“I Don’t Tense Up in Atlanta When I See the Police": An Interview with Author Charles Blow

This week, Inside the Hive co-host Joe Hagan talks to New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow about his provocative new book, The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, which proposes a reverse migration of young Black people from northern cities to the South to try replicating what Stacy Abrams achieved in Georgia in the 2020 presidential and congressional races. Post-Civil Rights empowerment for Black populations has failed to materialize, argues Blow, with racism as pernicious, if not more so, in the “liberal” north as the south. The only way for Blacks to claim true power, he says, is through self determination—creating large Black population centers in places like Atlanta and turning the political tide in their direction. Blow paints a searing portrait of fair-weather liberals whose BLM protests last summer he likens to "a social justice Coachella” that ultimately failed to deliver policy changes. “Somehow Black people are supposed to pat white people on the back and say, ‘You're getting there, I'll keep waiting?’” he says, calling Dr. King's dream of white and Black children joining hands a naive vision. "I have three children in this world,” Blow says. “The idea that they can still be fighting some form of the thing that I'm fighting today, when I am gone from this earth, is insane to me.”

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