How Racism Works in a Democratic City

How Racism Works in a Democratic City

Michele Goodwin, plus Mia Birdsong on abolishing the police.

Start Making Sense and Jon Wiener
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Michele Goodwin talks about her experiences of racism in daily life in Minneapolis—before she became Chancellor’s Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine. Also: removing statues from the Capitol honoring traitors and defenders of slavery—there’s one that’s been overlooked: Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.

Plus: In the current mobilization around Black lives, everyone can do something, even if it’s not marching in the streets—Mia Birdsong explains. She’s the host of The Nation’s podcast More Than Enough, about universal basic income, and her TED talk has been viewed almost two million times. Now she has a new book out—it’s called How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community.

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With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

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Onward,

Katrina vanden Huevel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

Start Making Sense Start Making Sense is The Nation’s podcast, hosted by Jon Wiener and coproduced by the Los Angeles Review of Books. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes each Thursday.  


Jon Wiener Jon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.


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