Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

C.S. Lewis wrote several fiction and non-fiction books that are still enjoyed by readers today, almost 50 years since his passing. His books serve as a commentary with insight into culture, humanity and the place of faith. His writings continue to deserve our attention as society continues to shift direction, struggling for meaning and fulfillment.

His book, The Abolition of Man, continues to be one of his most challenging works. Many literary and theological scholars consider it his most difficult book. The book isnt lengthy, but its argument is profound. Lewis perceived that our institutions of education and the influences of culture walked arm-in-arm with policies that were removing our ability to make moral judgments and hold to virtue.

Breakpoint.org, the website for the Colson Center promoting a Christian worldview, has focused several articles on the book during this past month. John Stonestreet, president of the Center, says the book is a must-read especially in our cultural moment. Lewis concern for the shifts in culture grew from his observation that without morality, humans would become less human.

Abolition was written by Lewis in 1943. The book carries the subtitle, Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools. The book started as a series of lectures that Lewis delivered in England.

The foundation of the concerns of Lewis centered upon how truth is taught in culture. Ultimately a shift in understanding began with the questioning of absolute truth to truth that is appropriate and relevant for the individual. The unspoken premise of no absolute truth is then reinforced through the teaching of subjective truth as opposed to objective truth. Subjective truth depends upon the individuals perspective and their emotional reaction to it.

Shifting away from objective truth carries important implications. Lets think about a headline this past week that was actually developing during Lewis time, but started even 50 years prior.

On Oct. 20, the NPR website announced that scientists had attached a pigs kidney to a human body and watched it begin to work. The procedure was only a temporary solution, but it was a step in a process that had taken several decades to achieve. Surgeons in New York performed the operation in which the organ functioned normally for 54 hours. Speculation rises that the accomplishment may open a door to a new supply of needed organs.

There was a time when such a headline would have stirred debate and discussion about the dangers involved in genetic engineering. Who will regulate the decisions involved in such a life-changing technology? Are there psychological issues involved in combining organs from two different beings a human and an animal? Are there spiritual or religious issues that are involved in such science? Several years ago, we would have discussed such a transplant.

But it wasnt too long ago that such a headline would have appalled its readers. Books like H.G. Wells The Island of Doctor Moreau and George Orwells 1984 and Animal Farm shocked people with tales of genetic engineering, human cloning and manipulation of behavior. A hundred years ago, we would not have even discussed this issue because it belonged to the realm of science fiction, not the world that we live in.

Today, the headline spurs a different type of debate. Less than a day later, PETA issued a statement urging humans to fix the organ shortage and not use pigs. Pigs arent spare parts and should never be used as such just because humans are too self-centered to donate their bodies to patients desperate for organ transplants. Today, our concern is for the pigs.

A similar pattern could be traced around dozens of topics. What was morally appalling decades ago doesnt even register a blip on the radar of ethics today.

Lewis was almost prophetic with his arguments. He believed that relativism teaching that there are no absolute, objective truths would lead to moral decay and the absence of virtue in culture. With no universal moral code, we become less than human. We are intelligent men who behave like animals. Lewis uses the phrase we are men without chests.

Lewis borrows the symbolism from the philosopher Plato. The Greeks saw the head as the home of the intellect. Meanwhile, the belly housed the raw passions and appetite. The chest formed virtue, a trained blend between the reason of the mind and the emotion of the heart. According to Plato, the head rules the belly through the chest.

Modern education, according to Lewis, produced men without chests demanding correct behavior from people who lacked values and virtue.

Lewis warns of the dangers of a culture that educates people with no standard for morals and values. We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.

Lewis concludes in this manner: It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal A persevering devotion to truth, a nice sense of intellectual honor, cannot be long maintained without the aid of a sentiment.

Andrew Wilson put it like this: Without sentiment we may appear intellectual, but it will be a mirage; our heads will look larger, but only because our chests are so small.

The Christians answer to a culture with no virtue? Speak the truth with love.

The C.S. Lewis Institute website reflects: The apostle Paul writes The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith (1 Timothy 1:5 ESV). If followers of Christ live as people with chests strong hearts filled with Gods truth the world will take notice.

Tom May is a freelance writer who has held paid and volunteer ministry positions at several churches in the tri-state area. Reach him at tgmay001@gmail.com.

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TOM MAY: What happens when morals and values are absent? - Evening News and Tribune

In 2000 and 2001, the use of child slaves on cocoa farms in West Africa was exposed in a series of documentaries and pieces of investigative journalism, sparking an international outcry .

This series of events was far from unprecedented.

As discussed in my paper, since the 19th century, when cocoa was first introduced to Africa (and despite the formal abolition of domestic slavery in the region), cocoa farming in West Africa has been linked to narratives of slavery and ensuing protests from chocolate consumers in Europe and America.

As recently as the early 20th century, the Portuguese were importing slaves into So Tom and Prncipe to work on cocoa farms. This process was described by the British journalist Henry Woodd Nevinson , who had been funded by Harpers Magazine to investigate rumours of slave labour in cocoa plantations. On reaching So Tom or Prncipe, each slave was asked whether they were willing to work there. Nevinson reported:

In most cases no answer was given. If any answer was made, no attention was paid to it. A contract was then drawn out for five years labour.

