Speak Up

9-year-old Sergio is the son of undocumented parents. He spoke at a rally at the Texas state capitol on Wednesday. Demonstrators were protesting a new bill that would penalize sanctuary cities.

Muslims are taking a standing against ISIS, but you might not have heard about it.

Legal adviser Stella Tsantekidou spoke out for immigrant rights and compassion at a protest in London’s Parliament Square on Monday.

European Union court rules employers can ban Islamic headscarves in the workplace

A European Union court ruling on Tuesday is giving employers the green light to ban visible religious symbols in the workplace, including Islamic headscarves.

According to the Guardian, the ruling stipulates that in order to enforce such a policy, workplaces must have a blanket ban on religious symbols officially on the books — employers can’t simply tell an employee to remove their hijab, for example. Read more (3/14/17 7:21 AM)

Report: Election rage made hate crimes rise by 20% in major US cities last year

Nine major U.S. cities reported increases in hate crimes by more than 20% in 2016, according to one researcher who spoke to NBC News on Tuesday. 

The reason for the spike? Flaring tensions in the wake of the 2016 presidential election.

California-based researcher Brian Levin culled data from police departments as director of the nonpartisan Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, where he teaches criminal justice.

The new numbers show that bias crimes increased in the nine major metropolitan areas he studied — New York; Washington; Chicago; Philadelphia; Montgomery County, Maryland; Columbus, Ohio; Seattle; Long Beach, California; and Cincinnati — in the wake of the election.

“We might very well be at the start of a trend where anti-Semitic incidents are going up each year,” Levin told NBC. “We were seeing an over-decade decline in anti-Semitic incidents.

According to NBC, hate crimes against Muslims and the LGBTQ community accounted for most of the growth reported in the rate of bias crimes in America. Read more (3/14/17 5:21 PM)

Black Lives Matter advocate Tishaura Jones is running for mayor of St. Louis

For the second time in as many years, an aspiring black politician is drawing on lessons highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement to try to become mayor of their big city hometown.

Tishaura Jones, a 44-year-old St. Louis native, is squaring off with six other democratic candidates in that city’s primary election on Tuesday. 

And she’s doing so on a platform that promises to root out the racial inequity that boiled to the surface after the death of Mike Brown.

“I feel that it’s elected officials’ responsibility that we use the tools of government to even the playing field,” Jones said in an interview with Mic. "We [have to] promote policies that make everyone rise, not just those in wealthy zip codes.“

Jones is yet another example of America’s young black politicians using the prominence of Black Lives Matter — a movement known for public protest — to chart a new political future through elected office.

Throughout her campaign, Jones has pointed to deeply entrenched local and federal policies in housing, schooling and employment that have made St. Louis the sixth most segregated city in the country. 

But for her, confronting those racial inequities is the only way to fix them. Read more (3/6/17 2:41 PM)

Nike to release “Pro Hijab” for Muslim women in spring 2018

On the heels of its campaign ad featuring Muslim athletes, Nike is taking a stand against discrimination. 

The athletic wear company announced the release of the “pro hijab,” Al Arabiya English reported on Monday.

“The Nike Pro Hijab may have been more than a year in the making, but its impetus can be traced much further back, to an ongoing cultural shift that has seen more women than ever embracing sport,” a statement from Nike said, according to Al Arabiya English.

The “pro hijab” is set to be released in spring 2018. Its creation follows years of controversy regarding Muslim women keeping their hair covered during athletic competitions. Read more (3/7/17 11:10 AM)

Not only is Chance donating $1 million to Chicago public schools, he had some harsh words for Illinois governor Bruce Rauner.

Janet Mock honors A Day Without a Woman by standing up for Planned Parenthood

‘Forbes’ 30 Under 30 members wrote an open letter to Trump denouncing the Muslim ban

Sixty-six members from current and past Forbes’ 30 Under 30 lists, an annual list of influential entrepreneurs and game changers under the age of 30, signed an open letter addressed to Trump condemning his latest Muslim travel ban.

The letter, obtained by Mic, called Trump’s executive order on immigration "unjustified, illogical and discriminatory.“

"We view this executive order as unjustified, illogical and discriminatory — it targets minorities, immigrants and Muslims,” the letter read. “We fear that these actions put our peaceful future in jeopardy.”

“We come from many countries, faiths and backgrounds. Many of us are American. Some of us are immigrants who travelled across the globe to resettle in America for a better future, and to have equal rights. Some of us are citizens of other nations speaking up because know that the U.S. has a crucial role to play as a global leader on human rights.” Read more (3/9/17 1:21 PM)

With a gun-toting Harriet Tubman, ‘Underground’ is the perfect ode to revolutionary women

Underground, the television drama about runaway slaves on a quest for freedom in 1857, wasted no time in showing audiences that their preconceived notions about Harriet Tubman were all wrong.

For years, on-screen portrayals of the civil rights hero have been relegated to educational cartoons for kids and sanitized TV movies that portray her as “juvenile and one-dimensional,” writes Kate Clifford Lawson, the author of Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman — Portrait of an American Hero, at Entertainment Weekly. 

Think Cicely Tyson’s 1978 portrayal of the famed abolitionist in A Woman Called Moses, where Tubman spends half her time on screen in tears, praying for strength as she shuffles behind white abolitionists.

But Underground, which debuted its second season on WGN Wednesday night, turns that portrayal of female revolutionaries like Tubman upside down. Read more (3/9/17 3:55 PM)

Yuriana Aguilar is the first “Dreamer” to get a PHD — and she has a message for Trump following his joint address.

Allies, thanks so much for your support, but let’s do it the right way. Mamoudou breaks down how to be a constructive ally:

Rihanna was named Humanitarian of the Year by Harvard — and she more than deserves it