Journalist Jelani Cobb Reflects on American Democracy and Racism

By Mirai Abe | March 10, 2026

Jelani Cobb, left, and Casey Seiler, right, during an event last Monday (3/2) on the University at Albany Downtown Campus. They discussed Cobb’s new book “Three or More is a Riot,” which analyzes American history and democracy in recent years.  Photo Credit: Mirai Abe / The ASP

In the 18th century South Carolina, a slave revolt was defined as three or more enslaved Black people caught outside the company of a white man– which was the phrase that “bounced around” the head of journalist Jelani Cobb when asked the reasoning behind his book title. 

 “Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here: 2012-2025” is a collection of Cobb’s work in The New Yorker and a historical account of contemporary American democracy. 

Cobb, The New Yorker writer and Pulitzer Prize finalist, had a discussion with the Times Union Editor-in-Chief Casey Seiler last Monday (3/2) on the University at Albany Downtown Campus. 

Cobb learned the legal definition of a slave rebellion when covering a trial of a 21-year-old white man who killed nine Black people in Emanuel AME Church, a historic Black Church in Charleston, South Carolina. There had been a paranoia of demography in South Carolina that went all the way back to the colonial era, Cobb said. 

During his stay in South Carolina, he met Malcolm Graham, whose sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd, was shot and killed at the church. Cobb headed to San Francisco for another commitment after reporting in Charleston. He spontaneously decided to talk to a stranger after realizing he had not spoken during his trip to the West Coast. 

He talked to a random man who was coincidentally also from Charleston. After Cobb told him he also flew from Charleston where he covered a shooting, the man told him he lost someone he knew to the shooting — Cynthia Graham Hurd, his childhood librarian. 

“The problem conforms to the confluence of the country,” Cobb said, recalling the encounter.  

The book begins in 2012, before the first Trump administration. 

“He exists because Barack Obama exists,” said Cobb, discussing President Donald Trump’s position and influence as a predecessor of Obama. “And his agenda had been to not only wipe out everything Obama achieved, but also to eliminate the dynamics that had made the Obama presidency possible.”

He also commented on the recent popular discourse that compares the current state of American democracy with that of Europe in the 1930s. 

“I want to jump out of the window every time,” he joked, explaining that examples of autocracy can be found in the United States — where several constitutions such as the 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments are being threatened — without having to bring 1930s Europe up. 

Cobb also thinks American history is being purified, and that non-complimentary parts of its history are being removed. 

“They are trying to turn the nation’s past into a resume… you get a sense of a person’s achievements, but you don’t get the sense of any of their mistakes,” said Cobb. 

“It’d be interesting if we did a rudely honest resume,” he added, saying that the resume needs a section named f–ups. The comment drew the loudest laughter of the night from the crowd. 

Cobb also teaches opinion writing as a Columbia Journalism School Dean. 

“I’m always raising a question of, 'What is the university for?’” he said. “The university has done things that I disagreed, have been internally critical of… but even in the course of things that I really disagreed with, I understood how people came to the positions, so none of it was simple.”

He also mentioned the decline of journalism student enrollment. Fewer students are choosing journalism, but those students who still attend journalism school tend to be highly motivated. 

“They want to report, they want to go out, they want to see, they want to break stories,” Cobb said of the students who do want to be journalists. 

“It was very enlightening… I’ve seen [Cobb] on TV, on various shows, “ Willie Dean Jr., an attendee from Schenectady said. He enjoyed listening to his take on white nationalism the most. 

The conversation between Cobb and Seiler also reminded him of his friends of a few decades who voted for Trump. 

“Was that really my friend?” he said. Cobb’s comments on the importance of creating a space where people can share their honest opinions resonated with him especially. 

“I asked a lot of people about that, and they said, ‘that can't be your friend if you don’t share values and principles,’” Dean Jr. said. “So he’s given me a reason not to move away from them or discount them, or remove them from my Christmas list. Don’t move to where you never have to confront what’s going on in the world, except for your little world.”