Episode 225: Black Lives Matter, Police, and America’s Democracy

Since the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police at the end of May, the United States has been rocked by weeks of nationwide protests against police brutality, and it doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere anytime soon. Professor Vesla Weaver dives into how this movement is different from protests of the past, what brought us to the current situation, how our nation’s police system has affected Black and Brown people’s lives and understanding of our democracy, and what to make of calls for changes, such as abolishing the police.

For more on this topic:

• Check out the Portals Policing Project and the research coming out of it
• Read Weaver’s pieces in The Washington Post and Vox
• Find her two SSN briefs, How Harsh Policing and Mass Imprisonment Create Second-Class American Citizens and How Mass Imprisonment Burdens the United States with a Distrustful Civic Underclass

Note: This episode includes some explicit language.