This allowed both the Portuguese and chocolate producers in Europe to argue that the workers were contracted labourers rather than slaves. However, the contracts produced were meaningless, as the slaves were not permitted to leave the plantations for five years.

Some things have changed since then. Modern slavery primarily involves the trafficking of children, who are treated as a disposable source of labour. However, some things remain the same. Cocoa buyers and chocolate manufacturers still use various strategies to deny, deflect and divert when the issue of child slavery is raised.

After the practice was exposed in the 2000 documentary Slavery: A Global Investigation, the chocolate industry initially denied that trafficked children were involved in cocoa farming. In response, civil society groups in chocolate-consuming countries launched a campaign calling for the elimination of child slavery in the cocoa industry.

The campaign was particularly successful in the US due to its unique history of slavery. It led a US representative, Elliot Engel, to introduce legislation requiring chocolate firms in the US to label their products slave free to prove that no child slaves were involved in their supply chains.

Chocolate companies first responded by hiring professional lobbyists to prevent the passage of the slave free legislation in the US Senate due to the legal implication of such a label.

Subsequently, conceding that child slavery might actually exist in their supply chains, the companies took a different approach. They teamed up with various stakeholders to create the HarkinEngel Protocol , which effectively quelled the 20002001 campaign. But this was a tactics.

The HarkinEngel Protocol set out six date-specific actions that were supposed to lead to the establishment of an industry-wide standard for product certification on July 1, 2005. However, the deadline was extended to 2008 and then to 2010. After 2010, the protocol was basically abandoned.

Following the missed deadline in 2005, some US campaigners turned to the courts, sponsoring former slaves to sue multinational chocolate companies directly. However, all hope of winning these cases was lost in June 2021, when the US Supreme Court determined that companies such as Nestl and Cargill could not be sued for child slavery in their supply chains .

The campaigners were at a clear disadvantage compared with the chocolate makers, not least because they did not fully understand the root causes of child slavery in cocoa farming in West Africa.

The issue of child slavery in cocoa farming in West Africa has been only superficially addressed in the literature. Survey and survey-type studies have sought to determine the extent of child slavery (and child labour) in West African cocoa farming, but they have failed to consider its causes.

An example is a series of field surveys conducted by Tulane University to ascertain the prevalence of the worst forms of child labour in cocoa farming in Ghana and Ivory Coast.

Meanwhile, investigative reports and televised documentaries have painted merely a qualitative picture of the phenomenon. An example is the 2010 documentary The Dark Side of Chocolate . This sought to provide visual evidence of child slavery in cocoa production in West Africa. Representatives of the chocolate industry declined both requests for interviews and invitations to watch the film.

The filmmaker, Miki Mistrati, broadcast the documentary on a large screen next to Nestls headquarters in Switzerland , making it difficult for employees to avoid catching glimpses of child slavery in the companys supply chain.

Scholars, journalists and filmmakers addressing the topic of child slavery in West African cocoa farming have thus far failed to engage with the history of cocoa farming and the evolution of the process of cocoa cultivation.

Properly engaging with this history would help anti-child slavery campaigners understand what exactly they are fighting against. The conditions that created a demand for cheaper sources of labour in the past are still in place today, and nobody understands them better than chocolate multinationals.

This has been the subject of my research.

These conditions arise from changes in the ratio of labour to land needed to continue cultivating cocoa. The availability of forestland is the decisive factor.

Cocoa farming once involved the consecutive phases of boom and bust, followed by a shift to a new forest area (production shift), a different product in the same area (diversification) or a different system of cocoa cultivation requiring extra production factors. Studies of cocoa cultivation in West Africa have provided evidence of planters migrating to new forest after exhausting existing forestland, resulting in shifts in production centres within and between countries.

However, accessing new forestland is becoming ever more difficult, and far more labour is needed to replant cocoa than to plant on pioneer forest soil.

This labour problem is particularly pronounced in cocoa cultivation areas that depended on migrant labour in the past (such as Ivory Coast). Here, a reduction in migration over time, coupled with deforestation, has resulted in a labour crisis: although post-forest cultivation requires more labour than pioneer planting, less labour is now available. To continue cultivating cocoa, planters in these areas have turned to cheaper sources of labour, such as family members and children.

This change in labour relations seems to have led to an increase in child slave labour.

Chocolate producers such as Mars and Nestl are well aware of the labour problem in cocoa cultivation. Historically, this problem has led to diversification: when cocoa has become difficult to cultivate, planters have turned to other products. Although such diversification may be good for farming communities, it spells bad news for buyers of the raw material. This has led to multinationals intervening under the banner of sustainability to prevent diversification away from cocoa. Their sustainability programmes are ostensibly designed to combat child labour, slavery or trafficking or labour. They are, however, in fact productivity-boosting programmes with token anti-slavery components.

It is no longer sufficient merely to show that child slavery exists in cocoa farming in West Africa. To have any chance of combating these practices, campaigners must invest time and effort to truly understand the processes and conditions that create them.

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Child slavery in West Africa: understanding cocoa farming is key to ending the practice - The Conversation CA

ByKara Wheeler*

The human rights organization says it can no longer work freely and without fear as the Hong Kong government continues to repress fundamental freedoms.

