Here is Liza Featherstone at Jacobin: This elitist vision of feminism has been around for more than one hundred years. In the early twentieth century Alexandra Kollontai, a Russian socialist organizer and writer who would later become the only woman in...
Over at Inside Higher Ed, historian Steven Mintz helps us make sense of the American left. Here is a taste of his piece, “What Does It Mean to Be a Leftist in 2023?“: Today, the left takes many different forms....
When the George Floyd was killed, Americans took the streets in protest. When Donald Trump was elected president, the #MeToo movement took the streets in protest. Why don’t we see similar uprisings in support of working class Americans fighting for...
Civil rights activist Bayard Rustin was a complicated guy. Perhaps that’s why I find myself drawn to him and his work. Today The New York Times is running a piece on Rustin by writer James Kirchick. Kirchick is the author...
It is the #1 song in America right now. Have you heard it yet? On his You Tube channel Oliver Anthony, the writer and singer of the song, says: Watch: Here is Nicholas Kristof, a liberal columnist at The New...
Over at Jacobin, historian Eben Miller tells the story of the 1933 Amenia conference. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) hosted the event in Amenia, New York. W.E.B. Du Bois was co-organizer. Some of the country’s...
Over at Jacobin, Taj Ali interviews writer Kenan Malik, the author of Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics. Here is a taste: TAJ ALI: You discuss the decline of cross-racial class...
Here is Aatish Bhatia, Claire Cainb Miller, and Josh Katz of The New York Times: Elite colleges have long been filled with the children of the richest families: At Ivy League schools, one in six students has parents in the...
Here is The New York Times columnist in the wake of the Supreme Court ending affirmative action today: We’ve been debating affirmative action since I was in diapers, and increasingly the Supreme Court has gotten into this issue, and now...
Harper’s Magazine is running a piece by Ian Buruma, the former editor of The New York Review of Books (read the article to learn why he is no longer the editor), titled, “Doing the Work: The Protestant ethic and the...
Over at Christian Century, a liberal Protestant magazine, Baylor University ethicist Jonathan Tran argues that “privileged progressives have turned their attention from structures and systems to sentimentalism.” Here is a taste of his piece: Detached from practiced commitments and practical...
We lost a great cultural critic and writer last week. I have benefited immensely over the years from Barbara Ehrenreich‘s work on social class in America. She is well-known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By...
The largest vaccination gap is based on class. Here is David Leonhardt at The New York Times: It is common to hear about two different demographic groups that are hesitant to receive a Covid-19 vaccination: Republican voters and racial minorities,...
I have been fascinated with the responses to the article I posted about here. (What follows assumes you have read Brendan O’Neill’s piece). It is interesting to watch how the British royal family elicits such strong responses from Americans. Nothing...
The killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests have brought to light some serious differences on the American left. Take, for example, the case of Adolph Reed, a Black Marxist scholar at the University of Pennsylvania who was invited...
In a just-released Episode 62 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast, I reminisce with our founding producer Drew Dyrli Hermeling about the time we may have offended ESPN’s Paul Lukas, a historian of sports uniforms and founder of...
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxFKxglpM00&w=560&h=315] It was going to happen sooner or later. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party appears to have split. Some support Bernie Sanders. Some support Elizabeth Warren. Their non-aggression pact has apparently dissolved. Over at FiveThirtyEight, Clare Malone...
For most evangelical Christians, the message of the Gospel transcends the identity categories we place on human beings. All men and women are sinners in need of redemption. Citizenship in the Kingdom of God, made possible by Jesus’s death and...
I love reading stories of professors raised in working-class families. I thus need to read Jennine Capo Crucet’s recent book My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education. The Atlantic is running a piece based on the book. Here is...
Rollins College historian Julian Chambliss puts Mar-a-Lago in some historical context. He argues that the winter White House is part of a “Florida dream” that is unsustainable. Here is a taste of Chambliss piece at Boston Review: Donald Trump calls his...
