Online: Whose Fourth of July? Black People and the American Project

In this discussion of "Race and American Citizenship," Glenn Loury asks whether the currently fashionable standoffishness that characterizes elite thinking about how Black people relate to the American Project — as exemplified by the New York Time's 1619 Project — serves the best interests, rightly understood, of Black Americans. Might not a case be made for unabashed patriotism, for a forthright embrace of (a soft) nationalism? Isn't the "America ain't all it's cracked-up to be" pose a bit of a sophomoric indulgence for Black people at this late date? Isn't our birthright citizenship in this, history's greatest republic, an inheritance of immense value?

Glenn C. Loury is Merton P. Stoltz Professor of Economics at Brown University. He holds a B.A. in mathematics (Northwestern) and a Ph.D. in economics (M.I.T). As an economic theorist, he has published widely and lectured throughout the world on his research. He is also among America’s leading critics writing on racial inequality. He has been elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economics Association, as a Member of the American Philosophical Society and of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and as a Fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.