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Trump Keeps Cracking Down on Legal Immigration Because His Base Loves Cruelty When Democrats dismissed the Fox News-led fear-mongering about “hordes” of undocumented immigrants “invading” the United States from the south as a manufactured crisis, they were pilloried by Republicans and the mainstream media alike for not taking the issue seriously. Hardly anyone demonstrated an understanding of Democrats’ nuanced argument.Illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border appeared much more substantial precisely because the Trump administration had choked off access to legal ports of entry for many migrants seeking legal access. This was likely a clear strategic move by White House adviser Stephen Miller, deliberately turning otherwise would-be legal asylum seekers into lawbreakers. This campaign worked and activists were left to protest that asylum is a right recognized by international law while children were separated from their parents and shepherded into cages. Trump supporters, meanwhile, grew more obstinate in their opposition to immigrants. Trump has repeated this strategy over and over again. By Sophia Tesfaye
Mass Shootings, Militarism and Policing Are Chapters in the Same Manifesto White supremacist killers in the U.S. are simply implementing on a local level what their government does across the globe. “White people attack Brown and Black Muslims in the United States precisely because of the country’s wars abroad.” After two mass shooters killed and injured dozens of people in Texas and Ohio, Rep. Steve Cohen tweeted, “You want to shoot an assault weapon? Go to Afghanistan or Iraq. Enlist!” Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, apparently did not take issue with the El Paso shooter’s desire to slaughter people of color — he merely wanted to redirect his bullets toward people of color outside of the United States. His tweet was a chilling reminder of how the United States’ militarism against other countries and its domestic manifestations of white supremacy replicate and reinforce each other. By Derecka Purnell 
Ancient Eugenicists Ancient Egyptians were not Asians, nor aliens. “Genocide might indeed be a worse demon of our nature.” When black civilisation was destroyed first time round there was little to show for its former glories apart from squat noses and thick lips on statues and other artworks that invading lighter folks successively reduced. After all, if writing is confined to a priestly caste in immobile temples it is hard for it to remain a concern when there are sea peoples, the Hyksos, Cambyses or Alexander on your tail; let alone Jihadists on their way to the Iberian peninsula. Neither do papyrus scrolls keep well in the deserts nor rainforests nor savannahs depending on which compass direction you chose to flee. I would imagine too that tablets become rather heavy especially when they have to compete with a basket of provisions on the limited space that is one’s head. By Zanga Chimombo
How African American Land Was Stolen in the 20th Century The US government gave hundreds of millions of acres of land to whites, but failed to give freed slaves 40 acres and a mule or protect Black farmers from massive theft. “There were nearly 1 million black farms in 1920, about one-seventh of all American farms, mostly in the South.” I recently read an article in the New Yorker that so shocked me that I knew I had to tell you, my small audience, all about it. Vast tracts of land owned by African Americans were taken from them in the 20th century. At the heart of the story is racism in many forms: how the promise of emancipation after the Civil War was broken; how whites used bureaucracy and twisted legalisms to take black land from owners too poor to defend themselves; how the teaching of American history was whitewashed to bury this story. I was shocked because, after decades of studying history, I had no idea about this fundamental cause of economic inequality in America. Writing this article pushed me into investigating the even larger story of how black Americans were prevented from owning real estate, one of the fundamental sources of wealth. By Steve Hochstadt
New Ebola Drugs Show Exciting Promise With Up To 90 Percent Cure Rate A breakthrough in the fight against one of the world’s most terrifying diseases. “Now we can say that 90 percent can come out of treatment cured, they will start believing it and developing trust.” Two experimental treatments are raising hopes among medical personnel that a cure for the deadly virus Ebola has been found. The antibody-based treatments will now be offered to all patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, announced the finding together with Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research and Dr. Michael J. Ryan, director of emergency response for the World Health Organization. Psychologically, Dr. Muyembe said, news of a cure could change the course of this outbreak, which is the worst of the 10 that Congo has endured. By Global Information Network
Afro-Descendents in the Americas Denounce Neo-Liberalism and Imperialism In Caracas, Venezuela, on July 28, 2019, Afro-Descended participants in the annual Sao Paulo Forum met to discuss the state of their various social movements. Final Declaration: We, Afro-descendants of our America and the Caribbean, African women and men convened by the historical and ancestral becoming that contemplates the struggle for equality under the principles of solidarity, love, respect, recognition, sovereignty, independence and dignity, we positively value the realization of the AFRODESCENDENT MEETING OF OUR AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN within the framework of the XXV Meeting of the Forum of Sao Paulo. By Afro-Descendents at Sao Paulo Forum 
Toni Morrison Nobel Lecture “Forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light.” Click here to listen to an audio recording of Toni Morrison’s Nobel Lecture of December 7, 1993, or read it, below. 
