2020 Uprisings

The Politics of the Mask

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.

  • AK Thompson
  • Clare O’Connor

Some Statues Are Like Barbed Wire

Activists fighting to remove statues of slavers and colonizers understand better than most how public memorials can be a form of violence.

  • Jonathan Beecher Field

Terror and Abolition

Counterterrorism largely ensnares people of color.

  • Atiya Husain

Protest, Passion, Politics

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.

  • Alan Wald

Why Has COVID-19 Not Led to More Humanitarian Releases?

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.

  • Dan Berger

The Struggle to Abolish the Police Is Not New

Prison and police abolition were key to the thinking of many midcentury civil rights activists.

  • Garrett Felber

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Power over Policing

Reform efforts will fail. Only a power shift to communities can improve public safety.

  • Jocelyn Simonson

The Fire This Time

These protests are too widespread to go away. There will be no peace without justice on multiple fronts.

  • Scholars for Social Justice

Black History in Three Acts

The story of how black people confront systems of racial capitalism and plot world liberation. A reading list from Robin D. G. Kelley.

  • Robin D. G. Kelley

The Privilege of the Ally

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.

  • Rigoberto González

Decolonizing the University

An interview with Lorgia García-Peña on ethnic studies and protest.

  • Lorgia García-Peña
  • Mordecai Lyon

We Should Be Afraid, But Not of Protesters

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.

  • Melvin Rogers

The Minneapolis Uprising in Context

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

  • Elizabeth Hinton
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