In light of the series of protests, both peaceful and violent, that have rattled cities across the United States this weekend, we at TAI have asked ourselves what we ought to publish on today. We do not typically chase headlines. Our value-add to the conversation is the long view and the big picture. Rushing to say something—anything—is usually ill-advised, and especially so in such an emotionally raw moment.
Still, given the gravity of what has already transpired, and given our worry that things could get worse, we felt we needed to reflect. And indeed, unpacking the wrenching, complex issues that have gotten us to the present moment are very much part of what we, as a magazine, see as our mission.
We spent the morning reading articles we thought were prescient and clarifying, articles that grapple with race, discrimination, inequality, and police brutality, but also that gesture at how to think about all of these things at once, holistically, to better understand the reality we inhabit.
Below, we commend to you the following articles:
RACE AND CLASS IN AMERICA
After the Wire
Our 2013 issue—“After The Wire”—is as good a starting point as any, with essays by Francis Fukuyama, Richard Thompson Ford, and Walter Russell Mead still resonant and powerful some seven years later. This note, from 2015, by our publisher Charles Davidson, frames these articles in the wake of the Freddie Gray tragedy and the riots that followed.
ORIGINS OF RACISM
The Banality of Bigotry
RICHARD THOMPSON FORD
Trump’s blatant bigotry makes it easy to cast racists as loud, obnoxious villains who need to be named and shamed. But the most pernicious forms of racism today are systemic, not individual.
END OF AN ERA
The Collapse of Racial Liberalism
NILS GILMAN
Both the Right and the Left have dropped the pretense of racial liberalism, and the country faces a choice.
LAW ENFORCEMENT
SWATted: The Militarization of America’s Police
RADLEY BALKO
Perverse Federal policy incentives stemming from the “war on drugs” are overwhelming Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.
BEYOND BLACK AND WHITE
Can Americans Unlearn Race?
MORTEN HØI JENSEN
In his lucid new memoir, Thomas Chatterton Williams channels Albert Camus and James Baldwin—and offers a thoughtful counterpoint to the tired racial dogmas of both Right and Left.
There is much more work to be done, both for us as a magazine, and for us all as a nation. We hope that all of us approach these painful and difficult issues with humility and a genuine, hopeful sense of charity as we try to fix what is deeply wrong. Our union is faltering. It couldn’t be happening at a worse time.