London-based Amnesty International has succumbed to the pressures of Hong Kongs wide-sweeping National Security Law (NSL), announcing on Oct. 25 its decisions to withdraw operations from the city.

The human rights organization will close its two Hong Kong branches, citing fear of restrictions of freedoms of expression.

The nongovernmental organization (NGO)saidits branch that deals with human rights education programs in Hong Kong will close on Oct. 31, while another branch, which focuses on research and campaigning across East and Southeast Asia, will fold by the end of the year. The group also announced its decision to shift its Hong Kong advocacy to other parts of the Asia-Pacific region.

The NGO has played an ongoing role in influencing for the better the social and civil rights climate in Hong Kong. It was behind the push for full abolition of the death penalty in the city in the 1993 and unveiled police misconduct during the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

Amnesty Internationals announcement marks one of the most prominent departures from Hong Kong, amid pressure from Beijings ever-restrictive crackdown on freedoms of speech, press, and assembly.

The NSL bans what the government deems as secession, terrorism, or subversion of Hong Kongs prosperity. Violations of the law carry penalties up to and including life in prison. The strict legislation has been the grounds for more than 150 arrests since it was passed in June 2020.

Amnestys secretary general, Agns Callamard, commented on the groups withdrawal from Hong Kong in atweetposted on Oct. 25:

The NSLs vague wording and broad application, paired with some of the worlds strictest COVID policies, has diminished the level of freedom Hong Kong citizens once enjoyed. The law is also widely unpopular within Hong Kongs international business hub.

Critics of the NSL are hesitant to accept the idea that the law is beneficial to stability in Hong Kong.

Yet Hong Kongs chief executive, Carrie Lam, has shown no concern over the legislations unpopularity. She has repeatedly lauded the laws ability to restore stability and promote prosperity.

According toBloomberg, at least 35 other civil society groups have closed in response to the same pressures from the NSL as faced Amnesty International. Last month, the group that organizes the annual vigil of the Tiananmen Square Massacre was forced todisbandafter its members either quit amid fear of the NSL or were arrested for violating it.

The tension in Hong Kong continues to climb as any action that qualifies as political dissent is censored and punished, nullifying freedom of expression.

Amnesty Internationals decision to pull out of Hong Kong indicates that the NSL makes human rights difficult to promote and almost impossible to obtain. Human flourishing will cease if the Hong Kong government, out of fear of losing absolute control, continues to restrict citizens attempts to promote human rights.

*About the author: Kara Wheeler is a member of the Acton Institutes 2021 Emerging Leaders class. She is a senior at Aquinas College majoring in in English and Journalism. She loves to write, partake in any sport she can, and can be found either on the water or in downtown Grand Rapids.

Source: This article was published by the Acton Institute

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Amnesty International To Withdraw From Hong Kong OpEd - Eurasia Review

Amnesty International will close its two offices in Hong Kong by the end of the year, the organization announced today.

The local section office will cease operations on 31 October while the regional office which is part of Amnestys global International Secretariat is due to close by the end of 2021. Regional operations will be moved to the organizations other offices in the Asia-Pacific.

This decision, made with a heavy heart, has been driven by Hong Kongs national security law, which has made it effectively impossible for human rights organizations in Hong Kong to work freely and without fear of serious reprisals from the government, said Anjhula Mya Singh Bais, chair of Amnestys International Board.

Hong Kong has long been an ideal regional base for international civil society organizations, but the recent targeting of local human rights and trade union groups signals an intensification of the authorities campaign to rid the city of all dissenting voices. It is increasingly difficult for us to keep operating in such an unstable environment.

There are two Amnesty International offices based in Hong Kong: a local membership section focused on human rights education in the city; and a regional office which carries out research, advocacy and campaigning work on East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific. All of the regional offices work will continue from new locations.

We are deeply indebted to Amnesty members and staff who over the last 40 years have worked tirelessly to protect human rights in and from Hong Kong. From successfully pushing for the full abolition of the death penalty in Hong Kong in 1993, to exposing evidence of excessive use of force by police during the 2019 mass protests, Amnesty in Hong Kong has shone a light on human rights violations in the darkest of days, said Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

In the wider region, our research and campaigning has tackled subjects including freedom of expression in North Korea, conscientious objection to military service in South Korea, the right to housing in Mongolia, Japans wartime atrocities against comfort women, and the crackdown on human rights lawyers in China.

Moreover, Amnesty International Hong Kongs education programmes from classroom talks to a documentary film festival have enhanced awareness of human rights not only in the citys schools but among the general public as well. No one and no power can demolish that legacy.

The national security law, imposed by the Chinese central government, was enacted on 30 June 2020. It targets alleged acts of secession, subversion of state power, terrorist activities and collusion with foreign or external forces to endanger national security.

Its sweeping and vaguely worded definition of national security, which follows that of the Beijing authorities, has been used arbitrarily as a pretext to restrict the human rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, as well as to repress dissent and political opposition.

Amnesty documented the rapid deterioration of human rights in Hong Kong one year after the enactment of the national security law in a June 2021 briefing.

