Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on the timeliness of #BlackLivesMatter

When the political establishment and the political institutions of our society fail to improve people’s lives, they begin to lose their legitimacy and people either tune out of politics and society altogether or they find other means to compel the changes they seek. — Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has an amazing Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times today entitled “Why is the Black Lives Matter movement happening now?” It is an important read. I left the following comment under the piece:

Thank you for this powerful and profound piece Professor Taylor. Your framing reminds us that real change comes from struggle, not from electoral politics, as evidenced by the inaction on the part of the current administration. With the likelihood that Obama’s successor will either be an open racist in the form of Trump, or a genteel, insidious bigot embodied by “bring them to heel” and “super-predators” spouting Clinton, the struggles will continue.

Taylor is the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, which together with Professor Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, is a watershed book in terms of explaining the material conditions created by both political parties that are the underlying causes of much black suffering today. The Clintons’ crime bills, war on drugs, and gutting of Federal assistance were unprecedented attacks on the black community that Republicans had only dreamed of.

Taylor’s profound quote about Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be heeded, opposing Trump does not mean we should be supporting another Clinton.