Criminal Justice Reform and Crime in Black Communities

In spite of everything that Jeff Sessions is doing to stand in the way, reform of our criminal justice system is perhaps one of the most important issues of our time. It’s even one that sometimes gets bipartisan support. But reform is of very little value without a real understanding of how we got here and how the current system has ruined so many lives.

How did our policies, with respect to policing in black neighborhoods, evolve since the high crimes periods of the mid 70’s and 80’s? What role did public policy play, and what role did community demands and expectations play? How has the war on drugs played a part in this, and what is the real nexus with the civil rights movement of the 60’s?

Unless we understand this history we are not only condemned to repeat it, but we can never begin to address it.

Yale Law Professor James Forman, Jr. gives us one of the sharpest, most cleared and honest analysis of these issues in his new book Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

My conversation with James Forman, Jr.

Obama and the Black Community - Seven Years Later

Last week Elizabeth Warren gave a scathing speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, about the seven year efforts, on the part of Republicans, to delegitimize the Obama Presidency. From the birther efforts to Mitch McConnell, saying that his goal, from day one, was to defeat Obama.

It’s not possible to carry on this discussion without accepting and understanding race as a part of it.The burden of being America's first black President, can’t even be imagined.

We know from the way this current campaign is playing out, how a large swath of white America has responded. But how has the black community viewed Obama? Long time journalist Erin Aubry Kaplan takes a look in I Heart Obama

My conversation with Erin Kaplan: