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Another #BLMReadingList adjacent pick, I found this to be a great follow up to Michelle Alexander‘s phenomenal The New Jim Crow. Hayes book is about how our inner cities and black communities are policed like colonies, inside our larger nation. It‘s insightful for different reasons, and although I‘d recommend Alexander‘s book 1st (always!!) this one helped me understand how policing works very different in some places than others!

#BLM

4⭐️
A great read about the inequity of the justice system. Hayes explains things to white America in a way that shouldn‘t provoke defensiveness. And he puts some real responsibility on them in very basic ways. We were deluged this year with social media stories of BBQ Becky & her ilk. Here, Hayes had already thoughtfully posed the questions of when & why to call the cops, and then laid out here how that plays out for POC.
Read this book 📚

I want to screen shot every page.

I was unfamiliar with Chris Hayes‘ TV career but learned of him via following Rebecca Traister on Twitter during the Kavanaugh ordeal. His posts impressed me, and when I realized he‘d written this one (long on my TBR) it became a must-read. I tend to seek out works on this topic by people of color, but this was very well-written and, I think, quite valuable. Finishing it on Election Eve makes me sad, scared, and hopeful.

This awesome read put me across the finish line of my #Goodreads Reading Challenge!
Chris Hayes delves right into the history and consequences of "law and ORDER" policies here in America and how they've created "colonies" of minorities ruled by different standards in the interest of maintaining order. I only wish he'd delved deeper and made the book longer. I highly recommend this one...

⭐⭐⭐⭐

😶

"...the psychology of many police officers: they see themselves as combatants in a war zone, beseiged and surrounded, operating in enemy territory, one wrong move away from sudden death..."

This part. ?

"At the moment I called the police, I could not have told you what law was being broken, what crime was being committed. I dialed that number not to enforce the law but to restore order."

This was good. We know much about what he is trying to get at, but he ties it to the past (how this stuff has always happened). And props for talking about the REAL first Thanksgiving.

Love listening to Chris Hayes‘ attempts at different voices and accents while reading his own book. #audiobook

Great audiobook. I may have to buy myself a paper copy of this one so I can read it again and mark it up and make notes. It's a very important read and I don't think my listening to it on the drive to work provided me the opportunity to pay the attention to it it deserves.

Spent all morning writing about domestic violence, so why the hell not continue meditating on how shitty humans can be to each other?

This book is a quick read covering many aspects of racism in the US. I appreciate the incorporation of history and statistics in the narrative. While no means a deep dive, it is timely and cites some great books for more intensive reading. It's a great place to start learning as well as a good overview for anyone looking to understand various aspects of this ongoing problem.

Some of the statements in this book are stopping me in my tracks. This is one. (The word that's hard to read is Finland--not sure what happened there.)

I am a fan of Chris Hayes and appreciated his perspective on this timely topic. Should be required reading.

To say that America is divided is nothing new, but Chris Hayes brings such a fresh perspective to this reality by suggesting that there really are two entirely distinct Americas. Hayes is an extremely engaging writer, and I was hooked by his conversational style and keen insights within the first couple pages. I consider myself pretty well-educated on the topics he addresses, but still felt like I came out of this with a new way of seeing things.

Pretty cool when the author of the book you're reading retweets you.

I've had this since it came out and finally got around to reading it. So sad how little we have learned as a nation. Chris Hayes describes well the two different Americas, the Colony and the Nation and your race determines which you live in. I would very much like to see what a person of color thinks of this book.

Serious question: am I reading this right? Killed in 2014 but arrested twice in 2015? Typo?

Next picks for my Best Friends International Book Club! (just me and a friend in KC) I have the *biggest* crush on Chris Hayes 😍 #bookclub

Surprising literary reference in a nonfiction book: Hayes mentions Mieville's "City & the City" as a helpful analogy for his title

Part memoir, part extended rumination on race relations in America. A much-needed perspective on an important societal issues such as race, criminality, economic justice, and safety. 🚓🔫

"There are fundamentally two ways you can experience the police in America: as the people you call when there's a problem, the nice man who pats a toddler's head and has an easy smile for the old lady as she buys her coffee. For others, the police are the people who are called on them. They are the ominous knock on the door, the sudden flashlight in the face, the barked orders."

