The Gist

Getting Held Back in Racial Justice Class

What did the Black Lives Matter movement accomplish? Writer Jeff Chang reflects on a complicated year.  

On the two-year anniversary of Laquan McDonald’s death, a protester stands in front of the chalk outline where police killed the high school student in Chicago.

Bilgin S. Sasmaz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Listen to Episode 636 of Slate’s The Gist:  

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Writer Jeff Chang went to Ferguson, Missouri, on the one-year anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown. What he saw there helped inspire his latest collection of essays, We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation (a book the Washington Post’s Carlos Lozada has called the year’s smartest). On The Gist, Chang explains why the calls for police accountability are valid even in cases when they appear to follow protocol.

For the Spiel, an evaluation of the Trump Cabinet according to age, demographic, and proximity to women in bikinis.

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