May 2012

delmy palenciaRoughly two weeks after the second year memorial of the BP oil disaster, a few moving parts are looking like they're coming to closure, even if not on completely amenable terms. The federal judge overseeing the trial against BP has approved settlement terms.  And Mississippi passed a law to encourage local hiring in the wake of disasters.  Meanwhile, national policymaking and politics that affect the Gulf Coast continue.

At a May 1 New Orleans rally and march for immigrant rights, Ted Quant, a social activist and director of the Twomey Center for Peace through Justice at Loyola University, delivered the following speech on the history of May Day, the need for workers and communities to unite across race, and how the attack on immigrant workers is part of a divide-and-conquer strategy by “the 1%.” : 

Editor's Note: With President Obama's historic statement in support of marriage equality, the national political debate over who has the right to marry has heated up. But the right to marry is not always the most pressing issue confronting queer people, especially in queer communities of color, which continue to face criminalization and police violence.

atchafalaya basinWe, the people of the Gulf of Mexico, have been born, raised, or adopted into a living, breathing region, whose cultures span the continents. We have nourished ourselves from the Gulfstream waters. Our cities breathe, our ecosystems speak, and we proudly and artfully contribute to the economic and cultural fabric of our nation and world.



As the BP oil disaster claims process leaves the hands of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility and goes under court supervision, there's unfinished business, or rather an unfulfilled promise that it looks like Kenneth Feinberg's old outfit may be trying to cover up. Meanwhile, Alabama covers up its ugly immigration law with an even uglier one.

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