Covid cases top 5.5m as Joe Biden prepares for big DNC night – US politics live
- Kamala Harris accepts vice-presidential nomination on historic DNC night
- Obama delivers searing Trump attack warning of grave threat to democracy
- Trump tacitly endorses baseless QAnon conspiracy theory
- 1,294 deaths and 42,932 new Covid-19 cases reported yesterday
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Also writing about race in America today are Laura Barrón-López and Alex Thompson, who observe that the attention paid to racial injustice and systemic racism at the DNC would have been unthinkable even four years ago:
The combination of Democrats’ reaction to Donald Trump’s presidency, the most diverse presidential field in history and years more of activism, however, made race impossible to ignore in the 2020 campaign. All the candidates felt compelled to talk about race, not just to appeal to voters of color but to make inroads with white liberals who have dramatically shifted their views in recent years.
Biden was a bit of an outlier in the primary as he did not incorporate as much of the social justice language into his campaign as other candidates but also managed to trounce them with voters of color. Even so, the dramatic shifts in public opinion in recent months seem to have ended any lingering caution about discussing race.
Time magazine have just put out their new cover onto social media – “The new American revolution”, which is in conjunction with Pharrell Williams
TIME’s new cover: The new American revolution. By @Pharrell Williams https://t.co/efI20U6Rxp pic.twitter.com/rJDCLC1DOQ
America was founded on a dream of a land where all men were created equal, that contained the promise of liberty and justice for all. But all has never meant Black people. Like most Black Americans, I understand that all exists only in the augmented-reality goggles available to shareholders, power brokers and those lucky enough to get in on the initial public offering. But the ongoing protests for equity and accountability that have overtaken cities across the nation have made me feel something new that I can only describe with one word: American.
The desperate longing for economic justice that spurred unrest in the streets of Minneapolis after George Floyd’s murder reminds me of the same fire that burned in the veins of the Sons of Liberty when they dumped 342 chests of tea into the sea at Griffin’s Wharf. When I see people tearing down the monuments to secessionist traitors who wanted to start their own white-supremacist nation, I see patriots acting in service of this country. It reminds me of the protesters who were inspired to tear down the statue of King George on July 9, 1776, after they heard Thomas Jefferson’s letter telling his oppressors to kick rocks. Those “thugs” would serve under the direction of George Washington in the American Revolution. But the Declaration of Independence makes it sound dignified: “In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms,” wrote our Founding Fathers. “Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.”
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