Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
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SELECTED ESSAYS

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The Enduring Power of “Scenes of Subjection”
The New Yorker | October 17, 2022
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Saidiya Hartman’s unrelenting exploration of slavery and freedom in the United States first appeared in 1997, during the last period of spoiled “race relations” in the twentieth century. Twenty-five years later, it has lost none of its relevance.
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Who’s Left Out of the Learning Loss Debate
The New Yorker | October 12, 2022

Critics of school closures undermine the two groups who could do the most to help students recover—parents and teachers.
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Hell Yes, We Are Subversive”
The New York Review of Books | September 22, 2022
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For all her influence as an activist, intellectual, and writer, Angela Davis has not always been taken as seriously as her peers. Why not?
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The Crossroads: Interview with Willa Glickman
The New York Review of Books | October 15, 2022
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“Do we continue to place the vast majority of our hopes, expectations, time, and commitment in conventional politics that produce outcomes insufficient for the crises confronting our society and species?”
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Abortion Is About Freedom,
Not Just Privacy

The New York Times | July 6, 2022
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The right to abortion is an affirmation that women and girls have the right to control their own destiny.
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How Black Feminists Defined Abortion Rights
The New Yorker | February 22, 2022
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As liberation movements bloomed, they offered a vision of reproductive justice that was about equality, not just “choice.”
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Hiding Buffalo’s History of Racism Behind a Cloack of Unity
The New Yorker | June 9, 2022
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Officials have described the recent shooting as an aberration in the “City of Good Neighbors.” But this conceals the city’s long-standing racial divisions.
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American Racism and the Buffalo Shooting
The New Yorker | May 15, 2022

The gunman seems motivated by a vision of history, pushed by the right, in which American racism never existed and Black people are undeserving takers.
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How Do We Change America?
The New Yorker | April 6, 2021
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The quest to transform this country cannot be limited to challenging its brutal police alone.
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The End of Black Politics
The New York Times | June 13, 2020
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Black leaders regularly fail to rise to the challenges that confront young people.
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Until Black Women Are Free,
​None Of Us Will Be Free
The New Yorker | July 20, 2020

Barbara Smith and the Black feminist visionaries of the Combahee River Collective.
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Did Last Summer’s Black Lives Matter Protests Change Anything?
The New Yorker | August 6, 2021
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Public officials favored symbolic gestures over policy reforms, but the country is still dramatically different than it was a year ago
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The Unknown History
​of Black Uprisings
The New Yorker | June 24, 2021
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In a new book, the historian Elizabeth Hinton reveals that, in the late sixties and early seventies, there were hundreds of local rebellions against white violence and racial inequality.
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The Emerging Movement for
​Police and Prison Abolition
The New Yorker | May 7, 2021

Mariame Kaba, a New York City-based activist and organizer, is at the center of an effort to “build up another world.”
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The Meaning of the Democrats’
​Spending Spree
The New Yorker | April 6, 2021
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Do President Biden’s stimulus and infrastructure bills represent a moment of political expedience, or a more permanent change?
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What’s at Stake in the Fight Over
Reopening Schools?
The New Yorker | February 9, 2021
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From housing to health care, low-income people and others ravaged by debt and inequality are beginning to demand a better life subsidized by public money.
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A Black Lives Matter Founder on
​Building Modern Movements
The New Yorker | January 18, 2021

In a new book, Alicia Garza writes, “We can’t be afraid to establish a base that is larger than the people we feel comfortable with.”​
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The Bitter Fruits of Trump’s
​White Power Presidency
The New Yorker | January 12, 2021
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The events of January 6th make clear a growing unity between the Republican Party and white supremacists.
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Black America Has Reason to
​Question Authorities
The New Yorker | January 10, 2021
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From vaccines to public schools, a history of cruelty and neglect informs Black communities’ relation to the state.
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The Case for Ending the Supreme Court
As We Know It
The New Yorker | September 25, 2020

