fabiorojas_sociology

You have to be careful here. There is generally not legislation that mandates affirmative action. For example, the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not mention it. Affirmative action is a range of policies developed by private and public groups to address real and perceived discrimination. In my personal view, some types are more justified than others. For example, some institutions have tried to set up quota systems, which seems unwise to me. However, in other cases affirmative action means that the decision maker (a college admissions committee) consider that people from certain economic or social backgrounds may not have identical opportunities (e.g., not all high schools have AP courses). Being more sensitive in college admission to the fact that many African Americans don't come from well funded high schools seems like a reasonable thing to consider.

Both Martin Luther King, Jr. and BLM were deeply concerned with how the police interact with minority communities. Furthermore, many BLM activists adhere to a philosophy of non-violent protest advocated by King and his allies in the Southern Christian Leadership Council. There are clearly points of departure between classic civil rights activism and BLM, but there is overlap as well.

Prices for textbooks are set by publishers, not authors. Since textbooks are often required for classes, publishers can often charge higher prices for them. You can go to Amazon to see how much publishers charge for the books I have written.

I believe that we are in much better shape than we were decades ago. For example, legalized segregation is thankfully a thing of the past. It is hard to find people who would say that we would be better off returning to the pre-Civil Rights era. At the same time, there are some bad developments. For example, mass incarceration mainly affects African Americans and Latinos. There is also the issue of immigration. The harsh and draconian immigration policies of the last few years have fallen mainly on Mexican and Central American migrants. So, yes, I am clearly happy that we live in a post-Civil Rights world. It is a huge improvement. At the same time, there is still a lot of work to be done.

In terms of causes, there are many. Scholars who study mass incarceration note that it stems from concerns about drugs, harsh sentencing aimed at specific populations, and the public's willingness to tolerate these policies.

Great question. In some ways, BLM will be seen as a continuation of the Civil Rights Movement. BLM seeks racial equality and pushes back against policies that are thought to target African-Americans. In other ways, BLM might be seen divergent from the Civil Rights movement because of its focus on cultural nationalism.