We Belong to Each Other: A Call To End the Violence

With the death toll in Gaza climbing past 8,500 people , including more than 3,500 children , and hundreds more being killed each day in Israel's relentless bombardment of homes and other civilian infrastructure, we at OBI join a growing global...

Justices Take On Race, Politics In SC Gerrymander Case

What happens when race and political preference are so strongly correlated that state legislatures can cloak racial gerrymanders in the guise of partisanship? That's the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Alexander v. South Carolina...

Slow and Mainstream Wins the (Far Right) Race

A few months ago, I managed a focus group exploring attitudes towards climate with young Spanish progressives from urban centers. Whenever I manage focus groups, I like to begin with the question “what are the most important issues facing the country...

Environmental Justice from the Bottom-Up

In recent years, advocates’ push for development without displacement in California has been incorporated into state grant-making pilot programs like the Equitable Community Revitalization Grant. Investments in urgently needed low-income housing...

Your Guide to California's Social Housing Proposals

Note: This blog post describes the content and status of these bills as of July 11, 2023. You can follow new updates and amendments on the California legislative information website. California policymakers are showing new interest in using social...

On Europeans (not) Talking About Race

There is usually a trigger event. George’s Floyd murder. Aylan Kurdi. The most vitriolic displays of racism on the football pitch . Open arms to Ukrainian refugees, closed doors to Syrians and Afghans. A speech by Orbán addressing “the mixing of...

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing in 2023

I recently gave a talk to a local California Association of Realtors group on the “Past, Present and Future of Fair Housing” to commemorate Fair Housing month (April), and to help the group think about their role in promoting fair housing. It is...

Equity vs. Equality: What's the Difference?

There is a clip of US Senator Bernie Sanders making the rounds from a recent episode of Bill Maher’s HBO program, in which the host asked Senator Sanders to distinguish “equality” from “equity.” Senator Sanders explained that “equality” refers to...

Does Diversity Matter? In Tyre Nichols' Case, It Didn't

People have been asking me how I make sense of the fact that all five of the Memphis police officers who beat Tyre Nichols to death in that heinous attack were Black. Does that mean the attack was not racist? Does it negate race as a factor in the...

Black lives matter, But to whom?

Today, we're thrilled to share an extraordinary new work from our Global Senior Fellow Bayo Akomolafe . In many ways, Bayo's piece defies any simple description or summary, but at its most basic, this two-part essay seeks to explore the limits of the...

Connecting the Local and the Global

Where I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, much of our drinking water comes from the Chattahoochee River . The river, whose name comes from the Creek/Muscogee words chato ("rock") and huchi ("painted"), marks the current Alabama-Georgia border and the...

We Can't Have Climate Justice Without Global Justice

On August 16, 2022, US President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law. The IRA is the largest explicit investment for mitigating climate change in federal history, and a concerted effort to mitigate the pronounced economic pressures faced by Americans...

Understanding 'Replacement Theory'

Most Americans probably encountered the insidious notion of "replacement theory" for the first time in the wake of the horrific mass murder of 10 African Americans in Buffalo, New York in May. The shooter targeted a Black neighborhood for reasons...

Racist Language Should Not Be Purged From Property Deeds

Note: This blog is being published on the occasion of California law AB 1466 , which is related to this topic, going into effect. The last few years have brought much greater awareness of the degree to which racism is embedded in our society...

Rightwing power grab renders Supreme Court illegitimate

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization an illegitimate, radical, rightwing court overturned half a century of settled law established by Roe v. Wade to advance a political agenda. But why do I refer to the current US Supreme Court as...

Explore Othering and Belonging

Video: Across Lines: Grief. with Bayo Akomolafe, Professor Sa’ed Atshan, and Cecilie Surasky

How do we catch people where they fall? How do we respond to this crisis in a way that doesn’t reinforce its architecture? What kind of politics is being summoned at this time? In this November 16 conversation that was part of our Democracy &...
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Across Lines: Grief. with Bayo Akomolafe, Professor Sa’ed Atshan, and Cecilie Surasky

How do we catch people where they fall? How do we respond to this crisis in a way that doesn’t reinforce its architecture? What kind of politics is being summoned at this time?

Video: Climate Displacement and the Right to Stay: Tools and Tactics for Climate Justice

On Nov. 15 OBI's Global Justice team hosted this hour-long livestream to mark the launch of the Climate Displacement and Resilience Database . The team provided background on the database, demonstrated how other researchers and organizations can use...