The Forum

The Forum is a source of news and commentary deploying the insights of critical race theory, and supplying the materials and organizing strategies to re-envision American democracy from the ground up.
About Us
  • CRT & the Backlash

    • Conjured
    • Fear and Loathing in Tallahassee
    • Friends Like These
  • Voting Rights

    • The Forgotten First Voting Rights Act
    • Drawing a Blank
    • Breaking the Vote
  • School Wars

    • To Save the World (And Build it Anew)
    • I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On
    • Can Difficult Conversations Create Justice?
  • Democracy in the Balance

    • The Origin of Specious
    • A Few Good Men
    • This Year at The Forum
  • Pasts Imperfect

    • Minority Rule(s)
    • The Black Antifascist Roots of Black August
    • Majority Rule on the Brink
  • Imaginative Power

    • Making a Good Image
    • The Fire This Time
    • Beyond the Politics of Elite Empowerment
The Forum is a source of news and commentary deploying the insights of critical race theory, and supplying the materials and organizing strategies to re-envision American democracy from the ground up.
About Us
  • Explore

    • Topics

      • American authoritarianism
      • Ballot battles
      • Book bans & censored classes
      • Culture fronts
      • Down by law
      • Educators fighting back
      • Elections & moral panics
      • Founding fantasies
      • Higher ed
      • Hurt feelings
      • Media malaise
      • Relitigating history
      • States’ wrongs
      • Stories of us
      • System failures
      • The great civic whitewash
      • Unfree speech
      • Words, sounds and pictures
    • Contributors

      • Sam Adler-Bell
      • David I. Backer
      • David Beers
      • Aisha Beliso-De Jesús
      • Jennifer C. Berkshire
      • Gina Best
      • Denzell Brown
      • Ed Burmila
      • Anoa Changa
      • Jared Clemons
      • Danielle Conway
      • Anthony Conwright
      • Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
      • David Daley
      • David Daley & David Faris
      • Sarah Darer Littman
      • Jonathan Feingold
      • Forum Staff
      • Hannah Gais
      • John Ganz
      • J.C. Hallman
      • A. S. Hamrah
      • Sana Hashmi
      • Samuel Hoadley-Brill
      • Jeanelle K. Hope
      • Chris Lehmann
      • J. Ama Mantey
      • Ben Miller
      • Elise A. Mitchell
      • Niela Orr
      • Alex Pareene
      • Rick Perlstein
      • Willie Randall
      • Lyle Jeremy Rubin
      • Tom Scocca
      • Gene Seymour
      • Matthew Sheffield
      • Adele M. Stan
      • Jason Stanley
      • Nicole Young
      • Rafia Zakaria
      • Karim Zidan

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CRT & the Backlash

Conjured

Black women, police violence, and spiritual activism
  • Aisha Beliso-De Jesús

Democracy in the Balance

A Few Good Men

Jordan Neely’s killer and the racist violence at the heart of the American imperial project
  • Lyle Jeremy Rubin

Democracy in the Balance

After the Verdict, the Movement for Justice

On the anniversary of the Say Her Name campaign, a mother reflects on the trial of Atatiana Jefferson’s killer and the work ahead
  • Gina Best

CRT & the Backlash

The Lethal Logic of White Supremacist Violence

Retracing the descent of replacement theory into racial terror
  • Anthony Conwright

School Wars

They Want Your Child!

How right-wing school panics seek to repeal modernity and progress
  • Rick Perlstein

Imaginative Power

Erasing Toni Morrison’s Vision

How today’s racial panics distort the great novelist’s legacy
  • Gene Seymour

Democracy in the Balance

How to Start a Fire

In the wake of the mass shooting at a Colorado gay bar, a reactionary media has blood on its hands
  • Ben Miller

Democracy in the Balance

The Origin of Specious

The roots of “anti-woke” rhetoric, from Richard Hanania’s alt-right screeds to Charles Murray’s bigoted race science
  • Hannah Gais

Conversations

Pasts Imperfect

Majority Rule on the Brink

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Defeating the Next Coup

Read

Imaginative Power

Beyond the Politics of Elite Empowerment

Read

Pasts Imperfect

Majority Rule on the Brink

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Defeating the Next Coup

Read

Imaginative Power

Beyond the Politics of Elite Empowerment

Read

Pasts Imperfect

Majority Rule on the Brink

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Defeating the Next Coup

Read

Imaginative Power

Beyond the Politics of Elite Empowerment

Read

In Focus

Democracy in the Balance

This is Not a Drill

Why the race crisis and the democracy crisis are one and the same
  • Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
Read

School Wars

To Save the World (And Build it Anew)

Student activists helped bring us Black and Ethnic Studies, Gender Studies, and faculty DEI initiatives. Now, they need our support.
  • Elise A. Mitchell
Read

CRT & the Backlash

The Anti-Antiracist Court

How the Supreme Court has weaponized the Fourteenth Amendment and Brown v. Board of Education against antiracism
  • Jonathan Feingold
Read

Imaginative Power

Making a Good Image

Alex Garland’s Civil War and the great un-divide
  • A. S. Hamrah
Read

Longer Views

Voting Rights

The Forgotten First Voting Rights Act

How the defeat of the 1890 Lodge bill presaged today’s age of ballot-driven backlash
  • Ed Burmila

Democracy in the Balance

Making the Constitution Safe for Democracy

The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment offers severe penalties for menacing the right to vote—if anyone can figure out how to enforce it.
  • Anthony Conwright

Voting Rights

Colfax, Cruikshank, and the Latter-Day War on Reconstruction

Unearthing the deep roots of racialized voter suppression—and explaining how they shape ballot access today
  • David Daley

Columnists

Democracy in the Balance

Ranked Choice Voting

Read

Pasts Imperfect

Minority Rule(s)

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Bodily Control and the Color Line

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Making the Constitution Safe for Democracy

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Ranked Choice Voting

Read

Pasts Imperfect

Minority Rule(s)

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Bodily Control and the Color Line

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Making the Constitution Safe for Democracy

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Ranked Choice Voting

Read

Pasts Imperfect

Minority Rule(s)

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Bodily Control and the Color Line

Read

Democracy in the Balance

Making the Constitution Safe for Democracy

Read

ARCHIVE

03.03.2022

Unwoke and Illiberal

School Wars

02.24.2022

Recalls Rebuffed

CRT & the Backlash

02.17.2022

Erasing Toni Morrison’s Vision

Imaginative Power

02.10.2022

Mixed Martial Authoritarianism

Democracy in the Balance

01.20.2022

The United States of REDMAP

Voting Rights

01.06.2022

January 6 and the F Word

Democracy in the Balance