The Red Summer of 1919, Explained White mobs attacked Black neighborhoods in cities across the nation in 1919, but this time Blacks would not “turn the left cheek when smitten upon the right.” “The war is over, negroes. Stay in your place. If you don’t, we’ll put you there.” Some of America’s most notorious racist riots happened 100 years ago this summer. Confronting a national epidemic of white mob violence, 1919 was a time when black people in the United States defended themselves, fought back, and demanded full citizenship through thousands of acts of courage, small and large, individual and collective. But pull a standard U.S. history textbook off the shelf and you’re unlikely to find more than a paragraph on the 1919 riots. What you do find downplays both racism and black resistance while distorting facts in a dangerous “both sides” framing. These textbooks render students stupid about white supremacy and bereft of examples from those who defied it. At this moment of revived racist backlash, all of us need to learn the lessons of 1919. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca
Distinguished Black Scholar Writes Biography of Jefferson for the Age of Trump In the Age of Trump, it could be said that all interpreters of Jefferson and US History have their own “alternative facts.” “There is a Jefferson embraced by progressives but also racialists, evangelicals, and secessionists.” A Review Wilson Jeremiah Moses. Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus. New York Cambridge University Press, 2019. A distinguished scholar of Black intellectual history, Black Nationalism, and Black religion has just published a biography of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson scholars may quarrel why this book should stand out from the already many volumes on the shelf of this subject. One argument that could be made for popular attention is it may be the perfect gateway to Jefferson in the Age of Trump. This book will have staying power for how it deftly recognizes there is a Jefferson embraced by progressives but also racialists, evangelicals, and secessionists. Scholars of Jefferson’s legacies are aware of this contradiction but perhaps have never explained why with more precision than the author of the definitive biography of Alexander Crummell, the mentor of W.E.B. Du Bois. By Matthew Quest 
Labor:
Markets Wake Up to a Dicey Global Economy Outlook; Dow Plunges If you are long stocks, this is one of those mornings when you may be tempted to pull the covers over your head and take a mental health day away from financial news. As of 8:44 a.m. this morning, Dow futures were registering a plunge of 394 points; the big Wall Street bank stocks were down about 3 percent in pre-market trading; news was out in the Eurozone that its largest economy, Germany, had contracted by 0.1 percent in the second quarter. Eurostat further dampened the outlook with a report that “in June 2019 compared with May 2019, seasonally adjusted industrial production fell by 1.6% in the euro area (EA19) and by 1.5% in the EU28.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Kashmir: Modi’s draconian measures will be fought by the working class of the entire region Draconian measures by the Modi government regarding Kashmir have sent shockwaves across the whole region. On 5 August, the 70-year status of the disputed Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir was revoked by a presidential order. The existing constitutional arrangement was also revoked suddenly without any democratic process. The constitutional arrangement, referred to as Article 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution, was abrogated by the presidential decree without any discussion in the Indian parliament. Additionally, a new bill was presented and passed in just one day from the parliament regarding the bifurcation of the state, dividing it into two parts: Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh. According to the new arrangement these two areas are not given the status of a separate state in India but have been relegated to union territories, which means they are under the direct control of the central government in New Delhi.