What the Student-Loan Debate Overlooks
The Atlantic
If anyone doubted Black Americans still today suffer unfairly from incarceration rates and other horrific inequities out of all proportion to their numbers in the population, the case was closed by Michelle Alexander in her masterly The New Jim Crow (2010). Comes now James Forman Jr., to argue convincingly that key sections of the black community themselves abetted the criminalizing of black youths in a misguided effort to make so-called law and order work for them.
In Ferguson, the rallying cry - This is what democracy looks like - which echoes W.E.B. DuBois and the older generation's critique of capitalist civilization and imperialist power. And you also had people chanting -We gon' be alright - which is from rap artist Kendrick Lamar, who is concerned with the black body, decrepit schools, indecent housing. This chant is in many ways emerging as a kind of anthem of the movement for the younger generation.
One can delude one's self into believing that race can be avoided; but at the most awkward moments, it rears its ugly head and tears movements apart. In fact, it is the #BlackLivesMatter movement that has elevated this question to a national discussion point. There is an important segment of the progressive movement who strongly believe that economic injustice and a narrowly defined version of class can and must serve as the unifying feature of a progressive movement.
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