SELECTED ESSAYS

The Enduring Power of “Scenes of Subjection”

The New Yorker | October 17, 2022
​
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.

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.

Hell Yes, We Are Subversive”

The New York Review of Books | September 22, 2022
​
For all her influence as an activist, intellectual, and writer, Angela Davis has not always been taken as seriously as her peers. Why not?

The Crossroads: Interview with Willa Glickman

The New York Review of Books | October 15, 2022
​
“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?”

Abortion Is About Freedom,
Not Just Privacy

The New York Times | July 6, 2022
​
The right to abortion is an affirmation that women and girls have the right to control their own destiny.

How Black Feminists Defined Abortion Rights

The New Yorker | February 22, 2022
​
As liberation movements bloomed, they offered a vision of reproductive justice that was about equality, not just “choice.”

Hiding Buffalo’s History of Racism Behind a Cloack of Unity

The New Yorker | June 9, 2022
​
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.

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.

How Do We Change America?

The New Yorker | April 6, 2021
​
The quest to transform this country cannot be limited to challenging its brutal police alone.

The End of Black Politics

The New York Times | June 13, 2020
​
Black leaders regularly fail to rise to the challenges that confront young people.

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.

Did Last Summer’s Black Lives Matter Protests Change Anything?

The New Yorker | August 6, 2021
​
Public officials favored symbolic gestures over policy reforms, but the country is still dramatically different than it was a year ago

The Unknown History
​of Black Uprisings

The New Yorker | June 24, 2021
​
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.

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.”

The Meaning of the Democrats’
​Spending Spree

The New Yorker | April 6, 2021
​
Do President Biden’s stimulus and infrastructure bills represent a moment of political expedience, or a more permanent change?

What’s at Stake in the Fight Over
Reopening Schools?

The New Yorker | February 9, 2021
​
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.

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.”​

The Bitter Fruits of Trump’s
​White Power Presidency

The New Yorker | January 12, 2021
​
The events of January 6th make clear a growing unity between the Republican Party and white supremacists.

Black America Has Reason to
​Question Authorities

The New Yorker | January 10, 2021
​
From vaccines to public schools, a history of cruelty and neglect informs Black communities’ relation to the state.

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.

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
​
“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
​

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