With the launch of his new book, On Critical Race Theory: Why It Matters & Why You Should Care, Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American Studies Victor Ray was interviewed on Meet the Press and on the Mehdi Hasan Show on MSNBC in August 2022.

Protests over George Floyd’s 2020 murder were the largest civil rights demonstrations in American history. The brutal footage of officer Derek Chauvin’s suffocating knee on George Floyd’s neck led many white Americans to, at least briefly, acknowledge the reality of structural racism in policing. In response, corporations questioned their diversity policies, “defund the police” became an activist rallying cry, and books on anti-racism became unexpected bestsellers. A narrative arose that America experienced a “racial reckoning” that challenged white racism’s worst excesses.