The Economist How not to tackle American racism

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From: The Economist this week - Thursday Jul 09, 2020 07:26 pm
   
July 9th 2020 Read in browser
   
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  Our cover this week argues that a set of illiberal ideas about how to tackle American racism will only hinder progress. Leaders like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King used vigorous protest and relentless argument to push society towards their vision of equality of opportunity and equality before the law. Most Americans still hew to that classical liberal ideal, as do many of those who marched with justified anger over the killing of George Floyd by a white policeman in Minneapolis. But a dangerous rival approach has emerged from American universities. It rejects the liberal notion of progress. It defines everyone by their race, and every action as racist or anti-racist. It is not yet dominant, but it is dynamic and it is spreading out of the academy into newsrooms and boardrooms. If it supplants liberal values, then intimidation will chill open debate and sow division to the disadvantage of all, black and white.

 
 
  Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-In-Chief  
     
 
  Editor’s picks  
 
  Must-reads from the current edition  
 
 
 
Booms in the night
What to make of a series of odd explosions in Iran

Do they augur a return to the shadow war over its nuclear programme?
Middle East & Africa
 
 
 
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Converting the Hagia Sophia
Turkey’s president is playing religious politics

He wants to turn Justinian’s cathedral from a museum back to a mosque
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The covid-19 bonus
America’s huge stimulus is having surprising effects on the poor

Though severe deprivation is rising, not everyone is worse off
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Why the time has come to say no to dough
Leaders
 
 
 
The Economist Asks: Michaela Coel
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This week we talk to Michaela Coel, the BAFTA-winning writer, producer and star of “Chewing Gum” and “I May Destroy You”
Economist Radio
 
 
  The world this week
  
     
  Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has downplayed the threat of covid-19, flouted social-distancing guidelines and said that his “athletic history” would protect him, tested positive for the coronavirus.
  
     
  More from politics this week  
     
  Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter have all suspended processing requests for user data from the government of Hong Kong while they consider the implications of the draconian new national-security law imposed on the territory by the government in mainland China. None has a big business presence in China.
  
     
  More from business this week  
     
See full edition
 
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Daily chart
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Too often they lack the capital, education and connections they need
 
 
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Inside Story
Meet the editor-in-chief

In our next free webinar, exclusively for subscribers, Zanny Minton Beddoes, The Economist’s editor-in-chief, will talk about our coverage of covid-19 and what to expect in the approach to America’s presidential election. Thursday July 16th, 4pm BST/11am EDT.
 

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