Besides being obvious attacks on public health and personal freedom of expression, mask bans give police even more power to use violence and the threat of imprisonment to address political and social problems.

Revolutionary Cuba treated literacy as a form of liberation. US literacy efforts rely on charity and volunteerism. The difference in approach is striking.

When profit is the bottom line, functionality and human enjoyment do not matter.

‘Incrementalism’ implies that small steps will be taken toward a goal. But we need to beware policies that do not actually serve the goals they claim.

Reviewing the punitive and racialized law-and-order politics of the ’80s and ’90 reminds us that color-blindness isn’t the solution going forward.

Forty years ago, the federal holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday was created. While King’s legacy and holiday have been co-opted by presidents for political expediency, we must always remember King’s radical critique of U.S. society.

We’re often told that picking up the phone and calling someone can help with the epidemic of loneliness. But the focus on individual efforts simply distracts us from deeper questions about how our society is organized.

The New Yorker and the New York Times present “beautiful” stories of the human spirit in prisons. But why don’t we come away committed to ending the caging of human beings?