The Economist A special edition on racial injustice in America

From: The Economist this week - Tuesday Jun 09, 2020 04:54 pm


	June 9th 2020	Read in browser


	The Economist this week

	Our coverage of racial injustice in America

The killing of George Floyd by a police officer on May 25th has sparked outrage, protests and introspection in America and beyond. In this special edition of our weekly newsletter, we draw on reporting past and present to set out the political, economic and social context of the events of recent days.

The most immediate questions, which we have explored in the past and return to in our current issue, surround police violence. African-Americans are nearly three times likelier than whites to be killed by police. In fact, being killed by police is now the sixth-leading cause of death for young black men.

But all the institutions of criminal justice are under the microscope. Earlier this year, we looked at evidence of systemic bias in the way courts treat black defendants on drugs charges. In a cover package we ran in 2015, we examined ways to make America's prison system, a third of whose population are black Americans, less punitive and more effective.

Economic inequalities are deeply entwined with these social ones. Poverty in America, the subject of a special report we published last year, continues to affect people of colour most. In 1962 the average wealth of white households was seven times greater than that of black households. That ratio has not budged in the intervening decades.

A deeper understanding of racial injustice requires going much further back in time. Last year our Washington correspondent wrote for 1843, our sister magazine, on the history of lynching in America. In 2018 we reviewed “Barracoon”, a heartbreaking tale of one of the last slaves to be imported to the country.

Finally, in the latest episode of Checks and Balance, our weekly podcast on American politics, we look forward. Who will the politics of police versus protesters favour in the 2020 election? I hope this selection provides some insight into how America got to this point, and where it might head next.

Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief


	Editor’s picks

	Must-reads from our coverage

Order above the law
How to fix American policing

The country’s forces kill too many of those they serve. Here is how to change that

United States

Crackdown
Smoking-gun evidence emerges for racial bias in American courts

Black defendants are suspiciously likely to be charged with carrying precise amounts of crack

Graphic detail

American prisons
The right choices

America’s bloated prison system has stopped growing. Now it must shrink

Briefing

Race and poverty
Poverty in America continues to affect people of colour most

But it is hard to work out which issues are caused by history and which by bad policy

Special report

Melanin and money
The black-white wealth gap is unchanged after half a century

How to go about narrowing it

United States

A legacy of fear
Confronting the history of lynching

Jon Fasman visits Alabama, where a memorial has been erected to the victims of America’s racist past

1843

No ears for cryin’
The story of one of the last slaves imported to America

Zora Neale Hurston’s devastating “Barracoon” is being published at last

Books and arts


	From Economist Radio

Checks and Balance
Fair cops—racism, police brutality and protest in America

Our weekly podcast on democracy in America

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The Economist A special edition on racial injustice in America