Banner Message
Please note that online availability does not reflect stock in store!
Please contact us via email or phone for immediate stock information.
Racial Justice
Deciphers the history of "Black capitalist" rhetoric-- and how it serves to enrich a minuscule few at the expense of the many
In his 1970 book The Myth of Black Capitalism, Earl Ofari Hutchinson laid out a rigorous challenge to the presumption that capitalism, in any shape or form, has the potential to rectify the stark injustices endured by Black people in America. Ofari engaged in a diligent historical review of the participation of African Americans in commercial activity in this capitalist country, demonstrating conclusively that the creation of a class of Black capitalists failed to ameliorate the extreme inequity faced by African Americans. Even "Buy Black" campaigns which aimed to "keep resources in the community," he showed, reinforced a Black bourgeoisie which often enough exploited the Black underclass to increase their own wealth. Whether Black capitalists dared to go up against, or merely tried to find their place amongst, giant monopoly corporations, Ofari argued they would make little substantive progress in the lives of Black people. And whether calls for "Black capitalism" came from within the Black Power movement for Black economic autonomy, or were appropriated by the old-line Black elite, in the end the promotion of the myth of "Black capitalism" was a project of the Black elite which solely served the interests of the capitalist managerial class. It was Richard Nixon who first introduced the notion of "Black capitalism" into mainstream American discourse, coopting the term at a time when African Americans comprised only 3% of the nation's employers. That number dwindled thereafter, and yet the term only gained cachet following the election of Barack Obama and the increased visibility of the Black elite. Thankfully, just as the rhetoric of 'Black capitalism" is being resuscitated, it is being confronted once more. In this second edition of Earl Ofari's pathbreaking book, a Monthly Review Press classic, the author adds a new Introduction, which shows both the enduring strength of the ideology of Black capitalism and its continued inability to change the nature of what has always been a racialized system of production and distribution. Ofari reveals "Black capitalism" for what it really is: a diversion from the struggle for liberation that works at cross purposes with the fight against exploitation, and a fantasy which enriches a minuscule few at the expense of the many. The Myth of Black Capitalism argues definitively that only a direct assault on the oppression of Black people and the capitalist system itself can bring this exploitation to an end.
Wendell Berry has never been afraid to speak up for the dispossessed. The Need to Be Whole continues the work he began in The Hidden Wound (1970) and The Unsettling of America (1977), demanding a careful exploration of this hard, shared truth: The wealth of the mighty few governing this nation has been built on the unpaid labor of others.
Without historical understanding of this practice of dispossession-the displacement of Native peoples, the destruction of both the land and land-based communities, ongoing racial division--we are doomed to continue industrialism's assault on both the natural world and every sacred American ideal. Berry writes, "To deal with so great a problem, the best idea may not be to go ahead in our present state of unhealth to more disease and more product development. It may be that our proper first resort should be to history: to see if the truth we need to pursue might be behind us where we have ceased to look." If there is hope for us, this is it: that we honestly face our past and move into a future guided by the natural laws of affection. This book furthers Mr. Berry's part in what is surely our country's most vital conversation.
One of the New York Times's Best Books of the 21st Century
Named one of the most important nonfiction books of the 21st century by Entertainment Weekly' Slate' Chronicle of Higher Education' Literary Hub, Book Riot' and Zora
A tenth-anniversary edition of the iconic bestseller--"one of the most influential books of the past 20 years," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education--with a new preface by the author
"It is in no small part thanks to Alexander's account that civil rights organizations such as Black Lives Matter have focused so much of their energy on the criminal justice system."
--Adam Shatz, London Review of Books
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander's unforgettable argument that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." As the Birmingham News proclaimed, it is "undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S."
