Jelani Cobb, the acclaimed journalist and dean of the Columbia Journalism School, has just published a new collection of essays, “Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here.” The book collects essays beginning in 2012 with the killing of Travyon Martin in Florida. It traces the rise of Donald Trump and the right’s growing embrace of white nationalism as well as the historic racial justice protests after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. “What we’re seeing is a kind reactionary push to try to return the nation to the status quo ante, to undo the kind of demographic change, literally at gunpoint, as we are pushing people of color out of the country by force,” says Cobb.