The environment of repression and perpetual uncertainty created by the national security law makes it impossible to know what activities might lead to criminal sanctions. The law has repeatedly been used to target people who have upset the authorities for any number of reasons from singing political songs to discussing human rights issues in the classroom, said Anjhula Mya Singh Bais.

The pattern of raids, arrests and prosecutions against perceived opponents has highlighted how the vagueness of the law can be manipulated to build a case against whomsoever the authorities choose.

A government crackdown targeting activists, opposition politicians and independent media has recently expanded to include civil society organizations. At least 35 groups have disbanded since the law was enacted, including some of the citys largest unions and activist groups.

There are difficult days ahead for human rights in Hong Kong, but Amnesty International will continue to stand with the people of Hong Kong. We will fight for their rights to be respected and we will be vigilant in our scrutiny of those who abuse them, said Agnes Callamard.

While leaving the city that we have called home for decades is devastating, we do so proud of our achievements over that time, and confident that the strength of Amnestys 10 million-plus supporters worldwide will enable us to continue our work together to end human rights abuses everywhere.

Background

Amnesty International is a global human rights movement of 10 million people, with operations in more than 70 countries. The organization holds governments around the world accountable to equal standards under international law.

Amnestys local Hong Kong section works principally on building awareness of human rights issues in the city and is funded primarily by individual donations from the Hong Kong public.

The Hong Kong regional office which has a sister location in Bangkok conducts research, campaigning and advocacy work across the region including on mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, Timor-Leste, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific islands.

The overwhelming majority of Amnestys income comes from individuals the world over. These personal and unaffiliated donations allow the organization to maintain full independence from any and all governments, political ideologies, economic interests or religions. Amnesty neither seeks nor accepts any funds for human rights research from governments or political parties.

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Amnesty International to close its Hong Kong offices - Amnesty International

David Harewood: Too many people wish we would just shut up

Its hard not to see the past year as a missed opportunity. Ive been banging on about racism for 30 years, but the voices for change are getting louder and more articulate. Yet though weve seen a range of books on our experiences, our hopes and our frustrations, it still feels like a huge section of the British public arent listening. This is a country that cherishes its history and its traditions, but unfortunately this means theres a resistance to change. We need to start embracing difference.

There are voices on the right that are aggressively seeking to stamp out any discussion of white complicity in the disadvantage of black people. They dont want slavery taught in schools; they think it was such a long time ago that it doesnt matter. But thats because they dont understand that slavery and colonialism are the roots of what we go through today. The legacy of slavery is racism.

People in Britain have unfortunately grown tired of the subject. They either dont understand why we keep talking about it, or wish we would just shut up. But these are our careers, our livelihoods; and when we talk about white privilege, all were saying is that white people dont face the racial disadvantages that we do. Those of us who have been successful have a choice: we can either throw the ladder down for other people to climb up; or deny that colour has an impact and say, If you just work hard you can achieve anything, when plainly thats not the case.

In the US, where I spend a lot of time working, I can turn on my television any night and see a range of black actors in leading roles. Look at what Netflix has done with Bridgerton. Im still not seeing that on British TV. Even today, Ive never played a leading character on British television.

Now theres a whole new generation coming through thats finding its path blocked by an older demographic that almost seems threatened. This new influx of talent should be welcomed, not just on to Britains stages and screens but into its boardrooms too. Its not going to be easy and there will be pushback, but we have to find ways of bringing new energy into the decision-making process.

Black Lives Matter has forced white people to take notice of our story, and tackling racial discrimination is something that people are finally acknowledging. But I dont think most white people really understand their role. While its great to see so many people accept that things need to fundamentally change, things are just moving too slowly. Until more white champions join the fight, I think the positive conversations weve had this year are unlikely to lead to root-and-branch change. Its about time white people did some of the heavy lifting. David Harewood is an actor

It would be easy to say that nothing has changed, and that weve failed to move on. It is true that bigotry and racism are still with us; and campaigners for diversity and equality clearly cannot take their foot off the pedal. But that is not the whole picture: there is also progress.

In March, the Rugby Football Union chose Tom Ilube as its new chairman, making him the first black chair of a major sports governing body in England. Like me, Tom was born to an English mother and a Nigerian father in 1960s Britain, when such an appointment was not in anyones contemplation. In British sport, the pathway is there, not just on the pitch but in the boardroom too.

And in our national game, the race conversation now has national attention, with moves toward an independent regulator for English football, which would work to tackle these issues. I am a proud member of the group championing this cause. Yes, there is much to do, but these are examples of hope for the coming generations. Helen Grant is the Conservative MP for Maidstone and the Weald

On the one hand, the murder of George Floyd stimulated an awakening for those white people who seem to have been asleep prior to 25 May 2020, and had managed to ignore the experiences of Black and Brown people around them. On the other, we have also borne witness to a sophisticated sanitising of racism particularly anti-Black racism as if to admit to suffering racism is to embody fecklessness and a lack of ambition.

There are those who speak of having hope in the light of the stream of advertisements and TV shows now featuring not just Black and Brown people but those with disabilities and differing sexual identities. And there is now greater attention paid to the ethnic mix of discussion panels and, in some cases, of boards and interview shortlists. But do I, as a Black woman working in the field of racial justice for more than 20 years, have hope?

