How “Blue Lives Matter” Perpetuates Police Violence
Far from a peaceful call to protect police lives, the movement fosters an environment of fear, hatred, and racism.
In the aftermath of the recent killings of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte at the hands of police, the Blue Lives Matter hashtag rallied around a video of a group of black youth attacking a white man and taking his pants off in a parking garage in Charlotte. The caption that the most popular Blue Lives Matter twitter account provided for …
Against Exceptionalism, Beyond Triumphalism
A Review of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture
On 13 April 1943, on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birth, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial to the nation’s third president. Facing a sharp wind blowing in from the Potomac, the president admired the heroic statue and read the famous words that grace the interior walls of the building: “All Men Are Created Equal.” In the midst of a global war against fascism, Roosevelt proclaimed that the Jefferson Memorial would stand as “a shrine to freedom,” dedicated to a man who bent his entire life to the proposition that “men are capable of their own …
The OJ Simpson Verdict, Jury Nullification and Black Lives Matter: The Power to Acquit
The nation is, once again, caught up in the OJ Simpson trial because of two riveting series that revisit the case. The FX mini-series, American Crime Story, and the ESPN documentary, OJ: Made in America, provide their audiences with a level of detail and sociological interpretation that can only be achieved 20 years after the trial. …
Jo Freeman’s DNC Diary: Bernie Sanders Supporters, More Sad Than Celebratory, More Angry Than Uplifted
Bernie supporters turn victory into defea