By Yavor Tarinski, Towards Autonomy
I think these are the two conflicting urban visions today: the one is about a top-down enforced homogenization and zoning of the city, and then there is the possibility for the citizens themselves to engage autonomously in morphing their urban environment.
By Marzena Zukowska, Red Pepper
Love builds social movements. It is the connective tissue of collective action. And its potential is revolutionary.
By Aaron Karp, Resilience.org
The body politic was sick long before the virus arrived, already at risk of collapse under the weight of its elite hierarchies. When its fever breaks, we must learn the right lessons about how to overcome the underlying issues that threaten its very existence.
By Luam Kidane, ROAR Magazine
As we find ourselves in the grips of a myriad of crises, unsure of what our collective future holds, the freedom sounds of social movements building power from below can be heard from Egypt and South Korea to Argentina.
By Vicki Robin, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., Resilience.org
President & Founder of Hip Hop Caucus, Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., brings his perspectives on racial justice, youth empowerment, climate change, and faith to the big question of “What could possibly go right?”
By Asher Miller, Sherri Mitchell, Resilience.org
The recent surge in Black Lives Matter protests following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, along with growing evidence that COVID-19 is disproportionately hitting communities of color, have raised urgent questions about structural racism and white privilege in the U.S.
By Jade Begay, YES! magazine
In my humble opinion, if these are our goals, we must get used to and comfortable with people being in dedicated, committed, and prolonged uprising. In fact, I believe that’s what this “new normal” is, and I hope that these protests go well into November and beyond until we see accountability and real, tangible actions taken by cities, states, and the country to abolish racism and white supremacy.
By George Lakey, Waging Nonviolence
The initiative of the Movement for Black Lives needs to be picked up by others. The vision can be enlarged to advance key goals of each of the progressive movements operating today.
By Nadine Bloch, Folabi Olagbaju, Waging Nonviolence
“Defund the Police!” has moved from fringe idea to nearly law of the land so fast, pundits have motion sickness. It shows what can happen when progressive ideas are backed by true people power in a kind of “People’s Shock Doctrine.”
By David Bollier, David Bollier blog
It has been an awful and amazing two weeks – a time of reckoning that is long overdue, a time of coming together that, despite the tragic circumstances, has been enlivening. What is so remarkable is that the Black Lives Matter protests have been nested within a larger, unprecedented trauma, the pandemic.
By John Foran, Resilience.org
Each day now feels like a decisive day in the decade of decision that we have the fate to be alive in. Speeding up the pace at which we slow down. Slowing down the pace of destruction. Speeding up the pace of creation. Slowing down the machines. Speeding up our imaginations, going deeper in our dreams, and walking further, together, asking questions about the future we want. Right now.
By Paul Engler, Waging Nonviolence
Whether the Sanders campaign seizes this opportunity, or an alternate framework for collective action arises, a mass movement response to the coronavirus pandemic cannot come too soon. For our own sake, and that of our society as a whole, let us help the drive toward solidarity emerge.