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"American Whitelash is indispensable. Really. It is." - Ibram X.
Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist From a Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist, a shocking investigation into the
cyclical pattern of violence that has marred racial progress in
America In 2008, Barack Obama's historic victory was heralded as a
turning point for the USA. And so it would be - just not in the way
that most Americans hoped. The election of the nation's first Black
president fanned long-burning embers of white supremacy, igniting a
new and frightening phase in a continuous historical cycle of
racial progress and white backlash. In American Whitelash, Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Wesley Lowery
charts the return of this blood-stained trend, showing how the
forces of white power retaliated against Obama's victory - and both
profited from, and helped to propel, the rise of Donald Trump.
Drawing on gripping first-hand reporting, he investigates four
incidents of white violence since 2008: the killing of an
Ecuadorian immigrant in a working-class town in Long Island, a mass
shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, an attack on a Jewish
Community Center in Kansas City, and the murder of Oscar Grant, the
first in an unrelenting series of police shootings that would lead
to the largest sustained protest movement in the US since the Civil
Rights era. Interweaving deep historical analysis with interviews
with both victims and perpetrators of violence, Lowery uncovers how
this vicious cycle is entering into ever more perilous territory,
and how the country still might find a route of escape.
**Winner of the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical
Prose** 'A devastating front-line account of the police killings
and the young activism that sparked one of the most significant
racial justice movements since the 1960s: Black Lives Matter ...
Lowery more or less pulls the sheet off America ... essential
reading' Junot Diaz, The New York Times, Books of 2016 'Electric
... so well reported, so plainly told and so evidently the work of
a man who has not grown a callus on his heart' Dwight Garner, The
New York Times, 'A Top Ten Book of 2016' 'I'd recommend everyone to
read this book ... it's not just statistics, it's not just the
information, but it's the connective tissue that shows the human
story behind it. I really enjoyed it' Trevor Noah, host of Comedy
Central's 'The Daily Show' A deeply reported book on the birth of
the Black Lives Matter movement, offering unparalleled insight into
the reality of police violence in America, and an intimate, moving
portrait of those working to end it In over a year of on-the-ground
reportage, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled across the
US to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise
neglected, corners of America today. In an effort to grasp the
scale of the response to Michael Brown's death and understand the
magnitude of the problem police violence represents, Lowery
conducted hundreds of interviews with the families of victims of
police brutality, as well as with local activists working to stop
it. Lowery investigates the cumulative effect of decades of
racially biased policing in segregated neighborhoods with constant
discrimination, failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and too
few jobs. Offering a historically informed look at the standoff
between the police and those they are sworn to protect, They Can't
Kill Us All demonstrates that civil unrest is just one tool of
resistance in the broader struggle for justice. And at the end of
President Obama's tenure, it grapples with a worrying and largely
unexamined aspect of his legacy: the failure to deliver tangible
security and opportunity to the marginalised Americans most in need
of it.
A deeply reported book that brings alive the quest for justice in
the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray, offering
both unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in
America and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end
it. Conducting hundreds of interviews during the course of over one
year reporting on the ground, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery
traveled from Ferguson, Missouri, to Cleveland, Ohio; Charleston,
South Carolina; and Baltimore, Maryland; and then back to Ferguson
to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise
neglected, corners of America today. In an effort to grasp the
magnitude of the repose to Michael Brown's death and understand the
scale of the problem police violence represents, Lowery speaks to
Brown's family and the families of other victims other victims'
families as well as local activists. By posing the question, "What
does the loss of any one life mean to the rest of the nation?"
Lowery examines the cumulative effect of decades of racially biased
policing in segregated neighborhoods with failing schools,
crumbling infrastructure and too few jobs. Studded with moments of
joy, and tragedy, They Can't Kill Us All offers a historically
informed look at the standoff between the police and those they are
sworn to protect, showing that civil unrest is just one tool of
resistance in the broader struggle for justice. As Lowery brings
vividly to life, the protests against police killings are also
about the black community's long history on the receiving end of
perceived and actual acts of injustice and discrimination. They
Can't Kill Us All grapples with a persistent if also largely
unexamined aspect of the otherwise transformative presidency of
Barack Obama: the failure to deliver tangible security and
opportunity to those Americans most in need of both.
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