I will have hope when I am no longer invited to be a signatory to letters about people of colour who have been overlooked for roles despite their qualifications, and when I stop receiving emails from those teetering on the edge of mental breakdown because of their experiences at the hands of their employer. My measurement for hope is simple: the outcomes, experiences and decision-making powers of racially minoritised groups must improve. Anything else is simply tinkering at the edges. Nicola Rollock is professor of social policy and race at Kings College London

October tends to be bookended by looking forward to the celebration of black achievement and reflecting back on the month. As for the other 11 months of the year, it has once again been utterly depressing: black-owned business have been twice as likely to close in the pandemic; unemployment for black and minority-ethnic citizens is rising three times as fast as for white workers; and black African men are four times more likely to die of Covid-19. To add insult to injury, the widely discredited Sewell report, commissioned by the government, sought to deny institutional racism.

At times like this I look for hope. Not much of that can be found in Westminster, but it feels like there is a revival of a narrative of common cause between all oppressed communities. Today there is more of an appreciation that tackling the causes of structural racism actually improves the lives of the white working class too. The gravitational pull of Joe Bidens US has breathed new life into demands for racial, environmental and social justice. Amid the rubble of last year, the black, green and red shoots of recovery are visible once more. Lester Holloway is editor of The Voice

The wave of anti-racist feeling that surged after last years Black Lives Matter protests has crashed on the rocks of the culture war: in 2021 we seem to have gone backwards.

It is a shame that, rather than marking any kind of progress, the most diverse cabinet in British history has merely reminded us that, even in its darkest days, the British empire was facilitated by Black and Brown middle managers. Home secretary Priti Patel is presiding over the most draconian of immigration policies that includes deportation flights and threats to push back small boats that could lead to people drowning in the Channel. Not to mention that the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill will essentially outlaw the very protests that last year were meant to mark a watershed. We are at a dangerous moment where another Tory MP suggests that teaching white privilege should be considered a counter-terrorism violation. The lesson for any Black History Month is that the fires of resistance rage the hardest when the stakes are highest. But last summer reignited a flame that will not be extinguished. Kehinde Andrews is professor of Black studies at Birmingham City University

I am a Windrush Generation child brought up in poverty in Small Heath, Birmingham. I suffered then, and now, most of the indignities that people of colour experience. My success is not just down to my drive and ambition, but also to senior white executives who saw past my colour and gave me a break. Change only happens when individuals in a position of power decide to stop the injustice rather than turn a blind eye.

But not enough high-level executives are sticking their heads above the parapet and stating that black inclusion is on their list of priorities. I want Black awareness to be a year-round thing, not just something for Black History Month.

I am sick of being rolled out and given a platform for just four weeks, when for the rest of the year it seems as if I dont exist.

Next year, and subsequent years, I would like to see companies report what progress has been made in their organisations. We need to start seeing hard evidence of real change. Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is a businessman, farmer and former Conservative party candidate

In parliaments Black History Month debate last year, I spoke about racism and the hope of its eradication. A year on, I am not nearly so optimistic. Racial justice appears once more to be a niche interest.

Where is the leadership? We have a home secretary who wouldnt condemn football fans who booed black England players taking the knee. What kind of message was that to send to the country, and to us? It was nice to see so many people from different communities supporting those players, but it is hard not to feel that right now we are a divided country.

As someone who spent 20 years as an engineer, I have a particular worry going forward that racism, instead of being addressed, will be further enhanced, entrenched and automated by algorithms. It may seem left-field, but algorithms are everywhere, determining who gets a visa, a top-grade A-level, priority healthcare, or a knock on the door from the police. The Sewell report said algorithmic bias would be solved by a fairness equation. But they are only as good as their design and the data theyre trained on. Few software engineers are women, from ethnic minorities or working class.

Racism is not an equation, it is a lived reality, and it cannot be coded out. On top of everything else, that is a worry and a battle for the future. Chi Onwurah is the Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central

This is a country in which people take to the streets to chant for change when a white woman is murdered, while the murder of two black women, in equally revolting circumstances, can go relatively unnoticed. A country in which only 8% of Black pensioner families drew any income from a personal pension. The median accumulation of wealth through homeownership by a Black family over the past decade in Great Britain is zero. Even the housing bubble discriminates.

Campaigns to decolonise the curriculum have been dismissed in England, as have efforts to address the high mortality rates for Black women in childbirth. So I dont think, overall, anti-Black racism is in any kind of recession. Perhaps because of the visibility of famous Black people, its better disguised.

There are positives. We have Black Pound Day. I have a library full of books for my preschool children where they can see themselves represented in ways I was never able to see myself. While major publishers have diversity initiatives, the blossoming self-publishing industry is to thank for that.

Increasingly, Black people are taking the initiative, rather than waiting for the structural change weve been waiting centuries for. This is where I find the most optimism. Athena Kugblenu is a comedian and writer

We have a long, complex and deep-rooted history in this country, so the question of why has it taken so long to have these conversations is an important one. White people have a role to play: we need allies, not enemies.

