becoming someone whose primary mode of getting around here is on a bicycle has sort of, like, made me much more aggressively, you know, pro-density, … - Jamelle Bouie

The difference for ordinary black Americans, as opposed to NFL stars, is that this has been a powerful driver of downward mobility. Just a quick comparison of black and white neighborhoods is enough to illustrate the particular challenges that face black families as they reach for middle class, or try to keep their position. The key fact is this: Even after you adjust for income and education, black Americans are more likely than any other group to live in neighborhoods with substantial pockets of poverty.

I think nationally, we have the Republican Party, which sort of doesn’t really believe it can win without changing the rules and, like, kicking people out the electorate. And then in cities like New York and the state of California, you have a party that does not think it can lose. And so that creates its own set of dysfunctions.

ah, the halycon free speech days of 1954, when two-thirds of american blacks - about 10 million people - lived in a brutal and lawless apartheid state