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Politics, Race

The Hidden Stakes of the 1619 Controversy

Seeking to discredit those who wish to explain the persistence of racism, critics of the New York Times’s 1619 Project insist the facts don’t support its proslavery reading of the American Revolution. But they obscure a longstanding debate within the field of U.S. history over that very issue—distorting the full case that can be made for it.

David Waldstreicher

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Race

Forum

How Race Made the Opioid Crisis

The success of OxyContin hinged on racially bifurcated understandings of addiction. The fundamental division between “dope” and medicine, after all, has always been the race and class of users.

Donna Murch

Race, Reading Lists

1619 Syllabus

Because when we remember better, we do better. 

Rosie Gillies, Boston Review

Politics, Race

The Fragile Patriotism of the American Conservative

The New York Times’s new 1619 Project argues fiercely for a new understanding of what it means to believe in America—and it is cracking the very foundations of conservatism.

David Walsh

Politics, Race

The Armed and Anxious White Psyche

Contemporary gun violence is not so much terrorism as tradition. It is deeply intertwined with the white supremacist foundations of the United States.

Mark Tseng-Putterman

Politics, Race

Solid Trumpism

Donald Trump has the most stable approval rating of any president since Harry Truman. As we gear up for the 2020 election, the challenge we now face is the remarkable stability of his support.

Ronald Aronson

Race

Black Masculinity Under Racial Capitalism

A truly radical counterhegemony can only be realized by disassociating both blackness and manhood from capitalist registers of worth. 

Jordanna Matlon

Race

Dying of Whiteness

State policies shaped by white supremacy increase mortality rates in much the same way as other manmade health risks, such as pollution.

Jonathan M. Metzl

Race

How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

The expansion of banks such as Citigroup into Cuba, Haiti, and beyond reveal a story of capitalism built on blood, labor, and racial lines.

Peter James Hudson

Race

Black Resistance in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

In Revilletown, which was founded by freed slaves, a petrochemical company has seized ownership of an ancestral cemetery. But an attack on the dead is an attack on the living.

Robin McDowell

Politics, Race

“Every Crucifixion Needs a Witness”

William J. Barber II on the the successes of civil disobedience, the failures of electoral campaigns, and why the South holds the key to transformation in this country. 

Toussaint Losier, William J. Barber II

Race

The Mismeasure of Minds

Twenty-five years later, The Bell Curve’s analysis of race and intelligence refuses to die. Reckoning with its legacy may help redirect the conversation in urgently needed ways.

Michael E. Staub

Race

Speaking the Truth

Cornel West and Deborah Chasman discuss the disproportionately white publishing world, the responsibilities and burdens of public life, and the predicament of black intellectuals today.

Cornel West, Deborah Chasman

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