The ultra-wealthy present themselves as the solution for inequality, pledging millions and sometimes billions of dollars to philanthropic projects. Take Jeff Bezos, who gave $100 million to food banks during the pandemic, but did not provide adequate leave for Amazon workers who were sick during initial COVID outbreaks. Most billionaires’ charitable acts are more self-serving […]
Tag: poverty
California: The Most Over-Hated State
When I first came to Berkeley, I was well aware of the Bay Area and its reputation. Friends and family, both in-state and out, hit me over the head with tales of crime, homelessness, poverty, and stuck-up tech CEOs. Although the last admonishment was warranted, as soon as I arrived Berkeley struck me with its […]
Situating Haiti’s Current Crisis Within a History of Imperial Abuse
The small Caribbean nation of Haiti is currently experiencing a crisis, the likes of which are difficult to comprehend. Having seen its president assassinated by foreign mercenaries two years ago, it currently has no elected government officials; the entire nation, but particularly the capital Port-au-Prince, is ravaged by gang violence, kidnappings, and murders; nearly half […]
Lessons From The Tenderloin
Ascending the Civic Center / UN Plaza BART escalator, I thought I knew what to expect. As I arose, it was as if an eyedropper picked me up out of my bubble and plopped me into what I perceived to be an epicenter of human misery. People walking like zombies, their eyes seemingly lifeless and […]
An Open Letter to the Fashion Industry: Forget Your Instagram Posts, Change Your Supply Chain
Fast fashion disproportionately affects women on both the consumer and producer end. According to Vogue Business, “more than half [of women] reported buying most of their clothes from fast-fashion brands” and young women between the ages of 18 and 24 make 80% of fast fashion clothing. This parasitic relationship only became possible in the past […]
Education Is Not The Great Equalizer
We have all been fed a lie: “Education is the great equalizer.” That line dominates the public discourse on K-12 public education. However, it’s certainly not true in the Bay Area nor in California. Piedmont High School and Oakland High School are less than 3 miles apart. Yet the academic performance of their students couldn’t […]
Where Does “Where the Crawdads Sing” Come From?
——— History of Things ——— Any decent murder mystery should begin with a dead body in the woods. That’s how this one starts. In 1994, park scouts shot a man dead in the empty woodlands of North Luangwa National Park, a Zambian nature preserve about the size of Delaware. Squadrons wielded their rifles at the man and […]
The Other War on Poverty
At the turn of the 17th century, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, England passed a sweeping slate of reforms aimed at alleviating poverty. Colloquially known as the Poor Laws, the legislation created a new position: overseer of the poor, two men — typically wealthy — from each parish in the nation who would […]
What the Coronavirus Can Teach Us About Gun Violence
Only three years ago, mass shootings seemed to make national headlines nearly once a month. Gun control was at the center of the American political landscape as advocacy groups such as March for Our Lives (MFOL) emerged and sparked debates over gun control on the national level. However, as the coronavirus pandemic has consumed the […]
Transgender sex workers disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19 pandemic in the Dominican Republic
The COVID-19 pandemic is already a significant issue in the Dominican Republic. The country reached 100,000 cases by September 2020, and over 250,000 by March 2021, reducing key economic activities like tourism. Consequently, the pandemic has posed financial difficulties for many Dominicans, increasing global poverty rates and reducing healthcare accessibility. Specifically, 40,000 jobs have been […]
Dog Overpopulation in New Mexico: A Symptom of Chronic Poverty
Notoriously overcrowded and underfunded, New Mexican animal shelters struggle every day to keep up with the number of strays and surrendered pets that come through their doors. Every year, these shelters act as the final destination for thousands of dogs. The pandemic has only worsened conditions inside the shelters –– in the past year, the […]
No End in Sight for the Venezuela Stalemate
Over the past few years, the economic and political situation in Venezuela has gone from serious to cataclysmic. Under the lead of President Nicolás Maduro, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela seized nearly complete control of the country. They gutted the power of the opposition-led legislature by handing legislative authority to a “Constituent Assembly” elected […]
Fire Season: California, Climate Change, and Convict Labor
2018 summer fire season is on record as being one of California’s most demanding and devastating. In the 9 month fire season from January to September, over 4,800 wildfires burned 617,00 acres across the state. The effort to combat such extensive emergency is incredibly costly; California spent $431 million in just the two months following […]
Recipe for a Successful Public School System
How properly implemented charter schools could aid students in historically poor areas Charter schools do not represent a desire to force capitalism further into the public school equation or a lack of desire to reform public schools that already exist. They represent the very real need to educate and do justice to the students that […]
Gassed up: Standoffs, Strikes, and Tension in West Virginia
A couple weeks ago, Lissa Lucas, a Democratic political candidate for the West Virginia House of Delegates, was physically dragged off the House Chambers floor during a Judiciary Committee hearing. Prior to this, Lucas had taken to the podium at the hearing and listed donations that Congresspeople, primarily Republicans, had received from the oil and […]
Dear Mr. Sanders: Tuition-Free Education is a Handout to the Rich
As an eye-catching, sloganeering, vote-winning policy, tuition-free public university is certainly a crowd pleaser. It was for Bernie Sanders, and his left-wing doppelganger in Britain, Jeremy Corbyn, is discovering the same thing. It’s the kind of policy that sounds big, bold, and revolutionary — especially to their young, usually middle-class college student supporters. However, as […]
Are You #MakingADifference?
