American Podium

"A Colony in a Nation" by Emmy Award-winning MSNBC news anchor and New York Times best-selling author Chris Hayes describes an America that is suffering from an identity crisis. We view ourselves as a developed nation, ruled by law and order. Yet, in large swathes of our country, the general mindset is more provincial; fear trumps civil rights and aggressive policing resembles occupation. Hayes draws comparisons between modern-day communities in places like Ferguson and West Baltimore and those of colonial America. He disputes the notion of a post-racial world and argues that racial inequality hasn't improved since 1968 by all empirical measures-wealth, unemployment, incarceration, school segregation. Hayes breaks down the issues and impacts of our country's lack of self-awareness and the ways in which it threatens our democracy.