What ‘backlash’ against Black progress really means: A lesson on race from Eddie Glaude’s new book
Throughout this country’s history, from the Revolutionary period to Reconstruction to the black freedom movement of the mid-twentieth century, the United States has faced moments of crisis in which the country might emerge otherwise, moments when the idea of white America itself could finally be put aside. In each instance the country chose to remain exactly what it was: a racist nation that claimed to be democratic. These were and are moments of national betrayal, in which the commitments of democracy are shunted off to the side to make way for, and to safely secure, a more fundamental commitment to