Essays Archive - Page 83 of 131

What Will It Take for Black Lives to Matter?

Nonviolent, cross-racial coalitions are the way back to a decent America

July 9, 2020 • by Todd Gitlin

I wrote the article that follows three years ago. Since it first appeared in the American Prospect, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has generated the largest protest movement in American history. What has changed? And what hasn’t? It remains true that the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) is ill-defined. It has rough edges ...

What Will It Take for Black Lives to Matter?

Capitalism

There’s a Hidden Economic Trendline That Is Shattering the Global Trade System

Why economic nationalism is suddenly a fashionable excuse for countries to decrease their reliance on the existing global supply chains

July 8, 2020 • by Marshall Auerback and Jan Ritch-Frel

Covid-19 has accelerated a process that was well underway before it, spreading beyond U.S.-China-EU trade negotiations and into the world’s 50 largest economies. As much as many defenders of the old order lament this trend, it is as significant a shift as the dawn of the World Trade Organization (WTO) ...

There’s a Hidden Economic Trendline That Is Shattering the Global Trade System

Democracy

Gender Ideology as Pandemic

Anti-gender campaigns in a time of crisis

July 8, 2020 • by Elżbieta Korolczuk

We may have expected that a major health crisis would result in an easing of ultraconservatives efforts to limit the rights of women and minorities. The reality proved to be different. In March 2020 Polish Archbishop Wacław Depo claimed in an interview that “coronavirus is just one of many threats, ...

Politics

Harnessing Federal Power for Police Reform in America

What we can learn from Reconstruction and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

July 8, 2020 • by Richard Johnson and Desmond King

History suggests that the response to the current crisis of policing in the United States must be a stronger role for the federal government. Yet few activists within the Movement for Black Lives are demanding that the federal government flex its coercive muscle. Given the racism of the current occupant ...

Harnessing Federal Power for Police Reform in America

Interviews

“A Worldwide Mutual Pact”

An interview with Wendy Brown

July 7, 2020 • by Kiara Barrow and Rebecca Panovka

There are limits to the utility of theory in a crisis. So far, COVID-19 has not exactly occasioned a mass embrace of the mountains of leftist ideas—both theoretical and practical—that have been prepared for such a moment; instead, we’ve witnessed a hardening of the preexisting order, in which the old ...

Democracy

Will We Still be American after Democracy Dies?

July 7, 2020 • by Johann Neem

There is a real possibility that American democracy will die come November. I hope not. I pray not. But I worry. Many scenarios that would have once appeared fantastic, now seem to be within the realm of the possible. One does not need a vivid imagination to wonder what would ...

Will We Still be American after Democracy Dies?

From the Editors

American Dream

We celebrate Independence Day with quiet determination this year as we continue the fight for everyone’s freedom

July 3, 2020 • by Claire Potter

On July 3, 1776, the 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress, many of them slaveholders, took a step over the void in the Philadelphia State House. Exactly one year earlier, George Washington, a veteran of the King’s service and now a General commissioned by rebels had taken charge of ...

Activism

Boarded Up

SoHo’s plywood protest art

July 2, 2020 • by Virág Molnár

Some New York retailers started boarding up their stores shortly after the city went into full lockdown. Some prosperous residents were offended that stores were expecting a starkly dystopian future to engulf the city, as the stay at home order stifled everyday urban routines. The mass protests that suddenly erupted ...

Education

How Elite Institutions Can Prove That Black Lives Matter

Emotional labor & the limits of interpersonal diversity work

July 2, 2020 • by Gaga Gondwe

I have been a lone Black face in mostly white spaces for most of my life. I went to college at Harvard, and law school at Yale; I clerked for a federal judge, and worked at a top law firm. I will soon embark on a new adventure, becoming a ...

How Elite Institutions Can Prove That Black Lives Matter

Activism

Protest as a Means of Political Change: An Indian Case Study

How the 2012 gang rape of Jyoti Singh and the protests that followed changed a nation

July 2, 2020 • by Natasha Behl

In this current political moment of mass protests for racial justice across America, many of us are wondering how effective these protests are. Can marching in the streets lead to enduring change? Can dissent and disruption help us achieve a more equal and just society? Consider what happened in India eight ...

Protest as a Means of Political Change: An Indian Case Study

Activism

Toppling Andrew Jackson From His Pedestal

A racist who championed ethnic cleansing

July 2, 2020 • by Mark R. Cheathem

In today’s moment of Black Lives Matter and peaceful protests over racial injustice, more Americans than ever are tearing down statues across the country: Confederate heroes, dismantled; icons of Jim Crow, removed. Now, even former presidents aren’t immune. Consider Andrew Jackson -- one of President Trump’s personal models, who is also ...

Toppling Andrew Jackson From His Pedestal

Economy

We Won’t Have a Truly Global Economy Until We Start Taxing It That Way

Reconstructing our tax system is an integral part of future national industrial policy as we restart the economy

July 2, 2020 • by Marshall Auerback

Taxation is one of those areas that exposes the contradictions at the heart of globalization. Globalization of goods has proceeded quickly, as has the harmonization of industrial standards across countries. Harmonization of taxation? Not so easy. The power to tax is the ultimate national prerogative, one that very few sovereign nations would ...

Essays

What Will It Take for Black Lives to Matter?

Nonviolent, cross-racial coalitions are the way back to a decent America

There’s a Hidden Economic Trendline That Is Shattering the Global Trade System

Why economic nationalism is suddenly a fashionable excuse for countries to decrease their reliance on the existing global supply chains

Gender Ideology as Pandemic

Anti-gender campaigns in a time of crisis

Harnessing Federal Power for Police Reform in America

What we can learn from Reconstruction and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

“A Worldwide Mutual Pact”

An interview with Wendy Brown

Will We Still be American after Democracy Dies?

American Dream

We celebrate Independence Day with quiet determination this year as we continue the fight for everyone’s freedom

Boarded Up

SoHo’s plywood protest art

How Elite Institutions Can Prove That Black Lives Matter

Emotional labor & the limits of interpersonal diversity work

Protest as a Means of Political Change: An Indian Case Study

How the 2012 gang rape of Jyoti Singh and the protests that followed changed a nation

Toppling Andrew Jackson From His Pedestal

A racist who championed ethnic cleansing

We Won’t Have a Truly Global Economy Until We Start Taxing It That Way

Reconstructing our tax system is an integral part of future national industrial policy as we restart the economy

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