Now, ten years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a tenth-anniversary edition with a new preface by Michelle Alexander that discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Building on the groundwork laid in the New York Times bestseller White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explores how a culture of niceness inadvertently promotes racism. In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explained how racism is a system into which all white people are socialized and challenged the belief that racism is a simple matter of good people versus bad. DiAngelo also made a provocative claim: white progressives cause the most daily harm to people of color. In Nice Racism, her follow-up work, she explains how they do so. Drawing on her background as a sociologist and over 25 years working as an anti-racist educator, she picks up where White Fragility left off and moves the conversation forward. Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common white racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. These patterns include:
-rushing to prove that we are "not racist";
-downplaying white advantage;
-romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of color (BIPOC);
-pretending white segregation "just happens";
-expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism;
-carefulness;
-and feeling immobilized by shame. DiAngelo explains how spiritual white progressives seeking community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups' rituals create separation, not connection. She challenges the ideology of individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and she demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment, and accountability. Nice Racism is an essential work for any white person who recognizes the existence of systemic racism and white supremacy and wants to take steps to align their values with their actual practice. BIPOC readers may also find the "insiders" perspective useful for navigating whiteness. Includes a study guide.
-rushing to prove that we are "not racist";
-downplaying white advantage;
-romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of color (BIPOC);
-pretending white segregation "just happens";
-expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism;
-carefulness;
-and feeling immobilized by shame. DiAngelo explains how spiritual white progressives seeking community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups' rituals create separation, not connection. She challenges the ideology of individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and she demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment, and accountability. Nice Racism is an essential work for any white person who recognizes the existence of systemic racism and white supremacy and wants to take steps to align their values with their actual practice. BIPOC readers may also find the "insiders" perspective useful for navigating whiteness. Includes a study guide.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Building on the groundwork laid in the New York Times bestseller White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explores how a culture of niceness inadvertently promotes racism. In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explained how racism is a system into which all white people are socialized and challenged the belief that racism is a simple matter of good people versus bad. DiAngelo also made a provocative claim: white progressives cause the most daily harm to people of color. In Nice Racism, her follow-up work, she explains how they do so. Drawing on her background as a sociologist and over 25 years working as an anti-racist educator, she picks up where White Fragility left off and moves the conversation forward. Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common white racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. These patterns include: - rushing to prove that we are "not racist"
- downplaying white advantage
- romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of color (BIPOC)
- pretending white segregation "just happens"
- expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism
- carefulness
- and feeling immobilized by shame. DiAngelo explains how spiritual white progressives seeking community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups' rituals create separation, not connection. She challenges the ideology of individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and she demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment, and accountability. Nice Racism is an essential work for any white person who recognizes the existence of systemic racism and white supremacy and wants to take steps to align their values with their actual practice. BIPOC readers may also find the "insiders" perspective useful for navigating whiteness. Includes a study guide.
- downplaying white advantage
- romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of color (BIPOC)
- pretending white segregation "just happens"
- expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism
- carefulness
- and feeling immobilized by shame. DiAngelo explains how spiritual white progressives seeking community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups' rituals create separation, not connection. She challenges the ideology of individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and she demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment, and accountability. Nice Racism is an essential work for any white person who recognizes the existence of systemic racism and white supremacy and wants to take steps to align their values with their actual practice. BIPOC readers may also find the "insiders" perspective useful for navigating whiteness. Includes a study guide.
Black women are beautiful, intelligent and capable --but mostly they embrace strong. Esteemed clinical psychologist, Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler, praises the strength of women, while exploring how trauma and adversity have led to deep emotional pain and shaped how they walk through the world.
Black women's strength is intimately tied to their unacknowledged suffering. An estimated eight in ten have endured some form of trauma--sexual abuse, domestic abuse, poverty, childhood abandonment, victim/witness to violence, and regular confrontation with racism and sexism. Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen shows that trauma often impacts mental and physical well-being. It can contribute to stress, anxiety, PTSD, and depression. Unaddressed it can lead to hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, overeating, and alcohol and drug abuse, and other chronic health issues.
Dr. Burnett-Zeigler explains that the strong Black woman image does not take into account the urgency of Black women's needs, which must be identified in order to lead abundant lives. It interferes with her relationships and ability to function day to day. Through mindfulness and compassionate self-care, the psychologist offers methods for establishing authentic strength from the inside out.
