Given that many Americans are becoming more aware of what we put into our bodies suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are on the rise, fueling a movement to require food from genetically modified crops to be labeled or otherwise taken off the shelves. 

Alternet reports that, “In November, California voters will vote on a law (California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act) to require mandatory labeling of all GMO ingredients in processed foods and ban the industry practice of mislabeling foods containing GMO ingredients as natural.” 

The labeling effort, supported by consumer groups and the organic food industry is pitted against the agricultural biotechnology companies like Monsanto, and argue that we have the right to know when food has been modified with genes from another species. 

“Will democracy win out and will Americans have the right to know what’s in our food? Or we will continue to let our food policy be ruled by political decisions engineered last century in a Monsanto boardroom by corporate lobbyists?”

In case you’re also skeptical about GMOs, you may want to check out this iPhone app: ShopNoGMO

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For Langston Hughes on His 123 Birthday

Speech given on February 1, 2024 in Havana, Cuba In 1927 Langston Hughes walked into a Cuba amid an emerging community of artists, intellectuals, and radicals.  He saw a “sunrise in a new land [– a day – in his words]sic – full of brownskin surprises, and hitherto unknown contacts in a world of color.”  … Continued

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Palestine Week 2024

January 18, 2024 – January 25, 2024 In keeping with our ongoing mission of uplifting racial and cultural connections, Busboys and Poets is hosting Palestine Week (January 18 through January 25, 2024). This week-long series of events will offer a diverse range of programming featuring Palestinian food, music, dance, poetry, discussions, and other enriching events. … Continued

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Busboys and Poets Book Review: Set the World on Fire

In this substantial entry into the history of Black radical politics, Keisha N. Blain uncovers the legion of Black women that made waves in the growing Black nationalist and Garveyite movements of the early Twentieth Century. Black nationalism, which promotes the establishment of a Black nation state as the answer to racial oppression, first gained … Continued

Reflections on a Historic Week

Reflections on a Historic Week

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in a landmark decision the Facebook generation has quickly likened to the collapse of de jure segregation.