May 27, 2024 / Nicole G. Young / Yes! Solutions Journalism - "Black people, we were never patriots; we were pragmatists,” a friend said to me recently when we talked about both of our grandfathers’ years of military service and their reverberating effects in our lives. In a lot of ways I agree with her. While class mobility certainly drives many Black people into the military, it would be disingenuous to claim our participation is purely mercenary. The United States military promises Black people stability via economic security. However, there is an implied second promise: that through military service, Black people can access honor in our daily lives, in a country that does not treat us honorably as the default. But decades of Black participation in the U.S. military have highlighted the ways that this country has never intended to make good on either of these promises.
My grandfather chose the military to continue a family legacy started by his father and other family members, and presumably to ensure that his future children and grandchildren would have access to the middle class. For most of my life—as a Black woman from the South, raised in a military town—I also believed in the guarantees made to Black military families. It took me far too long to understand that the drumbeat of war could not be relied upon. In fact, for Black people, the only thing that our conscription into America’s perpetual war-making machine actually ensures is that we will never be safe.
5/22/2024 / Edward Hasbrouck / Resisters.info - The California Senate will vote this week on a 
3/25/2024 / Gary Ghirardi & Copilot Ai / NNOMY - The Microsoft Copilot online artificial intelligence program was utilized to write a story based on three requests; to not be placed into the high school based Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program from a students objection, a parental objection, and finally a legal challenge in court with the plaintiff represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. The outcomes are curious in that they appear to reflect some kind of conditioned learning on the part of the Copilot program that favors the military all the way up to a legal challenge. 
