Cartoon depicting the Monroe Doctrine - the US empire's claim to hegemony in the Western hemisphere which declares that Central and South America and the Caribbean are its “front yard”

The Empire’s “Front Yard” and the Monroe Doctrine

We used to talk about, when I was a kid in college, about “America’s backyard.”  It’s not America’s backyard.  Everything south of the Mexican border is America’s front yard.  And we’re equal people.  We don’t dictate what happens in any other part of that — of this continent or the South American continent.  We have to work very hard on it. But the trouble is: we’re having great difficulty making up for the mistakes that were made the last four years, and it’s going to take some time. Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference JANUARY 19, 2022 The claims . . .

Francia Márquez Mina, a 40-year-old Black female activist in Colombia

#SoyPorqueSomos – a Black women-led Project for a New Colombia

This article was written before the March 13 primaries when Francia Marquez received more than 780,000 votes. She received more votes than any Black politician in Colombian history. Would her outstanding performance, surpassing even candidates from right-wing parties, be enough to secure her the nomination to run as vice-president candidate in the frontrunner party Pacto Historico?* Francia Márquez Mina, a 40-year-old Black female activist from the predominantly Black and forgotten region of the Colombian Pacific coast, is shifting the terms of political debate in the second ‘Blackest’ nation in South America. Francia, the first Black woman to run for the . . .