What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Political Violence

A reprint of the article What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Political Violence now titled What Is Political Violence?  It was published in the Boston Review in September 2025 as a reaction to the Charlie Kirk murder.  It’s clearly reprinted as a reaction to the ratcheting up of violence by ICE.

A good read, if somewhat academic.  I think the unaddressed question is: if all change is met by those in power with various forms of violence, how does peaceful change ever occur?  If democracy is the answer, what is the response when democratic change is cut off?

What Is Political Violence?

Fight the Power

Wanted to play Public Enemy’s 1990 song Fight the Power. We have Spotify but I usually play music I own from my Plex Server. Since I don’t own this one I tried “Alexa, play Fight the Power by Public Enemy on Spotify“. Silence. This usually works. Tried again. Silence. Maybe something broken. I tried “Amazon play Blue Suede Shoes by Elvis Presley on Spotify“. Worked perfectly.

Not one to give up easily I went to the Amazon Alexa in the bedroom and tried.  This time Public Enemy played.  But several verses were missing.  Could all just be a coincidence.

Guess I need to go buy this music before it disappears completely. I think it was on the Spike Lee Do the Right Thing soundtrack.