Four years ago, when Donald Trump first ran for president, he urged Black people to support him, asking us, “What have you got to lose?”
Four years later, we know exactly what we had to lose. Our lives, as we died in disproportionate numbers from the pandemic he has let flourish among us.
Whatever happens to the economy – jobs, wages, the hardships so many are facing – the stock market seems to be in a world of its own. Why?
In this interview by Jacobin’s Grace Blakeley, West discusses the presidential election and why a democratic socialist vision is necessary to overcome capitalism and build a better society.
This country has a long history of disenfranchising and suppressing the votes of people of color, particularly in the South. But in 2013 the voter suppression efforts of yesteryear came roaring back. That’s when the Supreme Court gutted key provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In presidential election years, most of the energy and focus goes to the top of the ticket. And that’s essential this year. But we can’t ignore the fact that we have been through a spring and summer of traumatizing televised murders of Black people.
