Abolishing Conditions: Rethinking Police and Social Justice

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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