Anyone who pays attention to current affairs knows that there is plenty of injustice in this country, from racism to sexism to homophobia to economic inequality. In the coming two months, four women writers, all of whom are leaders in their respective fields, vigorously confront injustice in three urgent books.
As our reviewer notes in a starred review, Charged, by New York Times Magazine writer Emily Bazelon, who teaches at Yale Law School, “exposes flaws in the criminal justice system, with an emphasis on the untrammeled power of local prosecutors.” The author offers a forceful, impressively researched narrative that remains accessible to nonlawyer readers, creating “a vitally important new entry in the continued heated debates about criminal justice.”
In her first book, Until We Reckon, Danielle Sered, the founder of Brooklyn-based Common Justice, delivers a similarly powerful indictment of the criminal justice system. As we note in a starred review, the author “convincingly attacks the conventional wisdom about violent crimes, appropriate punishment, and how to repair the criminal (in)justice system, resulting in a “top-notch entry into the burgeoning incarceration debate.”
Finally, in How We Fight White Supremacy, which addresses this unfortunately resurgent scourge, Colorlines colleagues Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin present the dynamic viewpoints of some of today’s most important voices on racial issues, including, among others, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Kiese Laymon. As our reviewer writes, “any reader who believes strongly in their own progressivism will still learn from various passages about how people of color deal with certain realities every day. As these pieces demonstrate, white supremacy does not always take obvious forms such as violence; [the] contributors show that it can take subtler forms.” Hopefully, this thought-provoking, eye-opening, and useful book will “fulfill the wish of the co-authors that readers craft potent strategies to resist white supremacy.” Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction and managing editor.
