Professional athletes are great examples illustrating how change comes from the bottom-up: they do not just have to be reflectors of the society they live in; rather, they can lead it if they use their platforms to do so. Athletes can be viewed as the workers in the large corporations that are their respective leagues, and they have always been the ones a step ahead of the establishment.

As the United States shifts to the Biden Administration, after four turbulent years of Donald Trump, the North Country Poor People’s Campaign offers its vision of a movement that can provide a viable alternative to Trumpism: a movement led by the poor and dispossessed.

The deep consequences of interconnected globalized systems paired with destructive localized human actions is on full display in the La Guajira peninsula of Northeastern Colombia. Daniel Henryk Rasolt reports on the dire situation facing the Wayuu Indigenous Peoples.

On January 22, Weave News hosted a live panel discussion focusing on the January 6 attack on the US Capitol and its implications for struggles for justice in the United States. The panelists were Damon Berry, Nicole Eigbrett, Thahitun Mariam, and Steve Peraza.

As an inducement to defy its population’s strongly pro-Palestine beliefs and normalize relations with Israel, the U.S. government has announced it will reverse decades of respect for international law and recognize Morocco’s longtime claim to Western Sahara. However, the U.S. government should not be allowed to decide the identity of a people. What is needed is for businesses to step up to the plate and stop working with Morocco to profit off of Western Sahara’s natural resources.

In the first installment of her new “Shifting Ground” series, Himanee Gupta-Carlson introduces us to the experiences that have led her and her husband to make a commitment to “cultivating food security on a regional level through regenerative agricultural practices and participating in food sovereignty movements worldwide.” The series will trace their journey over the coming year as they move their farm to a new location following racialized protests against their agricultural practices in their current location.

In his third article previewing the upcoming North Country Art, Land, and Environment Summit to be held from September 9 to October 2, Derek Sherrange draws on the work of educator and farmer Dr. Himanee Gupta-Carlson to explore the concept of food sovereignty and its relevance for the work of overcoming settler-colonial structures and building regenerative forms of agriculture.

In preparation for the upcoming North Country Art, Land, and Environment Summit to be held from September 9 to October 2, Derek Sherrange begins a new series on food sovereignty and decolonization. In this first installment, Sherrange provides an overview of the concept of settler colonialism and shares the insights of Katsitsionni Fox (Bear Clan), a Kanien:keha'ka (Mohawk) artist, filmmaker, and educator.

“You have the privilege to choose when you want to listen, reflect, and act on diversity in STEM. Because you have chosen, for now, to listen, can I make a suggestion? Rather than replying with sympathy, stories, and silver linings, develop a plan for what you’re going to do to change.” In his contribution to our Surviving PWIs for POC series, Charles Scaife writes a letter to white scientists.

To break the awkwardness of a group discussion, a student asks, “how was your weekend?” For Namarig Kram, the question from a white classmate was a window into the dynamics of racism on and around her university campus in northern NY. Read her story in the latest installment of our Surviving PWIs for POC series.

“Remember the solidarity here and everywhere…” Beginning with this quote from the legendary Palestinian scholar Edward Said, John Collins offers some reflections on a recent panel discussion where he and colleagues from Mexico, Palestine, and the UK discussed the looming threat of Israeli annexation and the changing conditions within which activists around the world express their solidarity with Palestine’s struggle for liberation.

In the latest installment of our Surviving PWIs for POC series, Karen Chalamilla reflects on her postgrad education at SOAS (University of London). “Simply being critical of Euro-patriarchal thinking will never be enough,” writes Chalamilla. “Its dominance runs too deep. If this is what academic institutions consider to be decolonization, then we ought to question whether the project is worth our energy at all.”

In the widespread protests against police violence following the murder of George Floyd, Blake Lavia sees evidence of how COVID-19 has brought the problems of a “racist economic system” into sharper view. Can the current uprisings hold the key to addressing both the climate crisis and the need to build a more just economic system? The challenge, Lavia argues, is for white people to look themselves in the mirror, go beyond performative solidarity, and work actively to dismantle oppressive systems.

In the age of globalization and “free trade,” global consumers are accustomed to having access to a wide variety of fruits from around the world. Like all products, however, this fruit is grown, circulated, and consumed in ways that generate complex effects at all scales, from the local to the global. As part of our Glocal Dispatches series, Melissa Pérez Sancho reports on the case of the pineapple industry in Costa Rica and the questions this case raises regarding social, economic, and environmental justice.

The effects of the coronavirus pandemic intersect with the effects of other social, political, and environmental problems throughout the world. Reporting from Bolivia, Gabriela Paz Ferreyra Barrientos explores how Bolivian society finds itself caught between ongoing political instability and a public health emergency: “Violence and confrontation in Bolivia require an urgent democratic election, yet the health of Bolivians is crying out for them to stay home and take care of themselves.”

On this Earth Day, we from the Talking Wings Collective are saying no to doom and gloom. Especially during the current pandemic, it is easy to succumb to an apocalyptic worldview. But we must also celebrate the brave work of human communities who are striving to plant the seeds of global/local change. At this very moment, these “earth and water guardians” are pushing back the hands of the doomsday clock and working against time to create a sustainable and regenerative future.

Sara Monggaard reflects on the implications of the pandemic for the experience of university students. “I believe in this period of monumental global pause, unity and introspection, we have a unique window to look forward. It is time to tear our structures apart and rethink the purpose of ‘education’ with restructured learning objectives and methods. What does it mean to be educated? What should education prepare us to tackle?”

Łukasz W. Niparko writes: In recent days, we have read enough dystopian visions of the post-COVID world. I do not want to write another one. Because in the hands of upstanders rests the choice between dystopia, maintenance of the status quo, or perhaps a quasi-utopian victory for all of humanity. While being under lockdown, or while on the subway, we have the choice to rethink the losses of the past 30 years and be upstanders before others steal the few freedoms we still have left.

How do racial capitalism, the politics of corporate branding, and the “shock doctrine” converge in the ongoing gentrification of Sunset Park, Brooklyn? Iman Maani explores this question in her first installment for “Glocal Dispatches,” our series focusing on how globalization impacts local communities.

Ali Abusheikh writes from Doha, Qatar amidst the COVID-19 crisis, but he is also thinking of his home - Gaza. ““I sympathize with the world. I understand people's fear. Why wouldn't I? I already know what it is like to be stuck at home for weeks when it is not safe to go out. (And in the case of Gaza, staying at home isn't enough to protect you; Israeli missiles can just as easily find you there.) I already know how it feels to unexpectedly have to cancel weddings and other special occasions. I grew up being unable to travel.”