Civil Rights in Times of Uncertainty (The Anthropocene)

Abstract

This Foreword highlights how recent transnational debates regarding issues presented by COVID-19 and online disinformation implicate broader civil and human rights concerns. It argues that being mindful of these pervasive issues—which affect the local, the global, and the planetary—is paramount to the ethos of civil rights and democracy in the uncertain times of the Anthropocene. Promoting civil rights in the United States is an ongoing, multi-dimensional project. This Foreword advocates a broader view of that project as encompassing the range of issues that define our current struggle with planetary and global justice.

Keywords: civil rights, democracy, the Anthropocene