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Tag: 2020 Uprisings

David Hogg, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

David Hogg and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz discuss replacement theory, the gunman’s manifesto, and how we organize against violent white supremacy.

Chad Kautzer
The militarization of gun culture among both civilians and police reflects an increasingly energetic defense of white rule in the United States. This has been facilitated in part by an NRA-led reinterpretation of what the Second Amendment meant by “militia”.
Derecka Purnell

Abolition is not only about eliminating the police, but imagining new systems that work to ensure a fair, equal society where there is no place for racism, ableism, or state violence.

Derecka Purnell, Elizabeth Hinton
Activist Derecka Purnell interviews historian Elizabeth Hinton about her new book, America on Fire, and how the label “riot” discredits Black political demands.
Andy Battle

In the 1974 cult-classic teleplay Penda’s Fen, the past holds the key to escaping the catastrophic present.

Sonali Chakravarti
As a space for democratic deliberation and decision-making, the jury box still has the potential to shift the criminal legal system. But, first, we must change who is able to serve on a jury.
Robin D. G. Kelley
As a culture of protest took hold in 1960s LA, communities of color also prioritized a radical tradition of care, emphasizing mutual aid, community control, and the transformative power of art and politics.
Jefferson Cowie

In a political season of dog whistles, we must be attentive to how talk of American freedom has long been connected to the presumed right of whites to dominate everyone else.

Cornel West, Brandon M. Terry, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Robin D. G. Kelley, Elizabeth Hinton
A transcript of our panel discussion on the Black Lives Matter movement. 
Elaine Scarry

On the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, it is clear that white supremacy sustains the U.S. nuclear arsenal. 

Brent Cebul
Policing is not the only kind of state violence. In the mid-twentieth century, city governments, backed by federal money, demolished hundreds of Black neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal.
Walter Johnson
Photos of Mark and Patricia McCloskey waving guns at St. Louis Black Lives Matter protesters became instantly iconic. But the McCloskeys are also only a symptom of how racism is served by private property.
Joseph Margulies

In many states, legal regimes sanction the predictable murder of innocent black men. Justice will not be served until the law changes.

Scott Casleton, Alex Vitale
Sociologist Alex Vitale explains how the U.S. policing crisis begins with politics—the decision to embrace neoliberal austerity and to turn the social problems it creates over to police.
Matthew Clair
Success in transforming the criminal justice system will depend on convincing judges to shift how they relate to—and rely upon—police in their criminal courtrooms.
Jodi Melamed, Lisa Cacho

We must reject the current legal regime under which resisting arrest is so widely accepted as a justification for police brutality and officer shootings.

Andrew Lanham

The link between modern policing and the U.S. national security state means they will have to be democratized together.

Lydia Pelot-Hobbs
As post-Katrina New Orleans illustrates, even ambitious attempts to reform police leave intact the structures of racial violence. Worse yet, such efforts drain public money that could instead have been invested in caring for communities.
Alex Reinert
We need not wait for Congress or the Supreme Court. State attorneys general and city law departments can—and should—lead the charge themselves.
Byrd McDaniel

Through online fan communities and digital platforms like TikTok, popular music is finding powerful new ways to shape everyday activism, protest, and resistance.

Joanna Schwartz, Kate Levine
In order to achieve lasting change, we must focus on systemic problems across the criminal justice system. That includes holding prosecutors accountable, not just police.
Marina Magloire
“This sudden attention to the ongoing grief of black life can also feel like a slap in the face. Didn’t you notice we were dying?”
Joseph J. Fischel
Pride festivities attempt every year to reinforce the idea of an LGBT community, but when it comes to views on policing, white gay men and trans women of color often have little in common.
Clare O’Connor, AK Thompson
Today we face the paradox of states simultaneously criminalizing masks—because of protests—and mandating them because of COVID-19. In this interview, social theorist AK Thompson explores the history of masks in protests and why rioting is politically effective.
Jonathan Beecher Field
Activists fighting to remove statues of slavers and colonizers understand better than most how public memorials can be a form of violence.
Atiya Husain

Counterterrorism largely ensnares people of color.

Alan Wald

The reissue of Vivian Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism invites a new generation to reflect on what it means to live a life of political commitment.

Dan Berger
Jalil Muntaqim, a Black Panther imprisoned since 1971, is one of thousands of elderly prisoners the United States has refused to free during the pandemic.
Garrett Felber
Prison and police abolition were key to the thinking of many midcentury civil rights activists. Understanding why can help us ask for change in our own time.
Jocelyn Simonson
Reform efforts will fail. Only a power shift to communities can improve public safety.
Scholars for Social Justice
These protests are too widespread to go away. There will be no peace without justice on multiple fronts.
Robin D. G. Kelley
The story of how black people confront systems of racial capitalism and plot world liberation. A reading list from Robin D. G. Kelley.
Rigoberto González
Allies can be powerful aides to social justice movements—but it is their responsibility to make sure they don’t become a distraction from the cause.
Mordecai Lyon, Lorgia García-Peña
In this interview, Lorgia García-Peña, who was denied tenure by Harvard in late 2019, discusses why ethnic studies has never been more urgent and the important role it can play in protest.
Melvin Rogers
The rage on display in Minneapolis is not only about police violence. It is also about the country’s utter disregard for the pain of black Americans.
Elizabeth Hinton

A proper understanding of urban rebellion depends on our ability to interpret it not as a wave of criminality, but as political violence.

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