What is the future of the racial justice movement in America? Sean Illing talks with Cedric Johnson, professor and author of After Black Lives Matter, about building a protest movement that meaningfully recognizes the underlying economic causes of the social inequities highlighted by the BLM movement. They discuss the demonstrations of Summer 2020, the prospects of building a multiracial class-conscious coalition, and viewing urban policing as a symptom of larger systemic problems.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Cedric Johnson, professor of Black Studies and Political Science, University of Illinois Chicago

References: 

• After Black Lives Matter: Policing and Anti-Capitalist Struggle by Cedric G. Johnson (Verso; 2023)
• "Amid Protests, Majorities Across Racial and Ethnic Groups Express Support for Black Lives Matter Movement" (Pew Research Center; June 12, 2020)
• "Veto-proof majority of Minneapolis council members supports dismantling police department" by Brandt Williams (MPR; June 7, 2020)
• "'I'm not angry at all': Owner of looted Chicago photo shop vows to rebuild" by Ben Harris (Times of Israel; June 3, 2020)
• "Notes Toward a New Society: Rousseau and the New Left" by Marshall Berman (Partisan Review, 38 (4); Fall 1971)
• "Marshall Berman's Freestyle Marxism" by Max Holleran (The New Republic; Apr. 14, 2017)
• Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America by Richard Rorty (Harvard University Press; 1999)
• Violence Work: State Power and the Limits of Police by Micol Seigel (Duke University Press; 2018)
• "The systemic issues revealed by Jordan Neely's killing, explained" by Nicole Narea and Li Zhou (Vox; May 12)
• The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker's Notebook by James Boggs (1963)
• "Official Poverty Measure Masks Gains Made Over Last 50 Years" by Arloc Sherman (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Sept. 2013)
• "300 transit ambassadors become new sets of eyes and ears for LA Metro" by Steve Scauzillo (Daily News; Mar. 6)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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