This informative guide to healing, is life-changing, showing Black women how to prioritize the self and find everyday joys in self-worth, as well as discover the fullness and beauty within both her strength and vulnerability.
Winner of the ALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Nonfiction Captivating... [a] heartfelt account of how newcomers carve a space for themselves in the melting pot of America.
--Publishers Weekly A first-generation immigrant's intimate, passionate look at race in America (Viet Thanh Nguyen), an American's journey into the heart of not-whiteness. At the age of 12, Sharmila Sen emigrated from India to the U.S. The year was 1982, and everywhere she turned, she was asked to self-report her race - on INS forms, at the doctor's office, in middle school. Never identifying with a race in the India of her childhood, she rejects her new not quite designation - not quite white, not quite black, not quite Asian -- and spends much of her life attempting to blend into American whiteness. But after her teen years trying to assimilate--watching shows like General Hospital and The Jeffersons, dancing to Duran Duran and Prince, and perfecting the art of Jell-O no-bake desserts--she is forced to reckon with the hard questions: What does it mean to be white, why does whiteness retain the magic cloak of invisibility while other colors are made hypervisible, and how much does whiteness figure into Americanness? Part memoir, part manifesto, Not Quite Not White is a searing appraisal of race and a path forward for the next not quite not white generation --a witty and sharply honest story of discovering that not-whiteness can be the very thing that makes us American.
--Publishers Weekly A first-generation immigrant's intimate, passionate look at race in America (Viet Thanh Nguyen), an American's journey into the heart of not-whiteness. At the age of 12, Sharmila Sen emigrated from India to the U.S. The year was 1982, and everywhere she turned, she was asked to self-report her race - on INS forms, at the doctor's office, in middle school. Never identifying with a race in the India of her childhood, she rejects her new not quite designation - not quite white, not quite black, not quite Asian -- and spends much of her life attempting to blend into American whiteness. But after her teen years trying to assimilate--watching shows like General Hospital and The Jeffersons, dancing to Duran Duran and Prince, and perfecting the art of Jell-O no-bake desserts--she is forced to reckon with the hard questions: What does it mean to be white, why does whiteness retain the magic cloak of invisibility while other colors are made hypervisible, and how much does whiteness figure into Americanness? Part memoir, part manifesto, Not Quite Not White is a searing appraisal of race and a path forward for the next not quite not white generation --a witty and sharply honest story of discovering that not-whiteness can be the very thing that makes us American.
In July 1919, an explosive race riot forever changed Chicago. For years, black southerners had been leaving the South as part of the Great Migration. Their arrival in Chicago drew the ire and scorn of many local whites, including members of the city's political leadership and police department, who generally sympathized with white Chicagoans and viewed black migrants as a problem population. During Chicago's Red Summer riot, patterns of extraordinary brutality, negligence, and discriminatory policing emerged to shocking effect. Those patterns shifted in subsequent decades, but the overall realities of a racially discriminatory police system persisted.
In this history of Chicago from 1919 to the rise and fall of Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s, Simon Balto narrates the evolution of racially repressive policing in black neighborhoods as well as how black citizen-activists challenged that repression. Balto demonstrates that punitive practices by and inadequate protection from the police were central to black Chicagoans' lives long before the late-century "wars" on crime and drugs. By exploring the deeper origins of this toxic system, Balto reveals how modern mass incarceration, built upon racialized police practices, emerged as a fully formed machine of profoundly antiblack subjugation.
In this history of Chicago from 1919 to the rise and fall of Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s, Simon Balto narrates the evolution of racially repressive policing in black neighborhoods as well as how black citizen-activists challenged that repression. Balto demonstrates that punitive practices by and inadequate protection from the police were central to black Chicagoans' lives long before the late-century "wars" on crime and drugs. By exploring the deeper origins of this toxic system, Balto reveals how modern mass incarceration, built upon racialized police practices, emerged as a fully formed machine of profoundly antiblack subjugation.
