NLF Editorial Board Member Adolph Reed starts this issue of Highlights with a pushback. While the increased attention to police brutality and the injustice of our criminal justice system is essential, Reed argues that the one-dimensional focus on race obscures an understanding of the “ immensely fortified and self-reproducing institutional and industrial structure” of the carceral state. An exclusive focus on racial disparities in the criminal justice system, he also contends, hinders the building of a broad coalition to upend it. This isn’t a new conversation. Yet it gets to the heart of a long-standing divide concerning “identity politics.” In 2010 we hosted a debate between Walter Benn Michaels and Alethia Jones, usefully engaging this set of issues.
We’re also highlighting a recent article by New Labor Forum columnist Sarah Jaffe that illuminates a set of challenges to organized labor implicit in the tragedy of police killings of people of color. On the one hand, unions are called to stand up for justice, and in recent years, some have stood against police brutality and mass incarceration. On the other hand, law enforcement unions have a right to exist and to defend their members. This historic tension has bubbled up following the rise of Black Lives Matter. The Murphy Institute is hosting a forum on the topic later this month, and a larger two-day conference in April.
Table of Contents:
- How Racial Disparity Does Not Help Make Sense of Patterns of Police Violence by Adolph Reed, Jr
- Identity Politics: Part of a Reinvigorated Class Politics by Alethia Jones
- Identity Politics: A Zero-Sum Game by Walter Benn Michaels
- Black Labor Organizers Urge AFL-CIO to Reexamine Its Ties to the Police by Sarah Jaffe
- Event: Confronting the Tragedy: Law Enforcement Unionism & Communities Of Color Forum, October 21, 2016
- SAVE THE DATE: Confronting the Tragedy: Law Enforcement Unionism & Communities Of Color Conference, April 28-29, 2017
