The Panthers Can’t Save Us Now: Debating Left Politics and Black Lives Matter (Jacobin) - Softcover

Cedric Johnson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1839766301 ISBN 13: 9781839766305

Publisher: Verso, 2022

Synopsis

In the wake of the mass protests over the police murder of George Floyd, nearly every major consumer brand proclaimed their commitments to antiracism, often with new ad campaigns to match their Tweets. Despite the historic scale of protests and ruling class approval, the most substantive reforms advanced by Black Lives Matter remained out of reach. Still less was achieved around policies that might help the most dispossessed and precarious Americans. Why has anti-racism been such a powerful source of mobilization but such a poor means of building political opposition capable of winning big reforms? Writing against the grain of popular left sentiments, Johnson cautions against the revival of ethnic politics. Instead, he calls for broad-based left politics as the only viable means for ending the twin crises of racial inequality and police violence. Redistribution, public goods, and multi-ethnic working-class solidarity are the only viable response to the horrors of police violence and mass incarceration. It just so happens that fighting the conditions that make crime and violence inevitable is also the means by which we can build a working-class majority and a more equal and peaceful nation.

About this title

About the Author

Cedric Johnson is associate professor of African American Studies and Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His teaching and research interests include African American political thought, neoliberal politics, and class analysis and race. His book, Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics (University of Minnesota Press, 2007) was named the 2008 W.E.B. DuBois Outstanding Book of the Year by the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. Johnson is the editor of The Neoliberal Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, Late Capitalism and the Remaking of New Orleans (University of Minnesota Press, 2011). His 2017 Catalyst essay, “The Panthers Can’t Save Us Now: Anti-policing Struggles and the Limits of Black Power,” was awarded the 2018 Daniel Singer Millenium Prize. Johnson’s writings have appeared in Nonsite, Jacobin, New Political Science, New Labor Forum, Perspectives on Politics, Historical Materialism, and Journal of Developing Societie. In 2008, Johnson was named the Jon Garlock Labor Educator of the Year by the Rochester Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO. He previously served on the representative assembly for UIC United Faculty Local 6456.

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1839766301
• ISBN 13: 9781839766305
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208