There have been some big jumps for black people in the fashion industry: black people are in creative director roles and other positions of genuine authority. But I want people to ask more questions. Who are the decision-makers? Who are the gatekeepers? Who has the economic power? And how can we produce art and culture that reflects the complexities of the black experience?

Can we promote black designers and black creatives all year round, beyond Black History Month? Can we teach our children about their history, their heritage and how it relates to their experiences today? Black history is British history. And black culture is as diverse as it is rich. Having people who can understand that, and celebrate it, is a necessary step towards a more level playing field. Nicholas Daley is a menswear designer

The outburst of superficial solidarity that framed much of the response to the Black Lives Matter movement inevitably built an unstable coalition around what it meant. Brands, institutions and publications that launched PR campaigns or attempted allyship found themselves unwittingly drawn into a culture war where supporting Black Lives Matter was pilloried as endorsing such things as Marxism, Palestinian liberation and police abolition. It is no surprise that this years Black History Month has seen far fewer campaigns and appeals its no longer commercially viable or worth the reputational risk in a country that is militarising its war on woke and obsessing over the teaching of critical race theory. It does sting a little that brands cant even fling us a BHM discount code for some self-care. Jason Okundaye is a culture writer

Rather than looking forwards and trying to tackle the injustices raised by the Black Lives Matter movement, weve seen the government insisting theres no such thing as institutional racism driving a wedge between working-class communities.

Of course working-class children arent being held back by schools teaching them about racism; theyre being held back by the Tories starving deprived schools of funding. The culture wars are a distraction tactic, designed to point the finger away from the real problems in our society, like the shocking concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the super-rich.

But there are causes for optimism. Under Mark Drakefords leadership, Wales has this month become the first UK nation to commit to making teaching black history in schools mandatory. Ahead of Cop26, Im also proud to have established a parliamentary group on African reparations, which will open up a debate about how Britain can make amends for its history of slavery and colonialism as well as their ongoing legacies. Advances like these give me hope. Bell Ribeiro-Addy is the Labour MP for Streatham

How Black literature changed Britain Join this Guardian event featuring poet Benjamin Zephaniah, pioneering publisher Margaret Busby, and historian Deidre Osborne on Monday 8 November, 8pm GMT | 9pm CET | 12 noon PDT | 3pm EDT. Book tickets here

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Its been a turbulent year for race in Britain. So what next? - The Guardian

Rgine Jean-Charles, an Africana Studies professor, is out with her third book, A Trumpet of Conscience for the 21st Century: Kings Call to Justice. How the Black feminist literary scholar came to connect the dots between Martin Luther Kings 1960s-era speeches with modern-day social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter is a story in itself.

It was early 2019 and, teaching at another school in Boston at the time, Jean-Charles was asked to deliver a King holiday speech in front of hundreds of people. She wanted to remember the civil rights icon outside of what she calls the box that his legacy has been in since his death in 1968.

The I Have a Dream box, the colorblind society box, the peace box, Jean-Charles recalled Tuesday at a book launch event in the Cabral Center on the Boston campus. She joined Northeastern over the summer and holds the following titles: Deans Professor of Culture and Social Justice; professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and director of Africana Studies.

The idea behind her new book actually sprang from an op-ed she authored in 2019, Its time to take Martin Luther King Jr. out of the box.

In thinking about what her next publication would look like, following her acclaimed books on the politics of rape and Black feminism, Jean-Charles says she was really determined to think about King from a different angle.

A friend suggested that instead of another work centered on Kings I Have a Dream speech, Jean-Charles should focus on his lesser-known The Trumpet of Conscience, a series of lectures that he delivered in 1967 for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

The five sets of remarks included A Christmas Sermon on Peace, in which King talks about his famous March on Washington address in 1963. Not long after talking about that dream, he said in the Christmas sermon, I started seeing it turn into a nightmare. King was referring to a church bombing in Alabama that same year that killed four young Black girls, the U.S. war with Vietnam, and inner city poverty.

My goodness, Jean-Charles said, if people knew about this speech, would they always use I Have a Dream as their one King speech that they quote?

Inspired by that CBC lecture series, she had two goals in mind for her new bookto encourage people to think beyond Dream, while at the same time reflecting on Kings messages as they relate to contemporary social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and prison abolition, which favors rehabilitation over incarceration.

These were movements that I taught about, the professor said. So I really wanted to use The Trumpet of Conscience as a lens for looking at these movements.

As part of her books launch event, she was interviewed by Yndia Lorick-Wilmot, a fellow member of Northeasterns Africana Studies Program and a senior lecturer in sociology. Jean-Charles, asked why now for her books subject matter, responded: Were in this moment as a culture where justice is having the layers of it pulled back, she explained.

People are finally understanding that when you say Black lives matter, too often it felt like women werent included, even though women started the movement. You have to behave as though all Black lives matter, Jean-Charles added. It doesnt matter if theyre Black trans lives, if theyre Black queer lives, if theyre Black poor lives, if theyre Black Haitian lives.

She recalled attending a recent conference with U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who is Black.

She kept saying Haitian lives are Black lives, Jean-Charles, a Haitian American, said. So when Haitians are mistreated at the border, they need to stand up and say that Black lives matter around the globe.

Contemporary social justice movements are bolder and more imaginative than those in Kings time, she added.