What exactly is critical race theory? This concise and accessible exploration demystifies a crucial framework for understanding and fighting racial injustice in the United States. "A clear-eyed, expert field guide."--Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom, author of Thick From renowned scholar Dr. Victor Ray, On Critical Race Theory explains the centrality of race in American history and politics, and how the often mischaracterized intellectual movement became a political necessity. Ray draws upon the radical thinking of giants such as Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to clearly trace the foundations of critical race theory in the Black intellectual traditions of emancipation and the civil rights movement. From these foundations, Ray explores the many facets of our society that critical race theory interrogates, from deeply embedded structural racism to the historical connection between whiteness and property, ownership, and more. In succinct, thoughtful essays, Ray presents, analyzes, and breaks down the scholarship and concepts that constitute this often misconstrued term. He explores how the conversation on critical race theory has expanded into the contemporary popular conscience, showing why critical race theory matters and why we should all care.
What exactly is critical race theory? This concise and accessible exploration demystifies a crucial framework for understanding and fighting racial injustice in the United States. "A clear-eyed, expert field guide."--Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom, author of Thick From renowned scholar Dr. Victor Ray, On Critical Race Theory explains the centrality of race in American history and politics, and how the often mischaracterized intellectual movement became a political necessity. Ray draws upon the radical thinking of giants such as Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to clearly trace the foundations of critical race theory in the Black intellectual traditions of emancipation and the civil rights movement. From these foundations, Ray explores the many facets of our society that critical race theory interrogates, from deeply embedded structural racism to the historical connection between whiteness and property, ownership, and more. In succinct, thoughtful essays, Ray presents, analyzes, and breaks down the scholarship and concepts that constitute this often misconstrued term. He explores how the conversation on critical race theory has expanded into the contemporary popular conscience, showing why critical race theory matters and why we should all care.
Genocide--the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a group of people.
TIME's 42 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2019
Book Riot's 50 of the Best Books to Read This Fall
As seen on CBS This Morning, award-winning attorney Ben Crump exposes a heinous truth in Open Season: Whether with a bullet or a lengthy prison sentence, America is killing black people and justifying it legally. While some deaths make headlines, most are personal tragedies suffered within families and communities. Worse, these killings are done one person at a time, so as not to raise alarm. While it is much more difficult to justify killing many people at once, in dramatic fashion, the result is the same--genocide.
Taking on such high-profile cases as George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and a host of others, Crump witnessed the disparities within the American legal system firsthand and learned it is dangerous to be a black man in America--and that the justice system indeed only protects wealthy white men.
In this enlightening and enthralling work, he shows that there is a persistent, prevailing, and destructive mindset regarding colored people that is rooted in our history as a slaveowning nation. This biased attitude has given rise to mass incarceration, voter disenfranchisement, unequal educational opportunities, disparate health care practices, job and housing discrimination, police brutality, and an unequal justice system. And all mask the silent and ongoing systematic killing of people of color.
Open Season is more than Crump's incredible mission to preserve justice, it is a call to action for Americans to begin living up to the promise to protect the rights of its citizens equally and without question.
Genocide--the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a group of people.
TIME's 42 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2019
Book Riot's 50 of the Best Books to Read This Fall
As seen on CBS This Morning, award-winning attorney Ben Crump exposes a heinous truth in Open Season: Whether with a bullet or a lengthy prison sentence, America is killing black people and justifying it legally. While some deaths make headlines, most are personal tragedies suffered within families and communities. Worse, these killings are done one person at a time, so as not to raise alarm. While it is much more difficult to justify killing many people at once, in dramatic fashion, the result is the same--genocide.
Taking on such high-profile cases as George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and a host of others, Crump witnessed the disparities within the American legal system firsthand and learned it is dangerous to be a black man in America--and that the justice system indeed only protects wealthy white men.
In this enlightening and enthralling work, he shows that there is a persistent, prevailing, and destructive mindset regarding colored people that is rooted in our history as a slaveowning nation. This biased attitude has given rise to mass incarceration, voter disenfranchisement, unequal educational opportunities, disparate health care practices, job and housing discrimination, police brutality, and an unequal justice system. And all mask the silent and ongoing systematic killing of people of color.
Open Season is more than Crump's incredible mission to preserve justice, it is a call to action for Americans to begin living up to the promise to protect the rights of its citizens equally and without question.
