Tagged: racial equity and social justice

UB Professor: Rittenhouse verdict deepens political divide

UB Professor: Rittenhouse verdict deepens political divide

Read the full article from WKBW, here.

“I was shocked, not surprised,” said Dr. Henry Taylor, the director for the Center of Urban Studies at the University at Buffalo, about the verdict of Kyle Rittenhouse.

Race was one of the central issues in last year’s protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Friday’s verdict had Taylor thinking about race once again.

Rod Watson: How a new study on Buffalo’s old racial disparities gives community ideas to build on

By Rod Watson

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

When the annual State of the City speech is given next year, presumptive five-term Mayor Byron Brown will no doubt laud what his administration has done for Buffalo in explaining how his write-in campaign vanquished “radical socialist” India Walton, the Democratic primary victor.

But assuming Brown receives every single write-in vote once they are counted, it means that a first-time candidate with a trunk full of baggage still got at least 41% – and won three of nine city districts – against a former Common Council member, state senator and four-term incumbent.

The Architecture of Prisons Is Everywhere We Look

By Marianela D’aprile

Read the full article from Jacobin, here.

Public buildings — all buildings — perform social functions; they organize people and their activities. Prisons remove people from their environment and therefore their humanity; they discipline and isolate. In a capitalist state, where schools are charged largely with creating orderly and disciplined future workers, it follows that they would share their form with prisons.

Architecture serves as a billboard for the priorities of its commissioners — and generous, welcoming public buildings are low on their list. That’s how we end up with schools and libraries that look like prisons — and prisons that don’t.

With a community on edge, the trial over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery begins.

By Richard Fausset

Read the full article from The New York Times, here.

The jury, which is made up of residents from Glynn County, where more than a quarter of the population is Black, includes 11 white people and one Black person. Anxiety over the jury’s racial makeup was palpable among observers and participants during the more than two weeks that the jurors were being chosen.

Lawyers have said the trial could last a month. The extraordinarily long jury selection process, a grueling process that took two and a half week and included the seating of four alternate jurors, has already underscored the explosive nature of this case. That is particularly true in coastal Glynn County, where many of the 85,000 residents are connected by bonds of family, school or work, and where racial tension and harmony are deeply laced.

How to fix Buffalo’s poverty? Mayoral candidates differ but agree City Hall can’t do it alone

By Caitlin Dewey

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

Few would argue that poverty isn’t a colossal problem in Buffalo – a problem so entrenched and ubiquitous, in fact, that it’s almost taken as a given. When Walton’s opponent, incumbent Mayor Byron Brown, entered office in 2006, the citywide poverty rate sat at 29.9%. It has not changed appreciably since then.

But Walton and Brown differ sharply in their beliefs about the policies best suited to address it. Brown, who rarely uses the word “poverty” in interviews or public appearances, has bet that economic development and partnerships with nonprofit organizations will improve neighborhood conditions and generate new and better jobs for low-income residents.

Walton, a self-described democratic socialist who has made poverty the key theme of her campaign, advocates for what some progressives call “regenerative” economics – collective ownership, such as co-operative businesses and community land trusts, that she says will more equitably spread wealth and power.

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