Its like those T-shirts that say I am my ancestors wildest dreams, which attest to a generation that is building upon the wisdom of previous generations to go even deeper into the roots of all forms of injustice, Jean-Charles said.

For media inquiries, please contact media@northeastern.edu.

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The links between Martin Luther King, Black Lives Matter, and #MeToo - News@Northeastern

Whenever he gave a talk about his experience surviving the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Sunao Tsuboi would always conclude his speech with the rallying cry, Never give up!

Tsuboi, who never yielded in his anti-nuclear activism, died on Oct. 24 at 96.

He relied on that never-give-up spirit for all his adult life. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, he was about 1 kilometer from ground zero and suffered major burns throughout his body.

He did not regain consciousness for about a month, so he did not learn about the emperors announcement of Japans surrender that ended World War II on Aug. 15, 1945, until long after it happened.

Tsuboi received treatment at hospitals on about a dozen occasions over the years. There were times when his condition was serious.

But Tsuboi survived that bombing thanks to the help of many people. That is when he decided he would tell the world about the suffering that the hibakusha, or survivors of the bombing, endured.

He expressed his relentless determination to the world in 2015 at the U.N. disarmament conference in Hiroshima.

I will not give up on the abolition of nuclear weapons until my very last breath, Tsuboi said.

Tsuboi met with then-U.S. President Barack Obama in May 2016, when he became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. Tsuboi reminded Obama of his 2009 Prague speech calling for a world without nuclear weapons and told him the hibakusha would work with him to help realize that dream.

Over the years, Tsuboi inspired younger generations with his words.

Yuta Takahashi, 21, a junior at Tokyos Keio University, is part of a group that asked Diet members about their views concerning the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which took effect in January.

The group published its findings online.

Takahashi said he became involved in such activities because of Tsuboi.

When Takahashi was still in junior high school, he met with Tsuboi over the course of two days, along with his fellow classmates, and they made a pamphlet containing his testimony.

Takahashi still remembers Tsuboi shedding tears when he spoke about an attempted love suicide when he was much younger because his relatives opposed his marriage to the woman who would eventually become his wife.

Tsuboi initially asked Takahashi and his group not to print that story. But they insisted that they wanted to include it in their report. Tsuboi finally relented.

I will have to visit my wifes grave and tell her what I decided, he said with a smile.

Takahashi vowed to continue sharing his story.

Those of us who heard the testimony directly from him have the responsibility to maintain that in our hearts and connect it to activities that lead to a world without nuclear weapons, he said.

Akira Kawasaki, a member of the international steering group for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, said he felt it was symbolic that Tsuboi died the year when the TPNW went into effect. He said the treaty resulted from the efforts of the hibakusha.

In October, Kawasaki showed past testimony from Tsuboi during an online lecture.

There are many young people around the world who have gained an understanding about the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons after they were shocked from the intense way in which he told about his experience, Kawasaki said.

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Hibakusha gave his never-give-up spirit to the next generation | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis - Asahi Shimbun

Bathinda (Punjab), Oct 29 (IANS): Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal lashed out at the corruption, crime and mafia rule in Punjab on Friday. He announced that if his party forms the government in 2022, Punjab will be freed from criminals, the corrupt and inspector raj.

After April 1 next year, the AAP government will be responsible for the safety of every trader and businessman, he said.

Addressing a programme in Bathinda town he made two announcements for businessmen. Kejriwal said that after the formation of the AAP government, the responsibility for the security of every trader would be "ours" (the AAP government).

"Stop being afraid and start planning for business and industry development now," he said.

Second, he announced that like Delhi, the AAP would give an honest government in Punjab too.

Kejriwal appealed to the people, "Punjab has given a lot of opportunities to the Congress, the Akali Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party to form the government, but now give the Aam Aadmi Party a chance. Give it a chance and no one will be able to shake the AAP government like Delhi."

AAP Punjab president Bhagwant Mann, Punjab affairs in-charge Jarnail Singh, co in-charge Raghav Chadha, Leader of Opposition Harpal Singh Cheema were present on the stage at the function, while senior leader and MLA Aman Arora officiated on the stage.

Kejriwal sought the cooperation of the traders and businessmen and appealed to the entire business community to become partners in the honest AAP government to be formed in Punjab.

"Like other parties we have come not to take money from the traders but to seek cooperation and share in the government as Punjab has to be established on another level and has to be taken to the pinnacle of development."

Kejriwal said the traders and businessmen were living in fear. "How will business thrive in such an environment? On the contrary, the traders will want to limit their trade."

Criticizing the Channi government, Kejriwal said it was easy to imitate the common man, but difficult to implement because Chief Minister Charanjit Singh, after seeing the AAP government's work, announced the abolition of inspector raj, participation of traders and provision of facilities to industries, but does not implement them.

Excerpt from:

Punjab will be freed from criminals, Kejriwal assures traders - Daijiworld.com

The largest online forum to celebrate quitting your job is growing faster than ever. "R/antiwork," a subreddit about "work-free" lifestyles, has swelled to more than 700,000 members over the past two years, an increase that trendsalongside the record-breaking number of Americans who have quit their jobs since April 2021.

