Thursday, March 30, 2023

Resolution

Upward mobility for black Americans lies in rejecting the policies of progressive government, while making the most of the opportunities offered by American society.

For the affirmative:

Jason Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, where he has written about politics, economics, education, immigration and social inequality for more than 25 years. He’s also a frequent public speaker and provides commentary for television and radio news outlets. Riley is the author of five books, including Please Stop Helping Us, How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed (2014); False Black Power? (2017), an assessment of why black political success has not translated into more economic advancement; and Maverick, a biography of the iconic economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell.

For the negative:

Nikhil Pal Singh is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History at New York University (NYU), and founding Faculty Director of NYUs Prison Education Program. He is author, most recently of Race and America’s Long War (2017), and Reconstructing Democracy: Black Intellectuals in the American Century (forthcoming). His essays have appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, The New Statesman, N + 1, and Boston Review. His November 2018 Soho Forum debate on “anti-racisim,” opposite John McWhorter, has received more than a quarter-of-a-million YouTube views.