Image credit: Abigail Ducote on unsplash.com Historically, one of the most common arguments for the demonization of LGBTQ people is framing queerness as “against nature.” For example, in 2022, the Texas Republican party said being gay was an “abnormal lifestyle choice,” suggesting that civil rights law that protects LGBTQ people from discrimination should be revoked because of nonnormative sexuality. Similarly, the idea that being cisgender is “normal” while being transgender is not is often invoked to erode transgender rights and access to healthcare. In this context, the concept of “que ..read more

Image credit: NTSBgov on Wikimedia “It’s a very contained, small leak, considering the magnitude of what was carried on the ship,” Bill Dennison, a marine science professor and interim president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, told the Baltimore Sun. “They were ready to go to Sri Lanka. They had a full load of fuel.” The container ship carrying that fuel—more than a million gallons of it—ran into Maryland’s Frances Scott Key Bridge in the early morning hours of March 29. The bridge collapsed, killing six construction workers who were working on the roa ..read more

Image credit: Drazen Zigic on istock.com A recent study published in the American Educational Research Journal found that Black students are less likely to be unnecessarily placed in special education classes when they are taught by Black teachers. The study, “Teacher-Student Race Match and Identification for Discretionary Education Services,” found that the results were strongest for Black boys, particularly those who are economically disadvantaged. The study also aimed to see if there was a correlation between Black teachers and gifted placement for Black students but did not find ..read more

Image credit: Yermine Richardson / www.popcaribe.com Editors’ note: This piece is from Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine’s spring 2024 issue, “‘Stop Drowning Us, and Stop Making Us Disappear’: A Critical Report on the State of Black Woman Leadership.” The very presence of Black women leaders in the workforce is fugitive. We were never intended to function in it beyond our historically designated roles in “agriculture and domestic service.”1 Black women are systematically suppressed within the labor economy through chronic underemployment and an enduring exclusion from “employer-provi ..read more

Image credit: Dylan Sauerwein on Unsplash “When these needs are met, we do not just empower formerly incarcerated people—we prevent crime and make our communities safer.” In 2017, Prison Fellowship—the nation’s largest nonprofit serving prisoners, former prisoners, and their families—began observing Second Chance Month in April. The goal was to raise awareness about the barriers that formerly incarcerated people face when returning home and to advocate for elected leaders to pass policies that will allow them to have a second chance at life. These efforts have gained traction, with m ..read more

  The following is a transcript of the video above, from our webinar “Remaking the Economy: A Policy Vision from the Movement for Black Lives.” View the full webinar here. Rosemary Ndubuizu: The value of…de-commodified housing that’s rooted in gender, racial, and Indigenous justice would require that we start to unpack some very ugly truths about our economy. In this country, 20 percent of our Gross Domestic Product is housing-related. It’s all about the housing economy. From mortgages to developing [and] building these homes, we’re all very much—even our retirement, our 401(k)s—implicate ..read more

Image credit: Mike Ferguson/AAUP A year ago, in Biden v. Nebraska, the US Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s executive order to cancel up to $20,000 in debt per borrower. Since then, the Biden administration has taken incremental steps to reduce debt. As of January 2024, 3.7 million Americans had received a total of $136.6 billion in debt forgiveness. By April, those numbers had increased to $153 billion for 4.3 million Americans. But most Americans with student debt have still not received any forgiveness to date. A new Biden administration proposal could change that. In early Ap ..read more

Image credit: Nick Night on Unsplash For months, commentators have been interrogating why the public’s perception of the economy is so negative when, by standard measures, it is booming. This is an important question that may well decide the presidential election. But looking beyond the election to the progressive policy agenda going forward requires asking something else: What is the relationship between a booming economy and economic justice? In other words, what does a workers’ labor market mean for rebalancing power away from corporations, repairing past and ongoing harms, and fo ..read more

Image credit: John Fornander on Unsplash As co-coordinators of the US Solidarity Economy Network (USSEN), we routinely face the joys and challenges of working with a wide range of social change agents and organizations to advance an explicitly post-capitalist framework. We’ve been at this for a while. USSEN was formed in 2007 at the first US Social Forum in Atlanta when approximately 15,000 folks gathered under the banner “Another World is Possible and Another US is Necessary.” The goals, then as now, were to organize around a common vision—one that centers racial, economic, and ecol ..read more

Image credit: Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash Throughout my 10-year career in the nonprofit sector, working as a program director in youth development and later as an operations director in philanthropy, professional development has often entailed a one- to two-hour webinar on cultivating relationships or a half-day session on best practices in program management and has always felt like punishment from those in charge. Such programs remind me of required summer reading—something to keep you busy that instructors never revisit during the school year. It is difficult to ..read more