THE RED MOVEMENT

An attorney examines the merits and shortcomings of the Black Lives Matter movement, then offers what she believes is an even more actionable alternative for achieving global justice.

When George Floyd’s murder was broadcast to the public in 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement saw a massive resurgence. Floyd’s death—along with those of Breonna Taylor, Daunte Wright, and other Black American victims of police brutality—gave way to nationwide protests that called for an end to systemic violence. Reading lists boasted everything from James Baldwin to Isabel Wilkerson, sparking a mainstream discourse about institutionalized racism in America. In this info-packed manifesto, attorney Shadan Kapri praises the impact of BLM but calls it “the tip of the iceberg when it comes to confronting, understanding, and dismantling systemic racism, discrimination, and social injustice in America and around the world today.” In its stead, she introduces the Red Movement, which she describes as “a grassroots international movement that helps people understand their role in the fight for social and environmental justice.” She argues that slavery didn’t end with the emancipation of enslaved Black people in the South, but has quietly grown more pervasive across the globe. “The number of people living in slave-like conditions today is more than three times [the trans-Atlantic slave trade] amount at over 40 million,” she writes. Furthermore, Kapri makes a case for divesting from corporations and industries that benefit from forced or unlawful labor, from "Big Chocolate" to electronics manufacturers to major sporting events. While Kapri is prone to redundancy and veers far too often into ad-speak when discussing the book’s eponymous cause (“Welcome to the Red Movement. We’ve been waiting for you”), she presents a compelling underlying message: The individual is not powerless in ending systems of oppression.  

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