RACIAL INEQUALITY AFTER RACISM: HOW INSTITUTIONS HOLD BACK AFRICAN AMERICANS

Last summer, the killings of two unarmed African American men--Eric Garner in Staten Island NY and Michael Brown in Ferguson MO-by white police officers reignited the national conversation about racial inequality in the United States. In both cases, grand juries declined to indict the officers involved. The rulings provoked a wave of protest marches, rallies, and road blockades across the country, as demonstrators of all skin colors proclaimed to the nation and to the world that "black lives matter." Here, Harris and Lieberman ask what accounts for the continuity of racial inequality in a postracist America.