“I think that building political power has to come from the outside and...” — Alicia Garza Quote

I think that building political power has to come from the outside and from within. Meaning, we have to build political alternatives to the existing system, and we have to try to impact what is happening in the existing system.

The reason that I started the Black Futures Lab is because I have some clarity about what I think needs to happen in relationship to electoral organizing. It's not a destination. It is a set of tools that we use to engage people that we care about, en masse, around issues that are important to us.

Just like we don't live in a two-dimensional world, we don't live two-dimensional lives.

When we address the disparities facing black people, we get a lot closer to a true democracy where all lives matter.

Often, economists spend their energies squabbling with one another, but arguably the more important contrast is between our broadly liberal economic worldview and the various alternatives - common around the globe - that postulate natural hierarchies of religion, ethnicity, caste and gender, often enforced by law and strict custom.

The argument has never been whether Kaepernick is one of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL. He's not in the top 10 either. But when you consider the alternatives teams are considering, Kaepernick's omission begins to look ridiculous.

Clearly, some of the reason people embrace alternatives and reject vaccines is that they are angry and mistrustful of government and of pharmaceutical conglomerates. More than that, we pay too much for health care, it's not good enough, and the system is too complex. We need alternatives.

Generically, wars in necessity are wars where, I think, the vital interest of the nation are at stake, in which there are no viable alternatives to the use of force.