Sometime around 2014 American politics underwent a seismic change. After several highly publicized incidents of police officers shooting African-American men, the Black Lives Matter movement was formed. The impact Black Lives Matter has had on American politics and public policy is complex and hard to tease out definitively, but one thing is for sure: it has prompted white liberals to move dramatically leftward on issues of racial inequality and discrimination, immigration, and diversity. The fervor many of these converts have brought to politics prompted commentators to dub the phenomenon, “The Great Awokening.”

To unpack this trend, join our panel of experts — a Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in Sociology at Columbia University, Musa Al-Gharbi; PhD candidate in political science at Georgia State University, Zach Goldberg; and Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, and author of the 2019 book Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities, Eric Kaufmann – for a discussion of how the “Great Awokening” has impacted the public debate, reshaped our two major parties, and upended the media landscape.

We will discuss some of the most pressing and complicated questions of the moment. How do positions like “Abolish ICE” and “Defund the Police” migrate from the fringes to the mainstream debate? Why are college campuses the scene of so much political tumult? Is America becoming more intolerant toward political disagreement? We hope you can join us to discuss these important topics.

events@manhattan-institute.org