Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The real reason behind unrest doesn’t always make the headline.
A single incident can spark the fire: police violence, a public tragedy. But Lavin Exclusive Speaker Jelani Cobb says that that moment is almost never the whole story. Look closer, and you’ll find unemployment, failing schools, unsafe housing, buildings without heat, medical systems that are out of reach for poor and working-class people. What looks like a response to one event is often the cumulative effect of many things being ignored for too long. In this clip from our podcast, Lavin Voices, he argues that we can’t understand the biggest conflicts of today without talking about the things that we like to ignore.
Jelani is the Dean of Columbia Journalism School, a longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, and a Peabody Award-winning journalist whose work explores history, justice, politics, and democracy in America. A Lavin Exclusive Speaker and the author of Three or More Is a Riot, he helps audiences see the present more clearly by tracing the deep historical patterns that shape it.
Enjoyed this clip? The full episode is out now! Watch it and learn more about Jelani at the link in bio.
The real reason behind unrest doesn’t always make the headline.
A single incident can spark the fire: police violence, a public tragedy. But Lavin Exclusive Speaker Jelani Cobb says that that moment is almost never the whole story. Look closer, and you’ll find unemployment, failing schools, unsafe housing, buildings without heat, medical systems that are out of reach for poor and working-class people. What looks like a response to one event is often the cumulative effect of many things being ignored for too long. In this clip from our podcast, Lavin Voices, he argues that we can’t understand the biggest conflicts of today without talking about the things that we like to ignore.
Jelani is the Dean of Columbia Journalism School, a longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, and a Peabody Award-winning journalist whose work explores history, justice, politics, and democracy in America. A Lavin Exclusive Speaker and the author of Three or More Is a Riot, he helps audiences see the present more clearly by tracing the deep historical patterns that shape it.
Enjoyed this clip? The full episode is out now! Watch it and learn more about Jelani at the link in bio.