Six of my five-star reads from 2017, in a few genres. It's been a great year for the #nonfictionchallenge17 (completed 38 so far). I've read lots of four-star fiction books, but only two that felt like five stars. Can't wait to see what the rest of the years holds. #iregretnothing #bestreadsof2017sofar #jubilantjuly

Not a bad month, just a lot more comics and very short reads compared to normal which makes it look like a lot more books than usual. I definitely need to get out of my funk and back on track! 😉

#JuneStats #ReadingStats #June2017
#LitsyAtoZ #NonfictionChallenge17 #LitsyReadingChallenge #PopsugarChallenge2017
#ReadHarder2017 #MountTBR #192019 #ReadingChallenge2017

I finally got around to finishing this urgent, brilliantly argued book. I'm left thinking about all the times i've knowingly "pushed the button" of my own privilege, placing my sense of comfort over the safety and dignity of others. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, especially to other white folks who care about antiracism and want to destroy white supremacy.

This one was a bit slower for me to get through then The New Jim Crow, but it was an excellent follow-up read expounding on some of her points and adding some new insights to how that disparity in policing has evolved into us treating certain segments of our population as if they are a "Colony" of the United States within the larger "Nation", with less rights/privileges where any sign of disruption is meet with swift & severe pushback. It also...

Just in case you thought this problem wasn't about "you" or only happens in such and such an area....we all very VERY wrong.

Great company we are keeping....🙁

Well that's not terrifying at all.... (part 2)

Continued from above..."differently. The key sites of battle weren't tax cuts and budgets. Instead (...) speak of property values or crime, and then even further removed, they could say the concern was litter or graffiti or abandoned buildings."

Well that's not terrifying at all....

Kitten update:
Why is #LuckyDuck eating the dog food with the Doxen while the Yorkie eats the kitten food I bought for her? The world may never know.... 🙄

Seriously though, she's doing great (again), had a bit of a scare 10 days ago, she got a fever and wouldn't eat, but the vet put her on an antibiotic for 10 days...all done and she's obviously feeling just fine.👍

#CatsOfLitsy

Another one to add to or move up my to-read list!

"The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself" or more correctly in this case the institutions we build around our fears that persist for years and decades after the real cause for that fear is long gone.

😂See we should really be profiling and banning furniture!

#TBRTuesday (a day late, oops!) This is what's coming up next for me (based on what's due for book club, due back at the library, that I've already started and really want to finish, etc..

Very good book, and pretty good follow up to The New Jim Crow for those interested.

It all flows back to the great gun debate...

Why are we boycotting Columbus Day...we should be boycotting Thanksgiving!

This is like when you grow up and read the Grimm's Fairytale version of your favorite kids story, but worse, with the bloody version being the actual history.

As I read more of this and hear it repeated in news stories... I'm beginning to wonder what we are teaching in police training, what is the rumor mill they hear about what they will encounter on the streets...because it sounds like they are being prepared to be "on the front lines", like they are being trained to shoot before they shoot you instead of the old "Serve and Protect"

Hahaha...well he has a point there.

Makes me think we need a nationwide...take out such nonsensical laws out of our towns municipal codes... wave. One city at a time.

Hayes' title is a partial quote of Richard Nixon, one of the original law and order candidates. Beyond defining the nation and the colony, Hayes also defines the differences BETWEEN law and order. It's a potent and necessary discussion that I hope leads to a better understanding of punishment, justice, and who ultimately gets to decide what each means.

Looks like Hayes is my kind of book nerd!

Very readable discussion of race in the US. Vignettes of police activity on college campuses, John Hancock's smuggling operation, "broken windows" policing and gun ownership make this a engaging but not overly academic read. The analogy of the colony in a nation is spot-on and uses historical references to show the progression of how race and white fear was used politically.

I wish there was a Litsy review category of "Hell Yeah" for books that are even better than "Pick." If the topic of today's lack of racial justice in the U.S. sounds impenetrable to you, this book will help. It's not long, and Chris Hayes just drills right to the good stuff. It's interesting in content and writing style. I encourage you to give it a shot no matter where you are politically. #readersresist

Full review at www.thebibliophage.com.