Salon.com > Chris Hayes

Time to profile white men?

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Yesterday, during a cable news discussion of gun violence and the Newtown school shooting, I dared mention a taboo truism. During a conversation on MSNBC's "Up With Chris Hayes," I said that because most of the mass shootings in America come at the hands of white men, there would likely be political opposition to initiatives that propose to use those facts to profile the demographic group to which these killers belong. I suggested that's the case because as opposed to people of color or, say, Muslims, white men as a subgroup are in such a privileged position in our society that they are the one group that our political system avoids demographically profiling or analytically aggregating in any real way. Indeed, unlike other demographic, white guys as a group are never thought to be an acceptable topic for any kind of critical discussion whatsoever, even when there is ample reason to open up such a discussion.

Must-see morning clip

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 15:17:00 +0000

The host of MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" explains America's housing bubble, elitism and the difference between educational opportunities and outcomes.

The Colbert Report
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The age of illusion: An interview with Chris Hayes

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Crisis is the catchword of our time. After the dawning of the new millennium, America stumbled from debacle to debacle. The election of Barack Obama gave hope to many, but the realities of a deeply dysfunctional political economy do not readily yield to a good speech or two. As I write, the slow-motion collapse of public education, aided by the policies of a Democratic administration, continues apace. The financial system seems as unwieldy, reckless, opaque, and insanely powerful as ever. I could go on, but my crippling depression prevents me from listing anymore cripplingly depressing examples.
Chris Hayes has a theory about why everything is going to straight to hell. The culprits aren’t the typical cast of Republicans, fundamentalists, and rednecks. It’s the meritocracy that did it.

Hard work has failed us

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Even before Occupy Wall Street made "We are the 99 percent" the slogan for post-financial meltdown America, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz grabbed the attention (of elites, anyway) with his provocatively headlined "Of the top 1 percent, by the top 1 percent, for the top 1 percent" Vanity Fair piece last March. It laid out not only the details of how the uber-rich had consolidated American wealth at the very top of society, but something more important and disturbing – how they had consolidated political power, which in turn continuously protected and even expanded their share of the pie. They managed to upend government "of, by and for the people."