Portside

New Orleans is better for being rid of the monuments that commemorated the mythology and actual history of slavery and segregation. But elites still govern. The politics of representation dovetails with the reigning discourse of diversity and a local political economy based on marketing "cultural authenticity. To the extent that antiracism centers of pursuit of recognition rather than altering patterns of distribution it will remain trapped in neoliberal inequakity.

With police killings dominating the headlines, our first guest, historian Ibram X. Kendi, discusses his recent book, "Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America," which traces the origins of racist ideas in the U.S. The author examines the impact of historically racist policies on existing racial disparities. His book is the recipient of the 2016 National Book Award.

Reparations promise us a monumental re-birthing of America. Like most births, this one will be painful. But the practice of reparations must continue until the world that slavery built is rolled up and a new order spread out in its place.

Media coverage of the 2016 election often emphasized Donald Trump’s appeal to the working class. There’s just one problem: this account is wrong. Trump voters were not mostly working-class people.

Racism and sexism, like many other forms of discrimination, have been baked into our social and economic systems and will not simply fall away as a fairer economy emerges.

To gauge where this type of gerrymandering is taking place and its magnitude, this report used election results [from 2012, 2014, and 2016] in states with six or more congressional districts to assess the extent and the durability of “partisan bias” — the degree of systematic advantage one party receives over another in turning votes into seats . . . It also looked at the relationship between the body that drew the maps and the degree of bias observed.

The African American unemployment rate is at or below its pre-recession level in 11 states: Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and South Carolina. However, a return to pre-recession levels in these states is barely a recovery: in all of these states, black unemployment rates were above 8.0 percent before the recession.