A Summer of Discontent
Liam Kennedy and Scott Lucas have complimentary pieces out for this special edition of the newsletter contextualising the events taking place across the US and the global response to them.
Scott takes kicks it off with a look at some of the fundamental factors motivating the current wave of protests:
"Far from living up to the cultural ideal of opportunity for all, America has been the site of increasing economic inequality since the 1980s. The devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 exposed the division and deprivation as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown, said, "We're seeing people that we didn't know exist." The ongoing killings of unarmed African Americans, even with the first African American as US President, led to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014. What is different in 2020 is that the man in the White House is not only willing but dedicated to exploitation of the racial tensions."
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Liam explains how the reaction to what is happening in America should also be placed within the context of local politics:
"The demonstrations across the world not only express solidarity with American campaigners but denounce racism in their own countries. In many instances, the denunciations are aimed at violent racist policing. In France, people marched to pay homage to Adama Traore, a French black man who died in police custody in Paris in 2016.
Ireland does not have a large black population and there have not been the spectacular examples of violent racist policing that have been flashpoints in other countries for rallies and for identifications with Black Lives Matter.
In place of such discourses, a local topic in speeches and on placards in Dublin is Direct Provision."
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