The Problem-Space of Democratic Faith

It is an ugly and dispiriting thing to bear witness to the full measure of horror in the United States’ past and present of racial domination. A history running from genocide, colonization, and enslavement through lynch law and Jim Crow to contemporary mass incarceration and organized abandonment attests not only to the longevity of white supremacy, but its creative capacities for reorganization and institutional innovation. In view of this long national nightmare, what could sustain faith in the dream of a multiracial democracy that has not yet materialized—and may never come to be?