N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law

"A MUST-READ FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN UNDERSTANDING AND DISMANTLING MASS INCARCERATION." --Chesa Boudin, District Attorney of San Francisco America's criminal justice system is among the deadliest and most racist in the world and it disproportionately targets Black Americans, who are also disproportionately poor, hungry, houseless, jobless, sick, and poorly educated. By every metric of misery, this nation does not act like Black Lives Matter. In order to break out of the trap of racialized mass incarceration and relentless racial oppression, we, as a society, need to rethink our basic assumptions about blame and punishment, words and symbols, social perceptions and judgments, morality, politics, and the power of the performing arts. N*gga Theory interrogates conventional assumptions and frames a transformational new way of thinking about law, language, moral judgments, politics, and transgressive art--especially profane genres like gangsta rap--and exposes where racial bias lives in the administration of justice and everyday life. Professor Jody Armour (Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism) calls for bold action: electing progressive prosecutors, defunding or dismantling the police, abolition of the prison industrial complex. But only after eradicating the anti-black bias buried in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans and baked into our legal system will we be able to say that Black Lives Matter in America.

Author: Jody Armour
Publisher: Los Angeles Review of Books
Published: 08/18/2020
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.88lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.10w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9781940660684


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 10/01/2020

About the Author
Armour, Jody David: - Jody David Armour is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California. He has been a member of the faculty since 1995. Armour's expertise ranges from personal injury claims to claims about the relationship between racial justice, criminal justice, and the rule of law. Armour studies the intersection of race and legal decision making as well as torts and tort reform movements. A widely published scholar and popular lecturer, Armour is a Soros Justice Senior Fellow of The Open Society Institute's Center on Crime, Communities and Culture. Armour earned his AB degree in Sociology at Harvard University and his JD degree with honors from Boalt Hall Law School at UC Berkeley. Prior to joining USC, he was an associate at Morrison & Foerster, Kirkpatrick and Lockhart and taught at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall, Indiana University and the University of Pittsburgh. Armour currently teaches students a diverse array of subjects, including Criminal Law, Torts, and Stereotypes and Prejudice: The Role of the Cognitive Unconscious in the Rule of Law. He is the author of Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America and N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law.Abdullah: - Melina Abdullah is Professor and former Chair of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Southern California in Political Science and her B.A. from Howard University in African American Studies. She was appointed to the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission in 2014 and is a recognized expert on race, gender, class, and social movements. Abdullah is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, with subjects ranging from political coalition building to womanist mothering.Krasner: - One of the nation's leading progressive District Attorneys, Larry Krasner serves as DA for Philadelphia, having campaigned on the platform to radically reform elements of the criminal justice system to reduce racialized mass incarceration.