Peabody Award-winning journalist Michele Norris offers a transformative dialogue on race and identity in America, unearthed through her decade-long work at The Race Card Project. The prompt seemed simple: Race. Your Thoughts. Six Words. Please Send. The answers, though, have been challenging and complicated. In the twelve years since award-winning journalist Michele Norris first posed that question, over half a million people have submitted their stories to The Race Card Project inbox. The stories are shocking in their depth and candor, spanning the full spectrum of race, ethnicity, identity, and class. Even at just six words, the micro-essays can pack quite a punch, revealing, fear, pain, triumph, and sometimes humor. Responses such as: You're Pretty for a Black girl. White privilege, enjoy it, earned it. Lady, I don't want your purse. My ancestors massacred Indians near here. Urban living has made me racist. I'm only Asian when it's convenient. Many go even further than just six words, submitting backstories, photos, and heirlooms: a collection much like a scrapbook of American candor you rarely get to see. Our Hidden Conversations is a unique compilation of stories, richly reported essays, and photographs providing a window into America during a tumultuous era. This powerful book offers an honest, if sometimes uncomfortable, conversation about race and identity, permitting us to eavesdrop on deep-seated thoughts, private discussions, and long submerged memories. The breadth of this work came as a surprise to Norris. For most of the twelve years she has collected these stories, many were submitted by white respondents. This unexpected panorama provides a rare 360-degree view of how Americans see themselves and one another. Our Hidden Conversations reminds us that even during times of great division, honesty, grace, and a willing ear can provide a bridge toward empathy and maybe even understanding.
"The centuries-long attack on Black history represents a strike against our very worth, brilliance, and value. We're ready to fight back. And when we fight, we win." -Colin Kaepernick
Since its founding as a discipline, Black Studies has been under relentless attack by social and political forces seeking to discredit and neutralize it. Our History Has Always Been Contraband was born out of an urgent need to respond to the latest threat: efforts to remove content from an AP African American Studies course being piloted in high schools across the United States. Edited by Colin Kaepernick, Robin D. G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Our History Has Always Been Contraband brings together canonical texts and authors in Black Studies, including those excised from or not included in the AP curriculum. Featuring writings by: David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, Zora Neale Hurston, W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, James Baldwin, June Jordan, Angela Y. Davis, Robert Allen, Barbara Smith, Toni Cade Bambara, bell hooks, Barbara Christian, Patricia Hill Collins, Cathy J. Cohen, Kimberléeacute; Crenshaw, Saidiya Hartman, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, and many others. Our History Has Always Been Contraband excerpts readings that cut across and between literature, political theory, law, psychology, sociology, gender and sexuality studies, queer and feminist theory, and history. This volume also includes original essays by editors Kaepernick, Kelley, and Taylor, elucidating how we got here, and pieces by Brea Baker, Marlon Williams-Clark, and Roderick A. Ferguson detailing how we can fight back. To read Our History Has Always Been Contraband is to be an outlaw for liberation. These writings illuminate the ways we can collectively work toward freedom for all--through abolition, feminism, racial justice, economic empowerment, self-determination, desegregation, decolonization, reparations, queer liberation, cultural and artistic expression, and beyond.
Since its founding as a discipline, Black Studies has been under relentless attack by social and political forces seeking to discredit and neutralize it. Our History Has Always Been Contraband was born out of an urgent need to respond to the latest threat: efforts to remove content from an AP African American Studies course being piloted in high schools across the United States. Edited by Colin Kaepernick, Robin D. G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Our History Has Always Been Contraband brings together canonical texts and authors in Black Studies, including those excised from or not included in the AP curriculum. Featuring writings by: David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, Zora Neale Hurston, W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, James Baldwin, June Jordan, Angela Y. Davis, Robert Allen, Barbara Smith, Toni Cade Bambara, bell hooks, Barbara Christian, Patricia Hill Collins, Cathy J. Cohen, Kimberléeacute; Crenshaw, Saidiya Hartman, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, and many others. Our History Has Always Been Contraband excerpts readings that cut across and between literature, political theory, law, psychology, sociology, gender and sexuality studies, queer and feminist theory, and history. This volume also includes original essays by editors Kaepernick, Kelley, and Taylor, elucidating how we got here, and pieces by Brea Baker, Marlon Williams-Clark, and Roderick A. Ferguson detailing how we can fight back. To read Our History Has Always Been Contraband is to be an outlaw for liberation. These writings illuminate the ways we can collectively work toward freedom for all--through abolition, feminism, racial justice, economic empowerment, self-determination, desegregation, decolonization, reparations, queer liberation, cultural and artistic expression, and beyond.