Over the past decade, voluntourism has become a dirty word in the world of development. You may have encountered it in updated Facebook profile pictures. Or an advertisement selling idealism through service projects to Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania Africa. Or, maybe, you watched ‘Who Wants To Be A Volunteer’; a satire of the stereotypes perpetuated by volunteers […]
The Missing Part of Haitian Progress: The Forgotten Children
Haiti is home to 10 million people and the first modern revolution predicated on freedom, equality and justice of all. But among all the nations in the Western Hemisphere, none have faced greater challenges to improve the lives of its children. Yet, the forgotten children of Haiti may offer the very things that Haiti needs […]
“Leapfrogging”: Can developing countries truly skip over fossil fuel reliance in favor of renewable energies?
There is a popular argument that progress and growth are not possible without reliance on fossil fuel-powered energy. Examples abide to support this claim: almost every industrialized country is (relatively and subjectively) thriving today because of their rampant abuse of coal, oil, and gas. The 1.3 billion people without electricity access are largely concentrated in […]
The Waning Hermit Kingdom (Part I): A Faltering Kim-Regime
When tensions rose along the Korean Peninsula this past August, it was not military provocation, but South Korean speakers blaring anti-North Korean propaganda that spurred Pyongyang to declare a quasi-state of war. The recent clash between the Koreas involved their first major armed encounter in five years. However, unlike previous military aggression from the Hermit […]
Lessons from the School of Trumpian Politics along the Venezuelan-Colombian Border
Xenophobic ideology is not new to politics. It is, however, relatively new to Venezuela, which has been one of the more welcoming South American countries to immigrants throughout the second half of the 20th century. On August 19, 2015, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced “Operation Liberation of the People” (OLP). Since then, over 1,500 Colombians have […]
America Works Works
In the latest season of House of Cards, Frank Underwood proudly proclaims “America Works works.” And it does. However, the America Works that exists in reality (the subject of the remainder of this article) is nothing like the fictional plan proposed in the television series. It does not threaten to raid FEMA funds or cut from […]
Popping the Berkeley Bubble
“So…why’d you pick Berkeley?” my new friend asks, looking at me over the rims of his glasses. It’s a frequently asked question during Welcome Week, the favorite of awkward strangers-turned-conversationists in the dorms. Walking down Telegraph Avenue, I think about the answer as I take in the melange of people and activities around me. There’s […]
Community College: Undivided Over an Educational Divide
On January 08, 2015, President Obama unveiled “a bold new plan” to universalize the first two years of community college. His initiative would provide free tuition to all students across the economic spectrum, but on the condition that students maintain a 2.5 GPA while attending school at least part-time. Although Obama’s proposal is only in […]
Do Not Feed the Animals: The Dehumanization of America’s Homeless
A 90-year-old WW2 veteran has been cited four times for feeding the homeless on public property after an ordinance banning the activity went into effect in Fort Lauderdale on October 31st. The city’s anti-food-sharing ordinance is just the latest local measure of a growing trend of homeless criminalization laws proliferating across the country. A new […]
Food Stamps: The Usual Target
This past month Representative Tim Huelskamp from Kansas said the GOP’s plan to cut social programs including the food stamp program (SNAP) meant, “you can no longer sit on your couch…and expect the federal taxpayer to feed you.” His comments echo those of his party, whose main focus since 2010 has been to reduce […]