Jelani Cobb on the Kerner Report, an Unheeded Warning about the Consequences of Racism

Jelani Cobb on the Kerner Report, an Unheeded Warning about the Consequences of Racism

In 1967, in the wake of a violent uprising in Detroit, President Lyndon B. Johnson assembled the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders to investigate what had happened. This seemed futile: another panel to investigate yet another uprising. “A lot of people felt that way—‘We don’t need more studies, nothing’s going to come out of that commission,’ ” Fred Harris, a former senator from Oklahoma and the commission’s last surviving member, tells Jelani Cobb. But the conclusions were not typical at all. In the final analysis, known as the Kerner Report, the commission named white racism—no euphemisms—as the root cause of unrest in the United States, and said that the country was moving toward two societies, one Black, one White—separate and unequal.” The report called for sweeping changes and investments in jobs, housing, policing, and more; the recommendations went so far beyond Johnson’s anti-poverty programs of the nineteen-sixties that the President shelved the report and refused to meet with his own commission. The Kerner Report, Cobb says, was “an unheeded warning,” as America still struggles today to acknowledge the reality of systemic racism.

Jelani Cobb co-edited and wrote the introduction to “The Essential Kerner Commission Report,” which was published this year.

New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you. We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better. Take the survey here.

Avsnitt(1022)

The Company Behind the A.I. Boom

The Company Behind the A.I. Boom

Across the country, data centers that run A.I. programs are being constructed at a record pace. A large percentage of them use chips built by the tech colossus Nvidia. The company has nearly cornered ...

26 Dec 202524min

Graham Platner Is Staying in the Race

Graham Platner Is Staying in the Race

The Republican Susan Collins has held one of Maine’s Senate seats for nearly thirty years, and Democrats, in trying to take it away from her, have a lot at stake. Graham Platner, a combat veteran, pol...

19 Dec 202549min

Poetry as a Cistern for Love and Loss

Poetry as a Cistern for Love and Loss

Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s most recent collection, “The New Economy,” was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry this year, and one of their poems was included in “A Century of Poetry in The ...

16 Dec 202524min

Leon Panetta on the Trump Administration’s Venezuelan Boat Strikes

Leon Panetta on the Trump Administration’s Venezuelan Boat Strikes

In the course of his long career, Leon Panetta was a lieutenant in the Army, a congressman from California, Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff, Barack Obama’s director of the C.I.A., and later,...

12 Dec 202526min

Marshall Curry and Judd Apatow on “The New Yorker at 100,” a Documentary

Marshall Curry and Judd Apatow on “The New Yorker at 100,” a Documentary

This year marked a hundred years since the birth of The New Yorker, and a documentary about the magazine’s past and present, “The New Yorker at 100,” is now streaming on Netflix. The director is the A...

9 Dec 202532min

Chloé Zhao on “Hamnet,” Her Film About William Shakespeare’s Grief

Chloé Zhao on “Hamnet,” Her Film About William Shakespeare’s Grief

Chloé Zhao was the second woman to ever win an Oscar for Best Director, for her 2020 film “Nomadland.” After taking a wide turn to create the Marvel supernatural epic “Eternals,” Zhao has taken anothe...

7 Dec 202523min

Senator Adam Schiff on How the Trump Administration Targets Its Opponents

Senator Adam Schiff on How the Trump Administration Targets Its Opponents

As a California congressman, Adam Schiff was the lead manager during the first impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. He later served on the January 6th committee. Trump has castigated him as “...

5 Dec 202527min

Noah Baumbach on “Jay Kelly,” His New Movie with George Clooney

Noah Baumbach on “Jay Kelly,” His New Movie with George Clooney

The filmmaker Noah Baumbach can recall when he may have fallen out of love with his craft. He was shooting “White Noise,” based on Don DeLillo’s novel, “on a deserted highway in Ohio at 4 A.M. with a ...

2 Dec 202520min

Populärt inom Politik & nyheter

svenska-fall
rss-krimstad
aftonbladet-krim
p3-krim
flashback-forever
blenda-2
rss-sanning-konsekvens
politiken
aftonbladet-daily
rss-krimreportrarna
motiv
rss-vad-fan-hande
spar
grans
rss-frandfors-horna
rss-flodet
svd-ledarredaktionen
dagens-eko
olyckan-inifran
spotlight