Free Shipping on orders over $50.
America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s - Essential Read for Social Justice & Civil Rights Studies
$12.11
$16.15
Safe 25%
America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s - Essential Read for Social Justice & Civil Rights Studies
America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s - Essential Read for Social Justice & Civil Rights Studies
America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s - Essential Read for Social Justice & Civil Rights Studies
$12.11
$16.15
25% Off
Quantity:
Delivery & Return: Free shipping on all orders over $50
Estimated Delivery: 10-15 days international
30 people viewing this product right now!
SKU: 37369564
Guranteed safe checkout
amex
paypal
discover
mastercard
visa
apple pay
shop
Description
“Not since Angela Davis’s 2003 book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, has a scholar so persuasively challenged our conventional understanding of the criminal legal system.” ―Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., Washington PostFrom one of our top historians, a groundbreaking story of policing and “riots” that shatters our understanding of the post–civil rights era.What began in spring 2020 as local protests in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police quickly exploded into a massive nationwide movement. Millions of mostly young people defiantly flooded into the nation’s streets, demanding an end to police brutality and to the broader, systemic repression of Black people and other people of color. To many observers, the protests appeared to be without precedent in their scale and persistence. Yet, as the acclaimed historian Elizabeth Hinton demonstrates in America on Fire, the events of 2020 had clear precursors―and any attempt to understand our current crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past.Even in the aftermath of Donald Trump, many Americans consider the decades since the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s as a story of progress toward greater inclusiveness and equality. Hinton’s sweeping narrative uncovers an altogether different history, taking us on a troubling journey from Detroit in 1967 and Miami in 1980 to Los Angeles in 1992 and beyond to chart the persistence of structural racism and one of its primary consequences, the so-called urban riot. Hinton offers a critical corrective: the word riot was nothing less than a racist trope applied to events that can only be properly understood as rebellions―explosions of collective resistance to an unequal and violent order. As she suggests, if rebellion and the conditions that precipitated it never disappeared, the optimistic story of a post–Jim Crow United States no longer holds.Black rebellion, America on Fire powerfully illustrates, was born in response to poverty and exclusion, but most immediately in reaction to police violence. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson launched the “War on Crime,” sending militarized police forces into impoverished Black neighborhoods. Facing increasing surveillance and brutality, residents threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at officers, plundered local businesses, and vandalized exploitative institutions. Hinton draws on exclusive sources to uncover a previously hidden geography of violence in smaller American cities, from York, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois, to Stockton, California.The central lesson from these eruptions―that police violence invariably leads to community violence―continues to escape policymakers, who respond by further criminalizing entire groups instead of addressing underlying socioeconomic causes. The results are the hugely expanded policing and prison regimes that shape the lives of so many Americans today. Presenting a new framework for understanding our nation’s enduring strife, America on Fire is also a warning: rebellions will surely continue unless police are no longer called on to manage the consequences of dismal conditions beyond their control, and until an oppressive system is finally remade on the principles of justice and equality. 20 black-and-white illustrations
More
Shipping & Returns

For all orders exceeding a value of 100USD shipping is offered for free.

Returns will be accepted for up to 10 days of Customer’s receipt or tracking number on unworn items. You, as a Customer, are obliged to inform us via email before you return the item.

Otherwise, standard shipping charges apply. Check out our delivery Terms & Conditions for more details.

