“To look around the United States today is enough to make prophets and angels weep,” James Baldwin wrote, in 1978. This week, the staff writer Jelani Cobb speaks with a Minneapolis activist who’s been calling to defund the city’s police department, and with a former police chief who agrees that an institution rooted in racial repression cannot easily be reformed. Plus, Masha Gessen warns that the protests and the coronavirus pandemic may create a sense of chaos that a would-be autocrat can exploit. And the film critic Richard Brody looks at the work of Josephine Decker.
A Former D.O.J. Official on How to Fix Policing
Ron Davis was a police officer for nearly thirty years before working at the Department of Justice. He knows firsthand how hard it is to reform an institution with a history of racial repression.
What Does It Mean to Defund the Police?
A Minneapolis activist group says that the police department, whose history is rooted in racial repression, cannot simply be reformed; it has to be defunded.
Masha Gessen on Recognizing an Autocrat
Donald Trump’s response to protests against police violence shows a troubling resemblance to how despotic strongmen have responded to challenges.
Josephine Decker’s “Shirley”
The film critic Richard Brody talks with Decker, one of his favorite directors of this era, about her unique approach to filmmaking and her Shirley Jackson bio-pic.
