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The racial injustice that continues to plague the United States couldn't be a clearer challenge to the country's idea of itself as a liberal and democratic society, where all citizens have a chance at a decent life. So what must a liberal society do to address the legacies of its past, and how should we aim to reconceive liberalism in order to do so? In this work, Andrew Valls takes issue with solutions from both the left and the right, and therefore with the constricted ways in which racial justice is debated in the United States today

Abstract
Confederate monuments, like all public monuments, are a form of state speech. As such, they are prohibited from endorsing, or expressing nostalgia for, racial hierarchy and white supremacy. In many cases, Confederate monuments are reasonably seen as expressing these views, and are therefore prohibited forms of state speech. But Confederate monuments are also a very diverse set of objects, varying in terms of their time of construction, their spatial location, their form, and their inscriptions. Some monuments are more objectionable than others because of their characteristics on these dimensions, and our normative assessments must take account of these features.

Comments on Nicholas Tampio's "A defense of political constructivism" (same journal issue). Adapted from the source document.

This article brings together work on liberal political theory and black nationalism in an attempt to both strengthen the case for black nationalism and enrich and extend liberal theory. I begin by arguing that for much of U.S. history, the classical black nationalist case for an independent state finds substantial support in recent liberal theories of secession. In the post–civil rights era, black nationalists in the Black Power movement argued for more limited forms of black autonomy, a position known as "community nationalism." Community black nationalism makes claims similar to minority nationalist claims for limited self-determination, yet liberal multiculturalists like Will Kymlicka defend the latter while withholding support for black nationalism. I argue that black nationalism raises fundamental issues of justice and that liberal multicultural theory can be extended to support black nationalist claims.