Nathalie Baptiste at The Nation takes a look at Wesley Lowery’s new book, They Can’t Kill Us All:
In his new book “They Can’t Kill Us All,” Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery sets out not only to track the latest developments in Black Lives Matter, but also to search for the movement’s deeper roots. For Lowery, although BLM protests originated with the recent police killings in the United States—his book takes its title from a sign spotted in Ferguson—he also wants us to recognize that the politics animating these protests have long been around. Lowery traces the movement’s origins to the hope of a “postracial” America that was symbolized by Barack Obama’s election, and which has now proved to be little more than a phantasm of campaign rhetoric and political punditry. Having once hoped that the election of the first black president meant that the tide of race relations in America might begin to turn, many young black Americans were forced to face the reality—by one high-profile police shooting after another—that living in a world in which they’re treated like their white contemporaries remains an impossibility. [...]
“They Can’t Kill Us All” is the outcome of Lowery’s past two years covering this anguish. He spends the first three-quarters of his book focused on several high-profile police killings: Brown in Ferguson; Tamir Rice in Cleveland; Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina; and Freddie Gray in Baltimore. But while his book is ostensibly about these deaths and the local protests that they inspired, Lowery also has larger ambitions, ranging widely across race relations and racial violence in the United States, including the slaying of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, by a young white man; the removal of the Confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse by an African- American woman named Bree Newsome; and the emergence of a national movement, or set of movements, responding to the call to arms of Black Lives Matter.
Lowery insists that the story of Black Lives Matter’s roots and intentions is often misunderstood at best and, at worst, purposefully muddied in order to discredit the movement and its leaders. [...]
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
“The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the Divine Right of Kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art —the art of words.” —Ursula K. LeGuin, Speech at the 2014 U.S. National Book Awards, where she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2010—Medical Error, Liability, and Murtha:
An element of healthcare reform, one in which Democrats have acquiesced to Republican demands, is brought into sharper focus this week. The death of Rep. John Murtha, from complication from gallbladder surgery highlights a complex issue that Republicans have framed in terms of "junk lawsuits," but reformers think of it in terms of preventable medical errors. […]
What the tort reformers won't tell you is the extent to which medical liability has improved patient safety, including the establishment of organizations like Leapfrog Group. You'll hear all about the complaints of doctors complaining of having to perform "defensive medicine," and often justifiably so. There are additional costs to the system when doctors end up ordering unnecessary tests and procedures. But there are other means of addressing those issues, including a greater reliance on evidence-based care. Removing medical liability--already a minor contributor to out-of-control system costs--would likely come at a high cost for patient safety.
HIGH IMPACT STORIES • TOP COMMENTS
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Flynn flirts with espionage. Trump’s cracking under the pressure. 9th C. pummels Muslim ban. Armando joins in considering how much of our system crumbles if the POTUS just isn’t capable of proper discretion in making presidential determinations.
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