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Zak Cheney-Rice

Features Writer, New York Magazine

Zak Cheney-Rice is a features writer for New York, where he has covered race, politics, culture, and law enforcement, particularly in the South, since 2018.

  1. policing
    Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo’s Grim Vision for New York CityThis dystopian rhetoric has been used before — with disastrous results.
  2. nyc mayoral race
    Eric Adams Is No PragmatistThe likely next mayor of New York is just as much an ideologue as his opponents.
  3. police violence
    Darnella Frazier’s Nightmare YearWhen police fatalities touch the same person twice.
  4. policing
    When Cops Commit Property DamageThe LAPD’s detonation of a de facto bomb in a Los Angeles neighborhood highlights a different sort of police impunity.
  5. criminal justice
    When Will Joe Biden Start Using His Clemency Powers?The president has signaled he wants to grant more pardons and commutations. The time to begin is now.
  6. critical race theory
    The Right’s New Reason to Panic About ‘Critical Race Theory’ Is Centuries OldOn the persistent specter of Black revenge.
  7. nyc mayoral race
    What Eric Adams’s Success Reveals About ‘Defund the Police’Not much.
  8. georgia
    Welcome to Georgia, Where Election ‘Integrity’ Goes to DieBrad Raffensperger’s incomprehensible position in the party of Trump.
  9. juneteenth
    America’s Hollow Embrace of JuneteenthHow a commemoration of Black liberation became a favorite holiday of corporations and lawmakers.
  10. reckoning with a reckoning
    A Year After George Floyd’s Death, Police Are Still WinningAmerica is struggling to reform and reimagine the agencies that have been licensed to kill us.
  11. derek chauvin trial
    Does the Chauvin Trial Mark a Turning Point in Police Accountability?The forces that animated the case aren’t going away.
  12. verdicts
    The Chauvin Verdict Is Not Justice. It’s Self-Preservation.Even as it ended in conviction on murder charges, the trial was a state-level effort to defend the virtues of policing.
  13. minnesota
    Is This a Community?Despite their rhetoric, the Brooklyn Center police have an open disinterest in actual community with city residents.
  14. minneapolis
    This Will Keep HappeningDaunte Wright’s death and Derek Chauvin’s trial highlight an intractable problem with policing.
  15. the system
    The Never-ending Coup Against Black AmericaHistorically, “recovery” tends to look a lot like betrayal.
  16. black lives matter
    The Real Reason Obama Trashes ‘Defund the Police’Moderate Democrats still think the criminal-justice system can be reformed.
  17. contested ground
    Trump’s Racist Urban Myth Hides His Suburban FailuresThe portrayal of Black cities as dens of criminality against pure suburbs didn’t work for him, but it’s not the first or last use of such rhetoric.
  18. politics
    Losing Hasn’t Changed Trump’s Stance on White SupremacyHis continued resistance to renaming military bases that honor Confederates — though it has no obvious political benefit — confirms his true beliefs.
  19. politics
    We’ll Soon Be Rid of Steve King — But Not His DemagogueryThe outgoing Republican congressman’s questioning of Kamala Harris’s ancestry shows his racist impulses have not been blunted — nor have his party’s.
  20. politics
    What Trump’s Coup and America’s First Coup Have in CommonIn 1898, conservative whites overthrew the multiracial government of Wilmington, North Carolina.
  21. politics
    The QAnon Congresswoman Is the Perfect RepublicanMarjorie Taylor Greene wasn’t elected to pass laws — she was elected to perform right-wing paranoia.
  22. four more years
    The Trump Era Is Just Getting StartedThe president’s life in politics isn’t over, it is entering a new and dangerous phase.
  23. politics
    The Voting ‘Irregularity’ in Georgia Is That Republicans Didn’t WinRepublicans feel cheated because they were doing the cheating in the first place.
  24. black lives matter
    Police Reform Is Probably Dead Under BidenA summer of protest for Black lives gives way to an ice-cold winter in Washington.
  25. 2021
    The Fate of the Country Rests on GeorgiaIn a state that’s been so red for so long, to hope feels daring, even dangerous.