For most of its history, the Supreme Court, the branch of government least accountable to the public, has tended toward a fundamental conservatism, siding with tradition over more expansive visions of human rights.
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Additional ESSAYS & INTERVIEWS

​“Defund the Police and Refund Communities” Public Books, 11/17/2020

​“Voting Trump Out Is Not Enough” The New Yorker, 11/9/2020

“Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Limits of Representation” The New Yorker, 8/24/2020

“We Should Still Defund the Police” The New Yorker, 8/14/2020

“Of Course There Are Protests. The State Is Failing Black People,” The New York Times, 5/29/2020

“The ‘American Way of Life’ is Shaping Up to Be a Battleground,” The New York Times, 5/14/2020

“Cancel the Rent​,” The New Yorker, 5/12/2020

“The Black Plague​,” The New Yorker, 4/16/2020

“Are We at the Start of a New Protest Movement?​” New York Times, 4/13/2020

“Reality Has Endorsed Bernie Sanders​,” The New Yorker, 3/30/2020

“Why Sanders Isn’t Winning Over Black Voters​,” New York Times, 3/14/2020

“Joe Biden’s Success Shows We Gave Obama a Free Pass​,” New York Times, 2/5/2020

“Against Black Homeownership​,” Boston Review, 11/18/2019

“When the Dream of Owning a Home Became a Nightmare​,” New York Times, 10/19/2019

“Five Years Later, Do Black Lives Matter?” Jacobin, 9/30/2019

“The Unbearable Emptiness of the Presidential Debates,” Jacobin, 7/1/2019

“Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Socialism Speech Was a Landmark,” Jacobin, 6/18/2019

“The Consequences of Forgetting,” Jacobin, 5/7/2019

“Saidiya Hartman’s “Beautiful Experiments,” Los Angeles Review of Books, 5/5/2019
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“What Michelle Obama Gets Wrong About Racism,” Boston Review, 3/13/2019

“Housing market racism persists despite ‘fair housing’ laws,” The Guardian, 1/24/2019

“Turning the Women’s March into a Mass Movement Was Never Going to Be Simple,” The Nation, 1/18/2019

“Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective,” Monthly Review, 1/1/2019

“Podcast Preview: Getting Emotional About Labor,” The Intercept, 12/20/2018

“Howard Zinn’s Life on the Frontlines,” Jacobin, 11/19/2018

“How Real Estate Segregated America,” Dissent, 10/2/2018

“We Really Still Need Howard Zinn?,” Literary Hub, 9/27/2018

“What would Martin Luther King's dream be in 2018?,” The Guardian, 4/5/2018

“
Who is Martin Luther King, Jr. to Us, 50 Years Later?,” CNN, 4/5/2018

“International Women's Day's Socialist Roots,” Teen Vogue, 3/8/2018

“Martin Luther King's Radical Anticapitalism,” The Paris Review, 1/15/2018


“On the Urgency of Fighting Against the Racist Right Wing,” Bill Moyers, 10/26/2017

“The Boisterous Demands of Black Baltimore,” Haymarket Books, 9/1/2017

“The ‘Free Speech’ Hypocrisy of Right-Wing Media,” The New York Times, 8/14/2017

“No More Charlottesvilles,” Jacobin, 8/14/2017


“Think the Women's March wasn't radical Enough? Do something about it,” 
The Guardian, 1/24/2017

FEATURED VIDEOS

Where Do We Go From Here?
​November 6, 2020
We Must Rethink Our Society, from Policing
to the Supreme Court

​September 29, 2020
Race for Profit: How Banks & Real Estate Biz Undermined Black Homeowners
October 22, 2019
What We Can Learn From the Black Feminists of the Combahee River Collective​
​
January 22, 2018​
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
​January 22, 2018​
​Keynote Address at Hampshire College Commencement
May 20, 2017
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In conversation with Naomi Klein
at Seattle's Neptune Theatre
​
June 22, 2017

​Fighting Racism in Trump's America
​at Socialism 2017

July 8, 2017
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation TEDx Baltimore
February 2, 2016
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