Confessions of an Occupier: Racial tensions fractured ‘Occupy Wall Street’

It was at around that time that an Occupier had showed up with an “Aryan Brotherhood” sign to “spokescouncil,” which was one of our most controversial decision-making bodies. It was started with promises of greater inclusion, but was in fact attacked for being exclusive, opaque, repressive and oppressive.

The individual had been asked to leave spokescouncil, but many members of the body had continued the meeting and suggested that the sign was just a bad joke, and we needed to move on. Needless to say, this was terribly traumatic for many people of color within the movement. READ MORE

How Racist Are We? Ask Google

Barack Obama won 52.9 percent of the popular vote in 2008 and 365 electoral votes, 95 more than he needed. Many naturally concluded that prejudice was not a major factor against a black presidential candidate in modern America. My research, a comparison of Americans’ Google searches and their voting patterns, found otherwise. If my results are correct, racial animus cost Mr. Obama many more votes than we may have realized. READ MORE

Is a Basquiat Painting Really Worth $16 Million?

This week in the magazine, Adam Davidson examines what’s really driving some art prices to record highs. In part, it’s because “the value of any artist’s work is determined by an insider world of cultural arbiters who coordinate with one another,” Davidson writes.

Sergey Skaterschikov, an art-market analyst Davidson consulted, has spent years studying how insiders shape the market — one “completely based on manipulation,” he told me. READ MORE

Our marriage was once illegal, too!

RACE FILES: Blackness Is The Fulcrum

I’m often asked why I’ve focused so much more on anti-black racism than on Asians over the years. Some suggest I suffer from internalized racism.

That might well be true since who doesn’t suffer from internalized racism?  I mean, even white people internalize racism. The difference is that white people’s internalized racism is against people of color, and it’s backed up by those who control societal institutions and capital.

But some folk have more on their minds.

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