  26. gop
    Will the GOP Become the Party of Men?Republicans have stumbled upon a logical — if ironic — solution to their diversity problem.
  27. vision 2020
    Georgia Is Still a Purple State Only in TheoryBiden’s visit suggests the president’s segregationist bid for the suburbs isn’t working as he hoped. But Trump is the favorite until proven otherwise.
  28. the system
    Two Visions of the Suburbs Are on the Ballot. Both Are Myths.To understand them as imagined by Donald Trump and Joe Biden, you first have to understand that they are actually talking about segregation.
  29. politics
    It Sure Looks Like Daniel Cameron Lied About Breonna Taylor’s KillingKentucky’s attorney general says everyone agrees on the facts about the case. Accounts from a grand juror and neighbors dispute that.
  30. 2020 presidential debate
    We Can Probably Stop Asking Trump If He’s a White SupremacistAt this point in his political career, there’s little to be gained by asking him if he condemns racist violence, because it’s obvious that he doesn’t.
  31. the system
    The Law Is Not Made for Breonna TaylorAnd its capacity to deliver justice is functionally null.
  32. ron desantis
    Ron DeSantis Is Risking Floridians’ Lives to Benefit TrumpThe governor’s sycophantic Trump relationship led to disastrous COVID outcomes, and now he’s pushing looser penalties for drivers who kill protesters.
  33. policing
    You Can’t Vote Out the PoliceThe problem of the police riot goes beyond partisan and even electoral remedies.
  34. bad apples
    In L.A. County, Gangs Wear BadgesA helpful illustration of a perverse incentive structure.
  35. kenosha
    Trump Is an Arsonist Masquerading As a FirefighterTrump makes matters worse when he imposes himself on cities wracked by unrest. That’s why he’s going to Kenosha.
  36. jacob blake
    How the Police Radicalized the ‘NBA Bubble’Our policing culture is so brutal that NBA stars were driven to break their labor contract and buck expectations that success would buy their silence.
  37. wildfires
    California Has a Shortage of Imprisoned Firefighters. That’s Good.Fewer firefighters is a result of fewer prisoners.
  38. 2020 elections
    Trump’s Election-Day GambitAnother escalation of a well-worn strategy for the president.
  39. police unions
    The Inevitable Trump-Police Union AllianceHow a New York City police union’s rare endorsement of Trump explains their shared ideology.
  40. 2020 elections
    The ‘Tough on Crime’ TicketThe historical irony of a Biden-Harris ticket during a criminal-justice reckoning.
  41. police reform
    The Window for Major Police Reform May Be ClosingThe superficial consensus in polls demonstrating that the public supports police reform hides deeper issues.
  42. bill de blasio
    Bill de Blasio Is Using New York’s Murder Rate to DemagogueThe mayor doesn’t know why murder rates have risen in the city. But he’s using them for political purposes anyway.
  43. protests
    Portland’s Bigger Policing Problem Was Always LocalTrump’s agents may leave Portland. Police brutality won’t.
  44. empires
    Trump’s Authoritarian Theater Was Just for Show, Until It Wasn’tThe presence of federal forces in Portland marks, for the president, a political strategy ripe for replication anytime he faces the will of voters.
  45. black lives matter
    The Protest Movement’s Path ForwardThe fervor of May and June has inevitably faded. What comes next?
  46. profile
    Julián Castro and the ‘Timeless’ Policing CrisisPolicing reform was the centerpiece of his failed campaign. Now, it’s all anyone is talking about.
  47. politics
    John Lewis Never Lost HopeThe congressman and civil-rights legend died on Friday. He recently spoke with Zak Cheney-Rice about why he stayed the course.
  48. death penalty
    The Capricious Execution of Daniel Lewis LeeThe federal government has put its first prisoner to death in 17 years. It’s still unclear why.
  49. court is in sessions
    Jeff Sessions Keeps Getting WorseA new profile at the New York Times Magazine vivifies the warning about Sessions that Coretta Scott King gave in 1986.
  50. racism
    Mississippi’s Overdue ReckoningA lot had to go wrong for Mississippi’s state-flag debate to go right.
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