Ending the horrors of police violence requires addressing economic inequality In the wake of the mass protests following the police murder of George Floyd nearly every major consumer brand had proclaimed their commitments to antiracism, often with new ad campaigns to match their tweets. Very little in the way of police reform has been achieved. Still less was achieved around policies that might help the millions of black Americans living at or below the poverty line. Why has anti-racism been such a powerful source of mobilization but such a poor means of building political opposition capable of winning big reforms? This volume revisits a debate that transpired during Black Live Matter's first wave. Writing against the grain of popular left sentiments, Johnson cautions against a new ethnic politics. Instead, he calls for broad-based left politics as the only viable means for ending the twin crises of racial inequality and police violence. Redistribution, public goods, and multi-ethnic working-class solidarity are the only viable response to the horrors of police violence and mass incarceration. It just so happens that fighting the conditions that make crime and violence inevitable is also the means by which we can build a working-class majority and a more equal and peaceful nation.
This book explores how conflicts over diversity, culture, inclusion, exclusion, protest and control have been played out over the twentieth century in various sports and institutions, and what lessons we can learn from our overlapping-though at times, separate-cultural histories of Black and White.
Police are nine times more likely to kill African-American men than they are other Americans--in fact, nearly one in every thousand will die at the hands, or under the knee, of an officer. As eminent constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky powerfully argues, this is no accident, but the horrific result of an elaborate body of doctrines that allow the police and, crucially, the courts to presume that suspects--especially people of color--are guilty before being charged.
Today in the United States, much attention is focused on the enormous problems of police violence and racism in law enforcement. Too often, though, that attention fails to place the blame where it most belongs, on the courts, and specifically, on the Supreme Court. A "smoking gun" of civil rights research, Presumed Guilty presents a groundbreaking, decades-long history of judicial failure in America, revealing how the Supreme Court has enabled racist practices, including profiling and intimidation, and legitimated gross law enforcement excesses that disproportionately affect people of color.
For the greater part of its existence, Chemerinsky shows, deference to and empowerment of the police have been the modi operandi of the Supreme Court. From its conception in the late eighteenth century until the Warren Court in 1953, the Supreme Court rarely ruled against the police, and then only when police conduct was truly shocking. Animating seminal cases and justices from the Court's history, Chemerinsky--who has himself litigated cases dealing with police misconduct for decades--shows how the Court has time and again refused to impose constitutional checks on police, all the while deliberately gutting remedies Americans might use to challenge police misconduct.
Finally, in an unprecedented series of landmark rulings in the mid-1950s and 1960s, the pro-defendant Warren Court imposed significant constitutional limits on policing. Yet as Chemerinsky demonstrates, the Warren Court was but a brief historical aberration, a fleeting liberal era that ultimately concluded with Nixon's presidency and the ascendance of conservative and "originalist" justices, whose rulings--in Terry v. Ohio (1968), City of Los Angeles v. Lyons (1983), and Whren v. United States (1996), among other cases--have sanctioned stop-and-frisks, limited suits to reform police departments, and even abetted the use of lethal chokeholds.
Written with a lawyer's knowledge and experience, Presumed Guilty definitively proves that an approach to policing that continues to exalt "Dirty Harry" can be transformed only by a robust court system committed to civil rights. In the tradition of Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law, Presumed Guilty is a necessary intervention into the roiling national debates over racial inequality and reform, creating a history where none was before--and promising to transform our understanding of the systems that enable police brutality.