This week, Zohran Mamdani won the race to become the next mayor of New York City in one of the nation’s most closely watched elections. A Democratic socialist who campaigned alongside Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mamdani defeated former Governor Andrew...
*This article was original published on GayRVA. According to a recent Williams Institute study, as many as 78,000 transgender citizens may be prevented from voting in 2018. In eight states including Virginia, voting law requires voters to show a government-issued IDs. And with many transgender and gender-nonconforming people no longer looking...
Last month marked the one-year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Between the overwhelming images of riot police and confederate flag insignias, it’s easy to get downtrodden and feel like no progress has been made. However, after talking to a local activist, who goes by Goad Gatsby, and remembering that only 20 came in...
If Ben Davenport is elected Mayor of Virginia Beach, the 38-year-old city councilor and mayoral candidate will join the fast-growing ranks of millennial officeholders in Virginia. The surge of young politicians has changed the focus of elected governments, and outside impressions of the areas they serve. Perhaps the most comparable figure to...
It’s been six months since the Virginia General Assembly struck down two bills that would make the state the 38th in the country to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, and local advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers haven’t slowed down in their efforts to have women’s rights formally recognized, pinning their hopes on a state still grappling...
Stepping off the plane onto Turkish soil felt like being transported to another world. Like hundreds of millions of travellers before me, I had come to see Istanbul, the gateway between Europe and the East. Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire for almost 500 years, is still a major cultural site for Muslims and Christians, although tourism has...
A Republican PAC released former CIA case-officer and Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger’s entire federal security clearance application yesterday, including private information such as her Social Security number. The document, a national security questionnaire known as Standard Form 86 or SF86, is the highest level document for security...
*This is a developing story. Germany, ever struggling with their historical demons, has just seen two days of clashes between far-right wing protesters, neo-Nazis, counter-protesters, anti-fascists, and the police. The clashes have taken place in the town of Chemnitz, a town in Saxony in Eastern Germany. Having started after an alleged lethal...
Last summer, my VCU study-abroad students and I stood in the dim but pretty interior of a little house made of corrugated tin in the Soweto township of Johannesburg, South Africa. With us was Thulani Madondo, a 2012 CNN hero, a vibrant, fast-talking South African who was recognized for founding the Kliptown Youth Program and supporting hundreds...
RVA Tank, Parkland Shooting, Democratic-nominee Spanberger, families separated at the border, KKK effigies, Governor Northam, punching Nazis, getting punched by Nazis. It’s been a long year. As we approach the one year anniversary of Unite the Right, the alt-right rally held in Charlottesville on Aug. 12 last year that ended with the death of...
