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books

Lady Sings the Blues

Walton Muyumba The Atlantic
In her eleventh novel, God Help the Child, Toni Morrison has created what Walton Muyumba calls "a tragicomic jazz opera played out in four parts." Here is his review of this eagerly awaited new work by the artist who is arguably the greatest novelist working in the United States today.

Nonviolence as Compliance

Ta-Nehisi Coates The Atlantic
Officials calling for calm can offer no rational justification for Gray's death, and so they appeal for order.

tv

The Robots of Orphan Black

NOAH BERLATSKY The Atlantic
Throughout pop-culture history, clones and robots have served similar purposes, exploring anxieties about class and labor.

LBJ's Voting Rights Speech Shows the Power of Grassroots Activism

Julian E. Zelizer The Atlantic
Johnson gave full credit to the movement. “The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change, designed to stir reform. He has called upon us to make good the promise of America.”

The Problem with the Singular Narrative Taught in History Classes

Michael Conway The Atlantic
Currently, most students learn history as a set narrative—a process that reinforces the mistaken idea that the past can be synthesized into a single, standardized chronicle of several hundred pages. History is anything but agreeable. It is not a collection of facts deemed to be “official” by scholars on high.

labor

Why Workers Won’t Unite

Kim Phillips-Fein The Atlantic
Globalization and technology have gutted the labor movement, and part-time work is sabotaging solidarity. Is there a new way to challenge the politics of inequality? Tackling inequality is clearly going to require more than technocratic fixes from above. It isn’t likely to succeed unless workers themselves can reclaim some bargaining power, and the sense of political and social inclusion that can go with it.

The Gangsters of Ferguson

Ta-Nehisi Coates The Atlantic
Darren Wilson was innocent. If only the city's cops offered their own citizens the same due process he received.

The End of Obamacare?

Olga Khazan The Atlantic
Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in King v. Burwell, a case that threatens to yank the tax credit away from millions of people.If the Court goes for King, Obamacare as we know it might end. Most people who will be affected by this case do not realize they will be.
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