A fighting chance.

These days everyone seems to be spoiling for a fight. Clinton climbing back in the ring with Limbaugh. The ghost of Reagan against the phantom menace of evil empire past. All of Western civilization, if Samuel Huntington is to be believed, in an epic clash with the rest of the world--something which Bush, Cheney & Co. are determined to pull off.

Mere months from the big November day, the stakes go well beyond Kerry or Bush. More than 60 percent of African Americans say they believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to the National Urban League's annual report. This attitude is well-founded given that today almost 29 percent of blacks live below the poverty line and more than 70 percent of black children attend segregated schools.

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More Americans are also feeling a growing unease. A Pew Research Center poll in May found that 61 percent of voters were dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Even mainstream pundits have declared that the U.S. is at a critical moment of choice--a nation teetering between corporate plutocracy and the promise of a democratic republic, between the rise of a Christian theocracy and the separation of church and state.

For a nation so shaped by race and racism, the color lines are also drawn more deeply than ever: between immigrant dreams and a fortified security state. Between the rich and poor, an income gap at the widest it has been in 75 years. Between the 1.2 million blacks and Latinos serving time in prison and the zero black and Latino senators serving in Congress. The war on terrorism has spawned a proliferation of racism and human rights abuses--from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo to Oakdale Federal Detention Center in Louisiana, where immigrants held without a hearing have filed a lawsuit reporting physical abuse and racial and religious harassment.

This is indeed a polarizing moment. And yes, we have to "get Bush the fuck out," as the young people, on a swing-state drive to register new voters, say. But we also have to craft a coherent, compelling vision of racial justice for the long haul. Would having a Head Person of Color in Charge do the trick? What would constitute an agenda to reassert equity and progressive values?

Several stories in this issue explore tensions for our side: how to navigate state and local governments that present both opportunities and perils for immigrant rights. The wedge potential of gay marriage within the LGBT and civil rights movements. And whether the election-year strategies of white liberals may be alienating communities of color.

But this issue also looks at ways to keep building power: efforts to organize and enfranchise those who have been disempowered, especially in the electoral game--youth, noncitizens, ex-prisoners. Barack Obama's bid to become the third black U.S. senator in history. The challenges of governing a free South Africa and the lessons of the Hindu right's rise and fall from power in India.

These stories inspire me to think that, whatever the outcome of the elections, on Nov. 3 the fight continues.

Tram Nguyen, Editor