The US resignation rate is now at a two-decade high in what's been dubbed "The Great Resignation," as millions of workers nationwide, from minimum wage earners to mid-career tech and healthcare employees, are leaving their jobs. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that low-paid, mostly in-person roles have accounted for the largest number of quitters this year.

Anthony Klotz, the psychologist who coined the term "Great Resignation," previously told Insider that the pandemic and loss of life due to the coronavirus may be shifting American workers' perspectives. The Atlantic's Derek Thompson argues that this unprecedented movement toward quitting is already making strides for workers: low-income wages are rising the fastest they have since the Great Recession , according to Federal Reserve Bank wage-growth trackers.

On the "r/antiwork" subreddit, which was created in 2013 but only recently entered the top 800 most subscribed-to subreddits, according to publicly available Reddit data, some of those recently unemployed service workers are posting screenshots of purported text exchanges that show them telling their managers that they're resigning.

The biting resignations have resonated with hundreds of thousands of Redditors who are celebrating workers' decisions to leave behind their toxic bosses and workplaces. These texts have gone viral on and off of Reddit, with one Twitter compilation of two text threads from the subreddit gaining more than 230,000 likes.

According to the subreddit's description, the forum is a place for "those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas, and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles."

Popular posts in the subreddit include anti-capitalist and anti-work sentiments that suggest structural norms around working in the US, like the nine-hour workday and average age of retirement, should be changed.

The forum's resources section links to American anarchist Bob Black's 1985 essay "The Abolition of Work," in which he writes, "In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play."

Anti-capitalist beliefs are popular on Reddit in general, as evidenced by the large democratic socialist hubs on the platform. But while left-leaning posts gain traction on the platform, the ideals espoused in them don't always reflect popular opinions and behaviors. Data suggests that American workers at large aren't quitting to "stop working," as Black wrote, but rather to pursue higher-paying jobs and leave bad working conditions amid an abundance of options, experts say.

The purported resignations that are portrayed in the subreddit mostly have to do with minimum wage earners and service workers quitting after being pressured to come into work on their off days, pick up shifts with late notice, and comply with over perceived unfair working conditions.

This rationale was present in another viral purported text exchange on the subreddit, in which a manager asks their employee to come into work the day after their father died. When the employee refuses, their boss tells them to "stop being a victim."

"Mail me my check. I quit," the employee's purported response says. "And go fuck yourself."

Here is the original post:

Great Resignation: r/antiwork subreddit goes viral with quitting texts - Insider

The largest online forum to celebrate quitting your job is growing faster than ever. "R/antiwork," a subreddit about "work-free" lifestyles, has swelled to more than 700,000 members over the past two years, an increase that trends alongside the record-breaking number of Americans who have quit their jobs since April 2021.

The US resignation rate is now at a two-decade high in what's been dubbed "The Great Resignation," as millions of workers nationwide, from minimum wage earners to mid-career tech and healthcare employees, are leaving their jobs. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that low-paid, mostly in-person roles have accounted for the largest number of quitters this year.

Anthony Klotz, the psychologist who coined the term "Great Resignation," previously told Insider that the pandemic and loss of life due to the coronavirus may be shifting American workers' perspectives. The Atlantic's Derek Thompson argues that this unprecedented movement toward quitting is already making strides for workers: low-income wages are rising the fastest they have since the Great Recession, according to Federal Reserve Bank wage-growth trackers.

On the "r/antiwork" subreddit, which was created in 2013 but only recently entered the top 800 most subscribed-to subreddits, according to publicly available Reddit data, some of those recently unemployed service workers are posting screenshots of purported text exchanges that show them telling their managers that they're resigning.

The biting resignations have resonated with hundreds of thousands of Redditors who are celebrating workers' decisions to leave behind their toxic bosses and workplaces. These texts have gone viral on and off of Reddit, with one Twitter compilation of two text threads from the subreddit gaining more than 230,000 likes.

According to the subreddit's description, the forum is a place for "those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas, and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles."

Popular posts in the subreddit include anti-capitalist and anti-work sentiments that suggest structural norms around working in the US, like the nine-hour workday and average age of retirement, should be changed.

The forum's resources section links to American anarchist Bob Black's 1985 essay "The Abolition of Work," in which he writes, "In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play."

Anti-capitalist beliefs are popular on Reddit in general, as evidenced by the large democratic socialist hubs on the platform. But while left-leaning posts gain traction on the platform, the ideals espoused in them don't always reflect popular opinions and behaviors. Data suggests that American workers at large aren't quitting to "stop working," as Black wrote, but rather to pursue higher-paying jobs and leave bad working conditions amid an abundance of options, experts say.

The purported resignations that are portrayed in the subreddit mostly have to do with minimum wage earners and service workers quitting after being pressured to come into work on their off days, pick up shifts with late notice, and comply with over perceived unfair working conditions.

This rationale was present in another viral purported text exchange on the subreddit, in which a manager asks their employee to come into work the day after their father died. When the employee refuses, their boss tells them to "stop being a victim."

"Mail me my check. I quit," the employee's purported response says. "And go fuck yourself."

See the rest here:

'I quit' - Reddit users are posting angry resignation texts to their bosses on an 'anti-work' subreddit - Business Insider India