Social justice

Social justice

On 25 May 2020, America witnessed a stunning act of police brutality when a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, murdered George Floyd. The killer, Derek Chauvin, apparently confident that he would be immune to accountability, did his deed in the open, with other officers standing by and in front of a crowd of onlookers. The video of Floyd's murder shocked the nation.

As Eric Lichtblau began research for a non-fiction book on the rise of hate crimes in the United States, he found that there was a seemingly unending array of horrific examples. In 2022, a White supremacist shot and killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket. That same year, a Colorado Springs man, inspired by other hate-inspired mass shootings, killed five patrons at an LGBTQ nightclub.

This incident highlights how some law enforcement officials view Black men and other men of color, even when they are intervening to prevent violence against others,

I'm always looking over my shoulder. I'm never going to let my guard down, Bekhal Mahmod said.

Anyone who sees ICE agents in the area can call (707) 621-8220 to report sightings to the Mendocino County Rapid Response Network, which has volunteers trained and ready to quickly identify, verify, and inform the community if ICE is conducting raids or detaining immigrants locally. The network also works to dispel false rumors of ICE sightings, share verified information with local news outlets, and post updates about ICE activity on social media.

I learned it in Guantanamo, when the only thing I could control was my own body. We were disappeared. Isolated. Forced into silence. Our words were redacted. Our letters were stamped secret. Lawyers were blocked. Time stretched and rotted. No court dates were given. No real charges were made. I was reduced to a number in an orange uniform, locked in a metal cage.

Prosecutors are blasting the PFF over their decision to step in on the case, noting Adan's long history of escalating violence against Abraham. Adan was born in Somalia and first came to the United States as a refugee. He was also convicted of felony strangulation, domestic violence, and more. The escalating series of attacks by Adan began in 2022, according to prosecutors.

The widespread issue of "pretendians" remains under-examined even in Native circles. The topic is politically and socially fraught, with hyper-online crusaders taking up the mantle of pretendian hunting in pursuit of social media clout. The problem is real, but these sometimes vicious vigilante efforts have been known to conflate personal vendetta and erroneous or uneven methodology with rational research and concern for Indigenous communities.

A medical examiner's report concluded Johnson 52, died of a prone-restraint-induced cardiac arrest, with methamphetamine use being a "contributing factor." Prone restraint refers to the face-down position officers kept Johnson in while attempting to handcuff him in his apartment. It can restrict breathing and can also lead to metabolic acidosis. Across the United States, it's been linked with several other in-custody deaths and many police agencies have since stopped using it.

The San Francisco Poster Syndicate originated in 2014, when adjunct instructors at San Francisco Art Institute were forming a union. Art Hazelwood, one of the syndicate's founding members, taught screen-printing there and was part of the bargaining team. He and his students started printing posters using salvaged "slop ink" - everything leftover from a day of art classes, mixed together in a bucket - and put them all over campus. The posters of that era were all gray, Hazelwood, now 64, recalls.

She appears on camera without the compulsory headscarf for the first time, declaring firmly that she will "under no circumstances" act while wearing a headscarf again.

The steady drizzle tested the limits of the string of tarps stretched across the backyard of a Maywood home. Beneath them, dozens of boxes, overflowing with clothes, shoes and toys, lay scattered across the pavement. Each gift was destined for one of more than 50 Southern California homes whose families have been caught in the growing immigration enforcement crackdown. This was not charity bestowed from afar, but mutual aid.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

Learn how you can get started as activist. We are here for all green, progressive and social activists. We explain what activism is and how you can make a difference with community organizing.

Readers weigh in, quietly, on the gun control debate, retailers are getting the stink eye for commercializing Juneteenth, and nobody's quite sure if Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee celebration was racist or not. What would reparations for slavery look like? California is getting close to an answer. All that and a surprising look at NASCAR's unlikely win in the race for inclusion. Happy Friday.

In early 2025, Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed a lawsuit in Chowan County Superior Court on behalf of five Eastern North Carolina residents alleging the Edenton Town Council and Chowan County Board of Commissioners brokered an unlawful deal to relocate the Edenton Confederate monument to the grounds of the Chowan County Courthouse in downtown Edenton. We alleged this agreement violated the North Carolina Open Meetings Law and the placement of the Confederate Monument at the courthouse would violate the North Carolina Constitution.

The owner of a South Dakota hotel who said Native Americans were banned from the establishment was found liable for discrimination against Native Americans on Friday. A federal jury decided the owner of the Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City will pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages to various plaintiffs who were denied service at the hotel. The jury awarded $1 to the NDN Collective, the Indigenous advocacy group that filed the lawsuit.

While federal agents working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) are running up on migrant workers in Home Depot parking lots, the home improvement corporation has decided to take a stand - against the migrant workers. Reporting by The Guardian reveals a cruel new initiative being rolled out to one high-traffic Home Depot location in Los Angeles' Cypress Park: high-pitched noise machines meant to shoo away day laborers.

Tarana Burke tells Marc Lamont Hill on Epstein, Trump and how widespread sexual violence is in the United States. In 2017, a reckoning over sexual violence called #MeToo swept the globe. Eight years later, has the movement done enough for survivors? And what will it take for some of the world's most powerful men accused of sexual misconduct to face consequences?

Abang Sharon arrived in Lebanon on April 24 last year, having travelled there from Cameroon. The 21-year-old had a goal in Lebanon to work and earn money so she could support her family back home. An agency organized everything for her to get to Lebanon but later on, in a video published by a migrant rights organization in early December, Sharon talks about how she was working "in a toxic family." No wages, no secure contract, no protection and always this feeling that nobody can really help her.

As we move beyond 2030, it is crucial to rethink how we measure progress and development. The current relevance of GDP [gross domestic product] as the dominant indicator of economic performance has been widely criticized for its inability to capture the full dimensions of human well-being, social equity, and environmental sustainability. Recent policy discussions and research, including the OECD's [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's] " Beyond GDP " initiatives, highlight the urgent need to develop alternative metrics.

Last month, 19 women filed a claim with the city alleging that, on May 22, sheriff's deputies ordered them to undress in front of each other, laughed at them, and filmed the proceedings with their body-worn cameras. Immediately after Mission Local first reported the allegations on Nov. 20, several members of the Board of Supervisors called for action. Criminal justice, human rights, and women's advocates rallied in front of the jail at 425 Seventh St. the following week.

Take their neighbors, classmates, and community members? Not on their watch. Moms around the country dedicated much of their year to protecting children and families in their communities from unlawful deportation. There was the group of over a dozen moms arrested while protesting outside Broadview Detention Center in Chicago. There was t he mom group who organized a "walking school bus" to get children to school safely if their parents feared being targeted by ICE.

Truth to Power is a regular series of conversations with writers about the promises and pitfalls of movements for social justice. From the roots of racial capitalism to the psychic toll of poverty, from resource wars to popular uprisings, the interviews in this column focus on how to write about the myriad causes of oppression and the organized desire for a better world.