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Racism

Unequal Ground: The Racialized Landscape of Land Ownership and Federal Buyouts in the United States

In the face of climate change’s far-reaching impacts, the notion of land as an unyielding and permanent resource has been shattered and replaced by a landscape in flux. Rising sea levels, intensified flooding, and other climate-related events have cast a shadow over the stability of our land, compelling us to rethink our approaches and policies in response to these evolving challenges.

One such approach is managed retreat, a concept entailing the relocation of human settlements and infrastructure from vulnerable or high-risk areas due to environmental factors. Within managed retreat, various strategies are employed, including acquisition and buyouts, zoning and land-use regulations, land swaps, and community engagement.

Mississippi: The Tangled Web of History, Class, Race, and Water

It’s too easy for a northeastern US observer to have an overbearing and infuriating attitude regarding Mississippi. Unfortunately, Mississippi has a laundry list––or a butcher’s bill if you like, of past sins that stick in the craw of humanists and the respecters of justice alike.

That said, no one is innocent. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observed (after getting hit with a brick in Chicago), “As long as the struggle was down in Alabama and Mississippi, they could look afar and think about it and say how terrible people are. When they discovered brotherhood had to be a reality in Chicago and that brotherhood extended to next door, then those latent hostilities came out.”

So, we ought to look at the current problems in Jackson, Mississippi, bloodlessly and try to keep emotions out (I’m not saying it’s easy). What happens when a group surrenders political power but economic power remains the preserve of the privileged? Perhaps, it will turn out that political power is often no power at all. Instead, it takes politics and economics for political economy like two elements forming a chemical compound producing different behaviors.

Restructuring the Police

The solution to the problem of police misconduct requires a radical restructuring, not just of the police, but also of the political and economic infrastructure that propagates social problems. The current social structure is that a mass of people, swayed by misleading propaganda, elect officials… Read More »Restructuring the Police