Category Archives: Section

‘No Taxpayer Dollars’ for Coaches at the U of I? You May Be Surprised

by Jay Rosenstein Center for Advanced Study Professor of Media & Cinema Studies Jay Rosenstein is the award-winning filmmaker of In Whose Honor? (1997), The Amasong Chorus: Singing Out (2004), and The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today (2010) “It’s not … Continue reading

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The U.S. Military in Africa: a Workshop for the Militarization of Foreign Policy

By Janice Jayes After four American servicemen were killed in in Niger in October, social media discussion fixated on President Trump’s insensitive remarks to the widow of one of the slain soldiers and questions about the logistics surrounding the unlucky … Continue reading

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Stream some Laughs: Four Political Comedies from Mexico, Spain, and Puerto Rico

Subtitles don’t bite. Turn them on, if you need, and check out a superb satire from Mexican director Luis Estrada, The Perfect Dictatorship (La Dictadura Perfecta, 2014), streaming on Netflix. Prepare to laugh and squirm. In this uncomfortably relevant and … Continue reading

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4th Annual Welcome Awards Ceremony Celebrates What Makes America Great

By David Cisneros. State, national, and international news media have brought us a daily barrage of tragic or infuriating news stories. And national rhetoric increasingly features voices of nativism, racism, and hatred. In the face of all of this, it … Continue reading

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GEO Rally for Fair Contract

On Wednesday, Oct. 4, the Graduate Employees’ Organization held a rally for a fair contract. The union had been without a contract for 50 days.  

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The YWCA: We Are on a Mission

Since opening on campus in 1884 as a women’s residence hall, the YWCA of the University of Illinois has served as an organization on a mission to promote peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all. We recognize the powerful potential … Continue reading

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The Water Project: Examining our relationship with our most precious resource

Nancy Dietrich is a resident of Urbana who became an environmentalist because she likes to breathe clean air and drink clean water. “Destruction of water resources and of forest catchments and aquifers is a form of terrorism. Denying poor people … Continue reading

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No Accident: White Cop Shoots Another Black Man in Champaign

The shooting of unarmed Black men by white police in the United States is a story that keeps repeating over and over. The recent case of a local 22-year-old African American man shot in the shoulder by Champaign police officer … Continue reading

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Our Mahomet Aquifer

By Jacquelyn Potter, Sierra Club Prairie Group Jacquelyn Potter is on the Executive Committee of the local Sierra Club, where she is involved in activism with many issues, including water protection, and serves on the Mahomet Aquifer Model group. Water … Continue reading

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People’s Climate March: History & Views from the Local & D.C. Marches

By Members of Prairie Group of Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch Origins of the People’s Climate March By Alice Englebretsen Alice Englebretsen has been a member of the Sierra Club for many years, and originally got involved by … Continue reading

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TRUMP EMBRACES 19th CENTURY ENERGY PLAN WHILE THE REST OF THE WORLD LOOKS AHEAD

On June 1, 2017, President Trump made it official: the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord. The 2015 Accord is an agreement among 195 countries to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change … Continue reading

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Our Seniors Are Still Not For Sale

(Josh Hartke is a lifelong progressive activist and a member of the Champaign County Board from central Champaign. He serves on the Nursing Home Board of Directors, and cared for both his father and grandmother before they passed in Nursing … Continue reading

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Full Transcript of Evelyn Reynolds’s CU Women’s March Speech

I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak here today. None of today’s speakers can fully represent the array of magnificent women in our community. Many of which don’t hold public positions of influence or prestigious titles. Many of whom are … Continue reading

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Des-Ordenes Presidenciales

Comenzamos con lo que en gran medida ha estado ausente en los llamados por los derechos de los inmigrantes: estamos asentados en tierras ocupadas como resultado de políticas de remoción y / o genocidio de los pueblos Nativo Americanos. En … Continue reading

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The Extremes of Struggle at the Monster’s Heart: The Black Working Class and Socioeconomic Realities under Obama’s Neoliberalism

“International capitalism cannot be destroyed without the extremes of struggle. The entire colonial world is watching the blacks inside the U.S…We are on the inside. We are the only ones who can get at the monster’s heart…”  — George L. … Continue reading

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Fighting Mass Incarceration Under Trump: New Strategies, New Alliance

By James Kilgore Yusef Shakur is a Detroit community organizer who spent several years in Michigan state prisons. “The prison-industrial complex has found the right person to feed it,” he said in response to the election results. “Trump is of … Continue reading

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Executive Dis-order?

We begin with what has largely been absent in the calls for immigrant rights: we sit on occupied land as a result of removal policies and/or genocide of Native Americans. In a dramatic surge that sent shockwaves through immigrant communities … Continue reading

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Trump and the Resurgence of Antisemitism

I composed the following reflections-in-progress in the first week after the election in order to address the sudden prominence of antisemitism in mainstream American politics. Unfortunately, nothing that has happened since then leads me to think that these tentative thoughts … Continue reading

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A Very Rude Awakening

“Faruq Nelson is an attorney in solo practice. He has been an active member of the local mosque for nearly 25 years.”   Like almost everyone I know, I could not imagine that Donald Trump would win the presidential election. … Continue reading

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Police Terror To Increase Under Trump

In less than two months since the election of Donald Trump there has been a surge in violent islamophobic and xenophobic attacks in this country. While the rhetoric, actions and entire campaign of Trump has prompted conversations amongst scholars, activists … Continue reading

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