor, Jr.

Published by AOP

“In honour of Black History Month, member Inzajeano Latif shares his project, The Boisterousness of Silence: The Marginalised of Tottenham. An autobiography told through considered street portraits of the marginalised of Tottenham. ‘In telling their story, Inz tells his own story.'”

Selected Media

David Harvey: Socialists Must Be the Champions of Freedom

By David Harvey

Read the full article from Jacobin, here.

“Right-wing propaganda claims that socialism is the enemy of individual freedom. The exact opposite is true: socialists work to create the material conditions under which people can truly be free, without the rigid constraints capitalism imposes on their lives.

The topic of freedom was raised when I was giving some talks in Peru. The students there were very interested in the question: ‘Does socialism require a surrender of individual freedom?'”

Selected Media

It’s Time for Italian Americans to Give Up on Columbus

By Chris Gelardi

Read the full article from The Nation, here.

“What these Columbus defenders are saying, in essence, is that the idolization of a genocidaire is excusable because Italian Americans over a century ago decided to build a mythology around him. They take a play from the Confederate apologists’ book in arguing that a historical figure like Columbus shouldn’t be judged by contemporary standards—as if mass killing, slavery, pillaging, and human trafficking were acceptable during certain time periods.”

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