The economic and social roots of the anger of black Americans

The slogan "Black lives matter" has become the rallying cry of those protesting the violent death of young African-Americans. REUTERS / Rick Wilking

By: Jean-Pierre Boris Follow

This week, Eco from here Eco from elsewhere is looking at the other reasons that caused the wave of anger across the United States. In addition to police violence, black Americans are also victims of economic, health, educational inequalities whose origins are distant.

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It was 8 minutes and 46 seconds that killed a man George Floyd and shook a country, the United States whose citizens took to the streets massively to say that black lives were important and to denounce police violence.

But this question of the safety of black Americans, of the respect of their physical integrity cannot be separated from the economic and social conditions in which they live. This black American population is, in fact, at the forefront of the victims of the inequalities which are today one of the stigmas of the American capitalist system.

In this program, we will therefore describe the standard of living of black Americans and try to understand the reasons for their current difficulties, without forgetting the historical roots of this problem. To do this, two guests have gathered in this program:

- Patrick Bolton,  professor of economics at Columbia University in New York and at Imperial College London. His latest publication is a collective work published in English. “Green swann” , the green swan edited by the Banque de France

- Audrey Célestine, lecturer at Lille 3 University. Specialist in public policies, mobilizations and relations with the state in the Caribbean and the United States, she is currently working on the politicization of the racial question in United States from the Black Lives Matter movement. His latest book “ The political fabric of identities. The political framework of the Caribbean minorities in Paris and New York ” is published by Karthala editions.

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  • Economy
  • Social issues
  • United States
  • Racism

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