… We don’t have to wonder what the reaction would be if Obama talked about the racial components of the events in Ferguson, because we’ve seen it before. There would be an explosive backlash on the right, no matter what Obama actually said. … During the Obama years, the opinions […] Read more »
The Conservative Divide Over Ferguson
We’re used to just about every American controversy polarizing swiftly along right-left lines, but the discussion of events in Ferguson has been a striking exception thus far. Within the commentariat, the most interesting division has opened within American conservatism, where a large group of conservative and libertarian writers have been […] Read more »
Black and White Attitudes Toward Police
The death of 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has reopened the subject of black Americans’ relationship with the police, and more generally the differences in the way blacks and whites look at the criminal justice and civil rights situations in […] Read more »
Ferguson, Watts and a Dream Deferred
When rioting broke out in the Watts section of Los Angeles in the summer of 1965, African-Americans didn’t — couldn’t — know it yet, but the next three decades would turn out to be a period of sustained gains in terms of income, jobs, education and the status of blacks […] Read more »
Stark Racial Divisions in Reactions to Ferguson Police Shooting
Blacks and whites have sharply different reactions to the police shooting of an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Mo., and the protests and violence that followed. Blacks are about twice as likely as whites to say that the shooting of Michael Brown “raises important issues about race that need to be […] Read more »
Obama’s vision of a post-racial America looks even more distant than before
… In many ways, Obama’s difficulty in navigating matters of race as president mirrors his struggles in other areas. He has repeatedly and eloquently spoken about race — and his experiences in making his way in the world as the son of a white mother and a Kenyan father — […] Read more »