Reviews
*****
Verified Buyer
5
Too often people confine the history of Black rebellion in the U.S. to the mid 60’s from Harlem and Watts to the MLK riots. Hinton in this book tries to correct the record, detailing continued uprisings into the early 70’s and the pattern that took place after that. Usually, the early riots took place in response to police brutality of the usual sort. The riots after 1972 were mostly in response to particularly outrageous examples, murders etc.(15) The author believes that in part this is due to the increase in mass incarceration which intimidated people and got some potential rioters off the street.“ Yet by the mid 1970s amid deindustrialization , disinvestment and the increasing police presence in low income urban communities , rebellions were far less frequent. The beginning of mass incarceration helped bring the uprisings to an end.”(204) “ Black Americans had more or less resigned themselves to the policing of every day life.”(206) “ By the 1980s, law enforcement authorities and police unions enjoyed even greater power and influence, further constraining reform ..”(207) “ Rising crime and mistrust within communities themselves—exacerbated by Federal policies –are factors that generally made rebellion less frequent in the last decades of the 20th century and into the 2010s “ (232)The author believes that the riots should rather be called rebellions against intolerable conditions.(7) Black churches were often at the forefront of even violent protest. From May ’68 through December ’72, i.e. after the MLK assassination riots, “960 segregated communities across the U.S. witnessed 1949 separate uprisings.”(10) Rebellions after the early 70s were more multi-ethnic (234)A key factor in the decline of rebellions after 1972 was the professionalization of the police starting under LBJ and the massive increase in police funding from the Feds. The Safe Streets Act brought the Federal government into local policing for the first time ( 22-23). One justification for this was the rise of sniping at police which was heavily exaggerated (38);Rebellions ended when energy was spent but also sometimes from intervention by radical activists and/or clergy (40). “ aggressive policing tends to incite violence”(45) Overpolicing of housing projects was a key factor (54) . Vigilantism was promoted by Eisenhower (73)Any action challenging white supremacy was called violent (88). This was based on the assumption that there was no reason to challenge the white supremacist order. Even as the KKK waned in late 60s , new forms of white supremacist organization grew. The mayor of Cairo Illinois in 1970 said “ If we have to kill them, we’ll have to kill them” , about Black people (92) Black self-defense rose in response to this.This lead police to see any form of armed self-defense was “ part of a larger revolutionary conspiracy or an expression of community pathology .” This belief “ prevented those in power from imagining alternatives to further escalation of the crime war. The cycle of violence and rebellion could be broken , but not by the application of more violence”(120)The “ Poisoned Tree” (121)discusses the issue of “ bad apples” and notes that the original analogy is misused. The original idea is much more apt—one bad apple can ruin the whole barrel. In this case, the barrel itself is rotten and infects all the apples. The school to prison pipeline developed during the period of Black rebellion. (148)Often the recommendations of commissions such as the Kerner Commission had good elements(174) but these were rarely if ever implemented and they also tended to “ pathologize Black residents”(175). Following from Plessy vs. Ferguson, Blacks were blamed for seeing enforced segregation as a badge of inferiority. They often implied that inequality was caused by poor Black behavior (176). In the end , police were still empowered to deal with the results of these and the white racism that Kerner et. al. noted. (179)Crips and Bloods economic plan, pg 244The reforms proposed included more money for police as well as DoJ oversight on police violence.( 271)The outcome of commissions etc. “ was ambivalent, --not intentionally int malicious , but mealy mouthed and non-committal . In a sense the responsibility lies with liberalism itself—in the premise that goodwill, educational opportunities , markets and limited anti-discrimination laws will solve inequality “in due time”. The consequences are still with us today.” ( 193) !!!!,The author argues that the pattern of rebellion has changes “ mainly Rebellions throughout America , from those in the 1960s to Cincinatti in 2001 mainly involved Black protesters , yet the most sustained collective violence of 2020 did not emanate from Black ghettos . ..it came from majority-white cities and suburban communities . Most of the looting in 2020 took place in upscale neighborhoods and it targeted high end retaliers..”( 294)“These developments suggest that as the country becomes more diverse and as the history and fact of systemic racism is further brought to light , rebellions led and comprised solely of Black people and taking place in segregated Black communities may be a thing of the past.”(295)The latter statement is a bit speculative. However, it is based in part on the general stagnation and decline in living standards for workers and the poor since the onset of neo-liberalism. The George Floyd rebellion was not just about racism, but also about the general opposition to ruling class attacks. The fight against racism and police murder was intertwined with but also a surrogate for many other issues.As the author points out, liberal reformism has failed. However, the recent multiracial rebellions , still usually led by Black people, points the way toward a real solution. The politics of Solidarity across race lines against racism and exploitation/poverty/austerity is hopefully the wave of the future. Understanding the previous pattern is important to solidifying this new militant solidarity . This book is interesting, provocative and useful for this purpose!

You Might Also Like

We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience, serve personalized ads or content, and analyze our traffic. By clicking "Allow cookies", you consent to our use of cookies. More Information see our Privacy Policy.
Top